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Archive for August, 2007

As the dust settles

11:15 am

The e-mail problem is solved. and the notes are coming through, thanks to Dan at Spingnet 1. I still feel like I’m walking around the crash scene with a bruised shoulder, trying to shake off the disorientation, but I MUST get back to work on the deadline assignment after losing an entire bleeping day. I’ve learned that next time this happens, I’ll call tech support FIRST and get the hell back to work on the assignment. CHEEses what a wrestling match with futility!

Thanks to ThirtyWhat for her visit and comment. It’s going to be a working afternoon. Time to get on this dobbin called Destiny and resume the trek down that cow-puke trail.

I’m out of wisdom.

I don’t even know if I can stay in the saddle.

But I’m a-g’wine to try. . .

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12:17 am FRIDAY.

After monitoring the third attempt to receive the e-mails I first tried to receive Thursday at 9:05, I”m calling it quits with the computer. I now have 90 e-mails in que, but the computer won’t ramain connected longer than 5: hours and 20 minutes. Needless to say, a repeat call to tech support at SpringNet 1 is item one on my agenda when I arise again from the most enjoyable part of the past two days.

IF you have tried to e-mail me, please post your comment or query in the comments section below. I know I can get to that with no problem, and I can post responses there also. I can also respond directly from here to your e-mail, so words not appropriate for this blog will not be posted here, and they will not last long here if they come from beyond me.

Have a nice day.

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And continues

7:25 pm

The second attempt at downloading the e-mails begun at a little after 2p concluded about 7:04 when the internet connection disengaged. I called SpringNet 1 tech support 30 seconds later and was told on their voice mail that tech support closes at 7! I left a message describing the problem and asking them to call me if they can tonight and as soon as possible Friday.

Without logging back onto email I was able to open the close-to 25 e-mails from the same B4ritish friend, and was astounded to see the same issue of a popular new aviation magazine. 25 times the same issue! I deleted all but one issue. Then I logged back on to the internet. I’m juust going to ignore it for a few hours and hope I get to the bottom of the pile this time. We shall see.

This whole day was lost from the minute I got onto the internet. I have had the Ramen noodles for dinner, enjoyed all the iced tea and coffee I could hold, wish to God I had some wine, beer or Wild Turkey in the house, but I’m glad I don’t. And there’s nothing that turns my crank on PBS until 10:30 when Rose comes on.

What a FREAKING DAY!

. ..

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When I resolved to finish this month with at least 31 entries, I had no idea I’d write about e-mail.

I am writing about e-mail.

No “buts” about it!

When I posted the warlier entry today it was 10:40, and four of 30 e’s had come in. I could not read them because 26 were still in que and incoming. And incoming. And incoming. And incoming.

All of 12 had arrived by 2:00 when the FREAKING INTERNET CONNECTION DISCONNECTED! CHEESES, and no lunnch! I logged right back on, and as I logged on the email started coming again, STARTING OVER from message ONE! My ENGLISH friend was the person behind the long files. He’s apparently sending me A BUNCH of high res pictures from a Red Bull air race he attended. If I’d having a better day — like writing for my deadline assignemt which is totally off my agenda because of this hassle — I’d tell you more about the air race. I know Barry T. did not intend to do this to me, but it sure as hell is not improving my frikking outlook regarding my frekking destiny!

As long as I am taking in these e-mails, I can’t even take phone calls!

If this computer is going to disconnect avter five hours of receiving HUGE e-mail files, I WILL NEVER GET ALL THE E-MAILS! Clearly I’m going to have to call Springnet to determine what the hay to do!

<>Making this little day even more interesting is that my incoming now shows FOUR of 30 e-mails received. It’s four of 53!

In the meantime, as the e’s were dribbling in, I fed and watered the dogs. They are on half rations now. If the renter upstairs quits, I’m going to have to sell a guitar or something because they will be on NO rations by Sunday.

There is no WAY I can write articles based on earlier interviews for the deadline in the condition I’m in now. My HOPE is that all this e-mail distress will be behind me by tomorrow morning!

To be prouctive I have done some office work will staying close to the computer, but not even that’s appealing after six hours of this poo.
I hope you’re having a better day.

Ll&p.

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If I were a betting man, I would bet my renter upsstairs is going to give me her 30 day notice to vacate Saturday. When that happens, IF she offers to pay her September rent, I will tell her there is no need. She may keep it as her security deposit refund.

