We went on an Alaskan Cruise, paid for by MiLady's mom (wonderful woman), and enjoyed it immensely. We visited three Alaskan cities and Victoria BC, and were tired and sore and wanting to get home, but happy. But getting home on Sunday all but wiped out any relaxation or good feelings we had left over. Here's what happened:

The cruise ship informed MiLady that, as a wheelchair user, she needed to sign up for "special assistance" to get off the boat. We showed up at the determined point, and waited to leave. At 8:45 MiLady let one of the people know that we had a shuttle leaving at 9 AM; but because they only had three helpers for about 30 people needing "special assistance" (which turned out to be someone to wheel her down the ramp and into Customs) and only three helpers, we didn't get off the ship till 9:45. Our luggage was all alone in a sea of concrete; we were literally the last people in our disembarkation group to leave the ship. If MiLady's brother's family hadn't still been there, we would not have known what was going on. They made the arrangements for a shuttle to the train station.

The shuttle driver managed to hit every bump in the road between the port and the train station, and seemed to make extra turns onto damaged roads just for that purpose. We got to the train station, and found no food -- and almost everything in the area is closed on Sunday. We did finally manage to find an open Subway store for lunch. (And you DON'T want to tackle Seattle streets in a wheelchair -- believe me on this.)

We got on the train, to find that we were assigned seats with no tables in front of them -- so much for distracting ourselves with a movie during the ride. The train trip is 4 hours long, and for a person with spinal arthritis (MiLady) every bump and sway hurts. At about the halfway point I could tell she was just existing and dealing with the pain. (After three hours, I was in pain as well.) We were very happy to finally hit Portland and were looking forward to being on the ground again -- when the loudspeaker announced they couldn't let us off the train in the station, because a freight train had stopped between us and the building, and we couldn't leave until they pulled out. They finally did let us off, but we had to wheel all the way around the engine and then back to the station. Extra aggravation and pain for MiLady -- while the engineer sat in his monstrous road block and smiled at all of us he'd inconvenienced. I hope our pain was funny to him.

While MiLady and StepDaughter collected the luggage, I went out to look for our Housesitter (HS), who had been circling the station. He got parked, and I went back to help with the bags. We got ourselves and all our stuff into the car -- and then the real fun began.

The first thing we noticed was that the rearview mirror was on the window two inches lower than it was before, and upside down -- it was unusable. HS declared that when he drove home from the train station a week ago, there was a street fair and while he was adjusting the mirror it fell off. The striations in the windshield glass, as well as MiLady's knowledge of how firmly that mirror was on there, indicated a temper tantrum he didn't want to mention to us. He'd tried to glue it back, and only later discovered it was upside down. Depending on whether there's a glue solvent or a way to fix the cracks in the glass, we may need to replace the entire windshield.

Halfway home he announced, "You're out of cat food." Despite the fact that we'd pointed out that the bucket under the cat food bag held the rest of the bag's contents, he'd "forgotten" and we have no idea how many days the cats had had to eke out their meals on dregs -- because that was all that was left in the bowls. It also turned out that although we had explained to him how we keep the house cool in summer, because he was depressed, he'd never once turned on the air conditioner during the heatwave that occurred while we were gone, and had just "suffered" through the heat -- making the cats suffer too. Evidently he felt that his presence was enough to "take care" of the cats.

When we got home the first sight that greeted us were the three pots of basil that a friend had given us -- dried and dead. We'd asked him to water them a couple of times during the week, and he'd forgotten. He'd also forgotten to contact a mutual friend that we'd asked him to call, because we wanted to see him once we got home.

When we left, our kitchen sink drain was being slow. This is because there is a point where the drain pipe goes into the wall where the bend is so severe that the snake can't get to it; the problem pops up every few years. We had explained that the sink was slow, to just plunge it if it got bad, and MiLady would fix it when we got home. He proudly announced after the luggage came in that he'd pulled the trap off the pipe, and our problem wasn't in there -- which means now we have to look for leaks under the sink as well as worry about the clog in the wall. Thanks, Dude. It was also loads of comfort to grab a measuring cup next to the sink, to water the basil and see if any of it could be saved, only to find parts from the faucet in the bottom of the cup.

