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a post? really??

Hey all,

Just a quick note to let you know that any GreatestJournal users out there can now add AIDS Combat Zone to their friends list. Click below to see my new syndicated feed:

http://www.greatestjournal.com/userinfo.bml?user=aidsblog

This is in addition to my LiveJournal syndicated feed:

http://www.livejournal.com/userinfo.bml?user=aidsblog

Maybe someday Blurty will allow syndicated feeds? heh.

Hope everyone is doing good.

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Just a Google Bomb

Matthias Rath
Matthias Rath
Matthias Rath
Matthias Rath
Matthias Rath
Matthias Rath
Matthias Rath
Matthias Rath
Matthias Rath

Help end suffering in Africa. Visit AIDS Combat Zone

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Spreading the message

Blurty has been frustrating me on a number of levels lately (unreliable, slow, lack of syndication options, low readership, etc.), and so today I opened an account with Blogger, Google's web log page. The new site is at http://aidsblog.blogspot.com, and as you can see, I've backdated my past 4 entries to that site already.

The main thing I'm excited about is having a syndicated XML feed, located at http://aidsblog.blogspot.com/atom.xml. For those of you who are unfamiliar with syndicated feeds (RSS, Atom, etc.), they're probably the best way to keep up with blogs (and news headlines too) from multiple sources all on one page. Think of it as a friends list that isn't limited to just Blurty. If you want me to go into more detail about it, leave a comment and I'll do my best to explain.

Another thing I want to look into is allowing others to make contributions to my blog. Blogger seems to allow multiple authors to access the same blog, a lot like communities work on Blurty. If anyone is interested in contributing news articles, essays, editorials, etc., on a regular or irregular basis, let me know.

Lastly, I plan on changing the look. I haven't decided on a final look yet, but I know I want it to stand out. Red, black, and white are my most likely colors. Suggestions are welcome.

ta-ra!

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Quakes, Waves, AIDS

As I'm sure many of you have noticed, most of the public health news recently has focused on the aftermath of the Aceh earthquake and tsunami, and rightly so. With close to 120,000 confirmed dead, it is the most devistating natural disaster in recent history. Now that the destruction has passed, world relief efforts are to begin focusing on preventing further deaths due to disease and malnutrition. It is conceivable that close to a quarter of a million people could die as a direct or indirect result of the disaster.

But to put things into perspective, UNAIDS estimates that in 2004, 3.1 million men, women and children died of AIDS. That breaks down to over a quarter of a million every month.

I certainly don't wish to minimize the suffering of anyone who lost their homes or loved ones, or to detract from the overall severity of the situation in Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India, Thailand, or the other affected nations. On the contrary, I want to draw attention to it as a public health crisis, but also to use it to put the AIDS crisis into a new perspective.

Twelve 9.0 earthquakes and tidal waves every year. That's AIDS.

I'll keep the rest brief:

Promising results in initial trials of immune boosting AIDS treatment

Woman dies in AIDS drug experiment; Family sues

Oops... I'm out of time. Happy new year everyone!

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Overdue Update

Merry Christmas everyone!

Sorry for the lack of updates lately. The holidays are in full swing, and this is my first chance to even think about blogging in days. As you can imagine, there's quite a backlog of AIDS news, so I shall do my best to put it out there.

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Earlier this month, the Associated Press reported that a 2002 study on the AIDS drug nevirapine had violated federal safety rules and produced drug resistance in mothers and newborns. Unfortunately, this report was misinterpreted by authorities in Africa, who took the report as meaning that nevirapine was an unsafe or inaffective drug. Making matters worse, it has also been reported that the director of the NIH's AIDS division re-wrote a report on nevirapine and deleted negative information. Unfortunately this seems to be a case of politics and sloppy science standing in the way of the fight against AIDS. Africa as a whole is extremely wary of American motives, policies, and actions, and when a situation such as this one becomes evident, it sets up a tremendous potential for setbacks.

The music community was stunned to learn that Andy Bell, lead singer of the UK band Erasure, is HIV positive. The group still plans on releasing a new album in January, and going on tour. The silver lining to this story is that Bell plans to begin an HIV education campaign targeting young people. I doubt this admission will be as effective as Magic Johnson's disclosure of his own HIV status, but I'm confident that Bell's voice will add weight to current HIV education efforts in the UK. Bell is openly gay, and his partner of twenty years, Paul Hickey, has also tested positive.

