Episode #66: Christmas Break

Had way too much on my plate this week (like just about everyone else) to get anything remotely coherent for a post today.

Rest assured that for our 1st post of 2021 will feature a continuation of our Muse's casual conversation with her partner in crime.

Until then, please enjoy this version of The 3 Amigos for your viewing pleasure, and either this song by Lobo or this song by Lobo for your listening pleasure.

{c} 2020 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #65: My Muse Has Come Back Freely To Me: 1

Part I

"Satisfied?" he asks hopefully, but not really expecting a positive response.

What's with the pic?

"One of daughter's favorite Nick at Nite shows, Adventure Time."

Again, what's with the pic?

"I always try to feature a pic with my blog post. Problem?"

Hmmmm.....

She falls silent for a moment, before switching positions in the chair by sitting lengthwise, with her lithe legs and naturally coal black hair draped provocatively over the sides. She reaches into her hair and for a brief second, he  recoils in fear and wheels his chair back a few inches. She sneers, before wiping her face clean and withdraws her hand from her hair. With a quick flip of the wrist, she opens a ten inch stiletto and starts to carefully twirl it around her fingers.

So, are you going to ask me why I'm here?

"I could, but why should I?"

Because this post is going to be dead on screen if you don't, you silly little man.

He pauses for a moment as he realizes that control does not he have. Sighing, he asks, "Okay, why are you here?"

I heard a nasty rumor that you might be restarting your writing in 2021.

He raises an eyebrow and says, "So?"

Is it true?

He hesitates in answering, so she asks again, this time in a tone that leaves zero room for misinterpretation.

Visibly shrinking yet again, he says, "Yes."

Then they were right for a change, she says a mocking tone. Swinging her entire body around, she crosses her legs in a way that makes our blogger's bottom lip quiver.

Lightly smiling, she says, Where's my digs?

"Wait...wut? What makes you think that you're staying...here?"

You need me.

"At the present, I want you. Needing is something that hasn't even entered my swollen brain yet."

Same thing. She arises and saunters over to him at the computer. She places a finger on his chin and gives him a firm push away from the computer. She quickly taps the mouse-pad a couple of times and brings up what appears to be averagely written short story. She speed reads through the story and afterwards snorts in derision.

She narrows her focus on him, before strolling over to where he was pushed to. Lightly grabbing his chin again, she wheels him back to the computer and carefully places him back under the desk. She then sits down on the desk, crosses her arms before taking out the stiletto with a few strands of hair. She silently blinks a thank you, then says icily to her blogger, we need to talk.

To be continued.

{c} 2020 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #64: Time Has Not Come Today, But May Come Next Year

You can never stay mad when you have happy puppy dogs to look at every day {we have two Chihuahuas who I intermittently interact with on a daily basis in our house}.

Having said that, let's move on to the topic at hand.

Topic? Not writing or retirement again?

Wait...wut? Who are you? Why are you interrupting my blog post?

I'm your muse. I'm tired, I'm bored, so get over it.

I will not. Wait...wut? I still have a muse? I thought you moved on to greener and brighter pastures?

I did. I got bored. I need some excitement in my pedestrian life. So give me some excitement. Got it?

Wait...wut? I'm not required to give anyone any excitement these days. It's not my problem that you're bored.

Entertain me, or I might do something strange.

Strange? What can you possibly do that's stranger than all the stuff that you've done in the past ten years?

An evil sneer casually spreads across her face like the Chuckster's.

His jaw drops, then he quickly closes it and flashes her a very disgusted look.

She quickly flashes a "who me" look and blinks her eyes flirtatiously.

Fine. I'll entertain you with my wit. Just don't get any bright ideas about adding your two euros into the mix. Got it?

She smiles seductively, sits down in the comfy chair and swings her legs onto it provocatively. He facepalms for a good ten seconds, before dejectedly turning back to his computer.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Apparently my muse, who decided to waltz back into my life and be her usual demanding vivacious self, is bored with her current existence as it presently stands and thus wants to be "entertained". Otherwise, she may do something "strange". Considering that she's (yes, my muse is a she) been in my life for the better part of 10 years and knows all kinds of personal crap about me, I'm forced to take her threat very seriously.

As the blog title suggests, the topic of choice was about time, and how the adjustment to having all kinds of time on my hands is not necessarily a good thing to have. But because my muse has clearly stated that she wants to be entertained or suffer the consequences, I have no choice but to acquiesce to her demand. Problem is, how do you entertain a trusted companion who has been part and parcel to your very writing existence for the better part of 10+ years?

I mean, over the years....over the years....mmmm.....years.

Anyways narrows his focus at her time used to be, when I was dealing/working with the vivacious one, very much a premium. Between work and family, I basically had the writing equivalent of a "wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am" with the vivacious one on the weekends. Yes, it meant that I only had time for her on the weekends, like as weekend fling, so to speak. I wined and dined, made her feel exceptionally special and that she was the most important person in my life.

Then, like the side chick she truly was, got record scratched until the next weekend, when we washed, rinsed and repeated. Life was indeed good for me, although not sure about her since who wants to be a perpetual side chick in a long term relationship?

Eventually, we parted ways, and while I found something else to squander my precious free time and move on, I'm not really sure what she wound up doing with her new acquired free time. I would hear rumors from time to time about some new adventure she was doing or some new boy toy she was busy wrapping around her fingers, but other than that, radio silence.

Fast forward to this year, specifically the latter part of 2020, when the aggravation of work was slowly and silently creeping into every other part of my life. I had already decided to get back into the swing of writing in 2021, but was trying to figure out how to work it in with the all the time suckage that work was presenting me with. Eventually the decision was made to retire, partly to get my sanity back but mostly just to start the next year fresh with minimal aggravation.

Thus, we now find ourselves with so much free time on our hands that we're now having problems trying to figure out which day is which. About the only way I've been able to keep track of the time is the various doctor appointments that I have coming up in the near future. So yeah, time blends a lot these days, which is probably why my muse decided to grace my world with her presence today.

