Category: November 2017

I don’t read or listen to the “regular” news because I prefer long, in-depth articles that have been well researched.

Since starting my new job, I’ve been occasionally reading the Bloomberg BNA Daily Environment Report. The publisher is the Bureau of National Affairs. I think they create some other professional reports as well, for law and economics, etc. The Environment Report is emailed to us at work every day. I don’t have time to read it every day, but it does a good job of giving one-paragraph summaries of the articles on the front page. I love the layout, complete simplicity; black and white, no photos, no ads. Articles in two columns on 8 1/2 x 11 paper. (Ours comes in pdf form in an email, so I read it on my computer.)

Here is more info, https://www.bna.com/environment-energy-report

Here is an example of the headlines on the first page. This is the front page, the report itself is about 10 pages.

If you’re interested in this and it turns out to be prohibitively expensive, let me know. As far as I’m aware, I’m allowed to forward emails 🙂

Every morning I park behind these two cars.

The one on the right has a sign that says, “I believe in fairies.” The one on the left has a plate frame that says, “To close for missiles, switching to guns.” And I don’t understand either one. It’s such a juxtaposition.

I’m like, I don’t get it. I don’t get either one of them. Does she really believe in fairies or is it just some sort of ironic commentary on our political times? Maybe she doesn’t really believe in fairies but wishes she could? Is it supposed to be funny? Or maybe just unique?

The one about guns – is this just some sort of he-man macho meaningless statement, or is there something more subtle that I’m missing? Is it funny? Is it clever?

I finally ran into the owner of the missiles-to-guns car and I asked him. What does it mean? So he tried to explain that missiles go further than guns. Yeah I know that, but…so? Why did you put that on the back of your car? (I didn’t quite ask it that way, but almost).  Apparently, it’s a “if you can read this you’re too close”, back off and quit tailgating statement. Okay, I was just wondering.

Then I saw a bumper sticker that I thought was funny (sorry, no photo, I was driving). It said, “My other car is my motorcycle that don’t run.” I took that as a little bit of self-depreciatory humor, and I laughed. But then I got to thinking about it and I’m like, hmmm, maybe not? The rapidly widening economic gap – and the misconceptions about the cultural differences of the haves and have nots – is causing a big problem in our country. And it’s maybe not so funny after all.

I momentarily wished we were back in simpler times. But those times weren’t much simpler. I grew up in logging country when that industry was in massive decline. Hundreds of square miles of beautiful forestlands had been decimated, leaving bald hills and enormous clear-cut scars through the entire northwest. This prompted understandable pushback. But imposing limits to logging meant poverty for a huge percentage of the local population. One bumper sticker I remember from back then went, “Hug a logger – you’ll never go back to trees.” This bumper sticker did point to the class differences in that debate – but I like to imagine that it did so in a reasonably friendly manner.

It’s ironic, speaking of the role of trees, that we’re belatedly realizing that our earth is getting too hot and now they are talking about ways to use trees to recapture the CO2 we’ve been dumping into the atmosphere. One way is to plant a bunch of trees (a really big bunch of trees), and let them soak up the CO2. Then instead of releasing the CO2 back again as the trees die and decay, burn the trees for fuel and capture the CO2 while burning them. Then somehow sequestering the captured CO2, perhaps by pumping it back into the ground where it came from. It’s a complicated, expensive idea that would take huge amounts of land. But I gather we’re going to have to do some sort of expensive CO2 removal, because it’s basically too late to just cut emissions, even if we all stopped using any fossil fuels at all, starting this very moment.

Well, I don’t want to end this post on an end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it topic. So here’s something cute I saw on a car at lunch today; a vanity license plate that read, “Gampa”. Awwww! That’s exactly how they say it too!

It’s been nuts. It’s particularly been nuts at work. I’ve been thoroughly enjoying it, but it’s relentless. It was plenty enough challenge to simply have a brand new job in an area I know very little about (air quality). But no, one month into it, they anoint me acting manager (with no actual previous management experience). So that’s it, right, like surely it can’t get any harder than that, right? Right? Wrong.

