Outgoing governor Haley Barbour pardoned 219 people before he left office. Here’s a list of them:
Haley Barbour’s Pardons.
Look at all the murderers, druggies, dealers, and sexual offenders. An unconditional pardon means they can buy guns, vote, work in schools. They have no criminal record now. Would you want a convicted rapist working at your kid’s school? Someone convicted of drug sales? Manufacture of Meth? Murder?
The attorney general is trying to reverse some of these, but it might not happen. What was he thinking? I get that he’s leaving, and won’t be responsible for it, but he completely flushed his credibility. Even in his future job as a lobbyist, this is going to follow. Not to mention making the State of Mississippi hit the news for something negative, AGAIN.
Lately I’ve discovered just how much I hate washing dishes. “So get a dishwasher” you say.
I have one. It was a ten-year anniversary gift from my husband. We’ve had it for seven and a half years. Of course , it’s out of warranty.
One day, all the lights started blinking on the panel, but it kept washing, so I ignored it. Then they started to blink in sequence, and I had to hit cancel before it would run. No problem. Still washes. Then, it quit altogether. So I took apart. Duh. That’s what I do. And in my defense, about 80% of problems are due to corrosion on connectors, so when you take it apart and put it back together, you’ve removed some of the corrosion and it works again.
In most dishwashers (actually, most major appliances), there’s a service guide stuck to it somewhere. This one is behind the kick panel. It tells you how to trouble shoot the unit so you can figure out why the panel is blinking, it’s not washing, rinsing, drying, spinning, or waking you up at three am. It doesn’t take a great deal of brains to test the panel, but it does require a multimeter, which does. I tested the panel. You ohm out all the buttons. If all the buttons pass, replace the computer board. Well all the buttons passed, so I replaced the computer. $120. It ran once. So I put the old computer back in, and it ran once. New one, nothing. Old one, nothing.
So I went back to my service sheet, and read that it’s better to test the buttons using a diode tester on the multimeter instead of the ohmmeter. I tested the panel again, and this time it said one of the buttons was bad. This pissed me off, because the $120 computer is non-returnable.
But wait! If one of the buttons is bad, maybe I can bypass the button. It wasn’t the start button, it was the soak and scour button. I don’t need that one! This is where David really started to give me funny looks. I reminded him that I’m the one the does the dishes, and the other option is to buy a new dishwasher, so just let me play with the damn thing. I managed to figure out which diode in the panel wasn’t working and “removed” the button and the diode from the circuit with a razor blade.
Put it all together, and BLAM! It worked!
The problem now is that it doesn’t STOP working. Once it washes rinses and dries, it starts all over again. Okay, I can live with the, set a timer, catch it in the dry cycle and turn it off. This worked one time.
I came to the unpleasant realization that the panel needed to be replaced. Well, the dishwasher is 7 years old, and that’s the part you can’t find easily any more. If it is in stock, in white (because I wanted black) it’s $160.
That would mean I have $280 in a dishwasher that’s out of warranty. Resigned, I got out my credit card….
Check Ebay first! came the tiny little voice that either makes me look brilliant or brings the demons closer. Fine. Ebay. For a dishwasher panel. Seriously? Who sells JUST the panel off an old dishwasher?
It should be here this week! Yay! Dishwasher!
So, clearly I’ve failed the NaBloPoMo thing. So instead of whining and makes promises I’m probably not going to keep, I’m going to say that I’ll post when I get good and ready to post. So there.
(Written 11-21)
Sadly, I have really struggled with NaBloPoMo this year, as you can see. I frequently think about what I should write here, and I never come up with anything. One of the problems with my depression is a complete lack of motivation. I just don’t care enough about, well, anything. Currently, one of the muscles in my neck is spasming, so I’ve taken some drugs and will probably be incoherent shortly. I think I’ll go back to bed.
In an effort to get back on track, I’m actually going to FINISH NaBloPoMo. I might not get one done every day, but I am giving myself the deadline of December 31st to finish. I’m back dating the post time so I can keep track of them, but including the actual write date so you can see how far behind I am.
I’ve discovered that the new depression medication I’m taking causes heartburn and acid reflux. If you haven’t yet had the pleasure of experiencing AR, you’re lucky. Really. It feels a little like getting a big pill stuck halfway down your esophagus. A pill made out of pins and razor blades. On its way down it rips you raw, so it hurts when you take a deep breath. Lunch on Sunday was really unpleasant. Don’t even attempt orange juice.
Another fun side effect is that I’m always hungry. I can handle this, except it also causes the shakes and dizziness you get along with being really heavy. So today I worked for ten minutes, and had to go sit down. Up again, sit down again. It was not a very productive day.
Usually, the body adapts to new meds and the side effects go away. I really really hope this is the case. If it hasn’t gone away in a few weeks, I’m going to have to find something else.
For some reason, I find it very hard to remember to actually write something every day. I blame this on my amazing talents of procrastinating and then forgetting about stuff.