God help us all.

Today's semi free-form post was brought to you by the phrase, "Facts don't care about your feelings." Because honestly, they don't, and the sooner that you realize this, the more that people will start to treat you like an adult.

{c} 2020 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #63: Oopsie! Did I Forget That?

Well, as some people are want to say, that escalated quickly.

This past Friday (12/4), we had to get our furnace fixed. This necessitated the 75% emptying of my den so that the local gas company (massive TL;DR involved here) could do what needed to be done.

When the dust  cleared later in the afternoon, we had a very fully functioning furnace that heated properly both upper floors of our house.

Unfortunately, and as you can imagine, my lovely den is now completely FUBAR (to use the proper acronym). I was eventually able to carve a place reinstall my computer as well as re-hook a proper power source. But, this has left in a minor predicament.

Namely, doing hunt and peck typing, as I have no space for my keyboard. As you're probably aware, that kind of typing really bites the big one. And because of that, we decided to leave behind a link to a ye olden post from my first blog Cedar's Mountain: This post deals with CT's 2011 state budget, but if you change the year to 2020, the same taxation issues and lack of fiscal sanity still applies.

Tune in next week to see if things are back to normal, or if I'm still doing the old hunt and peck.

{c} 2020 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #62: Sharpening The Focus & The Focus Is Becoming Sharper

Banks Corner Park, Newington CT

Yeah, having another one of those weeks where post title originality is not a doable commodity. On one hand, I'm maddeningly consistent about my post titles making absolutely no sense whatsoever {since 2008, which is about 12 years, give or take}; and on the other hand, I'm maddeningly consistent about making sure that my posts have at least one point contained within, even if it takes a while to deduce what that point may be.

Since the intended goal in this particular post is to make the point as obvious as possible, we shall get to it.

We're finishing up the month of November in style, which is to say that we're settling into retirement quite nicely. I've gotten all my ducklings in a zig-zaggish kind of a row and now I'm simply waiting to see my doctor the 1st week of December so that I can get the actual ball rolling on everything {I have a concrete deadline of February 2021 to get all the pertinent medical records in}. I got a temporary routine done of goofing on my computer for a few hours in the a.m., then do an early morning walk that knocks off about 75% of my step quota, which is then followed by lunch, running what few errands that I deem necessary to my day, which is then followed by another walk, goofing on the computer or YouTube {yah, I know, major time vacuum} until bedtime. Rinse, lather, repeat.

The reason as to why I say "temporary" is that come December, I plan on tweaking my routine to include less goofing with YouTube and more....writing, which was one of my long term goals. I haven't done any kind of non-blog writing since Spring 2019, and that is something that I really want to get back to performing. I've been getting little nudges here and there for the past 1 1/2 years, and I think I've procrastinated long enough. 

Writing that weird short story of mine {called What A Day...}, helped get the juices flowing just a little, even though it took me the better part of 6 1/2 months to complete. But sometimes, all you need is a spark to get the creativity flowing yet again. 

Tune in next week, when I'll start bloviating about writing in earnest while blowing out the cobwebs at the same time. Should be neat. Until then, always remember that thinking for yourself and not the collective, is the greatest thing that you can accomplish on an daily basis.

{c} 2020 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #61: The Thrill Is Still Coming Into Focus

So basically this is what Cedar Mountain is pretty much looking like for mid-November: autumn is here and the trees are lonely, naked and aching to shower affection on some unsuspecting passerby.

My post work life {retirement} is starting to come into a clearer, if not quite sharper, focus these days.

Being the heavy procrastinator that I am long known to be on this blog {and to a lesser degree at work}, I knew in my retirement days that I would have to get up out of the chair and get my non-sexy butt in gear if I wanted to have the decent financial stability for my later years.

So that basically required me to write a thoughtful letter to my doctor {not my PCP but the one that is monitoring my current neuromuscular malady} and set up an appointment so that we're on the same page with my health issues. After playing some phone tag with the clinic and getting some clarification from the Retirement Services Division {note, they are one of three agencies, state and federal, that you should never, ever tick off. IRS and your local DMV being the others}, we're all now on the same page for paperwork being submitted.

On a lighter note, I got my issue resolved with saving a Google doc to somewhere else besides Google Drive. There is an option in which you can download the doc to roughly a half dozen other formats, which you can then save to other places, i.e. a USB flash drive. This will definitely give me another option to seriously consider when it comes to doing what kind of writing on which computer {Chromebook or Win7} in the coming months. Ya just gotta have options these days.

On a still even lighter note, well, hmmm...not sure if there's even a more lighter note to end this post on. Well, life is slowly becoming more manageable and more malleable, as I'm starting to put together a potential project list for 2021, which will be in conjunction with the writing projects that I'm looking to prioritize for 2021 as well.

As always, keep safe and keep sane for Thanksgiving, and make sure you celebrate it in the way that feels most comfortable for you. Because only you know what your comfort level is for this pandemic, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Consider all the advice being thrown around, but ultimately, the final decision is yours {and no, I'm not endorsing one way or another. I have no right to tell you what to do, I can only present you with enough information so that you can make an informed choice}.

{c} 2020 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #60: The Thrill Is Semi-Back

This pic just about sums up my feelings about the side of the political spectrum.

'Nuff said.

It's just another pleasant valley Sunday, albeit a little crispy, here in Connecticut. And in Connecticut is where I'm currently plying my trade as a double nickel early state government retiree {aka 55}. Currently, we're prepping ourself to call our other doctor to either 1} make an appointment or 2} depending on the day of the appointment, a fax number to send a letter and a blank medical report request that would need to be submitted in order to qualify for a disability retirement.

Yay me.

In other exciting news, we finished our short story that we had started back in mid April during the tail end of the "two week curve" to contain Covid19 {HA!!!!}. As per the norm, whenever I finish writing a story, I always try to save it in multiple places (e.g. C drive, USB stick), but apparently with Google docs, this is not a viable option.

