2012-02-24T13:12:27-05:00http://unbridled.agarzola.com/Alfonso Gómez-ArzolaLibertarianism ≠ Licentiousness2012-02-24T12:09:00-05:00http://unbridled.agarzola.com/libertarianism-licentiousness<p>A friend sent me a link in which <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3096434/#46507868">Lawrence O’Donnell seems to be under the impression</a> that Libertarianism requires having no opinion on the morality of sex —or worse: that it requires a liberal inclination regarding the morality of sex. He quotes Penn Jilette and other libertarians (I count myself among them) who subscribe to the idea that “anything goes” regarding citizens’ liberties surrounding consensual sexual acts. He then labels Ron Paul a <em>fake libertarian</em> because he is <strong>of the opinion</strong> that sex for pleasure is immoral (thus, according to Paul, the demand for the contraceptive pill is the product of immorality in our society). Apparently, disagreeing with Penn Jilette on the morality of sex somehow contradicts libertarian ideas, according to O’donnell’s reasoning. Lawrence O’Donnell is, like a lot of people —many self-described libertarians included, I’m sure—, unequivocally wrong about this.</p>
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<p>Seeking to further regulate and restrict the use of the pill would make Paul less of a libertarian, that’s for sure, but having an opinion that people’s use of the pill is immoral has no bearing on whether he is a libertarian or not. Libertarianism has nothing to say about personal moral convictions beyond that they should be kept out of government policy, because failing to do so would result in government intervention in the private lives of citizens, which is unbecoming of a free society. It defuses moral arguments by rendering them irrelevant to discussions about government. It doesn’t matter to me that many self-described libertarians are extremely religious, socially conservative, and anti-science; it matters to me that, by virtue of the political ideology they claim to subscribe to, they do not wish for government to push those personal values onto me through policy.</p>
<p>Yet the Lawrence O’Donnells of the world often use licentiousness as a straw man in place of libertarianism. Namely, they portray libertarians as necessarily having to subscribe to liberal moral values because they believe government should not impose on the private lives of citizens. It’s a strage sort of reasoning, if you think about it: “if you believe that government should not restrict my liberties regarding sex, then you must share my views on sex”, and I suspect this is due to their inability to separate political ideology from personal moral convictions. They can’t process a person willing to defend their rights to lead their lives however they wish while being opposed their lifestyle, because they themselves are incapable of making such a distinction between what they believe in for themselves and what they believe in for everybody else.</p>
<p>To put it succinctly: they don’t expect anybody to respect and disagree at the same time because they cannot —or refuse to— do it.</p>
<p>This idea that we can —or should— only support government leaders who share our moral convictions (or even associate ourselves only with private citizens who do the same, which a lot of people seem to do these days) leads to polarization, an <em>us-vs-them</em> mentality and politics of outrage. It is the product of a worldview in which <em>we are right</em> and there is no place for the others (<em>who are wrong</em>), no chance for question, and no gray areas in between. It is the product of control-minded individuals who wish to make it their business to examine, mischaracterize and question other people’s morality.</p>
<p>And their rhetoric reflects this. People like Lawrence O’Donnell who make a point of examining conservative moral convictions and painting them as inherently evil or wrong, as if it was anybody’s business to begin with, are no better than the Santorums of the world. These people —both on the left and the right— wish to make a point that other people’s views on subjective and personal matters are wrong, and that this wrongness needs to be addressed in a way that demonstrates the moral superiority of their own views. They believe the only world worth working towards is one where eventually their personal beliefs reign over the land.</p>
<p>This is dogma, and it should have no place in political discourse.</p>
