BloggingDangerously

STOP CISPA

I'm back from vacation - and, more importantly, back from a bout of exhaustion that had me putting blogging at the bottom of my list for at least a week.

I was already to come back and tell you about my vacation and how we drove 16 hours to North Carolina and about how I was a basket case during the Boston bombing nightmare because if we weren't in North Carolina I would have made my family go to the marathon because I LOVE it.

But then the US House of Representatives passed CISPA and I realized it was more important to spend today asking you to call your Senators and ask them NOT to pass it.

You can read more about CISPA here but basically it would make it legal for internet companies to share all of your private information with the National Security Agency - WITHOUT A WARRANT.

It also prevents companies from making legally binding agreements not to share customer data.

So if Twitter says, "We won't share your data with the NSA." and then you tweet something that the NSA decides it doesn't like, the NSA can go to Twitter and ASK for all of your personal information as well as a record of everything you've EVER tweeted and Twitter can give it to them.

The NSA does not need a warrant and you have no recourse to sue Twitter because they were in violation of the agreement.

Theoretically Twitter could refuse to share the information but we've seen companies like Google cave to government pressure in places like China to protect their profits.

I will be back to blogging tomorrow.  Today, I'd like you to spend the next 5 minutes calling your Senator and letting them know that YOU are watching THEM.

Boston You're My Home...

I haven't posted in a few days because life got in the way.  First it was family, then it was work, then it was family again - with a little bit of emotional exhaustion thrown in for good measure.

Then we picked the kids up from school on Friday and hit the open road for North Carolina - which, frankly was better in theory than it has been in reality.  It's been a good vacation with lots of sleep, some exploration and hopefully, tomorrow, some sun.

I think we've determined that Wilmington, NC will not be our new home.  It's fabulous here but we haven't fallen in love.

And yesterday's events in Boston have me itching to get home.  I'm sorry that I wasn't there today to do something.

My family and I and everyone we know are ok.

We will be headed home in a day or so and I'll be back to posting.

 

Strangers

I'm not going to lie.  There are times when I think about giving you up.  Of deleting this blog and going back to watching TV after the kids are in bed rather than retiring to my office with my computer - and you.

But then I think about Alena and Jen and Morgan and Ryan and Day and the other Jen and I realize that I've met so many AMAZING, LIFE CHANGING people through this blog - and I think about the other amazing people out there that I won't get to meet if I give it up.  

So I blog on.

But it's hard.

I jump out of bed with the alarm clock every day and hustle the kids off to school.  I race to my desk and work and when I have a minute I race down to snuggle my daughter before she goes to kindergarten.  Then I race to finish my work before dinner.  Then it's dinner and bathtime and bed.

And when the kids are in bed and it's 9 o'clock and I'm WASTED - that's when I dig deep to find the energy to blog for you.  

Because I dont have the time for this - or the energy - or sometimes not the inclination - but I dont want to give you up.  Not the friendships that I've made or the ones I haven't made yet.

 

You've Got To Know When To Hold 'Em

A few months ago it occurred to me that I LOVE to play cards and I don't do anywhere near enough of it - so I resolved to play more.

I mentioned it to my friend - "I used to play a ton of whist." I told her.

"Oh my God," she said, "ME TOO!"

So we decided to get our husbands together and play.

And we did.  The four of us played while the kids watched a movie and it was great.

I started playing whist on my phone.  It was fun.

Then my husband started playing poker and I thought, "Hm, that may be a more useful life skill than an obscure British card game."  This was roughly around the time winter REALLY came to Boston and it snowed - a lot.  That put a damper on my running outside so I grabbed my ipad and hit the elliptical and started playing VIP Poker.  I got killed.  Luckily it was fake money.

I started getting better. Well, at least I learned that a full house beats a flush.

And never draw on an inside straight.  

Whatever that means.

A few weeks ago we invited our friends over to play cards again but they couldn't make it because they were going out of town so we invited a different couple.  We didn't really say what game we were going to play but they showed up with a professional poker case with fancy colored chips.

Poker it is!

Their kids played with our kids while we figured out how to play poker.  The husbands both fancied themselves experts, I was more realistic, the other wife had never played before in her life.

We had a great time.  They didn't go home until 11.  The kids had a great time.  It was a perfect suburban night.

The next day my husband and I were playing cards.  He looked at the back of the cards and said, "If I ever got a tattoo it would be of the bicycle playing card logo."