So right now, if I want to continue working on old projects, I'll have to make sure that I have the most updated version on my flash drive, then go from there with automatic extension that ChromeOS has whenever you open a non-Google product; or boot up my Win7, work on my projects, then make sure to copy/paste at least once a week to my Chrome.

New projects though, will probably be done on Chrome. Food poisoning for thought, eh?

Ugh.

As as an old boss of mine use to say as her go-to phrase of frustration: "It's never simple!"

{c} 2020 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #59: I Are Ready To Do....New Things?

Hi-dee-ho everyone! Welcome to my little slice of suburbia, where opinions are given careful consideration before being stored for future muddying of the waters.

I actually gave some serious thought about commenting on the fiasco that will bring Harris/biden to the White House in January (yes, I know that technically biden was the official candidate, but we all know who will actually be finishing the term as a one and done, so 'nuff said the better), but since I've posted but three times in 11+ years about the national political scene, posting for a fourth would just make me go on a ginormous rant to prove my preference of saying Harris/biden, and I really don't feel like doing that just right now.

I could also go on about my home state of CT, but how many times can you talk about one party control w/o repeating yourself, especially since Democrats have things the way they want in Connecticut again, which is a veto proof majority and absolutely no need to engage the GOP for anything?

Instead, we'll talk about how yesterday got me feeling like our late dog Lucky in the picture there, just stylin', profilin' and chillin'. Yeah, it was just that kind of day yesterday (11/7), mid 70's, nice breeze and a good day to be alive.

So we're a week into our retirement and we've already got a strange routine down for a typical day: breakfast/goofing on the computer until 9-ish; going for a morning walk (minimum one hour); then vegging out watching YouTube until lunch; lather, rinse and repeat for the afternoon; followed by dinner and evening errands; and concluding with computer and YouTube. Oh and listening to a ton o' podcasts while on those walks.

You'll notice that I haven't said anything about writing yet. Well, with the exception of restarting this blog, I haven't found that happy space yet that I need to do any writing. My den has moved from work mode to non-work mode, which is a plus, but I haven't really found the energy/motivation to turn on my old computer to work on any of my partials. I have plugged it in from time to time to charge the battery and I have turned on at least twice to run virus scans (still have the anti-virus software for my Win7 from my ISP) but other than that, nothing.

Well, nothing except a short story that I had started working on about one month into our man-made global pandemic. It was pretty much the standard fare that now populates what few micro/flash fiction that I write: mixture of very dark horror (think Night Gallery on steroids) and the normal day-to-day activities that populate our existence, like work and family. Somehow, I managed to crank out just a shade under 4k words, with the bulk being writing in April and August.

I'm thinking of going back to that story in order so as to complete it, although I'm not sure if I really have to add anything to it. The point where I had left off at actually makes its own nifty little ending, so I definitely have some serious thinking to do to see if I want to leave it as is, or create a proper conclusion.

So this is what my post work life is like presently. My goal is to get back to serious writing in 2021, but who knows what the next two months will bring us. 

{c} 2020 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #58: Today, We Turned The Calendar Page

Today is November 1, 2020, and I am now officially retired. With most local/state/federal entities, you are required to retire on the first of a given month. This usually means working up to the final day of the proceeding month (28th, 29th {leap year}, 30th or 31st). This is relatively easy to do if your work schedule happens to include the weekends on weekly basis (e.g. hospitals, prison facilities, detention centers). Not easy if you work a traditional M-F schedule (like myself).

Thus, my last official working day was Friday October 30, 2020. 

It was interesting to say the least, in that 1} we're hip deep in global (IMO a man-made) pandemic, which means that 2} our department has a maximum allowance of "4 employees"at any given time and 3} there weren't a heck of a lot of employees in the building to begin with. 

So I was only able to say a personal goodbye to about a baker's dozen of staff members, including a few co-workers. I did receive a few nice gifts, including food, gift cards and electronics. I actually did some work, which normally takes about 45 minutes, and managed to stretch it out to about 4 hours. In addition to all the fun stuff, I created a few necessary e-mails. One was the outgoing bounce back that basically said it was a pleasure doing business with everyone, I had great time, met some great people and who you need to contact with questions about your payroll going forward.

The other was a rather personal good bye to my immediate co-workers. I would like to share that e-mail with everyone here. And if I extrapolate from the response from one co-worker who had forwarded me the e-mail (silly me neglected to cc myself on it), I think I managed to touch some emotion with it. So my friends, let me know what you think.

Note: even though I spent 14 1/2 years at my last agency, I only spent the past 7+ years with this last group of outstanding co-workers.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Good afternoon to one and all,

It's October 30, 2020, and a somewhat dreary snowy day to end one's working career on. In an curiously odd twist of fate, I'm ending my state and DCF career the same way I had entered DCF back in May 2006: by myself with no one really around to greet me (or in this case) or say good bye.

While I had entered DCF all by my lonesome after a tumultuous two year stint at DOC, I am leaving DCF on a high note, comforted by the fact that I'm leaving behind co-workers who I consider to be a genuinely close part of my extended family. I am honored and privileged to be allowed entry into a small sliver of your personal lives and I believe it has made me an all-around better person. And I'm glad that with everyone showing me a small sliver of their personal lives, it gave me the confidence to, being the actual semi-introvert that I am, share a sliver (medium-sized at best) of my personal life with everyone. 

I will truly miss the camaraderie as the reality that is retirement slowly starts to sink in on November 2nd, as well as the richness of the tapestry that is called "the working life". I will always have fond memories of everyone that I have worked with in Payroll for the past 7+ of the 14 ½ years spent at DCF. Believe me when I say that I leave my job with a slightly heavy heart and a few tears in my eyes. 

Thank you once again for showing me the all that you are and the all that you have become. 

