A Dragonfly in the Ointment

Ramblings and Rants

Dragonfly

Dragonfly
Location
Marysville, California, USA
Birthday
March 11
Title
Title? No one said there would be titles!
Company
No, thanks, I'm a loner
Bio
I'm 45 years old, married for 22 of them, and the mother of 2 teenagers. I'm a software test engineer by profession, and rather geeky. I've spent almost my entire life in Northern CA.

Dragonfly's Links

Salon.com
NOVEMBER 4, 2009 6:16PM

Why I Hate Carly Fiorina

Well, she did it. After months of speculation, Carly Fiorina, ex-CEO of Hewlett-Packard has thrown her hat into the ring for a run at Barbra Boxer’s senate seat.

This is going to get ugly.

Speaking as a woman in high tech, nobody wanted Cary to succeed at being the CEO of… Read full post »

If you live outside the Central Valley of California you are probably wondering where you have heard of Lodi before. My bet is that you are thinking of the song, “Stuck in Lodi” by Credence Clearwater Revival where the singer laments his misfortune in getting stuck in the self proclaimedRead full post »

SEPTEMBER 28, 2009 3:10PM

Meg Whitman for Governor? NO WAY!

Well, she did it. Ending months of speculation Meg Whitman, former CEO of EBay, has thrown her hat in the proverbial ring and is running for governor of the formerly great state of California. If the current pools are any indication, she will be the Republican candidate to succeed Arnold when… Read full post »

AUGUST 25, 2009 2:01PM

Why I am a liberal

I don’t know how many of you have the columnist Ron Hart in your local paper. If you haven’t, you haven’t missed much, if you do then maybe you saw his column on why liberals are liberals. Here’s a link if you are interested in reading the whole thing (warning: don’t… Read full post »

One thing that puzzles me about the current health care debate:

If the Canadian and British health care systems are so awful, how the Canadians and the British aren’t trading in their model for our wonderful free market system?

The answer is pretty obvious to any ‘Merican who has actually… Read full post »

AUGUST 11, 2009 11:30AM

Socialized Medicine? Bring it!

I write this someone who has private, employer-paid health insurance:

>>>>>I want socialized health care<<<<<

No, I’m not scared of government run heath care, because I have seen the other side, and it’s no great shakes. Lets’ just say I don’t thi… Read full post »

During my recent job search, one of the incidents that most upset me occurred when I was rejected for not having software development experience. One small problem, I have 7 years of development experience, above and beyond my 12 years in testing and QA. This would have been obvious to anyone wh/… Read full post »

JUNE 26, 2009 3:51PM

Boxer is a Senator, get over it

The deification of the American military by certain elements on the right has hit a new low. Now Senator Barbara Boxer is taking crap for asking a general to address her as “Senator”.  Apparently, at least according to the GOP, it is disrespectful of the military to ask them to use/… Read full post »

JUNE 16, 2009 12:16PM

A mother's worry

Friday night, my daughter put on her cheer uniform, told me “Goodbye”, and piled into a car with her friends to go a funeral.

Yes, you read that right. A funeral. Actually it was more a memorial service, but you get the idea.

Several days earlier, one of her fellow cheerleaders,… Read full post »

JUNE 12, 2009 11:51AM

Free Speech ain’t free

After losing the presidency to a black guy, and probably losing a Supreme Court seat to a Hispanic chick, the heavily persecuted white, straight male minority has suffered yet another setback. A couple of local Don Imus imitators have discovered that transgenders actually do not find jokes about bein… Read full post »

Editor’s Pick
JUNE 10, 2009 12:02PM

Hard feelings, Adventures in Unemployment, II

To be unemployed is to know fear and uncertainty with a healthy dash of paranoia thrown in for good measure. You live in a constant state of unsettled restlessness and near panic.

