This is bullshit

A bill to BAN abortions in Ohio was introduced yesterday in the Ohio House of representatives.


House Bill 228 would:


make it illegal to perform any abortion in Ohio
increase the penalties for the offenses of unlawful abortion, unlawful distribution of an abortion-inducing drug, and abortion trafficking,
enact the offense of facilitating an abortion,
place felony penalties on an individual who attempts to coordinate an abortion for a minor, and
make it a felony to transport a woman across state lines to obtain an abortion.
VIEW A COPY OF THE BILL AT


http://www.legislature.state.oh.us/BillText126/126_HB_228_I_Y.pdf

The shit that goes on in this country just pisses me off more and more each day.

From the Move On people:
"Any day now, radical Republicans are hoping to seize absolute power to appoint Supreme Court justices who favor right-wing, corporate interests over the rest of us. To do it, Vice President Cheney and Senate Republican leader Bill Frist are threatening to use what they call the "nuclear option"—a parliamentary maneuver to overturn the 200-year-old tradition that all judges have broad support in Congress."

MoveOn PAC and our partners in the Coalition for a Fair and Independent Judiciary are organizing a massive national wave of protest to stop them, culminating with emergency rallies across the country on Wednesday, April 27, at 5 PM (or earlier in a few cities).

The rally here in Columbus is down town:
Federal courthouse
85 Marconi Blvd
Columbus
OH
43210

More fun news:

The Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act (CIANA) would outlaw an older sister, grandmother, or close family friend taking a woman under age 18 across state lines to access abortion services. It would also mandate notification of a parent even in states that have chosen not to enact such a requirement.

CIANA is not about protecting young women. No shit.

Urge your representative to vote against CIANA. Congress may vote as early as Wednesday.

CIANA imposes a mandatory federal parental notification requirement even on mature young people who have good reasons for not being able to involve a parent in their abortion decision. CIANA would make parental notification the law of the land. Mandating parental involvement does not take into account the complexity of real people's lives. Sadly, not every parent is a daughter's best advocate. No law can change that. Even worse, CIANA contains no exception for emergency circumstances in which a minor's health would be threatened by the delay required by the act. In some circumstances, CIANA would result in a young woman having to go to court twice (once in each state) to obtain two separate court waivers of parental consent laws.

This one has me pissed off on varying levels.

We have less and less rights and freedom all the time in this country. The goverment has way too much power.

The U.S. finally ended its search for Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq, not having found any. What a surprise.
That war was the biggest waste of time. I had a student whose dad was called to duty and over in Iraq. Every week the Mom was all stressed and talking about it. I tried to be sympathetic. You know the kid was always sad b/c he was worried his dad would die. I said well maybe we'll get a new president and they'll pull everyone one out of there. (this was prior to the elections) Well the mom didn't like that, they were big Bush fans, why? Oh yeah the are brain washed military people. Then she asked me "don't you sleep better at night knowing that tyrannt is out of power?" (refering to sadam) I said no I sleep the same as before. She didn't like that too much because they quit. Pretty funny, don't ask if you don't want an answer.

I got my fed. tax returns friday, which came pretty quickly. like 2 weeks, and I filed by mail. So I spent a little too much money this weekend. But it is fun every once in a while. I need to pay off the doctor bills next month, my original plan for the money. I still need a new bed. My parents are suppose to give me their king one of these days, and that bed is soooo comfortable. Not a top priority for them since they have a nice bed. But I am going to have to get something to hold me over in the meantime. I slept like complete shit last night, and ended up on the couch, a contributing factor. I get one good night of sleep due to the fact that I am tired as hell from one crappy night of sleep. It keeps going on like this.

There is a new family guy series starting May 1st. I was never much for TV, cartoons especially, but I have gotten to liking it the last few months. (what I am watching now)

I have started playing the violin more again lately. I need to use the little free time I have doing something I enjoy. Be it that I teach 30 students music every week I should play more. Some time soon I need to get my cello fixed so I can play that too. But after I get it fixed I think I am going to sell it and buy a new one.

I came to the conclusion over the weekend that since I am unhappy in general doing the crap (work) I could give a fuck about I have got to work on getting the hell out of here and doing something that entails my interests more. While teaching music is better than not doing anything with it, I have been teaching for 8 years now, and it is ok, but mostly I am tired of never having my evenings free.