Then he saw an insert in the deck that advertised clothing with the bicycle logo.   We pulled up the site and saw George Clooney wearing the t-shirt.  The designs were great.

I contacted JacksandJokers.com and asked them if they would be interested in letting me review a couple of shirts so they sent a shirt for me and for my husband.

I got this shirt and I have to say it's the softest tshirt I have ever owned.  It fits great and is beautiful.

My husband got this one:

It has the Bicycle logo on the back.  That's a much better option than a tattoo and much less expensive.  It's also so soft that I LOVE snuggling up against it.

These shirts aren't inexpensive but they're incredibly high quality, soft as can be and have a great design.

If you're interested in Poker and like soft tshirts you can wear to the club or wear to bed I can't recommend them more.

And if you're looking for a GREAT inexpensive way to socialize more and meet more people, start asking everyone you know if they play cards.  This weekend we went back to the home of the couple we played poker with.  The wife is now a pretty solid poker player and they invited a third couple.  Neither of them had played much poker before but by the end of the night they were both excited to play again.

Note: We don't play for money - just for fun - so the whole night cost us $20; $5 for the appetizer that I brought and $15 for beer.  

I wrote a post a while back about how hard it was to make friends when you get older.  Then I realized that it was because I wasn't really trying.  Since I've started inviting people over for poker I've realized that most people are excited to be invited - they're not doing cool things on the weekend - they're doing the same nothing I'm doing and wishing they weren't.  

And that cool couple you'd like to spend more time with?  They'd like to spend more time with you - and they have cool friends.

Lucky Day

Thank you to everyone who commented on my last post. I appreciated the thoughtfulness of the comments.

The school didn't respond directly to my email but the gym teacher told my son that he "got my email and it was fine."

Wow, that's sort of anticlimactic.

;)

I don't know why I didn't post yesterday. I've been trying to be better about posting every day.

Actually I do know why I didn't. It's because I thought I did but I was wrong.

Oops.

Anyway, I wanted to tell you about my Thursday because it was fantastic (and I'm hoping it gets more fantastic still.)

It started out not so fantastic in that I had to get up at 6am - I know that this is a typical wake up time for many of you  but it's early for me.

I showered and dressed and snuck out of my house into the driving sleet at 7am.  I had an interview!  I'm not ACTIVELY looking for a job but a headhunter called me and practically BEGGED me to take the interview and I figured, "What the heck!"

The weather was abyssmal but traffic moved steadily and I had allowed 2 full hours for the commute.  I even had enough time to get gas.  And yes, I SPLURGED on full serve because the 30mph winds were blowing the sleet horizontally.

It took me a leisurely 90 minutes to get to the appointment and I listened to music in the car while I waited.

The interview went great.  The person I interviewed with was very nice and I already received feedback from the headhunter that they want me to come in for a second interview. WHOO!

I got out of the interview in plenty of time to make it to Boston for my next appointment - at the courthouse!  I was hoping to appeal a speeding ticket that I got last month.  The last ticket I got was 15 years ago - or more.  I appealed it and they threw it out.  In Massachusetts it's not the fine that gets you - it's the insurance surcharge - so I was hoping for a repeat performance today.

Of course when you appeal a ticket you aren't really arguing that you weren't speeding.  It's hard to argue with LIDAR.  All you can do is throw yourself on the mercy of the magistrate.

And if you're ever in this position I have a few words for you:

1) DRESS UP.  You do not want people in the lobby of the courthouse proactively giving you directions to CRIMINAL COURT.  There were people in the room wearing ripped clothing and with their jeans hanging down their ass and their boxers hanging out.  

2) APOLOGIZE.  You messed up.  Admit it.

3) PROMISE NOT TO DO IT AGAIN.  Really, this should be pretty obvious right?

The woman before me was fined for talking on the phone and texting while driving.  How do you even talk and text at the same time?  Then she made up some elaborate story about how she wasn't actually doing that.  If Massachusetts State Troopers could laugh I'm pretty sure he would have before he stamped her appeal with a huge DENIED stamp.

Then it was my turn.  I walked to the front of the room, sat in the chair and said, "I'm sorry.  I was stuck in stop and go traffic for two hours and when I hit the exit ramp I accelerated.  The trooper was at the bottom of the hill and he pulled me over.  I haven't had a ticket in over 12 years - since my first child was born.  I'm sorry and it won't happen again."

