I know and work with somebody who is very good at their job. They seem to have some problems with general non-job-related tasks. For example, they have been driving a car for several months with expired tags.

I am not surprised to report that they have not yet gotten the COVID-19 vaccine. Reaching people like that should be (and appears to be) ( Read more... )

Over the weekend, I visited my parents in downstate Illinois. One of the men at the gun club had recently recovered from a hospital stint due to COVID-19. Last night, my personal trainer told me his father-in-law, a man in his mid-60s with a heart condition, was in the hospital with COVID-19. This morning, I learned that Wisconsin is building a ( Read more... )

I had to go to the VA today. I've volunteered for their Million Veteran Program. It's a large-scale health study and I needed to provide a one-time blood sample. While I was there I got my annual flu shot ( Read more... )

Two questionable items from my recent job hunt and some good news:

Item #1I signed up for a job web site, and they offered a free resume review, tied to a service that will, for a fee, write your resume. So I submitted mine. I got some decent feedback and did a rewrite. When I signed up for another job site, I got the same offer so I submitted ( Read more... )

I've been away from this blog for a while. Once you get out of the habit of posting, you're out of the habit. Herewith, various thoughts.

1) Writing: I have committed writing again, adding nearly 4,000 words to the mystery novel. Based on the comments at my critique session, they were generally good words. More (hopefully) to follow.

2) ( Read more... )

Posted elsewhere, in response to a question on how America can "fix healthcare ( Read more... )

Three things make a post, or so they say.

Thing #1

An interesting story - American man goes to German hospital for possible heart attack, and is told "no insurance accepted." He's concerned, until he's give the all-clear and the bill - $180.

Thing #2

A long and sad article about child endangerment. The tl;dr version? Bible-thumping State ( Read more... )

Some of the melting snow has turned to fog, but personally that's a small price to pay for 24 hours of melting. Here, have a few scattered thoughts.

Hilary ClintonAs you may have heard, Hilary decided she needed a private email server in her house to do official business with. It is exactly these sorts of shenanigans that make me hope she doesn' ( Read more... )

It's Friday, so let's ease on out the week with some links and pictures.

A) Here's an audio recording of one of my Capricon panels.

B) Helpful advice on how to survive a disaster. Basically, people freeze and don't react. The recommendation - think about what you'd do in an emergency.

C) A demonstration of the problems of banning guns - people ( Read more... )

Like the label on the tin says:

A) A depressing article on the sickest town in America.

B) An interesting old picture - Ladies of the Revolution!

C) A pilot and his co-pilot, the cat.

D) Here's a detailed breakdown of male and female Hugo award winners by year.

E) From IO9, a visual illustration on the amount of meat we eat. The amount has ( Read more... )