MMP and Chill - Winter is Here

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
86

Pretty sure that’s true. Mud is certainly my impression of boiled peanuts.

Substantially all the Dopers who did not grow up in the USA find peanut butter to be disgusting.

Cheese is completely absent from Chinese cuisine. Many native Chinese find the idea, much less the flavor and texture, of cheese to be disgusting.

Chestnuts are that for me.


As to snow driving in general.

Remember that AWD / 4WD is all about going. Every car of every kind has 4-wheel stopping. Adding extra go when you don’t have extra stop is a recipe for slip slidin’ away. Ideally into a ditch, not into another innocent vehicle.


This.

Best of luck in averting the misguided layoff. And promptly beginning a real replacement job search while the layoff is forestalled.

IMO your current employer is very technologically backwards / primitive. You being in or adjacent to their IT structure sets you up to not survive any tech refreshing they may do. Many of the other IT workers there are in the same boat.

The new CEO is being stupidly shortsighted and/or recklessly impatient in removing you without a proven functioning replacement for your work. But rest assured there is a way for your work to be replaced by other less labor intensive (read “expensive”) means. So IMO any reprieve is temporary versus your remaining years to retirement.

87

Morning all. Up early and started the dishwasher so it’ll be done before my Drs. appointment at 1pm to get my refills. Don’t know how much else I’ll do today, the sun is out and brightly shining, but the temperature is only 35F and there was a ‘frosting’ on the lawn (not snow, just frozen dew/moisture) which is now disappearing, so no great need to go out. Need to make some travel arrangements so that should help fill my morning.

Just a quick note for Veteran’s Day: If you have a service that includes MeTV, which is mostly old TV shows from the 60’s-80’s, they are showing the two hour finale to M.A.S.H from 5-7pm Central time tonight. It remains the single most watched scripted TV show ever (some Super Bowls have passed it) and has held that record since 1983. So I know where I will be at that time…

----risk, welcome to the MMP, but just relax and listen to the flow of conversation here. We always welcome new Mumpers to the fold, so don’t worry if you got off to a bumpy start. Now we need to come up with a MMP name for you… And if you are somewhere that is still wearing cargo shorts and see a finch, it ain’t around my neck of the woods…

JtC, yeah, you can always tell the folks who haven’t driven in snowy conditions before or think their big/modified power cars can just muscle through–hey, physics works for everyone.

Sensei, while I am familiar with the product, I don’t believe I have ever tried Pocky in my lifetime. And hang in there, family life has there moments, it’ll all smooth out. Hope the split class helps both the kids and your sanity.

Don’t have a purse, but my keys are on a plate with my watch, billfold, and hearing aid box, but for some reason I pick up the rest and forget the keys. Odd.

Taters, happy biking!

Coppertone, whatever your political stance is, I am happy you’ll be getting your SNAP benefits, sooner rather than later I hope…

Reminds me of being in Abu Dhabi, UAE when it go to 65F. I was still in shirt sleeves and all the citizens were bundled up in coats; takes all kinds to make a planetary population…

Oopsie, hope today goes as planned. And I sit corrected, good work on your part!

Cookie, my rental car feud is with Alamo, so I can sympathize.

And that’s all for the morning report. Have a good 2sday all. Now back to my You Tubes and comics…

88

At 1030 right now it’s 56/13 here. I joked to GF over IM that but for her I’d already be making plans to decamp to e.g. Ecuador until mid March.

89

Kindof a Libertarian.

90

@LSLGuy : I’m the one who’s technologically backward. I’m using a programming language that’s about 55 years old. The thing is, it works.I cleaned up a file yesterday. Many of the names and addresses are truncated. In addition, the actual business name is often in the additional address field. Or the additional address field may have an additional business name. (Note: We don’t use the additional business name for this file.) Another file has job-site addresses in the address field, and business addresses in the additional address field. (Note: This one does use the additional name.) But not always. For both of these files, you just have to know the right names and addresses. My Easytrieve compares new data to the previous month’s data and does that. It’s short work to clean up any new accounts. But you still have to ‘just know’ what goes where. On my spreadsheet, one member’s note says ‘Code write-off accounts.’ It doesn’t say which accounts are write-offs. That’s in the Easytrieve… which whoever takes over won’t be able to use. (As a Good and Loyal Employee (formerly Team Member), I could send them all of the programs and let them find what they need.)

