Just a few ramblings

It has been awhile since I have written anything. This whole month has been one challenge after another and I wish it would slow down. Here's the news in my world:
- I am appliance challenged...appliancely challenged? Something like that. My dishwasher AND the washing machine are done broken! As my luck would have it, they bit the dust within 5 days of eachother. As my life would have it, I have no money and have had NO time to go look for another so clothes and dishes have been washed by hand. Being a pioneer must have really SUCKED! They had to add killing their own food to the mix though and that is the only difference.
- I have been having problems with my back and neck. Woke up a week ago in so much pain, I couldn't move. So being that I have been especially crabby because of that, I really haven't felt much like writing or talking to anyone.
- I have had one heck of a time with my job.. I LOVE MY JOB. I LOVE MY JOB. I LOVE MY JOB. Our main vendor did a software upgrade a month ago. For those who work in Telecom, you know what happens after a software upgrade more often than not. . NOTHING WORKS. Of course they called it an "Enhancement." We called it ..... a lot of words I really shouldn't write or say in polite company. We should just cover a box in aluminum foil, add some ball bearings and packing peanuts and ship those out. They'd probably work just as well. In reality, my inbox is OUT OF CONTROL with messages from our project managers telling me how critical it is we have the stuff by lets say...tomorrow.
The good news is, my house still has a nice stock of coffee and good beer.

On another note, How many of us are burned out on hearing about Hurricanes? Last year Florida had 3 of them and we just laughed at them. NewOrleans gets hit with one and well...it's because God hates Lousiana. Folks, I think He hates Florida worse. And after 7 days of hearing nothing on the news besides Hurricane Rita, it was sort of anticlimatic now that she has hit. I just don't want to see anymore anchor people standing out side in the huge storm, talking about how awful it MIGHT be IF the storm moves just a few miles East or West. Yup guys..it's raining. Yup..there is stuff flying around that could hit people. The winds are blowing at 100 mph. I think that flying debris would be par for the course. Rita came. She went. She did no more damage than any other hurricane that has ever hit the coast and guess what... there will be more next year. I do not mean to sound insensitive. I gave to the Hurricane Katrina disaster relief willingly. I think it is terrible what happened to those on the Gulf after the hurricane and my heart goes out to those who lost everything. I was, on the other hand, disgusted with the casting of blame of whose fault it was, the looting, the rapes, the pillages, the whining, the yelling and the screaming from the press calling for the Almighty's resignation for sending a catagory 4 hurricane to NEW ORLEANS! Don't you know folks, that it's totally OK for a catagory 4 to hit Miami, Biloxi, Gulfport, and Tampa. But it is totally UNACCEPTABLE for a catagory 4 to hit New Orleans. Don't you know that America NEEDS Mardi Gras? What would the Girls Gone WIld producers do without it!? Yep, the levee broke. Yes, the government gave LA a bunch of money to fix it after the infamous Hurricane Camille. Did LA use it to fix the Levee? NOPE.. They used it for another project. Did they have an emergency plan to evacuate the city? Yes, they did. Did they implement it? NOPE Did the state of Louisiana know that they were suceptible to Hurricanes for lets say the last 200 years? SURE. Did they do anything when threatened again? NOPE. Ray Nagin has egg on his face. Ray Nagin says...how do I save my butt. Ray Nagin blames FEMA, THe president, The governor and God. VOILA! The fact that FEMA was out there within a week and it is a government agency is a miracle! Have you ever sat in the Social Security office? It takes a month just to get through the line. IT took FEMA a month to react to Category 3 Hurricane Floyd under Mr. Clinton's watch. Good job, Bill! Did the hurricane hit while you were soiling Miz Lewinsky's dress? This is just my view point. Unpopular though it may be! Our media makes me crazy! They are the biggest bunch of mass hysteria perpetrators. I can't believe that everything going on down there in LA after Katrina was bad. What about the millions of dollars of donations, the response of the red cross, the rescues, the people that are down there volunteering their time to help them rebuild? Can't we hear about that? The real story isn't that an act of God happened. The real story is that we Americans ARE taking care of our own. We are sending money. Sending blankets. Opening up our houses to people that lost everything. I think it's a testament to our country, our people, our way of life. A failure of leadership occurred, no doubt about it. But since we are all human and make mistakes, the story is not that we fell but how we rise after the fall. I have no doubt that the Gulf will be rebuilt, Mardi Gras will bloom again, and everyone will pick up their life.