Cup of Coffee

September 5, 2012: Recovery

141 Comments

Stress, insomnia and a hacking cough have been killing me for the past few days, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to wake up feeling better today. If I don't, I'll let you know.

141 thoughts on “September 5, 2012: Recovery”

    1. Nah, it's definitely a sickness thing that's run all the way through my family as of this morning. Though, I did recently develop an allergy to the deodorant I've used for twenty years. That's a bummer.

      1. I once developed an allergy to my deodorant. That is annoying. It's amazing how attached a person gets to certain daily routine items.

        1. The Milkmaid's bummed out by it, too. She equates the scent with me. I'm bullheadedly attempting to slowly work it back into the rotation, and it's...sort of taking, though I've had some painfully itchy days.

          1. on a similar theme, mrsS recently developed an allergy to cinnamon. What's up with that?

            consequently, she paid an additional price for eating her bag of Tom Thumb donuts on monday, and can no longer eat Key's caramel rolls. It also means that I have to "mix my own" garam masala for indian dishes, which is a minor pain.

            1. I hadn't realized a person could pick up allergies this late in life. In retrospect it's no surprise, what with changing pH balances - I'd just never heard of it.

              It terrifies me to think that someday I might just be allergic to beef or gummy worms or beer. Okay, so I only have gummy worms about four times a year these days, but the lack of the option would make me think of it every day.

              1. Only a few years ago, I got an allergy to raw apples (it goes along with certain tree pollen allergies, it turns out). No more crunching into a juicy apple. Thank God I can eat cooked apples, though!

                    1. I've found it with nectarines too, but that's about it. Has it been something that has developed for you, or has it been pretty static?

                    2. I just discovered it a few years ago. Just out of the blue, got very bad indigestion/itchy back of the mouth and throat. When it happened again, I put two-and-two together, and then Runner daughter realizes she was having the same issues. I haven't noticed with other fruits (yet).

                    3. It was several years before I noticed it with other fruits. I first discovered it eating a snickers salad. Y'all are the first others I've actually "met" who have the problem, though apparently it's pretty widespread.

                    10. Do people really not know about Snickers salad?! I thought it was common knowledge!!!

                      i've never heard of it, and it sounds absolutely disgusting. after a little research, i could say the same about glorified rice and watergate salad.

                      (i do know puppy chow though. meh.)

      2. I've been told that it's a good idea to rotate through different soaps and deodorants, fwiw.

        btw, you didn't let the Twins medical staff diagnose you, did you? DID YOU?!

            1. Seriously, though, Gardy is impressed by my willingness to refuse to go on the DL and lock down a roster spot that would otherwise just be available to an able-bodied backup.

          1. I'd always used different things under my arms, and about five or so years ago, the skin in my armpits suddenly started to dry up. And when I say dry up, I mean the skin cracked and it looked like the floor of a desert. It was the weirdest damn thing. Ever since I've had to use Dove deodorants because of the moisturizer in the bar. They have the new Men's Care line but there's not an unscented one anymore, unfortunately.

            1. i've pretty much stayed within the old spice family for the last 10 years, though i'll jump around types as it suits my fancy.

              1. Deodorant is one area where I have developed no brand loyalty. Whatever strikes my fancy when I'm at the store is what I go with.

  3. Since we're going with baseball humor, I figured I'd put up another link to Fun Factory. I'm pretty happy with today's gag, though it's probably kind of obvious.

    1. I feel like you've either linked me to that one before, or you told me about it when you were conceiving the baseball series of strips. Obvious, definitely, but fun regardless.

  5. apologies to the Citizenry for not making contact for a mini-caucus over the weekend. We were full up on family affairs prior to the Deposit on tuesday.

    For those of you about to send kiddles off to college -- be sure that the kid brings his/her passport or social security card along to run the Work Study gantlet. WTF? We apparently missed that line in the check list information and now have to fed ex it to The Boy so that he can start his campus job. How the hell do they think kids qualify for financial aid to begin with? "Real" employers just query the SSA database to verify. but colleges have to require a kid to produce the physical card? Effing stupid policy.