Dear medical establishment, your billing practices suck2011-08-22T14:08:00-04:00http://unbridled.agarzola.com/medical-bills<p>First the hospital tells you it’s best to pay for your medical procedure up front, as they will give you a discount if you do. Awesome. You pay it. Then you get a bill from the hospital saying that you still owe. You call and ask, and it turns out that first figure you paid was based on their <strong>estimate</strong> <em>(read: educated guess; also: shot in the dark)</em> of how much your insurance would cover, which of course they overestimated because why the fuck wouldn’t they?</p>
<p>Then comes the flood of bills from every doctor, nurse practitioner, anesthesiologist and specialist who even sneezed in the general direction of your fifteen minute medical procedure. And you start paying like crazy, thankful that —at the very least— you don’t have to pay the exorbitant amount the insurance is getting billed for these services.</p>
<p><aside>I know each of these people probably played a significant role in my <em>not suddenly flatlining</em> during the procedure. But I’m trying to make a point here; call it hyperbole.</aside></p>
<p>And then after you’re done paying all of those, it turns out your first visit with the doctor (the one where he didn’t really see you, but his nurse practitioner did) hadn’t yet made the billing rounds yet, but now it finally came through and guess what? You owe some more money on that as well.</p>
<p>Needless to say, this is a case of terrible user-experience.</p>
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<p>I won’t go into how the healthcare system is entirely broken in this country, or why. I’ll leave that for another discussion. My concern here is the fact that, from the point of view of a customer/patient/user of services, the medical establishment’s billing practices are simply insane. There is an obvious need for these professionals and institutions to charge for their services and cover their expenses, but I can’t imagine there’s some kind of government requirement for it to be frustrating, confusing and downright frightening for the customer. After my recent experience, I’m half convinced that there is such a requirement.</p>
<p>I don’t know about anyone else, but I get the impression that half of the bills are arbitrary, opportunistic attempts to legally mug me out of my money because <em>hey, you required a complicated medical procedure, and I’m gonna make up some charges because what the hell do you know?</em> I’m sure that’s not the case, but it certainly feels that way. Why else would the same handful of professionals and offices keep sending different bills for different items at what seem like random time intervals? Why not just one consolidated bill per professional/office?</p>
<p>And why aren’t these bills detailed in a clear, layman’s language?</p>
<blockquote><p><em>EXPLANATION OF ACTIVITY: OFFICE, NEW PT MOD COMPLEXITY</em></p></blockquote>
<p>Are you kidding me?! Fuck whoever decided that the above qualifies as an <em>explanation</em> that would satisfy an average layman’s need to understand why there’s a $190 item on their bill.</p>
<p>At the very least, a patient should get a report at the end of the procedure letting them know who worked on them, what each person’s role was, and when the patient can expect a bill to show up for that professional’s services. It’d just be courteous, man. Nobody’s budget appreciates a random medical bill for a procedure performed over two months before, especially after already having paid multiple times and to multiple people/entities, <em>before and after the damn procedure.</em></p>
<blockquote><p>“Oh, joy! Another unexpected medical bill for that colonoscopy from eight weeks ago!! This is the best day ever!” <cite>Nobody in the history of forever.</cite></p></blockquote>
<p>Not a single person has uttered those words who meant it without the words completely smothered in the kind of sarcasm that can make grown men cry.</p>
<p>I won’t even attempt to give the impression that I understand the complicated processes that the healthcare and health insurance providers have in place in order to wrangle what must be massive amounts of data regarding who owes whom and how much. I don’t have a solution to this problem. At best, I could come up with a fictional report like the one I described above, but it’d be naive of me to produce such a thing without first understanding the data infrastructure the medical establishment uses in order to charge their patients and insurance providers.</p>
<p>I just know that better care needs to be paid to the patient’s overall experience regarding the delivery and payment of medical bills. I’m sure it would result in better public relations, increased satisfaction for the patients and —I dare say— quicker payment.</p>
