Don't we make anything in America?? Bay Bridge Construction

So here in the Bay Area on the morning news everyone is all excited that the first giant permanent peice of the bay bridge's new span has been put into place, that's great and all but what made me stop and take pause was that they were all excited that this first peice of the steel structure had arrived to the site from , you guessed it, CHINA...now come on people are you telling me that we don't have any steelworkers in America? This is getting ridiculous there are so many American's out of work, and the Bay Bridge is a HUGE project a feat of engineering that is supposed to last ages and be one of the major points of the San Francisco Skyline known throughout the world....and you are telling me that we couldn't figure out a way to make this bridge here in america, that we thought cutting some corners and having it done cheaper in China was the best idea for a bridge that most of us will be trusting our lives to everyday, day after day through the possiblity of an earthquake happening while you are on it...China isn't exactally known for producing the highest quality goods to ship here to America...I am sorry but the thought of all the people that would have been employeed here in the states making the steel turning the steel into a peice of the bridge, shipping the thing to San francsico from where ever they made it, well SHAME ON YOU Cal Trans or whoever in the City decided having it made for half Price in China was the best way to go...Who knows mayeb once the bridge is done they can hang back up those little sparkling lights we all love to see in the skyline and have them spell out MADE IN CHINA right across the Suspension Portion of the bridge...now there is a site to behold, the remaking of America......

Norton antivirus rant, what has become of customer appreciation

Ok this just anoying the hell out of me so I have to rant a minute. Norton Anti virus has changed the way it works apparently. Ued to be you bought it you paid for it you had your antivirus protection, it included a certain time of updates so you would be protected against new threats right. When that expired you couldnt get updates for new viruses, but you could still scan your computer and you were still protected from stuff you still had protection that you paid for when you bought the program. Well not now, now my Norton antivirus has a nice pop up that screams you are no longer protected against new threats you need to update, so I am like no not at this time because I basically can't aford it at the moment. The notice continues ot pop up over and over and over again. That in itself is annoying enough, but what really gets me is not only is that damn notice popping up but now when my program goes to run its daily scan it pops up and says THE SCAN WILL NOT RUN UNLESS YOU PURCHASE NEW SUBSCRIPTION, so now i can't even scan for old threats usuing the definitions that were installed when I intially bought the software. basically now a days when you buy Norton antivirus you buy NOTHING, you merely RENT the ability to scan your computer as long as you have currrent subscription the minute that runs out all you have is a very annoying pop up ad on your computer. BOOOOOOOOO Norton, shame on you, yes times are tuff all over but you knew you had the best product, why not let the people who purchased it from you use it, if they can't afford to pay over 80 bucks to renew the update service you should let them use the software they intitally paid all that money for, instead all you give us is an annoying pop up ad and an unprotected system. You know most of us can get free virus protection through our cable companies internet, or we can go with what windows includes. We don't have to choose your product you should really think about that before you try and force people into renewing the subscription to updates instead of disabling the software we already paid for....
Today I am uninstalling Norton and going with Mcafee instead. I would have renewed norton when i had the cash since having up to date virus definitions is important, but the fact they coerce customers into renewing by disabling software that was paid for already from running scans with the definitions the customer already paid to recieve is just ridiculous!!

And that is my rant for the day.

Hey mom....

A list of the things that must be brought to my attention as Mom today...
(I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried.)

1. Mom I think I am turning into a fish there are these spikes starting to come out of my back.....what, don't you want to see them, no it's not my spine I KNOW what my spine feels like, seriously I am pretty sure I am turing into a fish.

2. Mom how do you find microfilm, I can't find any no matter where I look.

Prop 8 in the news

So I sit here with my coffee the kids are eating pancakes for breakfast, my husband has the day off he is cooking up a storm. I am allowed a nice relaxing morning with my coffee watching the news and of course in the headlines here in the Bay Area is news about the Prop 8 Trial, on wether or not to uphold the ruling that overturned the right for Gays and Lesbians to Marry in California. Now maybe I am nuts but all that keeps coming into my mind is this. Wasn't our country founded on the principal that all of us are 'Endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are the right to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of happiness." Its that last part that seems so very easy to understand. We have people in this great nation of ours, grown up consenting adults, living their lives just like us, out there in the world everyday waking up and getting on with life, they meet someone special, that wonderful thing happens most of us have felt it you have found that one person that means so very much to you that you can not imagine a day going by without that person by yourside. It happened to me and my husband, we have been together over 11 years now we have three beautiful children, we are persuing our happiness. Why then do some people feel the need to deny this pursuit of happiness to so many just because the person that makes them happy happens to be the same gender they are.