You can’t sit down a simply read a good book or enjoy a good TV program without feeling a… Read full post »

JUNE 8, 2009 3:48PM

Adventures in Unemployment

I don’t know if anyone has noticed, but I’ve been gone for a few months. First, I had a tough project to get out the door at work, and it took a lot of my time and energy. I’m not a high energy person at the best of times, so I… Read full post »

One thing I don’t get about this whole anti-gay marriage thing, why is being gay such a horrible sin compared to others? Think about this for a while, murders can get married, child molesters can get married, wife beaters can get married. All they need is someone willing to say “I… Read full post »

NOVEMBER 23, 2008 1:03AM

OS collage Avatar

DFAvatar 

Hope this is good enough. I could not find the site where I pulled my old avatar from, so I could not confirm that it was OK to use. This one I can confirm is public domain. Read full post »

Editor’s Pick
NOVEMBER 21, 2008 3:11PM

My heartbroken kid

 Young love

 

Well, here I am, wallowing in one of those moments that every mom dreads. We all know it’s coming, but deep down we hope it never does. I’m talking about my son’s first real heartbreak.

 

He has been dating The Girl In Question, henceforth referred to as TGI… Read full post »

NOVEMBER 12, 2008 6:47PM

Pro-8 Businesses Feel the Backlash

Almost 4 weeks have passed now since the announcement that everyone else in my work group was being given the heave-ho. I still have a sour stomach, I’m still cranky. I was hoping that everything would have settled down by now, but that is not to be. I am really tired… Read full post »

Editor’s Pick
OCTOBER 6, 2008 8:35PM

More Ravings of a Lay-Off Survivor

It has now been a week since my work group was laid off. As I type, I am sitting in a nearly empty row of cubicles, like some bad Dilbert cartoon. I used to find Dilbert hysterical, but since my life started running parallel to it, all I’m missing is the/… Read full post »

Editor’s Pick
OCTOBER 1, 2008 2:33PM

Ravings of a lay-off survivor

A couple of days ago my entire work group was laid off except for myself and one other person. As I type this, 9 very good engineers are joining the job hunting multitudes.

 

My group took the fall for some very bad management decisions that set us up for failure. A… Read full post »

SEPTEMBER 24, 2008 2:39PM

Whose version of Christianity wins?

This post was inspired by this article in my local paper this morning and the many recent and excellent posts on OS on Atheism in politics. Something has been bugging me about the this for a long time, because it seems to me that the people who advocate and insist that/… Read full post »

SEPTEMBER 19, 2008 4:38PM

The fuzzy members of the 'Fly household

First, because she was here first,  the cat, Miranda:

Miranda and friend 

Sunning herslef in the window 

 

Now the junior hairball, Tibbs the dog

 

Usaul pose 

 

The first face I see every monring  Read full post »

Editor’s Pick
SEPTEMBER 18, 2008 2:20PM

Got Green? Laundry Edition

One of the things I wanted to do when I started this blogging thing was to spend some time discussing Green Living, and some things the ‘Fly family was doing to get greener and get ideas and tips from others.  When it comes to being green, none of us are inRead full post »

SEPTEMBER 8, 2008 3:47PM

Friday Night Lights comes to my world.

Friday night I went to my first small-town football game since I graduated from my small-town high school. If anyone needs a topic for an anthropology thesis, I have a good idea for you!

 

Football_ball_sport_261788_l

 

One person walked by me commenting, “the whole town is here…” He was not k… Read full post »

SEPTEMBER 2, 2008 6:30PM

What the choice of Palin means to me

OK, all the hype, angst, hand wringing aside, what does the choice of Sarah Palin mean to me as a woman, as white, middle-aged middle-class working mom? The short answer is that the GOP nominee for the President of the United States doesn’t have squat to offer me if he thinks… Read full post »

What's galling is this: When the subject is a pregnancy to an unwed, minority teenage mother growing up in some (presumably Democratic) urban area, that pregnancy becomes fodder for lectures from conservatives about bad parenting, the perils of welfare spending and so on. But when the subject is a prRead full post »