No, it won’t involve more money - in the gummint, GS-13 is GS-13 and this position is maxed as a 13. But it won’t be as secret as my current job, which means I could end up boring you all with tales of my worklife. On the other hand, the testing involves blowing stuff up, which could be way cool.
I looked up a bit more about the branch - it’s very interesting. I’m intrigued.
Congratulations, swampy!
And taxi, too!
I have made tortillas. The kitchen is all floury. In half an hour I’ll get some chicken ready for making tacos. I don’t have any lettuce, but we’ll manage with salsa and cheese.
We went to a very nice small winery that does fruit wines to buy hard cider. Well, of course we went to a winery. There’s a vineyard every few feet around Niagara. Here’s the friendly website. Anyway, their cider is really good, and since we’re probably going back to visit again before Christmas, I’m thinking a bottle of their cherry or raspberry wine would be a lovely way to start my labour off. Having a couple of glasses is a midwife-recommended way of not tensing up in early labour.
Oh, hey. Here’s where we went for lunch. I felt all elegant and cultured. It’s very beautiful, and the food was gooooood. Oh, lord. I just looked at their room prices. Gahh. $400 a night for the basic rooms. This is why we don’t live in Niagara-on-the-Lake: we’re not bloody filthy rich.
Well, dang, blowin’ stuff up, who wouldn’t want that as a perq! 
I say go for it. I mean, how jake would it be that you could say at a dopefest, “my job involves blowin’ stuff up!” Everybody would be soooooo jealous!
LiLi fancy-schmancy place! Was the food good? Ok, so I have no idea what bein’ pregnant is like, but, I say, if a snort or two would get the kid on out, then it’s a good idea.*
*Please don’t hurt me Mumper wimmens!
Wow, swampy! That’s amazing news! But I think it’s really a good thing that you finally leveled with them. (But I’d watch how you talk to pregnant women, if I were you… :p)
And congrats on the house, taxi!
Wow, LiLi, I read your thread. I’m speechless. I vote we gang up on SIL and whap her upside the head with a clue by 4. Just think all the good things the MMP could do for the world. If it were up to my mother, I would never ever have chewed gum. Ever. That Inn looks beautiful, though. What did you eat?
Glad your Dad’s surgery went well, SO. I’m sure he’ll be thrilled to know that everyone you know who even has 1/2 a clue about this type of surgery says: do your exercises. Otherwise we’ll send snowbunny out there to enforce the PT requirements!
Speaking of whom: I remember reading somewhere back there that you were going to get out of the actual grooming side of things and try to get an additional job somewhere else. How’s that going? (IIRC you said you were going to talk to one of your connections on Thanksgiving?) Hope the apology you’re writing is unrelated to this.
One of the anecdotes above reminds me that I kept in touch by letter for years with a neighbor’s granddaughter. We didn’t write really regularly, but enough so that we’d have a fun time when she would come to visit her grandma. She had spent some time in Pakistan when she was really little, but then lived in Virginia (her dad worked for the gummint, of course, AID, I think). We were friends well into our teens. I don’t remember when I lost touch with her.
Lots more I could say, but I’m tired and I have to get up EARLY to get some stuff done before starting my all-day training/meeting, whatever you want to call it…
Hugs to all who need them.
GT
Swampy - 30 years ago, that was the right end of Illinois, now it’s the wrong end. Cairo (and learn how to speak southern Illinois-ish, you pronounce that like the corn syrup, not like the same city in Egypt) is a stones toss from where I went to college.
But way cool on the job front!
I don’t know what hit me today, but sometime around 3 pm today, I hit a WALL. I could barely keep my eyes open. I came home, and ‘napped’ for almost two hours. I still feel like someone pulled a plug on me.
Zzzzzzzz.
Congrats on your unemployment/temporary employment/potential reemployment, Swampy! Wow, that’s a day with HIGH DRAMA all right!!
Gorgeous inn, LiLi! And yes, I’d say a snort or two would be an excellent way to usher the kid into the world. Don’t worry, Swampy, I suspect any of us who have given birth would recommend anywhere from a snort to a bottle to help pop the kid out. It’s not most women’s idea of a fun time, if you hadn’t gathered. A little liquid anesthetic would be just the ticket!
Awww, Papa Tigs is so sweet. I mentioned to him that the old TV I use in my office is starting to die – it won’t respond to any remote at all any more, so I have to lean over and change volume/on/off manually (I change channels on the cable box, thank heaven) – so he just went online, since it’s Cyber Monday, and bought me a new, bigger TV for a song! Man, TV prices have sure dropped. As have the prices of so many things. He ordered it online, and tomorrow will run up to the Big Box and pick it up. I can’t wait, oh boy oh boy! Among other reasons this old TV is driving me nuts is that by not responding to any remote, I can no longer switch it to accept input from the DVD player. Which is annoying.
Off to do more work. I’ve been a Very Good Girl indeed today, but I still have a loooong way to go. Normally I hate EEO cases, but this one is the third case I’ve done involving the same supervisor at a federal agency that shall go unnamed, who by all accounts was a royal bastard of the first order. He was just ugly to anyone who wasn’t an older white male, by all accounts, and there have been enough independent descriptions of his actions from agency witnesses, too, to lead me to hope that his departure last year wasn’t entirely his own idea. I don’t mind working on an EEO case when there really was nasty, ugly, blatant discrimination; that’s what the system is there for.
I’m finally home! Did you all miss me?
SO, glad to hear that your dad is doing well.