A new BBC documentary has accused the New York City Administration for Childrens' Services (ACS) of forcing HIV positive children under its protection to participate in drug trials. The filmmakers' accusations would place ACS in violation of federal law prohibiting certain use of foster children in experiments. Glaxo SmithKline has been accused of taking advantage of the situation, but denies any wrongdoing.

For some good news, Ugandan Public Servants will be given free access to AIDS drugs. This should have numerous benefits, including increasing the productivity of these workers, making it more appealing for these workers to get tested for AIDS, and reducing the job turnover rate due to sickness and death. Hopefully other governments will follow Uganda's example.

Stay Safe

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World AIDS Day Reflections

Anyone who read a newspaper or watched the news last week probably began to see a theme among AIDS related headlines; the focus was on women. There is little doubt that worldwide, HIV impacts women far more than it does men (though you wouldn't know it living in the USA). By most accounts, women are two to eight times as likely as men to become infected with HIV during a single act of unprotected heterosexual intercourse. Additionally, women are more likely to take on a caregiver role, caring for infected family members, orphaned children, and the frail elderly, sometimes even while they themselves are HIV positive.

Worldwide, researchers and governments are beginning to recognize the growing impact of HIV on women. Malaysia has seen its number of infected women rise to 74 times what it was in 1990. Canada and the United States have also experienced an increasing number of infected women, especially among minorities and post-menopausal women.

Unfortunately, the outlook isn't rosy for homosexuals in America either. Activists have long warned that the gay community risked growing complacent, and that complacency leading to a rise in cases among the MSM community. Well, there is now evidence of an increase in new cases among gay and bisexual men. This study excluded 18 states, including New York and California, which top the list for total AIDS cases nationwide, due to confidentiality procedures in those states.

Looking for good news? That's one thing I like about writing and talking about AIDS is that there are always hopeful stories amongst the bad news. The West African nation of Mauritania finally got its first AIDS testing site. Check that same article for news about how the neighboring country of Senegal has been a success story. Also, India is trying the novel approach of giving away condoms with liquor and textbook purchases (an approach that would probably eliminate 90% of STD transmission and unwanted pregnancies on the campus of my Alma Mater). Singapore, a nation known for its limitations on personal liberties, has made moves towards requiring HIV testing for all pregnant women and couples planning on getting married. Finally, the hard-hit African nation of Namibia has finally started to see a decrease in HIV infections.

Thanks for reading. Send me your questions and comments, and remember to be safe.

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And so it begins.

World AIDS Day was earlier this week, and this event, as always, has brought HIV and AIDS issues to the forefront of news and discussion around the world. Indeed, there has been much to talk about, not the least of which is the recent progress on an AIDS Vaccine by French researchers in a study conducted in Brazil. Before you get too excited though, the vaccine is not preventative or curative, but just one more in a long list of HIV treatments. Nevertheless, any treatment that reduces viral load by 80% in four months is a huge step in the right direction.

Elsewhere in the world, governments are stepping up the battle against AIDS, including Mexico, Canada, and parts of Africa. Uganda in particular has managed to reduce its HIV prevalence rate from 30% to 6% since the early '90s.

It isn't all good news though. The rate of new infections in the USA remains unchanged, even after three years of stepped-up prevention efforts by the CDC. I do not find this surprising, given the sluggish flow of federal dollars and the current administration's ignorance of the nature of AIDS in the USA as well as its refusal to endorse prevention education that emphasizes any type of risk reduction activities other than abstenance-before-marriage.

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Unfortunately we are 363 days away from World AIDS day 2005, and so it is inevitable that many will again slip into complacency, apathy, and ignorance. Nevertheless, I am hopeful. This was my first World AIDS day since 1999 when I was not working for an AIDS service organization, and I was thrilled with the number of AIDS ribbons I saw on people throughout my day. The world is beginning to wake up to the crisis that is at hand.

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Chapter 3?

This blog has been in a sort of an experimental phase since July when I started posting regularly again. Nothing I have tried has really done it for me, and so I've come up with one final option: I'm going to try posting in it as an HIV/AIDS news and opinion blog. I think that will be managable, and hopefully less boring than entries about my current job.

Stay tuned.

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Happy World AIDS Day everyone!

