Mental Health is taking a hit with COVID

By no means am I a mental health expert, but I am a human being that, at times, struggles with my own brain.

For the most part, I think I've held up pretty well during this pandemic outbreak but with the resurgence and with people fairly close to me (not relatives, but living near our home) testing positive, the thoughts that "We're being surrounded" and "there's no escape, it's inevitable" IS taking its toll on my mental well-being.

For the last couple of nights, I have awoken from a nightmare of myself struggling to breathe.  It is frightening to say the least and I find myself drowsily checking to make sure I really can breathe and that my airway is clear.

In late March/start of April 2018, I was hospitalized with a double whack of pneumonia and an undetermined virus after traveling back from India via Dubai. It was scary. I could barely breathe, my legs had swollen up to enormous size as I was retaining all kinds of fluids and my immune system had been compromised.  

So, I know these feelings of which I dream and based on what folks are saying happens if you catch COVID and are high-risk, I am at risk for this happening if I catch it.

I rarely live my life in fear. It's not who I am. But the feeling of helplessness I had in 2018, of having to be in quarantine, keep distance from my family, including my 10 year old son at the time, was something that in NON-Pandemic times was something that could break a man.  Amplify that by the entire ICU wing of the hospital being overrun by cases like me and it escalates that feeling exponentially.

Even has COVID has been around, we are taking extra precautions but still not living like hermits.  We socialize at a distance, are very careful with who we let into our home and avoid all large events and traveling.

But as the Patriarch of this family, this shit is taking it's toll.  To the "fuck mask" people, why can't you just realize that this is how a decent majority of people feel? You can sit there and say it's no worse than the flu all you want but it IS worse than the flu. You have the right to be as free as you want but you cannot complain with businesses shutting down, schools going back to remote learning and restrictions being put in place all because your fee fees where hurt in the beginning and as a country we couldn't do what New Zealand did (and had to do again) to stamp this thing out.

But these seeds of distrust were sown at the highest levels of our Government. The same people who downplayed the severity of this are the same ones now attacking an election results that didn't fall their way.  If you're hitching your wagon to that train of idiots, well, when the "fuck your feelings" truck comes back around to run your ass over in the future, you can't complain.

History will show that the head idiot in charge right now truly was the worst ever. His inability to suck it up and deal with the truth and yet again, spin lies, falsehoods and misinformation have set back decent political discourse in this country for decades.  The genie is out of the bottle now, he's running rampant and fooling people. But hey, he tells it like it is, except that everything he tells is bold-faced lies.

A Hearty Welcome...not!!

I just want to say welcome to the 113th Congress.

My expectations for you are lower than whale sh*t on the bottom of the deep blue sea, so you don't have to do MUCH to jump over that bar.  Remember, I'm sure whatever decisions you make, it's all about how you position yourselves for the mid-term elections and NOT how it helps the rest of us working stiffs.

Meet the new boss; same as the old boss.

There is ONE exception and that is Senator Mark Kirk (R-IL) who returns today after suffering a devastating stroke that impacted his speech and motor skills.  After a year's worth of therapy and the spirit of a true American Military Veteran, he will climb the 46 stairs into the Capitol building on his own today.

One man who frequently works across the aisle for the people of Illinois and the country.  The rest of you lot should learn from him.

Free Pizza Tomorrow

So first, he's giving away 2,000,000 free pizzas via a NFL promotion, and now via a MLB promotion you can get 50% off his pizzas (from 12/21-28).

Tell me again how it's INSURANCE that is making the cost of Papa John pizzas going up $0.11-$0.14 in 2013?

Maybe stop giving away your damn product chucklehead.

Also, I would hope he's not stiffing his franchisees with the cost for these free and discounted pizzas under the guise of 'group marketing efforts'.

This Job Creator is one funny m'fer.....said no one ever.

Yes, I know he's since backed off his initial comments but he never denied that he said he'd raise prices.  I don't eat his stuff anyway.

You can't complain if you don't vote? Says who?

I really despise election season.  This year more than in the past, the fear-mongering rhetoric is at all time high.

Some call it racism in disguise but frankly, it's just a plain problem of the two-party system that the tone of negativism is now the only way you can pander to the extreme factions of your party.

But the most hilarious line I see during EVERY election is the old "you can't complain if you don't vote" bullsh!t.  And that's what it is, bullsh!t.

Let's see, where do I start? Um, okay, the 1st Amendment to the Constitution, which protects my freedom of speech by being an American.  It does NOT qualify that with "oh, ONLY if one votes".  Let's stop there since frankly, I don't need any other reasons.

So clearly, by our own Founding Father's wisdom, I CAN complain if I don't vote.  And let's not forget that when they wrote that piece of wisdom, women and minorities weren't considered eligible to vote and they only GOT that Right by what? Oh yeah, complaining when they didn't vote.

Get over it you blowhards, you're only saying this to justify your OWN knowledge that you're likely backing a losing candidate and therefore, by saying it, it lets you rail on for the next two or four years annoying all of your Facebook friends who don't give a sh!t about your politics.

Look in the mirror, will you, you idiots??

This is the thing that gets me about the political rhetoric each and every day and the extremes to which it's gone:

A well-known 'right winger' posted this about Benghazi "Who in the H do these tyrants think they are? Manufacturing a story about a scapegoat video then threatening to criminalize speech?"