He couldn't even follow instructions given him that day over the phone from Seattle. MiLady had called him and told him to shut the windows on the main floor, pull the curtains over the living room and bedroom windows, close the blankets hung over the kitchen and entryway spaces, and turn on the air conditioner. When we got in MiLady had to shut the living room window, which was letting all the heat in; I had to shut the bedroom curtain. Neither of the blankets were down. He did turn the knob on the AC, though; apparently, for the first time that week.

So, yeah, he dropped us off and picked us up, and pulled in the mail -- but he managed to forget or foul up every other thing that we'd asked him to do. And the funny part? HE was mad at US. He'd had a bad week, and expected us to commiserate with him. The fact that we were in pain, angry, and frustrated when he met us didn't matter -- he felt we were taking things out on him, and that he had done a good job. He got his things out to the porch and called a friend to pick him up.

Then we actually saw the cats. Draco looked like he hadn't eaten all that week; his face was drawn, and he acted scared of us. When we did pick him up, he went limp -- standard behavior in an abused cat, and not like him at all. Harold cried to be picked up, and hugged my neck like he'd never let me go. He's spent days following me around the house, not daring to let me out of his sight. Tasha, our 17-year-old, sat on MiLady's suitcase and stared at us -- if she didn't move, we couldn't go away again. It's now Friday, and they still aren't acting normal yet. It makes me wish we had cameras in the house, to see what REALLY happened.

And 24 hours later, HS was sending me funny stuff on FaceBook again, as if nothing had happened. When I tweeted about another friend (who said he'd show up the next day, but never did) "Just once -- JUST ONCE -- I'd like a friend who does what he says he'll do when he says he'll do it. It would be such a nice change of pace," he sent me one that said, "I hope this isn't about me. Life has a funny way of overriding things you know." When I had a question about another anomaly we found, he said, " I'm not stupid." Couldn't tell it by me, pal.

So me, MiLady, and my StepDaughter agreed that evening that although the trip was a lot of fun and we enjoyed the heck out of it, we would NEVER do it again -- the cost was just too high, not only in pain levels and extra expense but in the disaster we found at home. And the next time we need a housesitter, we're calling our friend the modern primitive with the facial tattoos and piercings and the anger-management criminal record -- because he loves the cats, follows instructions, and doesn't "help" if we ask him not to.

. . . and then I'll quit. I just want information available to anyone who searches on them, so they know what they're likely to (not) get if they go for help. The facts of the story are over on ljfwolffe.livejournal.com. I submitted the following rant to the Portland Mercury's "I, Anonymous" column (and trust me -- for them, the language is tame):

Thanks for Screwing Us, Community Energy Project

You could have told us you didn’t want to help us when we first asked; when you showed up for the assessment; when you canceled the first appointment; or when you finally called back a month later. But you didn’t. You chose to call us the day before the second appointment, two months after we first contacted you, to let us know that you refused to work on our house . . . because we smoke. Never mind the air purifier that we run before people come over, or that we wouldn’t smoke in the house while you were here. Never mind that friends with allergies visit us when we do this and don’t get sick. Never mind that we canceled our Christmas for you. You saw ashtrays, and that makes us evil. That makes it OK for you to screw with a disabled person and their family, make them wait for months, only to call and say, “We don’t want to take a chance we might smell cigarettes, so you can go twist in the wind!” Thanks a lot, Community Energy Project. We can tell how much you REALLY care about poor, disabled, COLD people. Way to discriminate. Assholes.

[We now return you to your regularly scheduled programs.]

Yesterday, a member of the Thirty Day Challenge FriendFeed room posted his success in the Challenge -- on Day 31, he made his first dollar online. (Yea, Art! Way to go!) In the comments on his announcement, another member posted, "Goodonyamate - now its time to have a photo here!" I stopped myself from having a conniption all over someone else's comment thread. My main reaction was, "Why?"

You will never see my picture used as an avatar, for one simple reason -- I don't want to have to look at it 50 times a day. In the interests of consistency, I use the same avatar for Twitter, FriendFeed, and FaceBook; and seeing my ugly mug all the time would drive me nuts.

Besides -- what do you need a picture of me for? I don't want people seeing a photograph and immediately making judgments based on my age, gender, weight, clothing choices, or the quality of my camera; I want you to judge me by the quality of my words and ideas, and nothing else. If you can't say whether I'm an OK person without seeing a picture first, then you're free to go elsewhere.