Ohio has some of the most toxic nasty air in the country. (acid rain killing trees in PA, we contribute to that). Not to say the air quality world wide is much better. But it just stinks here, especially Columbus. If you go outside for even 2 minutes you come back smelling like some funk ass. Maybe it is my over sensitive dog like senses, but I don't notice the same nasty smell other places I go. When we were out in California they air quality was much better. We we also near the ocean so it was pretty windy, which helps, and they have emissions standards which also helps. I didn't see too many cars or trucks with thick nasty black smoke coming out of the exhaust. In the summer hear you can see the nasty smoking particles in the humid ass air. It is a wonder we are advised not to exercise out side certain times of the day and times of the year.

I liked my cousins idea of everyone just being bused everywhere. Like instead of all of the employees of a company driving to work, they go to the bus stop where the get picked up to go to work (like when we were in school). Each company could have its own busing service. That would be fun.
I guess we could take buses now, but our mass transit system is THE worst here in columbus. Just the worst.

My desire to go to work today is zero.

After a long ass day of work yesterday we went to Christen's to celebrate her birthday. I haven't seen her in a while between us being so busy, It was good, plus I saw some other friends from high school I haven't seen in a while. My friend Jesse is working for this wine distribution company, and he had some kick ass wine there. One brand was called Funky, it was a cabernet savingnon, which I normally don't like, but this was really good. No after taste. He can get wine for super cheap, so I am going to be on that shit. Christen's boyfriend is really nice, I only met him once before when I was really drunk. It was a good evening. I really need to hang out with my friends more. All I do is work work work, and try to exercise so I don't get too fat, and hang out with Mark, who usually passes out early as hell all the time. I managed to keep him up late last night.
I think we need to start having more parties on the weekends, and weekdays (why not) as the weather gets nicer. It is a good reason to bring people together. Amy if you read this blog you need to bring you ass down to columbus! Yes we should go up to Cleveland too, maybe when Rachel is in town. I can't believe it is the weekend again almost. These weeks really do fly by!

Not much time for blogging lately. And I should be in bed now. Had a good weekend. The weather was good which always helps. We went do to Cinci to see the Reds Sunday, and they won so that was good. Saw the new baby too, she is pretty cute. Went shopping saturday, too bad I don't have time to do that shit during the weekdays when it is less crowded. I needed to buy work clothes, never that exciting, but necessary.
Shit I have a long day tomorrow, well a long rest of the week. Working is such a waste of time.

Back To The Grind

We came back last night from our vacation. It was fun! I should be at work right now, but decided to skip the first job. I was just too tired this morning, and though I could have made it in late, I said fuck it. Hopefully they won't be too pissed, b/c I can't get the hours in this week. I think I'll tell them they must have made a mistake on which days I'd be out. We'll see how that goes over. This week was looking ugly with all the shit I have to do for all the jobs. I was going to be craming 34 hours or so into the next few days, so it doesn't hurt to skip a few. Though I should have gone since I need money all the time. I have a lot of bills and I am trying to get it all caught up by the end of May. So we'll see. Then I need to start making more $$
by July to accomidate for the federal student loans I will start having to pay. Plus I want to go back to Italy this fall. Maybe I can defer the loans some more, but I did graduate 4 years ago, can you believe it? and have managed to defer them all this time.

I really liked San Francisco, though it was windy ( I hate wind) and not as warm as I would prefer. But the air was way cleaner their, and it was a great city. It was easy to get around which was nice. Triple and Tiff live near the Haight Ashbury area. Well about a twenty minute walk or so. They are also very close to downtown which was cool. We saw that first, but weren't too impressed by the haight area. It reminded me of O.S.U campus in the early 90s. I am not into "hippie" homeless drug addicts. I have never seen so many beggars in one area the were perfectly capable of working. It wasn't like they were old, or mentally ill or something. We ate some thai food, and saw Golden Gate Park.

