Got A Beer Complaint? Tell Me All About It! The MMP

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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Wow! The smoke all blew away today! And there’s big pretty puffy clouds overhead. One even rained on me for a couple of minutes (leading me to run to the window wondering WTF that noise was…oh, rain!) This morning it was (relatively) pretty good, and when I went out a little while ago to run a couple of errands it was clearer than it’s been in a couple of weeks! Not only can I breathe again, but my beautiful views are back! This may not last – in fact, I expect it to get smoky at least at night for a while yet – but I’ll take what I can get. Once the excitement dies down I will get some pictures, I promise.

At least I can say, “I was here when…” about this fire. This hasn’t happened for years and years, at least not this close to the valley. I’ll be happy to see the last of it, but it has been…interesting.

I paid various bills today. I feel virtuous!

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I’m home!!! Long weekend!!! Yay!!!

Hope you find a new doc soon, FCM. I need to find a new doc, too and have collected information so that I can call them, but keep getting stuck doing other stuff instead.

Glad things are starting to clear up, snowbunny.

Wow, that sounds awful, Bobbio. Hope you can work things out. Sure sounds like it’s not VWife’s fault. (Tell them we said so; I’m sure that’ll clear things right up!)

I was wondering where you’d been, Taters. I thought one of the perks of being a senior was that you actually got the classes you wanted…?

That instructor sounds like a jerk, zelie. Don’t get bothered; you know you did well. But you should definitely be sure that his bosses know how your class was treated. (Sometimes they actually care…)

Cool on the good sleeping, ems. And I’m glad that kitty will finally have a home.

I can handle a recipe with weights, LiLi. There’s a conversion page on her web site that looks like it have most of the information anyone who doesn’t have a scale would need.

Guess I need to come up with a plan for the weekend.

Back after a while…

GT

303

snowbunny glad to hear you’re out of danger. YAY!

Ok, a quickie to tell y’all about losin’ steam power and donut sticks from Jesus. I’d go longer but after a supper of steak, N.O.T., sallit and cheesey bread to be followed in a while by peach cobbler with good 'niller ice crean, we’re about to take a dip in le pool. I figure that will be followed by, well, :wink: so I won’t be back later.

The story…

Picture it, Wednesday night/Thursday mornin’ third shift. Da brewry loses steam power. In case I have not mentioned it before, Miller produces most of its power to run the plant. A lot of it is steam. If steam gets lost, then stuff like the pasteurizers don’t work which means no beer production cause if’n we can’t pasteurize, we can’t produce. So, anywho, about an hour into third shift (begins at eleven p.m. and goes to seven a.m. the next morning) the plant loses steam power. Bad, bad thing! However, it gets fixed in about an hour. A good thing. Now, a bad thing, again. See, when sump’n like this happens, stuff must be restarted but can’t be like restarted all at once. It must be done in a specific sequence. Got it? Good! Ok, Miller has these people called Unit Managers who are in charge of certain can/bottle lines. These people must rotate shifts so there is always a manager on duty. I guess that’s ok, cause it’s a job that pays dang good. Anywho, the [del]absolute idiot[/del] manager on duty that night decided that instead of starting in the prescribed sequence, that everything would get started at the same time. OOPS! Immediate shutdown again! When I got to work yesterday morning, stuff was just beginning to come on line again (in sequence, imagine that!). It was two hours into my shift before everything was runnin’ again. However, I did get some entertainment out of it. The [del]idiot in charge[/del] manager on duty that caused the problem got a royal, big time butt chewin’ by the plant manager right there on the floor! I had a front row seat! For real, I was at my work area which was waaaaaaaaaay close enough to hear the whole thing. HEE! I heard words that I definitely was not taught in Sunday School. :smiley:

Now for donut sticks from Jesus. I think I’ve mentioned this before. Anywho, the snack machine in the break room I frequent has a habit of droppin’ stuff for free from time to time. This week it was especially busy. I swear, everytime I was in the break room I saw a goodie or three drop! So, I’m comin’ into the break room Wednesday afternoon for my last break of the day. One of my buddies is in there and she’s at the snack machine just as I walk into the room. She looks at me and says, “These donut sticks just dropped. As soon as I got 'em out of the machine I looked up and there you were. This can only mean that Jesus wants you to have donut sticks” and hands 'em to me. So, I et me some donut sticks from Heaven at my break. Who knew donut sticks were a miracle food?

Ok, off to the pool now. Nitey nite y’all!

304

Done sewing for the night. The zipper is in and the collar is on. We need to fit it on the boom tomorrow so I know where to place the velcro on the collar and where to place the buckles and straps. So the plans for the morning include breakfast, then a trip to the marina. Then I come home and start into the clay.