I know that all of the internet marketing educators recommend using a photograph of yourself as your avatar, to show people that you're not a construct or a spammer or something. I may not be following "best market practices" by not using a picture of myself; but that's my choice, isn't it? I'm following other advice, about having a consistent personal "brand" and making it easy to figure out whether I'm the same person here as there. (And in case you care, my avatar represents a name I've been using for the last >20 years in the regional science fiction convention community.)

So, in short -- a person's choice of avatar is their own decision. For someone else to assume that only a photograph is a "proper" avatar is, well, not exactly in the spirit of the all-encompassing internet, is it? Accept diversity, dude. And if those of us who have chosen, for whatever reason, not to put our faces all over our feeds upsets you . . . so sorry. I'm afraid you're going to have to learn to deal. Because even if you convince some of us to change, you'll never get all of us. Ever. Get used to it.

Since I've been kinda public with my goals for 2009 over on LJFWolffe.com, I thought I ought to write down where I am before I try to get where I'm going. It's always a good idea to document your baseline . . .

So: I weigh 203 today. (My highest weight was 260; according to tables, a person my height [and a large frame] should weigh 149-170. MiLady swears if I go that low I'll look ill.) My goal for 12/25/09 is to weigh 180; that should be attainable, and the hope is to gain healthy habits while getting to that weight. I can figure out then if I need to lose more.

Last year I made all of $10 online. The goal is to be making $2K/mon by Christmas. This is going to take a lot of work and constant blog posts, social stuff, etc.; but this is the level I need to create to keep the roof over our heads and the furkids in cat food. So this is the goal.

At this point in time, my FriendFeed stream is lucky to get any likes or comments at all on a given day; my blog posts sit in a silent void. My goal is to build up a vibrant community on Popular Delusions and HOOLD; I need to get where the people are and bring 'em on over. Figuring out how is ongoing.

Our house is, frankly, a pit. Between MiLady's spinal arthritis and my fibromyalgia, we just don't clean, there's piles of stuff we haven't put away, and the cobwebs on the ceilings are atrocious. My goal is to get the house presentable and keep it that way; I'm hoping to set up cleaning and yardwork rituals for myself so that a little gets done each day until the catch-up is done, and then the rituals will be in place to keep it that way.

This year MiLady and I made and kept two social commitments: The annual Drink Like a Fish Party and Orycon. We took one vacation trip, for the first time in our married lives. People rarely stopped over; we're too embarrassed to invite them, and when they call to ask if they can show we tend to put them off because we feel crappy so often. If I can get more healthy, and the house gets cleaned up, we can see people more often -- heck, we might even throw a party ourselves! My goal is for a better social life both on and offline.

On a non-goal related note, I'm sick of being like I am -- always achy somewhere, tired, headaches, and always bitchy and cranky. Ick. Some days I don't like being around me -- it's amazing MiLady's stayed with me through all of it. And there seems to be a wall between me and what I want to get done; as much as I want to write, I just can't get started. And daily routines? Ha! You'd be amazed what'll come up to kill that. I short, the 'arc' which ties all of these goals together is to figure myself out and thru fitness goals, quit having all these physical symptoms; thru work goals, to teach myself to sit down and WORK; and thru house and social goals, quit avoiding people and spend some time with them again. That's the plan, anyway. We'll see how it goes . . .

Yesterday I was so mad I couldn't type. Literally. The night before, someone had brought up a topic that I feel really strongly about -- and have for 20 years -- and I went to bed angry, hoping to sleep through it; I woke up angry as well (not helped by more email about it), and didn't trust myself to write anything for fear of saying something I'd regret -- even about what made me furious! I wound up wasting a day because I didn't trust myself.

It's amazing to me -- I can read news stories about horrible things, and shrug them off; I can read opinions that make me madder than all get-out, but calm down in minutes afterwards. But bring up a 20-year old fight, and it takes me 24 hours to cool off. It gets brought up every year, with the same people saying the same things, the same junta spouting the same phrases that made this a problem in the first place, and ending on the same note. You think I'd be used to the futility of it by now. But I still remember how it began (and I will never forgive the housemate who, out of spite, helped push the thing through), I still think it's Grade-AAA STUPID, and it still winds me up that there's not a damn thing I can do about it, because the junta in power has made it pretty clear that until they DIE, they're not giving up the reins and we all have to do what they say in order to play in the only game in town. I'm getting wound up again just typing generalities about it. Heaven forbid I go into specifics!

