Switching break rooms

Since starting my job a few years ago I have always used the small refrigerator. It was closest to the coffee maker and the most convenient. Recently new employee use and the recession has made the refrigerator over crowded and recently, smelly. The other break room has a less crowded refrigerator. The higher ups use it but recently the other break room people invited people to emigrate to fix the Dickens like conditions in the small break room.

I have taken them up on the offer and moved to the large break room and it's refrigerator. Yes it's a better class of lunches now and the refrigerator has more room. My lunch gets to share it's space with leftover coq a vin instead of Bologna sandwiches. I have gone upscale. Still I have a sense of guilt in leaving the old break room. You can never go home again.

Artsy French movies

When I was a young college student I discovered artsy French movies. Truffaut, Renoir, Cocteau, and Goddard movies were the big thing at that time and I remember seeing them in a small room with a noisy projector at Fairleigh Dickinson University. There, a young man would show movies on Friday nights followed by erudite commentary. Everybody enjoyed their cigarettes while watching the movies.

Today in Trenton, one can re live that golden age of artsy movie viewing, without the cigarettes of course. The locale is Cafe Ole on Warren Street in Trenton. The movie this week (July 15) is the Malle film, Murmur of the Heart. You can drink coffee and eat pastries and there is a discussion afterwards. 7Pm. $5, sponsored by the Trenton Film Society. Oh for a stale Galousie.

Afterwards:

Well it was fun. We had a delay because the person with the film was late because her train was delayed in Philadelphia. The film had subtitles. One thing I noticed was that a man in the front row kept laughing during the film when there were no subtitles on the screen. He must have known French.

You know the country is going to the dogs...

Al Franken is now in the U.S. Senate. For the fine state of Minnesota. I remember when he was the obnoxious guy with the glasses on Saturday Night Live. Harvard man. His book isn't half bad. The one on Rush Limbaugh. They said when Sonny Bono became a Congressman the country had gone to the dogs. Maybe it's true. Alpo anyone?

Jamestown Colorado Fourth of July

Since it is almost the Fourth of July, I'm going to republish an excerpt from my great unpublished novel, "It must be the altitude". Yesterday I found an actual movie of the anvil ritual on the web which I will share. It's a smaller event than I remember. Either the explosion has been toned down or my recollection was far huger than the actual event. Such is life.

Jamestown Fourth of July always did its fireworks in a big way. I was inside the family house eating spare ribs when I heard a loud crack in the air that made me think the whole town had been attacked by terrorists. A giant boom, an earth shaking sonic boom. Louder than anything I had ever heard at that point in my short sweet life. A great, astounding tremulation that sent every rodent in town up into the high country.
Yes, it was the great, stupendous, annual BIG BOOM of Jamestown. An annual ritual, with origins dating back to the last century, when miners had lots of dynamite on hand, together with bellies full of whiskey and patriotic fever. For this great thundering event, the locals would assemble one hundred pounds of dynamite and place them over a two hundred pound lead anvil. On top of that was more dynamite, and another lead anvil, about the size of a Bronco. This would all be assembled behind second base in the baseball field. Someone would light the fuse and KABOOOOOOM the top anvil would hurl two hundred feet up into the air. The bottom anvil just went vertically about one hundred feet, towards the stands. Now that was the Fourth of July. "Oh, they're doing that again, Aunt Melray remarked." I was impressed.

The other thing I remember about the Fourth of July in Jamestown was the raucous party and bar-b-ques. One year I was invited to shoot rifles into the air to celebrate America's independence. There's nothing like the wild West.

Last day of school

I was driving to work the other day and as always, passed lots of students on their way to school or waiting for the bus. There was something weird about it all and suddenly it dawned on me. Everybody was smiling. There was a look of joy on the kids faces. Even the crossing guards were happy. It occurred to me. It must be the last day of school.

I had forgotten until that moment the unbridled joy of that day. There is no happier day than the last day of school. Perhaps it is the expectation of summer. Blue skies, freedom, swimming, playing baseball. The promise of summer is always greater than summer turns out to be. Still it is a wonderful feeling to be on the last day of classes. Even the teachers had grins on their faces.

How to save money on health care

There is a good article in the New Yorker on why health care is so expensive. It's not the insurance, it's the way doctors order too many tests and procedures. It's like working on the reference desk at a public library. The student has to do a paper on a rather vague topic and needs thousands of books and articles from the library. The librarian finds lots of stuff to give the patron. Book titles, reference books to be copies, websites, articles from Ebscohost. The librarian knows that if he gives the patron enough stuff he can get rid of the person and move onto the next patron in the line.

The doctor is running late and has ten minutes to deal with a patient with a series of unrelated ailments. The easy way of getting rid of the person is to order lots of tests. A battery of blood tests, barium tests, ekg's, etc. will keep the patient busy and maybe the tests will show something the doctor can use. The patient is happy because he can manipulate the tests into a day off from work and the insurance company will pay for the procedures. The doctor is happy because he can move onto the next patient in the waiting room.

It's faster for the doctor and librarians in our scenario to give the client stuff to do than do a detailed examination of the body or the school assignment. The solution to the health care cunundrum? Limit tests to ten a year, with one allowable operation.

A one payer system would be fairer to all. People could switch jobs and not be tied down because of health insurance. Everybody would have health insurance, but, like in Europe, medicine would be rationed. And Medicare should end at age 85. Sorry Grandma. Crisis with health insurance? Solved.

Air conditioning

At least here in New Jersey, air conditioning use is down. It's been cold and damp if not rainy every day. The elevator pundits at work are voicing a lot of "I'm so sick of this damn weather" and "I haven't felt dry in a week". Of course if it was 95 degrees people would complain about that too. People who would probably use less AC this year anyway are turning off the machines altogether so at least everybody is saving money. For now.

We've become soft. I remember when we lived by the fan in the summer. We had a huge window fan in the hallway when I was growing up. I used to sing through the fan to hear my weirdly modulated voice. Then my parents got a unit for their bedroom. Feeling guilty and perhaps tired of my singing, two years later they replaced the fan with an air conditioner. When they put in central air conditioning at my father's job, the old man came home with another air conditioner, which we put in the dining room. I often wondered if he paid for it.

Those units took 220 volts so some electrical alteration must have been done. My brother, the aspiring electrician, must have been involved in that project.

For now, I'm just using the ceiling fan. The halcyon days before the serious dog days kick in.