Impact

Blogging has actually made me more private. I look at many of my earlier posts and realize that I used to be much more willing to share the private and more intimate moments of my life with the world at large, when I felt no one was reading or judging me. However, over time, I have learned that throwing all of that out there really is just not for me. The private and intimate things of my life now sit in a written journal in my apartment.

However, I have also found that I have become more private outside the world of blog. Many of the things I normally would have shared with my friends through a weekly email, now go unmentioned, as I do not send out the weekly emails anymore - what with my blogging and all. It is odd to me to think that these friends that normally would have known the status of my life no longer know it, and the reason that they don't know it is so that I can share the less intimate aspects of my life with the general public. However, I started this blog to be a journal - not to share my life with the general public. But the two go hand in hand. You cannot have one without the other - for better or worse.

Someone recently asked the following question to her readers: "What makes you keep on blogging?" As I read through the responses, I started really thinking about the question and I thought, Hell, I have no fucking idea. I blog out of habit. I blog because I have been doing it now for months and it's just become sort of a hobby. It gives me a reason to sit down and write about me and my life (but not all of my life). It gives me a chance to share random tidbits and thoughts with whomever feels like reading about them.

However, I see that my purpose in having a blog has morphed - mostly out of necessity. My blog is no longer a complete journal for me. It is now my forum, to spout off any meaningless drivel I happen to feel is worthy that particular day. It no longer is an effective means of keeping my friends informed on my life, as there are so many aspects of my life that I cannot share through blog. It truly is, more than anything, a hobby that I have kept out of habit - the same way I still catch myself looking at coins, on occasion, after having collected them during my childhood. It is a hobby and an exercise in writing. However, it does not exactly fulfill the goals that I initially began it for. For example, if I were to write an update on my Thanksgiving Holiday, so much would be omitted, as to completely obviate the entire reason to write about the holdiay in the first place.

Frustrating Yet Rewarding

The more I thought about this little news piece I stumbled upon at BoingBoing, the more I couldn't resist posting about it. It almost made me wish I had gone ahead and started my own IT business, almost as much as when I learned that our IT guy, who is probably no older than 21, drives a top of the line Lexus. All those years of studying law, wasted.

My weekend was rather frustrating on certain levels, and rewarding on others. The frustrating part was all Christmas shopping related. I went to about six card stores, and two malls looking for presents before I gave up and went home. Normally, holiday shopping is pretty easy for me and I come up with all sorts of great gift ideas for people. This year does not seem to be going so smoothly and is frustrating me quite a bit so far.

I did, however, take my cell phone in to be looked at, as the ear piece jack has not been working, and I hate talking on my cell phone in the car without my ear piece. It leads to far too many tense situations for everyone involved. In any event, the guy at the store totally hooked me up and I will be getting a new phone very soon for practically nothing - and no I didn't have to sign a contract.

In addition, I saw Harry Potter, started Pride & Prejudice, and got practically everything I need for making a great big Thanksgiving feast - including cranberries. Although, I refuse to brine my turkey, even though I think it would be delicious. It's just too damn hot down here to keep the brine cold long enough for it to take effect. I suppose I could try doing it in a garbage bag and shove the whole concoction in a great big cooler, but I simply am not prepared to unertake such an endeavor. Perhaps next year I will try it.

Road to Recovery

Last night marked the end to my first semester of teaching future paralegals. It was rather anti-climactic. I had finished the bulk of the material the night before in a makeup session that was a bit of a fiasco, for several reasons. To start with, the school never informed my class that we would be meeting in a different classroom. However, even if it had, the room that the school assigned me for the makeup class, belonged to another class. So we were forced to spend one half hour searching for a new classroom, and eventually making friends with a nice cleaning lady who opened one for us.

