The Perfect Horoscope?

[note: this was formerly on my MySpace blog on this same date ... I'm ditching MySpace for reasons mentioned on 3/16/2010 and copied this here]

So I randomly clicked on my horoscope for today here at MySpace and I got:

Saturday, September 22, 2007

Gemini (May 21 - Jun 20)

You are pulled between your fantasies and the need to handle pressing details involving others. On one hand, your unbounded dreams are important to your well-being by revealing previously unknown possibilities. Stay focused now or little problems may get out of hand. It's better to face the real world today than drift off into the clouds.

That thing should appear every day. Its possibly the most generally-applicable horoscope I've ever seen while remaining accurate.

Employment? Yes!

[note: this was formerly on my MySpace blog on this same date ... I'm ditching MySpace for reasons mentioned on 3/16/2010 and copied this here]

Ok, I could still be jinxing this but I don't think so. Only things that could still go wrong:

1) Pee test comes back with a false positive

2) Background check comes back and freaks about my pending deferred judgement in the stupidest court case I've ever been involved in (ok, its the ONLY one I've been involved in ... and no, I'm not writing about it until October 24th when its done).

3) They look at it and go "hey, he never SAID he had his degree but we just assumed" and toss my 10 years of related experience out the door.

Pessimistic stuff out of the way? Yep.

Yes, this means I finally have gainful employment starting on October 1st. I'll be Wall Street on Demand's newest Technical Project Manager. They're essentially a .com that provides market trends and charts and similar stuff to all of the large financial web sites (thought they generated their own content? nope). But not really a .com since they started the business back when faxes were the rage in communications.

Its not paying a TON, in fact its only about 55% of my last regular job. Enough to pay the mortgage but not the mortgage and the bills that remained from the divorce (credit cards mostly) and miscellaneous living expenses. But, I've found a way to manage it ... refinancing the house interest-only until the Spring when I can get it on the market. Yeah, in THIS market I'm refinancing for a larger loan, but not alot. Just enough to kill that 1 card and a couple of smaller debts. In the end it will be about $700/month less outflow which IS enough for this job to pay all the bills and still let me pay more than $1.50 a meal (which has been my running target for the last 8 months while I blew my savings staying afloat).

If I don't sound happy trust me I damned well am. I'm ECSTATIC. My brain had gone places beyond sanity the last 2-3 months as my bank account was hitting bottom and I never want to go back there again. It is unbelievably relieving. I won't get to travel like I have the last few years, but I won't be at risk for going under or having the house foreclosed (no, I'm not a victim of the sub-prime mess, just coincidental timing).

Phew.

Today in a Mexican restaurant

[note: this was formerly on my MySpace blog on this same date ... I'm ditching MySpace for reasons mentioned on 3/16/2010 and copied this here]

A young couple, mid 20's, walks into a mexican restaurant today. A fairly typical Boulder couple, a bit hippie-granola to their look. Nothing wrong with that, I've associated with that look myself (but managing long hair is for the birds).

They are seated a booth away from me and the waiter brings out a bowl of bean dip. This restaurant uses ground beef in their bean dip. The lady of the couple, in a voice that has just a twinge of attitude to it, immediately tells the waiter, "you can take that back now please."

The waiter, confused, replies, "its for the chips" that he is about to bring out.

The lady continues, "we're vegitarians, don't waste it on us" and makes it clear she isn't going to touch the bowl but that it offends her.

This story wouldn't even exist if it stopped there. I respect everyone's right to be upset at whatever food they find disgusting. In fact I personally think the most of the meat industry is like the Wal-Mart of the food world, sacrificing our health and future for a quick buck. I'm all for grass fed beef and eating LESS meat, but meat itself doesn't bother me. It is a part of our nature. Taking a stand is fine though, and not wanting it on your table is definitely your perogative.

However, about 5 minutes later the waiter returned to take their order. The woman says ... "we'll share the shrimp fajitas".

Ok, so, they're not anti-meat. They are probably anti-beef. Possibly anti-four-legged animal protein. Again, that's great. And no, I don't equate shrimp intellect with cow intellect. However ... the whole attitude shown about the chip dip just seems hypocritical. They weren't rude. Don't get me wrong. But ... if you don't eat beef then say "we don't eat beef". Ok? I hate to tell you this, but the fishing industry is almost as bad to the ocean as the ranching industry is to the land.