'No political affiliation'	Monday, February 02, 2004 6:16:02 PM
In Pennsylvania, every person who does anything with their driver's license has to go through the whole "do you want to vote" process. This allows them to register just about everyone to vote. The other thing that you can do is to change your voting registration options and preferences. I am now no longer a registered Republican, which has made my friend Michelle very happy & proud. Probably my parents will be less so, but probably less unhappy then when I threatened to vote for Al Gore. :) However, they credit me with my own brain and a good heart, so I'm sure that they will respect my decisions. I only occasionally vote in the primaries, so I decided not to pick a different one to belong to while I figure things out. Last election, I voted Libertarian for governor because his stance on the issues were the closest to mine, but I'm not so tied to them that I wanted to sign on the dotted line. Who knows how I will vote in November for president? I do believe in smaller government and less taxes, state's rights and helping business succeed (within reason). I am pro-life. I guess that puts me in the Republican camp, except the President Bush has actually expanded government and government spending. I don't believe that his tax cuts while increasing the government was a responsible thing to do, especially since the tax cuts will go away in a couple of years and we will be left with a big government to pay for. So, it really puts me in the Libertarian camp. I believe in protecting the environment and have come to belive strongly in a national health care system like Canada. If we believe that all people have the right to education, why shouldn't we believe that all people have a right to health care that will give them an opportunity to enjoy their life, liberty & pursuit of happiness? I believe that all people, regardless of sexual orientation, should have the ability to a legal marriage even if we don't call it the same thing. I believe that war is justified at times, but have been opposed to the wars that we are currently in. I mean, Kim Chong-il has nuclear weapons and the means to hit Alaska with them and we go after Saddam Hussein first. Not that I'm advocating invading North Korea, but I'm just giving an example. I guess that puts me in the Democrat camp, though I can't bring myself to vote for many of their ideals. I'm sure that I will blog more on all of these things while I figure things out. It will help once the Democrat, Green and Libertarian parties figure out who to put on the ballot. According to this poll at the Libertarian site, I am almost tied Republican and Libertarian with Democrat not far behind and Green party way in the back. However, they are only polling on seven issues. When I took the short version, I had 2 Libertarian, 2 Republican, 2 Democrat and 1 Green. That's no help. :)
Vanity and the DMV	Thursday, January 29, 2004 12:52:17 PM
I have been feeling a little old recently. I still feel like I'm 25 and look the same way that I did then and sometimes am surprised when I see myself in the mirror or in pictures. (This going to be a pity-party post, but I need to give you the background for the rest of the story. Don't worry - it has a happy ending.) At any rate, there is nothing to make you feel older than having to get a picture taken for the DMV and having a bad picture there for all of the world to see. Particularly when you are known for having one of the best driver's license pictures in the history of the world. I was due to get my picture taken at the end of December. But, I found out that the signed photo card can count as your license for 60 days. Thank God for extensions. I was not looking forward to this, because I just got all of Mike's pictures from the Thanksgiving/Christmas holidays and they were total blows to my vanity. I looked at them and knew that I needed to lose like 15-20 pounds before I even attempted the picture. I made an appointment with Michelle's amazing hair stylist and hoped that he could do something to help me out. My appointment is for February 13th. That fits right in because I just have to have the photo taken 60 days after my license expires. Michelle sees me carrying around my temporary license and asks me why. I tell her that I just haven't gotten around to it. [implied - losing 15 pounds, getting my hair redone, etc] She says "Don't wait until the last minute - remember what happened last time." Actually I didn't, but she reminded me that I was stopped for speeding on the day before my license was going to expire and was going away for the weekend. Oh, yeah. I took out my temporary license just to make sure that I had the date correct. Crap. It is 60 days from when the temporary license was issued, not from the expiration date. My license will expire in 3 days. Crap. No new hair, no quick fix diet, nothing can help this. So, I went to the DMV today and was resigned to getting a license picture that I would just have to "lose" later on after I went back to being "me". I did try - put on makeup and my new lucky sweater, but was not totally hopeful. To my astonishment, I walked into the DMV and 15 minutes later (I know the right one to go to) walked out with another terrific license picture, arguably even better than the one taken four years ago. I won't be embarrassed showing it to bartenders, waiters, or policemen. They made me look like the old me. Thank you Upper Darby, Pennsylvania DMV! I guess I'm not old yet. :)
In much better news...	Wednesday, January 28, 2004 11:06:41 PM