So guess what? Our senior manager is doing a reorganization of his whole department, and we’re now in the early stages of more than doubling the size of my team, and more than doubling my team’s workload. We currently have one vacancy already, and three new (vacant) positions will soon be moved into my team. So I’ll have 4 new people to hire and train. Our team currently only consists of 3 of us, and 2 of the 3 of us are brand new. So we’re going to have a team of 7, with 6 of the 7 of us still in new-hire probationary status, and only one guy who actually knows what he’s doing. Don’t say it. No, he’s not going to retire. He is not allowed to retire. Because I said so.

And our metrics suck. My team currently isn’t even doing a third of the work we are supposed to be doing. If the facilities we are regulating had any idea how few of their reports we are even filing, much less looking at…omg. We’ve got boxes of unreviewed submissions stacked in unused cubicles. Ideally, we’d be reviewing all the reports. But meanwhile I’m just trying to get some prioritization in place so we can try to catch the most egregious violations.

In case you’re wondering, no, I’m not the official manager yet. The job will be posting in the next week or two, and then I will need to apply and interview, and tell them all about how great I am in this job. I’ve been learning a lot fast, and I probably don’t realize how much I already know. But let me tell you, I spend every minute of every day feeling clueless.

For example, I get an email. I don’t know what the email means or why it came to me. I don’t have any idea what to do with the email. I google phrases and acronyms out of the email. I print the email and walk around to random people in the department and show them the email. I write down the incomprehensible things they are saying about the email. I go back to my desk and google some more. I then tentatively draft something that sounds like it might make sense about the email, and send it to approximately the right set of people (give or take a few) and pray that I don’t sound like a total idiot. Then on to the next email. And repeat.

Meanwhile I’m supposed to be writing project plans and timelines for projects I don’t even understand. I’ve also been put in charge of several online applications, all in various stages of development, none of which I know how to use.

It’s soooo way different from Sandia. At Sandia we were extremely micromanaged and everything was spoon-fed. We had to know everything about everything before they allowed us to do anything. Here it’s the opposite. They’re like, don’t worry about the fact that you don’t know what you’re doing, you just gotta do it anyway because it needs done and we don’t have anyone else to do it. Just go, go, go, you’re doing great, keep going as fast as you can.

And the weird thing – the work here is actually more technically difficult (in my job at least) than it was at Sandia. I have a lot of credibility here from having worked at Sandia, because Sandia has a reputation of doing highly technical incomprehensible stuff. So they think I’m some sort of uber technical wiz. But the reality is, air quality – and the facilities we regulate (oil and gas plants, compression stations, etc.) – are actually really complicated.

Oh by the way, do you know I have the ability to just edit the state’s websites on whim? That I actually know how to do. And they’re letting me do it. Like really? Yes, I can just go up there and write or upload whatever I want (he-he-he). But seriously, can you imagine Sandia allowing something like that?

Ok, update, I found out I can’t actually edit EVERYTHING I want on the state website. I have total access to write whatever I want on any of the pages. BUT, I cannot change the title of a link in a dropdown menu without Bureau Chief approval! (That’s lots of layers up there.) So I have to send a formal email up the chain in order to have one of the options in the side menu say, “Notices and FAQs” rather than “FAQ’s”. But hey, the actual page that it’s linked to is all mine. I can put whatever notices and FAQs up there that I want. Puppy pics, here we come! Ok, not really. It would be fun though.

I haven’t worked this hard at a job in my entire life.

I just bought a pair of tickets to this really cool Japanese drumming show in Santa Fe next April! http://www.drum-tao.com/main/english

Problem is, when I went to put it in the calendar, I saw that I had already bought two tickets to that same show! Back in July! Ugh, how was I supposed to know that? What was I doing buying tickets back in July, for an April, 2018 show?

Watch – I’ll forget again and buy two more in March. It’s a good show! Every time I see it advertised, I want to go! Give me a couple more months and I might have 4 extra tickets. Or six!

