![\"101713-1\"](\"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/101713-1.jpg\")
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I was not going to go to Willow last night. I was going to spend a quiet evening and catch up on some reading and maybe an episode of \u201cBreaking Bad,\u201d which was highly recommended by people in a position to know such things. Frankly, though, the idea of starting five linear seasons of a show, regardless of the quality, is a bit daunting.<\/p>\n
Then came the news that the air was coming out of the GOP revolt in the House, and Mr. Reid and Mr. McConnell had exchanged pleasantries and the awful drama about shutting down the government and destroying the global economy\u2026.was over.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, it\u2019s not over,\u201d I said to Old Jim. \u201cNot until they vote, and then the House has to vote, and then the intern at the Spite House has to run the autopen on the Bill to make it law.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jim harrumphed, and said the Senate vote would happen just about the time we normally rise from our stools and let age and entropy carry us home. \u201cThere is still time for something stupid to happen,\u201d he said. \u201cBut I think this did not end with a bang.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah,\u201d I said. \u201cI could hear the Republican whimpering out there as I drove over in the Bluesmobile. Thank God this is over. \u201d Brett topped up my happy Hour white with a splash from the bottle kept on ice in the bucket next to the one that held Jim\u2019s ready-locker of Budweiser long necks. \u201cThanks, Brett. This is a great system.\u201d<\/p>\n
He gave me one of his thousand-dollar smiles and said: \u201cIt ain\u2019t over. They just kicked it past New Year\u2019s Day. This is stupid.\u201d Then he pulled a couple drafts for the die-hards sitting out on the patio, enjoying the slightly cool pre-Halloween air as the shadows deepened to night. Not much sitting out left in this year, though Tracy has got all the gourds and pumpkins arrayed on the brick steps in a festive manner to get us through the big Halloween party.<\/p>\n
I looked over at Jim \u201cThey say a 37-year-old dude named David Pfeiffer is the intellectual giant who convinced Mr. Obama to do nothing, and accuse Mr. Boehner of being a terrorist hostage-taker with a gun to someone\u2019s head.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cPolitics in Washington? I am sure you must be mistaken. The President has to use the people he has, and if he is a B-team guy, that is the way it is.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201c I am glad the all-stars Like Axelrod and Gibbs left town after the first term. I\u2019m OK with letting 30-something idiots lead the nation. What could go wrong?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHah,\u201d scowled Jim. \u201cYou got your iPad with you?\u201d I told him I never went anywhere without it and reached down and slid it out of my backpack. \u201cI want to show you something on Facebook.\u201d<\/p>\n
We wrestled with the technology for a while, two geezers trying to navigate social media that is about as challenging for us as the Affordable Care Act is for everyone else.<\/p>\n
John-with-an-H was not contributing his usual acerbic commentary on the various machinations of the Administration, and was concentrating his full attention on a lovely woman to his right, away from the IT challenge with which we were confronted. I didn\u2019t know how well he was doing, but admired his energy.<\/p>\n
We managed to open Facebook and get to Jim\u2019s page, but he could not find what he was looking for. He put down the tablet on the bar and scowled. \u201cGoddamn thing. I can\u2019t find the pictures.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat were they?\u201d I asked, taking a sip of wine. \u201cI hope they were not prurient. You should see what I found on Tumblr the other day.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s Tumblr?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is a photo-sharing thing. There is more weird stuff than I have ever seen in one place. Nothing short of amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMy pictures were just of the grand kids carving pumpkins. Sorry.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI bet they were cute,\u201d I said, reaching for the tulip glass and the golden wine. \u201cOh, wait, so long as I have this open, let me show you something.\u201d I pressed the button on the bottom to back up a layer and pressed the compass icon on the screen to go to Safari. \u201cI got a health-care calculator- it is from Kaiser, not the government, since that one works. It is very cool. Check it out.\u201d I pushed the iPad over and Jim clicked on the link<\/a>.<\/p>\n The page opened- it wasn\u2019t a government project- and displayed a simple menu to enter parameters for income, coverage, and location. \u201cFascinating,\u201d he said, scrolling through the options and reading the small print aloud. \u201cI like the tobacco surcharge. Serves you right, you irresponsible asshole.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI can always quit,\u201d I said in a huff. \u201cIn fact, I think I will have to. Thankfully smoking cessation is covered under my TriCare Prime.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat would it do to if you military retirees get pushed over to the Affordable Care Act? Secretary Hagel has been making noises that you ungrateful retirees are looting the treasury and hindering the acquisition of important new systems that don\u2019t work.