Anyway, TPTB have no idea of what needs to be done to create good data.

In other news, my wife and my ex-boss are telling me not to sign the severance agreement. It says, ‘In exchange for signing this agreement…’ They’re hung up on full PTO payout, which they’re required to give me by law. What they’re not paying attention to is the 10 weeks of severance pay that they don’t have to give me.

91

Understand and agree with all of that. Don’t want to clutter the MMP more than we have. I’m happy to yak via DM if that would be helpful to you.

92

And during their commute, I expect.

Chocolate anything is best! Well, except maybe for the waxy cheapo generic dollar store foil-rapped holiday “treats” but those don’t deserve to be called chocolate.

Back atcha!

Even if you don’t “believe” in science.

Well, the canvas covers have been sorted, tho I needed FCD’s help for some of it. We now have 2 bags - labeled KNOWN and UNKNOWN. We plan to install the known covers, which should make it clear where the unknown covers go. Theoretically. But none of that will happen till the boat is back in the water.

Now that my morning chore is done, I need to find something else to do. Do I crochet or play tablet games? Decisions, decisions. Oh, and while rooting around downstairs, I discovered that we have a metric butt-ton of extension cords! Most are just 2-prong. I’ll offer some to Daughter, but I expect the rest will go to the thrift store. And I need to come up with a place upstairs to store a few for us. It seems we can never find one when we need it.

Hey - it’s after 11. When one has breakfast before 7, one is hungry around 11. Off to forage!

93

Watching the Remembrance Day ceremony in Ottawa:

94

Thank you to our veterans!

Chestnuts aren’t nut-like. I like boiled peanuts, too.

95

It went much worse than expected. Honestly to the point of it almost coming round into being funny.
Rant:

Summary

My PhD is an odd setup; I’m working at a research instutute, in Scotland, while the university I’m officially registered at is in England, over 300 miles away and I’ve visited twice, in 3 years. This muppet is from the uni. He happens to know a few people in the group I work with, who all hate him, but he’s only ever been to the site I work at a few times on brief visits, and he doesn’t know my actual supervisors or the site culture at all.

With that background: he ripped into everything.

He spent the first 20 minutes ranting at me for not already analysing a dataset that I literally was only given access to last week, then spent the rest of the time complaining about everyone, and asking me what my plans are for a range of increasingly weird and unlikely scenarios. What if my supervisors start arguing over my thesis and can’t agree on corrections? What if the company paid to sequence my samples refuse to do so?

Neither of these are quite ‘what will you do if a plague of frogs invade the lab and eat your samples?’ level in unlikeliness, but not far off.

Other highlights included claiming my primary supervisor (who he’s never met) isn’t qualified to support me through the project, based solely on googling her name.

My second supervisor, (who he has met but doesn’t really know) is also not suitable for the project as he has too much experience so will be too busy.

He claimed the site I am on has terrible support for the work I need to be doing, so I will be stuck and unable to finish. I’ve been on training programmes to do exactly what I have planned, for which I still have access to the full notes plus contact details for the people who ran the course.

I also have had offers of help from maybe 10 people on site who work on similar projects, including several I even hang round with outside of work and can just drop round their office if needed, plus online we have both an active general IT group including many people working on similar projects and a group specific to the data type I’m working with, both of which are there for the purpose of mutual support and problem solving.

The uni equivalent is a once-a-week two-hour drop-in session, which I have online access to anyway.

When I said I thought he underestimated how much support there was available here, he flat out told me I was wrong and I simply didn’t understand how hard it was going to be.

Most enfuriatingly, when he was asking what I was going to do with the data, it was phrased in a way that actually made it clear that he doesn’t even do the initial analysis stages himself, he clearly pays the sequencing company to do it.

Anyway, I was just too angry after that meeting to do lab work after that mess, so I gave up and came home early, on advice of several staff members.

The car’s going in for the annual MOT tomorrow, so I won’t be coming in then either- the garage is close to the local uni, so I can hang round one of their buildings and parasitise their WiFi while I wait.

Come to think of it, I probably should have mentioned that to someone today so they don’t assume I’ve run away into the woods.