It just strikes me funny in that a very valid response should be "the same type of tyrants who manufactured a story about WMD to start a war and who created Homeland Security which opened up the door for our own government to listen in on each and every conversation we have each day without just cause"

Both sides are wrong but neither see it and are only driven by their own extreme ideologies. Somewhere in the middle has to be the majority of us, no? I'm finding it hard each and every day to NOT believe that the true majority lies in the heart of the bell curve but just keeps getting ignored in favor of extreme talking points trying to drive agenda.

Has the banking industry learned?

Likely not, but I was presently surprised at the outcome of two calls to credit card companies yesterday.

In one case we were closing out a card we've had for many years, with a high credit limit, but one that carried a $60/year service fee.  We were prepared to be begged, beaten and fought the whole way but instead, the customer service rep gave us a solution to a problem we mentioned, gave it one try to keep us on and then listened to the customer and immediately closed the account.

In the other case, in a response to an email that offered 12 months interest free if making a purchase by May 31st, we made a large purchase.  2 months into the deal we received interest charges on the most recent statement.  Customer service rep looked at, said it made sense and immediately filed an internal claim to get things fixed.  Even when I offered to send the proof, she said that it likely wasn't needed and that this has happened before.  The only issue was that it could take up to 10 business days for the solution but yet, there was no arguing or repeating the "obvious" problem that happened (which is that the vendor billed our card each time they shipped part of the order versus billing it all when we made the purchase).

Maybe I'm punchy tired, but for a moment I thought that the Financial Industry is actually being thankful to the public for bailing them out and treating people they've extended credit to as human beings.

Who knows, we can only hope.

The next Airline bailout

The next time US-based Airlines ask for a bailout or for increased fees and tariffs, I think we need a little collective bargaining for the passengers.

So Congress passes the Passenger Bill of Rights, but ultimately that's window dressing on the core problems.

Running an airline supposedly means that you're expertise is logistics.  Logistics, in this case, of moving human beings and cargo around America and the world.  Supposedly.

Well, people, we're an ornery bunch and since we all have brains in our heads we can pretty much make sure that we're getting on the right flight and usually end up in the right place.  But our luggage, well, those poor bastards don't even have a brain.  They are helpless bug kill on the windshield of airline transportation.

As you can guess, my luggage has been lost on a relatively important trip to New York City.  I have no idea how one bag, checked in at the AA Premium Status desk at the 2nd busiest airport in the world (ORD) on a direct flight to LGA doesn't make it there.  In fact, all the bags made it except mine and another poor fella.


How can people who are supposedly masters of logistics be so poor at it?  How, in a day where someone's blow-up doll being shipped by FedEx or UPS can be scanned and tracked multiple times across this fine land of ours with almost GPS-like precision, do the airlines who make infinitely more money have no clue where my bag is after it was put on the treadmill at O'Hare?  They just don't give a rat's ass AND you have to pay for it (unless you have status, are flying business class or flying Southwest!)

I watched with amazement how, in almost Third Reich fashion, people were getting their carry-ons pulled out of line when boarding this afternoon.  In fact, even I thought a few of them were questionable.  But the airlines are forcing people to go this way.  Since a carry-on bag stays with it's owner (see above where I mention that we have brains and make sure we get from one place to another in spite of the airline) it too makes it to its destination and there's no careless behavior going on behind the doors we're not allowed in.

It's truly a catch-22 of travel.  Can't bring that huge carry-on that you know will make it there, so you have to check it where it'll get lost, so then you'll have to bring carry-on again.

What I can't fathom is that they put stickers on every piece of luggage that have bar codes and unique bag-tag numbers.  When I check out in ANY retail store nowadays, they have hand-held scanners that are wireless and they can scan the UPC codes on larger, awkward items in my cart.  There are numerous softwares that can be used to manage logistics.  How, in the millions of dollars they charge for flying can an airline not afford to put these all together?  If I had the wherewithal, I'd be banging on boardroom doors proposing a new system and charging a fair price for it.

Our government can detect whether or not I have 4 oz of shampoo in my carry-on but a big logistics company has no f*@&ing clue where a 38lb bag is??

Oh Wilbur and Orville, why have you cursed us so?  Flight was BORN in this country and the current US entities are doing everything they can to kill it a very slow, painful death.  Please note in the following graphic, there is not ONE instance of a bag going astray due to the customer/passenger.  And they want to know why everyone is cramming on their carry-ons?????

This is likely where my bag is, although I highly doubt US-based airlines would even know how to get above the Earth's atmosphere.

Everyone's gettin' paid but US!!

So I thought it a little odd that I got an email from ComEd the other day.  Sure, they have my email address as a customer but frankly they don't send out much email.

Imagine my shock when I read it and they were actually offering up help!!

Hey, that's mighty white of them especially at a time in our economy when most people haven't had a raise in two years and HELL a lot of people don't even have jobs.  I mean, some big corporation (Exelon) who has made profit over the last two years, looking to help us little folks out to ensure that instead of having to eat gruel, we can spend a little more to get those Fruit Loops we've wanted (well, new ones that weren't part of the recall, right?)

Here's a screenshot of their offer (click on it to make bigger):

The ComEd worker looks like a proctologist just waiting to ram that thing up your backside, eh?

Yep, we're seeing higher bills due to higher electricity usage to keep our homes cool.

Wait. What?  We're also seeing higher bills thanks to an increase in rates back in July, right?

So on top of their nifty stat that customers are using 12% more electricity than last year due to the massive heat waves, we're doing so at an 11% increase in rate.  To top that off, back at the end of June they also asked for an increase for 2011 of 7%

As my Junior High Spanish Teacher, Miss Asa used to say "Awww pobrecito".  You're being so generous to us while having your way...

Yeah, thanks, but no thanks

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