Author: Mark Alexander

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Back to Work…or NOT!

I woke up today with the intention of writing a quick post on how the employment gods had finally smiled upon me and that I’d be returning to work on Monday for a 2-month gig that paid nearly twice my usual salary. As part of a team of 8 technicians, I’d be enrolling clinicians in a single-sign-on software solution across one of the larger hospital systems in Phoenix.

Earlier this week I’d gone through the initial orientation webinar, and just this morning I completed the online training. I was looking forward to meeting my new teammates and getting back to work after nearly six weeks of unemployment.

And then a call came this afternoon from the recruiter at the agency I was working with on this.

“Do you want the good news or the bad news?”

“Just give it to me.”

“I hate to deliver this news, but Cerner has convinced [name of hospital system] that they could install their own product for less money and to terminate the contract with [software provider].”

“This never happens. But…[software provider] is going to pay all of you for 72 hours work since you already started the process.”

I knew this gig was too good to be true, but at the same time, 72 hours at the previously agreed-upon rate is nearly an entire month’s salary at my previous job, so while it won’t allow me to completely pay off my credit cards like I’d be able to do at the expected full 256 hours over the course of this gig, it will at least allow me to get caught up on everything else. All that remains is for them to determine if it will be dispersed as a simple single severance or as one or more regular paychecks. I’ll know more Monday.

Curiously, I’m laughing at this. It’s one of those instances when the universe it has a wicked sense of humor and I can’t help feeling all this is happening for a positive reason. I can almost hear the gears turning.

In other employment news, my friend Cindy and her husband Matt—for whom I’ve been doing freelance Mac support over the years—have decided they need a website for Matt’s business. When I first heard of this months ago I pushed this task off on Cindy’s nephew because I honestly didn’t have the skillset to set up a full e-commerce website, but in the interim I learned all they wanted was a basic site to advertise the business and show off Matt’s work. That I could do—in WordPress, no less—so about a week ago since there’d been no progress on that front, I suggested that I take over the task since the nephew hadn’t done anything beyond registering the domain, securing a host, and throwing up a basic landing page.

They agreed wholeheartedly, so I’ve started building the new site. They also want me to some business cards so they can hand them out to their friends…

 

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I Am Incorrigible

As I wrote on my Instagram post of this pic, “Sometimes I’m not just incorrigible, I’m FUCKING incorrigible. Damn, Daddy! (Proves it’s worth it to sometimes share your table at Starbucks!)”

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Oh, We Understand Them Just Fine

From John Pavlovitz:

I think it’s time to stop saying that we need to understand these people. I think we do understand them:

We understand that they have dug in their heels so deeply, they will not be moved by anything. We understand that there is no political scandal massive enough, no President’s Tweet reckless enough, no legislation predatory enough to alter their allegiance. We understand that the past two years of viciousness and ineptitude haven’t tempered their passions but inflamed them. We understand that the image of an angry white, American male God is so burned into their brains, that they see no conflict with a religion devoid of love or a world absent diversity or a theology made of malice.

We understand that infidelity, dishonesty, obscenity, and cruelty are no longer liabilities to those they would have lead them. We understand that the FoxNews poison has so fully circulated through their systems that truth is no longer necessary. We understand that [to them] white supremacists in the Cabinet and Russian infiltration in our elections and children separated from their parents are acceptable collateral damage to winning. We understand that their capacity to rationalize away human rights atrocities now borders on complete delusion.

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THIS. IS. EPIC.

To paraphrase Matthew Rettenmund (where I found this):

Fuck this inbred monstrosity and everyone who sympathizes with her. We do not need to understand these racists, bigots, and Trump voters in general—we need to shine a spotlight on them like cockroaches and outnumber them at the polls like we do IRL.

I loved how this bitch had no response when she was told to go back to Europe.

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I’m At That Point…

…in my job search that I’m getting really tired of the stupid.

