Mika - I think they meant to use complicating. Unless his weight had somehow depressed the ground in a wide enough radius that the ambulance had a downhill run the whole way.
Swampy - Mmmm. Slow-cooked roast beef. I think I know what I want to make this weekend. Roast beef in a crock pot for about 6 hours with N.O.T. and celery and onions and such, and some Yorkshire pudding on the side. Damn, but that sounds tasty.
Ellen - The Internet on the cell phone itself is next to useless (unless you have a VGA-equipped smartphone, but even then it’s cramped). Where it comes in handy (for those that would find such thing handy) is, for those phones equipped with Bluetooth (which is most of them) it can be connected to by a laptop or desktop computer (similarly Bluetooth-equipped) to connect to the Internet wirelessly by using your phone as a cellular modem. If you need to access the net while you’re on the road or in some location without net access, there’s your answer. Of course, if you don’t need that then it’s still pointless.
Nummy! I done good! Course now I’m full and want a nap but can’t cause I gotta be at pre-shift meeting at 2:40 so I aint’ got time. Oh well, at least I won’t get rumbly tummy before dinner break tonight! I’m takin’ a sammich and a small salad cause I think that’d be a good supper after a biiiiiiiig lunch (southern dinner). I’m also considerin’ chunkin’ up some of that really good watermelon I got Sunday. I’m thinkin’ that would be refreshing at first break. Did I mention that during the course of eight hours there are two fifteen minute breaks plus a thirty minute dinner break? That ain’t too shabby IMO. Plus there’s break areas, and restrooms all over the place so one never has to travel too far from one’s line to find either. I like that.
Wow, 500 pounds and stuck for twelve hours! Poor guy.
I know! I’ll go take a quick dip in the pool before gettin’ all geared up for work!
Oh, man. I just had a horrible horrible image. One of the ambulance driving downhill, and losing its brakes, and going faster and faster and faster until THWACK! It hit the guy in the middle of the depression.
Swampy - Is that sort of break schedule unusual down south? I’ve had that for pretty much every job I’ve worked. But as I understand it Ontario (possibly Canadian) labour law mandates that two paid 15-minute breaks are required for each 4 hour shift worked, and a 30-minute lunch is required for each eight hours worked. The lunch break doesn’t have to be paid though, so what most jobs seem to do these days is make you work an extra 30 minutes to make up for the 30 minute lunch. I work from 8:30am to 5:00pm because of that.
Mika - Heh. Hehe. Bwahaha! Oh, man, I’m going to hell. Now you’ve got me thinking things like, “Stop the ambulance! Stop! The event horizon is in 100 feet! If we don’t stop now we’ll never get out!”
it is my understanding that that’s the minimum US standard as well; But I’ve been here so long, I got grandfathered into the hour lunch schedule (of course, most days I don’t take lunch, or breaks for that matter, other than hanging out here for a few minutes when my eyes need a rest)
I am feeling very smug this evening and pretty soon 'im indoors is going to be equally smug.
We both travel to work by train, carefully timing our journeys to avoid using the local all-stations trains because they’re overcrowded, overheated cattlecarts. So we mainly travel on Virgin Trains because they’re better quality and far more comfortable. We also buy a 4-weekly travel pass which covers the use of the train, bus and tram service because it’s the most economical.
At the weekend, 'im indoors told me he’d seen a poster at the station for a first-class upgrade ticket we could buy so that we could travel in the first class carriages of any service at any time on the route we use. Yesterday I had to renew my travel pass so I asked the lady at the ticket office for a first class upgrade. She told me I couldn’t have one because they were restricted to the rail-only cards, but I didn’t believe her because that wasn’t what the poster said.
Last night I checked up on Network Travel’s website and it clearly showed the upgrade ticket on the kind of pass I usually buy. This evening I made a point of walking right down to the far end of the platform in search of this poster that he’d seen (and I hadn’t), to make sure it agreed with the website.
Then I went back to the ticket office and by chance saw the same lady as yesterday. I told her again what I wanted, she told me again I couldn’t have it. I told her I could, and I told her where I’d seen the info.
Fifteen minutes later, after consulting the website and phoning Network Travel and consulting with her supervisor, she was all smiles and apologies as she filled out the upgrade card for my travel pass.
rosie - Bah! I messed that up. I mean to say “one 15-minute break for each 4 hours worked.” Two for a full 8-hour shift, plus a 30-minute lunch break at that point. And yes, I remember hour-long lunches. Fondly, but with increasing vagueness as to what it was like. sigh I always take my lunches/breaks though. I need that time off and that bit of fresh air to recharge, especially if I’m having a crappy day.
Saw it, and will ask about it at my next appointment, which will be this week or next week.
Hmm. Went grocery shopping with Mum, and she just about told me that she thinks we’re going to die if we take the South Bend road trip, because it’s a long drive with some serious highways, and Mr. Lissar doesn’t have a lot of highway experience. Of course, you’re not allowed to drive on highways here until you’ve got your license, which is a complication. She wants us to put it off until October.
Now it may not be immediate, mind you. You may find yourself dragging things out for another, oh 50 or 60 years. But mark my words, you will die if you drive to South Bend!
No guarantees on staying alive forever if you don’t drive there, however.
I do not know this South Bend place to which you refer. But I think this is just silly. Highway driving is easier by far than inner-city driving, especialyl if you have cruise control. I think you will do fine.
Rigs, you may want to check with your human resources person but as I understand it here, you are eligible to apply for COBRA at any time during the (30? 60?) days after you leave, which translates into holding off until and if you need it (an injury or illness IOW). Does that make sense? Anyhoo, that’s what I was told here. But please check.
