Year: 2013

Categories Rants

*@&$?**

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My computer was running fine yesterday, no glitches, or new updates, or anything.

I left it on overnight, so that it could run its usual set of scans and the like.

When I got up this morning it was off.  I didn’t think much of it.  Figured Husband had shut it off for some reason, he’s done it a few times.

Except it won’t turn on.

The light on the front turns yellow instead of blue and nothing happens.

I spent a few minutes unplugging and replugging with no success….

Dammit.

We JUST replaced the power supply.  I suppose that could be the problem again, but if it is I’m going to be PISSED.

And of course this had to happen at THE right time of the year when we’re strapped for cash due to several major bills all coming due at once…..

*sigh*

Categories Rants

I don’t feel complimented

4 Comments by

You know…..it doesn’t reflect well on your company when you, as an Assistant Store Manager and department head, tell a brand new barely hired employee that you hired her specifically because you could tell she’s competent enough to be dropped onto the sales floor with less than one days worth of training and no help.  Especially since I over-heard the HR head tell said ASM, after the FIRST day it happened, that doing that was against company policy.  Yes, it happened again.

And I really do mean “dropped on the sales floor with no help” and one days worth of training.  I “shadowed” on register for less than 4hours and completed less than 6hours of “online training” before being put in a register enclosure with no other trained cashier within hand-waving distance.  Sure, the “supervisor on duty” was “only a phone call away”…..which means that if I need their physical presence at the register its going to take them 5 minutes to get to me…..

I suppose its a compliment, but its one I don’t want or need thank you very much.  She got damn lucky frankly.  Its been 5, almost 6, years since I last ran a register in that kind of environment.  If I wasn’t as computer literate as I am, and as good as I am at learning new systems with no training, she’d have been royally screwed.  I have more than enough experience to recognize the HUGE list of things that could have (and still could) go wrong.

It doesn’t help that the assistant supervisors are not only OK with this whole mess (cause it gets them out of having to run a register due to someone’s stupidity in planning for college kids back to school), but they have no problem berating me when I do or say something that isn’t correct because this company does that differently than the ones I worked for before…..

As of when I left work yesterday I’ve had less than 4hours of “shadowing” time, and barely 8hours of “online training”.  If the same mess happens again today, not only will this job not last over 2-3years like I’d hoped, but it won’t even last 2 weeks!

Categories Guns, Nothing Much

Active Shooter Policy?

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So those of you who read here semi regularly know that I quit my last job back on Dec 31st after telling my previous boss to go to hell.  After spending a few months doing household projects that had been on hold I started looking for a new job, preferably one I could be happy in for more than 2-3years which seems to be my usual limit.  I just started my new job, and unfortunetly I don’t think its going to make it past the 2-3yr mark, but I have to relate this piece of info I picked up yesterday.

This company is a major (nationwide) retailer.  I’m deliberetly not saying who as I had to sign a confidentiality clause and I can’t figure out from reading and re-reading the paperwork if thats supposed to include the following info…..

They have an “Active Shooter Policy/Procedure”.  When I first saw the title I figured it was more of the “hide and plead” type you see everywhere these days. 

Its not. 

It was 3 steps. 

The first is Run: if you can safely get out of the building while not attracting the shooter’s attention DO SO, and take as many c0-workers and customers with you as you can without endangering your own safety.  Call 911.

The second is Hide: if you can’t get out, shut the door to the room you’re in, turn off the lights and lock the door, block the door with something if possible, and if all else fails find something large to hide behind.  Call 911.

The third is Fight: if the shooter happens to find you while you’re running or hiding, FIGHT, and do so with all violence necessary to save your life and the life of others.  If there is more than one if you in the hiding spot, pig-pile the shooter.

*blink*blink*

Damn, someone had a head on their shoulders when they wrote that….

Categories Rants

WAAAAAaaaaaaaa!

4 Comments by

Untitled-1(screenshot of a local news channel’s weather page)

I couldn’t find what I really wanted to post…..according to both the news-weather guy last night AND this morning there are frost advisories for at least two counties here in central/upstate NY for tonight.  Now neither of them is my county, infact neither of them is next door to my county.  But dammit!  Its barely September!  I’ve hardly gotten anything out of the garden!  I’ve seriously gotten less out of the garden so far this year than I have previous years when I planted far fewer plants!  I don’t want fall yet!

Categories Apollo, Dog

A request for folks who read here.

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Please vote for Apollo!

To do so, go to each of these links:

photo 1

photo 2

then click the vote button.  Then please reload the pages and do so again!  You can vote up to 5 times per picture.  You can also vote for as many pictures as you’d like, so feel free to work your way through the pictures in the contest and vote for any other dogs who catch your eye.

The prize is nothing fancy, a free copy of the calendar and maybe a mug, but I would really appreciate it!

This post will be posted to the top of the page till the contest is over.

Thank you very much for voting for Apollo!

Categories Nothing Much

Mortality

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I found out a month or so ago that one of the guys I graduated highschool with had been diagnosed with cancer.  I wasn’t told what kind, and I didn’t pry. 

We weren’t close friends, but when there’s only 14 students in your graduating class you get to know someone fairly well.  But I’d not kept in touch with him either.  He went to college across the country from me, and we didn’t keep in touch.

He passed away Sunday August 11, 2013.   He was 34.  He’s survived by his wife, sister, parents, grandparents, and a load of cousins and other relatives.

 

Edit: wow, I was really out of touch.  It was his wife who’d been diagnosed with cancer.  His death was unexpected.  At this time his cause of death is unknown.  His wife passed away this morning (August 13, 2013).  Now I really feel like hell…..

Categories Birds

Hummingbirds

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Hummingbirds are insane little creatures.  If you ever get to watch a group of Hummingbirds work a feeder or bush do so.  They’re quite fun to watch.  Just be prepared to duck when one chases off another at top speed in your direction!

 

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Categories Gardening

I think we’re going to loose some of our apple trees….

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We’ve got 3 yellow apple trees (I think they’re Golden Delicious, but not sure), 2 red apple trees (variety unknown), and 2 pear trees of two different types….

The pears are fine, normal fruit, normal looking trees.

The red apple trees also look good.

The yellow apples….not so much.  The tree furthest from the house is also the one lowest (elevation wise) by a couple feet.  That one  never even bloomed.  We blamed that on the weird frosts we got in the spring, but its just continues to look sickly, and I’m not actually sure it even formed buds in the first place….leaves are yellow, and the tree just looks “bleh” (I know, such a descriptor huh?).  I tried to get a picture, but in every picture I took the tree actually looked pretty good.  Oh well.

The other two yellow apple trees are a couple feet higher up, both have fruit, and one has a HUGE amount of fruit.  But both are drooping badly, dropping LARGE numbers of their fruit already, have yellow leaves, and the larger of the two has several dying branches…..

We do have an insect problem, but we always have, and it doesn’t look any worse this year than normal.  And the trunk and bark doesn’t look damaged in anyway.

I bought some fruit tree fertilizer, and put it down for all the trees, but I’m wondering if the insane rains we had are the problem.  Doing some research it DOES look like its possible for an apple tree’s roots to get so wet that they just rot out from under the tree…..