Saturday, March 27, 2010
One way of viewing the last 20+ years
Left shoulder, from April 1990-April 1995.
Left shoulder, from May of 1995 to June of 1998.
Left shoulder, from July of 1998 to June of 2002.
Left shoulder, from July of 2002 to July of 2003.
Left shoulder, from August of 2003 to July of 2006, and on the right shoulder, for the rest of my life.
On the left shoulder, since August 2006.
Odd little story ...
Today, thanks to some things that I will relate later, I was reminded of an odd little, off-color, humorous thing that happened at work, in 2008.
The men's bathroom, in my place of work, is one of the few rooms in the entire building that does not have, at least, one outside wall as one of it's walls. Therefore, it is completely dependent upon the exhaust fan in the ceiling to deal with any noxious fumes that might be a side-effect of that room's purpose. (Wasn't that rather diplomatically stated?)
Sometime in 2008, that exhaust fan failed.
A kind soul at work ... or, maybe, he had some kind of sense of "self-defense" ... anyway, he brought in a can of aerosol air freshener. He, also, put a sign, encouraging others to use the air freshener, right above where the can was placed.
However, his choice of verbage, and syntax was not quite up to the task, with some humorous results.
First, the sign contained the word "poop".
While the word is not vulgar, there is more adult verbage for the same action. If something more adult had been used, then, maybe, the juvenile reactions that resulted from the sign, would not have happened.
Secondly, "If - then" statements are an accepted part of the American version of English. The second sentence in the above paragraph is one. These types of sentences are such a part of our culture, that often the "then" can be left off, and the reader, or listener will, still, have perfect understanding of what is being communicated. The ONE thing that must occur, either written, or implied by a verbal pause, is a comma between the "IF" portion, and the "Then" portion.
My well-meaning co-worker left out the "then" ... and the comma.
So, there was this piece of cardboard, mounted on the wall with tape, in an "odiferous"(to quote Sir Charles Barkley) bathroom, with writing, in black Sharpie, that read:
"If you poop spray."
You can imagine the discussions that this sign inspired.
Some of you know that the oldest of my three dachshunds, Tasselhof, or Tas (pronounce "Tass") had a devastating back injury in 2003. He was in a "doggy-wheel chair", full time, for about 2 years. Things are better, now. The little, old fart is over 14 years now, and my wife and I like to say he is full of "piss and vinegar". (He is curled up, next to me, on the couch, as I write this.)
While the back legs work, sort of, now, the bladder and bowel control has not returned.
Which leads us to today's unfortunate happening.
Something upset Tas' stomach today.
As I put it to Amy, on the phone, Tas had "cross-country diarrhea", today. It started in the middle of the kitchen, through the office area, the den, and into the guest bathroom. Nothing was solid.
It was while I was in the middle of cleaning up the mess (Resolve is my friend), that I realized, with or without the comma, I was dealing with the TRUE results of the words on the sign:
"If you poop spray."
The men's bathroom, in my place of work, is one of the few rooms in the entire building that does not have, at least, one outside wall as one of it's walls. Therefore, it is completely dependent upon the exhaust fan in the ceiling to deal with any noxious fumes that might be a side-effect of that room's purpose. (Wasn't that rather diplomatically stated?)
Sometime in 2008, that exhaust fan failed.
A kind soul at work ... or, maybe, he had some kind of sense of "self-defense" ... anyway, he brought in a can of aerosol air freshener. He, also, put a sign, encouraging others to use the air freshener, right above where the can was placed.
However, his choice of verbage, and syntax was not quite up to the task, with some humorous results.
First, the sign contained the word "poop".
While the word is not vulgar, there is more adult verbage for the same action. If something more adult had been used, then, maybe, the juvenile reactions that resulted from the sign, would not have happened.
Secondly, "If - then" statements are an accepted part of the American version of English. The second sentence in the above paragraph is one. These types of sentences are such a part of our culture, that often the "then" can be left off, and the reader, or listener will, still, have perfect understanding of what is being communicated. The ONE thing that must occur, either written, or implied by a verbal pause, is a comma between the "IF" portion, and the "Then" portion.