I am forever your friend,

George

{c} 2020 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #57: Where, Oh Where Am I Today?

So the skyline photo just off to the right was something that I used to see on a daily/weekly basis pre-Covid19 (that's prior to the first week of March if you're from Connecticut) from my office building.

Suffice to say, after October 30th, I will no longer have that view, as I will be gainfully retired (aka unemployed) on November 1st.

If you're wondering why there seems to be a missing day, the long and short answer is that I work Monday thru Friday. Halloween, which is my actual last day, is on a Saturday, thus making my last working day to be October 30th.

As of the date of this post being published, I have either 4 or 5 days left to work (depending on whether I published this on the 25th or 26th). A fair amount of my co-workers have no idea that I'm retiring (telecommuting/teleworking ya'll) so while I'm doing my final payroll this pay period, I'm also typing out a ton of extras e-mail to let folks know when my last day is. Which in and of itself is a very painful thing (which I've mentioned many, many times in the preceding 10+ years of blogging).

Most of the e-mails, have been very generic. Like, "btw, my last day will be 10/30 as I'm retiring 11/1. It's been a pleasure working with you". Some have, however, contained greater detail, which is directly due to the fact that there are still a few people left at my agency who previously worked at the facility that I was originally hired to do payroll for back in 2006. Those staff members have gotten a more personalized goodbye.

Most, if not all, of the responses I've received have been either 1} congratulatory; 2} envious (those who have the years, but not the age or the age but not the years); or 3} congratulatory and complimentary. The complimentary ones I have saved and forwarded to my personal e-mail, if only because I've never really thought I would leave a lasting impression with my fellow co-workers. That was always my main goal (like my writing) at work, which was to leave a lasting impression with at least one person at work.

So heading into this very last week of my (current) working life I think is going to be a bag of mixed emotions. It'll be bittersweet, as I've worked with some truly wonderful people over my 14+ years at my current agency. It will be memorable, that's for sure, although it will be difficult to say goodbye in person, since everyone is doing a split of telecommuting and working at the office.

I'm looking forward to the first week of November with mixture of trepidation and relief. Not sure which will win out over the long run, but it should be a fun ride just the same.

{c} 2020 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #56: This Is The 2nd Part Of The 1st Impression

Ya know, old blogging habits can die a really hard and painfully gruesome

No, really. Honest and for true. Roughly a week and a half ago, I wrote in that particular post that there would be a part 2. I actually had something planned out for that next post, like a better recap or something to that effect. Problem is, here we are a week and a half later, and my initial plan has gone to pot.

So we're par for the course. And using cliches, which is also par for the course. And reusing massively old pictures, which again is also par for the course.

Sigh.

The main reason, I think, is that for the past few weeks I've been calmly preparing for November 2nd, which will be the first day in 24 1/2 years where I don't have to be somewhere by 8a. So I've been cleaning out all of the crap that needs to be filed, scanned, boxed, moved and regurgitated. Which means that I've been spending on average about 3 1/2 hours per day at the office getting all of my work done. And believe or not, I'll be doing my very last payroll this week, since my last day coincides with the very last working pay day I will be participating in.

In addition to the cleaning/purging of my office (yes, believe it or not I still have some stuff to take home from my almost bare bones cubicle), I've also been doing a little "goodbye" related writing. Like, writing a good-bye e-mail that will go up around lunch time on October 30th, as I will probably spending the entire day there cleaning up and not really paying attention to my e-mail. Not sure how long my work e-mail will remain active, but it'll be there just the same.

I'm also writing some thank you notes for all of my payroll co-workers. I bought the cards last weekend and I plan on dropping some serious coin on D&D gift cards for everyone.

So sometimes, the best laid plans can go askew. Hopefully, once the reality of retirement really sinks in and becomes my new normal, I'll try to find a way to get back into the swing of blogging again. And yes, the picture up above perfectly represents how I've already checked out at work.

{c} 2020 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Good Lord, It's Autumn Already? Where Did The Time Go?

Wowzers!

It's been, at the very least, an interesting Summer 2020. While I have not been doing anything in the way of writing (or blogging) for that matter, I have begun the laborious task getting my life into some kind of semblance of order. An order, of which I would like to have in place by the beginning of 2021.

To say things have been eventual during the summer would be a distinct understatement.

Let's start off with the events of the familia.

Everyone in the familia is doing as well as can be expected. Daughter has been tested 4 times (yes, you read that correctly) at the university and so far has been a big fat negative (yay!). Both doggos, Tina and Oreo, are doing well, as well as the rabbit Mr. Cuddles. Sadly, the same cannot be said for the masthead of the blog. Holly was euthanized in early September due to a combination of age and kidney disease.

I'm doing well as can be expected, and that will only get better, since on November 1st...

Work.

...on November 1st, I will officially be a retired somebody.

If you recall from my blatherings from earlier this year, work has been a basic flustercuck. The aggravation hasn't stemmed from the new world order known as Covid-19, but stemming from the new payroll system that my agency is shoving down our throats (sort of like how the left shoving down black lies matter and antifa in the style of 1984).  This collective shoving is not a statewide thing, but an agency thing (a lot of agencies don't want it, so that's a huge red flag right there), and they're doing w/o the proper training for ALL OF THE STAFF, and it seems like every time they set a concrete date to make it effective, a lug wrench trashes the gears and they have to go back to square 1a.

I actually qualified for early retirement the month after I had turned 55 this year (June). I really didn't want to do it, since a large financial penalty would be involved for taking an early retirement, but after qualifying with an age and year total of 75+ and combined on how miserable I was becoming and how it was affecting my home life as the aforementioned debacle was unfolding, I consulted with my family and came to the decision that after spending a total of 24 1/2 years with one employer, it was time to go.

And thus, ends part the first. Tune in next time for part the 2nd, and as always, keep on shakn' your groove thing.

{c} 2020 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #54: Summer Hiatus

Good afternoon and welcome to the skewered literary world of G.B. Miller, where fact is fiction and fiction is a thinly veiled interpretation of reality.