      1. I still feel like I dread the early teen years that are approaching more than anything else, but yeah, college hoops are no fun. (both the red tape and the sport.) More than that, though, I'm very much not looking forward to how much it'll cost by then. Its frightening just thinking about it. Fortunately, I set up a 529 this year for the trinket and my step-dad is going to do the same for her.

        1. I share your fear. Mine is compounded by a principled view against parents paying for college (whoever first paid for their child's college just jacked up the price for the rest of us!). I know I'm not operating in the real world with that view, but I'm not quite ready to give up on the way I want the world to be.

          1. I'd fully support this if part time wages & tuition costs were somewhere in the same ballpark. Then I wouldn't have to take out loans to go back to school.

          2. While I agree that the students who's parents are paying for it all are annoying and seem to always be horrible people (especially at Madison, for some reason.), my mom paid my tuition while I paid room and board. (I also went to UW-Stout at in-state cost, which was far cheaper) My student loans are reasonable with a reasonable monthly payment at a very low interest rate.

            My wife, on the other hand, took out as much in student loans as she was entitled to and now has a crap load to pay back, which we've been deferring as much as possible because there will be no way we can afford the payments on the loan once we have no more options. It really sucks and seems really annoying that getting a college education, if you're not in the right type of field, can basically screw over much of your adult life.

            In other words, I want my daughter's student loans to be more like mine than my wife's.

            1. Oh yeah, I came out of undergrad with almost nothing in loans, but came out of law school with a metric crap ton. My biggest problem is that more money coming in from parents changed the market (ability to pay increases demand while supply stays static = $$$), and probably continues to do so. We all want the best for our kids, but in helping them we actually hurt everyone else.

              1. I would guess that on the whole a lot more money was entered into the system through the student loan market. I know there's currently one trillion in outstanding student loans in the US. My assumption is that this would be a more significant driver of costs given that the market is largely for-profit.

                I should probably stop there since I'm treading dangerously close to the forbidden zone. I agree that the influx of cash into the university system is a huge part of rising tuition costs. However, as someone who had parents who wanted to help me go to school (and also screwed up that opportunity and greatly regret doing so) I think in the tiny chance I ever ended up with children, I'd rather much rather help them pay for school than to have them sign their lives away to the student loan companies.

                2. I'm just speculating, but it has always seemed to me that student loans were a fairly stable, consistent expense for earlier generations (my folks). They existed, but didn't single-handedly drive up the costs. I do agree though, that their existence certainly is a large contributing factor. I never meant to suggest that parent contributions were alone was the driver of cost increases, just that they're a part of it, and a part that not everyone has access to (for example, my parents did not contribute to my college education). That might be the part that bothers me most - it has become expected, but there's wide disparity in what parents can actually contribute.

                  1. all of this stuff is hard to parse, I think. Federal financial aid, generally, has probably contributed to sticker price inflation, particularly in private non-profit and private for-profit schools (particularly particularly the latter).

                    the flip side is that before the expansion of student aid and government production of higher education (the explosion of higher ed in the late 1950s through the 1960s and early 1970s), a relatively small share of Americans earned B.A.'s and B.S.'s.

                    This paper talks a bit about the "privatization" of higher ed since about 1990 and provides some good background (mentioning, for example, that the 1970s were marked by a huge expansion of the community college sector).

                    The for-profit sector now accounts for around 8 pct of enrollments, up from basically zero in 1975. Some of those are relatively legit; many, however, are basically money extraction machines designed to get relatively poor kids enrolled and signed up for financial aid and student loans, which cannot be erased through personal bankruptcy. Degree completion rates for these schools tend to be pretty low.

          3. I had a coworker that said he wasn't going to pay for his kids' college because he had to pay his own way. He would consistently forget to mention that his tuition was next to nothing due to his parents financial situation and that he now makes well into the six figure range. It isn't exactly apples-to-apples.

        3. So far the 529 plan has been covering things, but I'm sure Runner daughter will eventually dip into the student loans. Still, best advice is to open an education plan early and continue to contribute to it.

