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I now carry my basic med stuff, like shots, on a report from the VA. Part of that report deals with my covid shots. I figure that one is about as good as I can get. I also carry my shot card as well.

I wrote to the president, a couple of months ago, asking that he get some kind of card that can be checked, if necessary. No reply no nuthin and not counting on it. My suspicion is that, eventually the bodies giving the shots and issuing the cards are going to put a reference number on each card so that anybody can go to the authorizing authority and get the facts. That should be pretty simple and easily done from a phone or computer. In my case that would be my country health department.

I actually don't get it. I have my vaccinations and should be safe. Those who have not had their shots, and have not had Covid, are, in theory, not safe. Those not safe have decided not to be safe and do not threaten me so, basically, they have chosen their road and I wish them luck but, should one of them get Covid I don't feel bad for them because that was their choice and they made it. My wife tells me that's a terrible thing. I don't think so. The Main problem is trying to get to a point where the Covid has no place to go and those anti-vacer folks are, apparently, determined that everybody get Covid before that happens, even if it kills them. I, for one, am a bit tired of whining about a bunch of folks who are determined to have it their way and screw the rest. Perhaps if they get covid a point will be made. If they don't then that's a different point I guess.

They will get it eventually. It's going to be around for a long while. Maybe permanently, since there are plenty of wild animal reservoirs. As more lethal variants emerge, vaccinated people will be kept out of the hospitals by their T-cell immunity so they get asymptomatic or mild cases. But the virus they spread will be more lethal to those not vaccinated or previously infected, Uninfected and unvaccinated people make up a sizable chunk of the US population. I think this is not going to go well for them.

But maybe anti-vaxxers will learn an important lesson and public health will regain some of it's rightful place in American politics.

Or maybe Darwin will prove correct once again and all the lessons learned will be by those of us left after God raptures their asses up to heaven via his Covid creation...

You may be right but I have my doubts. The current crop of anti-vaxxers are not exactly like those who won't let their kids get shots for the standards, like whooping coughs. These are people who have given up reality for their personal realities and I don't think its really about the vaccine itself although that is their claim (amongst others). The problem is that they might give you any number of reasons, many of which are incredibly senseless. These folks cannot, literally, change their minds as it just doesn't seem to be possible.

I know, it makes no sense but, it seems, that's their thing! The only thing, so far, that they haven't politicized so far is the weather but I suspect that is probably on the way. When its raining and they start denying it with rain running off their noses THEN its gonna get even more interesting!

Sorry - I have little faith..........

Matters on our construction contact payment dispute are evolving. The bank has made an offer to settle that we have accepted - I guess they didn’t want a public loss and a another potential class action suit for stealing fees from their clients (by not providing services that they took money for, and lying about it). Our nemesis should have sued them for that - she could have shifted much of the blame for her bad faith actions onto the bank. Instead, she chose to take their side, and now they have left her alone on Defendant’s Island.

We expect an offer of settlement from our opponent’s insurance company soon (prior to the scheduled arbitration hearing in a couple of weeks) relative to the covered claims of conversion, trespass, and defamation, for which we have solid cases.

We don’t expect the Trumpish woman who caused all of this to capitulate, though. The remaining claims of breach and wrongful termination of contract, and quantum meruit (I know about a dozen Latin words now!) will likely be decided by the arbitrator along with amounts for damages and hopefully legal costs.

Assuming we prevail, our next hobby will be trying to collect…

I wouldn't count on it. But I'm pretty cynical about separating the rich from their riches. If an insurance company gets stuck with the tab then you're good to go...but if somebody has to write a personal check, you're f*cked.