Today is July 1, 2020. Which is also a Wednesday, which means it's time for our monthly participation in the IWSG blog hop. Sadly there is no real writing progress to talk about.

Instead, we will talk about our continued lack of writing and motivation.

2020 has been a very serious bust for me. Between issues with family and work (COVID19 among other things), there has been a complete lack of motivation to write, whether it's regular writing or blog writing.

So after some very careful consideration, I've decided to take the 2nd most drastic step when it comes to blogging: going on hiatus.

I've decided to take the rest of the summer from blogging. Hopefully, once September rolls around, I'll be in a better mood (and hopefully the rest of the U.S. will be in a better place with the pandemic under reasonable control) to do some blogging. Not sure about the writing thing, as we're taking that step-by-painful-step.

Truth be told, I'm thinking that once the weather starts to turn come September, I'll be better motivated to write, because presently, staying indoors on the weekend (or even when it's not work related), is really not conducive to my mental health and well being.

I'll still be tripping around visiting a few bloggers hither and yither, since I really need something to read in the mornings, as well as tidying up my remaining active blogs, but for the most part, I'm taking a much needed mental break from blogging.

Have a fantastic week!

{c} 2020 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #53: Accountability Matters

Greetings and Salutations, and welcome to the skewered literary world of G.B. Miller. I thought for a change of pace, I would talk about something that ins't near or dear to my heart in any way, shape or fashion, but it is something that I have a more than a passing knowledge of. And for an added bonus, this actually ties in quite snugly with the protest flavor of the month, defunding the police.

Public sector unions and their loathsome contracts.

For those of you who may be first time visitors to this blog and don't know diddly/squat about me, I work for a state guv'ment agency. Who I actually work for doesn't really matter, since the job I perform (payroll) is quite interchangeable with other agencies.

Anywho, performing my job for the last 16+ years has given me a cockroach's eye-view of a plethora of public sector union contracts. And armed with that knowledge, I'm going to make a solid argument tying the public sector unions, money and politicians (mostly Democrats) together as a reason why defunding the police is not going to work and why accountability will never happen so long as that particular triad is functioning.

For the most part, all pubic sector contracts contain about 85% boilerplate language. In other words, if you open a typical public sector contract (which you can easily find on any state government website) (for CT, it would be Office of Purchasing Management, sub agency Dept of Labor, sub section, labor contracts), about 85% of the language is all the same. The other 15% would contain language specific for that particular bargaining unit (compensation mostly, and some grievance procedures), like disciplinary matters (up to and including termination)

What now follows is a basic description of the procedures that have to be followed in order to potentially terminate a public sector union employee.

1} Paper trail. Document, document, document, and when you're done documenting, document some more. You must document every single disciplinary encounter with the employee. If not, it will turn into a he said/she said, and points will be deducted if you can't show a consistent accumulation of disciplinary actions.

2} Once you succeed in collecting a good paper trail, you'll will have those pesky little union hearings. Again, you will have to have all your ducks in a row, with all of your "I's" dotted and your "T's" crossed. Miss anything, and I mean anything, you will have to start back at square one.

3} I forgot to mention that one of those pesky little union hearings actually requires a fact finding hearing called a Loudermill had to be held. This is a requirement if you want to actually terminate any kind of public sector employee. Failure to do will result in starting over from scratch.

4} If, somehow by the grace of whatever deity you choose to worship, you make it this far, you get to pitch your case in front of an incredibly biased arbitration juror. I say biased, because for the exception of sports, entertainment and most large business, 99% of the time these arbiters favor the union employees. Need I say more?

5} On the very slim (like infinitesimal)  chance that you might win, you can terminate the employee. Even then, you might not be out of the woods. The appeals process is wonderful thing, which in turn can make you simply pay the person to go away. Heavily.

6} More often than not, you'll have to take the employee, who if this was the real world, would stay justifiably fired. This will only make the general public hate unions even more.

Worst case example: that twat who stayed outside the Stoneman Douglas High school was rehired. With full back pay and seniority restored. Click on the link for sordid details.

So when people in the know who aren't MSM or Democrats tell you that a public sector employee can't be fired, believe them 100%. Democrats are the root of all the problems with public sector unions (in our state, for the longest time the Democrats were too scared to actually vote for anyone public sector contracts whenever they came out for renewal, preferring instead to just sit on their dainty money-grubbing hands and let it become legal after a 30 day grace period) and so long as they willingly drop their pants and spread them wide,  the problems will continue to exist.

Btw, you can thank Democrats for all of the fiscal problems in the blue states that they run because a good chunk of their fiscal insanity is directly due to the overly generous union contracts that were created through bad faith bargaining.

{c} 2020 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Insecure Writer's Support Group: Episode #17

IWSG

Greetings and Salutations!

Welcome to the skewered literary world of G.B. Miller, where this fictional place is more real than your current reality.

Today, we have our monthly IWSG post, which seems to be the only way of late that gets me off my ass to blog.

For a change of pace, I thought I would come up with something original to talk about, as opposed to using the very good optional question this month.

My writing.

My writing has ceased to be. Bereft of purpose, it has moved twelve feet under and joined the choir invisible. So one can assume that we are, temporarily, an ex-writer.

While I did manage to crank out about 2k words for a short story that I've been working on for the pat month, by and large, the motivation simply hasn't been there since late 2019. Life, like younger child off to college and older child married has gradually cratered to financial stress, some personal family issues and teleworking/telecommuting for the past three months.

I'm not quite sure if or when I will get back into the writing game again, or even the blogging game for that matter.

So this is my IWSG post for the month. A bit short and none-too-sweet, but it is what it is. Maybe later in June I'll be in a better frame of mine to do some actual blogging and/or writing.

{c} 2020 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Insecure Writer's Support Group: Episode 16-Where's 15?