Last night was mostly just for me to handout their take-home finals, which they have through the 30th to complete. There was quite a bit of nervous energy - much like I am sure there will be at 12:01AM, tonight, when the mighty Harry Potter takes to the silver screen again. I believe I will have to postpone my seeing of the young Potter lad until this weekend, however. As I am to see it with my little brother at a special screening on Saturday morning.

The remainder of my weekend should be fairly dull. I hope to finish Fletch, Too so that I can begin Pride & Prejudice (incidentally, I saw this flick the other night and really liked it), get some shopping done, and get some rest and sun. I really got into reading the Fletch novels because of Kevin Smith. As some of you know, I have somewhat of a man-crush on Kevin. It's not really all that I suppose. I mean, I almost never check the guy's blog and I hardly know what the cat is doing anymore. However, I just think he's one of the coolest writers/directors/producers/actors out there. He always seems to be either turning out a new great film or helping up and coming actors or putting out a new comic or doing something cool. In any event, he is known for his ability to craft dialogue, and he attributes his ability for this to his reading of the Fletch novels. (At one point, his next film was to be based off of a Fletch book and Jason Lee was to play the leading role. Somewhere along the line, this idea died, as did his Green Hornet, I think.) When I learned this, I decided I should try reading a Fletch book or two, as I love good dialogue. I bought every novel in the series that received a 4 or 5 star review on Amazon. So far, I have yet to be disappointed. The books are just so much fun to read.

I bought Pride & Prejudice for several reasons, not the least of which is that you can now get literary classics for about $5. I think this is the coolest thing ever. I can go and buy some of the most loved classics of all time for less than the cost of a lunch. Instead of paying three times as much and trying my luck with some new up and coming author, whose book I may end up hating. After all, one needs something to read in-between David Sedaris novels.

The new decongestant and antihistamine the doctor has me on seems to be doing its job - both in drying out my sinuses, in a slow and steady process (I wish my ear would clear) and in making me rather dizzy (one of its listed side-effects).

My Medicated Weekend

There was one other side effect to me taking prednisone that I had forgotten until this weekend. It makes me really depressed. I could not figure out what the hell was happening until it suddenly occurred to me that the same thing happened when I took it in undergrad. Good times. However, it did probably assist me in managing to sleep no less than 20 hours on Saturday! I don't think I have ever slept that much in my life. Fortunately, my time with prednisone has now come to an end. Although, I still remain rather congested. Not to worry, though, my doctor just called and they are phoning in a prescription for me as we speak. Man being sick is expensive.

My weekend did afford me some waking hours to check out some current events. I personally get annoyed, and this could be the drugs talking, with all this back and forth now about whether certain Congressmen were duped into entering the Iraq war. I cannot help thinking as I listen to it all that I knew there were no weapons of mass destruction before we invaded. How could I possibly be smarter than all of our elected officials now crying foul?

As I recall, the proponents of the war actually began their campaign for battle with the argument that democracy must be brought to the Middle East. Clearly, there was a segment of the population that thought invading Iraq was important even before the idea that weapons of mass destruction may exist over there was advanced with any insistence. However, the initial arguments for invading Iraq did not play tremendously well with the media and did not seem to foster a tremendous amount of public support. Then is was "discovered" that these weapons of mass destruction were over there and we really needed to invade now. This argument seemed to do much better. Americans got scared. Colin Powell even said, and I paraphrase, If we don't get in there now, we are fucked. I just kept thinking, the same people that wanted to go to war in the first place are the same people telling me that there are weapons of mass destruction over there now.

My senseless ramblings are about as political as I get here. If you want real political action, you should go visit Thomas's Blog. It's much more politically enthusiastic.

Disturbing Knowledge

There are certain things that happen in my everyday life that disturb me on one level or another. For example, knowing people that work in the restaurant business who tell me what goes on in the kitchens, or knowing people that cheat on their significant others on a regular basis, especially when I am friends with both parties involved.