I logged on to the email today and have been waiting an hour and 40 minutes for some airplane pictures from The Netherlands to download along with the rest of my mail. I know they’re high def airplane pictures because I don’t mess with pornography emails and anytning my friend in England has sent (aviation pictures and humorous videos) has downloaded in half an hour. I don’t dare interrupt the email download because I’d have to go through the whole delay later and I’m in no mood for that.

The download is tying up my phone line which means I can’t interview other people I must interview for my deadline writing assignment. I had intended to spend all day with that effort, and the whole morning will be shot to blazes by the time I’m done with the email. At least I will have this afternoon and maybe tomorrow, though I imagine some of the people I need to interview are taking four day holidays.

I have insurance payments for house and car plus real estate taxes all due by a week from today. If upstairs renter gives me notice, I will be unable to make ANY of those payments due. I’m overdrawn a TON at the bank. My web client, whom I anticipated seeing once this week has NOT called.

I’m probably going to miss the gallery reception I had planned to photograph at UIS Friday — See the CIVAG ArtsCalendar for more info — I’ve used a lot of fuel traveling for the deadline assignment photo shoots. The tank is on empty. On the positive side, it’s likely I will be taking some pictures for a friend Saturday or Sunday. He paid me for my work in early July.

I’m back to Ramen noodles and no lunch. No bread. Dog food low. Ditto the coffee and iced tea. On the positive, I have Ramen noodles for another 10 days at two packages a day.

I WISH that freaking email would finish! It’s almost 11 and it’s been going since 9:04! Unbe freaking lievable!

My plans to buy a bottle of wine for my birthday are scrubbed. At times like this, I don’t think even Friar Tuck has enough Carlo Rossi to slake my thirst for what I do not have. If I can’t feed my dogs I sure as hell won’t drink any booze.

Ooo bla dee, ooo bla dah

Live long and proper.

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I’ve Got Nothing to Say

I’ve Got Nothing to Say
– a poem song

I’ve got nothing to say.
People don’t listen anyway.
Let the loud and lame
Play their slam-jam game,
But I’ve got nothing to say.

Princes, queens and buffoons,
Preen in cozy cocoons.
Verbally inclineds
Murmer from their minds,
But I’ve got nothing to say.

Poets come and theiy go.
Write their names in the snow,
Scribe grand sagas on sand
In a changing land,
But I’ve got nothing to say.

Fate is a heartless brute
To bards who can’t elocute,
So some strike in print
What they really “mint,”
But I’ve got nothing to say.

Bubbles, wafting through time,
Drinking vodka and lime
On a ramblihng spree –
That’s okay with me,
But I’ve got nothing to say.

– by Job Conger
written 4:30 p, January 11, 2001
published in Bear’ sKin by Job Conger

No, it ain’t a typo; that’s how the name of my most recent book of poetry appears on the cover. It was inspired by a guitar lick I improvised while practicing on my six string. Some melodies speak verbally to me, and some phrases speak to me in melody the first time I pen them or type them on an electric machine. The words almost wrote themselves; I just moved the pen across my clipboard which I always keep handy when I’m practicing.  There is a deliberate Groucho Marx take on life with the words, clearly in mind as I wrote the first draft.  It’s not really a song. It’s a ditty.

It may not even be that.

Live long . . . . and proper.

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A Growing Irrelevance

No, I”m not talking about my writing career, though with that title, I could be. I’m talking about the growing irrelevance of the US presence in Iraq.

Some readers know the experience of being a non-entity, an irrelevance, at a party. You get an invitation because the host gets a “charity” attack and lets you know about it. But after trying a few times to engage acquaintances in conversations that last probably two exchanged phrases of no more than five words each, and no one initiates a chat with you, it becomes painfully “clear” that you’re really a ghost, an almost imperceptible fog, an irrelevance. You have to decide to either hang in there and hope to encounter (and engage) a fog less perceptible to the others than you, and thus fund a scintilla of satisfaction . . . . . . . . . or quietly exit the venue. It happens with organizations too. It happened to me with Poets & Writers Literary Forum of Springfield. (That’s another Honey & Whineine for another time.) It happens with swaggering oil addict deceivers who live in white houses who shouldn’t throw stones.