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI calculated the part of my pension I don\u2019t give to the ex, added the VA disability and social security to get to my projected income. Pathetic, but when I entered it and calculated the tobacco surcharge at “up to 50%,” I would be paying $900 a month for the “Silver” plan. You can pay less for Bronze, which only includes witchdoctors, or you can pay more for Gold, which is actually electroplated, not solid.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThat is a lot. What do you pay now?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cA little under three hundred.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cJesus- that is quite an increase.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNo, Jim, that is three hundred a year.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cMan, it is no wonder they didn\u2019t want the web site to work.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cDuh. I think we ought to drink now, while we can still afford it.\u201d<\/p>\n John-with eventually struck out with the lady, paid up and went home. I glanced over. She was an attractive gal, but I decided that it was too late in the day for fool\u2019s errands. I waved at Tex for the check, handed him the credit card. \u201cI want to go home and see if anyone had hurled us off the cliff while we were drinking.\u201d<\/p>\n Jim agreed. I wound up walking with him to the police cruiser and drove him the rest of the fifty feet to the front door to his condo building.<\/p>\n I got out to limp around the back of the car and see if he needed help getting out. Jim threatened to whack me with his cane.<\/p>\n \u201cSee you tomorrow,\u201d he growled.<\/p>\n \u201cGod willing and the creek don\u2019t rise,\u201d I said and got back in the Bluesmobile for the ride home. But I did sense that the waters might in fact be rising, you know?<\/p>\n Copyright 2013 Vic Socotra I was not going to go to Willow last night. I was going to spend a quiet evening and catch up on some reading and maybe an episode of \u201cBreaking Bad,\u201d which was highly recommended by people in a position to know such things. Frankly, though, the idea of starting five linear seasons of a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-socotra"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6378"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6378\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6383,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6378\/revisions\/6383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"101713-2\"](\"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/101713-2.jpg\")
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\nTwitter: @jayare303<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
![Click to see larger<\/a><\/p>\n\u201cI can always quit,\u201d I said in a huff. \u201cIn fact, I think I will have to. Thankfully smoking cessation is covered under my TriCare Prime.\u201d<\/p>\n\u201cWhat would it do to if you military retirees get pushed over to the Affordable Care Act? Secretary Hagel has been making noises that you ungrateful retirees are looting the treasury and hindering the acquisition of important new systems that don\u2019t work.\u201d<\/p>\n\u201cI calculated the part of my pension I don\u2019t give to the ex, added the VA disability and social security to get to my projected income. Pathetic, but when I entered it and calculated the tobacco surcharge at “up to 50%,” I would be paying $900 a month for the “Silver” plan. You can pay less for Bronze, which only includes witchdoctors, or you can pay more for Gold, which is actually electroplated, not solid.\u201d<\/p>\n\u201cThat is a lot. What do you pay now?\u201d<\/p>\n\u201cA little under three hundred.\u201d<\/p>\n\u201cJesus- that is quite an increase.\u201d<\/p>\n\u201cNo, Jim, that is three hundred a year.\u201d<\/p>\n\u201cMan, it is no wonder they didn\u2019t want the web site to work.\u201d<\/p>\n\u201cDuh. I think we ought to drink now, while we can still afford it.\u201d<\/p>\nJohn-with eventually struck out with the lady, paid up and went home. I glanced over. She was an attractive gal, but I decided that it was too late in the day for fool\u2019s errands. I waved at Tex for the check, handed him the credit card. \u201cI want to go home and see if anyone had hurled us off the cliff while we were drinking.\u201d<\/p>\nJim agreed. I wound up walking with him to the police cruiser and drove him the rest of the fifty feet to the front door to his condo building.<\/p>\nI got out to limp around the back of the car and see if he needed help getting out. Jim threatened to whack me with his cane.<\/p>\n\u201cSee you tomorrow,\u201d he growled.<\/p>\n\u201cGod willing and the creek don\u2019t rise,\u201d I said and got back in the Bluesmobile for the ride home. But I did sense that the waters might in fact be rising, you know?<\/p>\nCopyright 2013 Vic Socotra\nwww.vicsocotra.com\nTwitter: @jayare303<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I was not going to go to Willow last night. I was going to spend a quiet evening and catch up on some reading and maybe an episode of \u201cBreaking Bad,\u201d which was highly recommended by people in a position to know such things. Frankly, though, the idea of starting five linear seasons of a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6378","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-socotra"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6378"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6378\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6383,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6378\/revisions\/6383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}](\"https:\/\/www.vicsocotra.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/101713-2lg.jpg\"){kind=link}