Staying in KC - The Best Option?

We'll wait a minute or so for my regular readers to pick themselves up off the ground after reading the title...

As I await what I hope will be a solid job offer to arrive this week, I decided to be proactive and explore living options.  I checked out both the shit PA city, where my new office would be located (I grew up there, so I know it's shit) and home (Richmond, VA).  Because I would want to relocate to Richmond, regardless, I would only lease a house in PA.  Richmond could be a lease or potentially a purchase out of the gate.  Long story short, the housing situation is fucked, which I somewhat expected, considering the boom that's going on at the moment.  

Because of said boom, I've ruled out buying a home in either location.  It would piss me off to spend a bunch of money on a house, only to see it lose 15% of its value, once things even out again.  Besides, the only things on the market are overpriced new construction.  On the rental side of things, there are literally no options that meet my criteria at any price within 45 minutes of my potential new office, in PA.  At 46 minutes out, there's a 5,500+ sq ft house for rent at $3,250.  Both are a bit above my threshold.  Hell, I'd get lost in that place!

Richmond is slightly better, in terms of rental options, but not great.  There are slightly better purchase options, but damn, if those prices haven't jumped since I last went house shopping in the area.

Much as it kills me to say, I think it's in my best interest to stay put in KC, where I've got a reasonable lease, and ride things out.  This might make for a difficult conversation with my new employer, but unless they want to offer me an even beefier signing bonus, they can't force me to move somewhere there ain't a place to move into.  Don't get me wrong, I'll still hate this flat hell hole, but I'll at least have a solid exit strategy.

Scientists and Dating Sites

Because my life doesn't contain sufficient trauma, I continue the on again, off again, dating thing, although to a lesser extent, knowing I'll be moving in the near future.  In any case, I've discovered another trend I think is worth reporting on.  I've only encountered this one on Plenty of Fish and it's a head scratcher.  Over the course of the past few weeks, I've noticed a number of women listing their occupation as cosmologist.  For those who may not be clear on what a cosmologist does (I was a bit vague, myself), they're scientists that study the universe; how it formed, how it's changed, and what exists within it.  What's odd is none of them have advanced degrees and all have pictures with their faces with impeccable makeup.

Yep, there are a bunch of women cosmetologists who can't even spell what they do for a living.

Millions of People Believe The Election Was Stolen

Over the past few months, we've all heard this over and over from right wing dipshit members of Congress and state governors.  The statement is invariably used as justification for increasing the security of our election process.  Of course their definition is to make the process more secure from those pesky people of color and other left leaning types.   The dipshits are no longer claiming the election had actually been stolen, because anyone with half a brain would vilify them for being morons and/or liars.  The cry is that millions of people believe it was.  

What makes my head hurt is how they're claiming action is required because millions of people believe something happened that didn't happen at all.  If the election was stolen from the Cheeto Faced Shit Gibbon, why didn't the Dems steal any state legislatures and flip them?   If you're defrauding the poor Liar in Chief out of his office, why not go big?  Also, why don't you tell them it didn't happen, moron?   You know...the truth???  Fuck you, logic and reason.  But I digress.

Rather than cause my readers and myself to have an aneurism by further discussing the moronic talking points, I want to provide some context with respect to the number of people who believe the lie, versus other not real things Americans believe in.  All of the numbers below are from one or more legitimate studies, based upon responses by American adults.  Let's see if there are any other misconceptions that require a more urgent response.  

Our baseline:  30-50 million Republicans believe the outcome of the Presidential election was due to fraud, depending on your source and day of the week.  

Again, what about others who aren't that bright?  We need to address their concerns in a far more urgent matter versus our baseline group.*

- 114 million people (44%) aren't confident vaccines don't cause autism

- 85 million (33%) Americans are unable to identify a right protected in the first amendment to the Constitution.  A similar amount were unable to name either of the three branches of the US government.  If a third of Americans don't know jack about the Constitution, how the fuck would they know if an election had been stolen?

