Job has been rough lately. Applied to some things and waiting to hear back. Ton of new jobs posted already this year so hopefully they're real and not ghost jobs.

My partner had a short PhD phone call interview yesterday (Advisor on maternity leave) and it went well. So gearing up for the possibility of losing 40% of our household income in the Bay area. That would be an interesting ride for sure. But damn I'm really hoping she gets in. She'd have a ton of fun and do incredible things both during and after the program. And since she's got a Masters degree already she thinks she can do it in 3-4 years.

We went hiking last weekend and saw some California Condors. They're incredibly rare and wonderful birds. Gigantic, very social, very important carrion disposers in food chains, and in general a super interesting comeback story. One of the biggest causes of harm to them has continued to be lead poisoning. Technically in CA lead ammunition can't be used for hunting of wildlife but it's still allowed for everything else, and even some wildlife is exempt from the ban. It'd be a great state law to just ban lead ammunition in general. Better for wildlife, better for human health (parents' hobbies are a huge cause of childhood lead poisoning!), and also might make gun use slightly more expensive, which I'm okay with. Looked briefly into how to get a prop on the ballot, but I don't think I could do that. So I'll be reaching out to my representatives soon to say "make a law that bans the use, purchase, sale, and possession of lead ammunition". I know it'll go nowhere, but I can dream.

Two latkes with a fried egg between is a classic too!

A bit late but so be it, with the day off it slipped my mind :)

Happy new year to all! We've booked a 2 week vacation for late spring and I'm super excited for that. Plus we've got a few weekend trips including a spa weekend and backpacking in Big Sur. Going to be cold but fun! Apparently Pinnacles National Park's campground is privately run and as such wildly expensive compared to other national parks which is a shame as we were both looking forward to that. Got some super nice wildlife binoculars for the holidays and they've been super cool so I'm excited to take those on some hikes.

Merry Christmas and happy Chanukah to all who celebrate! Hung out with my partner's family and made a fuck ton of latkes. I'm stuffed. I think I had 10 at dinner not to mention some while cooking too. My life pre-latke was bland compared to now. Def recommend y'all try a latke. Making your own is super fun too.

Loved the last season of Lower Decks. I've tried other Star Treks and I just couldn't do them but this one was so fun.

I'm supposed to update an ~180 person contact list by December 30th. Absolutely no desire to do that. But I've got other projects that are more fun to play with over the next few weeks so that's nice.

It's def see other family. Grandmother is 88. I'll probably not do many visits home after she dies. Especially if moving internationally ever happens. As far as local food goes, Wawa, soft pretzels, Amish food, and a local breakfast burrito that just can't be beat.

At a conference right now. Did a presentation yesterday on local strategic stockpiles. It's not part of my job but it went well enough to catch attention of the feds in the room so that's neat. Caught up with a counterpart in a nearby county and we got to bond over how much of a sexist racist shithead the director of my department is too so that was nice. I can't wait to get a new job in a new industry, emergency preparedness ain't for me. Too much cop energy whole way through.

Otherwise all is going well. Real busy but good overall. Trying to plan vacations next year. Partner finished and submitted her PhD applications and got 4 letters of recommendation all submitted on time. Excited and anxious to see where that goes.

I really need to see a therapist. I haven't had the time with work and school. I haven't felt like I could add one more medical bill.

Can't help with the time but, but a ton of colleges and universities that are training people in social work or therapy offer therapy with those students to both other students and the community at large. My experience is being assigned I don't think you get to date around so it's a bit of the luck of the draw, but one school was a flat $5 per weekly session and the other a sliding scale and as a student I paid the bottom of $15. It's a different program than their student health services therapy folks. One school called it the Psychological Services Center and the other the Psychological Center. Definitely something to look into. Had not great experiences in the first one but wonderful in the second.

Gotta love when the holiday starts with your mom looking at you and just saying "I'm done caring about you." Why is it I came home again?

On the bright side I got to eat a lot of good local food and am leaving Friday and not staying through the weekend so that's nice.

Hope all y'all are doing well and I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving (if you celebrate) and otherwise have a fabulous and normal week!

Super late, sorry!

Just applied to a job being a community program manager within my current employer, same department but different division. Not convinced it's the right choice but it'd get me away from this team and that's a solid first step. Beyond that, the new union contract isn't great for me so I'm voting no. Solid pay raise but limited term still gets essentially no other benefits everyone else does, and that's not okay. So a no it will be. Super cool to have "Doctor" Oz leading CMS though :(

Well my job has been weird recently. Of course the questioning of funding come the new fiscal year. But beyond that... We've got a large facility that may need evacuating soon. And my supervisors have been very non-communicative with information, sharing very little with me. In addition, they're putting in new requirements for the coalition for right now as we work through the issues, but are having me lie to the coalition so it looks like we're just magically requesting some new things that we haven't before and it's all just suuuuper shady. It's also so directly in opposition to the ideals of emergency management, things like open, honest, and transparent communication. I can't wait to find a new job.

My partner is moving ahead with the PhD application process but may not be applying to one program she wanted to as the program doesn't guarantee funding. It's a shame, but that's where we are these days. Still, I think she's got a great chance of getting in and I'm so excited for her.

Yeah that's the problem... I'm currently a government employee with a degree in public health. The government now has the ability to choose to fund or not fund my career and it's looking like they're going to not fund it and dismantle all structures that support it. Which means huge volumes of layoffs in my field in the next year with few job openings, and whenever it is the administration changes is when it might finally start picking back up, but that'd be a lot of cleanup and rebuliding structures which could very well take years. And I'm local government not even federal.

We're now seriously considering getting over to Europe before the transfer of power. I'd give it maybe 10% chance now but it's certainly something we've begun to talk about as of this morning

Don't get too panicky, the world isn't ending. Probably won't even suck that much more, just in an even less palatable way.

Idk, I think it's pretty bleak. At least if Trump won in 2020 he'd have had a similar group of people. Now he knows they were pro-America and not pro-Trump so he'll be able to surround himself better. He's got the Senate which means Thomas and Alito will be able to turn over into younger court justices just as if not more extreme. Biden should have fixed the supreme court but didn't. They'll probably get the house too and controlling all three branches will let them run wild with everything they want to do. Project 2025 is real. Not sure how much will actually happen, but it's bad having looked through some of it. A lot of rights are about to disappear. A lot of regulatory bodies will disappear or be a shadow of their former selves. Quality of food and drugs could easily drop if funding is gutted, and it will be, and people will die but companies will make some money during it. And with big tech all of the extreme surveillance infrastructure exists and if Trump or the government truly does want to start doing things like tracking periods or pregnancy to try to find abortions they can. Just as easily they can do the same with transgender people, or non-heterosexual people. I think America is going to be in a very dark place for anywhere from a few years to a few generations, if it survives as a democracy.

Fuck yo, fuck.