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Steven, unmasked

Back in January, I made a post in which I revealed my true identity to the people on my friends list. Well, I have decided to remove the "friends only" status of that post and henceforth update this journal under my true identity: Brad from Tallahassee, Florida. This probably won't be much of a change, considering that most of my readers already know me as Brad, but thought about it and it just seems more natural. Specifically, my new job is much more laissez faire about things, so I doubt I'd risk punishment even if my boss discovered this blog.

So, that's that.

Also, I've been messing with my layout somewhat. Just small things, but if you want to take a peek, it's at undisclosed.

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Beat goes on

First, an AIDS hotline update.

As many of you may know, my girlfriend Claire still works for the AIDS hotline, and so I still get to hear about all the goings-on at my old job. This week the big news is that somehow the hotline phone number was put into a directory as being the statewide Medicaid hotline number. The result, of course, has been a flood of people calling in search of Medicaid information. The only Medicaid information anyone at the AIDS hotline has is that AIDS patients sometimes qualify for Medicaid, and how to apply. As you can imagine, Claire and everyone else have been pulling their hair out over this.

While that is an extreme example, things like it happen all the time on hotlines. One example at my new job is that the Medicare hotline gives out our phone number to people on Medicare who need supplemental insurance. The problem with that is that we're only able to help people over 60, so the people receiving Medicare who are disabled and under 60 end up getting the runaround. I've contacted them to let them know about this mistake, but the calls keep coming.

This week has been especially bad. A pharmaceutical distributor recently settled a class-action lawsuit in Louisiana, which will result in local senior citizens who qualify receiving free medication. The key phrase here is "who qualify." Local TV news has been leaving that part out, and then adding "For more information, call the elder helpline..." They're also not reporting that people who qualify will be informed by mail within several weeks. Naturally, everyone who hears "Free drugs" wants to get in on it, and so the first thing anyone does is call the number at the bottom of their screen -- my number.

Oh well. It keeps the job interesting.

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Holy Cow

I received a "Holiday Bonus" today! The AIDS hotline never gave me any kind of bonus (I barely even had standard benefits). Sure, they pro-rated the amount since I haven't been working here for a full year, but it was still enough to cover most of my anticipated holiday gift purchases. It's enough to make a guy feel appreciated (*sniff*).

People are still frantically calling me looking for flu shots. I pray this isn't a bad flu year.

I feel like a bad blogger, updating as infrequently as I do. This job simply isn't as interesting as being an AIDS counselor was. Nobody here compares answering the phone to being "in the trenches" like we did on the AIDS hotline. What I do now is just as important, but it can be hard to be as passionate about it.

On average, Elder Hotline calls are more heartbreaking than AIDS Hotline calls, and my hands are more tied when it comes to helping people out. There's not much that can be done when an 85 year old grandmother transfer a piece of land to her daughter's name, only to have the daughter sell it out from under her. Or when 60 year old's income is just barely over the cutoff for Medicaid, yet their medical bills are far and away higher than their ability to pay.

At least on the AIDS hotline I was able to give people good news. The best news I give people these days is "yes you qualify for meals-one-wheels, but the waiting list may be up to a year or more."

I'm quickly approaching a crossroads in my life where I'll need to decide if I want to continue doing this -- or something like this -- for the rest of my career. I wonder where fate will lead me.

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Meeting Callers

I've been out of the office a lot recently -- this job sends me off-site to community meetings, forums, trainings, public hearings, etc., much more often than the AIDS hotline ever did. I like it. It is a nice change of pace from my typical routine of phone-jockeying and paperwork.

Sometimes it also provides the opportunity to do something I never did on the AIDS hotline: meet callers.

Last week was our Caregiver's Workshop, which is an event we hold every year and invite local caregivers to attend so they can have an opportunity to network with other caregivers, learn about community resources, talk to service providers, and have their questions answered by experts. As you might guess, the caregivers attending this forum are the same caregivers who call us looking for services for themselves and their loved ones. I actually got the chance to sit down and talk with several of them when I wasn't helping the presenters with the LCD projector and wireless microphones.

Meeting them was less eventful than I would have expected it to be. They were just people. Some were optimistic; some were not. Some were overwealmed; some were not. Some asked a lot of questions; some did not. No one seemed to recognize my voice though, and I think that's a good thing. I wouldn't have liked for anyone to make a big deal out of it.

I never expected to find myself standing in a room filled with people I've talked to on the hotline, but there I was. I guess anything's possible.