We know Iran is doing some “deciding” regarding their desired outcome of the civil war between Shiite and Sunni. To a lesser degree, their opposing forces are doing the same, and neither (Iran, religious fanaticals vs. Saudi more Westernized, less religiously intolerant) side particularly concerns itself with the ranting former baseball team owner from Texas thinks about it all. As the hue and cry regarding Nouri Maliki cranks up the stakes on both sides of the real zeal, percisely what General Petreus thinks (an excellent military man who regularly reminds the world there can be no military solution; only a political solution) matters less and less. The honorable general (whom I truly revere and respect) is a carpenter in a house that needs a plumber. Whatever recommendation he makes regarding his capacity, or his commander in chief’s capacity, to direct a solution will fall short in not facilitating the only solution he has stated can provide the ultimate fix!

As I have said before: “If we had some bacon, we could have some tasty bacon and eggs if we had some eggs.” Actually, my dad said that in about 19 sixty-something when we were clowning around. (He was a great man in many ways who deserved better than he received from his children.)

You can be certain that as the irrelevance of US military forces becomes so apparent that even the “#43″ sees his clothes are a ghost, the presence of Saudi, Iran and Syria will become more manifest in central and Southern Iraq, and our former allies the Turks will do to northern Iraq what another ranter with teeth did to Austria.

What will the US do when the presence of our pals the Saudis becomes so apparent we have to acknowedge and deal with them? You can bet #43 hopes they will hold back until November 2008. My bet is that the Saudis won’t wait that long. My bet is that they will become the white feather that you sit meditating in a corner and try not to think about by October 2007.

In the meantime, you can be sure the Washington wizards are conjuring up alibis ad nauseum to make irrelevant what they know Petreus will say, the way #43 sanctioned the Baker-Hamilton Report and then spat on it. It would be comical if so many brave men and women serving in the military and innocents living in that Bush-scourged nation were not dying for a growing irrelevance.

Live long . . . . . . and proper.

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My friend received a parking ticket today. He says he is so up to here with Springfield politics he could scream! Who does he think he is, #43?

I would weep for a poor schlemeil who considers being subpoenaed to tell the truth to Congress “jizz politics” if it were anyone else but #43 because I could imagine ignorance affecting the man’s cognitive ability. It has become obvious that the USA’s elected leader is an incredibly savvy theocrat who has played too many patriotic legal citizens like a cheap guitar. And he surrounds himself with others of his ilk whose capacity for subterfuge and deceit is matched only by their amorality, their lack of capacity to recognize higher morality when there are political chips to be harvested.

Sometimes an act can be morally despicable to folks who consider the human dimension first and leave the politics to the toothy bottom feeders who live on the pieces which are separated from the living essence of law. As Rove said, you don’t need to convince a vast plurality of folks; just convince 51 percent. Addressing the morality — engaging in lucid, logical dialogue with all who care to devour all parts of an issue — takes unnecessary time and effort. Why work your butt off by taking your view to votes in all 50 states when all that matter are a fraction of that number who can deliver victory if you succeed in convincing only 51 percent of their voters? And since the only ones who vote seem to be those with a messianic zeal for their kind of morality, the chunks that fall to the bottom for the real carp and catfish make this strategy even more lucrative than it was in the good the old days of Nixon and Fillmore.

Alberto is a storybook example of how far an ambitious nice guy with the mind-set of a loyal precinct committeeman can go with the right ride. Yes, there’s the law to consider, but it’s secondary to maintaining the shine on the shoes of the sponsor whose wagon you rode into Washington Deceit. The story of soon-to-be, at the close of business on Monday, September 17, Gone-zales is not one of exemplary leadership; it is one of exemplary followership. Alberto was not a builder of justice; he was a clawhammer, a tool with a proclivity for the shameless disassembly of the constitutional ethos of our forefathers.

The miracle of Alberto Gonzalez, discarded like any other tool which has outlived its usefulness is not that he’s leaving. It’s that he’s not leaving with a nose that is about four feet longer than it was when he arrived at the nation’s capital. That fate befell another famous puppet, but he was Italian. They called him Pinnochio.

Live long . . . . and proper.

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LUNCH!

What did I do this afternoon that I’ve not done since early June? NAAAW. Haven’t done that in years, too many dang years.