... Lia is walking now. Yeah! My mom and dad want Becky and Jay to borrow a digital camera and take pictures of this event since they will not come back up north until there is no chance for snow. They are so funny. :)
T-Mobile	Wednesday, January 28, 2004 10:45:26 PM
Excuse all of the caps, but I am in a pissy mood at this moment in time. I have been a loyal T-Mobile customer for about 8 years. I signed up with them when they were Omnipoint, then moved on with them when they were VoiceStream and continued to move on with them when they became T-Mobile. Not only was I a good & loyal customer (paid my bills, stayed with them, only called customer service 2 times in 8 years), but I referred other people to them. In fact, cheered people on to sign up with them. Including Mike's parents. Not only have I been a long-time customer of their company, but I have also been a long-time GET MORE NATIONAL PLAN (this is the important part of the post) customer. This came in handy when I was traveling 90% of the time and sitting in hotel rooms all of the time. This leads to lots of calling from places like Omaha, Nebraska where incidentally I paid a cab driver $25 each way to drive me to a movie theater because I was so bored. (No offense to any Omaha dwellers, but the city is spread out like mad.) At any rate, I never, ever, ever, ever had a roaming charge with VoiceStream. EVER. Please note that I haven't been traveling to the same extent since VoiceStream was bought out by T-Mobile, but I called to verify with them that I had the same exact plan with the same exact services when they took over. (The main reason for that is that the Cingular "jack" ad campaign was cute and I briefly thought about moving over to them if they had a better plan.) However, the T-Mobile representative assured me that everything was the same. I would still get my national minutes as usual. Fine. Except when I received a grand total of $30 in roaming charges on my last 2 phone bills. Roaming charges??? With my national plan??? I went to their web site. Yes, their web site says that the "Get More" plan is still a national plan. And their map shows that both West Palm Beach, FL (where we were for Thanksgiving) and Tampa (where we were for Christmas) are both covered. Cool. This will be a piece of cake to resolve. So, today, I call T-Mobile to straighten all of this out. I talked to them for 20 minutes. The conversation went something like this: Them: You don't have a national plan, you have a regional plan Me: I am on a national plan. Them: No, you aren't. Me: Yes, I am. Let's take a look at the website. Let me read you all of my letters from VoiceStream and T-Mobile. Them: You are not on a national plan. Me: Ma'am, I've looked through all of my bills and until these last two months I have not incurred any roaming charges. How can you have switched me to a regional plan without telling me? That isn't possible, so I still have a national plan. Them: No, you aren't. Me: This is ridiculous. I want a credit for the $30 and then we can discuss what plan to switch me to, but I am not paying for roaming charges that I should not have incurred. Them: We are not giving you a credit. This goes on and on, but you get the gist of it. I talked to a supervisor and they still wouldn't give me a credit. The best that I could to is to make them note in my account that I am extremely upset and will not stay with their company because of this. I am still in shock. What kind of company does this? They won't credit $30? I pay them well over $500 a year and have been with them for 8 years. This is such bullshit. I stayed with these bastards when I could have had the same exact plan with Cingular PLUS rollover minutes. Well, guess what? They will no longer get that $500 per year from me. They may have other people who will pay it to keep them afloat, but I will do everything in my power to dissuade anyone from going with them. I guess the Cingular "jack" will win out and I will in fact "get more".
From Michelle	Tuesday, January 27, 2004 11:28:28 PM
Michelle thought this was blog-worthy. Very funny. Polishing leaves? http://www.k-y.com/everydayuses/Modern_Girls_Guide.html
Academy Awards	Tuesday, January 27, 2004 6:25:40 PM
After a month of no posts, I will have to put up a bunch all at once to catch up. I have been chastised for having this page and not using it. :) So, the Academy Award nominations were announced today. Some of them surprising. I thought for sure Ian McKellen would have gotten something. Or someone from the Lord of the Rings movie. But, I'm quite happy that Peter Jackson was nominated and hope that he wins for his massive achievement. Another pleasing moment was when Whale Rider's Keisha Castle-Hughes was nominated for best actress. I thought that she was phenomenal in that movie. Mike disagrees with me that kids should win these awards (we are still bickering over 1999's best supporting actor award), but he would be wrong. :) Ditto happy moments for Johnny Depp and Lost in Translation. Excellent! Even if Johnny Depp doesn't win, I'm still happy that he had a nod from the Academy in a comedy. The biggest surprise for me was how many nominations Master and Commander received. Mike and I had heard on more than one occasion that it wasn't worth the price of a ticket. And so we decided to wait on it. However, we may just have to go now and see it for ourselves.
Achievements	Thursday, December 11, 2003 8:18:33 PM
I just thought I'd brag about Alex and Lia becuase I am very proud of both of them. Alex has written a lovely poem titled "My Monster". Lia is almost ready to walk. Good on ya!
