Just wanted to weigh in on this news story that we saw on Fox 29 last night and has now apparently gotten national airplay.
This woman had been having a pretty rough year to begin with - both her mother and an uncle passed away and her father had been diagnosed with leukemia. All of these things caused her to use up all of her vacation time. Then her son goes into kidney failure and so the mom donates a kidney to him. But, in order to do so, she has to take a leave of absence from work. Since the company has under 50 employees, they don't have to abide by FMLA - so before she takes this leave the company has her sign a document saying that she understands that they may have to hire someone else to do her job.
Now here it is, 9 weeks later or whatever, and the woman is preparing to go back to work. But when she contacts her employer they inform her that they did, in fact, hire someone else for her position while she was out. This prompts the news story claiming, "Mother fired for donating kidney to her son." Point of fact - she was not fired. She LEFT her job in order to take the leave, knowing (and reading) full well that her job may not be there when she returned.
Does this situation stink for this woman? Sure. Is it unfair? Depends. I mean, in this economy, where so many are out of work, would it have been more noble for the company to fire the employee who's been filling this woman's position for the past several weeks? I'm sure he or she would find that pretty unfair. (Though I'm equally sure their story wouldn't have gotten national airtime.)
I mean, I don't mean to sound cold and callous. I'm glad this lady's son is doing well after his transplant. I'm glad this mother was able to give the gift of life to her son a second time. I'm sorry she is going to have to find a new job now. But come on, with wars and slavery and starvation going on around the world - let's be a little more cautious of how we assign the tag of "injustice" to news stories, people. Really.
13 September 2011
12 September 2011
30 August 2011
Well, despite Irene's best attempts - we still made it to the Dispatch show at State College on Sunday night. I would say that the show wasn't quite as epic as the one at Red Bull Arena that we saw back in June, but it was still a really excellent concert nonetheless. Hopefully these guys make a habit out of doing some touring in the future. And I'm REALLY hopeful that Tara Endicott is able to book either Braddigan or Chadwick (or both) for a show at Burlap in the not too distant future! That would melt my brain off.
Here's a poorly shot video of one song from Sunday's show. My co-worker Kelly was supposed to come to the concert with us, but she and her loved ones got a little more hard hit by the hurricane so she had to stay home. So I figured the least I could do was record her favorite song from the new EP. The fellas miss a few notes here and there, but I guess that just helps to confirm that they're actually singing live. :)
Here's a poorly shot video of one song from Sunday's show. My co-worker Kelly was supposed to come to the concert with us, but she and her loved ones got a little more hard hit by the hurricane so she had to stay home. So I figured the least I could do was record her favorite song from the new EP. The fellas miss a few notes here and there, but I guess that just helps to confirm that they're actually singing live. :)
23 August 2011
Apparently there was an earthquake in Virginia that was felt in our area today. I was in the basement playing guitar and didn't even notice, really. I thought I was, perhaps, just getting into it too much when the vase on top of the TV fell off and hit me in the head. Suppose that might've been more related to the quaking earth, though.
But anyway, we continue to feel aftershocks all afternoon.... oh wait, that's just the jackass kid next door listening to terrible hip hop music with the bass knob cranked up all the way. I bet he didn't feel the quake either. When does school start up again?
But anyway, we continue to feel aftershocks all afternoon.... oh wait, that's just the jackass kid next door listening to terrible hip hop music with the bass knob cranked up all the way. I bet he didn't feel the quake either. When does school start up again?
19 August 2011
Our cable modem died sometime on Tuesday evening. Once RCN came out and confirmed that it was indeed the hardware and not a problem on their end, I headed out to secure a replacement modem. My internal compass originally pointed to Best Buy, but then I detoured to Walmart in Glenolden because it was a lot easier to get to. (I know, Walmart is horrible, non-union, sells stuff from China, blah blah blah.)
When I got to the store, they had exactly one kind of cable modem in stock - a Motorola Surfboard. This made the decision of which one to buy really easy, thankfully. And I'd actually researched this modem when I bought the first one 5 years ago, so we were good to go. I took it up to the cash register and that's when the story got funny/interesting for me.
So the lady at the checkout starts ringing me up and as she scans the modem, she looks at it with a puzzled look on her face. "I hope you don't mind me asking, but what do you use this for?" she asks. I hesitated a moment, fearing this was perhaps a trick question. "I'm uh... using it for my internet connection with RCN...," I said. Another puzzled look. Seeing my chance to enlighten the masses, I said, "You can buy your own modem to use with their service and then you don't have to pay the modem rental fee every month." "Oh," she replies, "I was gonna say, don't they give one to you? I didn't know you had to pay for it." Yes, dear, you're not the only one who doesn't look at your bill when it comes in. But, nay, I won't go there. I'm trying to be helpful. "Yeah, they charge you $5 a month to rent their modem. So if I buy this one for $60, in a year it will have paid for itself. And my last one lasted for 5 years, so you figure I saved $240 during that time." This information is met by a look of dawning comprehension. "I guess that does make sense. But $5 a month isn't too bad, though." And I quit.