<blockquote><p>“Oh, look. That bill we were expecting from the anesthesiologist. We can finally get that over with.” <cite>Me, not surprised by another medical bill, in an alternate universe where I was told beforehand what bills I should expect and when</cite></p></blockquote>
Moved!2011-08-02T13:17:00-04:00http://unbridled.agarzola.com/moved<p>So we moved this past weekend. <strong>Again.</strong> I just made a quick review of how many times I’ve moved in the past few years. Ready for it? Since 2004, when I left my dad’s studio apartment in Condado, Puerto Rico on account of me being an irresponsible, unreliable, incomparable slob with not an ounce of aim in life, I’ve moved ten times. Sorry, I made a mistake there… The correct figure would be <strong><em>ten fucking times.</em></strong></p>
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<p>I know, right?</p>
<p>Six of those have been with Marie, beginning in 2007 when we decided to move together to <a href="http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=18.441711,-66.054783&spn=0.021984,0.018904&gl=us&z=16" title="Paseo del bosque, on Google Maps">Paseo del Bosque</a> in Santurce and ending with this past weekend. <strong>Six times in four years.</strong> And yes: I said <em>ending,</em> because this is it; this is where we make our stand, plant our roots, make a home… All that good shit.</p>
<p>The move itself was uneventful, and it went pretty smoothly thanks to Reggie & Robert, the guys Fox Moving sent. These men kicked ass, and had us completely moved (save for smaller stuff, like cleaning tools & products we needed to clean the old apartment) in four hours. We got them massive quantities of water and a big Mexican lunch from <a href="http://maps.google.com/maps/place?q=la+alte%C3%B1a,+chattanooga&hl=en&ie=UTF8&cid=8609644158015312179" title="Best damn Mexican restaurant in Chattanooga, says I.">La Alteña</a>. They were great.</p>
<p>That was Friday. Saturday began the heavy lifting for us, starting with cleaning the Southside Flats apartment. Cleaning an empty apartment is always fun, but it was tiring and took a couple of hours longer than we expected. In the end, though, it was spotless. We had run into <a href="http://sciencemonkey.net/" title="Arne’s blog: ScienceMonkey">Arne</a> & Emma during breakfast that morning, an unexpected and welcome surprise, and then visited them that night for burgers at their place (also welcome, as we were famished by then). Short visit, but great conversation, as always.</p>
<p>Sunday was <em>spend an insane amount of money on fixtures, paint and a few odds and ends</em> day. Then, lots of moving things around, lots of cleaning around the house (specially the kitchen, because —as Marie so eloquently put it— <em>it was clean, by bachelor standards</em>), and discovering 3-way switches around the communal areas. Tons of unpacking, too, as well as installing fixtures.</p>
<p>I decided to take Monday off from work to finish off some stuff that I had wanted to do over the weekend and hadn’t found the time, like installing more fixtures, moving the garden hose holder to the front of the house and other minor stuff around the house. I took it easy and called it a day early on Monday, so I could get up early today and ride, carry and shit-my-heart-is-about-to-explode-right-out-of-my-chest my bike to work. <em>(More on biking to work and my complete lack of physical condition in another post.)</em></p>
<p>Overall, a good move, and one we are very satisfied with. Here are a few things I learned…</p>
<h3>On garden hoses:</h3>
<p>25 feet ain’t shit. Seriously, it’s nothing. Good enough, I suppose, for early gardening on the front of the house. Once Marie gets into heavier gardening, however, we might need a longer hose. As for the back yard, where I hope to grow lots of vegetables and some fruit, I’ll definitely need a longer hose.</p>
<h3>On installing light fixtures on the ceiling:</h3>
<p>It will make you a Man. Or, at least, it’ll make your shoulders a Man.</p>
<h4>— without first making sure to turn off the breaker:</h4>
<p>It will make Lady of House very angry. It’s also very stupid.</p>
<h4>— by haphazardly holding the pendant in place with empty boxes that may very well tip over at the slightest breeze, destroying the pendant lamp yet leaving Man of House unscathed:</h4>
<p>Does not seem to make Lady of House angry at all. It would seem she is genuinely concerned with one’s well being. That, or the potential risk of costly hospital bills. Maybe both.</p>