However, one of the things that bothers me perhaps the most is just how many people do not wash their hands after using the bathroom. I always feel weird when I leave the men's room and I see the guy that just left a bathroom stall without ever visiting the sink now using those same hands to caress his lover's face, run his fingers through her hair, shake my hand, pass me the salt shaker or a roll, etc. It is disturbing.

I never really thought there were people out there that didn't wash their hands after going to the bathroom. It just made sense to me that people would want to be clean. I mean forget the fact that you just touched yourself in some unmentionable places, and even if you were to assume that your body is somehow strikingly clean and does not sully your hands in the least, what else have you touched that day? Whose hands have you shaken? How much money have you handled that day?

Granted, there are many public restrooms where you just do not want to use their sinks, simply because your hands are likely going to be dirtier after the washing process is completed than before. However, those, to me, are the exceptions to the rule, and even then, there are ways around it - using elbows and paper towels to work the faucets and open the doors.

Compounding all of this is the dilemma of what do you tell the girls you know about the grooming habits of the men they interact with everyday. For example, when your friend says, "I really like him. He's such an amazing guy." You cannot really respond, "Yeah, and he just wiped his ass before he gave you that box of chocolates."

Pick Your Poison

I finally went to the doctor's today.

"I've been sick for a month."
With eyebrow raised, "A month?"
"Yup."
"We're going to have to treat this aggressively because you have had it for so long. It sounds like bronchitis, but may be pneumonia."
Suddenly I had three prescriptions and orders to have a chest x-ray if things don't improve in 4 days. Who needs alcohol when you have prescription medications?

I think another blogger stopped blogging this weekend. It was all rather sudden.

I think I did a little too much reading about the possibility of the bird flu disease breaking out. I figure if the mad cow doesn't get me, I'm bound to get taken out by a chicken. How sad, taken out by one of my favorite things - food. It's almost as bad as getting a debilitating STD. I suppose if you are a very lonely farmer, you could get both at once. Eww.

I am supposed to have at least three dates this week. I am not really looking forward to any of them, however. I just cannot seem to "get into it". I was happy with my last girlfriend and cannot seem to work up my enthusiasm with anything new. I'm too damn picky. I can't help it, though. If I ever lower my standards, I always end up sitting there for the entire night asking, "Why am I here?" and "Will she get mad if I leave?".

I am supposed to start taking prednisone tonight. I am not such a big fan of this medicine ever since I took it in undergrad and had the most miserable hallucinations. However, I would like my head to stop feeling like it's trapped underwater.

This post should probably have an ending, but I'm too medicated and sick to think of one at present.

Home Ownership in Florida

I heard an interesting theory being discussed the other day.

The weather service organizations seem to be telling us that we are in a period during which Florida, and the Southeastern United States, as a whole, will be frequently struck by major hurricanes. This period is predicted to last for approximately another 20 to 30 years.

If you look at real estate values in Florida, the values for property in Miami were very low about 25 years ago, after it had been struck by a series of storms. The bulk of real property appreciation and building in Florida has occurred during the last 25 years. As such, it is possible that mother nature will be the driving force to keep our real property values in Florida lower and more realistic. However, there is the potential that the two or three decades of storms could drive these values below market value, and make them a great investment opportunity. This is good news for young people in Florida who are hoping to one day own their own homes.

Unfortunately, the cost of insuring real property located in Florida now has become ridiculously expensive, and this is likely only going to get worse. In Florida, private insurance companies consider many coastal properties uninsurable. In response, the State created Citizens Property Insurance Corp. to cover wind damage on those high risk properties. Unfortunately, Citizens has its own issues. Its Chief Financial Officer was forced to resign in September over reports that he had been taking kickbacks and two other executives left after it was found that they had been conducting some shady transactions. Moreover, the company was already running a deficit of $516 million from last hurricane season. It was recently recommended that Citizens needs to increase there rates by 80 percent. Ouch.

So while a young person yearning to be a home owner may be able to one day afford the home of his dreams, he may not be able to afford the cost of insuring it.