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New hope against Tuberculosis

"Phenomenally Exciting" Results in Tuberculosis Vaccine Trial

Tuberculosis is one of the common opportunistic infections that ravages HIV patients. It has become increasingly difficult to treat as drug-resistant strains have become more prevalent. If this vaccine is deemed safe for HIV patients, it will do a lot to help them stay healthy.

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Wanted: Good Journals

Does anyone have any suggestions of good journals I could add to my friends list? I've found myself bored and craving creative blogs to read.

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Flu Shots and Coworkers

Anyone who has watched the news lately knows that the USA is facing a major flu shot shortage due to one of our suppliers in the UK losing its license afterfailing to pass inspection. As you can imagine, this is dramatically affecting my job. Each day I get dozens of calls from affected senior citizens trying to find out where they can get a flu shot. Unfortunately the only answer I have that some private doctors are able to provide the flu shot. No clinics, hospitals, or other facilities within 100 miles of here are offering the shot.

Last week when several clinics did wind up with small supplies of the vaccine, hundreds of people, mostly over the age of 65, stood in line for hours hoping for a shot. Once supplies ran out, the people in the line had to be turned away. In some communities, seniors were hospitalized and even died after passing out while waiting in line for the shot.

This is a potential medical crisis any way you stretch it. Thousands of seniors and others at risk could die this winter if we don't deal with this situation in the most responsible fashion. Flu shots should only be provided to the following high risk populations:

Adults 65 years or older.
Children aged 6-23 months
Adults and children ages 2-64 with chronic medical conditions.
All women who will be pregnant during the influenza season.
Residents of nursing homes and other chronic care facilities.
Children aged 6 months-18 years on chronic aspirin therapy
Health-care workers involved in direct patient care.
Out-of-home caregivers and household contacts of children less than 6 months old.

Nobody else should be trying to get flu shots right now. To do so would be unquestionably immoral.

That being said, I have an immoral co-worker.

She's in her late 40's and works in our fiscal/auditing department. She doesn't meet any of the above criteria, and yet she comes into the office on Tuesday bragging about how she was able to talk her doctor into giving her a shot.

I am sickened. I cannot even look at her right now, and I avoid talking to her for fear of saying something that could get me fired. That shot could have been given to a frail elder, an AIDS patient, a toddler, a pregnant woman, or somebody else who could now die without it. It literally sickens me that someone who works for an agency like ours could deliberately make such a shameless, reckless choice.

Dedicated to Marie Franklin, who died on October 13 while waiting for a flu shot. She was 79.

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Iconoclasm

I've decided that with my journal's new focus I should change some of my icons. I'll probably end up keeping these three:

Phone:

Ribbon:

Safe Sex:

Which means I need three elder/aging related icons to replace these:

Virus:

Condom:

Retrovir:

If anyone can give me any suggestions (or better yet, actual icons), I would be most grateful.

you know you want to

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Politics and AIDS

I was disappointed that the topic of AIDS didn't come up at all in this evening's presidential debate, and that when it was brought up in the other debates, it was only discussed as being a problem in Africa. I was particularly disappointed during the Vice Presidential Debate, when moderator Gwen Ifill asked a direct question about AIDS in America. Vice President Cheney professed his ignorance of the plight of minority women with AIDS, while Senator Edwards ignored the issue completely, choosing instead to talk about AIDS in Africa and health care as a whole.

But to be perfectly candid -- and please forgive me for using this journal as a political soapbox, but I reserve that right -- I support and endorse Senator John Kerry in his bid to unseat President Bush. I will leave it at that.

I ALSO support and endorse ANYONE who attempts to unseat Maryland Comptroller William Donald Schaefer, an elected Democrat who recently spoke out in support of a centralized list of Marylanders with HIV, calling them "A Danger," and saying those infected "Brought it on themselves." Schaefer comes up for re-election in 2006 and I beseech any and all Marylanders to call for his resignation and make efforts to oust him should he decide to run for office again.

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Gambling Addiction

I was 99% unaware of the problem of gambling addiction among senior citizens until I began my new job several months ago. Now suddenly I've discovered that it is rampant.

Louisiana is one of the most gambling-friendly states in America. Besides the state lottery, we also have riverboat gambling, land-based casinos, Indian Reservation casinos, community/church bingo, and feature permissive rules on "social gambling" (e.g. card games among friends). When you add it all up, Louisiana is one of the most gambling-friendly states, earning billions of dollars through gaming-related sources.

