Bullshit

 For some reason, I thought today was Thursday, and went into see if my schedule had been updated.  I was wrong.  We're only into Wednesday.  The updating will come sometime this afternoon.

Yesterday was a no-go as far as everything that had been expected.  Mike (the Plumber) showed up but had to take his truck in to get inspected.  He took pictures, and a video of the bad pipe, and gave me a quote.  Very high $$$, but I'm going with it.  This is the same reputable company I've been dealing with for some time, and I can afford it, however the truck inspection took longer than expected, so he'll be back this morning.

I did drive over to World Class Ski and Cycle to pick up the check for selling my X6 Cannondale.  The first check they'd sent me got lost in De Loy's screwed up postal service.  And then, of course, 19 days after the first check was mailed, the carrier dropped off the first check last evening.  A black sharpie had been used to scratch off the first delivery bar codes on the envelope, indicating the check had been delivered to the wrong address and that person had returned it to the Enola post office, which sent it back to the Camp Hill post office so it could be processed a 2nd time.  The bicycle shop put a stop payment on the first check and issued a 2nd.  This is almost the height of postal incompetence.

My roses are beginning to come in.

There was a terrible tragedy down in Texas yesterday.  Many children were shot to death.  Chris Murphy, the Democratic senator from Connecticut has said enough of the bullshit!  He is right on the money.  President Biden said, "we need to stand up to the gun lobby."  He is off.  It is not the gun lobby, rather it is the Republican party that needs to change.  They won't.  Any form of gun control would cause them to lose the votes of 2nd amendment assholes.  Lose votes?  Conservatives are so craven for power they will accept any form of gun violence.  They do claim to pray a lot, but I suspect those prayers are mostly hoping that the majority doesn't finally turn against them.  As expected, Ken Paxton, the corrupt Attorney General from Texas, and Ted (I would rather be in Cancun) Cruz suggested putting armed officers in schools.  I will tell you that from the deepest part of my heart, I do not believe our founding fathers envisioned the need to have armed officers in schools when they added the 2nd amendment to the Constitution.  Anyone who believes that is full of bullshit.

Post Office Failure

About a year and a half ago I received a letter in the mail regarding a Class Action law suit against International Paper, the company which had chosen to lay me off in order to outsource my job to Poland.  Evidently they were doing something funny with my 401K deductions, using them to earn interest instead of depositing them into my 401K account.  Anyway, I joined the suit thinking I'd never really see any financial result.  There is no way you can even begin to imagine my surprise last evening when I opened my mail and discovered a 1099-R for monies mailed to me as a result of the law suit.  Why was I so surprised?  I never received a check.
This morning I talked to the firm involved and learned that my check had been mailed out, but had been returned marked "undeliverable."  They are going to reissue, however because the legal disbursement date is 2014 it will effect the taxes for that year.  Because those taxes have already been filed I will need to file an amendment.  The firm also suggested I talk to the Post Office in an attempt to find out why the check was returned.

I was told by the Postal worker at my local Post Office "that's a carrier issue."  For reasons only the carrier knows this check, in an undamaged envelope, was stamped "undeliverable" and returned to the sender.  She apologized for the "inconvenience" amending my 2014 taxes was going to cause, all the while continuing to remind me that this was a "carrier issue."  And, of course, since the carrier working my route at the time the check was returned is no longer a carrier, there is no way they can find out why the check was returned.  In fact, there were a number of 'temporary carriers' delivering mail during the time the check was mailed.  Is it me, or is this one of the best definitions of FAILURE there is?  Is it any wonder so many people think the US Postal Service is outdated?

US Postal Service - On its way to extinction

For those of you who didn't know, there was a national protest yesterday by the United States postal workers.  What were they protesting?  The eventual closure of post office facilities and the elimination of jobs, and notice I say eventual.  The US Postal Service is a dinosaur beginning to go through its death throes.  The times when Americans relied heavily on the mail service are gone.  What do most carriers deliver now?  Bills and junk mail, and even those too are dwindling as I type.  Everything is going electronic from magazines to bank statements, more and more people are opting for paperless billing; the need to actually hold a bill in your hand is something only the older generation feels.

The problem is they don't want to take the painful steps needed to keep the Postal Service alive.  They get paid very well, the starting rate for a carrier is between $12 and $14 per hour with unbelievable benefits and just to deliver junk mail and bills.  More and more you're hearing whispers of a government bailout of their benefit / retirement package, around $4 billion.  Remember how upset people were when the government bailed out the Auto Industry?  Imagine how American citizens will feel if their tax dollars go to bail out the Postal Service?  Of course, the postal workers don't even consider this, all they want to do is hold onto their juicy plum.