Time flies

when you're having fun. That would be the likeliest explanation as to why June dragged on so interminably.

I can't complain, though. Actually, I can complain. I've proven quite equal to the task of posting complaints. It's just that I don't have much of a leg to stand on in the complaint department.

Work is unchanged, which is to say that while the torture chamber still works, they haven't added any new implements of destruction or disaster to it worth mentioning. Home life continues to be good, though if truth be known I probably still mourn the loss of Clueless Wonder more than I should at this point. Gas prices still hover around the $3.00 mark, making my European friends laugh at how ridiculously cheap our fuel is while my upstate friends laugh at how they're still paying less than $2.70. The remaining cats remain healthy, albeit somewhat lethargic in this oppressive humidity.

Rain did not help June's case one whit. There's an oft worn-out saying, applicable to most parts of the world save Southern California that if you don't like the weather around these parts, wait an hour or so. That hasn't helped for the past week. If you didn't like the rain around here, waiting would do nothing more than ensure you'd continue to hate the climate. I have been unable to find what the total rainfall was for my area in the past week, but it hardly matters. Severe local flooding occurred over much of my region. I was lucky in that most of the roads I take to work follow the local ridges. Just to the left or right of where I drove I could see that other roads were impassible. Impassable? Blocked by lots of water. Whatever.

I am a member of my county's CART (County Animal Rescue Team). We're currently in the planning stages of putting together plans for dealing with animals (companion and large animals) during local emergencies. We work under the SART (coincidently standing for State Animal Rescue Team), and we've been told by the state that our county is rather ahead of most other counties in terms of our initial phases of organization. I was half expecting to be called out during the worst of the local flooding, since people were being relocated just outside our county, but the call never came. It turns out that the local Red Cross screwed up and forced people to evacuate without their pets. One man was forcibly evicted from his home when he refused to leave without his cat.

This is not supposed to happen. We have plans for housing and tracking and vetting any animals caught up in this sort of situation. Red Cross has been kept completely informed of this. I don't know who is a fault here, but I have a feeling this will be discussed in detail at our next meeting in a few weeks. I'm thinking that our committee chair should invite our county Red Cross supervisor to attend the meeting.

Other aspects of my life have also failed to go as planned. I refer specifically to my 2005 taxes, prepared and filed by H&R Blockheads. In a set of circumstances too lengthy to list, they completely screwed up my Prius rebate filing. They finally got around to filing for my 2003 rebate this year (like I said, long story), and did an amended filing for me. It turns out they used the wrong form, and while it was an amended filing for 2003, they used the 2005 form. Of course, I got a very nice, very imposing letter from the IRS (certified mail) this week that informs me that the deduction has been denied and they'd like their $500 back, please.

On other weeks I'd have been crushed. Actually, I was pretty crushed this week too, but at least it comes in the last week of June. At my company this is traditionally "Profit Sharing" week, when they hand out checks and a free lunch to the employees. This past year my company killed off the profit sharing plan and replaced it with something they called "Goal Sharing". They set the goals, they develop the metrics to measure if we are accomplishing these goals, and then they payout based on these goals. This year the goals had to do with abuse of equipment, plant cleanliness, and some other thing that was so important to me that I can't remember off the top of my head what it was now.

Anyhow, measuring plant cleanliness around our place is telling a cat not to shed. The bulk of the workers in the company work the production lines, do not speak English as a first language (if they speak it at all) and are getting paid minimum wage. Yes, they do get great benefits. And for those willing to put the effort in, promotions are readily available. But it is still for the most part stultifying work. They get two fifteen minute breaks during the day. If they are given the choice of spending a couple of minutes during their break cleaning up the break room or of spending the time relaxing with their friends, they're going to relax with their friends every time. Need I say that we failed to make our "cleanliness goal" this time around?

Anyhow, my profit sharing check was far, FAR less than in any previous year. Sorry, I mean my "goal sharing" check. It's enough to cover what I owe the IRS, with almost enough left over to pay for the refit of a larger 12V battery into my Prius which was done yesterday. (Another long story, only of interest to drivers of generation one Priuses. Priusi. Priai. Whatever.)

But all is not doom and gloom. I finally chucked that piece-of-excrement printer that came "free" with my new Dell computer last year. It may have been free, but I still paid too much for it. The color cartridges (Dell brand, made especially for the printer) were always clogging, and for most of the time I owned the printer the best I could get out of it was a sort of sepia-toned color print. Not that this wasn't interesting, in an infuriating sort of way. I just wasn't into sepia-toned maps for directions and sepia-toned e-tickets and sepia-toned picture prints. During my trip to Costco (may its grounds be hallowed forever) last week I happened to notice an $89 Hewlett Packard printer that scanned (can't use my scanner any more because the new computers don't come with the right ports for the old scanners), took flash cards to make prints, and printed quality photos as well as regular print-outs. Costco (may its grounds be hallowed forever) might be a bitch to shop at, with its understaffed check-out lines and aggressive shoppers that will elbow you out of the way if you manage to duck quickly enough to avoid being run over by their carts. But the deals there can be really sweet, and this printer is definitely one of those deals. Life is good.

If anyone wants a free printer that specializes in sort-of-sepia-toned prints, you know where to find me.