Pay Cuts and Gettin' Sued

Debbie found out on Wednesday that her work is "restructuring" their pay system; a turd-polishing way to say everyone is getting a 25% pay cut for all but the busiest three months. So we may be hitting the road again this summer. Our lease is up in August and if either of us can find something in the way of paying work over on the "good" side of Florida, we'll likely jump.

In other news, I received a letter addressed to me at the office where I work informing me that I'm being sued by one of our upstanding clients. It seems back in 2002 she stole money from the bank we use, and has been dodging them ever since. This year, they caught up with her and grabbed her entire Federal refund as repayment. There are at least three places in the paperwork that say applying for a bank product means that you agree that the bank has a right to do this. Of course, because I'm not psychic and didn't know that she owed the bank money from nine years ago, it's all my fault. So she is going to sue me. Not my employer or the bank that actually took her money. Me. Personally. Good luck with that.

And just because this tax season hasn't already been the Tax Season from Hell what with all the IRS software glitches and delays triggered by the large number of fraudulent tax returns we filed back in January, now we are looking at a government shutdown just in time for what is supposed to be the second-busiest week of the tax season. (I have my doubts on that score; one return for the entire office last week and only four returns so far this week.) It isn't supposed to affect most returns, but you can believe as much of that as you want.

The price of oil continues to creep upwards, toying with $112/barrel. No real surprise there other than the complete lack of any adult conversation regarding energy use. Obama's energy speech is the same speech made by every president since Nixon; business-as-usual must continue because we say it must and the energy necessary will fall from the sky because we are the Chosen People. Declining fossil fuel supplies combined with increasing global demand means nothing. We will burn food in our gas tanks while millions starve, and power our homes by magic pixie dust (otherwise known as nuclear fusion, a technology that has been 20 years from widespread deployment for my entire lifetime).

Yes. I'm in a bit of a mood.

I'm also bored out of my skull. In three-and-a-half hours, I've had a single phone call. Woo. I've already read all my regular web sites and read all the stuff I had in my backpack. I'm cranking through books like crazy with 4-5 hours of uninterupted reading time every day. There's a good chance I may have to make an emergency library run before I work there on Sunday. Ah well, in ten days, I'll have a great deal of free time.

I did run across a cool bit of video:


A Cosmological Fantasia from BDH - Burrell Durrant Hifle on Vimeo.

There is some amazing stuff in there. Watching is good for perspective. With titantic events like these happening in the universe, nothing that happens on this insignificant ball of mud really matters. I especially like the bit about three minutes in where our sun goes off its main sequence and burns Earth to a speck of soot. Right now, that makes me smile.

Have a great day!