Whatever you`re celebrating or not celebrating this year, I wish you all the best. I hope your holidays are filled with love and joy. This year is a new experience for me, the first with my new family and the first without my family. I hope to be able to combine at least part of the two in time for next year`s festivities. This has been a year of big changes for me and I`d like to express my gratitude for the support you`ve given me; morally, spiritually, financially; thank you.
May your holiday season and the new year be blessed, full of love and prosperity.
Divali, Eid, Chanukah, Yule, Christmas, Kwanza, New Year`s Greeting to you.
Be safe this holiday weekend.
there are two new animations from the otherside
a new samurai lapin animation
and Krark the penguin which just needs to be seen.
i think the insurance scenario may be sorted, i called the company that we have our life, car and renters` insurance with and they gave me some good advice. apparently when you purchase family insurance, there is the assumption that there will be addition children and your rates are padded to account for the possibility of pregnancy. vic and i decided that we`d done enough for the planet`s population so there are no more children in our future, so we`re getting individual policies for her and the boychick; with the same deductible as i have in the office but no vision; for about 75% of what it was going to cost me if i kept them on the plan. i have to say i`m really pleased with that. the difference in take home now that it`s just me will cover the added premiums without making us destitute.
i got this picture from nerve`s advent calendar.
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we`ve had a cold snap over the last few days including some scheduled snow flurries; although flurries would be a generous description for the three flakes of snow i saw yesterday. not that i`m complaining.
i like cold; which is sort of odd for a 6` 2″ dreadlocked Caribbean born and raised man. the overnight low temperature in Nashvegas last night was 14°F (-10°C), which in comparison to some places in the US is a bright and sunny day; but i`m not too thrilled about snow. primarily because i don`t know how to drive in it and if the driving abilities of people in Nashville in the rain are any indication, i don`t want to be sharing the road with them. there is a rumour that there are three snowplows in the entire state because of the rarity of heavy snow fall here.
even with my love for the cold i`m not stupid, i`ve got a light coat and a heavy coat, although the heavy coat hasn`t gotten any use yet. i`ve been pulling out the turtlenecks and long sleeved shirts and tee that languished in the back of my closet year after year.
we`re a Jimmy Carter household; old joke, during the Carter presidency at the height of the energy crisis Carter recommended that Americans use less heat and wear more sweaters at home. we`re on a staggered payment plan for the heat, but we`d rather not have any massive overages in the spring, so although the heat on it`s not going past 65, if we`re really cold, we`ll pull out a blanket or put on a sweater.
in the four years i was living in Trinidad, actually for the three years preceding that as well, i had no health insurance. i was a freelance contractor in most cases or my full time employer didn`t offer health care benefits. but it was ok, because in that tiny little twin island republic, we had socialised medicine. yes, there were excessive waiting periods and sometimes you had to go somewhere else to get prescribed medication, but it was available, you had a choice.
now i have this job and i have to have health insurance and as of January it`s going to be Sophie`s choice, coverage for me and my family or rent. a combination of a 21% increase by the healthcare provider plus a 15% cut on the amount my employer pays equals a 30% cut in my pay cheque. a friend asked if it was low pay or high insurance costs and i think it`s a combination of the two. continuing to do the math, i`ve realised that were it not for my employer contributions, all of my salary would be spent on paying to make sure, vic, the boy chick and myself had some kind of coverage.
there is no hope for a raise, so now i`m trying to find cheaper alternatives for coverage for my family. my immediate option is getting everyone checked up while we still have coverage, then dropping the family portion of the plan for major medical, because what`s the point of having health insurance if we don`t have somewhere to live.
i got a little perspective on my loathing of the mall and it`s patrons this morning as i was dropping vic to work; we`re a one car household, i`ll touch on that later; i only have to be there twice a day, once early in the morning before i go into work, when it`s mostly patron free except for the people who enjoy the smell of mall in the morning and late at night, again when it`s pretty much patron free. vic spends 14 glorious hours a day there, 12 of which are spent with people who generally have more money that good sense.