Dude, I got a Dell!!!	Friday, December 05, 2003 10:04:08 AM
I have been meaning to update my musings for a very long time - skydiving, trips to FL, more work nonsense, the Giants crappy season, wars, politics, the universe, etc all need to be mused on. However, something fabulous just made my day and I need to share my excitement with all of you. My new Dell Axim X3 just arrived in the mail at work, less than 2 days after Mike ordered it for my birthday present. It is so cool!!! And the keyboard is so cute!!! So fabulous!!! Yay Mike!!! Yay Dell!!! Yay USP guy who drove through this yucky 4-6 inches of snow to get it to me!!! I'm so lucky!!!
pseudo-evesdropping	Monday, October 27, 2003 9:37:53 PM
My career counselor asked me to contact a bunch of friends and family members and give them all of my personality traits, values, and other assorted helps and ask them to let me know what they think that I should be when I grow up. It has been such an interesting experience to hear what my friends and family think I should do. Almost like evesdropping on people talking about you, but in a much nicer way. :)
on the drugs	Monday, October 27, 2003 5:41:13 PM
I went to the doctor this morning to have him cure me. I have a 102 degree fever and they put me back on antibiotics. I guess I was justified in letting Mike take care of me all weekend. :)
So excited!!!	Sunday, October 26, 2003 9:28:03 PM
The Giants won!!! The season is not over!!! And they beat the undefeated, very talented Minnesota Vikings. As an aside, when one of the sideline reporters was talking to Kerry Collins, he attributed some of his success to shaving off the beard. It is nice to hear that football players have some of the karma rituals too. :)
Saturday musings	Saturday, October 25, 2003 9:17:22 AM
I have been sick for over 3 weeks now. Not desperately sick, i.e. enough to go to the hospital and slowly fade away while Mike sits next to me looking sad and losing sleep. But, sick enough to be awake at 8am on one of those rare Saturdays when I could sleep the day away if I chose to because I can?t breathe. My dilemma is this: I?m starting to get a little worse, which makes me want to go to the doctor and get some pills to cure me. But, until today, I have not been sure that I have had an infection that pills could cure. I try not to overuse antibiotics because I am allergic to all of them except penicillin and amoxicillin. Because that is the only thing that the doctor can prescribe for me, they are starting to lose their impact at the lower doses and I would like to save them for when the terrorists decide to use biological weapons on Philadelphia. Except that the antibiotics that people are stockpiling are not one of the aforementioned drugs, so I am pretty much screwed anyway. Scene: A strange and terrible disease infects the population of Philadelphia. Everyone takes their antibiotics and are cured. All save Kathy, who lies alone in a hospital bubble, dying a miserable death. Mike stands at the observation window, wishing that he woke up and was miserable with her on October 25th instead of sleeping soundly. And made her some tea. *LOL* I tend to be a little melodramatic always, but I am a little silly due to lack of sleep. Mike is fabulous and if I woke him up and told him that I needed tea, he would make it for me because he is a bang-up guy. :) We went to see a cool indie movie last night at the Bala Cynwyd movie theater. I like that there are a bunch of really small 1-3 screen movie theaters around my house that show only cool little movies. Mike would prefer to wait until they are shown at a big movie complex that has stadium seating and better quality popcorn, but then the little theaters will go out of business and we will be left with only the shows that ?they? want us to watch. The only thing that I knew about The Station Agent was that it was about a guy who wanted to be left alone so he moved to a train depot in rural NJ and was highly-rated by previous viewers. I am incredibly fond of all things NJ, so off we went to the movies. So funny! I?m not sure if it was funny because it had a guy who was less into talking to people than Mike and a guy who was more into talking to people than me, but we laughed a lot. This makes the 2nd movie that I have sort-of dragged Mike to see at the local theater that he really liked. (Earlier this year it was Bend It Like Beckham ? sooo good and now out on DVD.) So, I?m sitting here and typing away. Mike has finally woken up and wants to put it on the record that when I am in the hospital bubble, he will just think sad thoughts about my dying and not worry about not bringing me tea because he has just brought me a giant mug of it. And now he is making me waffles. And not because I am sick, but because he is super-cool. Earlier this morning, I have had a chance to catch up on the musings of Jamie and Kim. I?ve found out that the fantasy/sci-fi character that I am most like is Princess Leia from Star Wars ? ?A strong-willed herald of causes against injustice, you passionately strive to right the wrongs around you?. By taking Jaime?s suggestion to answer the questions exactly backward to find my arch nemesis, I found that it is Vizzini from The Princess Bride ? ?An unparalleled strategist with the cunning to match, your smarts are used in whatever ways they are most appreciated?. So apparently, I am a herald that doesn?t strategize much. :) After reading their blogs for this month, they almost make me wish that I was more active politically again. I burnt