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self

• My cat Isis passed away from cancer in May. Two months later her sister Thyme has adapted well to living in my house.
• I installed a new back gutter in May. It works as intended … mostly.
• I installed data cable conduit on the west wall of the house. Now I can use the Internet from my living room without a wireless hookup.
• The transmission on the Ford Aspire died. I had to spend $1600 and nearly a month of car rental fees for another rebuilt transmission.
• Giving up on the Aspire after twelve years, I bought a new car, a 2009 Honda Fit.

town

• The new Fairmount Public Library building has attracted more members, more visitors and more activities. I wish we had a better budget to go with our better building.
• Our Library Friends book sales were not up to par this year; but the use of the old library house instead of a rented tent compensates well for this.
• Historic Properties gave back the old Fairmount High/Middle School to the local youth sports league, but not before pulling one final fast one on them.
• Service at the local grocery store became poor after a change of owners. The new owners angered the local paper by dropping advertising; the paper, in turn, is airing complains about the store.
• New playground equipment and pavilions are set up in the park.
• An impressive fire at a long-forsaken grain silo complex forces a sale to someone who plans to tear the place down.

work

• LITS: The collapse of Gateway’s professional division forced us to switch brands for our PC workstations: first to Dell, then to Lenovo.
• LITS: We got eight new iMacs for Reference. The older iMacs mostly went to the third floor.
• LITS: One of my co-workers was appointed as marketing director.
• New carpet, with an interesting motif, was installed on the first floor.
• The Periodical/Reserve Counter is closed and dismantled.
• The Schwartz multimedia educational complex has opened with big fanfare. It fell to me to maintain the ten Mac Pros therein.

state

• Indiana is still in a depression. One person in ten is out of work. Banks are not lending. Businesses are not building or serving.
• The state legislature foolishly passed a budget using beer-goggle revenue figures that did not come true. Now we are going to suffer as the governor whacks away at the state budget to keep the state in the black through 2011.
• The governor kicks IBM out of the welfare privatization contract as Hoosier anger becomes too fierce to ignore.

nation

• The Democrats won the office of President and, for the first time since 1994, both chambers of Congress. The victory was a reaction to eight years of failure under Bush the Younger, and the threat of four more years of the same under an animated corpse.
• Yet, after one year, the Democrats have not done much better.
• The country is still in a depression, despite claims to the contrary. The so-called stimulus package merely kept the status quo for the time being.
• Nationalization has not helped, either, as sociopathic executives try to pay off their government loans, rather than use the money for lending, so that they can resume their lives of greed.
• Our civil liberties are still diminished, as the Law of October 26 is still in effect and the Obama government seeks to perpetuate Bush the Younger’s secrecy laws. Thanks to some dumbass Nigerian, the status quo will probably remain.
• Finally, failing everything else, Obama tries to shove a health care reform bill through a more and more resistant Congress.

world

• The Middle East wars are still going on, and we have not pulled out of Iraq.
• China ignores our human-rights pleas.
• Israel and the Arabs ignore our peace pleas.
• Iran ignores our nuclear disarmament pleas.
• Al-Qaeda is still at large, and does NOT ignore us.
• Europeans are frustrated because Obama cannot deliver on the promises uttered by his voice inside their heads.
• Japan kicks out the Liberal Democratic clique for a brand-new government.
• Obama wins the Nobel Peace Prize, even though he himself admits to not deserving it.