- 65 million (25%) believe the sun revolves around the earth. 

- 52 million (20%) don't know hamburgers are made from beef.

Other groups that are smaller, but more disconcerting, should be addressed as well.

- 18 million (7%) think that chocolate milk comes from brown cows.  

- 12 million (5%) believe a master race of interstellar lizard people secretly run the US.  Offers a good rationale for not learning the Constitution, I guess.

There are a lot of Americans impacted by these various concerns, for much longer than the dumb MAGA heads have been impacted by their most recent stupidity.  What about them?  More people don't know that hamburgers are made from beef than believe the election was stolen!  What about the children??

If you're looking for some kernel of wisdom in this entry, I'm afraid you'll be disappointed.  However, I will offer my own conclusion from the above data, which is Americans are fucking dumbasses who deserve to be ruled by the lizard people.

*Numbers based upon basis of 258 million adults in the US.

Dating Expectations - Nebraska Edition

 Surfing through my phone, while waiting for my mother at a doctor's appointment yesterday, I found myself on the dating app that reminds you of the material you'd use to start a fire.  One of the profiles I encountered of a woman, who lived in Omaha, Nebraska.  She must have been in KC today, to pop up, but that's neither here nor there.  Her photos were mostly of her dressed up for one event or another, with no casual attire present.  A few years ago, she would have made DPOW for her profile consisting solely of what she didn't want in a man, but the true reason for my taking note is what those deal breakers were.  She stated emphatically that she didn't like hunting and asked what I assume to be the rhetorical question of why so many men posted pictures with fish they caught.  Here profile is here.

I literally chuckled when I read that bit.  

I'm offering what I think is a well-reasoned rebuttal to her requirements:  You wannabe socialite of the flatlands!!!   You fucking live in Nebraska and take issue with outdoorsmen???  Fuck, half the women there have their own photos of fish they caught on their profiles.  If you want a trove of sophisticated and urbane gentleman, MOVE!!!

Now, get off of my lawn...

An aardvark's tongue can grow up to 12 inches (30.5 cm) long.  No, I don't have their number.

I Was a Threat and Had to Go

We've all heard someone make such a claim to legitimize getting whacked from a job.  It's typically those you know to be incompetent who make it, so no one takes it seriously.  However, in my case, it's true.  Below is my story.  

It started out as the best thing that happened in my career.  I was an actual executive with a VP title and everything.  All of North American sales and marketing reported to me.  The company was privately held, based in Switzerland, but mostly run by Germans.  I was the first American to run the business in over a decade as was my boss, the president of North America.  

Unfortunately, I quickly realized my boss was in way over his head.  He'd never actually managed anyone before and his previous role was as an application engineer.  The controller and I agreed we'd mentor the president; we were confident he'd rise to the occasion.  Except, not only did he not rise, he withdrew and became more resentful toward me as time went by.  

When I started, he told me he would be in the office from 9 a.m. until 3 p.m. as he was responsible for the logistics for his offspring at school.  He'd be working from home and available on his mobile outside that window.  Except not only did he keep that same schedule year round, he was completely dark, when not in the office.  And that's when he decided to come in at all.  On the full days he worked from home, he was not only unreachable, but occasionally posted golf scores on his FB page (according to those who were friends with him).  There were periods of time where no one knew where he was or could get in touch with him.  One of those was when a board member from Switzerland popped by.  'We were in the same meetings, how could he just disappear?'

The man refused to make a decision on anything.  The most jaw dropping example was at a baseball game.  We'd booked sky boxes for the entire staff, complete with catering.  Sometime around the 6th inning, a hostess popped by to ask Jason if we were about done eating or would we like a final food restock.  My girlfriend and I were sitting behind Jason and were both stunned when he literally began to stammer, finally spitting out 'uh...go ask our controller'.  That's how paralyzed he was.  

