Peter's Place

While it's pleasing to note that one will not now lose one's job due to surfing the Internet (provided, of course, that such activities don't interfere with work productivity), I was a bit concerned about this part of the decision/ruling: Choudhri was not fired, but Spooner reprimanded him in a letter that will go into Choudhri's employee file. Given, that the employee in question (Choudhri) was found not to have slacked off of the work he was expected to do while he was found to have been surfing the 'net, I don't even think that he should have been reprimanded, especically given the ruling of the case that surfing the Internet must be afforded the same status as any other personal activity that is allowed at the workplace. Security Focus has an interesting article that, I think, portrays both the concerns of employers, as well as some of the reasoning behind why employees surf the 'net at work to begin with, and does a relatively good job at describing ...

"Few things are harder to put up with than the annoyance of a good example." Mark Twain

Lots of people ask me why I'm in pain. I tell them that I have "osteoarthritis" and they go, "Oh." I get the feeling that they don't quite understand exactly what OA is. While I was on the Celebrex web site, I found a very useful page that explains most of what OA is all about, and why it causes pain. Maybe this will help people understand at least some of my pain. Oh, by the way, I have very severe osteoarthritis in my right ankle, as well as severe diffuse osteopenia .

So now that I find out, that in addition to being kicked out of my house by my uncle keith, I'm not even allowed to go to the house anymore. So, I'm finally at my father's house. I got out of the hospital on Tuesday, and have been sleeping on various friend's couches since then. It's now Saturday, and I'm at my father's house. The first time I've been on a computer in about a month, give or take a few days. Internet withdrawal is not a fun thing. I don't have any money .... I took all the money out of my bank account before I left the hospital (it was only a few hundred dollars) and gave it to my friend Mike, who's a mechanic and is fixing my car, because the part that my car needs wound up costing a lot more, because he had to resort to getting it from the delaership instead of the discount parts store where he usually gets parts. So most of the money went to Mike. The rest of it, well, I lost about $50 because I left my wallet on a counter in ...

I just got out of the hospital. I'm feeling a little better. I'll do ok as long as I don't have to deal with uncle keith.

I'll be coming out of the hospital tomorrow. I'm starting to feel a little bit better, despite my uncle's attempts to sabotage my efforts to stabilize my life. Uncle Keith got my grandpa to give him permission to kick me out of my house.

I'm going inpatient at Phelps Memorial Hospital in Tarrytown NY (maybe called Sleepy Hollow). I'll update when I get out.

I just met with my new therapist. She seems pretty cool. She wants me to go to the psych ER at Phelps, so i'll probably end up there. With everything that's been going on lately, it's probably a good idea for me to in back in. From my mobile ph

The Mozilla Foundation has released an alpha version of its popular open-source web browser, Firefox . Firefox 2.0 alpha is now available from Mozilla's ftp server . Lots of people are now using the Firefox web browser, but not as many are using , Firefox's companion Email client. I recently convinced one of my friends to switch to Thunderbird, and he's been quite happy with it since the switch. Although Thunderbird doesn't have a built-in calendaring application and some of the other group/collaborative features that Microsoft's Outlook has, I find that it has what I need for even the most advanced e-mail tasks. However, a calendar application is currently being developed by the Mozilla Foundation. As with all alpha versions of software, unless you really need the latest and greatest and you're very good at troubleshooting, it's probably best to wait at least until a beta version of Firefox 2.0 is available. Mozilla is releasing the alpha version to s...

I just got home about a 1/2 hour ago. My Uncle Keith, from Williamstown, MA , is a real piece of work . He left a voicemail for me last night. Here's a transcription (I've previously worked both as a word processing operator and transcriptionist): How's my favorite nephew? Your father said you that he was bringing you right back after you uh got finished visiting with grandpa in the hospital. I said OK. Uh, I'd like to find out what you did about trying to get grandpa's car fixed, what arrangements you made, if any. Um, you're welcomed here. It's just not going to be for the long-term, that's all. So come on home. I'll talk to you when you get here. Or call me if you don't want to do it in person. Alright? Bye. My phone battery was pretty much shot by this afternoon, so I was only turning my phone on to check for voicemail. At 9:55 this evening, I received the following message from him: Hello there, Peter []. This is your Uncle Keith. Um, I ne...

My uncle is a fucking asshole. Yesterday, he had my sister, her boyfriend, and the baby drive him up to Massachussetts to get more of his medicine so he could stay down here. Never mind the fact that he could have borrowed my grandfather's car and driven himself, as opposed to making my sister make the drive with her disabled baby. As a favor to him, I got my friend Mike, who's a mechanic, to agree to come up and take a look at his car and fix it, if possible, for a reduced price. Since Uncle Keith went to MA with my sister in her car, and since my car is waiting on a backordered part and his car wasn't working, the only other car available for my use was my grandfather's car. So as a favor to him, I went down to the Bronx to pick Mike up and bring him up here to look at the car. I then had to take Mike to an auto parts store to get some parts for the car. We went to Medallion Auto Parts in Port Chester. When we came out of the store, I found that the driver's side ...

Today is St. Patrick's Day . The Patron Saint of the New York Archdiocese , of which -- because I have yet to be excommunicated from the church due to my being gay -- I'm apparently still a member. In New York City (Manhattan, to be exact), they held the 245th annual St. Patrick's Day Parade . Essentially, this parade converts the city from organized chaos into unorganized anarchy. Why am I writing about this, you ask? Because of the chaos and drunken disorder that ensues after the parade, I now must leave home about an hour early in order to get into work tonight. Just check out the traffic re-routing and restrictions . Plus, the voyage into work is more perilous than it normally would be, because of all the drunk people. (You'd think that with all the drunk people I'm going to run into, one might be able to find an article about it on the 'net, but I'm coming up empty in my searches -- can anyone else out there point me to a source? UPDATE > I can alwa...