out of that mode early in college. In high school, I petitioned, worked on campaigns, marched on Washington, DC, and raised money. I was going to be a Political Science major and change the world. My fervency continued into early in my Sophomore year and then two things happened that changed all of that. The first was that I had to help out with the campaign for a class project for a rather weaselly man who gives all politicians a bad name. The further I got into dealing with him and the other candidates made me realize that quality people who go into politics for the good of the world instead of for their own gain are very rare. I realized that I would probably never run for office since I would have to vote against my conscience to get things done and I didn?t think that my conscience could take it. Or, I would ignore it and then turn into one of these icky politicians. The second was that I was no longer the underdog political thinker at this school (conservative, middle American college instead of liberal, cosmopolitan high school) and felt like ?the cause? was being upheld by many of my classmates, so I felt safe enough to stop defending my ideals and start trying on new ones for size. I also have to admit that some of them didn?t think through their reasons enough, so I felt a little bitter about them spouting any party line without putting the time and struggles into their decisions. I ended up dropping my PoliSci major that year and trying out all sorts of new political ideas on for size. The most famous one in my household was when I decided to become a communist to solve the problems of the Philippine urban poor. My mom had a fun time arguing that one. She actually didn?t debate that one too much. Just said that when the communists take over, they tend to kill off millions of people, especially the educated teachers. And is land reform worth that? grr. I guess that I have to figure out where I lie in the political spectrum of things before I can get active again. And possibly, I will never be certain enough to get active again, but I should probably apply the things I learned in the wonderful book ?Myth of Certainty? by Daniel Taylor to this situation and just do it.
A musing on taxation and representation	Wednesday, October 22, 2003 9:39:01 PM
To echo my love, it has been an interesting mayoral race to watch in the Philadelphia metropolitan area. The commercials and debates have been acrimonious to say the least. One of the points of debate is the city wage tax. Sam Katz wants to abolish the city wage tax, John Street doesn't think it is possible to run the city without it. Philly's city wage tax is fairly high: 4.5 percent for city residents and 3.91 percent for non-residents who work in the city. So, I got to thinking about all of the people who are getting taxed through city wage taxes and do not have a vote in the matter. This is something that isn't new. For example, folks in Washington DC don't have representation in Congress (no representative in the Senate and only a non-voting delegate to the House). I was talking to Mike's dad and he was telling me about the fact that they had two houses at one point and had to have Mike's mom change her residence to the 2nd house so they could have some form of vote in the 2nd areas's local elections. Heck, this was the argument that Lucy Stone used in 1858 to try to bring the vote back for NJ women. What would it hurt to allow people who have a vested interest in an area vote in an area election? In the case of people with two houses, I'm not suggesting that they get to vote more than once for president, but shouldn't they have a say in the local politics? Likewise, shouldn't people who work in a city have a similar say in how the city is run? I was telling Mike about my idea to have people who work in Philadelphia get a half vote and the people who live in the city get a whole vote for mayor. Mike started joking about discrimination, but in all fairness, people who live in Philadelphia pay a higher tax than non-residents. I think that it is a good compromise. I don't know. Just a muse...
Sukkot	Thursday, October 16, 2003 9:14:56 PM
I live in a very Jewish area and it is now the Feast of the Tabernacles. There are booths all over my neighborhood, including in the yard of the house next door. As I was driving home from work, the Hebrew Academy's booth (the most gorgeous one that I've ever seen - it has canvas murals for the walls) was filled with kids celebrating/camping out. It reminds me that I really wanted to be Jewish as a child. I read this great book about an Orthodox Jewish family living in Brooklyn with 5 girls and 1 boy and their adventures in the early 1900's. (Think Little House on the Prairie style of writing, heavy on the description and written by one of the children.) I really wanted to dress up as Esther during Purim and eat hamentaschen and then build a booth during Sukkot with my family and camp out for a week just like those girls did. I've been lucky to have very good friends through my whole life who are Jewish and have had the opportunity to share many holidays with them. Who knows? Maybe when I get a backyard, I can have a Sukkot booth too. :)
My "professional" side	Monday, September 29, 2003 5:44:33 PM
I think that I have forgotten to introduce the site that I spent the better part of August on. Introducing www.kathleenfisher.com! Since I'm still not sure whether I will take the time to maintain 2 portfolios, currently my only portfolio is on the kathleenfisher.com site.