          1. My plan is to put the child tax credit into the account every year and then, if income allows, maybe add a little more than that as well. But I think $1000/year is a nice base to work with.

              1. I used to bump my 401(k) by 1% each year when I got my raise, so that I never missed it since I had never seen it in the first place. Doesn't take long to get it up to something relatively substantial

            3. That is a great idea. I have a direct deposit set up for both kids. It makes it easy to forget all about it until the statement comes. My daughter has almost what my entire undergrad student loan bill was (state school a while ago now) in her account. That should cover her books. First semester.

              Ooh, also the grandparents love to contribute on birthdays and such and have set up accounts of their own. We are blessed.

              1. ditto with the automatic deposit. We have been dumping considerably more than $1,000 per year in each kid's account for years. Thankfully, our income has allowed us to do that. ANY amount you can contribute starting as close to day 1 as possible is a good amount, thanks to the magic of compounding.

                Assuming, of course, that the market does not tank when your kids get to high school. 🙁
                The bulk of our 529 money is in funds that automatically rebalance the portfolio as the kid approaches college age, thus reducing market risk. So the Boy's accounts were not completely crushed during the Great Recession.

                I am not as radical as some seem to be around here in their thinking or experiences re: college financing. I believe the kid needs to have skin in the game, but I also know that they are not mature enough to do the financial planning necessary to finance their own educations when they need to get the ball rolling. If you make the kid pay his/her own way, that kid is basically compelled to go the community college route and/or cheap state school route, and still likely would end up with a large debt load. Unless that kid is Alex Keaton from birth, in which case he/she might be able to build up a nest egg through persistent entrepreneurship and aggressive savings.

                1. Someday I definitely hope to put more in than the $1000 per year. But that amount is what we get for that tax credit, so its like money we wouldn't have without a kid, anyway.

                  What I want to stress with my daughter is that she doesn't need to take the maximum loans they will give her. My wife and her sisters are doing that, and they act like the leftover money after tuition is somehow free income. That free income my wife got in college has the potential to cripple us financially sooner than later. But dammit, I'm going to work as hard as I can to find loopholes to keep pushing it off as long as I can until we can either afford it, or something happens where she is forgiven of it.

                2. I went to a cheap state school. Doesn't look quite as shiny on the resume, but I'm 25 and my loans are completely paid off with minimal help from my parents.

                  1. and I want to emphasize that there is nothing wrong with the cheap state school route. Different strokes, different folks. You can get a great education ANYWHERE if you are determined to do so. (I also went to Spamtown Community College for a year, and GrampaS was a lifer there).

                    I was one of the very first in my extended family to do the private school college thing. I believe there is a great deal of value in that route, but that it has to fit the kid. In order to fit the kid, however, you generally have to pony up a considerable sum.

                    In our case, we are pretty well financially indifferent between the Alma Mater aid package and what we would be shelling out to send him to one of the UC campuses, once you factor in room and board.

                    1. I went the cheap state school route, including grad school, and then private law school. I paid for the second two without borrowing, so the first one did me okay.

              2. My daughter has almost what my entire undergrad student loan bill was (state school a while ago now) in her account. That should cover her books. First semester.

                Yar. I paid via summer/winter break jobs and work study about half of my family's out-of-pocket cost to the Alma Mater back in the day, plus I had modest student loans. There is no way in hell the Boy could do that today. His 529 accounts have a multiple of my family's total, four-year payout, and we still don't have quite enough to cover everything for 4 years.

                1. I really, really, really want(ed) to participate in this discussion but a). I'm at work and couldn't devote the time to adequately express myself, and b.) if I adequately expressed myself, I'm not sure I could have kept it civil.

                  I'm going to think about it some more and respond this evening. Suffice it to say, I'm up to my eyeballs in my own student loans and have recently begun saving for Kernel's higher education...

                  1. When we had a mortgage Dr. Chop owed more than it to her student loans. The high debt load is a fact of life when you're a highly motivated kid from working class parents who can't afford to help pay the cost of a good education.

                    1. The high debt load is a fact of life when you're a highly motivated kid from working class parents who can't afford to help pay the cost of a good education.