I once won a small claims action against a deadbeat client. The guy was a logger - 3rd generation - he owned a Cat skidder and his wife owned and operated the local (rural) tavern called Falls Inn (it was actually built over a creek next to a 15" high waterfall). I built and installed some kitchen cabinets for them and while the job was in progress he hurt his back and was laid up for some time. Because of that I didn't press him very hard to pay right away, hoping he would recover soon and get back to work (he specialized in logging poles - tall straight Western Red Cedar and Tamarack, sometimes 80'-100' - long it paid really well). After about a year I went to their house to talk about getting paid. They were always very friendly and apologetic, not hostile or anything. When I went in the house the first thing the wife did was hurry over to the couch to pick up a bit of skimpy lingerie, explaining, "We had company over last night..." (Now that's an explanation that will put you off of your train of thought - her tits were humongous, BTW).

I also saw that Doug (I'll call him Doug because that was his name) was lounging in front of a giant screen TV (it was in the 80's, so very expensive - cost more than he owed me). He noticed me looking at it with a pained expression on my face and quickly said, "I needed something to keep from going crazy while trying to recover." That helped to steel my resolve and I told him I was going to have to file a claim in court against him if he didn't start paying up right away. He apologized for being a deadbeat before saying, "Do what you have to do, it's the only way to get anything out of me."

So I filed and won a judgement for the amount plus 18% interest. Then is when I learned that the process was only half done - I still needed to collect.

This is the main point of this post - I learned that in order to seize property or garnish wages, you have to ask the court for a "Writ of Execution", which, in spite of the enormous hassle of the whole process, I found to be very humorous (and still do to this day).

As it happened, Doug went back to pole cutting about that time and with a Writ of Execution you can garnish wages by serving a person's employer (or pole buyer in this case where Doug was a contractor/vendor) for up to 20% of their monthly income until paid off. I think the amount was $1800 and I was paid in full in two months.

Legal expenses would make $1800 a moot point. I just refused to work for deadbeats again and spread the word among the other carpenters in town that they didn't pay up. Over the years there were very few of them.

There was a time when a man's word was his bond. A time when there was honor even among thieves.

Now, with Trump's presidential example, I expect there are far more deadbeats than there used to be. It's become a patriotic duty to exploit labor at every turn.

Fortunately that one was in small claims court and I think the only cost was a $25 filing fee and another $10 for the Writ. I got both of those back.

In the current debacle I am lucky to have a pro bono attorney, or else we would have been priced out of the game before getting to first base. It's still spendy, but there's a pretty good chance we will be awarded costs.

I used to have a collection agency. The way it ran was quite simple. The debt owner turned the debt over to us and we file a suit against them if they didn't pay right away. Filing a suit was, at the time, pretty cheap in small claims court (most of the debts were small, if they were more we would have an attorney file in court). The name of the company was "Final Notice". There were also problems about that name but the name was a fact so they let me have it. Anyway, we never harassed anybody. Most didn't even show up in small claims to fight it and then it was just a matter of bumping the claim up. There are some facts, here, to mention. The first is that you can't squeeze water out of a rock and most of these debts were by people who had little or nothing to start with. The other thing is that when you have a suit against you then you can't buy anything on credit. The store will check and then turn you down flat so - you can't buy a car, or furniture or anything. The trick is to wait as most of them will get a job, etc and, eventually have to pay the debt, plus interest to get on with their lives. Oh, the attorney thing. I wrote a program to write the pleadings we needed and kept an attorney retainer who I paid monthly and was cheap. The attorney usually only had to sign stuff. It was one of the best businesses I have ever been connected with. The debtors rarely upset and they knew they had the debt and there were rarely problems. OH, and we made money too! The really interesting thing is that everybody who knew about this one thought we were crazy because we were not harassing the debtors. I was kinda interesting. Most of the debtors knew they owed the money but were broke. Some were simply deadbeats. OH, once you bump the small claims or lower court then you have something of value. Particularly if its a company that owes the money. You just gotta keep an eye on them and re-file before Uncle Sam comes calling when they go banko as that puts you in front of the feds for collection. In both cases we usually had uncontested lawsuits against them and, eventually they paid, unless they were bums and had nothing forever. If they were a company (usually a restaurant) that was going banko you were to the first in line as well. I always asked companies to tell me if they were going banko and most actually did!