We went out for sushi Friday night. Usually we go to the Chinese buffet in Brandon and eat there, but every once in a while we go to North Jackson and eat at the fancy place. It’s excellent food, and is rather more expensive…. Or is it?
The buffet is $35 after all the tips, and covers one meal for each of us. (Two meals.) No alcohol. $17.50 a meal, no leftovers.
The expensive place came out to be $86 after the tips, included one alcoholic drink, and we had leftovers. We had some for lunch today, and will probably have it for lunch tomorrow, too. That’s six meals. That comes out to $14.50 a meal.
Other than the pain-in-ass part of driving to North Jackson, the “Expensive” place is actually cheaper.
Okay, having spilled my guts about my depression and RLS, I find myself essentailly out of things to say. This is a bad thing on the third day of the month. Coming up with something to say EVERYDAY of the next month can be difficult.
I’m watching TV. I like to record shows on my DVR and watch them later. One of my favorite shows is Top Gear, a British show that comes on BBCAmerica. It features, among other things, high end cars. I find myself being able to speak intelligently on the merits of the Rouch Ford Mustang as opposed to the GT500 Mustang. The Rouch is more expensive, but has a far superior handing package than the GT500, which has a straight axle and doesn’t handle worth a shit. I also know that the Bugatti Veyron, the fastest production car made, has a VW W-16 cylinder engine. Is this useful information? Absolutely not.
I’m braiding some whips for sale at my brother in law’s shop. Also not very interesting, unless I make a ton of the money in the very new future. Things are slow around here. I suppose this is actually a good thing, because exciting can be bad.
Cheers to everyone!
The first time I heard of this, I thought it was complete BS. Seriously? Twitchy legs? That can’t possibly exist. This is some pharmaceutical company’s way to make money on a drug for people who think they have a problem.
As time passed I found that this syndrome does, in fact, actually exist. I still didn’t think much of it. Since I didn’t know anyone with it, I didn’t really pay any attention to it, other than seeing commercials on TV for some drug that was supposed to cure it.
And then my legs started twitching. Just a little bit at first, and mainly when I was laying in the bed trying to get to sleep. It happened a time or too, but I didn’t seem to have any trouble getting to sleep. As time passed, it got worse. I’d lay in bed, still, and an uncontrollable urge to move my legs would overcome me. The muscles were twitching, no matter what I did. I’d focus everything I had on NOT moving. I’d try and try and try and I was ready to scream because it was SO bad. I thought if I could just ride it out, it would go away and I could get some sleep. It didn’t work, and I really wanted to throttle David for sleeping so soundly when I couldn’t. I spent so much time tossing and turning my back hurt constantly.
After about a month of not being able to sleep and being so frustrated I wanted to hit someone, I mentioned it to a friend, who said, “Oh, you have restless leg syndrome.” Yeah, right, that thing that I didn’t believe in. So I began researching it on the internet. I found a lot of good information, a lot of bad information, and several people who said that sex helps prevent it from happening.
Okay… Nice but not helpful. When I went to the doctor to get my antidepressants, I mentioned it. And he said, “oh, you have restless leg syndrome.” Great. Wonderful. “Here, take these every day, you’ll be fine.” Oh goody! More drugs!
But they’re cheap and they’re small and they SOLVED THE PROBLEM. I slept, and slept well, for the first time in a month.
Well, crap, it’s that time of year again. National Blog Posting Month. Why do I do this? Beats me. Apparently I’m masochistic.
I’m also depressed. Not just “feeling blue” depressed. I have full blown Major Depressive Disorder. After years of taking meds for it, I’d discovered that they had quit working. I was crying all the time. So, when I was at the doctor’s last week, I got new meds. I admit I feel better. I was having trouble with my neck and my jaw. Both were caused by anxiety and tension. After a week of muscle relaxants, my neck feels much better. Now that I know what’s making my jaw hurt, and am not as anxious, my jaw feels a lot better. A new pillow helped.
Depression is very misunderstood. Most people think that you can overcome it with willpower and a positive attitude. I’m sorry, that just isn’t true. You can’t overcome it. It’s soul-crushing pain and despair and it NEVER ENDS. Day after day after day… nothing is ever good. Nothing is happy. There is no point in anything. There is no point in trying. You work for 40 years and discover your 401k has tanked in the stock market and social security no longer exists. All the medical stuff you put off can’t be done now because medicare is gone. Why even bother?
Luckily, there are ways to help people like me. There are people out there to help. And there are drugs that can help. Depression isn’t always just a state of mind. Sometimes it’s a chemical imbalance. Sometimes a simple pill once a day can change everything. I remember when I first started taking anti-depressants. I was shocked to find that feeling down all the time WASN’T normal. I’d felt so bad for so long that I thought the way I felt was normal. In my world, it was normal.
So here’s my advice: If you’ve forgotten what happy is, if you’ve come to think that feeling shitty all the time is normal, seek help. Start with your family doctor, and keep pushing until you find someone to help you. Don’t be afraid. Don’t be embarrassed. Don’t feel like it’s your fault. It’s not your fault. Depression is a valid, documented illness. You shouldn’t feel ashamed.