GT, I’m taking the law school admissions test in September. I’ve got all these high-minded ideals about justice and truth and stuff, so I’m trying to pay out the butt to have all my illusions shattered at law school.
Special1, I’m jealous of your proximity to the Mediterranean. I’m got a few jars of coins lying around that comprises the savings fund for my Mediterranean Extravaganza, which probably won’t happen for a few years yet- probably when I finish school in four years. I’ve got Malibu until then anyways.
Well, it’s a seven-hour drive, and Mr. Lissar doesn’t have a whole lot of driving experience, due to Ontario’s restrictive driving laws and lack of opportunity. Part of the trip (the first part) will be on big, five-lane highways. I can chart a route that will mostly take us on smaller roads, but there’ll still be maybe two or three hours of big, big highways.
Mum thinks that by October he’ll have lots more experience (we’ve got to go to Napanee in September, and we’ll probably go on a few day trips) and that will make him more prepared.
I was cold with horror at her descriptions of how dangerous highways are, but… most of it will be on the Interstate, which isn’t big and scary. And it’ll be the middle of the week, and not rush hour. And we’re going to Indiana, not New York or another huge city.
And if he can drive in downtown Toronto he can drive anywhere. We’ll talk about it. I have no desire to commit suicide by highway, but most of it should be easy, really. And my parents are sixty-ish and seventy-ish, and paranoid.
Oh, yes- The problem with October, in my mind, is that the people we’ll be visiting will be in school by then, doing slightly more than a full courseload. This is the last vacation time until Christmas, which is perilously close to my due date, and damned if we’re driving out there in possible snowstorm conditions within a few weeks of when I give birth.
YAAAAARGH! I got a call from MT a few minutes ago; she’d gotten a call from where I work wondering where I was. Apparently I’d somehow ended up on the schedule, even though I’d talked to both the person who does the schedule and one of the bosses above her about being out this week, and left a note attatched to the board in the back where the schedule goes. Turns out that the note probably saved me the job (not that I’m going to be there much longer!) since it is physical proof that I’d been cleared for the time off. They really have to get their act together. I wish I was surprised, but I’m not. Morons. How hard is it to not schedule me for their recent generous 8 hours a week???
All critters are okay. No peeing or puking in the house today! Yay! And Miss Brandy has figured out that I’m a goood cat slave. I’ll drop anything to pet her. Of course, I have to, she’s drop-dead beautiful.
It must be scary mail week for my family, though mine turned out okay, Social Security isn’t going to make me jump through a million hoops again. I’d given permission for anything from them to be opened and see what it is since I’ve been expecting news from them, just not anything that good. Phew. Review is over, for the next few years at least.
And tonight I have to call my ex-boyfriend to ask for a reference for a place to live. I haven’t talked to him in months. I’m kind of nervous about it.
I guess it’s a good thing I told the idiot that there was a note posted.
Paranoia: It’s okay when they really are watching you.
I decided to ball up some yarn this afternoon and wait for the rush work delivery, and of course ended up with a skein that was annoyingly tangled; even though I had it on the swift, I had to wind it into a ball by hand rather than use the winder because the stupid thing was just tangled up one side and down the other. Took me over an hour. But it’s for the Rosie’s ruana, so of course I had to get it done! And actually, sometimes doing something mentally and physically non-stressful like gently untangling a skein of yarn is preferable to almost all the alternatives I can come up with. Most of which otherwise involve “work” of some variety.
My classes got canceled today (AGAIN) so right now I’m puttering around, looking for apartments and other part-time stuff. I’m kind of in a bind right now because I was planning to combine a trip to Toronto to see a friend with a visa run, but there are absolutely no visa appointments left for the Toronto US consulate in August. I could put it off until September, but right now I have this whole trip up the East coast planned with Scottish Darling, and I don’t think I can afford that + yet another trip so soon. And I can’t back out of this trip - we’ve been planning it for so long. Vancouver has some available dates, but this would entail me going to Vancouver (and US - Canada flight fares are ridiculous!). Gah. I really want to go to Toronto and see my friends, but if I can’t get a visa appointment I can’t go, because without a visa I won’t be able to come back into the US. Damnit.
I am also stressing out about apartments because the friend I’ll be living with is currently in NYC so the burden is falling all on me. This wouldn’t be too much of a problem except for the fact that she is the most laidback and disorganized person I know (even more so than me!) and she’s all kind of like, whatever. Today she forwarded me an email that was sent out to our school listserve, about an apartment she thought would be nice for us, failing to notice that 1) it’s in the same neighborhood we are currently living in, and she knows that I am desperate to get out of here, and more importantly 2) IT WAS THE EMAIL I MYSELF SENT OUT ABOUT MY OWN APARTMENT. :smack: Good Lord. I think I’m just going to tell her I’m taking matters into my own hands, and that she’ll just have to trust me to make a good decision, because she isn’t helping at all.
Course now I’m full and want a nap but can’t cause I gotta be at pre-shift meeting at 2:40 so I aint’ got time. Oh well, at least I won’t get rumbly tummy before dinner break tonight! I’m takin’ a sammich and a small salad cause I think that’d be a good supper after a biiiiiiiig lunch (southern dinner). I’m also considerin’ chunkin’ up some of that really good watermelon I got Sunday. I’m thinkin’ that would be refreshing at first break. Did I mention that during the course of eight hours there are two fifteen minute breaks plus a thirty minute dinner break? That ain’t too shabby IMO. Plus there’s break areas, and restrooms all over the place so one never has to travel too far from one’s line to find either. I like that.