You leave Jack Burton alone! He showed...great courage. We are in his debt!
The Road Department gives no quarter...although you can still manage to come out a few ahead if you know where to look. This past Friday was Dan's last day (as well as that of the other two remaining summer helpers), so the good folks of the MCRD decided to have us a pizza party "retirement dinner." Pretty rad day. We worked half the day and came in for lunch - Van Newberry, county judge executive, made one of his appearances. I sat next to him at the table whilst Dan sat next to the inmate on the couch - kind of a microcosmic picture of our general condition. :-P
Van's absolutely hilarious, and happens to be a fan of playing quarters. Dan offered to spot him a quarter, and ended up starting a round of the game. Dan entered in with a coin borrowed from Spears, and came out 75 cents richer after repaying his beneficiary. Nice.
This week our wonderful management has been particularly grumpy. They wrangled in Spears for "breaking the chain of command"; that is, going to the courthouse to get copies of the county blue book that has rules of employment in it...which is a matter of public record, and was also falsely promised months ago, more than once, to the guys. Also, two days ago they told the guys to vote on whether or not to work 6-2 instead of 7-3 "to get out of the heat", even though you would really have to show up at about four in the morning to make any kind of real difference there. The guys voted 8-3 against it, and the next day Gay and Perry decreed that they were ignoring the vote and instating heat relief anyway. As road supervisor, Gay has the right to set our work hours, but I just don't see why he bothered with the vote. He's not making many friends this way.
Three days last week, we worked on a thoroughfare known as Shadetree Road. It's quite the misnomer; there's not a single drop of shade on the whole road. One day I was loading the "tamper"...allow me an aside. I don't know if that's the real name of this thing, but that's what we call it. I bloody well know the "porta-power" isn't really called that. Anyway, the tamper is a little thing that you push around that applies eight tons of pressure to the ground below it, which we use to pack gravel and such. Anyway, I was shoving it into my truck bed, and discovered quite rapidly that certain parts of it get pretty hot. Actually, I didn't really notice the burn until a few minutes later; I guess dead nerves were the culprit there. I got to fumbling around the back of my pickup for a first aid kit, and for an eon or two could only find the bloodborne pathogens kit, and fluid cleanup wasn't high on my priorities list. Finally, I found it. I came up with a quick-cold pack, a packet of burn ointment, and some gauze. From that was born my ghetto bandage. It took at least five minutes for me to break the cold pack open, and after I'd wrapped the ointment-coated gauze around my wrist I realized that I had nothing to cut it with. After feverishly rifling through the truck for naught, I ended up just sawing it off on a nearby sign post. It left a nice little tinge of rust on the one end.
In other injurious categories, my shoulder finally seems to have fully recovered from my ghastly frisbee accident. Ridiculous.
Finally got the Paper Thin DVD...but only Act 1. Gah!
My laptop is being revived, bit by bit, and I think it should be ready for action come the semester's start. One can hope.
Meanwhile, I'd best toddle off to Nick's. Time to hang out with some of the old Heath gang...
-Aaron
"It's like I told my last wife: I never drive faster'n I can see, and besides...it's all in the reflexes."
-Jack Burton (Kurt Russell in 'Big Trouble in Little China')
Van's absolutely hilarious, and happens to be a fan of playing quarters. Dan offered to spot him a quarter, and ended up starting a round of the game. Dan entered in with a coin borrowed from Spears, and came out 75 cents richer after repaying his beneficiary. Nice.
This week our wonderful management has been particularly grumpy. They wrangled in Spears for "breaking the chain of command"; that is, going to the courthouse to get copies of the county blue book that has rules of employment in it...which is a matter of public record, and was also falsely promised months ago, more than once, to the guys. Also, two days ago they told the guys to vote on whether or not to work 6-2 instead of 7-3 "to get out of the heat", even though you would really have to show up at about four in the morning to make any kind of real difference there. The guys voted 8-3 against it, and the next day Gay and Perry decreed that they were ignoring the vote and instating heat relief anyway. As road supervisor, Gay has the right to set our work hours, but I just don't see why he bothered with the vote. He's not making many friends this way.
Three days last week, we worked on a thoroughfare known as Shadetree Road. It's quite the misnomer; there's not a single drop of shade on the whole road. One day I was loading the "tamper"...allow me an aside. I don't know if that's the real name of this thing, but that's what we call it. I bloody well know the "porta-power" isn't really called that. Anyway, the tamper is a little thing that you push around that applies eight tons of pressure to the ground below it, which we use to pack gravel and such. Anyway, I was shoving it into my truck bed, and discovered quite rapidly that certain parts of it get pretty hot. Actually, I didn't really notice the burn until a few minutes later; I guess dead nerves were the culprit there. I got to fumbling around the back of my pickup for a first aid kit, and for an eon or two could only find the bloodborne pathogens kit, and fluid cleanup wasn't high on my priorities list. Finally, I found it. I came up with a quick-cold pack, a packet of burn ointment, and some gauze. From that was born my ghetto bandage. It took at least five minutes for me to break the cold pack open, and after I'd wrapped the ointment-coated gauze around my wrist I realized that I had nothing to cut it with. After feverishly rifling through the truck for naught, I ended up just sawing it off on a nearby sign post. It left a nice little tinge of rust on the one end.
In other injurious categories, my shoulder finally seems to have fully recovered from my ghastly frisbee accident. Ridiculous.
Finally got the Paper Thin DVD...but only Act 1. Gah!
My laptop is being revived, bit by bit, and I think it should be ready for action come the semester's start. One can hope.
Meanwhile, I'd best toddle off to Nick's. Time to hang out with some of the old Heath gang...
-Aaron
"It's like I told my last wife: I never drive faster'n I can see, and besides...it's all in the reflexes."
-Jack Burton (Kurt Russell in 'Big Trouble in Little China')