This Labor Day weekend hasn't been what I'd hoped it would be. Instead of having a chance to get things done around the house I was in urgent care. I'm home today (September 9) recovering from the ailment and medication which adversely affects me. Well, I'll be done with it tomorrow.

As always I won't be going anywhere to any conferences. None of my colleagues are. None have ever been anyway. Its just not in the budget.

Concerning unions, in an odd twist of fate I am a member of a union. I had to join, or at least that's what I was told by my HR rep when my first anniversary came up. Since then I learned that she wasn't honest with me about that. I really did have a choice whether to join or not. But ultimately that doesn't matter because if I had joined the union or not, they would still take the deduction from my paycheck and give it to the union. I'm not happy with it in any case for two reasons. The union supports issues and candidates that I don't like but I have to support them too, due to the compulsory nature of my money having to go to the union. And ultimately the union doesn't do anything for me because under state law, state employees cannot strike. So, the only one that gets any benefit out of this arrangement is the union.