On a personal level, I don't find gambling morally objectional, however I do recognize that social problems often arise in areas where gambling is common.

Which brings us to the Senior Citizens of Louisiana. Retirement is a radical change for most people. People who have spent the past 40 years working suddenly find themselves with nothing to do. This change comes on top of the other changes associated with aging, which can include a drop in income and standard of living or the death of friends and spouses, leaving one's life almost unrecognizable.

For these folks, gambling can become an escape from lonliness and isolation. The social environment of bingo halls, casinos, riverboats, etc. can bring relief to someone with little other human contact. That effect is magnified by the prospect of winning big, which is especially tempting to someone living on a fixed income, and sometimes even creates a mental "high."

Eventually, though, people wind up gambling less for social experience and more for the "high" that comes from the act itself. When it gets to this point, it is usually classified as addiction, and some form of intervention is often needed to prevent an individual from continuing to the point of financial ruin.

There is very little help for people with problem gambling. All we have in Louisiana is a gambling helpline and private therapists. The state does not run any programs that offer counseling to gambling addicts. After all, this might cut into the huge revenue they earn from the lottery and taxes on casino earnings, or worse, awaken the public to the fact gambling is a source of many of this state's woes. Churches won't help either. After all, bingo is one of their most successful fundraising tools.

Cynicism aside, I have talked to a few seniors with gambling addiction so far, and it is heartbreaking every time. One man successfully battled alcoholism for 30 years only to fall victim to gambling. Most calls, however, come from concerned neighbors and family members who realize, usually too late, that someone they know is at risk of losing everything they have to slots or bingo.

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This November on my local ballot is a referrendum asking my district if we want to expand legalized gambling. 4 months ago, I would have considered voting in favor of such an item, but knowing what i now know, I've decided I would like to see more restrictions overall on gambling in my area.

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Some days are just like that.

Today has been... a hell of a day.

There are two of us who answer the helpline; Myself and Karen. Our positions are almost identical, except that it's my job to keep the computers up and running, and so to offset the extra work, she answers more phone calls than me. Well, today Karen didn't come in until 2:00, meaning I took the majority of the phone calls.

Where do I begin?

The first call came from a woman who was bedridden and living with her daughter, but unhappy with it, and so she wanted to switch to a nursing home. Unfortunately she was also struggling with choosing the right one, because she had heard about employees at nursing homes abusing residents, and she didn't want to choose one that had ever had any violations. I talked to her about the whole situation, what was happening that made her unhappy with her daughter, but she was easily sidetracked and ended up giving me her whole life story.

Technically I could have (and possibly should have) interrupted her and kept her on the subject of her current situation, but I could not bring myself to do it. No one in her life had ever really listened to her in many years, and I wasn't about to rob her of that. She talked for 72 minutes, and at the end I think she felt better. Also, I was able to give her the phone number to the agency that licenses nursing homes, so that part went well too. Still, any call that lasts 72 minutes leaves you drained at the end.

Next came a call from a fellow who needed his electric wheelchair to be repaired, but it wasn't under warranty any longer. He also turned out to be a caller who needed to ramble, and again I let him. The call wasn't nearly as long as the first, but the two put together left me dazed.

After a short break from the phones, I started answering again, and the very next call was a difficult one. It was a sweet sounding woman who needed to help her husband, but didn't qualify for any assistance programs because they owned several rental properties, and the value of those put them over the top, but she didn't want to sell them either. I talked to her the best I could, and even managed to not scream at her "You have no IDEA how lucky you are to have so much, yet you STILL want charities to pay for your husband's doctor bills?" I managed to find one program that would allow her to talk to a financial counselor for free. She sounded disappointed, but took the number. The call ended. I sat in my chair in disbelief

Judy, our receptionist, walked by my door. "Was that the same call I just transferred to you?" she asked.

"Yes," I said

"An older lady with a sweet voice?"

"Yes..."

"I recognized her voice. That was Edna, one of our board members, probably calling to monitor us."

You see, monitoring is a process that is new to me in which our board members call the Elder Helpline to check up on us and see if we're doing things right. The situations in monitoring are totally made-up by the board members, who do a writeup on how I did, which they present to my supervisor. It's enough to make you nervous.