I’m sick of recruiters who just do a word search without actually reading a resume or online profile and send job postings for which I am either entirely unqualified or aren’t even in Information Technology.

This morning I got one for a Senior Systems Administrator at the Arizona Department of Homeland Security.

“Jega M” from Advent Global Technologies in Houston obviously found “Active Directory” in the skill set of my resume—but nothing else in the job description she sent—and thought she hit pay dirt. Too bad she didn’t actually read my resume that has a 20 year history of only DESKTOP SUPPORT because I am DONE suffering fools gladly.

My response:

(a) It’s obvious you emailed me today only because you did a lazy online word search and found some phrase in my resume that made you think I’d be interested in or qualified for this position. In this case I believe it’s “Active Directory.” I have NONE of the other required skills—much less a degree in Information Technology—that this position requires.

(b) I would NEVER work for DHS, and especially not under the current Administration. Call me old fashioned, but I don’t think working for an agency that separates children from their parents and puts them in cages is a particularly inspiring career path.

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The Miserable People

From John Pavlovitz:

Miserable.

Every time I see them, this is the word that prevails.

Whenever I encounter a supporter of this President on social media now, or scan the crowds at his propaganda rallies, or see his surrogates bloviating on talk shows or pounding upon pulpits, I am left with the same conclusion: they are a people bereft of joy.

There is no happiness, no benevolence, nothing life-giving left there.

The emotional deficit is continually on display:

In their contorted, sneering countenance; in their so readily brandished middle finger; in their steady spit shower of verbal filth. With each angry gesture and with every slandering epithet, they reveal in high-definition detail what it looks like when someone loses the light inside them.

War does this to the human heart. These people are at war with the world.

They’re against gays.
They’re against immigrants.
They’re against Muslims.
They’re against foreigners.
They’re against scientists.
They’re against atheists.
They’re against Liberals.
They’re against the Democrats.
They’re against the Media.
They’re against teenage shooting survivors.
They’re against athletes and entertainers.

The world in their heads is composed almost entirely of enemies and adversaries—and as a result they are perpetually disgusted. If I had that many enemies to fight, I’d be unendingly pissed off too. I’d probably pity them a lot more if I didn’t have to endure them.

These are the wildest of ironies: Their President is in the White House, their politicians commandeer the House and Senate, the Supreme Court is tilted In their favor—and yet they still manage to feel themselves oppressed, still picture the world unfair, still rage against a machine they’ve made and are part of. So many of them claim faith in Jesus, and yet live in almost polar opposition to his example.

The only time they do smile, is to reflect the arrogant, self-satisfied sneer of their leader; almost always in the face of someone else’s heartache or misfortune, almost always when someone else loses something. They only joy they seem capable of manufacturing, is in response to pain.

I try to imagine what it feels like to be so afflicted with contempt for the planet: to be forever scowling, to be so viscerally sickened by the breadth of diversity around me, to be relentlessly in a fear-birthed battle posture—but I can’t.

Thank God, I can’t. If you can’t imagine it either, consider yourself fortunate.

I realize that this has become the difference now; the dividing line in this version of America. It is between joyful people and miserable people.

There are those who live open-handed toward the world, and those whose fists are balled tightly; those who are driven by compassion, and those fueled by anger; those who want a bigger table, and those feel the table is exclusively theirs.

As disheartening as it is to witness people this internally toxic, it’s a cautionary reminder of who we do not want to become, of what we can’t let the fight do to us.

We have to fight to keep goodness inside us, despite the outside badness; to never be defined by how many things we hate.

I want my default response to this life to always be hope and not derision.

May we who oppose this national malignancy, never become so devoid of lightness that we resemble those who celebrate it.

May we never applaud someone’s suffering, never weaponize our religion to do harm, never grow comfortable with hearts that are only capable of anger.

May we never lose our laughter, our softness, our lightness in this life, and let a smile come easily to us.

