Saturday, December 15, 2007

The Winter Has Arrived

Hoo Dee Hooooo! Hey Cooterinos, what's the good word? The good word here is paid overtime, although with the Good comes the Bad. Bad? Yeah, you still have to work the extra hours to get paid for them.


A Whirlwind Wrapped in a Firestorm

Lately I've been working myself to the bone, and it's been both invigorating and annoying. The invigoration comes from having a job to do that keeps me busy all day. No more looking at the clock and wondering if someone unplugged it. Nope, by the time I glance at the time it's half an hour into my lunch.

The annoyance factor comes from not being wicked busy by choice. I also get the impression that no matter how much I get done and how quickly I get it done it's not enough and I should be working harder. That manifested itself in me working two days' worth of overtime this weekend.

This was supposed to be our Friday off, but I was in the office (along with a few other guys on the project) both Friday and Saturday. The nice thing about working when you're not obligated to be there is that you can just put your nose to the grindstone and pump out gads of work. There are no people coming by to chat, no people rife with questions, no people hanging around your desk while they wait for the guy next to you to become available. Nope, the only people who are in the office are people who want to get the work done and get the hell out, with no bullshit.

So now that I've worked 16 extra hours this week I am spending my one weekend day planning how to remove that extra cash from my checking account. I've put some of it into a new CompactFlash card for my new camera, and some into a reader for said card so I won't have to dick around connecting to the camera itself. I'm sure I'll find a use for the rest.


A Hailstorm of Snow

The weather folks and rumor mill have been predicting doomsday quantities of snow for this weekend, which I have yet to see. Yeah, we got some snow and yeah, it was a bitch to shovel (even with my brand new shovel), but it was no big deal. My favorite part of snowstorms is the reaction people have to them.

Inevitably, you see some poor woman trying to plow her Honda Civic through the foot and a half of heavy, slushy snow at the bottom of her driveway. She'll sit there for five minutes flooring the gas and wondering why she isn't going anywhere. From an observer's vantage point it's clear: your front wheels are suspended 8" above the pavement by the mountain of snow you just drove into.

Then there's the guy who drives extra fast because his 4WD vehicle will allow him to accelerate with impressive ease, not thinking that slowing 3 tons of truck may not happen with that same ease.

Then there's me, driving along with not a flake of snow on my car (because I'm anal about clearing the snow off, and I park in a garage) at a speed the Department of Transportation could write about in a Driver's Ed textbook. Yeah, I have AWD but I prefer not to slide sideways into a telephone pole. Plus, I'm too busy watching people clear their driveways with what I consider to be horrible inefficiency.


Overkill vs. Underkill

Each time I head outdoors to clear my driveway, I am amused by the other people doing the same. I head out, shovel in hand, and start digging away at the snow, tossing it 10 feet atop a retaining wall, and moving along in silent introspection.

The lady across the street has one of those flimsy $7.38 shovels that you buy to build jumps at the local sledding hill. The shovel lasts long enough for you to build one jump, then it shatters into a million pieces because it's not meant for use in the cold. Fortunately, she also has an electric snowblower that's fine and dandy as long as you don't overload it with multiple snowflakes. Failing to grasp the mechanics of the thing, she repeatedly slams it into the snow in front of her causing it to stall. This results in a pleasant whirring sound that I am beginning to equate with winter.

The third level of overkilling shows up as the guys across and down the street who have those big honkin' gas-powered snowblowers complete with enclosure. These snowblowers could clear a football field in minutes if the guys could keep them running that long. I'm not sure what they do, but these guys manage to stall the freaking things every minute or so. They then spend the next five to ten minutes trying to get them restarted and warmed back up. And never mind that they only have to clear 40 feet of sidewalk and a two-car driveway. What's even better is that they live in adjacent houses. If they just worked out a system they could alternate and add years to their lives.

Today was a perfect example of how over- and under-kill the machines are. As I ate my pancakes and sipped my coffee I heard the familiar whirring of the neighbor's snowblower. I peeked outside and saw her using it much like she would a very heavy shovel, plowing it into the snow. I then saw the two guys down and across the street setting up base camp in preparation for their morning of snowblowing. I continued to sip my coffee.

Around 11:00 or so I threw on some long johns (which would prove to be a mistake), jeans and a sweatshirt and headed out to shovel the snow. I could see that my neighbors were still working, and still struggling. By about 11:30 - 11:45 I had the driveway cleared, and the lady across the street had traded the electric-powered shovel for the back-powered one. The two guys across and down the street were dueling, with their chutes aimed at each other. They probably figured as long as they kept moving the snowblowers wouldn't stall. I guess they were right, but in my mind if they just picked up a shovel they would have been inside and warm hours ago.


Time For a Project

Now that I've had my new camera for a week or so, I think it's time for a project. I'd like to take a course or at least follow a program so I can get some useful experience but I don't see that happening. In the mean time, my cats are getting a little annoyed with the strobing flash.

Binners - Not Amused



Over and Out,
Old Coot

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"Something inside of me just said 'Hey, wait a minute, I want to beat him.' and I just took off." -Pre