Hooray for swampy!
Today was… Well, it was a day. There were tears, fighting, napping, and even some exercise thrown in. and now I’m off to finish my work for tomorrow.
**SO-**good on Dad.
Swampy–good on you. How empowering! But I’ll miss the line stories–it’s a wonder any beer got bottled…
Am off to bed. I really miss my Daily Show. Curses to whomever is holding up this writer’s strike from ending!
Howdy. I survived work, I get the next two days off. then I get to take over a new mess, just in time for Christmas. Next job, I’m just going to be mediocre. My new Canes jersey arrived today. My parents loved me best, but I was an only child.
CutiePie, naps are good.
Congrats swampy! Does this mean no free beer for me now?
FCM, gotta go for the KABOOM! job.
Ohhh-kay. Now that I’ve done it, come comment in my other thread that I just started. It’s about sex.
No, not hot vampire sex. Nor is it sex involving pie. Well, just check it out yourself and I’ll be sitting here embarassed and all. Ugh. I need to go to bed soon, anyways. Why, oh why am I sitting here composing threads instead of sleeping!!! :smack:
Apparently I’m not the only one in this business who’s a night owl. I just emailed a question to a woman I do some occasional work for – she’s started her own small reporting business after the collapse of that other firm last year – and, to my delight, got a response back immediately. It makes me feel better about working till the wee hours every night!
Thanks for the good thoughts, everybody… AFAIK (it’s only 8 AM day after surgery) things are still nominal (i.e., good). We’ll see how he takes to rehab – he was always a bit compulsive about doing things right, which should be a good trait in this situation!
**Swampy **-- sounds like you’ve upgraded yourself to way cooler employment than working for a [del]piss[/del] beer producer!
**Mooooom **-- blowing stuff up is way cool! Did it in my own military days; still miss it 
Go for it!
**CuteyPie **-- I don’t see why you should be embarrassed of that OP; I’m sure you’ll get some good ideas there. Unfortunately I’m clean out myself, or I’d chip in, too.
Also, if you’re still up and need a sounding board, I’m online, as usual at these hours.
**Taxi **-- yay!! on the new house!! (and yes, boo on the move – but it’s better than if you had to move between rentals.)
Appropriate and inappropriate sentiments all around for everybody else (choose whichever one you like better ;))
Oh, how could I forget – Good Morning, everybody!
Ahem! How quickly you forget!*
It’s Good night, everyone!
for another hour or so.
*You’d better watch for signs of other things that stop functioning well. 
Off from my first night of 2nd shift…
Very thought provoking OP. I probably should write more letters than I do. The carpal tunnel and arthritis in my hand is so bad that handwriting for more than a few minutes makes it ache for hours. Typing doesn’t cause the same problems, but it’s just not the same as a nice handwritten letter. My mother had the most beautiful handwriting…
SwampusBearus, I don’t blame you for leaving and it sounds like the timing was perfect. Hope you’ll be able to get over here for dinner and a game…
2nd shift is much much slower than 1st, and I don’t have any non-monitoring assignments yet so I get to read. Yah reading! I’m taking in books of short stories so I don’t have to worry about losing my place when a call comes in. Tonight we were talking about how much nicer the 911 operators are in small towns as opposed to big cities.
I got the best night’s sleep last night I have had in ages. I didn’t get much sleep either Friday or Saturday night because of hockey games and having to be at work at 8, which means getting up at 6. I went to bed at 2 Monday morning and slept until about 8, then turned over and slept until 12. It was lovely! Even Mr. SCL’s alarm going off didn’t wake me!
On Wednesday (my day off) I get to go in to watch the Snakes decorate glass ball Christmas tree ornaments to auction off as a fund-raiser. They ususally act kind of hacked off about doing it, but once they sit down and start they have fun. Then we feed them pizza.
Hope everyone has a great week!
What, Jerusalem is no longer The Center* of the World? I must have missed the memo… :eek:
*Yes, Boo, ems, and any other Brit-centrics here… I know it’s “centre.” Deal.
As long as it’s only the head that’s on top of my neck that’s mal-functioning, I’m OK with it 
ETA – sorry to hear about the Arthritis and CPS, **Snakes **
Isn’t there anything Modern Medicine can do, nowadays?
Well, once I have health insurance - the 1st of February - we will see. I was told several years ago after testing that I had moderate to severe nerve damage in my right hand/wrist. Typing (which is what I do at work) doesn’t seem to aggravate it as much as handwriting, so I don’t know if I will go for the surgery or not. Not soon at any rate; I have more pressing health issues to deal with first.
:eek: CPS and arthritis sound bad enough to me! Guess I’ve been lucky so far…
Sorry about your health problems
You sure about that? Or is it malfunctioning so badly that you don’t notice the rest?
You won’t know if you don’t check it out yourself, now will you?
Good morning, up and caffeinating already! I’ll get in to work early, which is good because I have to leave early for a drs. appt. I just have to remember to do a bit of meditation when I get there–believe it or not, it actually worked to lower my BP a bit.
Swampy, congrats on all the good news! At least the job at Miller kept you busy these past months; now it sounds like you’ll be back doing what you’re set to do. Good on you!
FCM, I say go for it too; most fed agencies do have flex time (we have some who start as early as 5:45 AM). BTW, I work for a division of Project Managers too–that doesn’t mean I understand their PM language, though.
I’d better go finish getting ready for work. Happy Tuesday all, and no… it isn’t Firday (thanks BioRosie) quite yet.