IWSG

Greetings and Salutations from New England and welcome to the monthly blog post of the IWSG, where writers from around the world  get together to talk smack about their writing, both good and bad.

A small explanation about the post title. Apparently while I was getting ready to write this nifty little post, I discovered that I wrote two, count 'em, two episode #14's. So yeah, a full pinochle deck I was playing with not.

So instead of using the optional question of how do I get into the zone for writing (haven't done much in the way of writing, but when I did, it was basically, peace; quite; editing note, then write),  I decided instead to talk about a shrot story that I started writing {Yay!}.

Lately whenever I decide to write a short story, I make a really hard-water left turn towards the macabre. I'm not sure why, since I don't really read that much in that genre (and other horror genres), but it seems a little easier to just go off in that direction with no rhyme or reason to speak of.

This particular short story, working title "What A Day..." was directly inspired by the fact that I have been teleworking/telecommuting from home since mid March and much like everyone else who is doing it, I'm beyond over in doing it.

The opening paragraph starts out normal enough:

I open the door to the basement, sigh disgustedly, before tromping down the stairs towards my office. I wasn’t too thrilled about it, since this was now day 31 of my enforced telecommuting and the redundancy of it all left me with a sour cotton mouth and twisted sense of indignation.

But quickly dovetails to internal organs, disembodied voices, psycho animals and other assorted ghoulies. Just like my latest project sitting on the back burner, I found it wickedly easy to explore the dark recesses of my mind. And I also find it wickedly easy to write it like this is simply a normal day-to-day occurrence: no outrage, no OMG, no "run to the hills". Instead, it's more like a, "honey, can you make sure to pick up a gallon of milk while you're out and about?" mentality.

Weirdly macabre is the new normal it seems, at least for me. What's the new normal for you?

{c} 2020 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode 52: Still Yet Another Day In The Life

Wowzers! Three posts in the month of April! I must be some kind of active blogger in order to write this many posts.

Anywho, I was feeling kind of inspired to blog this past week, much like I was pretty much inspired to write {yay!}, so I said to myself, "Why not?"

We're still working at home {sort of}, in the proverbial basement at my mother's house {insert lame meme here} and so days are starting to blend with another.  Work has been pretty much the normal aggravation this week, but while working some unpaid overtime this past Saturday, we got hit with a super blinding case of the incredibly obvious/oblivious {take your pick, they're interchangeable todsay}.

And what was that Captain Obvious moment you may ask?

Well, I was performing said unpaid overtime, I suddenly remembered that instead of listening to more podcasts {pretty much spent the past month getting all caught up with the 19+ that I normally listen to on a bi-weekly basis}, I could dip into the vast LP collection {3000+} and listen to those. Considering I'm sitting in the same room with them, this should've been a serious no-brainer back in mid-March, instead of a semi-brainer in late April.

Anywho, since there was no time like the here and now, we dove into our ultra large collection for schtuff to listen to.

For this bout of unpaid overtime, we listened to the following 3 1/2 albums:

1. The Go-Go's "Beauty And The Beat"
2. The Go-Go's "Vacation"

Both of which were pretty good samples of the power pop phase that music went through in the early 80's (e.g. The Knack), but I give the edge to their debut album, as the seconds felt like they were phoning it in just a tad.

1. Billy Crystal "Mahvelous!"

A very good comedy album that put me in stitches.

1. The Dead Boys "Young, Loud and Snotty" {side one}

Yeah, late 70's punk, a genre that I completely missed while growing up. Plus I was curious about their late singer Stiv Bators.

And not to forget, I started writing this week. I got inspired by the circumstance/severe dullness of the day and actually wrote a paragraph of a short story called, What A Day....

Not sure what direction it's gonna go in, but considering that whenever inspiration strikes lately, I tend to wander down the path of the horror genre that I don't spend that much time reading these days.

But, there you go, another day in the life of G.B. Miller, slave to the business word and occasional escapee to the fictional word.

{c} 2020 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode 51: A Day In The Life

Boy howdy and howdy to one and all, and welcome to my little corner of the world, where Spring is just around the corner {just like that pic to the left} and the new norm cannot be sustainable.

A rare Sunday post for me, as this CODVID-19 quarantine has finally gotten me to make an attempt of doing some kind of writing {while listening to music!}. Since I'm about a month into this thing called teleworking, I thought I might give you a look at what a typical work day in the life of G.B. Miller {which is a smidgen like the song}.

Firstly, I changed my work hours back to a normal 8a to 4:30p schedule. I figure since I was now home, there is no reason to go in late and stay late. Secondly, I strove to maintain a small semblance of routine while working at home.

So my typical work day goes something like this.

After doing my morning schtuff, I get dressed in my usual wardrobe of jeans and t-shirt, with at least one or two days being dressed in my normal work clothes of business casual shirt and jeans. I turn on my computer promptly at 8a, and send off my mandatory attendance e-mail to the usual supervisors, letting them know where I'm at {home or in the office, which I go to up to three days a week for anywhere from 1/2 to 2 hours at a clip}, then I'm off to my usual two hours of work.

Those two hours consist of answering e-mail and other assorted odds and ends, depending if it's a payroll week or a non-payroll week. I selectively use my printer for printing, since basically, it's my toner and there's only a 15% change of getting reimbursed should I have another cartridge {Epson ain't cheap}. At 10ish, I go on break and shut down my computer. By 10:30a, I'm back online.

Until lunch, it's usually more of the same, then lunch kicks in. During my lunch time, I'll take a .7 to .75 mile walk. This is something that I would do at the office in the parking lot and my route was usually about that length of distance. One of the first things that I did when I's first started teleworking was to map out a similar route to walk.

The afternoon was/is pretty much the same as the morning, then promptly at 4:30p, we send out an e-mail to my supervisors letting them know I was checking out for the night.

Now, there are some variations to this routine, depending if it was a pay week or non-pay week. The main reason why I, and my co-workers, could have this variation, is that we were given a classification that allowed us to visit our main building when needed to do our job.