<h3>On (finally) owning a pocket knife:</h3>
<p>I was right all along. I <em>did</em> need a damn pocket knife. It wasn’t only an <em>ooh, shiny object with sharp edges and a pointy end</em> fetish. Also, nothing gets torn open anymore; everything is now cleanly cut open in a controlled and manly fashion. Fuck yeah.</p>
<h3>On those <em>few things</em> I left behind to <em>pick up on the last ride</em> because I’m <em>so good at judging amounts of things</em>:</h3>
<p>It’s a trap. The things are not few. One needs at least two additional “last rides”.</p>
<h3>On <em>that 2:30 feeling</em>:</h3>
<p>This is interesting: That mid-afternoon crash would seem to have something to do with sitting at a damn desk. There’s something about physical activity and sweat that makes my afternoons go by beautifully without needing a shot of espresso or a nap. All weekend long (all four days of it!) I experienced this. I think there’s something to that, and I’ll look into it, as I’m interested in minimizing my dependency on coffee to stay alert. I like to enjoy my coffee, and I find that my dependency on it hinders my enjoyment of it.</p>
<p>Macchiato for thought. <em>Ahem!</em> Sorry.</p>
<h3>On moving to a house with a yard as an apartment-dwelling city slicker:</h3>
<p>It feels right for me in ways I hadn’t expected. I was expecting a bit of psychological resistance, particularly early on. Yet aside from a short panic during one of the days before moving day, I’ve actually felt very good about it. This is right for me, and it is right for us. Fuckin’ aye.</p>
Male Bias ≠ Sexism2011-07-28T13:27:00-04:00http://unbridled.agarzola.com/male-bias-sexism<p>Lately, it’s as if any expression of attraction exhibited by a heterosexual male towards a female is regarded as inherently sexist.</p>
<p>The latest example I’ve come across is <a href="http://petdance.com/2011/07/distracting-examples-ruin-your-presentation" title="Distracting examples ruin your presentation">Andy Lester’s account</a> of <a href="http://www.oscon.com/oscon2011/public/schedule/speaker/839" title="Why Know Algorithms">a presentation</a> he attended at OSCON last Tuesday, where Andrew Aksyonoff used examples of a database of people that documented, among other aspects of their person, their sex, age, and a vague thing called <em>hotness.</em> Of course, being a —presumably— heterosexual male, Mr. Aksyonoff presented a use case in which one may want to rank women according to their age or hotness. Mind you, the tables also allowed one to do the same with men.</p>
<p>Well, it turns out that this use case appears to be rooted in nothing less than pure, unadulterated sexism. Because why else would anybody ever want to select or rank people based on their sex, age and hotness if not to put them down, objectify them and treat them like second-class citizens, right?</p>
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<p>Here’s the thing about sexism: I think sexism has no place in modern society. I think it’s based on stupidity and ignorance. I also think that the word gets thrown around far too easily. If a woman is made uncomfortable by something a man says or does, regardless of whether his words or actions actually demonstrate <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexism" title="Sexism on Wikipedia">“the belief or attitude that there are characteristics implicit to one's gender that indirectly affect one's abilities in unrelated areas”</a>: <em>It’s called sexism.</em> If a man expresses interest unwanted by the woman he’s interested in: <em>Sexism and objectification.</em> If a man makes an inappropriate or racy joke, he’s in for a triumvirate of unacceptable behavior: <em>Sexism, othering, and harassment.</em> (Yes! People make use of the word <em>othering</em> in the context of joke making! I know, right?!)</p>
<p>The comments in Mr. Lester’s blog post lean towards the sympathetic, but there’s a solid amount of people —myself included— who, while agreeing that the use case examples were inappropriate, questioned the accuracy of claiming they’re <em>necessarily</em> the product of sexism. Here are some examples (all emphasis mine):</p>
<blockquote><p>Maybe I’m daft, but I do not see any sexism here. The database schema allowed for both males and females, and <strong>it is reasonable to assume that someone who was searching such a database in real life would have a gender preference.</strong> <cite><a href="http://petdance.com/2011/07/distracting-examples-ruin-your-presentation/#comment-147">Leslie</a></cite></p>
