Sooooooo, no post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) resulted due to this?  Vietnam, shot down, tortured for over five years, attempted suicide, and none of it affected him beyond that?  He’s never stated that he ever suffered from (or is still suffering from) PTSD and, as near as I can tell, not one print or broadcast reporter has called him on it.  They’ve gone rabidly after politicians for depression, alcohol, drugs, infidelity, illegal immigrant house staff, and stuff they did or said in their high school years, but McCain possibly having a fairly severe emotional disorder is being given a pass?

Somebody get Tom Brocaw down here for me to bitch slap, okay?

Hell, Wikipedia even lists this:

In August of 1968, a program of severe torture began on McCain. McCain was subjected to repeated beatings and rope bindings, at the same time as he was suffering from dysentery. After four days, McCain made an anti-American propaganda “confession”. He has always felt that his statement was dishonorable, but as he would later write, “I had learned what we all learned over there: Every man has his breaking point. I had reached mine.”

 Okay, I wanna know why the hell hasn’t anyone demanded a clean bill of mental health on his guy?  I want to be able to vote a vet into office, but - holy pete! - as a PTSD sufferer myself, I know how it can screw a guy up when he’s under pressure and how it never, ever, totally goes away.  If McCain is still suffering from PTSD, I’d really like to know about it prior to November.  I’d also like to know why the hell aren’t any news agencies asking about this and trying to discover how stable the fella really is?  Are there special orders to leave him alone on this?  I know that Bush’s people attacked this point during the last election, while doing their best to ensure the nomination, but was it ever settled?  I’ve searched the web and news, and I get bupkis!

Has anyone seen anything other than blog entries and the like?

Yesterday, I wrote about this article that was - or so it seemed - yet another in an endless series of “science explains all” type papers, this one taking on that time loved subject, how come Stradivari made such good stuff.  My final line was, as you might recall, “There are no simple answers, just lazy scientists.”

And, sometimes, it’s actually lazy writers who screw up …

Here’s the actual abstract for the paper that the article was about and - surprise, surprise - it really has nothing much to do with what I was carping about.  It was … well, the title really says it all: A Comparison of Wood Density between Classical Cremonese and Modern Violins. That’s right, they were trying to come up with a good scientific reason that Antonio Stradivari and Giuseppe Guarneri Del Gesu’s instruments sound so much better than any of the modern stuff.

In my defense, I’ve seen - and become rather disgusted with - dozens of articles over the years that attempt to do exactly what I was bitching about, come up with the one thing that made Strads so damn good, that it was very easy to take the Wired article at face value and run with it, rather than doing my homework to ensure that my source material was on the up and up.  In short, it pushed the right button and out popped one of my knee-jerk reactions.  Mea Cupa and all that.

By the way, if you have nothing better to do, download the actual paper and give it a read.  Fascinating stuff.  Although … and I feel that I have to say this … it seems that comparing classic instruments with modern ones - which is to say, violins and such that have aged for a couple of hundred years compared to violins that have aged, at the oldest, a little over a decade - to determine why the classic instruments sound so much better is a tad … well, odd.  I mean, couldn’t the simple fact that the Stradivari and Del Gesu instruments have aged over three hundred years - and that’s over three hundred years of being carefully maintained and cherished by professionals - have something to do with their sound?  It seems reasonable to me, but I’m not a scientist or musician, nor do I play one on television.

Anyway, my bad and I apologize to anyone injured by my hastily written opinion.  (That’s right, Sailor Jim Johnston is a big enough man to admit when he’s wrong … which puts me several billion points ahead of Bush.)

Here’s another bunch of egg-heads trying to explain why Stradivari made such good instruments.  This bunch ran several of his violins through a CT scan and discovered - surprise, surprise - that the wood he used “… possessed an exceptionally uniform density, with little variation in growth rings added by trees each season.”  They attributed this to the fact that he used wood harvested from trees that grew during The Little Ice Age, which insured the density.

Well that ought to do it.  Thanks, scientists, well done.  Oh … sorry, before you go and record this one in the win column for good old “science explains all,” would you mind taking it a step further and explaining exactly why the other musical instrument makers who used the exact bloody same wood didn’t end up with anything even approaching Stradivari’s work?!?  I mean, are you saying that he was the only violin maker at the time, or that the others didn’t use the same wood, or that The Little Ice Age only affected trees that he used, or what?

Science … feh.

His stuff was good not because of the wood, the varnish, the glues, the soaking, or the boiling.  His stuff was good because he was a master … and because of the wood, the varnish, the glues, the soaking, and the boiling!   There is no one answer, no one solution; to simply record one oddity and announce that this is the answer is like simply saying the Big Bang created everything and ignoring the guy waving his hand in the back who’s asking, “But what preceded the Big Bang, then?”  There are no simple answers, just lazy scientists.

In short, spend the cash and catch both on the big screen if you have the chance.

Fine, that’s not much.  A little negative karma will be coming to balance it out, like - oh, I dunno - like I’ll get a cavity or something.

Okay, so - at the same time - I got called in to interview for an Admin Assist job at a county agency.

Fine, that’s probably not even going to require much balancing at all.  Maybe the cavity will be on a Saturday night instead of a weekday.

Okay, so when I first meet the head of personnel for the Admin Assist job, she hands me a second job description and asks me if I’d mind being interviewed for it, instead.  I look at the description … it’s for a Program Specialist Benefits Counselor.

