Yes, the little things. I think it's mostly the people themselves that make it complicated and difficult, with different ideas, understanding and visions.

But the system itself has much more logic in it than what I originally thought I'll find. After an explanation of one hour I could easily read and browse through different budget books of different municipalities. Everything else is people, but I'm glad I'm not on the technical and visualization team, just the one who gets and process the data to spreadsheets.

Well, I just love spreadsheets.

There are huge ideological differences here where trying to characterize it as development versus conservation is simplifing things beyond usefulness. Everyone is somewhere on a spectrum and its a brawl.

Fun fact, I might have said I'd speak at a meeting in a week-ish. Which will be fun since my own feelings aren't actually resolved. It's easy to say I don't want a casino but it's a sovereign nation exercising their rights versus wildlife corridors between a National Park and the only oasis within a hundred miles and about a million other issues. Plus it would harm the aquifer. Welcome to the desert, it's all about the water. I'm going to have to take the people who cannot legally have a public opinion to lunch and bone up on this. I'm allowed to have opinions and I never want to run for public office so I don't see the downside of voicing them. Beyond the OMG I hate speaking in public. That's a huge downside.

That is weird. And yet plausible.

Right? There are no links to me from her whatsoever, and I don't even know the guy. But I totally could. What is your algorithm, facebook?

I have opinions about the casinos in general. I have to talk about them a lot because unfortunately, that's all most people know about Native America. Which reminds me, I need to email a couple of people from last week's collaborative meeting to talk down some misconceptions they got that I was unable to refute publicly.

A few weeks back, in Natter, we discussed the desire to have emergency contact information for those rare times when we are worried about a buffista and can't reach him/her. We are going to expand the b.org contact list. Please see my post in Press.

Hil, I've read a few articles about how difficult rescues make it to adopt dogs.

Depends on the rescue. Honestly, having recently gone through ALL our questions when doing some app formatting, I can say that most of the questions that seem off-putting to a first-time dog owner are there to prevent mismatches between dog and owner that result in the dog coming back to the group.

No, we don't expect someone to be there 24/7. We do expect that the potential owner has a plan to deal with the dog's care and needs during their work hours. In our case, we had a walker come by to let Daisy out until we got a second dog. Now we are lazy, lazy dog parents and let the kids entertain themselves. As one does.

Home visit are educational, as well as a way for the agency to make sure that no one is, well, a dog hoarder or doing something unethical. Note: these are not outlandish things. We really do run into dog hoarders. In our case, our home visit person pointed out areas where we needed to strengthen our fence, and various things that could get a dog into trouble. It was all friendly and informational, and we had Daisy before the week was up.

There are few things more stressful for a rescue than returns. It's hard on the dog, it's hard on the volunteers, and it makes us wonder if we've done our job right.

It would be good, though, if we spelled out as rescues why we're asking certain questions.

I have opinions about the casinos in general. I have to talk about them a lot because unfortunately, that's all most people know about Native America.

Can I email you with some questions?

Pardon my bitching...

I have 9.96 in my only bank account, a check for 69.00 didn't clear and I won't get paid again until sometime next week. In between, I will need some groceries, gas and there may be some more bills I've forgotten about.

I've been getting by by supplementing my salary with advances on my credit cards but I've reached the place where I can barely cover the minimum payments on them now.

I don't know what I'm going to do. I can't borrow from my family. I did too much of that a couple of years ago, hence the using the credit cards lately.

I can't cover it. I'm flat broke. I have a temp job that barely covers the hole I've dug for myself. My car needs a muffler, my tooth needs repair...stuff I can't even plan for.

End of my bitching, please resume your normal bitching. And thanks for being the place I can say these things.

It would be good, though, if we spelled out as rescues why we're asking certain questions.

I just wish they'd make it clear what they're looking for. The fact that I have a job was OK, and then it wasn't OK, and I don't know why.

Feel free, Cass. Profile addy should be good.

That's a shame, quester. That's just hard.

Oh, quester. What a tough situation you are in.