"Ok miss," he said. "We'll give you the benefit of the doubt this time."  And with that I saved about $3500.  *phew*

I texted my husband, "It's my lucky day!"

From the courthouse I raced to Tiffany's.  I have a necklace that I got 12 years ago and it broke so  I wanted to drop it off to have it repaired.  Tiffany's - as you might imagine - is in a fancy mall in Copley Place and parking is non-existent.  I pulled into the valet area of a local hotel to find a big "VALET FULL" sign.  "UGH."

I said to the valet, "I'm just running in for 15 minutes." 

"No problem." he told me.  "Leave your car right here."

I ran to the store.  Honestly, I was expecting the repair to be expensive but it was only $25.  I'm sure I would have paid that for a lousy repair at my local jewelry store.  

I ran back to my car.

I handed the valet my credit card.  "We don't take credit cards." he told me.  "But that's okay." he said, "You were only gone a couple minutes."

I handed him a $20 and asked for $15 back.  In retrospect I should have probably tipped him the whole $20 because I would have paid that much to park but honestly I wasn't thinking.

I called my husband from the highway to tell him how well my day was going.  "Buy a lottery ticket." he said.  "I should." I answered.

40 minutes later I pulled into the parking lot of my local grocery store to buy comfort food for dinner because the driving sleet had changed to howling wind and was coming down hard.  There's a good chance we'll lose power tonight.

I threw steaks, mushrooms, potatos, asparagus and rolls into my cart and headed toward the checkout.  I got in line behind a woman with 5000 items and resigned myself to a bit of a wait.

"Excuse me." someone said.  I turned.  "I'm opening up on register 3." the kind woman said.  A minute later I was on my way.

"Oh snap!" I thought.  I DID want to buy a lottery ticket but I'd left my purse in the car (with the $15 cash) and had only brought my debit card into the store.  Oh well, I needed more cash anyway.  I grabbed $100 from the ATM and headed toward customer service.

Confession: Despite the way this post sounds, I'm not a huge lottery fan.  A friend once told me that the lottery was a tax on dumb people (who don't realize how bad the odds are) and I agreed with him when I was young and single and making more money than I needed.  Now I think of the lottery as entertainment and the $2 cost of the ticket gives me permission to dream anything I like.  That's a much better ROI than a movie.

Still, since my kids have gotten a bit older my husband has taken on more of the grocery shopping and I dont buy many tickets any more so I had no idea what drawing was tonight.

"Give me two powerball and two megamillions" I told the woman.  She did.

"Which one is tonight?" I asked her.

"Neither." she told me.

"Well what drawing is tonight?" I asked her.

"Lucky for Life" she told me.

I'd never heard of it.  "I've never heard of it." I told her.

"It's new." she told me.

Hm.  If I was buying a ticket because it was my lucky day, "Lucky for Life" seemed like the right ticket to buy.

"Give me two." I told her.

I handed the woman one of my 20s and got $10 in change.

I carried my steaks and my hopes out to the car.

Suddenly I noticed something fall out of the corner of my eye.  It was my $80!  I'd stuffed it in my coat pocket and the whipping wind had blown it out.  It landed in a 2" deep puddle.  I pulled it out and held onto the sopping, brand new bills as I walked to my car.

"That wasn't lucky!" I told myself.

"Noticing it was!" I argued back.

"Fair enough." I conceded.

As I approached my car I was puzzled to see that there was a HUGE scratch on the back bumper that hadn't been there when I'd gone in to the store.  "UGH!" I thought.

I'm not much for cars.  I figure that eventually they will all be dented and scratched so I try not to worry to much about it.  Still it was  BIG SCRATCH.

"THAT'S NOT LUCKY!" I thought.

Then I glanced up.  "That's not my license plate!"  I had been so distracted by the money falling out of my pocket and into the puddle that I'd walked up to the wrong silver sedan.

I hit the unlock button and turned toward the sound of the beeping.  There was my car - in the same perfect condition I'd left her.

I got in, drove home and told my husband what a lucky day it had been.

The lottery drawing was at 10:38pm.  It is now 10:47pm.  I COULD go check to see if we are winners but that would be the end of my ticket to dream.

The prize is $1000/day for life.  

I'll let you know if I won at #wineparty.  

What would you do if you won?  Would you quit your job and live on the money or would you keep working and build up a nest egg?  I *THINK* I'd like to keep working for a few more years and save up some college money and some retirement money but that would probably only last a couple days until my boss said something ridiculous and I answered with a big "I QUIT!"