YEARS

onder if some people view years as "good" or "bad" like I do.

1977 - good, don't remember why, but good
1983 - my brother died.
1987 - a very mixed year 1st half great, 2nd half bad (My final semester of HS was great while transition to college was bad by epic standards.)
1993 & 1994 - Just bad and let's leave it at that.
1995 - Good, started weather job.
1996 - Maybe the best year of my life.  Nothing particularly exciting happened, but just a great year.
1997 - Spellman died and I moved to Nebraska.  If there is hell on earth I was living it.
1999 - Lost my job in weather, dealt with mental illness in someone close to me and slowly felt my body shutting down.
2002 - Ended up in an emergency room with they symptoms of a heart attack (at the age of 33).  Fortunately, it was the end of a long road of having no thyroid hormone in my body.
2003 - Good, new job teaching that I really loved.
2005-2008 - all a blur as I sank into a pretty deep depression and I'm amazed that I still have any friends given that era.
2009 - Great, but feeling guilt.  Can a person really get paid so much for doing so little work?  I ended up writing 1154 blog posts that year mainly because I felt I MUST keep busy doing something, work was too easy.
2011 - After 40+ years on this planet I've never had a year quite like this one:  A year with extraordinary highs and extraordinary lows.  The first high was an amazing job offer followed by my current employer trying to keep me.  Then in May I started dreaming of Mom's death.  The dreams were every night and I had the most prolonged sleepless period of my life.  I had week after week with no more than 3 hours per night.  When I came home in early August and saw how great she was doing I felt incredible relief.  Sadly, the nightmare turned to reality two weeks later.

A couple of weeks ago my Dean came to me with a job proposal that would not be much more work and would pay more.  Yesterday we came to an agreement on the pay.  Umm. I don't know what to say.  My pay raises this year are the equivalent of two minimum wage workers working 40 hours per week.  I get a nice title, "Director" and an unbelievable office - 1500(?) square feet that I share with a co-wo

Can I interest you in a conspiracy theory, subjugation, and Amway?

I am an extrovert.  We extroverts get energy from meeting and getting to know new people.  Last night, however, made me rethink my beliefs.  I was meeting with a Nepali who is a friend of a friend.  Since I love Nepal and almost every Nepali I meet I was very happy to meet him.

Over the course of the evening we hit the trifecta of bad topics:

1. He asked about 9-11.  I knew where this was going... I had no idea how strong the conspiracy theory runs until I came here.  I gave up trying to have the discussion years ago.  I have no energy to argue with these people because there is literally no point.  
2. Caste.  He informed me that within the Hindu system he is in the highest caste.  (And for that reason he can't marry the woman he loves... or something like that... but I didn't really care because I find the caste system abhorrent.  Telling me you are in the highest caste is like telling me how many slaves you own; I just can't be happy for you.)  
3. And it ended with a request that I check into a pyramid scheme very similar to Amway (in that, yes, it is a pyramid but at least they do sell real products.)

FML.  I am still an extrovert and happy to meet new people and long ago I had accept that I'll have nights like this one.

David Frum

David Frum is a conservative former speechwriter for George W. Bush.  Over the years I've come to appreciate his input (even though I often don't agree with it).  That's why I added a link to the side of this blog about a month ago - it makes it easier for to access his work.

If you expect sanity to return to the Republican party anytime soon you should read his blog, starting with his most recent post.