THE WEISS CHRONICLES

Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Drudgereport highlights Cat on Prozac

Today's drudgereport.com highlighted a cat in England whose vet prescribed Prozac. Big deal. Soda (our red tabby) has been given Prozac to stop him from biting his fur (we searched for a year for any mites, or fungus that could be causing it). When we finally decided it was behavioural, we discoved that you can actually get cat sized Prozac in pill or liquid form so obviously it has been administered to cats for some time here.

Here's the URL for the cat article:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=432375&in_page_id=1770

posted by Martin Weiss # 10:01 PM

Sunday, January 21, 2007

See This Is Why You Are Being Outsourced

Some months ago I started calling George "Tyrannosauras George" possibly because of the way he was lurching over some food. Sometime after that he began to call me "Allosauras Dad" (the allosauras was similar to the tyrannosauras but lived several million years earlier in the Jurrasic Age rather than the Cretaceous Age). He didn't call me that for a few weeks then did again but it sounded like "Outsourced Dad". So we joked that he and his mom had found someone in Guatamala willing to do the job for half what I charge (granted that doesn't make sense).

Today, G brought a bag of garbage downstairs.

Seeing it, I said, "Ooops, I realize I was supposed to do that."

G responded, "See, this is why you are being outsourced."

posted by Martin Weiss # 12:44 AM

Wednesday, January 17, 2007

An argument at Work

We received the annual memo about financial disclosure. However, there was a difference from the previous year's memo . This year the form had a place for the supervisor to review and sign the form and the memo 'requested' that the supervisor do so. My supervisor said she would not review the form (privacy concerns) unless ordered to do so. I placed my signed form in a sealed envelope (as required by the memo) and brought my signed form up to the attorney in the Chief Counsel's office designated by the memo. The attorney tore open the sealed envelope to verify that I used the correct form (the US Office of Govt Ethics had about 8 versions of the form, the latest of which required getting an upgrade of our Adobe Acrobat reader. She stated that I had used the correct version of the form but asked,

"Why didn't your supervisort sign it?"

I said, "My supervisor didn't want to."

The attorney said, "but it's mandatory".

I responded, "well your memo only said 'we request'."

She then called my supervisor and within a few sentences they were yelling at each other. When I told this to George he opined, "Well, I sure this is about something other than the disclosure form."

Probably true.

posted by Martin Weiss # 5:34 PM

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

A Blast From Further in the Past - Way Further

Since about 1991 or so Irwin had been working with several groups (including the State of Florida) with respect to gaining compensation for an insurance policy my grandfather George had when he left Austria. We were never able to definitively document whether the insurance policy was whole or term or the extent to which the insurance company was financially tied to the national bank of Austria. However, Irwin did receive a check for $1000 in Jan and sent us $500 of it. The check came with a note saying essentially that this was a humanitarian compensation.

posted by Martin Weiss # 5:28 PM

Sunday, January 14, 2007

Visit to some local condos & a blast from the past

Gerry Berg was looking at some condos in our vicinity (near the White Flint metrorail station). He invited me to look with him (open house with free coffee, valet parking, etc.). At one of the places a woman recognized me as a graduate of Northwood High School and former resident of Caddington Ave. She stated something like, "you look just like you did in High School only older". Of course I had no idea who she was until she mentioned her premarriage name (Sharon Klein) which I recognized. How people are able to do that I'll never know.

posted by Martin Weiss # 9:12 PM

Friday, January 12, 2007

Karan Adams visiting again - not happy for her.

Karen Adams has been staying with us on and off for a few days now. Her mom went into the hospital Dec 28, out Dec 30, into a clinic Jan 2. Her mom (88) had fluid in the lung. On Jan 6, her mom went to the Casey House, a hospice operated by Montgomery County. On Jan 7, Ann and I visited. On Jan 8, her mom died. Karen is still here tying up loose ends and will probably leave Jan 14 or so.

posted by Martin Weiss # 4:06 PM

Tuesday, January 02, 2007

Visit to VA to Chases

For about the 10th time in 20 years we visited the Chases (Alan and Carolyn) in Reston for NY day. A lot of people had stories. One woman had, seven years earlier been diagnosed with small cell lung cancer. No one in the DC area would look her in the eye during the office visit because they figured she was only 3 months from terminal. However she visited a cancer center in Houston, TX that had a system of double dousing (over three days) radiation and chemotherapy and whatever companion treatment to deal with the side effects of it. She asked one of the doctors in DC why they didn't do the double dousing. The doctor said, "Well, to the patients it would be terribly inconvient." The woman responded, "Not as inconvient as death."

posted by Martin Weiss # 4:01 PM