My well-meaning co-worker left out the "then" ... and the comma.
So, there was this piece of cardboard, mounted on the wall with tape, in an "odiferous"(to quote Sir Charles Barkley) bathroom, with writing, in black Sharpie, that read:
"If you poop spray."
You can imagine the discussions that this sign inspired.
Some of you know that the oldest of my three dachshunds, Tasselhof, or Tas (pronounce "Tass") had a devastating back injury in 2003. He was in a "doggy-wheel chair", full time, for about 2 years. Things are better, now. The little, old fart is over 14 years now, and my wife and I like to say he is full of "piss and vinegar". (He is curled up, next to me, on the couch, as I write this.)
While the back legs work, sort of, now, the bladder and bowel control has not returned.
Which leads us to today's unfortunate happening.
Something upset Tas' stomach today.
As I put it to Amy, on the phone, Tas had "cross-country diarrhea", today. It started in the middle of the kitchen, through the office area, the den, and into the guest bathroom. Nothing was solid.
It was while I was in the middle of cleaning up the mess (Resolve is my friend), that I realized, with or without the comma, I was dealing with the TRUE results of the words on the sign:
"If you poop spray."
Labels: air freshener, dachshunds, toilet humor
Monday, March 22, 2010
Been thinking ...
Let me just state, up front, that all I am relating is some of my personal experiences from my military career. Any conclusions you draw from what I have to say are your own. Any inferences you make, or implications you see from what I say, are, once again, your own.
As a lot of you know, I was stationed in Germany from 2003-2006, after spending a year in Korea.
While there Amy and I became good friends with a family that run a very successful tax advisor business in norther Bavaria, in particular, the oldest daughter of the family, Isa. Isa holds, roughly, the American equivalent of an MBA, and is very fluent in English. Through her, her family, and a few other sources, we learned some very interesting things about Germany. ... But, I am getting ahead of myself.
In February of '06, Amy noticed that the color vision in her left eye was noticeably less than that of her right eye. We consulted some Army doctors all over Germany, and, as a result, she was sent to see German doctors at the eye clinic in Ehrlangen. We were told that this is one of the best eye clinics in all of Europe.
Now, everyone in this clinic is, primarily, a German speaker. They know some English, but it is, by no means, their primary language. The discussions we were going to have in this place were highly technical, and the grasp of the German language that Amy and I had just wasn't going to cut it. So, we asked our friend, Isa, to go with us to translate ... and drive, because she knew where it was.
So, we tool down the Autobahn in Isa's VW Golf ... and Isa knew how to make that thing ... it didn't "fly" like a Porsche, or an upper-end BMW or Mercedes, but it spent a lot of time in the fast lane.
We get off the Autobahn, enter this lovely, old German town, and drive through it to this very modern looking building. She stops, and we go in. It's gorgeous.
We leave the main lobby, and head into, by the German I can read, the eye clinic. There is a large waiting area, filled with people. We go up to the desk to check in, and Isa does all the talking. I look around at all the people waiting, and wonder if we will see a doctor, or a nurse that day. I hear Isa explain who we are, and that we are here under the US military program. She answers a few more questions, and ... we are sent right in. That's right! Sent in ahead of all of these people who are waiting, and, by appearances, have been waiting for some time.
We go and sit down outside of the initial screening area, and I ask Isa what just happened?
She explained that the people in the waiting area were the ones on the government health plan.
Which prompted me to ask about us, and all the other people I saw in the area we were in.
She explained that everyone in our area were on private medical insurance programs, and the German medical system treats the US military medical program as a private insurance program, because of the way it reimburses the caregiver fully.
I told her that I thought that Germany had a totally socialized system of medical care.
She, then, enlightened me that Germany, once, had a totally socialized system, but the service was so slow, and the tax burden so great ... that the resulting public outcry had caused the government to reinstitute private health insurance.
