Jim Rittenhouse's semidaily journal of news, commentary and reports
We’re facing a foot of snow or better in the next 24 hours, and the phone and internet are *already* up and down like a windowblind today. Highly annoying. Comcast says it’s weather-related failures – which makes me worry about what we’ll do if we get first snowed in and then frozen with sub-zero temperatures! [...]
The Federal Protective Service, tasked to provide security to US government office buildings (like the one that Susan and I work out of in downtown Chicago) is in trouble; the Government Accountability Office ran teams through and past the security at several such buildings, bringing in bomb materials. Numerous US government web sites were downed [...]
Work has been incredibly busy recently; I have several big projects going on in fits and starts. Lots of hurry-up, and then lots of fiddly bits and back and forth and someone asks *so why isn’t this completed* without a true understanding of what’s involved.
Today’s been a horrendously busy day from several accounts; Wednesdays usually involve a lot of telephone conference calls with work – it’s the one day of the week that *everyone* is in the office. So the morning, at least, is soaked with these calls, and I pray that they’re over with before my office phone’s [...]
…being all slick and clever and having all of your data and work up on the web is pretty damn useless when your all-in-one cable, phone and internet all go down for the bulk of the day. Aaaaaaargh. And now, to bed.
Yep, I’m still the brightly-shining bulb in this outfit; Mere’s down for a second day and probably a third for this week with a fever that percolates between 101-103, and both she and Susan are coughing like mad. Work-work and home-work have me totally wrapped up in a bow. There’s a big project at work [...]
So, yeah, I check out my hits on the Memnison site now and again; I’m sure that the LJ version (which is virtually identical) has a gazillion times the traffic and commentary, but I can’t figure out where the log reports are (IF they’re available at all) on LJ for what’s getting looked at. So [...]
The whole energy-efficient mortgage stuff is done and in the hands of the lenders. I expect to hear from them early next week. Some last minute changes had to be done with the proposal because at the last, certain things didn’t have enough bang-for-the-buck and had to replaced with others. The fallout: storm/screen doors for [...]
Took today *off* from work – er, the paying work I do versus the obligations I have at home. The latter took up the rest of the time. Susan: finished a project of graphic stuff that was held up for her aunt, which had her digging into Photoshop and working up a special deal for [...]
After a while, especially if you don’t phone-text-message all the time, there’s not much to say of any significant value. I already spend too much time on the computer as it is, and I liked the APA format because it gave you more time to think about what to write. And even with political stuff, [...]
Work has revved up to Maximum Overdrive, especially today, while I’m three-feet-deep in the throes of bills and paperwork to the max with the refinance, medical stuff, setting up window appointments, and keeping a lot of balls in the air at one time on finances, etc. The TO DO list for home and work have [...]
The magazine / publishing industry is badly hurt. New web site: Magazine Death Pool, listing Magazines That Have Gone Under. Electronic Gaming Monthly, Country Home, Plenty, Wondertime and so on. Their lede is that magazines are becoming a luxury if the Internet / Web is available. Mad Magazine is going monthly -> quarterly. Diamond Distributing [...]
Nice new website you got there: The new whitehouse.gov —
I mentioned that Mere came down with Strep Throat on Thursday night; Friday day, Susan was getting sicker and sicker. Both got last-minute-end-of-the-day runs to the doctors, and are now heavily medicated. Mere is starting to perk up, and is feeling much better as of last night, and wants to go to roller-skating practive this [...]
This is to note that I’m taking a major break from the political posting and so on. Mostly, it’s a matter of either real or percieved time, due to Fafiation. (Right now, It’s 5:45 am, and my back is still killing me from sleeping on it wrong last night.) I have a blue ton of [...]