(hamanahamanahamana)

I say, sure … no problem.  She leaves me to read over the job description.  Participates in program planning, development, and implementation; Interviews clients to gather information; Documents; Develops; Coordinates; Assists; Identifies … shit, I could do this job in my sleep!  This is exactly the sort of thing I should be doing and - HOLY PETE! - lookit the salary and benefits!!  Oh … ah … there it is.

Calls for a four year degree.  I see, okay, so this is the little extra balance that Karma needs for the Admin Assist interview; to show me what might have been and then snatch it away.  Fine.  No biggie.

After a bit, she comes back and takes me into a conference room for my interview.  I relaxed and enjoyed the interview (I mean, what the hell … I was already all-but hired by the first place, so this was just a long shot, anyway), smiling and making little jokes as we went through the procedure.  The head of the program asked me about my background and I gave some good examples to show how my military training and civilian job heterodyne nicely with their needs.  The head of personnel asked me about some specifics and I waltzed through, staying light and easy and demonstrating how I was all things to all men.  The lady who’d be my boss, who’d I be the Admin Assist for, asked some odd and fairly quirky questions which - I assume - were intended to plumb the depths of my personality and I had them all laughing by the time I got done answering.

In short, it was a really good interview and a good time was had by all.

And then, just at the end, the head of personnel asked which job was I more interested in, the Admin Assist or the Counselor gig?

I smiled sadly and explained that she must have missed the fact that I didn’t have the necessary college for the Counselor position, so the point was actually moot.

She replied that they were willing to waive the degree and that, after reviewing my application, that I had the perfect combination of skills, training, and experience they were looking for in a counselor … so was I interested in the position?

(hamanahamanahamana)

I finally got my jaw to work and stammered out something along the lines of “uh-huh.”

I actually have a shot at a really good gig … I didn’t put in for it, they wanted me for it based on my application for a far lesser job.

Oh my god … I’m going to lose all my teeth, aren’t I?!?

The only thing that could possibly bitch it up is my failing either the background investigation or pee-pee test.

Best of all, I have an interview tomorrow for an even better job … who knows, maybe luck is finally going to fall my way!

Geez, I guess this is Da Lawds way of saying, “Yo, Dude, yer retirement is over!”

2.  The rattle ball is a great toy, but it’s improved a thousand percent when I use daddies foot as a rattle ball aide!

3.  If daddies wearing a sock, the ball can be forgotten in the heat of battle to attack the sock.

4.  Reaching down and prying me off of the sock only means that daddies hands are now part of the battle.

5.  Playing with daddies sock and hands makes mommy laugh, so it must be a good thing.

6.  Never touch mommies socks and hands!

7.  Daddy sure knows a lot of odd words, but he must enjoy playing as much as he yells.

I kept it low level and used all my people skills.  The interviewers, both female, seemed pleased with me and my replies.  No silly-shit questions, just “give me an example of a time when you demonstrated … ” sort of things.

The gig is part-time, around 24 to 32 hours a week, and I’ll be working full days (none of the “four hours a day” sort of thing I was worried about), so the gas problem is not really a problem.  Drive in three or four days a week, work for eight hours and drive home; earning around fifty bucks a day minus twelve bucks for gas a day for a thirty-eight dollar profit per day, around one hundred and fifty bucks per week … that ain’t too bad.

I’ll have to go in for a pee-pee test on Monday (I warned them about the fact that I was on meds and they said to just bring the bottle with me when I’m tested) and then it’ll take a few days to do the background investigation.  I got a nice laugh from them by saying, when the personnel lady asked me if I had any aliases, that I’d once been known as D.B. Cooper …

One fifty a week,  six c notes a month … all for helping people pick out glasses and doing the paperwork.  Not too bad … especially since retirement sucks.

(Or is Fate just sitting there, hiding around the corner and waiting to jump out when I let down my guard?  Jeez, it’s a bitch being me at times, y’know?)

Well, the personnel lady - reviewing my application for her records - noted my office experience and, surprisingly, put two and two together.  In this case, my experience was one of the twos and the fact that the manager in the optical section needed office help was the other.  She called and asked me if I’d be interested in the job.  I said that I would and she put in a request to list the vacancy.  That was two days ago and today she called to see if I could come in for an interview tomorrow at ten.

After a brief pause, I said, “Um … tomorrow is Saturday, you know.  You want me to come in for an interview on Saturday?”

“Sure, the manager doing the interview will be here and no time like the present.  Besides, she wants help like yesterday, so she wants to take a look at you as soon as possible,” she explained.

Okay, now I get to see just how powerful is my weirdness field.  This is a job, a vacancy, that was only opened after the personnel lady realized that she had an application from someone perfect for the gig, right?

So here’s the question:  Exactly what am I going to do, what answer will I get wrong or what reply will I make that’s too damn odd, that screws me out of this job?

On the other hand, I believe it’s a part-time position.  Maybe they’ll love me and want to hire me on the spot … but they’ll only want me for four hours a day.  It’s three to four gallons of gas to get to and from Jasper, where the job is, so that’s - at the moment - around $12 to $16 dollars a day worth of gas.  If they pay me close to the minimum, say six bucks an hour, then I’d only be making (before taxes, of course) $24 a day … which, after gas is deducted, will only actually be around $8 to $12 a day and $40 to $60 a week.  Is making between $160 and $240 a month worth the hassle?

If it was eight hours a day, but only three days a week … well, hell, that’d be better since I wouldn’t be driving in on the days in-between and would end up spending less on gas, meaning more profit for Grace Johnston’s favorite sailor son.

So maybe, instead of dangling a good job in-front of me and then making me lose it, my weirdness field is going to get me a good job that I can’t afford to accept, huh?

I’ll write tomorrow and let you all know how it went.