Saturday, September 8, 2012

RAMBLINGS VOL. XV




Don’t wait for your ship to come in.  Go out and meet it.

The six official U.N. languages are Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, and Spanish.

Last week I met with a representative from the Maryland Department of Education to create my Individualized Plan of Employment.  My job goal is Computer Support – Help Desk – a less-than-exciting objective.  I was hoping for a more ambitious objective like Programmer.  My next step is to meet with a job developer who can get me in the door for some job interviews, which should be all that I need.  In the meantime, I continue studying for Windows 7 certification.  I just finished the chapter on TCP/IP, which is how the world will communicate in the future.  I know a lot more about the topic than I did six weeks ago – ‘nuff said.

Update -- I missed my appointment with the job developer because the paratransit van could not/did not/would not wait for me to walk down and meet it.  I actually saw it pull away.  Needless to say, I was way beyond pissed off at the time.  I went back up to the apartment and registered a complaint, then called the job developer to cancel and apologize.  It’s been a week since this occurred, and I haven’t yet called back to reschedule.  I’ll do this tomorrow.  Man’s inhumanity to man is starting to get to me.

Second update – I’ve called the job developer back a couple of times and left messages, and have not yet received a response.  On my next call I will politely question their professionalism.

A couple months ago I did a two-mile run on the Southwest Waterfront on a particularly hazy/hot day – not the best day to go running, but it had to be done.  While I was stretching after the run, I was approached by a young white kid (no more than seven) who was delightfully open-minded and curious.  He asked me where I lived, how I got to the Waterfront, and stuff like that there.  His older brother (a couple years older, no more) was about 30 feet away behind a monument to the people who perished when the Titanic sank, totally engrossed in whatever – I mean, dirt, air and water:  what else does a nine-year-old kid need for entertainment?  I was somewhat concerned about where their parents or guardians were, but I was much more concerned about what any other adult who witnessed this conversation would have thought.  I didn’t even ask the kid his name or where his parents were; I just finished my stretches and high-tailed it out of there.

Hope and pray for the best, but prepare for the worst.

I’m casually preparing my next online grocery order, and I notice that so far two categories have far more entries than any other – cookies and candy.  To be fair, I haven’t gone to the meat section yet, and I’m sure that dairy has a huge selection as well.  In the meantime, my cookie selections have been weaned down to ginger snaps and vanilla wafers (the off-brand wafers, not the pricey ones).

I was accosted by a member of the church across the way while I was stretching for my run.  He was kind enough to correct my stretching technique, and then launched into his spiel.  I happily answered his questions until he basically told me that I wasn’t going to get into heaven if I didn’t go to church.  Sorry, but that is precisely where I draw the line.  Looking back, I thank the gentleman for helping me to figure this out.

Back at St. Catherine of Siena in St. Albans, Queens, the rainy day PA announcement that “recess will be held in the cafeteria due to inclement weather” always made me wonder (a) who “Clement” was and (b) how did he get so much sway over the weather….

Crazy thing to try:  Smile at the first person you see when you leave the house.  And, of course, where you’re in the house!  J_



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