Rant VII: Now With 25% Less Drama

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I would let her sink, and it's totally in my personality to do so, HOWEVER...

My boss is retiring in the next 3 years (He has the countdown clock on his wall) and as part of the company's planning for that retirement, he has to choose possible replacements. Her and I are those possibilities, and he's indicated to many people that she needs a lot of work to be considered. There's no sense in me not being the team player, especially as my position includes supporting her initiatives (IE doing all the work that actually accomplish the ideas she comes up with while taking her morning poop). I can be magnanimous for now and rant to you peeps, and then fire hire when I get promoted.

I will add I have told my boss many times that she's useless, not doing any work, etc. My boss has a thing for blondes unfortunately. And he's too nice a guy to tell people (other than me) that they need to step up. Me on the other hand, he's perfectly happy giving me the gears over stupid shit that he actually messed up. (that's a whole other rant)
 
M

makare

That friend of my mom's who is losing their house to the flood just got their pickup stolen last night. Sigh. It had the husbands wallet in it and a power generator in the back. They are completely crushed now.
 
That friend of my mom's who is losing their house to the flood just got their pickup stolen last night. Sigh. It had the husbands wallet in it and a power generator in the back. They are completely crushed now.
Seriously?! Who the fuck does shit like that? Stupid opportunistic shit heads. We're supposed to come together to help our neighbors in need, not sneak in alone and steal the only tools they have to get their belongings out of a soon-to-be flooded house. Hopefully their community can rally around and help them out, if they have anything left to give.

Sorry, I might be a city boy now, but I grew up in the country, where people will drop everything to help a neighbor in need. Or, hell, to help someone they've never even met, who looks like they might be in need. And I just can't stand this sorta crap. You don't stab someone in the back when they're already on their knees from a heavy burden, it just isn't done.
 
M

makare

That was actually the worst part. They were so broken at the prospect of losing their house but so many people came to help them sand bag and move everything out that it really bolstered them and made them feel good. Then the truck was stolen and all of that good feeling was gone. I swear my mother could kill whoever stole it with her own bare hands.
 

North_Ranger

Staff member
Got the news... Didn't get picked in that job interview I had been preparing for. Instead they gave a full-year substitution to a guy who had graduated the frickin' day before and had no on-the-job experience.

Vittu.
 

Dave

Staff member
I would let her sink, and it's totally in my personality to do so, HOWEVER...

My boss is retiring in the next 3 years (He has the countdown clock on his wall) and as part of the company's planning for that retirement, he has to choose possible replacements. Her and I are those possibilities, and he's indicated to many people that she needs a lot of work to be considered. There's no sense in me not being the team player, especially as my position includes supporting her initiatives (IE doing all the work that actually accomplish the ideas she comes up with while taking her morning poop). I can be magnanimous for now and rant to you peeps, and then fire hire when I get promoted.

I will add I have told my boss many times that she's useless, not doing any work, etc. My boss has a thing for blondes unfortunately. And he's too nice a guy to tell people (other than me) that they need to step up. Me on the other hand, he's perfectly happy giving me the gears over stupid shit that he actually messed up. (that's a whole other rant)
Send her an email with the answer. BCC your boss. Do this every time you have to help her.
 

figmentPez

Staff member
I hate being reminded of how fragile my health is. I was feeling pretty strong today. Got in the pool for a while to enjoy the sun. Was able to fix my own dinner. Generally taking care of stuff.

Then I was carrying a tray of stuff up to my room and the water bottle decided to topple over. Just a little spilled tea into my nighttime meds, but the shock knocked me for a loop. I could barely walk afterwards just because my endocrine system is so out of whack it can't handle simple stuff like that.

It's nice to be making positive progress, but days like this one make me feel like normal isn't even a dot on the horizon yet.
 
I hate being reminded of how fragile my health is. I was feeling pretty strong today. Got in the pool for a while to enjoy the sun. Was able to fix my own dinner. Generally taking care of stuff.