<p>Had the example used males however, I doubt anybody would have batted an eyelid, which is really the real tragedy, because its demonstrating <strong>an inherent sexist bias that is only prevalent when the affected party is female. And that in itself, is a form of sexism.</strong> <cite><a href="http://petdance.com/2011/07/distracting-examples-ruin-your-presentation/#comment-144">Kent Fredric</a></cite></p>
<p><strong>I think this slide is like a Rorschach test: you see in it what is already in your mind.</strong> If you’re a woman thinking about how you’re valued according to someone else’s system instead of the things you actually care about, that’s what you see in the slide. If you’re secure about your social position and want other people to feel good too, you see the slide as an invitation to lighten up a little. I suppose (maybe) there are some men who like to think of women as toys, and maybe they see this slide as an encouragement to do that. But I wouldn’t immediately assume that Andrew is one of the latter group instead of the second. <cite><a href="http://petdance.com/2011/07/distracting-examples-ruin-your-presentation/#comment-159">Sean Palmer</a></cite></p>
<p>Indeed there are men (and women) who deliberately objectify people of the other *sex*, and understandably this is a cause of concern for many women. Certainly there are some ignorant and sometimes dangerous people who make sexist comments designed to harass, intimidate, or discriminate. <strong>We must, however, grow up and learn to divorce these people from those who make normal human expressions of sexuality (whether or not in an inappropriate place, such as Andrew chose). Otherwise we are guilty of ignorance and intolerance in our politics, unwilling to separate the Unabomber from legitimate environmental protestors, or unable to separate the Norway killer from legitimate political protestors.</strong> <cite><a href="http://petdance.com/2011/07/distracting-examples-ruin-your-presentation/#comment-193">Joe M.</a></cite></p></blockquote>
<p>These arguments are, for the most part, predictably met with reactionary comments that make a big point of sounding indignant, but not much else. Other commenters, though, at least made a point of attempting to construct arguments that went beyond mere indignant outrage (again, all emphasis mine):</p>
<blockquote><p>Is a “hotness algorithm”, as an artifact divorced from its setting, inherently sexist? Probably not. Is a hotness algorithm, <strong>presented as an example to a bunch of dudes and very few women at a tech conference sexist?</strong> Yeah, I’d say it is. <cite><a href="http://petdance.com/2011/07/distracting-examples-ruin-your-presentation/#comment-157">Avdi</a></cite></p></blockquote>
<p>See what he did there? He basically turned <em>sexism</em> into something that only happens when women are present and in the minority, which is arbitrary at best. I guess walking on eggshells, then, would be the appropriate behavior for men in the presence of women. How’s <em>that</em> for progressive gender relations?</p>
<p>Another one:</p>
<blockquote><p>Arguing whether this is sexism or not is kind of missing the point. We live in a world where all too often women are objectified and discriminated against because they are women (or hot, or not hot) <strong>in a way that does not happen to men.</strong> In addition you are at a conference that has, according to reports, had an issue in the past with sexual harassment of female attendees. ¶ In this context it is fair to apply sexism when a man uses this example. <strong>If it had been a women [sic], or if he had use [sic] male as the gender it would have been different, but he did not.</strong> <cite><a href="http://petdance.com/2011/07/distracting-examples-ruin-your-presentation/#comment-166">Alasdair</a></cite></p></blockquote>
<p>The first passage I emphasized illustrates just how clueless Alasdair is. Hey, man, look up the word <em>beefcake</em>. Hell, just deconstruct the word <em>beefcake</em>. Beef. Cake. A young man whose value is that of a cake made of beef.</p>
<p><aside>
In case you’re wondering why Alasdair doesn’t perceive himself as being objectified, it’s probably because he doesn’t define himself according to how the people who produce and enjoy <a href="http://www.google.com/search?q=beefcake&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wi&biw=1208&bih=1118" title="Google Image Search: Beefcake. Objectify much?">beefcake images</a> may perceive him. It’d be nice if he extended women the courtesy of letting them decide whether they will define themselves according to how others perceive them. Alas, it would seem our friend thinks women are not capable of this.