She was quick to state several things:
a) those that could afford it, were quick to acquire private health insurance, because the public plan sucked, in terms of timeliness, and quality of care;
b) the government did not pay enough to reimburse the medical facilities costs for any given procedure;
c) even though a person was paying for a private plan, and, therefore, no burden to the government, they still had to pay taxes as if they were receiving government health care.
By the time she had finished her explanation, we were in to see the doctor. We were in and out of there by noon ... and many of the faces I remembered in the lobby of the eye clinic were, still, there, when we left.
The end result was that Amy had optic neuritis. If your read all of the Wikipedia article, then you know that 20-30% of the people that contract optic neuritis, have Multiple Sclerosis (MS). That was a concern of several of the doctors we saw. They used everything in their resources, to include, what was to them, our "private insurance", to diagnose Amy thoroughly ... and not leave her in that waiting room in Ehrlangen.
Amy was diagnosed with MS on June 22, 2006, by the chief neurologist of the Bamberg Klinkum. Our 21st anniversary.
Some other interesting things I learned about Germany:
Their median (average) income tax rate is 54%. (Meaning a person only gets to keep 46%, less than half, of what they earn)
The German federal government has imposed, at the time I left Germany, a 16% "Value Added Tax". Meaning a German pays a 16% sales tax to the federal govenment, above and beyond any local tax, on EVERYTHING they purchase.
Think about that for a moment.
As a German, the government takes over half of what you work hard to earn, BEFORE YOU EVEN SEE IT, and, then, takes even more in a sales tax on what you have left ....
Meaning, in those percentages, then, that for every ... let's say dollar, you earn, you, actually, have 38 cents of buying power!
Or to flip it around, the government gets 62 cents for every dollar you earn ... and this is after the Germans have "fixed" things to allow private insurance to be "allowed" again.
Go to Germany, or look their papers up on the web, the bulk of their government funds go to health care, and their equivalent of welfare, because they had, about, a 30% unemployment rate when I was there.
To be fair, joing the European Union, and adopting the "euro", really screwed Germany, economically. (This happened shortly before I was stationed there.)
By the agreement in which Germany joined the EU, anything sold had to be equivalent, meaning if a product sold cost a Deutsche Mark before, it, now, cost one Euro. However, the same agreement stipulated that to "buy" a single Euro, it cost 2 Deutsche Marks. So, effectively, the price of EVERYTHING doubled.
****
So, as I said before, draw your own conclusions about my personal story, and experiences.
I am happy to serve my nation, and follow the orders of my, duly-elected, Commander in Chief.
It's a happy "Obama-nation"! Don't you think?
As a lot of you know, I was stationed in Germany from 2003-2006, after spending a year in Korea.
While there Amy and I became good friends with a family that run a very successful tax advisor business in norther Bavaria, in particular, the oldest daughter of the family, Isa. Isa holds, roughly, the American equivalent of an MBA, and is very fluent in English. Through her, her family, and a few other sources, we learned some very interesting things about Germany. ... But, I am getting ahead of myself.
In February of '06, Amy noticed that the color vision in her left eye was noticeably less than that of her right eye. We consulted some Army doctors all over Germany, and, as a result, she was sent to see German doctors at the eye clinic in Ehrlangen. We were told that this is one of the best eye clinics in all of Europe.
Now, everyone in this clinic is, primarily, a German speaker. They know some English, but it is, by no means, their primary language. The discussions we were going to have in this place were highly technical, and the grasp of the German language that Amy and I had just wasn't going to cut it. So, we asked our friend, Isa, to go with us to translate ... and drive, because she knew where it was.
So, we tool down the Autobahn in Isa's VW Golf ... and Isa knew how to make that thing ... it didn't "fly" like a Porsche, or an upper-end BMW or Mercedes, but it spent a lot of time in the fast lane.
We get off the Autobahn, enter this lovely, old German town, and drive through it to this very modern looking building. She stops, and we go in. It's gorgeous.
We leave the main lobby, and head into, by the German I can read, the eye clinic. There is a large waiting area, filled with people. We go up to the desk to check in, and Isa does all the talking. I look around at all the people waiting, and wonder if we will see a doctor, or a nurse that day. I hear Isa explain who we are, and that we are here under the US military program. She answers a few more questions, and ... we are sent right in. That's right! Sent in ahead of all of these people who are waiting, and, by appearances, have been waiting for some time.