At the moment I have two extra tickets. They are in the front row of the Mezzanine, about 6 seats away from my first pair of tickets. I am at least  consistent in my madness.

I want to talk about allergies. Just your regular hay fever and sneezing-at-a-cat type of allergies, not the epi-pen type. But first, I need to talk a little bit about migraines. In generally I’ve been doing very well and have not had very many migraines lately. That may come as a surprise, because obviously I’ve been very stressed and very busy recently. But for me there’s not really any correlation between stress and migraines. I’ve had a lot of stressful and busy times in my life, and luckily, my migraines don’t get worse during those times.

I think the misnomer about stress and migraines develops because some of the most common types of headaches, such as tension headaches, are caused or worsened by stress. But migraines aren’t like those kinds of headaches. Migraines originate in the brain stem and are similar to seizures. They aren’t caused by muscular tension.

Everyone thinks of migraines as a bad headache, because the head pain can be severe. But actually, it’s fairly common to have a migraine without any head pain. Adding to the confusion, a lot of migraines without head pain aren’t correctly diagnosed as migraines. So a lot of people don’t realize that the headache part of the migraine is just one of many symptoms, and sometimes it’s not even a symptom at all.

It’s true that one of the things I do to help relieve secondary migraine symptoms is a type of face exercise. But I’m not actually decreasing the number of migraines, because migraines start in the brain stem. I’m just managing symptoms. There is a fair amount of swelling and inflammation during a migraine, and that inflammation puts pressure on a nerve behind my sinuses, which can worsen the pain. My face exercises lift and spread some of the underlying facial muscles, relieving some of the pressure due to inflammation.

My migraines are usually caused by my immune system kicking into gear. I’ll get them if I’m fighting off a cold, or if people around me have colds even if I don’t end up showing symptoms. Airplane travel and public events will trigger an immune reaction because of all the contagions floating around.

I’ll also get migraines if I have an allergy to something, because allergies trigger the immune system. For example, there is a pesticide or herbicide that I’m sensitive to (or a set of them), but I don’t know which one(s). Whatever it is, my immune system doesn’t like it and swings into gear, so I definitely do better when I eat organic food. Luckily, I know a lot about keeping the immune system calm, because we have autoimmune disease in the family. So there’s a lot of lifestyle and dietary things that I know how to do.

Now here’s the problem. It’s something I’ve suspected for awhile, but our recent living arrangements have confirmed it. I’m allergic to my dogs. I’m not extremely allergic to them. But I’m definitely sort of allergic.

I’m reluctant to admit that because in our household, I’m the one who always wants more pets. And John’s the one trying to keep the number down to something reasonable. So the last thing I need to do is give him ammunition to keep me from ever getting another dog again!

It’s discouraging. I spend so much effort with special diets and other difficult compromises in my life. I forgo so many things in order to stay healthy. And now I’m having to admit that my favorite, wonderful dogs are likely part of the problem. When I’m around my dogs, first I get acne, then I feel under the weather, and then I get migraines.

As with most things that excite the immune system, this is just one of many factors. We’re exposed all day long to things that get the immune system ramped up. What can I do? I’m not going to live my life in a bubble. If I didn’t have dogs, my immune system would just get spun up about something else. So I’m not going to worry about it. The dogs and I are moving into the new Santa Fe house soon! I miss them.

I quit reading the regular news because it’s so sensationalized. My preference would be long, in-depth, balanced and carefully researched, informative articles. What I’ve ended up reading lately has about 4 of those 5 characteristics. Everything except for balanced. I’ve been reading long exposés. I’ve found a number of magazines that have at least one long article per issue.

I’ve read about Monsanto’s criminal cover-up of the results of studies showing adverse health effects of Roundup (glyphosate). I’ve read about people being brainwashed into admitting to committing murders they never had any connection to. I read about how we will soon be falling in love with robots who look and act like humans.