For example, during the pay week, I would go the office on Thursday, Friday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, to collect/print timesheets. Considering the fact that I deal with the equivalent of one and a third reams of paper (that's roughly 700 pages) per pay period, you can understand why i would go to the office and print all of this out.

On a non-pay week, I would go into the office on either Monday or Tuesday to do my usual grunt clerical work: filing, printing, scanning, etc. This would take up to about two hours of my day or so. On the way home, I would hit my credit union, since the only the main branch has a drive thru, or my local bank, which again, only has the drive thru open with limited hours.

Then once at home, we wash, rinse, repeat, before checking out promptly at 4:30p.

And that,. my friends, is my now typical work day. Exciting? I think not. Actually, I stand corrected. The only exciting part is making sure that I completely squash the snarkiness that bubbles to the surface during my off hours.

How's your typical work day now? The same, or have you drastically modified it?

{c} 2020 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Insecure Writer's Support Group: Episode 14-Pandemic

IWSG

What day is it?

Prince Spaghetti day!

No, try again.

Hump day!

Nope.

IWSG day!

Yes indeedie-doodie, it's that time of the month (no dear, I do not have a headache) where the entire writing community gets together and gets mellow.

If remember my e-mail correctly, today's optional question was asking how things are going on in your world during this pandemic.

Well, for starters, I've been working at home since mid-March. Granted, it's an office job (for a guv'ment agency) but it's been incredibly difficult to do payroll from home when you don't quite have everything you need at your fingertips. And judging by the latest going-ons, it looks like i'll be spending the majority of April at home as well.

So far, the pandemic has not hit my home state (Connecticut) very hard, but the screws are slowly turning with the various quarantine measures (haven't hit a total ban yet) being implemented. The new normal at my house is pretty much a pain in the buttocks at varying degrees: daughter has been doing the online school thing since early March as her school is in lockdown mode (which means for the present she's unable to return to the campus to get the rest of her stuff; yours truly has been working at home and is definitely not feeling it; and my mother's doctor has basically decreed she should be housebound for the foreseeable future.

I still try to keep some of work routine going, mostly by taking a late lunch (.7 to .75 mile distance) walk, but other than that, I mostly stay to myself. I did move a step closer in starting up my writing again, as I started reviewing the printed version of my story, but since my den has turned into my work office, no writing is to be had, especially since I've now become very anti-computer after spending 8-9 hours each day on it. Now my evenings are spent decompressing by watching YouTube on my phone (yah, I know).

So this is the new normal for me for the foreseeable future. What's yours?

{c} 2020 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Insecure Writer's Support Group: Super Lucky Episode 14

IWSG

Weeeeeeeelll doggie! It's time for yet another monthly IWSG post? My how time does duck crawl these days!

Are you ready to commiserate? Are you ready to join the action/? More importantly, are you ready to rumble?

Welcome my friends to that time of the month were all the writers near and far get together to swap a few war stories, a few laughs and a ton of liquid libations.

To briefly interrupt this lighthearted intro, I would like to say that family issues this year have kept me from blogging with a greater degree of frequency that I've normally employ, and for that, I do apologize. We're hoping that March will be a vast improvement over February.

And now, after that minor detour, we return to the topic at hand: writer's insecurities.

My current insecurity about my writing is that when I do finally get back to {presently working on six month hiatus} whatever story that I decide to work on, is that I'll draw a complete etch-a-sketch blank as to what I'm writing about.

In other words, not quite remembering the main plot and all the little sub-plots, as well as the p.o.v of the story, the state of mind/being for the main characters and other assorted details.

I've had this happen before with other stories that I've written over the years. I would write anywhere from four to six chapters of a novel, or a dozen pages of a medium-sized short story, stop at what I feel is a good point, then fail to return in a timely manner to work on/finish the story. I can't tell you how many times I've perused through stuff sitting on my shelf and say to myself, "this is actually pretty good. I wonder what the original plot was that I was pursuing?"

That my friends, is my current worry/insecurity of my writing life these days. What's yours?

{c} 2020 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode 50: On Being Nuked.

Wow, I managed to make it to the big 50 for posts! Three cheers and a Tasmanian Devil for me!

As most of you probably know at this point, I seriously detest being censored. On any kind of level. On any kind of medium. Real world and Cyber world.

I don't mind censoring myself when the situation calls for it, like at work where we have an open floor plan and sound carries quite a bit, or on my blog when people can take certain offense to certain concepts/phrases/words that I may blog about.

But I do loathe being censored when the situation 100% doesn't call for it.

Case in point: I belong to a couple of writers groups on Facebook, and each one has very sensible rules that you must follow in order to play in the very large sandbox. Without exception, I follow all the rules to the best of my ability and everything becomes just fine and ducky.

The other day, I finally decided to use one of the Amazon gift cards that was given to me last Christmas. There was one book that I wanted to purchase, simply because I follow the writer's podcast. However, all he has out is a hardcover version, and as you undoubtedly know, hardcover is where publishers make their M-O-N-E-Y (in this case, $24.99).

Now as a rule of thumb, I'm not a big fan of purchasing hardcovers unless they become deeply discounted. My preference is to purchase softcover. So I went to one of my writer's groups and asked for some suggestions from those writer's current and back catalog, with the only restriction being that they had to be stand-alones.

I get a couple of responses on the post, but when I go to FB to check it out, I found it to be nuked to smithereenies. Naturally annoyed about this, I asked the admin who nuked it (this group has about one dozen or so admins) why they nuked it. They responded by saying because I was asking for people for suggestions of their own work, that it was a book promo, and thus shouldn't be posted until the appropriate day for it came about.

I said it wasn't a promo post, since i was asking folks for suggestions for the simple reason of wanting to throw some financial love their way. However, my answer fell on deaf ears, since the admin had already made their mind up that it wasn't going to be restored, so ultimately, with discretion being the better part of getting ejected, I dropped the matter with the kind of response you would give to a superior politely letting them know that they aren't smart.

