Not liking it here at all
I've tried. I've really tried. It's been a huge effort on my part. But it seems to not be worth it.
I've really tried to like, even love, my home area and the state I live in. Certainly, I don't have much choice right now; it's a terrible housing market and I own a home, so it's not like I can easily move. And Lord knows I didn't see myself settling here; I remember thinking ten years ago that I would be out of here within 3-4 years, and when I got laid off in 2003 I actively looked elsewhere in addition to around here. But with the help of a friend and business partner, as well as some things I've found out recently through a little searching, I've come to feel like this place might not be so bad.
Then comes the past few days, which make it really, really hard to feel any love for Boston or the state of Taxachusetts.
First, we get our state government. It's not enough that they raised the state sales tax during this terrible economy while cutting the pay of many state workers lower on the totem pole while no one on Beacon Hill has taken a pay cut, including the governor. It's not enough that patronage jobs remain rampant. Now we have state Democrats and the governor together changing a law they put in place in 2004 for purely partisan politics. In 2004, they voted to change a law to not allow the governor to appoint an interim Senator in the event of a vacancy, in this case the possibility that John Kerry might win the presidency. Now, they voted to overturn that law, with 44 Democrats that were present for both votes switching their vote from that time (13 Republicans did as well), and the governor declared this an emergency.
Funny, having one Senator didn't seem to be much of an emergency when the late Ted Kennedy was absent for about 98 percent of all Senate votes during the final five months of his life - the time frame for electing a new Senator in a special election. One might say, "How could you ask him to resign when he's fighting for his life and after all he's given, we should respect the man!" But that's irrelevant if we're truly talking about an emergency here; respect for him goes out the window. For that matter, having one Senator hasn't been much of an emergency at any time during John Kerry's tenure in Washington even though his absence for votes is well-documented. So now all of a sudden we have an emergency?
No, this is purely a move out of partisan politics. It's also been well-documented that the White House lobbied for this - the sooner they get another Democrat in the mix, the sooner Democrats have a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate with the idea that they can force an unpopular health care bill down our throats. I'm not taking a stand on the bill; it's just the principle involved is beyond shady - but par for the course with politics.
I think our state motto should reading something like: "Taxachusetts: Where patronage and partisan politics rule."
Then we have Saturday night. It was a great day all in all; lots of basketball, getting to know some of the kids who played, and I had just finished a good dinner. I walked outside of the restaurant and it all changed.
My car was being towed, and only $50 cash - which I didn't have on hand (I rarely carry more than $50 in cash and this wasn't one of those times) and had no way of getting in a minute or two - would have saved it. I grabbed the address of where the car was going, made a couple of calls for help and eventually got it back about an hour later - for $115.22.
And in the process, Rite-Aid lost a customer. I will never shop there again.
For years, I have parked my car in this Rite-Aid lot, going back to when it was still a Brooks Pharmacy store, when parking spaces on the nearby streets were basically impossible to come by and it was past 9 p.m. - the store's closing time. I'm usually in and out in less than an hour, often about 45 minutes in fact, as was this case on this evening. It's never been towed in all these years and I've seen other cars there when I've parked. But not this time.
I was and still am pissed off at how petty of them this is. I can understand if my car was parked there for a number of hours come 4, 5 a.m. the next morning, but it was there for less than 45 minutes as of 10:30 in the evening - an hour and a half after the store closed. I have a couple of things that can back it up - a receipt from an ATM five minutes away from there by car at 9:49 p.m. and my phone showing that I put the address of the towing company into it at 10:35 p.m. This is like giving someone a ticket for going 31 MPH in a 30 MPH zone for about two seconds because in trying to get up to 30, they stepped on the gas just a tad much and temporarily went 31 before letting it drop to 30.
Legally, their case is ironclad; I never considered making some kind of legal challenge and that's not the point. They probably have a posted sign, although most that I remember mention a time limit on parking. But the spirit of that probably isn't to get someone who briefly found a respite there when parking spaces on city streets basically can't be found - just like the spirit of a speeding ticket probably isn't to get someone who went 31 in a 30 MPH zone for about two seconds because autos aren't perfect devices and humans aren't perfect users. They can be "right", but they can also lose a customer because being so petty engenders ill will. Sometimes being "right" has a cost, which right-fighters almost never understand.
This also got me peeved at the city of Boston. Legal parking spaces in the city are almost as rare as an honest politician - there are parking garages everywhere that charge an arm, a leg and probably some of the head as well, and probably 80 percent of spaces on the street are either resident permit spaces or have some other restriction. Then there's this one, that charged me $115.22 at a time when I'm not exactly made of money. It's one more thing about the city that has outraged me - and it happens at a point in time where I had just been feeling more positive about it. Suddenly I'm thinking, screw the housing market, it's time to get out of this poisonous place.
