Another day of war....

I don't know how anyone else feels about the conflict in Iraq, but there are alot of things about it that bug me. First, I'm going to say that no matter what happens, I'm in support of the troops. It takes a strong person to go out there and do what they are doing every day. I know I wouldn't have the strength or commitment to do it.

That said - I don't totally support the war. Bush, in my opinion has gone about things in the wrong way. I'm not saying that we should have waited forever for UN support, but another month or so couldn't have made all that much of a difference. I don't appreciate the way that he seems to have turned this into a holy war and that his initial reasons for doing it are not his real reasons at all. If you listen to the words he chooses to describe things, they have a decidedly religious undertone. I hate thinking that is what the rest of the world thinks of the US. That we're some group of left wing religious fanatics - basically no better than what we're fighting. He continually claimed that our only reason for getting involved was to ensure Iraq disarmed according to the UN Resolutions. Then as soon as things started heating up, it became about desposing Saddam as leader and liberating the Iraqi people. Now we won't be satisfied until the government is overthrown - regardless if they decide to disarm or not. I don't think that is keeping in line with what we claimed was our original mission and intent.

Bush seems to rely heavily on his religious sentiments to explain what we are doing. The words 'evil doer' keep comming up in his speaches. Who is he to say what is evil and what isn't? If another country came along right now and said to us to abandon all of our nuclear and other long range weapons because we have repeatedly invaded other countries, do you really think we'd go along with it? We constantly enter conflicts in other countries to spread our 'religion'... the religion of democracy. We apparently think that we have the right to enter any nation by force if they don't hold the same democratic ideals that we do. We're just as hard headed in this respect as many of the governments that we seek to eliminate.

One comment in particular annoys me more than most of what Bush has said. He made one remark that said something to the effect that no amount of protests would sway his decision to persue a war in Iraq. Now I don't know about you, but that makes me a bit uncomfortable. Basically if every man, woman and child in the US took to the streets to protest against the war, that wouldn't have made one bit of difference in his mind. He said it was his responsibility to do what is right for the country. Well, did he ever think that is was possible that he could be wrong? That going against the wishes of the people that he governs is wrong? I honestly don't believe that Bush even belongs in office as it is. The last election was filled with so much monkey business - especially in FL... good ol Jeb Bush territory. Coincidence, huh? So maybe this sense of responsibilty that he so dearly clings to isn't even his in the first place. So what does that leave us with? A guy calling the shots that claims its his responsibility to what's best for the American people - people that never really asked him to be in charge in the first place. Sounds a bit fishy to me.

Another thing about the war that annoys me is all the people saying how terrible it is for the men and women in the armed forces to have to fight in this war. Now I don't know about you, but I don't feel all that sorry for people who voulentarily signed up to be in the military. It would be a totally different story if the draft was reinstituted and people that wanted nothing to do with the war were pulled from thier lives and forced to serve in a conflict that they didn't believe in. Then I'd feel sorry for them. I'm not saying that I don't respect the men and women that are over there doing there jobs. I have nothing but the utmost respect for them. What I don't have any sympathy for is those people that enter the military to get money for school with the idea in mind that they're never going to have to be deployed anywhere and then start whining when they actually do get sent someplace. You knew what the risks were when you signed up so live up to your end of the bargain without complaining.

The people that I feel sympathy for our the Iraqi people - the one's that we're supposedly liberating. After years of living through war after war and living under a tyrrant that doesn't allow the wealth of the country to trickle down to the average citizen, they get to once again have the crap bombed out of their cities. I know were only targeting military targets, but in many cases these targets are right next door or down the block from thier house. In many cases, the government is hiding stuff in buildings of a military nature in areas filled with civilians to deter them from being attacked. Also, plenty of women and children are being dragged from thier homes to be used as human shields! Now that's a plight to have sympathy with. And after all this is said and done, they're the ones that are going to be left to clean up most of the mess that we've made. And we're expecting them to welcome us with open arms. Most muslim countries don't like us all that much to begin with. I can only imagine how they're going to feel then. No wonder we keep getting attacked.

Ok - I'm back. Now for a rant...

