What a day

An ok beginning to a week if I must say so. I woke up (technically was woken up by a crew mate's text message) around 0730 to head to the DMV so I could obtain my Idaho driver's license and CDL. After my experience with a Virginia DMV in May I was really dreading spending a couple hours and $60+ at the DMV today but surprisingly it wasn't too bad. Even though I failed my passenger bus, school bus, and motorcycle endorsement exams and I have to go back Thursday to take them again, It really wasn't too bad. The one thing I'm really surprised at is the fact that my employer scheduled me to get my CDL road test out of the way today and he managed to land a test time next week (For those of you that don't understand the significance of that to me, I know I vented to a few people of how I tried to schedule a road test in Virginia in April and the earliest test date I could get was July 15th). Anyways, 2 hours later I said good bye to my Virginia License and CDL Learner's and said hello to my ugly Idaho License and CDL Learner's. I came home and, typically, took a nap. I woke up to take care of some online errands only to get a call from this guy I met through Myspace that works for Raytheon Polar Services as, you guessed it, a firefighter. Apparently he just started out working with the hiring process and he wanted to schedule me for a phone interview tomorrow. Needless to say, I felt like a little school girl I was so excited when I got off the phone. At least I know that that ball is somewhat rolling.

Now, before I go into the rant I've been pondering for the past hour or so, I'm going to break down my thought process to better facilitate your understanding my rambling about the issue I started reading about a little while ago. At this point in my life, more than in the years before post-graduation (high school), I really want to experience new things. I love this country. Don't get me wrong. I'd like to say I'm pretty patriotic. But there's more on this planet than good ole U.S. of A. I've always thought of wildland firefighting in the summer and working in Antarctica in the winter as a gateway of meeting new people and traveling away from the states while working jobs that a) I like and b) will allow me to experience new things. In this time in our lives where our Government appears to be plagued with corruption I've been toying with the idea of living in another country for a few years (Iceland after research of a failed trip to Reykjavik with John Wall). It's sad when its hard for a country's citizens to trust the politicians it elects.

Now with that being said, let the ranting begin: For those of you that don't follow up on your current events, Congressional Representative William Jefferson (Note: when describing politicians, you will never see me use the system of identifying a politician's party and representative state [in William's case D-La]. I'm against political parties as they can sometimes stray from the true needs of the people and the land whom they govern)has been indicted with over 16 counts of different charges from bribery to money laundering to racketeering. I'm really not going to go in depth into this issue because you can read the article yourself but I will say this that asides from the overall atrociousness of what he did, 2 things really bothered me about this issue:

1) House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is quoted as saying, "If these charges are proven true, they constitute an egregious and unacceptable abuse of public trust and power [...] Democrats are committed to upholding a high ethical standard and eliminating corruption and unethical behavior from the Congress." This is one of the main reasons I hate the concept of political parties. The fact that Pelosi identifies that Democrats are the sole providers of moral fiber in our Government is sickening. A government exists for the good of its people. Everyone in it should hold the people's interest in their highest regard...regardless of an affiliation to a "party" who thinks they're better than anyone that doesn't carry their name.

2) The man (a recumbent) was voted into office...again! While being investigated for the charges he's now being indicted for! I don't know why nor can I possibly speculate why he got voted back in but that bothered me as well. What the hell were the people of Louisiana thinking?

It almost seems that every other week, another politician is either resinging over something or is being indicted over something. I don't know. The one last thing I'm going to bitch about is the fact that our society treats politicians, high-level execs, and stars in society better than average citizens. The fact that an ugly hotel heiress who's coveted more by the media than most movie stars guilty of probation violation gets to "check in" to jail only after conveniently attending the MTV Movie Awards is appalling too. Are we really saying that if you have status in society you can go to jail when its convenient for you after committing a crime rather than being taken to jail when you're suppose to go? Haha, whatever. The day is to great to get upset over all the bullshit floating around these days...