May we never become as miserable as those who support this President.

That is when we know we’ve really lost.

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No Longer A Conundrum

I was wide awake at 3 am this morning. I almost sat down at the time to write this post and title it “Conundrum.”

But that wouldn’t have been necessary.

For the past few days I’ve been getting emails from recruiters concerning a “Config & Deploy Specialist” position. It came with a state req number and I had a sneaky suspicion that it was from my former place of employment. I returned one of the emails to verify this, and yes, indeed it was.

My first contract at ADOT was with the Config & Deploy department and I loved it. I adored my supervisor and coworkers and at one point actually—in all honesty—told my boss that I really enjoyed coming to work (quite something after having come from DISH).

And yet, my initial reaction to this new position was “Not only no, but HELL no!” if for no other reason the manner in which my last contract was terminated. But the more I mulled it over last night, the more sense it made to at least apply and see what happened. Though the new supervisor of the department was a bit of a dick, he’d praised my work with the Macs and working with my former colleagues again was a definite draw.

And oh yeah…the money was significantly more than I’d even been making as a desktop tech.

So at 3 am last night I resolved to call my previous supervisor first thing and ask if there would be any reason why I shouldn’t apply for this newly available position in C&D.

I said I was asking her first because I still had no idea why my previous contract was terminated. Even then she still wouldn’t tell me. Her words:  ”I’ll run it past Bruce and Bill since they’re the ones who…and you’ll be reporting to them, so let me get your number and if it’s okay I’ll let you know and if you don’t hear from me…”

So that would be a no. I never had a problem with her, so I don’t understand this reticence to be completely forthcoming as to the cause of my dismissal, but obviously it was more than just personnel shuffling or overstaffing and this silence points to the fact that it might not have been entirely above board.

And quite frankly just hearing her voice again gave me the heebie-jeebies, so fuck ’em. It truly is time to look ahead and move on.

On a more positive note, that removed the conundrum I might’ve found myself in.

During the past week or so I’ve been interviewing (2 phone, 1 video) for a short term contract installing and setting users up on a single sign-on solution project for one of the major hospital systems in Phoenix. When the description was first sent to me I swear it felt like it fell from heaven. It would get me back into a clinical hospital environment where I could come home each day feeling like I was actually doing something worthwhile for a change.

The downside is that it was only a 2 month, 32-hour-a-week gig. But it’s paying nearly twice what I’ve been making, and that alone will get me out of the financial hole we’re slowly sliding into. (And my friend Cindy, who retired from this hospital system said, “They’ll never get it done in 2 months. I know those people.”)

I’m supposed to hear back from them today or tomorrow. There are 8 positions total, significantly improving my odds of being selected. The agency’s account manager listened in during the final phone interview with the client, and he said I did a great job.

Fingers, toes, and eyes crossed.

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You Can’t Reason With His Base

“Let’s not be surprised when 35 percent or so of voters consistently tell pollsters that the president is the victim of a witch hunt or that they agree with every policy position and action he takes. Trump fans’ politics is not the politics of rationality, considered judgment or empirical observation. Blind hatred and unthinking boorishness are not moderated by new facts or observable phenomena. We should stop marveling as his “success” in holding his base as if this were a reflection of his political skill, let alone the efficacy of his policies. Rather, the unbreakable and unblinking devotion of his unhinged base is confirmation that he now must rely on support from people oblivious to reality.”

– Trump’s Tampa circus proves you can’t reason with his base

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Twenty Years Ago

Journal

Friday, 24 July 1998

Thank god it’s Friday. I’ve made it through another week.

I’ve no major plans for the weekend. The weather continues to be hot and humid, not exactly the kind of stuff you want to be out in.

Today’s paycheck is the first one from which I’m going to be able to transfer a significant amount of into savings—$225. It’s the first step in getting myself back to San Francisco.