I'm not sure how they're going to say I did on this call, but I didn't feel like I was at my best. On top of that, calls about made-up situations never have the same flow as real calls, and because I'm so used to real calls, the abnormal flow of a made-up call can be enough to throw me off.

*sigh*

I'm not worried I'm going to get fired or even repremanded over it, but the call came at a bad time for me and could have gone much better.

And now Karen is gone again, leaving me to fend for myself until 5:00. Wish me luck.

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Friday

Why do we even try to get anything done on Fridays? My boss is gone for the day, as is the other hotline counselor (only the two of us answer the helpline). Walking through the office I found that no fewer than half of my comerades have either left for the day or never showed up. Calls are slowly trickling in, which is unusual for the first of the month. Our agency provides financial assistance to senior citizens who cannot pay their electric or gas bills, and it's done on a first-come-first-serve basis at the beginning of each month. I'm surprised I'm not swamped.

I'm still getting a feel for the new types of calls we get here. I haven't said the word "AIDS" a single time on the phone here, and I've been plunged into a completely new and different world of Senior Centers, Medicare (A and B), the Older Americans Act, Alzheimer's, Nursing Homes, Living Wills, Medicaid, Retirement Accounts, Caregivers, Elder Abuse, Adult Day Care, Social Security, Assisted Living Facilities, Meals-on-Wheels, AARP, Elder Law, Power of Attorney, and Respite Care. It's a completely different service system than the one I was used to, and I've been learning it from the ground up. Right now it feels like I'll never know the aging and adult services field as well as I know the AIDS field, but that's certain to change with time.

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Aside: Later, when I have time, remind me to write about gambling addiction and the importance of retirement planning.

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Many people, especially former co-workers, have asked me why I abandoned a job I was so skilled at in a field I loved. This is not an easy question for me, probably because it all boils down to money. Don't get me wrong, I was not unhappy with my salary. My frustrations originated with the fact the field I worked for in (including my own agency) so underfunded that they had to cut tremendous corners in everything that was done. Programs were understaffed, waiting lists were extraordinarily long, and services were lacking. I found myself stretched thin, asked to take on greater and greater responsibility with no greater acknowledgement. It got to the point that my own quality of work began to suffer to the point I was no longer proud of what I did.

But I would still be doing it if this job had not come along, too good to be true. On top of it being a good fit, Older Adult Services is the area of public health which is set to grow the fastest over the coming decades as the Baby Boom generation reaches retirement age. The government pours money into the Aging field because it makes them look good and because Americans over the age of 50 turn out to vote in higher numbers than any other demographic. I feel like I've been given an opportunity to get in on the ground floor of an exciting field with job security, potential for advancement, and where I'll still be helping those in need. So I jumped at it.

Obviously I've felt torn over this decision, otherwise I wouldn't feel compelled to justify it. I could have seen myself spending the rest of my career working as soldier in the fight against AIDS, and it is yet a possibility that I could return to that field.

But for now my future is in aging. And if you think about it, yours is too.

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Chapter 2

Chapter 2

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Welcome to the second chapter of this journal. As some of you may know, I resigned as an AIDS counselor in July to take on a new job as an "Information and Referral Specialist" for one of Louisiana's 37 Area Agencies on Aging.

It is a significant change from my former job, which is in some ways good and in some ways bad. Gone are the days of wearing a tee shirt and jeans to work. This new job takes place in an office building shared with other agencies, and a tie is required every day but Friday. Also, the department is smaller, meaning I have more responsibilities and few others to rely upon for assistance. On the bright side, the pay is better, we don't get as many phone calls, and the extra responsibilities help keep me from getting bored. I even have my own office... with a window to boot.

But the core component of my job has not changed. I am still a hotline counselor on a community helpline assisting needy residents with health, financial, and personal concerns. And as I've started answering calls from these individuals, I've felt a renewed need to blog about my work.

Thus begins the second part of my journal, nearly two years after it first began. I'd also like to extend a special welcome to newcomers who are reading this for the first time, and to my many old friends who might be stopping by.

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I'm coming back. Look for more updates soon.

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Today I found out that I got the job with the Elder Helpline. I will submit my 2 weeks notice when I return to work on Tuesday.

Happy Independence Day, everyone.

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Just a quick note to say "Thank you" to saygoodbye, yuliag, ceadsearc, and thursday_next for the kind words they left in saygoodbye's journal.

Aw Hell... Why not... ( an update )