You know what’s bizarre? The movie *Harlem Nights * on a channel that “cleans” it up. It just doesn’t work. No way you can buy Eddie Murphy and Redd Foxx and Della Reese and Richard Pryor not cussin’! No way…

305

I knew it, I just knew it! Donut sticks are manna from heaven. :smiley:

I was semi-productive today. I went to the post office to pick up my package from Uruguay. I think it is held together entirely by stamps. Picking it up was an involved process involving multiple signatures and seeing my id and more stamps.

Then I went to the maul to return some pants and then went shopping. The colors for fall are blah, but I tried on a ton of stuff. Didn’t buy anything, I’m unemployed, after all. Then I went to Barnes & Noble for the air conditioning and discovered that they are selling Georgette Heyer’s An Infamous Army as new historical fiction (the book is a mere 70 years old). It’s a very nice paperback edition, and even at $14.95, much cheaper than importing it from the UK, like I had to do with False Colours.

Then I came home and updated my resume on Monster. I added quite a bit to it, so I expect I’ll be getting calls on Tuesday.

It’s very warm this afternoon, but there’s a pleasant cross breeze blowing, so the house is only in the 80s inside.

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You don’t have to buy a sewing machine just because it comes with a walking foot, FCM – I got one last year, several years after I’d bought my machine. Got it from someone on eBay, as I recall, and it cost me about $35. It’s an absolute godsend – I highly recommend you get one, whatever machine you end up getting!

Sky? Clouds? Are you sure you’re in the right place, snowbunny? :smiley:

Donut sticks from Jesus. Yum! Clearly Jesus has good taste in snack food.

I know there was a bunch of other stuff I was going to say, but I’m feeling completely drained. That job I did today was just so mentally exhausting that I’m going to give up and go crawl in bed with the cat, a book, my knitting, and a Jericho rerun on TV in an hour and give up for the night. Y’all behave while I’m getting my beauty rest, now!

307

**FCM & Mama Tiger ** I’m going to freely admit that I don’t sew much, but I’m working to change that. But don’t all sewing machines come with walking feet? Hubby bought me one shortly after we got married and it came with a walking foot, if a walking foot is what I am thinking it is. Which would be the foot that help guides the fabric when you sew? I thought all machines came with that…

By the way, chocolate offerings for tonight. Homemade chocolate cake bars with chocolate frosting. Enjoy!

308

What in hell is a donut stick? I’m picturing a very strange looking lollypop.

Back form work–I got out early! And tomorrow looks to be short as well, but it may not be…we’ll see.
Gorgeous evening out there–but too many skeeters for me (they LOVE me).

Anyone else seen this?

whatatangledweb

I bring it up because on NPR they said that the spiders are glutted with mosquitos–they can’t eat all of them! I want a spider mega-web in my backyard!

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**McUne ** - I think you’re referring to the feed dog - it’s the toothed piece in the table surface of the machine that moves the fabric along. A walking foot moves on top of the fabric, reducing the chance of puckering or slipping fabric.

310

Yes…there’s a thread about it in MPSIMS. Something about Aragog’s children. I’m torn between “Ick” and “Cool.”
GT

311

Oh ha ha. Yes. Sky. Clouds. MOUNTAINS. When the smoke is so thick that you can’t see the damn mountains that surround the town, you’ve got a lot of smoke!

They’re running tours of the fire camp that’s a couple of blocks away from me over the weekend. I think I just might go for one…if nothing else, the human scenery should be excellent. Shallow? Yep! But I gotta say, a lot of these firefighters are way hawt, plus what they do automatically makes them hawt no matter what they look like!

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Thanks for the clarification FCM. Like I said, I have tons to learn about sewing, LOL. :slight_smile:

313

feed dogs and walking feet? no! the pusher and the flattener. there!

314

No way I’m trying to catch up on all this. We finished the first week (shortened - 3 days) of school with all of my 160 something (including the ones we contract) buses (10,400 kids) running like the middle of the year.

My people are incredible, I have a staff of 6 to run all that, and for most of the last couple weeks, they and I have been on 60+ hour weeks, some even more. I managed in the last 3 days to visit each of my 19 schools just to pop in and make an appearance. I had a few front office secretaries give me hugs - they get to deal with bus issues a lot, and they appreciated the job that was done, putting all that together so it worked that well, that soon. Often it’s a couple weeks before districts hit their stride - believe it or not, bus stuff can get pretty…oh, not complicated, but calls for a LOT of planning, trying pairings (Bus 1 does Rte 12 at a HS, then races to a Jr high, then runs to an elementary, we call that pairings - and there’s one hour between when the HS dismisses and the elementary schools.), and dealing with 14,000 last minute changes a day - like finding out on the day school starts that about 22 special ed kids that get door-to-door service, have day care at completely different addresses, clear across town from the one we had.