So there are some things that make me too mad to rant. I never thought there'd be such a thing, but there is. Ranting takes a little distance -- and I can't get there on this one. I'm too close to the thing. Maybe after the event I'll write it up; maybe not. But in service to my nerves and blood pressure, I've got to give this a rest. Sad to think I can still be that controlled by outside circumstance (or a$$h0les). Something to work on . . .

I spent yesterday watching the election results. I mean all day yesterday. I had CNN, election coverage from Twitter, and MSNBC all up at one point, going back and forth and trying to figure out why twitterers were declaring states CNN wasn't touching (which was why MSNBC; but the total population vote was more accurate on CNN. Click . . . click . . . click . . .). At one point I froze my browser, trying to go back and forth too fast between too many updating pages. And yet when the decision was made, my state was totally left out.

See, I'm from Oregon. On the Left Coast. So, just when I was getting excited about finally seeing what my local senate candidates and measures were doing (when our polls closed), everybody started jumping up and down and declaring who won the Presidency. At eight PM sharp. And the CNN Your Races window that I had so lovingly configured to show my senate and congressional races suddenly disappeared. It didn't just stop working -- there was a blank space in my window. Like, "We figured out Obama won, and after that who cares what's going on?" I was so frustrated that I tweeted, "The moment our polls close, everybody calls it. Could we get some counting time? Pretend we matter? -- Oregon Voter 8-/" It was as close to the rant I wanted to send as I could get in 140 characters.

I mean, I'm not miffed that they assumed we're blue. Of course we're blue! We're Oregon, for Pete's sake! But could we at least get a runner along the bottom with our stats, NBC? (Yes, I was allowed to put the TV on near the end. I got to watch Obama's speech, and I'm ecstatic that I got to witness it in real time.) Could we get 2 minutes for the locals to run a series of text screens on our local candidates and measures? Something? Anything? Nothing. 1 1/2 hours of pundits, that's what I got. Thanks.

It gets worse. I woke up in the middle of the night, as usual, and tried to find updates on our local stuff. The page for my favorite station had a page of links (and different pages for races and measures), meaning that to get at all of them would require constant clicking and alt-<--ing. Ick. I googled "oregon election results," and found a page that just had the tables with the races and measures, the votes and %precincts reporting. I found it at the New York Times. With my 100 results per page, I wound up discarding all the local options and wound up on the east coast to get my local election results. How sad is that? I'm jealous of my friend in SF -- sfgate.com has a wonderful page that automatically updates with all the stuff right there. (I was watching Prop 8. BOO!!) Could I find something like that here? Not a chance. Our big paper has a contract with another company to put its stuff on the web -- you can't even comment on the stories! I tried once and got a huffy "We are not the paper" autoresponder. Phooey on them! (And their page was nothing but links too.) Somebody has a lot of catching up to do on the Internet around here . . .

So, to sum up: Could we please figure out a way to get the Left Coast a little recognition, a little time to actually do something? Could we at least pretend that we have candidates and measures over here that matter? And could someone figure out a way to haul this state into the 21st century so that we can have some access to the numbers in real time, in a place that's easily findable? I don't think that's too much to ask.

End of Rant. I actually feel a bit better now. Thanks for putting up with me! [I did actually have a positive experience on Election Night -- I just woke up channeling pissed Republicans and hung-over Democrats when I wrote this. I wrote something much more positive in my LiveJournal.]

Once upon a time, we got a big payout from somewhere. I don't remember where it came from, but it was our money in one lump sum; and as we tend to do in such cases, we paid all our bills, fixed some stuff, and upgraded our computer and our Media wall. You know, new TV, new DVD player, and (for the first time) a home theater system. We were hanging out with another couple at the time; they saw (and HEARD) our system, then apparently went out to RentaPlace and got one for their own living room. They had to return it six months later because they couldn't afford it.