I guess logic only works if it finds a willing host.
When I got to the store, they had exactly one kind of cable modem in stock - a Motorola Surfboard. This made the decision of which one to buy really easy, thankfully. And I'd actually researched this modem when I bought the first one 5 years ago, so we were good to go. I took it up to the cash register and that's when the story got funny/interesting for me.
So the lady at the checkout starts ringing me up and as she scans the modem, she looks at it with a puzzled look on her face. "I hope you don't mind me asking, but what do you use this for?" she asks. I hesitated a moment, fearing this was perhaps a trick question. "I'm uh... using it for my internet connection with RCN...," I said. Another puzzled look. Seeing my chance to enlighten the masses, I said, "You can buy your own modem to use with their service and then you don't have to pay the modem rental fee every month." "Oh," she replies, "I was gonna say, don't they give one to you? I didn't know you had to pay for it." Yes, dear, you're not the only one who doesn't look at your bill when it comes in. But, nay, I won't go there. I'm trying to be helpful. "Yeah, they charge you $5 a month to rent their modem. So if I buy this one for $60, in a year it will have paid for itself. And my last one lasted for 5 years, so you figure I saved $240 during that time." This information is met by a look of dawning comprehension. "I guess that does make sense. But $5 a month isn't too bad, though." And I quit.
I guess logic only works if it finds a willing host.
06 August 2011
So I watched this movie called "Paper Man" tonight on Netflix. Jeff Daniels, Lisa Kudrow, Emma Stone, Ryan Reynolds... with a cast like that, you'd probably anticipate a comedy. I did. But it wasn't, really. It turned out to be one of those sort of slow paced indie films that makes you think about life. It actually reminded me a little bit of "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind", to tell you the truth. And not just because they both take place (at times) in Montauk - even though they do. But I suppose that's neither here nor there. Anyway, here's my thoughts:
1) It's a shame that independent films don't get more recognition. Emma Stone was excellent in this picture. The sort of excellent that probably would have (or should have) warranted an Oscar nod, had someone at a big studio simply decided to produce this film instead of Sundance. And that's not to take anything away from Jeff Daniels, who was also outstanding.
2) What is it about Montauk? Is it really a magical place, or is it just that people are so enamored with New York city and this is just happens to be a pretty, nearby diversion from the hustle and bustle of city life? I bet it's probably one of those places that was really nice back in the day, when it was actually just a fishing village and not a quaint convenience for the city dwellers. I don't know if I'd like to go there in the summer time. Probably crawling with tourists. Maybe I'll have to take a trip in the winter and experience it when Joel and Richard both did.
3) I still want to get better at having actual friends. That's one of the strands of the plot in "Paper Man" - how these two characters interact with many people, but have real friendship with almost none of them. I can relate to that a lot of times. Maybe not to the extent that Richard and Abby do, but still.
4) I'm jealous of people who hug when they greet each other. To a certain extent, my height makes that difficult for me. (A lot of people don't know how to hug someone tall. You don't put your arm around their waist. That's just awkward.) But also there's just this standoffish side of me that I truthfully don't know the origins of. It's not like my parents never hugged me. Just kind of developed along the way in my teenaged years at some point. But yeah, I'd like to get better at hugging too, I suppose.
So there you have it. More deep thoughts spurred on by my friend Netflix. I haven't been missing cable much at all. Indie films are cool and I have much more exposure to them via Netflix than I ever did with television. That and BBC. Doctor Who and Torchwood? Oh man. That's another post for another day.
1) It's a shame that independent films don't get more recognition. Emma Stone was excellent in this picture. The sort of excellent that probably would have (or should have) warranted an Oscar nod, had someone at a big studio simply decided to produce this film instead of Sundance. And that's not to take anything away from Jeff Daniels, who was also outstanding.
2) What is it about Montauk? Is it really a magical place, or is it just that people are so enamored with New York city and this is just happens to be a pretty, nearby diversion from the hustle and bustle of city life? I bet it's probably one of those places that was really nice back in the day, when it was actually just a fishing village and not a quaint convenience for the city dwellers. I don't know if I'd like to go there in the summer time. Probably crawling with tourists. Maybe I'll have to take a trip in the winter and experience it when Joel and Richard both did.
3) I still want to get better at having actual friends. That's one of the strands of the plot in "Paper Man" - how these two characters interact with many people, but have real friendship with almost none of them. I can relate to that a lot of times. Maybe not to the extent that Richard and Abby do, but still.
