Maggie's Farm

Mrs. Bulldog and I went into the city to meet our boys for brunch and decided to visit the "new" Penn Station which is formerly the US Post Office (across the street from the "old" Penn Station and Madison Square Garden).  It is designed to handle what were very crowded spaces in Penn (ugh...some nights were unbelievable, especially when trains broke down) and provide a bit of a 'link' to the past as the old Post Office's architecture and interior were somewhat similar to the original Penn Station, which was destroyed (tragically) years ago.

I have included 2 pictures.  I am not impressed.  The open interior, with glass ceiling that lets a ton of light in, is excellent.  What was formerly an interior parking area is now the main part of the terminal.  Beyond that, as Mrs. Bulldog said, "The great train halls of Europe need not worry of competition."

It is antiseptic, utilitarian and lacks a soul.  Clean (though new), bright, cheery - these are all positives, but in terms of originality and whimsy, there is none.  I found nothing interesting or inspiring.  Where Grand Central has all kinds of angles and views to catch your eye and keep you interested, Moynihan Train Hall has none.  It's boring and uninspired.

But maybe it's not supposed to be inspiring.  Millions will pass through there on the average week, mostly commuters to Long Island and New Jersey.  Who needs to be distracted?

Hopefully calm will be restored as the nation moves back toward some semblance of whatever it is we consider 'normal' for the last 9 months.  I hope things continue to improve as we move out of the Covid scare and fear mongering (yes, Covid is real, I had it as have many friends, but no it's not so bad for 95% of the people who get it).  If we can move past all this, my job opportunities may improve.

Then again, who knows?  I know few of you are on Facebook, but I am (or was).  It allowed me to reconnect with friends and family and it's a useful tool.  I've also shared Maggie's articles there with my friends, and met many other people who I share interests with.  I am well aware of the privacy issues, but I know how to navigate them (part of my everyday job) and manage them effectively.  There is, however, one thing I can't manage.  It's the real problem we're facing today.  It's the reason I deactivated my Facebook recently (after letting people know how they can reach me if they want/need to).

I am aware of many HR Departments doing sweeps of social media to find things out about people.  I have heard several stories of pro-Trump people losing job offers.  This doesn't surprise me at all in NYC today.  The shift here has been significant from not just hating Trump to full-fledged belief that anyone who supports him is a deranged psychopath.  I have never been a Trump supporter, but that doesn't mean anything because I've never hated him, either.  It's best to hate him with the passion of a thousand suns in order to win approval with many organizations today. 

I haven't loved him, haven't hated him, I've merely tolerated him, and realized his persona was a massive problem but that he was accomplishing some good things.  I was for honesty and balance of thought and reason.  Today, you can't be that way.  You have to be a true believer, or at least not come across as a believer of "the other side".  In other words, it is almost a requirement to be Progressive to be "acceptable".  Such is the nature of modern definitions of Diversity - be like us or you're not acceptable.  I'm all for Diversity.  Diversity of thought, and respect for other views, without accepting the enforcement of those views on others by law, social shame, or other means of behavioral modification (brainwashing via education, for example).

I don't support vandalizing anything, or anyone's property.  But in this case, it's hard to deny that Nancy didn't somehow get what she deserved.  Pelosi's apologist position, promotion of leftist causes, and general lack of interest in pushing back against the extremes of her own misguided ideology have repercussions, and if there is anything which is true in life, it's that leftists eat their own faster than they destroy their enemies.  

Maybe I'm jumping the gun, but 'Cancel Rent' and 'We Want Everything' (presumed to be about stimulus checks, though I think it is more than that), are not what I'd expect to see from right-wing protests.  I'm sure the media will spin it that way, somehow, because the Left is never dangerous or wrong when modern media analysis is engaged.

It's too bad she didn't see this coming.  But I did believe a Biden win would embolden the Left to become more aggressive and violent, and that still seems to be true.

I'm sorry Nancy has to learn the hard way.  Destroying property is always wrong.  But she's done her fair share of damaging property throughout her tenure...but has done it 'legally'. 

All our lives have been impacted.  All our lives have changed.  

Some more than others.  But the most annoying and problematic part is economically.  The US was a nation of small businesses.  It may be again, but not nearly to the degree we were prior to Covid.  The main outcome of the lockdowns and distancing is that larger firms have benefited.

When this started, and people commented how lockdowns would kill businesses (and, as I pointed out, hurt landlords and even renters, depending on legislation in your given state or locality), I read mocking articles, and heard statements from pundits which put forth a concept: "Isn't Capitalism about entrepreneurship, ingenuity and risk-taking?  Won't these all come back, what are you worried about?"  These were designed to taunt believers in Capitalism and push a misleading agenda of Leftist/Progressive economic thought.

I literally read all the comments, which came to 76 (not counting my own, and a few other, comments which were not specifically about work).

Everyone had very different specific circumstances and jobs, or 'jobs' as the case may be, but what interested me is that few seemed to be mentioned in a grudging or unsatisfied/disappointed manner.  My own comment to Mrs. Bulldog was that I remember my first job fondly because of the odd circumstances which led to me getting it, but also because I remember little else about that summer, and the work itself only lasted the month of August.  But we had our own room at the resort if we wanted to spend the night, and we could use the pool as long as we didn't annoy guests and were respectful. 

It was also the first summer where I really learned about music and girls, which had previously never been primary interests.  Girls and music do seem to go together pretty well.  The girls at the resort were impressed that we had money, and that we worked.  The parents still couldn't know we were interested in them, though.

Commenters mentioned roofing (something I did on a few holidays), picking fruit or vegetables (which I had to do in my mom's garden), babysitting (which I did, too), paper routes, flipping burgers, and a variety of other things which I have less experience in.

It's my view that if people let their work define them, it becomes a limiting factor.  If our work is just part of who we are, we control our outcomes.  We can choose to be what we want and who we want.  I see a lot of that in our comments.  We've all done many things and each seems to have mostly good memories of what has been done. I can only think that the young people today who complain, protest and make demands simply have not worked hard enough to know that you're happier when you produce rather than when you demand things.