Why is it that companies are only concerned with the short term costs of a project? The controller of my company is such a idiot when it comes to this. Certainly one that could be called penny wise and pound foolish. We recently got an upgraded pc that attaches to an OCR machine that processes the checks that we get. Well, there was an installation option where you would get a company tech to come on site to hook the thing up for $600. I agree that the number sounds a bit high for a standard installation of software, but there are tons of configuration files required for this system that controls everything about the way the checks are processed. The config files are not standard files that anyone without training can alter so I wouldn't have the faintest idea as what to do with them. Needless to say, they didn't get the instalation package. Instead, we had to have the new pc shipped down to the company to have them do the software on their site and then ship it back to us. The shipping back up to us probably cost at least an extra $100 or more. So that's so far a savings of $500 or less.

The icing is that almost everything has gone wrong since the project started. First they told us they needed any SCSI card in the machine configuration. So we added one for about $150. I later found out that it is a special card that only they sell and we could just use the one from the old machine. Now our savings has dropped to less than $350.

Next, the company didn't set up all of those little configuration files when they installed the software correctly. Apparently, they just used the first set of files that they created when they did the original installation of the machine 3+ years ago. We started setting the machine up on Friday and its still not done yet. We have 2 days worth of payments just sitting there because they can't be processed since the stupid machine still isn't working right! So for a savings of $350 we're stuck with 2 or more days of down time. If you figure in the salary of the person that normally runs the machine for approx. $10/hr for 16hrs, we've lost another $160 of lost wages since the person isn't actually doing their job. That's a savings now of $190. Now, add in all the aggrevation to the supervisor of that department, the controller and time I've spent going back and forth with the company. Is it really worth it to save a total of $190! Apparently, our controller hasn't reviewed his business texts recently.

Grrrrrrrr....

Well... I guess I should start this out by telling you a bit about myself. I'm currently a 27 year old systems admin from Westchester County NY. I'm recently married with no children as of yet. I have a BA in Political Science and a MBA in Management Information Systems. I work for a small privately held collections agency.

I don't have alot of friends right now. I was pretty much a loner in HS and never had too many close friends. The ones that I did have pretty much disappeared on me when we went to college and I never managed to make many new ones. The ones that have stuck around don't keep in touch very well, but then again, neither do I. My best friend in the world is my husband and I like it that way, but every once in awhile I need a place to vent so I don't take EVERYTHING out on him. It would also be nice to have a place to get some feedback sometimes from disinterested parties. I guess that's why I started writing this.

Everyone said how much of change marriage would be. Honestly, things don't feel all that much different. I guess maybe because we lived together for about 6 months before we got married. Being engaged was actually more of a change because my live turned into a stressful nightmare with all the wedding planning. I've typically been a pretty laid back person, but while planning the wedding, I turned into bridezilla. I guess there were lots of reasons for it. Any woman that is an only child can probably relate to the pressure that I was under getting married. To add to the stress was the fact that my mother didn't have a large wedding either. This was both of our weddings. My mother in law lived too far out of state to be helpful and my parents had just moved to a new house about 2hrs away. My mother was less than helpful, but still wanted things to be perfect. At first, my husband was a bit too disinterested in helping, but had strong opinions about things he knew little about.

We had gotten engaged June of 2001, moved in together in May 2002 and the wedding was October of 2002. By late June/ early July, I was just about ready to have a nervous breakdown. The stress of redoing the apartment we were living in, work pressures, and the wedding planning just got to me. My husband was very supportive, but had a hard time seeing when things were getting to be too much for me to handle. We had come from totally different home environments. I had lived in an apartment all my life while he had always lived in a house. I was an only child while he was the youngest of 4. Both of these things made my home life realitvely quiet while his was a bit more noisy. One of the most frustrating things was that when my nerves would get totally frazzled and I would start to yell, he wouldn't even realize that I was yelling at him. He just thought I was talking louder! Its actually kind of funny now looking back on it, but I thought I was loosing my mind at the time.

Eventually I had enough. I went to the Dr and got put on some medication for anxiety and depression. I know I need to find a psychiatrist or psycologist to work with, but right now money, time and motivation are low in supply. The meds are making me feel much more stable. In retrospect, I really think I should have been on medication for depression for years, but I never thought what I was going through was all that different than what the average teenager was feeling. Now I know its not normal. I should have to feel that way.

I guess that's all for the first post. I may add more later if I can manage to do it at work without getting caught.