Another perfect example of his complete lack of ownership was the day our office was in the path of a complete nightmare of a storm.  Hail, wind, torrential rain.  It was so bad, I grabbed my team and hustled them to the safest place in the building I could think of.  No surprise that we lost power.  That shouldn't have been a problem because our building had a generator.  But it wouldn't start because Jason hadn't signed the maintenance agreement.  So there we were; about 20 people dead in the water without power.  After it was clear that situation wouldn't be remedied any time soon, I headed over to Jason's office to huddle up on next steps.  I planned to let my own people go home, but he owned the operations side.  I wanted us to be aligned on our actions.  When I reached his door, he was in front of it, his cute little backpack on his shoulders, locking it up.  When I asked what he was doing, he said 'I'm goin' home.'   I stood there dumbfounded as he walked away, his people stuck in the dead building because he hadn't given them permission to leave.  I turned on my heel and went around, sending everyone home.  The most telling aspect of the story came the next morning, when the warehouse manager called my cell to inform me the power was still off and that they needed direction.  Despite being completely useless, I always deferred to Jason on operations issues and responded to the warehouse manager that Jason would have to make that call.  She interupted me mid sentence to say she'd already tried him and it went right to voicemail.  Then, she said something to the effect of 'you and I both know Jason's MIA and couldn't make a decision even if she could reach him.  Wow.

Because of his paralysis, I became the de facto leader of North America.  And I worked my ass off for my team; 60 hour weeks were the norm.  I quickly garnered their respect by being decisive and having a vision for the future (and communicating it).  There were literally occasions where a customer service person would stop at my door and say 'I'm so excited for the direction you're taking us'.  I shit you not.  

It was quite the downward spiral.  Jason could see he'd lost the team's respect, whereas I'd gained it.  His resentment toward me grew stronger by the day, as he saw me being who the team looked to.  He'd occasionally try to force me to kiss the ring, by berating me for doing something he didn't like, but would come up empty when I'd ask how I should have handled it.  We were spending too much money on promotion, but I caught hell for planning to skip some expensive trade shows, where we didn't have anything new to promote anyway.  There are those who would suggest he was afraid of me.  Those episodes became more and more common, until they reached a breaking point.  I remember telling him 'you want to be a leader, then you have to lead!!!'

Shortly after, there was some sort of upcoming celebration planned, with both the Swiss owner and the CEO coming in to participate.  I had solid relationships with both.  Things with Jason had gotten to the point where it was time for all of his laundry to come out.  It was time for a coup.  Obviously, I kept that to myself, but Jason would have had to be brain dead to not realize I had reached my limit and would serve up a mound of dirt on him.  I suspect there were also things he caved on to the Germans that he was afraid to tell me, so he was afraid of what I'd say about that to the Swiss.  

That's when Jason actually grew a pair of balls and made a decision (to save himself).  He lobbed a note to the aforementioned owner and CEO stating I had to be dismissed with utmost urgency.  This note also outlined my various, and completely fictitious transgressions, to support his decision.  Because the Swiss are scum bags (I've got a dozen data points on that one), they let him do it.  I know these things because the owner and his wife invited me to dinner with them, the next time they were in town and shared the whole thing.  Hans said it came out of the blue.  I remember looking him in the eye and asking, 'didn't you think the timing was a bit odd, Hans?  He absolutely had to get rid of me right before you and Walter came over.'  Blank stare.  With Hans being Swiss, it was dropped there.  

Returning to when I was shown the door, Jason waited until a day I was working from home to inform me.  Some might say he was too afraid to do it face to face.  I was told I was done, that someone would be by to collect company property, and that I would be arrested if found on the company property.  Then came the crown jewel.  Jason went around to the members of my team I was closest to and informed them they were to have no communication with me and doing so would be grounds for termination.  What would lead the president of a company to put illegal conditions on employment for select individuals? 

