Y2 D118

I am going to ramble a little bit today and I ask that you please bear with me while I get this off my chest.  I am well aware that some of my current financial issues are not isolated to myself. Many of my friends are in similar situations. I have a friend who is about to lose his house; another who works two jobs just to make ends meet and never sleeps. It's bad out there for a lot of us. But not all. That's the frustrating thing these days. In this country we have managed to finally destroy the middle class completely. The financial and living conditions gap between the haves and have nots has grown to an unmanageable level. You are either flush or broke. There is no in-between any more. Yet we have politicians who pretend to understand. How can you understand when you make over $200,000 a year as a base salary and then millions in external income (speaking engagements, endorsements, gifts)? Do you know what it's like to have to decide between gas and food? Oh wait, you are driven everywhere by someone and have a compensated meal plan. Out of your 'salary' you might have 20% going out in expenses where the average American these days finds themselves with  80%+ of their monthly income going right back out. How did we get here? Buy now pay later. In order to stimulate a broken economy, these same people convinced all of us that it's ok to be in debt. That it's ok to stretch yourself. Easy enough when you have job security for 8+ years. Easy enough when you know your position can't be eliminated on a whim. How do we fix it? I don't know. Caps on salaries? Elimination of additional taxes? Cap interest rates on loans and credit cards? Eliminate "quick money" check cashing services and payday loans? Maybe. Or maybe Tyler had it right - erase the debt. Clean slate for everyone. Imagine how your life would be if you woke up tomorrow and your credit cards were at zero. If your mortgage was paid off. If your car was paid in full. The money you brought in each month could stay with you and not go off to a corporation as an interest payment. Imagine. Now take it one step further - laws and limits on WHO can have credit going forward. Make a credit score mean something again. Want a credit card? Fine but you get a $100 limit and you have to have a 700+ credit score. You see this already in the housing market. In some ways we have eliminated the debt through foreclosures and short-sales. Those same people are now finding if they want back into homes, they need 20% down and a score that is solid. I know, I am one of those people. So let's take it one step further - wipe out my American Express. Wipe out my car payment. Start over. Reset. Reboot this bitch.

In other news - I got into a bit of he said she said with my boss and one of my clients. She was trying to claim I broke something in her production environment which is not true. I am reckless, not stupid. I know better than to change something in production without 900 fail-safes and backups in place. She has some other guy on her staff who has access to things, and I am pretty sure he is the one who made the changes she claims I made. All the other work I did for her was in development. It's one of those cases where the client is just smart enough to be dangerous, but not smart enough to understand what is going on with her own system. I am now waiting to her the outcome to know if I am going to be dinged billable hours for something I didn't do. Not good since this is the end of the month and my 'bonus' is depending on how many billable hours I can show.

I also managed to lower my internet by $10 a month. Not a lot, but it is a savings. Frankly I called in seeing if I could drop down to a lower package which would have been $20 a month savings, and she offered to keep me on my current one with a $10 a month savings for six months. Ok. I will split the difference with you. Good job to customer service rep Kaye and Comcast.

I went home and cooked after that. Made 3lbs of a molasses glazed pork shoulder. Came out pretty damn good. Took three hours and I ate late, but it was worth. I also did some experimenting. I made strawberry spaghetti and meatballs. Essentially the noodles were pureed strawberries with algin in a calcin bath. For the meatballs, I made a strawberry foam and then froze it into cylinders. Was a fun little experiment. I would serve it as a dessert to the right person.

Watched new TV and went to bed. Ah, non-excitement. Yay me.