We go and sit down outside of the initial screening area, and I ask Isa what just happened?
She explained that the people in the waiting area were the ones on the government health plan.
Which prompted me to ask about us, and all the other people I saw in the area we were in.
She explained that everyone in our area were on private medical insurance programs, and the German medical system treats the US military medical program as a private insurance program, because of the way it reimburses the caregiver fully.
I told her that I thought that Germany had a totally socialized system of medical care.
She, then, enlightened me that Germany, once, had a totally socialized system, but the service was so slow, and the tax burden so great ... that the resulting public outcry had caused the government to reinstitute private health insurance.
She was quick to state several things:
a) those that could afford it, were quick to acquire private health insurance, because the public plan sucked, in terms of timeliness, and quality of care;
b) the government did not pay enough to reimburse the medical facilities costs for any given procedure;
c) even though a person was paying for a private plan, and, therefore, no burden to the government, they still had to pay taxes as if they were receiving government health care.
By the time she had finished her explanation, we were in to see the doctor. We were in and out of there by noon ... and many of the faces I remembered in the lobby of the eye clinic were, still, there, when we left.
The end result was that Amy had optic neuritis. If your read all of the Wikipedia article, then you know that 20-30% of the people that contract optic neuritis, have Multiple Sclerosis (MS). That was a concern of several of the doctors we saw. They used everything in their resources, to include, what was to them, our "private insurance", to diagnose Amy thoroughly ... and not leave her in that waiting room in Ehrlangen.
Amy was diagnosed with MS on June 22, 2006, by the chief neurologist of the Bamberg Klinkum. Our 21st anniversary.
Some other interesting things I learned about Germany:
Their median (average) income tax rate is 54%. (Meaning a person only gets to keep 46%, less than half, of what they earn)
The German federal government has imposed, at the time I left Germany, a 16% "Value Added Tax". Meaning a German pays a 16% sales tax to the federal govenment, above and beyond any local tax, on EVERYTHING they purchase.
Think about that for a moment.
As a German, the government takes over half of what you work hard to earn, BEFORE YOU EVEN SEE IT, and, then, takes even more in a sales tax on what you have left ....
Meaning, in those percentages, then, that for every ... let's say dollar, you earn, you, actually, have 38 cents of buying power!
Or to flip it around, the government gets 62 cents for every dollar you earn ... and this is after the Germans have "fixed" things to allow private insurance to be "allowed" again.
Go to Germany, or look their papers up on the web, the bulk of their government funds go to health care, and their equivalent of welfare, because they had, about, a 30% unemployment rate when I was there.
To be fair, joing the European Union, and adopting the "euro", really screwed Germany, economically. (This happened shortly before I was stationed there.)
By the agreement in which Germany joined the EU, anything sold had to be equivalent, meaning if a product sold cost a Deutsche Mark before, it, now, cost one Euro. However, the same agreement stipulated that to "buy" a single Euro, it cost 2 Deutsche Marks. So, effectively, the price of EVERYTHING doubled.
****
So, as I said before, draw your own conclusions about my personal story, and experiences.
I am happy to serve my nation, and follow the orders of my, duly-elected, Commander in Chief.
It's a happy "Obama-nation"! Don't you think?
Labels: Bavaria, Ehrlangen, Germany, MBA, tax
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Talking Linguistics ...
As some of us learned in reading class, during elementary school, "pro" and "con" are prefixes that modify a "root word". At the same time, we learned that the two prefixes are the EXACT opposite of each other.
We, also, learned that there are suffixes, attached to the end of a "root word" that modify the root, as well.
Currently, the two houses of Congress (The Senate, and the House of Representatives) have an overwhelming majority of people from the Democrat Party. In the Senate the count is 59-41, and in the House it is 255-178.
So, the Democrat "Congress"men enjoy a 314-219 majority, in the two houses. These people fought long, and hard campaigns to have the honor of being named "Congress"men. They are proud to be "Congress"men.