I've really tried to like, even love, my home area and the state I live in. Certainly, I don't have much choice right now; it's a terrible housing market and I own a home, so it's not like I can easily move. And Lord knows I didn't see myself settling here; I remember thinking ten years ago that I would be out of here within 3-4 years, and when I got laid off in 2003 I actively looked elsewhere in addition to around here. But with the help of a friend and business partner, as well as some things I've found out recently through a little searching, I've come to feel like this place might not be so bad.
Then comes the past few days, which make it really, really hard to feel any love for Boston or the state of Taxachusetts.
First, we get our state government. It's not enough that they raised the state sales tax during this terrible economy while cutting the pay of many state workers lower on the totem pole while no one on Beacon Hill has taken a pay cut, including the governor. It's not enough that patronage jobs remain rampant. Now we have state Democrats and the governor together changing a law they put in place in 2004 for purely partisan politics. In 2004, they voted to change a law to not allow the governor to appoint an interim Senator in the event of a vacancy, in this case the possibility that John Kerry might win the presidency. Now, they voted to overturn that law, with 44 Democrats that were present for both votes switching their vote from that time (13 Republicans did as well), and the governor declared this an emergency.
Funny, having one Senator didn't seem to be much of an emergency when the late Ted Kennedy was absent for about 98 percent of all Senate votes during the final five months of his life - the time frame for electing a new Senator in a special election. One might say, "How could you ask him to resign when he's fighting for his life and after all he's given, we should respect the man!" But that's irrelevant if we're truly talking about an emergency here; respect for him goes out the window. For that matter, having one Senator hasn't been much of an emergency at any time during John Kerry's tenure in Washington even though his absence for votes is well-documented. So now all of a sudden we have an emergency?
No, this is purely a move out of partisan politics. It's also been well-documented that the White House lobbied for this - the sooner they get another Democrat in the mix, the sooner Democrats have a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate with the idea that they can force an unpopular health care bill down our throats. I'm not taking a stand on the bill; it's just the principle involved is beyond shady - but par for the course with politics.
I think our state motto should reading something like: "Taxachusetts: Where patronage and partisan politics rule."
Then we have Saturday night. It was a great day all in all; lots of basketball, getting to know some of the kids who played, and I had just finished a good dinner. I walked outside of the restaurant and it all changed.
My car was being towed, and only $50 cash - which I didn't have on hand (I rarely carry more than $50 in cash and this wasn't one of those times) and had no way of getting in a minute or two - would have saved it. I grabbed the address of where the car was going, made a couple of calls for help and eventually got it back about an hour later - for $115.22.
And in the process, Rite-Aid lost a customer. I will never shop there again.
For years, I have parked my car in this Rite-Aid lot, going back to when it was still a Brooks Pharmacy store, when parking spaces on the nearby streets were basically impossible to come by and it was past 9 p.m. - the store's closing time. I'm usually in and out in less than an hour, often about 45 minutes in fact, as was this case on this evening. It's never been towed in all these years and I've seen other cars there when I've parked. But not this time.
I was and still am pissed off at how petty of them this is. I can understand if my car was parked there for a number of hours come 4, 5 a.m. the next morning, but it was there for less than 45 minutes as of 10:30 in the evening - an hour and a half after the store closed. I have a couple of things that can back it up - a receipt from an ATM five minutes away from there by car at 9:49 p.m. and my phone showing that I put the address of the towing company into it at 10:35 p.m. This is like giving someone a ticket for going 31 MPH in a 30 MPH zone for about two seconds because in trying to get up to 30, they stepped on the gas just a tad much and temporarily went 31 before letting it drop to 30.
Legally, their case is ironclad; I never considered making some kind of legal challenge and that's not the point. They probably have a posted sign, although most that I remember mention a time limit on parking. But the spirit of that probably isn't to get someone who briefly found a respite there when parking spaces on city streets basically can't be found - just like the spirit of a speeding ticket probably isn't to get someone who went 31 in a 30 MPH zone for about two seconds because autos aren't perfect devices and humans aren't perfect users. They can be "right", but they can also lose a customer because being so petty engenders ill will. Sometimes being "right" has a cost, which right-fighters almost never understand.
This also got me peeved at the city of Boston. Legal parking spaces in the city are almost as rare as an honest politician - there are parking garages everywhere that charge an arm, a leg and probably some of the head as well, and probably 80 percent of spaces on the street are either resident permit spaces or have some other restriction. Then there's this one, that charged me $115.22 at a time when I'm not exactly made of money. It's one more thing about the city that has outraged me - and it happens at a point in time where I had just been feeling more positive about it. Suddenly I'm thinking, screw the housing market, it's time to get out of this poisonous place.