The rest of the city I enjoyed alot more. We saw the Golden Gate bridge of course, and went to Muir Woods. We walked aound Japantown, which was neat. I've seen plenty of China Towns, and Little Italys. We ate some really good Japanese food there. We did go to Little Italy and Chinatown as well. We had wine and cappucino at the Cafe Trieste, where Francis Ford Coppola wrote the God Father. We walked around the center of the vity a bunch which was nice. Mark realized how out of shape he was on this trip. His legs got pretty sore. Triple had a party one night and we met a bunch of folks. No one was originally from San Fran or California which was funny. Well except my friend Jami came with her friend and they are orginally from there. Except Jami moved to Italy, and she prefers Italy over the bay area. Given the 2 choices I would also rather live in Italy (well duh!). We visited my cousin in Gilroy which is south of San Fran about 80 miles. We went to some wineries there, two were owned by Italians. We went wine tasting one day, and let me tell you you can drink alot of free wine that way. But we still got 3 bottles. The wines were all really good. We thought about going up to Napa and Somona valleys. Triple's one roommate does tours up their, he actually took us to Muir Woods. For visiting having a guy like that for a roommate is helpful. But Jami said Napa was overrated after being in Italy, and I have been to plenty of vineyards their, so we decided to hit the ones with my cousin. Which was probably good too since it wasn't as touristy.

We went down to Monterey Bay one day and ate and shopped a little. It was nice, but the bay area around san fran is still more beautiful in my opinion. My cousins husband goes diving and fishing at Monterey Bay. We say alot of birds and boats. We did see one Sea Lion passed out on the rocks.

All in all it was a good trip. I would definitely like to go back there again. Our next trip will have to be to Tucson though to visit Rachel. But after the summer. Of all the places I have been to in the U.S. I could see living out there, but it doesn't get hot enough for me. Or course it is never cold. I do like Charleston, S.C. alot too though. Other than that moving out of the U.S. is still my number one goal. For now Columbus will have to do. At least summer is on its way.

Nothing like working 30hours in 3 days. At least I got outside a little to enjoy some of the nice weather we're having. Still need to pack for the trip. I'll do that tomorrow night. I always end up over packing but better to be too prepared. I can't wait to see everyone out there and not work for 6 days! I think next month I may take the week off after the kids' recitals and just do nothing here at home. It is nice to get up and not have to doing anything I don't want to when the weather is nice.
Mark's sister had her baby today, only one day off from the due date, pretty good.
She had a girl, which we were happy about. Her husband is George III and he was hoping for a boy, so it could be George IV. But I'm sure they'll have more.

Well the next 3 days are going to suck. Getting up early as hell tomorrow to take the cat to the vet and then working until 7pm with like an hour break in their. I can eat lunch and enjoy the nice weather for a minute. But leaving early Thursday morning for San Fran, which is going to be great. My friend Jami is in the country from Italy, so I am looking forward to seeing her, plus I still haven't seen my cousin's house out there. I have been in the mood to drink wine pretty much everyday lately, so hitting some wineries will be good too. Just found out Christen will be out there at the same time too. Triple is having a party one night, so that should be fun.

This weekend went by too fast. I don't feel like I did much, and I didn't, but it still went by too fast. Friday we went out to dinner and then to the Rivari room. HooDoo Soul band played and it was free to get in which was good. The drinks were cheap too. I like going out a lot more now that we have the smoking ban. It is great going out and not having to smell like that shit, and being able to breath. Ran into John Boy there, haven't seen him since my B-day. I don't think Mark liked that too much. My Dad was in town this weekend. He had his new dog with him, he is really cute. He and Katie got along really well. Luckily the weather was a lot better today so we could take the dogs outside to play. I don't feel like I accomplished much this weekend, which is probably good since the next 3 days are going to be busy as hell before we leave. I kept dreaming about work last night, which I never do. It was awful, like living it before it has even happened.

Finally did may taxes today, looks like I will get more than I thought back, which is good. Going straight to bills though.
My goal is to increase my income and work less over the next few months, we'll see how that goes.

Seal hunting season started in Canada this week. Join the ban on purchasing seafood from Canada in protest of hunting seals. Starting april 4th all seafood has to be labled stating where it is from, this should help.
Better yet don't eat seafood at all and you won't have to worry about it. But for seafood lovers, ban canadian seafood.