                      This.

  7. Seems that the Twins want Selig to give them excuses not to call up the Slamas, Guerras, and Chuck Jameses in the future.
    (Not that the Twins are pushing this, but Bud doesn't do things without some teams telling him to.)

    Ugh, I hate this idea. What are crappy teams supposed to look forward to at the end of the season then? Heck, even on good teams... Revere showing up at the end of 2010 was awesome, even if he didn't hit for anything.

    1. I agree that it's fun for bad teams to see guys come up, but I agree with Craig that watching teams in playoff contention do super-subbing with their bloated rosters is lame. Basically, the team you have on the final day of the season (which could be game 163) is not the team you'll bring to the playoffs. Not a fan.

        1. The rules* say you take each President at his own physical peak regardless of whether it occurred prior to him taking office.

          *This isn't 'Nam, there are rules here, RR!

          1. I find it interesting that Polk gets high marks; he was not a big man. "Hail to the Chief" came into being because his wife became upset when no one knew when he entered the room. I've seen 5'8" listed.

        1. I think Teddy Roosevelt is clearly the prohibitive favorite. LBJ would be so physically powerful that he could probably single-handedly talk at least three Presidents into disarming themselves. Of course, he was never in particularly great physical shape so he probably wouldn't be able to last.

          Jefferson is seriously overrated in this link because Washington, Adams, Madison, and Monroe all knew him personally. Because of that, each would know that they could never trust the conniving POS, so they would make sure he got the shiv at the first chance.

          Grant's total war tactics would be perfect as he could just wait it out and let others fall while consistently improving his position. In fact, I think if I had to pick a winner, Grant would be my choice with a rope-a-dope strategy as the others underestimate him while he just bides his time and waits.

          1. I can see someone like Grant. It's gotta be someone on that next tier down, and he fits that. Also, I had a theater joke lined up for Lincoln, but couldn't get it to work, so axed it.

      1. Why wasn't this type of thing ever a challenge when I played? This is right up my alley.

        1. I feel like it has to have been. In my yearly challenge "20 Questions" where teams have to come up with the funniest or best answer for certain things, I almost always have one that's "Who would win in a fight to the death between [x, y, z...etc] and why?"

          1. Every time I play it involves something pointless like 80's metal bands rather than something I would dominate. Plus, historical submissions always get good scores from DK!

          2. I think this should just be a new feature on CdL. You put up a "who would win and why" with a 500 word limit or something, and then we all go at it. Rotating judges, who get to pick the subjects for battle.

    3. I don't know why no one's picking Zachary Taylor.
      Maybe I'm misremembering history, but I've always pictured him as the statesman version of Old Hoss Radbourn (Twitter Version).
      I think he's got as good a chance as any of them.

        1. True, true. Unlike Teddy Roosevelt, Jackson left the bullet IN his body after he was shot in the chest (in a duel). Still, I'm keeping my money on Grant.

        2. I think Jackson's badassery is exaggerated. He was a bully, and most bullies operate out of fear. He used positions of power and intimidation to take on targets. With a huge group of equally impressive foes, he wouldn't have been smart enough to know how to approach things. (I have no basis for any of this.)

          1. We are talking about their respective physical peaks, however.

            Jackson may have been a thug, but it was earned through hardship. He was orphaned in his teens (father died before he was born, IIRC, and mother died from cholera trying to nurse Rev. War prisoners on a prison ship. He got slashed on the cheeks by a Brit officer for, according to the story, refusing to shine the officer's boots while he was a Brit prisoner. I think he spent the rest of his life doing the Inigo Montoya thing, without the humor.

            1. But we're talking about their respective physical peaks during their presidency. How much of a physical badass was he during his presidency? And giant knife fights are about a lot more than badassery, they're about brains too.

              1. well, see, this is what happens when I don't read the source material. When DP wrote that the rules specified "physical peak", I took it at face value. Turns out that he got it wrong.

                Every president is in the best physical and mental condition they were ever in throughout the course of their presidency. Fatal maladies have been cured, but any lifelong conditions or chronic illnesses (e.g. FDR’s polio) remain.