I recently read a very detailed article blaming the opioid epidemic on one particular family-owned company, and by the way, the statistics in this article about the extent of the opioid epidemic are stunning.  (https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/10/30/the-family-that-built-an-empire-of-pain)

But the article that moved me to sit down and blog is this one:

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/10/09/how-the-elderly-lose-their-rights

This is simply horrifying. People in the guardianship business can target total strangers (whom they think have money) and get cooperative doctors and judges to grant them guardianship, even when their families are actively caring for them. And this is done in secret, without the elders or their families knowing about it. Their rights are completely stolen; they are literally kidnapped.

It’s a one-sided article, granted. But even if it were only 20% true, this is really, really not ok. The part that horrified me is that this could happen to people like us. I know that sounds self-oriented, but that’s the reality. As astounding horrific as the opioid epidemic is – I’m not actually expecting it to directly impact my family. (Except that it’s going to bankrupt our country and destroy huge numbers of lives.) This guardianship thing though – it sounds like something that could happen to us.

In the lead example of the story, the elderly couple were healthy, and their house was clean, and they were showing up to appointments, and getting their groceries, and handling life fine, and their daughter was visiting them DAILY. And they were simply taken from their house one day, with no warning, and their house and all their possessions were seized and sold, and their daughter couldn’t do anything about it. It took her two days of searching to even find where her parents had been taken. No one knew it was coming. I can’t even wrap my brain around the fact that that this could happen.

In this particular situation, the “guardian” was indicted, but mainly because she grossly inaccurately stated the situation. The process of “guardians” who are in this business for a living and have a network of doctors and judges who go along with them, taking vulnerable elderly strangers as “wards” and liquifying their assets, is actually legal if done properly.

“…private guardians appear to gravitate toward patients who had considerable assets…April Parks (a private guardian), after receiving a tip from a social worker, began cold-calling rehabilitation centers, searching for a seventy-nine-year-old woman…who had seven hundred thousand dollars and no children. Parks finally found her, but her physician wouldn’t sign a certificate of incapacity, “The doctor is not playing ball,” Parks wrote to her lawyer. She quickly found a different doctor to sign the certificate…” And a judge signed off on it.

It’s apparently a big problem in areas that attract retirees, such as Las Vegas, Palm Beach, Sarasota, Naples, San Antonio, and our own Albuquerque. There’s more info here, http://aaapg.net/, including recent cases and news on a state-by-state basis. And glancing at the New Mexico articles, it doesn’t appear to be only cases with “considerable assets” unless you define “considerable” way lower than I would.

I need my parents, and Monica and John, and Emily and Steven to read this (I’m only leaving out Mark because I don’t think reads this blog). If that link doesn’t work for you, let me know and I’ll send you a photocopied version.

GO BACK AND CLICK ON THE LINK

Ok, I know you don’t have time right now. Put it on your calendar for when you do. Thanks 🙂

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/10/09/how-the-elderly-lose-their-rights

Dragging one’s ass out of bed in the morning is a challenge for many people, because who gets enough sleep with everything we want to get done during waking hours? The daily routine of repeatedly hitting the snooze button and groping for coffee is a basis for a lot of humor in our culture, because who can’t relate to that?

Except those who don’t. There’s a reasonable number of people who wake up automatically, shortly before the alarm would have gone off – if they had even bothered to set one. Those lucky dogs, right? Or maybe not always. Those lucky dogs are probably the ones that rarely go out at night because they’re going to snore through the concert, or stand like zombies at the party when everyone else is just getting going.

A week and a half ago we had a time change. Much of the population rejoiced, “An extra hour of sleep!” Yeah. Maybe. For some people. For one day. Whoo-hoo.

But think for a moment about the impact on the “I don’t need an alarm” segment of the population. The fall time change is brutal! It’s been a week and a half, and they are all still waking up the same time as ever. Except now it’s an hour too early. That’s an hour of lost sleep every night – for weeks!

I will probably not manage to reset my clock until Thanksgiving or Christmas break, when I can sleep in far enough, for enough consecutive days, to manage to completely override my internal clock. But for now – I get done coaching at 8:00 or 8:30 and I’m going straight to bed. Don’t bother trying to call me. Call me in the morning. Anytime after about 4:40 AM.