So Sullivan Heating and Cooling came to do a check on my furnace. The man who came was Jerry Sullivan JR which I thought was impressive. Because I initiated them to come, my landlord paid to have mine and our new neighbors checked at the same time. He found that the neighbors furnace was reading 20ppm of carbon monoxide! The furnace will have to be replaced. My furnace was OK. So just a reminder people, every year your furnace should be checked. BTW, my carbon monoxide detector did not go off and we are above our neighbors. The girl said that she was feeling tired the last few weeks since they had the heat on. The price of the check was $40 compared to Remier who wanted like $80. Maybe Remier does something more than Sullivan, I don't know.

Oh and my hot water tank almost exploded while I was gone so I got a new one! Yeah! I think the new one will be much more efficient than the 14 year old one. Still gotta get the energy to put plastic on my windows. I tried making a frame for one of the windows but my craftsmanship fell apart because I didn't have long enough screws to hold it all together. Lots of stuff to do!

Florida will be decidiing on Amendment 2 which would place a state constitutional ban on gay marriage. Of course it is going to pass and some would say well that is OK because the voters decided. I say though that it should not be put to the majority. For exmaple, if Florida decided that they wanted to make a constitutional amendment baring interacial marriages it may very well pass but nonetheless would be an infringment of rights.

Really, I believe that the only reason these "Amendments" come up on the voting block is to encourage the social conservatives to vote. We (homosexuals) become pawns used for political gain. Meanwhile they get to publicly bash gays via the media and compare us to pedophiles and rapists.

I wrote this post becuase for some reason I duplicated my last post and I wanted to delete it without lowering the numbers.

Today we went to Fort Desoto to go to the beach with my Grandma from NY. My mom's cousin Erin or my Grandma's sisters' daughter was supposed to come and meet us there. Mike and I were swimming and when we were done I could see something was wrong with my Grandma. My sister then told me that Erin's sister had died and Erin had just found her body in her house. This is right before she was supposed to come to the beach. Her death was alcohol related. I'm really glad that my Grandmother just happened to be there about 20 minutes away from Erin at the time because Erin and her sister's parents both died a few years ago. My Grandma is really sad of course. Her and my mom left the beach to go be with Erin and Mike and I got a ride home with my sister.

Tomorrow is my last Sunday I have to work before my hours are cut. I really should be in bed right now, but i don't really feel like it. It is so great to have Sundays again and to be able to go my Buddhist monthly meeting at our community center they have once a month.

My gas is completely shut off right now because their was a gas leak coming from the fireplace. This is before I installed the gas logs I just bought. Now I may have to return them because the piping that needs to be replaced is accessed through the downstairs neighbors ceiling! I really don't know if my landlord will decide to restore the gas to my fireplace or just cap the fuel lines from the basement preventing me from ever using the gas logs and thus being freezing cold all season. The pipes are original so it is no surprise that they were leaking. Of course this happens on a 3 day weekend and the landlord is away at a wedding. Coincidentally, my landlord and his girlfriend moved out from downstairs and we have new neighbors. They are really awesome and I hate that one of the options that can be done is making a hole into their ceiling to access the piping that needs to be replaced to get our gas back on. My new neighbors were nice enough to let me use their dryer today which was so great cause then I didn't have to go to the laundromat.

Another weird thing about my apartment is the high humidity. I don't understand why it is like that in here because downstairs downstairs apartment is not like that at all. Every morning there is fog on all the windows especially in my bedroom. I don't really know what I can do to correct this problem so if anyone has experience dealing with this let me know. Now it seems that I will just have to get used to being damp. It may just be something that corrects itself over the winter. I did make an appointment to have my furnace serviced and it was $40 which is much cheaper than Remier and also I was told not to use Remier from a good friend who had used them and had a pretty bad experience and at least heard of others who had other problems with them. Remier wouldn't install my gas logs and the other one would but I'm not sure for how much. I really hope I don't have to return them because they would be so awesome to have! The National Fuel man that came today really seemed to think so to and I think he felt pretty bad turning all of our gas off.

I have already been touched by the "economic crisis". My hours at work have been cut 8 hours a week. While this won't put me under because I have a diversification of income, it is certainly an indication that our futures are looking darker. As an employee of the state, my position did not look good but since the fall of the stock market it looks much bleaker. I *believe* that I will have a job and health insurance for at least a year.