I have never understood this "keeping up with the Joneses" thing. Maybe because I grew up with less money; maybe because my parents grew up poor -- but the emphasis in my family wasn't on what other people had. People who can't stand to wear what's in their closet because one of the "in" people dissed it or showed up wearing something else -- they baffle me. I do have to admit, though, that I might be immune to this because I could never actually go do it. But some people go bankrupt with this kind of stuff -- they can't actually do it without mortgaging their lives to the hilts, but they don't care.

It might be fear of Mrs. Grundy. Who is Mrs. Grundy? You don't hear much about her nowadays; but my parents grew up in mortal fear of her, and taught that fear to me. Mrs. Grundy is that neighbor that has nothing better to do than watch what's going on in the neighborhood, pass judgment on it, and then communicate it to all the neighbors. Before the internet and the paparazzi, she knew all and told all to anyone that would listen. You'd catch her gossiping over fences, contributing to party-line gossip calls (that's a historical reference, gang; if you don't get it, don't worry about it), or whispering to her friends in the grocery store as someone walks by. She's the personification of the opinion of society; the symbol of negative whuffie, if you will. (Did I spell that right? Pulling out Cory Doctorow's Down and out in the Magic Kingdom -- available free online, by the way, as well as in dead tree, and highly recommended . . . whad'ya know? I did!)

I'd always hated Mrs. Grundy, and could care less about the Joneses. They could take care of themselves. When I made the decision to just be me and to heck with this "normalcy crud," I didn't even think about the implications of telling Mrs. Grundy to go fly a kite (to put it politely). My decision included Mrs. Grundy by default; and I've never looked back. And anyways, Mrs. Grundy is no longer the all-powerful force she used to be. With the current economic goings-on, maybe the Joneses will fall by the wayside too. And that would not be a bad thing. If everybody did their own thing, kept themselves happy within their own world and their own budget, we'd all be a lot better off.

And that's the truth. Pfffbhbhft!

So I've been working my way through STSE2. If you don't recognize the acronym, don't worry about it; you just need to know that it's a CD of internet marketing advice from 2004, and a DVD of video lessons that are brand new. The CD was basically two guys talking together on a series of IM subjects; I would have gone through a transcript in half the time. I stayed awake because as soon as I finished the audio lessons I could get to the new videos.

I was really looking forward to those videos; the guy that put the package together is a professional film editor, and the promotional videos looked amazing. So imagine my feelings when I got to the new DVD and discovered that the videos were . . . PowerPoint presentations with narration. Voice over PowerPoint -- and I was still trying not to fall asleep. And STILL no transcripts.

Suggestion for Those who Teach on the Internet: I know that video is the latest greatest thing, and that it drives tons of traffic and all that nifty stuff; but there are a few things I'd like to suggest factoring into your thinking.

1. Not all people learn in the same way. Some people love the videos, will put up with the jerky stops and starts, and have no problem learning from them; others, like me, have the video go in one ear and out the other, and need printed material for the best learning and retention. If there's a way to take multiple learning styles into account, it would be appreciated.
2. Videos must be engaging. VoPP is a surefire recipe for putting your students to sleep. I was actually checking my email and reader entries while listening because the voice was the restatement of what was on the screen. Might as well have been audio only at that point.
3. Training needs to offer substantive content. On the other end of the scale is one of the bonuses offered with the training; "eight hours of video from my weekend training class!" The first hours talk about the wonderful guest speakers that will be there; then later the speakers are mentioned as having spoken. The most commonly spoken sentence is, "And the how to on that is in the manual and videos we gave you." In over 4 hours of video, I've taken 4 lines of notes. All the stuff I want to know is contained in the material I don't get. In between the bits of stuff I can use, there's the walking back and forth and the guy asking the same question for the third time and the person who just doesn't get it; I'll watch the rest, but the marketer is leaving a bad taste in my mouth, and I'll probably not stay on his list. Training content needs to teach, not tease, thank you.

I just needed to get that off my chest. If there's anything positive about this pile of learning opportunities I'm slogging through, it's that it's really making me itch to just get out there and do something. I'm beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel . . .

I was just continuing a conversation I started on FriendFeed, about not receiving a product several of us ordered. One of the members mentioned he was from Australia, and was used to a wait of two or three weeks. Ick. I expressed my condolences, and then mentioned that since the seller was in a southern state and I live in Oregon, "which is still in Amurika, last time I checked," it shouldn't take that long. What I wanted to type was "which is still in Amurika (no matter how many of us would rather secede!)." It stopped me. Maybe because it was the first time I typed it out.