</aside></p>
<p>Then he says this supposed objectification of people is <em>different</em> (acceptable, perhaps?) when it is applied to men, or when it’s a woman objectifying other women. That’s like saying it’s OK for me to call latinos <em>spics</em> because I’m a spic. Which would be pretty damn racist, because it aims to hinder freedom of speech for a certain group of people by limiting what words they’re allowed to use based solely on their ethnic background. It is a profoundly sexist argument used to counter perceived sexism. (It also doubles as the epitome of irony.)</p>
<p>Yet, by far, the majority of the sympathetic comments easily fall within the same category as this sorry excuse for an argument (after which the owner of the blog decided to disable further comments from being posted):</p>
<blockquote><p>If you’re really arguing against the choice of word, you’re missing the point. If you honestly don’t see that there was a problem (whatever the “right” word is), then you are part of that problem. <cite><a href="http://petdance.com/2011/07/distracting-examples-ruin-your-presentation/#comment-196">Rich</a></cite></p></blockquote>
<p>Oh, how easy it is to say something clever-sounding yet not really make a point at all, besides something completely self-fulfilling, like <em>Yeah, well, you’re fucking wrong and the fact that you don’t see how wrong you are is evidence of how wrong you are!</em>, which is essentially what the gentleman here is trying to say.</p>
<p>No, Rich: <strong>You’re</strong> missing the point.</p>
<p>Rich fails, as do most of the commenters who share his point of view, to see that those questioning the use of the word sexism <strong>agree with him</strong> that the use case examples are out of place, in poor taste, and unbecoming a professional speaking in the setting of an industry gathering. And making a distinction as to whether sexism is evident or not does not diminish that acknowledgement, much less make it irrelevant. In fact, it is very relevant, because <em>sexist</em> is an accusation with a significant negative effect on the reputation of its recipient and those who sympathize with or defend him or her.</p>
<p>On the other hand, it strikes me as self-sabotage to claim that the issue of whether something is <em>sexist</em> is merely a semantic concern. Understand this: When you claim that, whether <em>actually sexist</em> or not, acts that may be considered <em>objectionable</em> by some women should be treated <em>as though they were sexist</em>, you diminish the word’s weight and power. It reduces <em>sexism</em> to a mere expletive you get to throw around whenever you want your outrage to be evident, comparable to <em>son of a bitch</em> or <em>asshole</em>, which rarely (if ever) are used to mean that the object of the expletive is in fact the son of a female dog, or the actual living, breathing, talking, walking hole of an anus.</p>
<p>So, good job, Rich: You just defused the word <em>sexism</em> for men & women out there facing <em>actual</em> sexism. How does it feel to, in fact, be a part of the actual problem?</p>
It Begins With a Realization2011-07-26T22:31:00-04:00http://unbridled.agarzola.com/it-begins-with-a-realization<p>I came to realize something recently: For the past few years I have reduced my opinions and my experiences to short bursts of often ineloquent ramblings that, if admittedly clever on my better days, don’t do a very good job of describing my condition or position. What’s worse, the past few years have also seen an equally disappointing dumbing down of my consumption of media. <em>I don’t have time</em> for thoughtful reads, for long form video, for engaging podcasts; <em>I can’t be bothered</em> with contemplation, with pause, or meditation. It is a direct result of various factors, not the least of which is my daily use of Twitter and its ≤140 form.</p>
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<p><strong>But it goes beyond thought.</strong> I am a designer, and in my daily work I like to think I make useful things. And sometimes I do, no doubt. But I never forget that my career (or at least as it can be described by my work until now) is the product of an accommodating economy. Push comes to shove, I have very few skills I can use to produce something with real, tangible value for my survival and that of those around me. Some time ago, <a href="http://estudiointerlinea.com">a friend</a> told me something to the effect of <em>We design things that don’t really matter. Not <strong>really.</strong> People don’t <strong>need</strong> what we make to survive.</em> And, for me personally, this needs to change. I need to change.</p>
<p>This is a disservice to my ideas, my intelligence, my body, and my personal growth, and I must change it. I need to learn to make stuff with my hands, to grow food, to tinker, to fix things, to explore the physical world around me; lest I continue down this sedentary path, one that brings contentment and plenty of distractions but which often lacks in profound personal satisfaction.</p>
<p>With this blog, I aim not only to document these explorations but also to cultivate what little writing skills I do have and explore the ideas that keep me up at night. I will force myself to write because, as <a href="http://www.merlinmann.com/">Merlin Mann</a> once said on a <a href="http://5by5.tv/">5by5</a> podcast (and I’m totally paraphrasing here, seriously): <em>Inspiration doesn’t make you a better writer. Writing makes you a better writer.</em> And I will write about anything; about everything. From what I learn about user interface and experience design, through my rants on political, social and secularist issues, all the way to <a href="http://agarzola.posterous.com/heres-one-way-to-make-churrasco-cesar">the occasional no-bull culinary recipe with an attitude</a> so easy that even <em>I</em> can do it, and including a detailed record of all the plants I manage to torture in my effort to grow and maintain a small produce garden in our new home.</p>
<p>As such, this space will be all over the fucking place. As am I. As are we all in the end, I believe. Here’s to New Year’s Resolutions in the middle of a scorching fucking Tennessee summer.</p>