I just scored this real mica, real bamboo, real metal lamp shade for
$2.49 at the Salvation Army.

I didn't find a costume though. After years of wearing a nearly
salvation army exclusive wardrobe, I find myself totally grossed out
by the idea of trying dirty used clothes on. I think finding so much
cat hair really did it.

So I am down to Caesar with toga or Adam with a giant leaf from the
front yard sewn to some fabric. Or maybe something else, who knows.

I guess i always depended on my brother (e:mike) for my pharmaceutical needs.

I wrote him this letter on 02/06/1997 when I was living in Flensburg Germany. Apparently, I have always been a whiny bitch about my health. Even in the years I thought I was the healthiest, lol. Poor (e:mike), how did you deal with me?

Mike,
I like opti-free better because it is alaso a rinse. I realize I am also out of neosporin. Thanks. The bracelet maker is somewhere in the attic but it is not in my boxes because it went up there long before I left. Like in the 9th grade. I got it when I was in middle school. When should I go to Italy? Jenny thinks perhaps the 21 feb to the 6th of march. I can stay longer. Tomorrow night is a big party and I have to woork the bar between 2-3 am and 4-5am. That is going to be impossible seeings as I don't even know how to serve drinks in engligh during the middle of the afternoon when I am not tired.

I have some sort of fungal foot infection. I really, however, don't think it is atheletees foot. When I went to the pharmacy he tried to sell me expensive spray. But it is the same thing as the spray I have from Vix. I think it is cheaper to go to the doctor. Do you go to a foot doctor or general practicioner for this? If it does not get better soon I am just going to go to the hospital. My knee is swollen now and it hurts to go up and down steps. I have the name of a doctor but I have to find his phonenumer and I can't find it in the phoenbook. This is all so tragic. I also want to go to the dentist because my teeth need to be cleaned so bad that they are rotting out of my head. I think what happend is that I jept on putting everything off till it all has to be done now Just thought you coul duse a little compaling to make this email as authentic as me being there.

VEGAN

First of all, I have no idea why I asked all of these medical questions of my brother. Especially considering he was 14 in 1997. Maybe he knew he had a pharmacy future. I think if he ever applies to pharmacy school, he should take this letter with him as proof that he has been "working in the field" since age 14, lol.

The fungal infection never killed me. In fact it was some sort of food allergy/reaction according to the doctor. It was not fungal but rather consisted of red spots on my feet and then later hands. It went away after I stopped eating pistachios. I used to eat like 10 million of them but frankly I think it was something else. It will always be a mystery because it never happend again. At least not yet.

On another note, I seriously cannot believe that I signed ever letter/email with the name VEGAN. Now I was totally commited to being vegan for about 5-6 years but I can't believe I used it as my name, or worse that it was all signed in capital letters. Thank god I never had enough money for the giant VEGAN tatoo across my back.

They wern't pregnant after all so it is okay to post this now.

me:
are you preggers?

them:
im gonna take a test tomorrow to make sure
but i think not
I've had my period
and havent done it in way long
and on the pill
its the christ child!!!!!!
ok gotta go
drink wine
and kill the christ baby

This is my repsonse to (e:jim,46321). I was going to make it a comment but in the interest of reaching 25,000 - its a new post.

I agree with you on most of it. Well, the part that this is what actually happens most of the time, but I don't think it is always the best approach.

As you know at my company, so many of the people hired were based on relationships with other people already working there. You can easily draw a flow chart of how most of the people were related in one way or another before working together at Roswell. I am constantly amazed at the back story for each of the people I work with. Its like watching an episode of Lost when they do the backstories.

Unfortunately, that doesn't always work out so great. We hired a couple related people in the past that used a lot of of available resources and delivered nothing. It actually happend twice in a row.

So during the last round of hires I didn't even think about people I know and went strictly off of interviews and resumes that came from public job postings. The two programmers that I had a hand in hiring turned out to be great. They are both getting stuff done fast and figuring out stuff easily.

While I agree that hiring poeople you know is what happens most of the time, I actually think mixing a little randomness into the selection really helps development.

My own hiring (e:paul,32326) was like a random mix of randomness and relationship. One of my students found the job posting for Roswell in the Buffalo News and brought it to me so I applied randomly not knowing anyone - or so I thought. It turned out during the interview, that my to be boss's wife was a child hood friend. I like to think I was hired on my portfolio, code samples, resume and education.

Anyhow, I radically changed the way we work and if I was a yet another Buffalo State ASP classic programmer I might have just accepted the status quo.

Wasn't it the same with your new job? Imagine instead that the visual fox pro people hired their visual fox pro friends, are there any of those even around, lol? Anyways, I am sure you get what I mean.

Not that people you know can't be qualified. I just think there are so many qualified programmers out there that its a bad idea to not have public interviews to get an idea about the competition. We actually don't have a choice about this being a government institution so at least we always get resumes from those related and those not to compare.

Universities recognize this too. The reason you traditionally cannot be hired by your Alma Mater is because they figure you ascribe to the same techiques and doctrine as the people who you studied under. If you are hired the ideas never really change and evolve as rapidly as they would with fresh blood.

Moreover, I find it way easier to work with new people that I do not know whatsoever, as I am not as concerned about hurting their feelings or they about mine.

Still I think you are right that most hiring is based on relationships/connections.

Anyone who has eaten army rations knows how discusting they are. I have this distict memory of turkey cubes in gravy. Anyways, we were at the Uncle Sams Army Navy surplus the other day looking for costumes and they have a multitude of rations for sale. Who the fuck buys and eats rations for fun? You couldn't pay me. To make it even crazier, they were so expensive. Check out this tray of potatoes and gravy for $30 freakin dollars.



I was also grossed out by the dustiness of the used gas masks. I mean how do you know what they are covered in?





So I didn't find a costume. I am now down to the toga idea.

On the other end of the spectrum was this yummy lunch special from Saigon on Elmwood.