Today, when I made it back to the office after running around to see buses and schools for three hours, I saw NO voice mails waiting for me, and 3 e-mails: one spam, one a principal asking for a report from my routing program, and one from a parent whose problem I’d dealt with earlier in the day thanking me for arranging stuff so fast and telling me her daughter just walked in the door. On time.

I gotta do something nice for my people, because I walked around today getting hugs and kudos and such when they did all the work.

For me - it’s beeverage time.

315

Glad everything went so well, MBG.

I’m tired and it’s kinda late. Guess I should consider sleep.

Happy weekend everyone!

GT

316

Another drive-by. Another day of electricity rationing yesterday, so I took Noor with me to a friend’s place and went swimming. Will post pics when I get a copy off friend’s camera.

In other news, I just got a message from my Dad that my older sister is in hospital with suspected myocarditis. Waiting to find out more. Prayers appreciated.

Will post more later

317

Home. It was a long day, We had to do the Halloween changeover today. At least it went well. I stopped on the way home and bought vitamins(Buy one, get one free) and Alpo Chop House “fillet mignon” for Wondermutt.

Vbob, :eek: I hope you sic a good lawyer on 'em.

Roo, I let Lucretia live, but I bet Meow mein tastes like fishy chicken.

MamaTigs, great link. I remember rotary phones, too.

snowbunny, glad you are going to make it. You should ask if you can play with the firefighters hoses. <snerk>

rigs, a donut stick is a stick shaped donut. That web reminds me of that Far Side with the two spiders putting a web across a slide:“If this works, we’ll eat like kings!”

MBG, you get the blame if it goes wrong, take some credit for it going right.

{{{Dotty}}} I’ll keep sis in my prayers.

318

Morning, all!

**VBob **-- :eek: Hope things work out (and you get to kick some stupid ass in the process :mad: )

**Dotty **-- your sister is in my thoughts.

**MBG **-- good for you on a job well done. Now can you come over here and make them organize the (far smaller scale) busing for my kids’ school? :smack: :rolleyes: :mad:

Yay on seeing the sky and the mountains, SnowBunny! :slight_smile:

Where’s Roo today? You OK?

Everybody else – assorted boos and yays.

Where’s Roo this evening/morning? Miss you :slight_smile:

319

calls the wah-mbulance

320

Good Mornin’/Afternoon/Evenin’ Y’all! I’m up and caffienated. I’ve also been a busy bear. I’m sure I’ve mentioned the lady I call “Albeeny Mom” before. She’s a wonderful, sweet, funny member of my church who is turning 85 tomorrow. Anywho, since tomorrow is the first Sunday in the month that means brunch Sunday. So, we ordered a cake from Sam’s Club (what? they make great cakes!) for her birthday. She knows all about it cause she brought a picture to be used so her face will be on the cake. Plus she decided on a marble cake with green and white frosting. She was so cute pickin’ everything out! It should be a really pretty half sheet cake. Ok, now where was I, oh yeah. I’ve been a busy bear. I’ve made up some punch (mock champagne) and some tea to take over to the church later this mornin’ after I get ol’ y’all know who out of bed and purtified. Plus we have to pick up the cake. Since we’re gonna be there anyway, we’ll also set up for brunch, which is really kinda easy to do since there’s a “blueprint” if you will for doin’ so stuck up on the wall in the kitchen. That really makes it easy cause all ya gotta do is set things up according to the “blueprint”. Oh, and I made up a broccoli/chicken casserole for tomorrow too. It just needs to be baked later. After we do all this stuff we’ll have lunch at the good Chinese place. That’s how I [del]bribed[/del] will reward ol’ y’all know who for ropin’ him into doin the set up. Well, that and showin’ some “appreciation” later on. :wink: Did I mention I’m all caffienated? We’re talkin’ wired!

Dotty I’ll keep your sister and your family in my thoughts and prayers.

BBBobbio here’s hopin’ everything works out with the legal stuff. A lot of times it turns out not to be so complicated/involved/scary as it seems but still it can be a real PITA to get worked out.

It’s cloudy this mornin’ and may turn out to be a rainy day. I was hopin’ for pool time this afternoon after everything’s done but it don’t look like that will happen. I ain’t complainin’ though cause we still need the rain. It’s rained a good amount the past few days (three inches Thursday night!) and as a result, I have a nice healthy crop of toadstools in the back yard. Makes me wanna get out the sautee pan and some butter. :smiley:

Ok, y’all have fun today! I’ll check in later.

ETA: rigs this is what donut sticks look like.