Oh, and ironically I don’t like nuts; peanuts are OK if they’re roasted or coated and peanut butter is fine, in sweet foods I can tolerate praline, but nuts ruin chocolate for me and I don’t think they actually improve anything. Chestnuts are bland but acceptable if they’re with other stuff.

96

It was good for me, I used up my daily quota of really bad words before I made it to my desk and had only kinda bad and not really bad words left.

97

Well, the veterans event went fine. The activities person put some work into it and it was well attended. Cruella was there, but said nothing. She greeted some of the women, but said nothing to any of the veterans there. She really is a piece of work.

98

And the snowbirds keep reassuring themselves that by gosh, I can drive on snowy roads in Kansas, I’ll be fine in the mountains of Arizona!. We had to deal with those dipsticks in Tennessee too.

A thank you to all of the Mumpers who served.

I rescheduled my appointment this afternoon for Friday. About 0430 after a somewhat feverish night, getting up about every 45 minutes and something that felt like I’d been kicked on the lower right side of my back, I called Sis and she took me to the ER. After bloodwork, they concluded that I was recovering from e.coli and had a raging kidney infection. They put some IV antibiotics into me and sent a couple of 'scrips to the pharmacy (which I’m about to go pick up) and told me to follow up later in the week to my PCP.

I napped after coming home and am fixing to get out of jammies to hit the pharmacy drive thru.

Stay safe and healthy y’all!

99

In unfamiliar rental cars!

Like you, I got really good at figuring out which cars I did NOT want to drive near.

Dang about the kidney infection, but remember that you don’t have to change out of pajamas to go to the pharmacy drive through. I’m fairly sure you would be the first or even hundredth person to show up wearing jammies.

100

Despite all the Blueberries, I went from the 300 Slide, to Secondary Sort, to loading in Blue 128, and back to the 300 Slide. Also, it was cold. I had my poke, egg, and cheese mcmuffin, now it’s naptime till hockey.

Happy Pocky Day(I’ll have to try some next month)!

OK, I’m not the only one.

Time to settle this in Mumper Thunderdome!

But how can people not like solidified rancid milk? :cow: :cheese_wedge:

You don’t have a contingency plan for that? :wink: But sorry you had to deal with the power mad unitwit.

:open_mouth:
Feel better!

101

I always say that drivers in Saskatchewan are some of the best winter drivers in the world – in January, February and March.

Then summer comes, they forget all their skills, and October and November can be hell on wheels for a while, until they get their driving skills back.

102

Because of various cancellations for illness, I have a really irritating schedule today with two hours of teaching scattered across six and a half hours at work. Unexpected time off is fine at home where I can do productive things or at least have relaxing unproductiveness, but I have no idea what to do with myself at work outside of a little admin work. It’s just not a conducive atmosphere.

After that, symphony rehearsal (preparing Messiah, which the symphony does approximately every other year).

103

For every rule there in an exception. My friend from Brazil moved back to Brazil and hasn’t been able to find chestnuts. They are one of the few foods she misses from here.

I do agree though, that sometimes it’s best to cut one’s losses and through the offending food away or to the birds.

FB in Chrome is also being weird. I think it’s FB. It’s not us. :innocent:

You first! Hope the new meds finally take care of the crud.

And I’m sorry that there’s no pharmacy in the hospital, making you go someplace else for the meds you need.

My coworker from Shanghai tried fondue the last time she was here. She said it tasted like some of the traditional medicine she’s had in China. One bite was enough for her.

I finally met up with the subject matter expert for my next project, so now I can get started. Except the next person I need to talk to is only in the office for 8 more days this year. So I’m not going to get very far on that part of the project. And I still have to navigate between “an email’s plenty” from manager A and “needs 10 PowerPoint slides” from manager B. Gotta love standards - we have so many. :winking_face_with_tongue:

I managed to find the coat I wanted to order on-line, and because today is Singles Day (first I heard of it), I got 22% off.

Switzerland doesn’t observe Veteran’s Day or Remembrance Day today, but around here, it’s the beginning of Carnival, which starts at 11 am on 11.11.

For those who served, thank you. :us:

104

whoa! that went from 0-1000 right quick. i hope you feel better soonest.

105

Seconded! Good thing you have a sister so helpful. Hope things pick up soon.