Glad to Be Alive

I drove home through what had to be the worst storm I’ve ever driven in for almost two hours last night !  The rain was falling in sheets, it was pitch black, I couldn’t even see the reflectors in the road (much less the white lines).  The best I could do was line up my car with the brake lights in front of me.  At one point I (and pretty much everyone around me)  was driving 25 m.p.h. on I-40.

I really wasn’t sure whether I could keep my car on the road or not.  For 95 minutes with only maybe 5 minutes of slacking in the rain I sat tensely hunched over the steering wheel praying without ceasing and squinting as hard as I could to try and make out the white lines in the road.

By the way, have I ever told you the two things I hate most in this world?  First, driving in the rain.  Second, driving at night.  To have the two combined was a real treat.

Thank God I made it home in one piece!

My Run in with Homeland Security Regulations and How it Left me Ticked off…

There used to be a day when you could fill out your tax forms and residency forms, hand them in, and things worked out perfectly fine.  However, now thanks to the Department of Homeland Security you MUST complete your I-9 form in front of a human resources representative.  I guess because human resources employees can somehow spot a terrorist?!

So thanks to homeland security, I now have to drive an hour and fifteen minutes round trip (almost a quarter tank of gas- $8 worth) for 2 minutes worth of paperwork.  Isn’t government bureaucracy grand?  NO!  And no, I can’t fill it out on my first day teaching because my class starts on Tuesday and the forms MUST be filled out on the first day of classes- Monday.  If you don’t do that the college can’t hire you.  It’s that convoluted…I mean…simple.

Oh, and by the way, we were told by a representative of the HR department that they ARE NOT allowed to tell us what documents we need to bring with us.  You heard that right. Stupid, isn’t it?  I guess this is like some kind of citizenship documents pop quiz.   I am going on the assumption they need my license and social security card- but I am not ruling out that they may want my birth certificate, blood sample, urine sample, and my D.N.A.

So if you wonder why I am only posting this non-weight loss related blog post today, now you know.  But hey, at least my employer will know I am not some crazy terrorist.