In the years since, the owner recognized he was in over his head (we was a young guy and his grandfather was the founder) and hired a professional management team.  I'm sure the new CEO took a all of two minutes to see Jason for what he was, although it took a year before Jason was demoted back to engineering manager, having led the North American operation to double digit losses in the interim.  

Info about the company and Jason here.

Canine Contrition - It Does Exist

 So-called dog experts have long since held the position that dogs are in capable of feeling guilt or remorse for doing something naughty.  

This position was confirmed as recently as January of this year, by the AKC.  The stance is and has been that when dogs demonstrate body language typically associated with shame or contrition, it's the result of them cuing in on their owners, who are upset over whatever transgression they committed.  Owner discovers shredded pillow, owner gets upset (even to a small degree), dog knows owner is unhappy about dog's behavior, dog offers contrite body language.  While I agree that's the most typical scenario, it's not always the case.  

I've called bullshit on this 'expert opinion' for years, particularly after a situation with a previous dog.  Today, I received another data point and call the so-called experts out as morons.  

Here's a quick review of my experiences.  The first was with my border collie, Isabel, who could recite Pi to 112 places and drive a car.  Don't call me a liar; she could dammit.  Anyway, when we first rescued her, she suffered from frequent urinary tract infections and would have occasional accidents in the house.  My first data point is from one such accident.  I was working from home, one day.  Isabel was sleeping just outside my office, but not where I could see her.  We were alone in the house.  From nowhere, she quickly walked into my office and glued herself to my side, her body language screaming 'I love you, Daddy!'.  Being Daddy's girl, it wasn't unusual for her to show the most affection to me, but this was over the top.  I suspected something was up and went to investigate, finding she'd had an accident.  Her body language couldn't have been a response to my reaction to her accident, because I wasn't yet aware of it.

Today, my dog Sadie offered very similar behavior, but I couldn't figure out why.  That is until I got a good look at her.  For the second time, she'd decided to roll around in her own shit.  Somehow, that I'd missed that little tidbit when she came into the house.  Still, she knew what she'd done was being a bad doggie, from the previous time she pulled that move, hence the contrition.  Again, body language of contrition offered before I was aware of her transgression.

In both cases, it was clear to the dogs that the behaviors were unwelcome, from reactions to their previous occurrences.  Be clear that neither were punished; that's a dumb way to modify a dog's behavior.  But there were cues that the dogs picked up on.  For example, Sadie got tossed right into a bath.  When they repeated the behavior, they knew they did something that didn't make their owner happy.

These were completely different dogs, with dissimilar demeanors.  While Isabel was insanely smart and loved her Daddy, but had some behavioral challenges, relative to strangers and was afraid of containers.  Sadie is a complete saint and the most even tempered, loving dog I've ever had, but she's not the sharpest knife in the drawer.  

In conclusion, the experts don't know what the fuck they're talking about.

Additional source material here.

Gratuitous doggie pictures below.

Isabel

Sadie

When Guns Aren't Such a Good Idea

 Despite our relationships being destroyed by manipulation from their borderline mother, I still feel some emotional attachment to my former step kids (see previous post Down in Flames II).  Rather than subjecting myself to the ultimate vulnerability of reaching out to them, I sort of keep an eye from afar.  In today's society, that means occasionally popping by their social media accounts.

The one of note today comes from my former stepdaughter, who posted to see if anyone knew someone who could sponsor her for membership in a gun club, back in Pennsylvania (where I lived until separating from her mother).  My initial thought was that I could drop a quick email to one of my old shooting compatriots and get her sponsored into the club to which I previously belonged.  The idea of helping her brought a bit of joy, for the brief moment until I realized how much of a mistake that would be.  If you've read the Down in Flames entry, you know that my dawter has become a borderline, just like her mudda.  Those who are unable to regulate their emotions and occasionally wander into sociopathic waters probably aren't what I would consider responsible gun owners.

So, I remained silent and silently wished her well.