Then I was carrying a tray of stuff up to my room and the water bottle decided to topple over. Just a little spilled tea into my nighttime meds, but the shock knocked me for a loop. I could barely walk afterwards just because my endocrine system is so out of whack it can't handle simple stuff like that.

It's nice to be making positive progress, but days like this one make me feel like normal isn't even a dot on the horizon yet.
Hang in there, man. One day at a time...
 
W

Wasabi Poptart

I want a do over. It's our 7th anniversary. He's working and I won't see him until tomorrow evening. I have had a headache for 2 days thanks to "the vog", or sulfate aerosols, from the big island's volcanoes. My son knocked into my relatively new laptop with his face while trying to vault over the couch. He's fine. The laptop landed flat on it's bottom on a tile floor and now it's giving me an I/O error when I try to use it. Then he went on to try to eat his sister's piece of cinnamon toast while she was eating it (as in he was trying to get a bite when she had it up to her own mouth). All he needed to do is say he wanted some toast, too. I am annoyed to say the least.
 
W

Wasabi Poptart

The only reason it wasn't hilarious at the time is because he always sneaks her food if she isn't eating it right now. This was like he took it up a notch by trying to get it while she was eating. It's like I have puppies!
 
The only reason it wasn't hilarious at the time is because he always sneaks her food if she isn't eating it right now. This was like he took it up a notch by trying to get it while she was eating. It's like I have puppies!
I recommend duct tape for all your minor child-rearing problems.
 
What should have been a simple train from Rome to Trieste followed by a bus from Trieste to Ljubljana to get to my hostel ended up taking 5 trains, a taxi, and a short walk due to incompetence on Trenitalia's part, inaccurate information on the Trieste bus station's website, and Italians generally not liking to work on Sundays.

I did, however, make it here.

Oh, and my brother's on heroin again. Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay.
 
@Baer: I feel your pain on the trains in Italy. And I'm sorry to hear about your brother... hopefully he'll be able to pull himself up again...

@GS: I'm sorry, man. Condolences...
 
Mom just sent an email stating her plans, funeral is on wednesday, so she's going down tomorrow to help out however she can. She ended the email with, "Keep your great uncle Shelley in
your thoughts and prayers. After 57 years of marriage, he is alone tonight."

I had gotten back to a level of normalcy, but after that I am super depressed. :(
 

Dave

Staff member
I feel for your great uncle, man.

My rant: Thanks a lot, South fucking Dakota! What's so special up there that they have to save it at the cost of flooding 6 other states?
 

Dave

Staff member
A series of dams that could be destroyed by the built up water pressure and then all the places down stream would REALLY be boned?

Got an issue, get a tissue or contact http://www.usace.army.mil
That site tells me little. And there are a LOT of questions about the way that they handled this.

Why now? Why wait so long? And don't give me that crap about the dams breaking because that's not the issue. The issue is that they are attempting to alleviate the flooding in Pierre and Fort Pierre at the expense of everyone else. Maybe this is the best way to handle it, but it's frustrating to have friend losing their houses from a man-made disaster that their insurance won't cover. A natural disaster is unavoidable, but the Corps of Engineers screwed the pooch on this one.
 
M

makare

Really? I wouldn't know anything about that. Especially since I haven't been talking about the horrible toll this flood has taken on Pierre and especially Fort Pierre. I haven't been talking about the loss both financially and culturally to these places, the friends who have nothing now because they are "losing their houses from a man-made disaster that their insurance won't cover", the loss of my own personal job, or anything else. I haven't said a damn thing.
 
That site tells me little. And there are a LOT of questions about the way that they handled this.