I'm still very annoyed over this gross misinterpretation of the rules, so I'm making myself persona-non-grata from that group for awhile, so that I can calm down enough to participate w/o becoming overly nasty.

Sometimes, you just can't win if you do play.

{c} 2020 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Insecure Writers Support Group: Episode Lucky #13

IWSG

Boy to the howdy and welcome to I Have Stories! I am your most awesome host G.B. Miller, and for today's monthly installment, we feature the optional question of the month as our contribution to the IWSG blog hop.

Has a single photo or work of art ever inspired a story? What was it and did you finish it?

To a certain degree, yes. Not so much as a photo or work of art, but actual non-living objects have inspired me.

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaay back in the early part of this century (early 00's) I was an extremely motivated writer. Didn't get published much, but got into a serious flash fiction writing groove. How serious? Serious enough to create a now closed short story blog entitled Flashing Georgie's Shorts as a home for my output.

I say roughly 90% of the short stories were inspired by a turn of a word, phrase or concept (concrete or otherwise), with the remaining 10% were inspired by inanimate objects. One such story featured a conversation between two stop signs that were perched on opposite corners of a street.

Still another was inspired by the city that I currently work in, sort of a slice of life snippet. Another was inspired by a train, and yet another by the great outdoors.

While I did write the majority of my stories to completion, only two ever got commercially published. And I'm definitely proud of that fact.

So to sum it up, while all of my stories have had various and intriguing backgrounds for inspiration, very few of them came about due to either a photo or a work of art. But, that is the beauty of having a creative mind, in that you can draw inspiration from anything, whether animal, vegetable or mineral, audio or video, and write a fascinating piece of fiction.

{c} 2020 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Episode #49: (Sort of) Living The Life

Boy to the howdy and welcome to the skewered world of G.B. Miller, where all is not what it should be, and what should be is not we had expected it to be.

My month of January has been pretty much like that picture of Little Nemo there: Sushied and oh-so-too-many-calories.

Things have slowly been stabilizing at work, so I'm starting to feel more comfortably in turning my thoughts back to writing.  Or to be more specific, blogging.

I've slowly been exploring my new Chrome notebook, and I've been pleasantly surprised on how easy it's been to work with. Haven't done much exploring with Google docs yet, but I have discovered that so far as I can tell, I can't get any of my flash drives to work on the computer yet. I'll have to spend some time meandering through the help forums to see what I can come up with for viable workarounds.

But, back to the writing aspect of life.

Been goofing on FB in small short spurts (about 20 minutes in length), since that's about as much as I can tolerate there, mostly by writing short puffy posts to work my back into the groove.

For example, been going through a brutal allergy attack for the past week or so (wife got an early b'day present of Mr. Cuddles, rabbit), and on Monday, went to the ER to get things temporarily squared away. So yesterday, I wrote this funny little quip about my visit.

How to murder a Monday.

1) Call out sick due to allergies beating your candy-ass into the ground. 

2) Have your candy-ass become progressively worse until it's peanut brittle. 

3) Have said brittle puff itself up and say, "Yo! To the den of iniquity you need to go and get thyself healed!" 

4) With trepidation, went to said den of iniquity {aka Hospital of Central Connecticut} and spent a lovely 3 hours at the ER to get the drugs needed to snuff out the shortness of breath, the Grand Coulee Dam of mucus in the head and the Thor hammer-style cough that was destroying my rib cage. 

And no, we won't finish up with The Boomtown Rats. Instead, we leave you with "Forever Afternoon (Tuesday?)"

Managed to work in a few pop culture/musical/American history references and got a few comments about it. And yes, after a three hour visit, we came home with enough pharmaceuticals to hold us over until we can set up an appoint with an allergist.

Sometimes to make any kind of progress, you have to take a couple of baby steps.

{c} 2020 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved

Insecure Writers Support Group: Episode the 12th

IWSG

Good day to one and all and a beefy boy howdy to those who need it the most on hump day, and welcome to the skewered literary world of G.B. Miller, where something old more often than not, put out to pasture long before before it's overdue.

Things are still seriously kablooie in my world (work and non-family related headaches specifically), but the need to continue participating in the IWSG blog hop has forced me to de-cloak for the present.

Radio silence is currently the norm as it applies to my writing these days. This even includes the two writing groups that I'm currently a member of on Facebook.

I originally was going to use the alternate question of the month for the topic of choice, but because that has the potential to reopen a scab that has pretty much healed at this point, another topic of choice is needed.

Enter "radio silence".

I always thought that the phrase "radio silence" was a cool group of words to use in any given situation you can come across. Desperately trying to get a grip on the octopus that's known as your job? Apply radio silence. Annoyed as all hell with someone and knowing that to open mouth would make things 10 times worse? Apply radio silence. Wanting to avoid people due to social anxiety? Apply radio silence.

You get the basic idea.

Well, this concept is now being applied to my writing. With so much going right now with work etc., something had to be put onto the back burner, and that something was my writing. I haven't talked about my writing beyond the current stuff that people asked me about. I haven't done any writing since early December due to the aforementioned issues (which includes this nifty thing). I can actually hear my current project rapping gently on my chamber doors, but no reply is given by me to it.

Nothing but radio silence. I don't dwell on my writing project beyond looking at the very old computer that it's currently being writing on and making sure that I still remember the plot lines and where I want to go with it. Once I remember, I turn my attention to other things.

When life is too much noisy shiny crap, sometimes you just have to go radio silent in order to get a grip on things again. Even if it means not attacking the keyboard in order to create the five basic grammar concepts of language and string sentences and paragraphs together for an extended of time. Personally, I'm not happy doing this, but until I can get that square peg back into that square hole again, my writing will be on the back burner, patiently waiting for me to get that square peg back into that square hole.

{c} 2020 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved