Starbucks lost four laptops, two of which contained information on 60 thousand employees.  Ronald is one of the affected employees.  Since he was still working in Houston until two weeks ago, we didn't change our address until the 20th of October.  Yet the letter Starbucks sent came to this new address, without being forwarded.  Nor was there any indication that on the original envelope "forwarding address requested" information was posted.

Starbucks is proposing that it give Ron a free year of Equifax Silver.  Hmmm.  Right after Ronald checks all of his credit reports and sees if Starbucks illegally checked his credit report to get his new address.  Certainly, the poor sap who answered the phone for the "Security" center had no clue how Starbucks had our new address so quickly.  The only people given the new address were our credit cards and our bank.  Which means, the credit bureaus....

So while Starbucks is trying to assure these employees that their information has not been used illegally by someone outside their company, they have used the information to illegally access my husband's credit report. 

Something really, really stinks in Seattle.

I am not one who believes that my genetics will determine my destiny.  Nor am I one that believes that my genetics should determine my political party.  Being from a decidedly multiracial background (though this was at one time a closely guarded secret in my family), I feel no political pull toward one party or the other based on my genetics.

I do feel a pull based on how I was raised.  As a teenager, I was decidedly a Democrat with a big "D", mainly to get under the skin of my dad who was a Republican with a big "R".  Even so, I voted for Reagan and was in AFROTC, and married my high school sweetheart instead of just living with him and fucking everyone in the freshman class at the University of Arizona as seemed to be the norm.

I have given up classifying myself as a conservative Republican.  More of an Independent.  Meaning, I don't vote straight ticket.  (Such as, if given the choice between the current Brazoria County Tax Assessor and a dead roadkill armadillo, I would pick the armadillo with joy in my heart.  After all, the armadillo didn't jump my taxes from about $550 per year to about $3400 in one year.)  I am still a Reagan Republican.  But what Reagan and my dad stood for just seems to have been forgotten somewhere along the way.

I am not even sure if I can vote this coming election.  Though registered in Brazoria County, we live in Grimes County now.  I will have to call and ask on Monday.  It didn't even come up until a few hours ago.  If we can't, we will be sure to get it fixed before any other elections.

If we can't vote in these elections, it will make me feel sick.  Voting has always been an important perk of being an American.  So many have died to give us this gift; it would really hurt to have forgotten my part of the bargain.  It would feel like I let my youngest down, who is in the Army now, my oldest, who is working OT to pay on her mortgage on the American Dream, and my middle child, who, in her last semester (with a near perfect GPA in the Honors College at UH with Dual Majors in Economics and Communications), is trying to sign up with the Marines for OCS.  It would feel like I failed them, if I forgot to fill in a stupid piece of paper and forgot to get my registration changed so I could vote. 

True, I just moved.  But that is just an excuse.