Why now? Why wait so long? And don't give me that crap about the dams breaking because that's not the issue. The issue is that they are attempting to alleviate the flooding in Pierre and Fort Pierre at the expense of everyone else. Maybe this is the best way to handle it, but it's frustrating to have friend losing their houses from a man-made disaster that their insurance won't cover. A natural disaster is unavoidable, but the Corps of Engineers screwed the pooch on this one.
Without the work of the corp of engineers, those places would have flooded every 25 years, and this particular flood would have been much, much worse.

In the best year all they can do is attempt to direct the flow of the river to the ocean with only minor flooding.

On bad years, such as this, they have to relieve the pressure where the pressure builds up. While the river is connected, relieving the pressure up in SD isn't going to help a thousand miles to the south where the rain is coming down.

I'll admit I haven't spent a lot of time looking at the flooding this year, but all you need to do is check out the rain maps for this year, and tell me that flooding anyplace in SD would have made a whit of difference.

I'm sorry for the loss that so many people are enduring, but:

IF YOU BUILD IN A FLOOD PLAIN, AND THE ARMY CORP OF ENGINEERS PROTECTS IT FROM NORMAL SEASONAL FLOODING FOR DECADES, DON'T COMPLAIN WHEN THEY TELL YOU, "SORRY, THERE'S TOO MUCH FREAKING WATER AND WE'RE DOING THE BEST WE CAN. THIS YEAR YOU LOSE. WE'LL TRY TO DO BETTER NEXT YEAR."

Because, hey. It's a flood plain.

It's horrible to lose everything.

But it's like living in Kansas and complaining to NOAA that there are tornados, or Californians complaining to the USGS about earthquakes.

Do you really expect uncle sam to be able to control the weather? The earth's geological cycle?

If you know you can control the mississippi better than the army corp of engineers, I strongly suggest you get yourself over there and start telling them your plan to control the river. They would LOVE to have a fool-proof plan that can withstand the 100 year floods. Right now they're really barely able to handle the 25 year floods, but if you've got what it takes, by all means help them out.

While you're at it, look into giving people more notice for Tornados and earthquakes. We also need a method to direct and dissipate hurricanes before they make landfall. And that whole climate change thingy is just getting out of hand - maybe you could help out there too.

In short - your anger is misdirected. There may well be some truth in the idea that there is some political wrangling going on here, and if so I hope that you continue to cast light on it and hold them accountable.

But there's no single silver bullet that could have prevented the flooding that they had to allow.

Emphasis on "allow" - nature did the flooding, they simply directed it as best they could.

Maybe we should just blow up all the levees, dams, and control structures and let the mississippi loose again. It's really silly for us to try to control something like that.

/rant
Added at: 12:33
Wait, this is the rant thread. I take back my /rant. I may need it later...
 
Here's a rain map, btw:

http://water.weather.gov/precip/

Click on the selection box on the lower left for "Timeline:" and choose "Last 90 days".

See that big red angry splotch? The one that indicates that the central mississippi valley received between 20-30 inches in 90 days? You can't push that water upriver magically and somehow disperse it north of where the water got into the river in the first place. The rain came so fast that even if you flooded in the north to lower the pressure in the south, it wouldn't be enough to make a difference - and that's assuming you have a month's advance notice on how much rain there's going to be and where.

You can click on "Departure from normal" to see that this is 12-20 inches more than what they usually get every year, and it's not just over a small part of the land, it's a huge area.

It's a lot of water. A mind bogglingly large amount of water.

I sympathize with the plight of those whoa re affected by this, but I do not sympathize with their belief that it's due to mismanagement that they are getting flooded. It's a not-in-my-back-yard syndrome. Who, if not them, should we flood, keeping in mind that you have to flood near where the rain is occurring - it can't magically occur north or south of it very far.
 
One of coworkers is leaving and I was hoping I could move in an take his spot. It would give me a promotion as well as a decent ay raise. Well it looks like they are going to try and get away without hiring anyone to replace him when he leaves and so no promotion/raise for me and on top of that I probably will have more work to do myself since I am assuming that it will trickle down to me since other people are going to have to work harder to cover for the lack of his position.
 
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