Beginning today, we're being partially furloughed.

From this week until mid-September, Department of Defense civilian employees are forced to not work 8 hours per work week for a total of 11 furlough days, or 88 hours. The good news is that's down from the 21 days that were originally proposed several months ago. The bad news is that it still equates to a roughly 20% pay cut.

And even worse, Congress has not done its job. It's supposed to come up with a budget, and it can't even do that. And while allowing several thousand workers to take a 20% pay cut, it votes to keep its own gainfully employed, even as they do nothing.

So yeah, I'm just a tad bitter at Congress for paying itself even as it does absolutely nothing. It refused to furlough its own or -- Heaven forbid! -- let its own work without pay, but it's perfectly willing to let others take the hit for its inaction. I'm already planning to vote out whoever I can next year as it is.

In other news, this has, like I said, cancelled any and all trip plans through all of 2014. I simply can't afford to travel, period. I haven't even looked ahead to 2015 yet, but if this Congress is any indication, I expect to be furloughed even more next fiscal year, which means cutting out all trips through the end of 2015 as well.

I'm going to do my best to hang on to my Guard job, but that could be going poof next year as well. We'll have to see what happens.