Fired On The Spot

I read somewhere that in 49 states of the United States you can be fired on the spot without warning. They are what is called "at will states".

This morning I was talking to a friend of mine, who at 63 is thinking about retirement. He shared that last Tuesday he hurt his back, and it's been out of work and seeing a back specialist since.

I told him to get his financial papers in order, to find out if he can live well financially with his current savings until 65. If you have the finances, go and never look back, you are just a number to them, I said to him.

Coincidentally, reading the local news today, I noticed a report about a 63 year old woman who had worked hard her entire life. She announced her retirement, and gave her employer a few months in advance as a courtesy to the company. How did her employer valued her years of loyalty to the company? Her employer fired her on the spot.

I am Only Talking To My Cats Today

I am not sure if I mentioned this before, but I am a cat person. Unfortunately, my landlord does not allow pets in our building.

So even though my landlord does not allow cats, that didn't stop my upstairs neighbor from dating a childless cat lady. At first I thought it was just one cat, but the other day they "greeted me" at the main building entrance door. That is when I realized is not one, but four cats.

When the woman is not in the apartment, they meow and yowl all day long, at all hours. Clearly they suffer from separation anxiety when the cat lady is not around. Very early in the morning or evenings, they dart from one room to the other (having a case of the zoomies) non stop. I can hear them running across my ceiling. 

As much as I love cats, these cats are testing my patience.

Getting Together For Lunch

Had a conversation yesterday with a former co-worker trying to arrange a day to get together at the health center for lunch.

After exchanging pleasantries, and talking about the job, we agreed to meetup next Monday at 12:30pm for lunch. The phone rang, and it was her to remind me that next Monday is Labor Day, and the health center is closed. Now that I am retired, I don't pay attention to holidays much. We agreed to meetup Friday of next week. But I digress.

To keep my favorite hobby and passion alive, went out for a photo walk last night. It was a beautiful night outside. Was the first time picking up my digital camera in quite some time.

For no particular reason, I chose Broad Street facing City Hall in Center City, which is a favorite wedding photography location for Philadelphia couples. A group of young ladies approached me, said they needed to book a photographer, and inquire my price for a wedding photoshoot. I don't shoot weddings, but have a friend who does so I gave them my friend's contact information.

It felt great to go out on a photo walk. It is a great exercise, it gets me connected to my surroundings, and it gives me something to occupy my mind and stimulate my brain.

Speechless

Yesterday, the nephew of one of my best friend's was killed in a freak accident at a Delta maintenance facility near the Atlanta airport.

A tire exploded as it was being removed from a Delta Air Lines plane and sent metal flying through the air like a missile, killing two people, including my friend's nephew. Luis was only 37 years old. Went to work yesterday morning, to never return home to his wife and daughters.

Please hold your loved ones a little tighter and closer, you just never know what the day will bring.

Space Exploration

A pair of astronauts that were supposed to be on space for eight days, are now scheduled to return February of next year thanks to their NASA/Boeing capsule issues.

The astronauts are stuck at the international space station since the beginning of June. Apparently, their capsule developed helium leaks and the overheating of maneuvering thrusters.

In 1969, the movie Marooned, starring Gene Hackman, Richard Crenna and James Franciscus, chronicled the same scenario. In the movie, American astronauts are stranded in space on their return journey from a space station when rocket boosters malfunction.

Some people may argue that colonizing other planets is a way to save humans from extinction. While others say that non-human species or aliens could bring disaster to our planet.

And I am not talking about non-human species like the movie Alien, but invading alien organisms like the ones that wiped out indigenous populations in the Americas. Millions of natives were killed by infectious diseases following the European colonization.

Why are we spending so much on space exploration when we could use that funding to make Earth a better place?

I Pray Religiously

It was long overdue, last night I began to backup and organize some of my files. After spending two hours looking for a bicycle garage photo from the Netherlands trip, I realized I had to do it.

Suprisingly, I didn't start backing up and organizing my digital photography images; I began with my cartoon comic strips. I started using the Bitstrip personalized comic strips in 2012. As someone who spent a big chunk of my childhood drawing and painting, and at the age of seven dreamed of working at Disney creating cartoons, I fell in love with the Bitstrip application.

Since the application is no longer available, I have been recycling different variations of the ones I created twelve years ago and saving them on USB flash drives and the cloud storage. I believe that these comic strips are unique, their captions speak so much louder than text, and they add personality to my blog posts. Don't you think?

Hospital Snafu

Would you believe that a California woman died at the hospital, two days after being hospitalized, and no one contacted the family? I find this strange because the hospital had her medical records and emergency contact information.

It appears that the family searched for the woman for more than a year, including contacting the hospital numerous times. The news report indicates that the hospital transferred her body to the morgue the day after her passing, and later to a cold storage facility while the family was looking for her. The body remained there forgotten for an entire year. In addition, the hospital didn't file a death certificate until a year later. 

It looks like someone is going to get sued.