One good thing is that my private student loan's rate will go down even further as result of knee jerk rate cuts. I have been paying more than my minimum payment and will do my best to continue as I am afraid of the rate going back up. I'm wishing that somehow the government might come and bail me out but I'm not holding my breath. I think that the "bailout" is really not going to help me at all. The news blames all of this on irresponsible lenders and irresponsible borrowers but I blame the entire system. I blame our war spending and allowing capitalism to rage out of control. I also blame our country for this crisis. This whole problem is that we never think of the future only of the moment and what will make us most comfortable in that moment. I guess I do it too, I am just as much a part of the problem.

Well here we go. The fall in services to our country is almost certainly going to snowball this into a full-blown depression. We seriously need drastic change to help pull us out of this. The change we needed was not to give those greedy bastards a bailout. It is not going to work! We needed that money they gave to bail them out to apply to services to put people to work. Recession my ass.

58 Degrees is the temperature in my house right now and I am freezing. I have known this was coming all summer and have been thinking about how to make my home more efficient.

I want to have my furnace serviced. Does anyone know of a good service person to do this? Is this something I should ask the landlord to pay for? If not I would rather just pay it myself because I'm sure it hasn't been done in years and I want it to be safe and efficient. I did have a carbon monoxide issue in my last house!

I also want to have vent-less gas fireplace logs installed in the fireplace. There is a gas hook up already. Do you think this is something that the service person could also connect or should I just do it myself? The gas key is kind of old and when I put my nose down to it you can sometimes smell a tint of gas coming from the key.

I have three large windows I want to cover with plastic. The window sills are wood so I don't want to ruin them. I'm thinking of making wood frames and covering those with plastic and inserting them into the window frame. I don't have a saw and am not so handy but am usually willing to try new things so I might give it a shot. I'm just wondering if this will be much more of a task than I can handle. I don't know what would be the best wood for making such a frame. I'm also wondering if making these inserts would be cost effective. Of course a saw would be an investment. I don't need a power saw of anything.

I'm also looking to buy at least one other electric space heater. I saw one at Lowes that uses radiant heat.
Not sure how I feel about that. They also have electric fireplaces. I saw one for about $80.

So hopefully it will be warmer in here soon. For now I refuse to turn on the heat!

Today we learned a new strategy of interviewing at the smoker's quitline. It gives us a lot more control of what we ask and therefore more of a challenge to both the quit specialist and the caller. I think that it will be good if I am good.

So more work equals more money which I am would be thankful for. As it is, I need a lot of things. When I say "need" I definitely mean that I can't go without them. The only answer is to work more, so getting the extra hours in this week is a good deal.

I am very worried about our economy. It really is serious as you all know. The fall of our economy I would say is not totally surprising but nonetheless still shocking. I knew that it was coming but I didn't really think it would be me even though it was happening all along. I'm glad that the start of the fall happened while Bush was still in office, otherwise I don't think many would have correlated it with him and his giveaways, deregulation and irresponsibility. I think that everyone that regularly has posted on this site gets it, but I don't think that most of the population in this country would have been able to make the connection if the downward spiral happened in the next administration. Look at what our education system has done. No Child Left Behind is the biggest freaking fraud besides the patriot act!

The proposed bailout seems to me like a huge freaking gauze pad to stop the bleeding. Not sure if this gauze pad will be sufficient to prevent a further collapse. I haven't quite figured out the answer but I think that our predicament proves that the free hand won't cop an inappropriate feel when given the right conditions. The right conditions would be when no one else is looking.

Sorry guys they took the video down because of copy right infringement. Oh well. At least I got to see it this AM!! I replaced the video with a pic.




In case anyone missed this Saturday Night Live skit like I did. She did a great job with the Sarah Palin's voice. Clearly she already had the looks! How awesome.

I'm so sick of the rain and dampness. Everything feels so wet in my house.


We are forecast to have sunny days this coming week but it doesn't seem like it with that map. It looks like we are just going to be pounded with more and more rain. Even if we do have some sunny days coming up it looks like we will be hit with the last of Ike unless the jet stream changes dramatically.

Northern and Southern Erie counties are under flood watch right now.