i am not a people person, i tend to expect the worse of people in most cases and more so at this time of year. i should try to be more charitable especially considering how nice people have been to me all year, but cynicism is ingrained in me. i`m incredibly proud of vic and honoured to be her spouse, she has tempered me, because she is one of those genuinely nice people. i don`t think i could ever begin to fathom working retail, i don`t have the temperance for it, i can barely deal with client meetings.
the other part of my perspective was as much as i hate the mall, it`s a source of income, we`re not destitute, but we`re living on what we make. no credit cards, just an incredibly tight budget, that just got more interesting this very moment. i`m covered by my office`s health insurance plan and they just cut back on their contribution. looks like 2005 is going to be a doozy.
well that just took the wind out of my sails, i`ll finish this up later.
today is my grandmother`s birthday, as well as my ex wife`s and i`ve made the obligatory calls and i feel a lot better. i`ve been in a sort of Christmas funk for the last few days. i`m not a big fan of the holiday season, i posted about it last year; i think; so i`m not going to get into it again. it`s a little difficult to acclimatise to it, because it`s such a big deal for vic; she and the boychick enjoy a lot of the trappings i tend to sneer at and i don`t want to spoil their enjoyment.
for me it`s more about family and although i`m thrilled to be finally here with vic, i miss my girls. as bad as things have been this is my first Christmas without them. last year i flew home on Christmas eve to be with them. there is no flying anywhere this year and we can`t even afford to think about flying them here.
compounding this, because vic is working retail i have to be at the mall at least twice a day; i firmly believe that Christmas is over commercialised and nowhere is that more prevalent that at the mall; and this mall caters to nouveau riche of Nashville. Country with more money than sense, never good. i believe that during the holiday season conspicuous consumption causes people to lose their minds. everything that was bad year round get worse; driving, decision making and manners particularly.
i think i can manage to get through the rest of this season without leaping out of my car to throttle some mullet wearing, fake boob having, suv driving idiot but only because i don`t think any of them are worth missing my first Christmas with my darling over.
remember when you were in school and you were taught, never assume because it makes and ass of u and me. you would think that; stupid snickers aside; this lesson would have stuck with most people, apparently not.
i`ve read in various journals support for the Patriot Act and profiling of Arab men by fairly intelligent people. what is interesting to note about those who supporting profiling is; in the grand scheme of things; the closest they will come to be profiled is the Ugly American Abroad and the greatest penalty for that is a high price at the cash register.
profiling is based on a flawed assumption that all people of a specific group will behaving in a specific manner.
all Arab men terrorists
all black men from the Caribbean drug dealers
all Americans abroad loud and obnoxious
are any of those statements 100% true? of course not, but they are the basis for a profile and it doesn`t work that way or i should rephrase, it shouldn`t. for those of you about to jump in with specific instances where the authorities have stopped someone and prevented a crime; there is a vast difference between probable cause and profiling.
i`ve said this on more than one occasion, Americans are willing to give up personal freedoms for the illusion of safety. The Patriot Act and racial profiling are not making the US any safer. profiling Arab men is stopping terrorists but people `feel` safer because it looks like they`re doing something but in the long run, organisations like Al Qaeda believe they`re fighting a holy war and they can draw on the support of many Muslims and here`s the frightening thing; they look just like you or i. one of the people captured in Afghanistan was a white middle class US citizen.
fear and shock are the basic tenets of terrorism. terrorist don`t have rules of engagement, they don`t follow set patterns. profiling people isn`t going to stop attacks, if anything they are more likely to escalate as people start to feel more marginalised and ostracised.
sadly this boils down to race; black men are still being profiled, not as much in places where there are Arab men, but it`s going on and until they start pulling white Americans out of cars and lines in airports and doing strip and full cavity searches on them, people are going continue to sit back and think profiling is a good thing.
i`ve been looking at a lot of photos; for work, for my own edification; and thinking i need to start taking photos again, it doesn`t even have to be digital, although the instant gratification is nice. i`ve been thinking for a long time about doing some nudes and here are some of the photos that have brought the thought of renting a camera and some lights to fore recently. some of them are entirely unsafe for work.
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