                Emphasis added.

                Ok, now having skimmed the source material:

                1) I think he undervalues Monroe significantly. Dropped out of college to fight in the Revolutionary War, where he took a musket ball in the shoulder at the Battle of Trenton (never removed; surgeons couldn't locate it). 6 feet tall.

                2) Jackson was also 6 foot, but weighed only about 145 lbs. A mean SOB.

                3) Jerry Ford was a really good athlete. Maybe he was too nice to survive this competition, but remember, he was a star college football player back in the day. You can't be a pansy and play lineman in major college football.

                3. For knife fights, brawn gives way to speed and guile. And ability to take a stab in an arm whilst you place your blade in his organs.

                  1) Teddy R.
                  2) Andy J.
                  3) Abe L.

                  Why don't we use this process to select POTII?

  9. We had a tragedy in our little town yesterday. I don't know all the details, and perhaps never will, but a local plumbing contractor was working with his twenty-year old son. They were working on a sewer line. The son was in a manhole when something went wrong and he was overcome with sewer gas. The dad jumped down into the hole to try to save him. It sounds like the son was dead almost immediately. The dad was somehow pulled out, taken to the local hospital, and flown to Sioux Falls, but he passed away early this morning. Both had grown up in Gettysburg and lived here all their lives. The funeral will be held in the school gymnasium because it's the only place in town big enough to hold it. Prayers for the family would be appreciated.

  10. that's pretty awful, indeed. my thoughts to the family, community, and you yourself. i can't imagine it's easy to be the person a lot of people look to to help assuage their grief.

    1. You really can't assuage their grief at this point, much as you'd like to. What you try to do is let them know you love them, you're there for them, and that they don't have to go through it alone.

          1. The one thing I'd add is that, while I fully agree it's important not to avoid things, it can be okay to sit with someone and say nothing at all. If they don't want to talk, that's okay. Just sit there in silence with them. Being there is more important than anything you'll ever say.

            1. Bingo, for sure. I've even said this to grieving friends - I can't make this better, but I'm not going anywhere.

              Sorry to hear, Padre. That's devastating.

    1. Hrmph. I'm going to be down there that weekend. I wish it wasn't Sunday night.

      Ah, it appears to be sold out. The decision is made for me, then!

    1. Let me try that again - here's the link to "Don't it Make you Wanna go Home":

      httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBPBWLmF-W8

      hjedit: embedded, baby.

      1. What a swell clip. Goober really puts it over the top.

        Hey, if you folks haven't yet, check out Klawitter's Wolves Player Countdown over at Canis. It's great so far, but will be truly epic if he goes all the way with it. (You're gonna go all the way with it, right, Klaw?)

        1. The original record is much better, but this video was such a time capsule that it felt like a better choice.

          Thanks for the plug, E-6. It's going to take a long time, but I'll keep at it. Even if I have to do it "All by Myself."

        1. yea, certain people want to learn how to sanitize their BoF timelines eventually if they ever want to get jobs. [Oh, you meant MY finger; yea, like I said, not a professional photographer]

  15. Time for my favorite game:

    Player A: 3855 ABs, 1244 H, .323 AVE, 244 2B, 93 HRs, 134 OPS+
    Player B: 3844 ABs, 1243 H, .323 AVE, 197 2B, 96 HRs, 122 OPS+

    Spoiler SelectShow

    1. That is remarkably similar production from two people who couldn't have been more dissimilar.

      1. Blargh! I didn't heed your warning. However, this particular comment is annoying:

        Puck had that "IT" factor. Everyone followed him, he had attitude when he needed it. Mauer is VANILLA.

        We need to remove vanilla as an adjective for boring things, dammit. I recently made vanilla ice cream using actual vanilla beans and real vanilla extract I made myself and it was one of the best and most interesting things I've ever eaten.

  16. Don't you know that they're all innocent?

    "Jerry [Sandusky] says [his fellow inmates are] very sympathetic," [Defense Attorney Joe] Amendola said. "As a matter of fact, a number of them have said they're innocent, too."

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