Yet, most of the 314 campaigned as "Progress"ives. Took millions of dollars of other people's money to win their political office, in total. With the promise that they will be "Progress"ive "Congress"men.
Am I the only one to see the oxymoron in this?
We, also, learned that there are suffixes, attached to the end of a "root word" that modify the root, as well.
Currently, the two houses of Congress (The Senate, and the House of Representatives) have an overwhelming majority of people from the Democrat Party. In the Senate the count is 59-41, and in the House it is 255-178.
So, the Democrat "Congress"men enjoy a 314-219 majority, in the two houses. These people fought long, and hard campaigns to have the honor of being named "Congress"men. They are proud to be "Congress"men.
Yet, most of the 314 campaigned as "Progress"ives. Took millions of dollars of other people's money to win their political office, in total. With the promise that they will be "Progress"ive "Congress"men.
Am I the only one to see the oxymoron in this?
Saturday, March 13, 2010
To Cara and Allen ...
There is an "upside" in this.
After knowing each other for 25 years, you figured it out. You figured out that you belonged together. Too many people don't. In fact, TVLand channel has an entire reality series about that, now.
Allen, my "little brother", you said a very wise thing to me, on the phone, a few weeks ago. You said: "We are going to live, and love, as long as we can."
That is EXACTLY right.
Whether it is my parents (who had their cancer episode in the 70's, and are approaching their 50th wedding anniversary), your parents, Amy and I (with her health issues, and approaching our 25th anniversary), or you and Cara, that is all we have: "to live and love, as long as we can."
Sadly, those of us that don't have a definite "suspense date" for that, tend to do a lot of stupid stuff, to include taking our spouse for granted. When the truth is that every moment with your spouse is precious, whether you have a month, or over 50 years with them.
The OTHER part of this is ... What if? ...
What if, you two had not made this connection, at last, a few months ago?
Allen would be alone, miserable, and, possibly, still on the East Coast.
Cara ... well, would she have survived, what was it? January 29th? When she collapsed in her apartment, in Las Cruces, alone?
The current situation is not one that anyone would wish for. On the other hand, figuring out that you were supposed to be together last year, has been better for both of you, and, in a meaningful way, prolonged Cara's life, and improved the quality of it.
Lastly, Ecclesiastes 3 says:
Eccl 3:1-4
There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under heaven:
2 a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
3 a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
4 a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
NIV
Solomon makes a good point.
While you have this time together, dance, even if it is the "Holcy Dance".
It's not time to mourn.
After knowing each other for 25 years, you figured it out. You figured out that you belonged together. Too many people don't. In fact, TVLand channel has an entire reality series about that, now.
Allen, my "little brother", you said a very wise thing to me, on the phone, a few weeks ago. You said: "We are going to live, and love, as long as we can."
That is EXACTLY right.
Whether it is my parents (who had their cancer episode in the 70's, and are approaching their 50th wedding anniversary), your parents, Amy and I (with her health issues, and approaching our 25th anniversary), or you and Cara, that is all we have: "to live and love, as long as we can."
Sadly, those of us that don't have a definite "suspense date" for that, tend to do a lot of stupid stuff, to include taking our spouse for granted. When the truth is that every moment with your spouse is precious, whether you have a month, or over 50 years with them.
The OTHER part of this is ... What if? ...
What if, you two had not made this connection, at last, a few months ago?
Allen would be alone, miserable, and, possibly, still on the East Coast.
Cara ... well, would she have survived, what was it? January 29th? When she collapsed in her apartment, in Las Cruces, alone?
The current situation is not one that anyone would wish for. On the other hand, figuring out that you were supposed to be together last year, has been better for both of you, and, in a meaningful way, prolonged Cara's life, and improved the quality of it.
Lastly, Ecclesiastes 3 says:
Eccl 3:1-4
There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under heaven:
2 a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
3 a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
4 a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
NIV
Solomon makes a good point.
While you have this time together, dance, even if it is the "Holcy Dance".
It's not time to mourn.