Now, I've read Ecotopia and Ecotopia Emerging and I'm definitely NOT happy with what's been happening around here; we've always joked about our teeny little piece of land being our own country and we only keep paying taxes because, well, we're surrounded and it's Danegeld. The fantasies of myself and my friends have included finding some secluded island somewhere (or even making one, in one ingenious version). Secession in actuality, however, has only been achieved by one couple I know; they shook the dust of the USA off their feet and emigrated to Australia, where their chosen method of medication did not automatically make them felons, and their air was not always filled with artificial chemicals that made them sick. They saw it as a matter of survival, and they left.

To tell the truth, I don't want to leave. I love Portland, I love Oregon, I love the Pacific Northwet. (No, that's not a typo. The webbing between my native Oregonian toes is starting to crack; I'm looking forward to the rain forecast for later this week.) I feel tied to this land. Leaving would be too painful. I remember two weeks in the Bay, six months in Reno; always a little disconnected, a little confused for directions, a little less able to parse my surroundings. So I don't want to leave again. Ever.

And I love my country. I love the idea of my country, the history of my country, the founding documents of my country. I sorrow for the administration of my country for the last -- well, let's just say about the last half of my life, through both parties' administrations. (I'll never forgive Clinton for signing the Defense of Marriage Act in the middle of the night when no one was looking. Coward. Not to mention some of the things I found out about after he left office . . .) I have hope for the future at the moment, which I pray to any god/dess listening will not be proved vain; we'll see in November. But it would have to get pretty bad for me to consider leaving.

So, no, I don't really want to secede. I do think we might be happier if we did the ecoregion thing, or gave all their powers back to the states (I need to find that report I read back in the old BBS days about states created before 19something having a different status than states created afterwards). I'm fairly certain that the last thing we need in the White House is a neo-con yes-man and a fringe-Christian fanatic who thinks she knows foreign policy because she can see Russia from where she lives. But I'm also relatively certain that there's very little I can do about it. More's the pity.

So should I make fun of my country? Why not? I make fun of everything else. Yes, everything. Except Middle Earth. And sometimes even that. Besides, if I lose the right to poke fun at anything, it's gonna be one of those signals to seriously consider Getting Out of Dodge. Maybe BC. But I don't want to give up yet. Not while there's hope. Please let there be hope . . .

We got SPORE last week; I loved the Cell Stage, and kept my little herbivore self away from those big carnivore dudes; and I had a lot of fun in the Critter Stage, running around and making friends. Other than getting squashed a couple times by humongous creatures who I didn't even see first, it was being a lot of fun. :)  I finally got my guy upright and pretty (and looking kind of like Gonzo from behind; hey, at least I fixed his waddle), and thought I was ready for the Tribal Stage -- when everything fell apart.

Suddenly the camera was everywhere but where I wanted it to be; I couldn't get my guys to do squat. MiLady helped me with a couple of basics, and I was just figuring things out when a rival tribe moved in. Huh? What? What the frell do I do now? I was pausing the game every fifteen seconds, desperately trying to figure out where I was, where my guys were, where the "enemy" was, where the rotten camera was, and WHAT THE $#@%?! DO I DO NOW?!? Moving the cursor to the Pause button made the bloody map move; there was complicated stuff I'm glad MiLady figured out, because without her I would have been up a creek. I finally get the instruments in place and get over to the other village, where I finally figure out how to do the social thing to the other leader -- and just as he walks over, my chieftain walks away. WALKS AWAY! From his first diplomatic meeting!

I quit. This game is obviously too complex for my simple mind and uncoordinated fingers. I've never really been good with anything I have to track in real time anyway; that's why I loved SimCity so much. And pausing never moved the map, either! I was never able to spend much time with the Sims, but my first experience with it led me to not care much. I can barely keep my own life straight, much less micromanage goddess knows how many virtual ones. And with my wussy pacifist worldview, I'm not real fond of the whole "must kill" thing. I was perfectly happy giving the predators a wide berth; now suddenly it's 'fight or die,' and I just don't think that way. I think I'll install Sim City 2000 on my laptop . . .