I just don't get it, I have heard all the arguments, and no matter how long I listen to them I still don't understand why some people will spend so very much of their energy to ensure that they can deny fellow Americans, fellow human beings from their right to the pursuit of happiness. As a hetrosexual married mother of three I can't for the life of me find a single reason that allowing other people to marry the person they love and persue their own happiness could ever cause any type of harm to my own marriage or my own family. When our fellow humans are persuing happiness in their own life and relationships how does that hurt us? Well it doesn't. It just means there are more people in the world doing the same thing we are allowed to do each day, wake up, face the day together, work for the things in life that make us happy.

Some people out there seem to feel very very strongly that the right to the pursuit of happiness is only for those certain people who fit into a certain mold of what is 'acceptable'. When consenting adults fall in love it doesnt matter if they have different shaped eyes or different color skin, they are still allowed to get married, it doesnt matter if one of them is catholic and one of them is jewish, they are allowed to get married, one may be tall and one might be short, one might have red hair and one might have no hair at all they are still allowed to get married, why then do people spend so much time so much energy so very much anger and disgust to make sure that when one of those people is male and the other is male they are NOT allowed to get married, if one is female and the other happens to be female too they are NOT allowed to get married. No matter how often I think about it, it is just plain ridiculous. We are all people, we are the human race, we are American citizens, we are consenting adults why on earth do we feel the need to prevent others from getting married.

Nothing will be lost if we let go of hate and fear and disgust and stop listening to that nonsense and instead turn inward to our deepest hearts and think to ourselves "endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights" and before we try and prevent someone from having their right to the pursuit of happiness think about how much having that right means to you and yours.

Gays and Lesbians getting married won't cause the sky to crash in on us I promise, it won't cause dogs and cats to fly like birds or everyone on the planet to suddenly turn gay, I promise. The same way allowing Blacks and Whites to use the same bathrooms didn't end the world, and allowing women the right to cast a vote in an election didn't destroy America. It won't hurt us, if anything it will make us all better human beings, when we allow our fellow humans the same rights we ourselves enjoy and take for granted everyday. The pursuit of happiness.........

I need more coffee. :)

Where is here

Here is back in California. My Husband and I had a brief stint living out in Arizona and let me tell you for two native Californians living in Arizona was like living on the moon. Dry, lifeless, devoid of any interesting points of reference. It might be better there if you are a native, but we had no family there..anyways we took an awesome opportunity to move back home to the Bay Area....right into a darling little duplex, next door to my MOTHER-IN-LAW.

So to get the full feeling of our new home, we have mom and dad in law right next door, and one door down to the right we have sister in law and family...this block is now like a TV show. You know what I mean, on sitcoms it is always so bizarre people constantly just walk into each others houses without knocking and start right into the middle of very strange conversations. In my house never again can someone just walk around in their underwear cause at any moment the door might blow open and you never know who will walk in.

Along with our new home I now have a new set of white plastic forks and knives and sporks from various resturaunts, normally I would throw these right into the recyling bin, I tried to do that after we moved in, but they were gathered up and given back to me by mom. Yep the must be handwashed and kept in the silverware drawer, if she spots one in the trash lord help me.

Now I truly love her she has been a mother to me, and loves me and treats me just like she does her daughters by birth..which means of course I will be hand washing plastic sporks till my fingers bleed. On they upside they match my new set of plastic plates that I have learned to handwash and save after having mistakenly bought them for Thanksgiving thinking they would make cleanup so much easier if only i had used the stoneware I coulda have used the dishwasher....

SO even I decided I needed a Blog

Oh yeah, I decided this morning while chatting with my husband over coffee about all the bizzare things we humans decide to throw so much energy into, that I needed a place to vent all the crisscrossing, crashing, banging, taking up space in my head thoughts that run rampant through my brain throughout the day. As our conversation jumped from local news, to human rights, to the dumbing down of America and then back ot our old favorite of why is it manufactures can list ingredients on a product and have one of the ingredients listed be 'flavorings'. Thats when I thought you know I need a blog. Everyone else has one, I need a place I can randomly mention to no one in particular how weird it is that 'flavorings' is an ingredient.....they should just write on the label....'some other stuff' it means the same thing.

So if you are interested in what random thoughts are running through my head, (don't mind mispellings, bad grammar and run on sentences) this would be the place to find out.