Its All Good

The vote went our way in a landslide. All is well in the Nouveau world.

Vote Yes!

Remember that saying: A recession is when your neighbor gets laid off, a depression is when you do?

Tonight there is a union vote in the city and its outcome has bearing on whether my wife has a job tomorrow morning. A job she bleeds for. She works extra hours basically without complaint yet, in the end, employees are dispensable, aren't they?

So her union members vote tonight whether to give up 1/52 of their pay plus raises for two years. Yet they get 4 extra days off. If they vote against it, then 1/4 of the members will be let go in the morning. Rumor having it that my wife will be one of them.

Why her? Because she makes the most money in her particular department. That's how they're laying it out. Its silly thinking too, because a very high percentage (I forget how much, but it might be 70%) of her $63,000 is paid by grants that she obtains! So how much will the city save? And who will be as good as her at getting those funds in the future? Politics lacks so much reason sometime.

Furthermore, I recommended that she and some of the others in her position call as many members as possible in the hopes that they at the very least understand how little they have to give up to save these positions. Also, they needed to emphasize that somebody will be picking up the workload and these already over-taxed employees don't have enough hours to do so. They spent the better part of the day, yesterday, doing that. She felt a bit better after talking to the members, but then, some people tell you what they think you want to hear, but when that curtain closes, vote otherwise.

Get this: my wife is one of those who counts the votes! Isn't that crazy?

On our side, too, is many of the people on the chopping block are beloved by all; my wife included. These are individuals who work for more than a paycheck. They work for the benefits they're doing for the community as a whole. Hopefully, the likability of those rumored to be chopped plays to our favor as well. Certainly, it can't hurt.

We're basically a paycheck-to-paycheck type family and with another on the way, this could be daunting proposition if the vote doesn't go our way. We'll survive, of course, its my nature to battle through obstacles.

We're cautiously optimistic at this point. My creedo is to not worry until its time to worry. Am I concerned? Of course. There's always a significant number of selfish idiots who don't see the big picture and feel "we gave back last time! no more!". The firefighters union voted concessions down thinking the city was bluffing and wouldn't lay off firefighters. That would most definitely be bad P.R. for the city, I'm sure. But if the money isn't there.......

Anyway, think a good vibe our way. It can't hurt, can it?

Hot Dogs

In racking my head about what to write about for a blog, I came up with a summer job I had while in college.

I worked in a hot dog factory. Yep. Where they make hot dogs.

Guess what? I'll eat a hot dog in a second and not think twice about it.

There's a great many misnomers about what's actually in a hot dog. Stories of rats and hoofs and beaks are not at all true in my experience. While I didn't actually make the hot dogs myself since I worked maintenance, I did witness that while hot dogs aren't necessarily made from the best cuts of meat, it did not at all look disgusting or gross. The rest of what's in a hot dog are some filler, like a corn meal and spices. That's really it.

When first cooked (packaged hot dogs are not "raw" - they merely need reheating) they are very tasty and we were allowed to eat as many as we liked in a day, since they made like 100,000 each day.

There was a USDA inspector on the premises full time and the place shut down after lunch for about two hours of complete factory cleaning.

So, this 4th of July, when someone offers you a frank. Go for it. Tell them I said its okay.