4) I'm jealous of people who hug when they greet each other. To a certain extent, my height makes that difficult for me. (A lot of people don't know how to hug someone tall. You don't put your arm around their waist. That's just awkward.) But also there's just this standoffish side of me that I truthfully don't know the origins of. It's not like my parents never hugged me. Just kind of developed along the way in my teenaged years at some point. But yeah, I'd like to get better at hugging too, I suppose.
So there you have it. More deep thoughts spurred on by my friend Netflix. I haven't been missing cable much at all. Indie films are cool and I have much more exposure to them via Netflix than I ever did with television. That and BBC. Doctor Who and Torchwood? Oh man. That's another post for another day.
28 June 2011
Oh yeah, hello blog. I've forgotten all about you for the past month, it would seem.
The news of the day is that after months of threatening to do so, I finally pulled the trigger on cancelling our cable television today. This was due to several factors, not the least of which was the diminishing level of options accompanied by a rising cost on a nearly yearly basis.
So now we've got a good old fashioned antenna on the roof, Netflix streaming through the BluRay player for those times when network television doesn't have anything to offer and I'm currently working on hooking Melissa's old Mac Mini up to the TV downstairs so we can perhaps stream some of our favorite television programs from MTV & Bravo.
The best news about today's trigger pulling was that it wasn't nearly as messy as I'd anticipated. In the past, calls to RCN usually followed the same pattern:
1) Have my call answered by an outsourced calltaker somewhere in India.
2) Reach the point where one of us becomes really frustrated and get transferred to someone who's first language is English.
3) Reach the point where one of us becomes really frustrated and get transferred to someone who can actually affect any sort of account changes.
4) Threaten to switch to another ISP several times before finally getting the rate that's advertised on their website for "new customers only". (But is clearly something they're willing to accept for their services, so why should it only be for new customers and not for morons who've had their service for 8 years already.)
But today, the woman who answered the phone spoke English and actually knew where Philadelphia was - so we were already ahead of the game. She asked why I wanted to discontinue my cable TV and I told her that we just don't watch it enough to pay $50 a month for it and that we'd be using a rooftop antenna and Netflix in the future. The was no argument. Shocking. She asked if I'd looked into the pricing for internet service alone and I said I had - $39.99 for the first year, according to the RCN website. She said, "Yes, that's for new customers..." Oh great. Here is comes. But after a few (thousand) key strokes, she said, "Okay, it looks like in your area it's $39.99 a month for the accelerated internet service." Whaaa.... what?! That's it? Yup. She told me the address of a store where I could return my cable box to and that was that. No kidding.
So anyway, just wanted to give a big up to Charlotte for helping me to not have to be a jerk today. And here's to $50 more in the bank account each month that we can hopefully use to change the world instead of just rot our brains a little bit more.
The news of the day is that after months of threatening to do so, I finally pulled the trigger on cancelling our cable television today. This was due to several factors, not the least of which was the diminishing level of options accompanied by a rising cost on a nearly yearly basis.
So now we've got a good old fashioned antenna on the roof, Netflix streaming through the BluRay player for those times when network television doesn't have anything to offer and I'm currently working on hooking Melissa's old Mac Mini up to the TV downstairs so we can perhaps stream some of our favorite television programs from MTV & Bravo.
The best news about today's trigger pulling was that it wasn't nearly as messy as I'd anticipated. In the past, calls to RCN usually followed the same pattern:
1) Have my call answered by an outsourced calltaker somewhere in India.
2) Reach the point where one of us becomes really frustrated and get transferred to someone who's first language is English.
3) Reach the point where one of us becomes really frustrated and get transferred to someone who can actually affect any sort of account changes.
4) Threaten to switch to another ISP several times before finally getting the rate that's advertised on their website for "new customers only". (But is clearly something they're willing to accept for their services, so why should it only be for new customers and not for morons who've had their service for 8 years already.)
But today, the woman who answered the phone spoke English and actually knew where Philadelphia was - so we were already ahead of the game. She asked why I wanted to discontinue my cable TV and I told her that we just don't watch it enough to pay $50 a month for it and that we'd be using a rooftop antenna and Netflix in the future. The was no argument. Shocking. She asked if I'd looked into the pricing for internet service alone and I said I had - $39.99 for the first year, according to the RCN website. She said, "Yes, that's for new customers..." Oh great. Here is comes. But after a few (thousand) key strokes, she said, "Okay, it looks like in your area it's $39.99 a month for the accelerated internet service." Whaaa.... what?! That's it? Yup. She told me the address of a store where I could return my cable box to and that was that. No kidding.
So anyway, just wanted to give a big up to Charlotte for helping me to not have to be a jerk today. And here's to $50 more in the bank account each month that we can hopefully use to change the world instead of just rot our brains a little bit more.
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