I’m getting really tired of coming home every day to zero messages on the answering machine. I guess it just drives home the fact that most of my friends are in the Bay Area.

Derek  at work has grown a goatee. At first I didn’t like it, but now it’s all I can do not to go up and lock lips with him. Wouldn’t that surprise his little wife? I wonder if it—the goatee, that is—tickles when he’s snacking on her. (I’d pay to see that, if only for the chance to see Derek naked!)

As I write this, I’m listening to the second St. Tropez album, Belle de Jour. My favorite song has just started, a wonderful piece called, “Hold On To Love”. It just plays me.

Eric, my boss, will be gone all next week. This is weighing heavily, and for the life of me I don’t know why. He left a not-insurmountable list of things to do in his absence, and yet instead of really enjoying my Friday night relaxing, I find myself already worrying about what needs to be done next week.

I made the horrendous discovery around 11:30 last night that during my NT installation last week, with all the shuffling of directories across disks that I had inadvertently wiped out at least one, and possibly more, image directories. “Movies” was completely missing, and along with it, all the attendant sub-directories including Blade Runner, I Think I Do, Lost in Space and god knows what else. I was able to reconstruct a lot of it (everything before April was archived on a CD I burned) by the time I finally collapsed into bed at 1:30 a.m., but the rest remained to be gleaned off the web today at work.

I think I’ve restored most of what was in those directories, but since I don’t honestly remember exactly what I had to begin with, it’s kind of difficult to say for sure.

This loss prompted me to find a backup program—any backup program—that would work with NT. I’d remembered downloading a Win95 backup program off the Internet while at St. Mary’s, and thought that they also had an NT version available as well. The hardest part was remembering what it was called!

A search via Infoseek turned it up—Novastor. And yes, there was a version available that worked with NT 4.0. It’s now installed at home and works fine.

The rest of the NT setup is working fine as well. I finally got rid of the annoying error messages that were cropping up in the Event Log, and now all that remains is buying a new SCSI card for the scanner and installing the new software (ordered yesterday) to go along with it.

Oh…by the way…one of the users downstairs has a Jibber Jabber still in the original box that she’s going to sell to me. I offered her $20, and she said, “Are you serious?” I told her I was, that I really wanted one of those dolls.

And here’s one for the record books…a dream, that is:

Let’s call it, “I fucked Lee Chaffee in hyperspace.”

I had gone to see Lee. He had been distraught and despondent for weeks, and I decided to see what I could do about it. When I got there, his room was a disaster and he was almost in tears. I asked him what had been going on, and he said, “She’s no better. You’d think after that surgery and the threat of cancer she’s change, but she’s still the same,” referring to his mother. Apparently she had been making his life rather difficult.

“What about believing in the magic of life?” I asked. “What about your faith in all things unseen?”

“It’s all bullshit!” he said. “What magic? I see no magic whatsoever.”

He was standing there with his arms crossed. I walked up to him and said, “You need a hug.” He shook his head no, and at first refused to uncross his arms. When he finally did, and returned the hug, it was if I’d opened a tap. He was sobbing uncontrollably.

ZAP! I was gone. I found myself standing in a dusty roadside café somewhere in the desert. I wasn’t exactly sure where I was, other than I knew I wasn’t on the plane we commonly call reality. There was a motley group of customers in attendance. I turned around to leave, and ran into Lee, who was coming in through the small foyer.

“Sorry I left so—abruptly,” I said.

“That’s okay,” he said. “I didn’t want you to see me like that anyway.”

We both walked in and sat down at a table. About ten feet away, sitting in a booth, a guy who looked like a truck driver leaned over to us and asked, “You boys know where you are, right?”

“On the dream plane,” I said, “or more precisely, the upper astral.”

“Smart boy!” the guy replied, and went back to the conversation he was having with his friend.