I ate lunch. Though most folks would figure the noon meal as number two du jour, my regimen of Ramen noodles with a squirt or two of Catalina dressing and a packet of Buddig sliced turkey has usually sufficed for meal one, two and three combined. And that’s been okay. I haven’t lost any weight based on my geeral looks, but I’ve not gained any ether — make that either. And I truly haven’t gained any ether; not that I wouldn’t like to. It took me forever to get to sleep last night, and it might have come in handy.
The stop for noonish nourishment was justified on the grounds that I am working today! Writing working today, concentrating on getting some deadline copy for favorite news weekly together. Am putting down the foundation: typing worksheets with contact info, printing last year’s articles about assigned topics from pulisher’s web site and making initial calls.

I also boogied over to Staples and picked up a ream of pinter paper and ink cartridges. The color cart has been history since May, the black cart was on the verge total kaputville (printing a few pages okay but starting to fade after that) and I was down to my last four sheets of printer paper. If I hadn’t HAD to have worksheets for the journalism, I could have put the big buy ($58 and change) off until next weekend.

As I add footprints while gazing on a shorter trail, I’m reminded I’m no longer 18 years old. Case in point: today at Staples. They’ve moved the printer cartridges. My printer brand was obvious as I approached the new aisle, but I could not find the carts I needed, a #45 and #78! I walked to the end and aroud the corneer trying to find them but no luck. Even approached the cashier to ask for help, but there were people in line. A fellow who had been chatting non-stop to two women who appeared to be his girlfriend and her mother made eye made mutually grudging contact. I had noticed him before, but I was in no mood to crash their absorbing tete a tete. I told him my prob, and he gently began to lead me to the aisle I had visited. I started to tell him I had been there already, but then he reached down to the RIGHT side of the path and came up with what I needed faster than I can tell it. What made me not even think to LOOK at the right side shelving I don’t know, but I felt like a doddering bag of old goat.

Home. I felt so good, I didn’t even turn on the air conditioner, but I did allow myself a can of Campbell’s Select (Mexican Chicken; save your $2.28) and two pieces of whole wheat and Imperious — make that Imperial — magarine.

I am totally gladdened by Alberto’s departure, but I won’t believe it until there’s no fog when they put the mirror under his nose. More about that later today. I need to get back to work.

Live long . . . . and proper.

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saa80719.jpg
Pictured above Ken Sibley (flannel) talks with a new friend at the Springfield Art Association reception for Our Town: A visiual Journey. The exhibit continues through October 27. To view more pictures from the happy confluence, visit http://www.civag.com/vv.htm

For the past year a tacit war has raged — that’s the best kind; especially if there are no broqn bones or blood shed — at WUIS, the public radio station of Springfield, Illinoise. As far as I can determine, it began when the new program director whose name is Sinta, I believe, apparently issued an office memo directing air talent to refrain from pronouncing the decimal separator between 91 (and) 9. For the record, this woman’s voice is velvet and a delight to encounter when I tune in. It’s as USA as ample pie, and like Rich Bradley, when she speaks, she doesn’t seem to be telling nursery school children how to wash their hands after making a doo doo. As a result of the presumed dictum from on high, when most UIS announcers state the FM frequency, its as “ninety-one-nine” and “91 (short breath) 9. The new directive seems part of the same revisionist conspiratorial led by in vitro fertilization excess embryo killers like #43 and his dimented accessories, but I’m probably reading too much into it. They’re the same people seeking the wholesale slaughter of hymens — make that hyphens — from the USAn lexicon and turning “217-894-1245″ into “217.894.1245″ a sneering, loathesome bunch, the lot of them.

Does it matter that a stated decimal “point” is omitted when voicing the obligatory station ID? It should matter to thinking hummin’ beans, folks who don’t believe “oleo” is a chocolate cookie with white frosting in the middle. All the digital tuners include the DP (decimal point for you oleo consumers), and if the announcers don’t say the point, they’re short sheeting our language. And that’s not good. On the other ‘and, we don’t say “point” or “period” at the end of a sentence we’re reading aloud. We’re also evolving away from saying “dot” when speaking a web address.  How long has it been since you heard someone say “www dot civag dot com? Or even www-anything?

In the last week or so, there has been a crack in the firmament of that once immutable “no point” rule. I don’t want to name names because those who say the point are my (unintentional) new friends. BRAVO! When you listen to WUIS, I hope you will silently celebrate the affirmation of the proper way of speaking an ident when you hear the specially dedicated, talented and competent announcers speak 91 POINT 9. You can bet your frequency modulator I will.

Live long aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand proper

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