Lee looked surprised, as if he hadn’t known where we were. “Magic,” I said to Lee as I looked at our surroundings. It may have looked like a dusty southwestern café, but the menu items were anything but southwestern. A large sign on the wall advertised, “Rigel Burgers,” and other things that I don’t precisely remember that were decidedly un-southwestern.

From there on, the dream got really strange, because Lee and I started making out—wrestling, more like—on a bed which had suddenly appeared in the middle of the café. We ended up having a definite exchange of energy albeit without any real “sex” involved. That seemed to finally cheer him up, and we went outside to leave.

At the adjacent filling station, Lee was busy putting gasoline into his sister’s Bronco. (I was kind of surprised that he thought he needed gasoline, much less a truck, to get back home.) I walked out, wearing a bright red shirt. (I may have been wearing it all along, but I only noticed it out in the bright sunlight.) I had just gotten a pin made that I’d attached to the shirt, and wanted to show Lee before we left.

“What are you hiding there?” he asked as I walked up to him. I took my hand away and “I fucked Lee Chaffee in hyperspace!” was written. The attendant got a good laugh out of it, although Lee was decidedly unamused. “Where’d you get that?” he demanded. “Inside,” I said. “You know, you can get anything here.” The whole situation was so funny (mainly because Lee, who had always been my “teacher” in all things metaphysical was being so slow on the uptake, but also at the absurdity of the situation) I started laughing out loud—both there and back here in three-dimensional reality—so much so that I woke myself up.

I guess that’s about it for now. I suppose there’s more, but I’m already all over the map and getting tired.

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Smokin’ Hot

Over the years, many of you have left comments such as, “Ewww!” or “He’d be cute…without the cigarette,” when I’ve posted pictures of men smoking. Okay, I get it. I agree it’s a vile habit that more often than not leads to cancer and a host of other inevitably terminal health ailments—not to mention the stink it leaves on your clothing. But there’s also something I find undeniably erotic about it as well.

I’ve never smoked—probably in defiance of my mother, who when I announced as a child I had no intention of ever smoking she quipped, “You say that now, but wait until you get older. Everyone smokes,” (it was the 60s after all)—but when I first came out, I was smoking-neutral. I’d have sex with smokers and non-smokers alike.

I don’t know what prompted it, but somewhere around the mid 80s, smoking became an automatic disqualifier for me. Just as if you had no hair on your upper lip—which I readily admit now was incredibly shallow—if I spotted a cigarette in your hand I wouldn’t give you a second glance.

But several years later, that changed. Seeing some hot guy smoking went from being an absolute turn-off to a guaranteed head-turner. I still wouldn’t date anyone who smoked because of that stink, but from a distance and for a brief sexual encounter, it would immediately get my attention.

Maybe it was the Marlboro Man era in which my hormones came into full bloom, or maybe it’s simply an obvious oral fixation (as if you hadn’t noticed I also like pictures of men sucking cock), but whatever the root cause, I find certain photos of men smoking incredibly erotic.

The more you know…

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You Know How to Beat Trump and the Republican Co-conspirators Who Enable Him?

From Politicalprof:

Lots and lots and lots more people who oppose Trump and his enablers need to show up and vote in November. And guess what? If enough show up, then all the gerrymandering and vote suppression and Citizens United shenanigans in the world won’t be enough to stop the blue wave.

To paraphrase General Ulysses Grant when troops under his command first met troops under Robert E. Lee’s command in the US Civil War, “You need to stop worrying about what Lee is going to do to us, and start thinking about what we are going to do to him.”

Power isn’t given. It’s taken. Trump and his conspirators and apologists aren’t going to be embarrassed into quitting. They’re not going to skulk away when their obvious hypocrisy is exposed. They’re not going to change their minds when they see a funny meme mocking Trump and his Trumpettes.

They have to be beaten. And we have to beat them. That’s the way it works.

Trump and his minions know this is coming. That’s why The Orange Shit Stain is already floating the false narrative that Russia is going to interfere in November…for the Democrats!