Mentoring

So something wonderful has happened at work.  We hired a couple new nurses.  For the purposes of this writing lets call them H and B.  They're both guys, they're both in their second career, and while I haven't asked their age I believe both are in their 40s.

Sound familiar?

First and foremost, it's wonderful having an almost fully staffed nursing service.  For too long now we've been short handed with people either out on long term sick leave, or recent transfers and retirees.  We're still missing one 'first' shift nurse as well as a third shift nurse... but neither of those positions really affect me (well, the third shift one does, but I'll talk about that and the end of this post).

Between me hiring in and these two new RNs, the prison has hired four other RNs.  All four of them came in with more experience than me.  One has worked in corrections for ten years or so (five at this very facility), one has worked in corrections for four years and been an RN for almost twenty.  One was still fairly new, but she had a years experience at this facility before leaving to have a baby.  The other one had no corrections experience, and in fact had no experience with nursing in America, but had worked as an RN for twenty or so years in eastern Europe.  But these two RNs... well their story matches up with mine a year ago.

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

FOOTBALL!!!!

Yes yes, its that time of year again.  Take your Birthday, Christmas, Memorial Day, Labor Day, and Vacation.  Wrap them all up together and you'll get an idea of just how excited I am today.  It's only been building up since January!

Technically the college football season started this past Thursday when Texas A&M upset South Carolina, but Saturday's during the season are more sacred.  More special.

I awoke this morning at 6am.  Not too early for me, but it was a day off and I had only gotten about 5 hours of sleep.  My first thought was something along the lines of "fuck this, i'm going back to sleep", followed almost immediately by "IT'S FOOTBALL DAY!!!"

So I jumped out of bed and began the day.  By getting up this early I could ensure that I could peruse the web, get some coffee in me, go over my picks for this week's games, clean up a bit, shit/shower/shave, and be ready at 9 am for College Game Day.  The rest of the day will be spent in front of the boob toob watching college student atheletes playing the glorioust of glorious games;

FOOTBALL!!!!

I'm either a nurse or I'm not

So Friday after work I had another scare.  While getting under way I got a text from my brother... Mom is in the hospital ER.

The news really took me by surprise as I had just seen her 9 hours previous and so far as I'd known there wasn't anything going on.

Well... nothing NEW going on.  Her hernia is getting worse and will probably need to be addressed sooner rather than later, but that wouldn't send her to the ER in a matter of hours.  There is always her pace maker to consider... it DID fire off earlier this year.  But her new anti-arrhythmia medicine should help avoid that.  There shouldn't be much that could quickly happen in 9 hours that involves her ongoing issues.  So my first thought was that she fell and broke something.   Not a good situation at her age or general health, but not as bad as a lot of things could be.

So I called and found out that Mom believe she has a bowel obstruction.  She'd actually suspected it before I left for work but didn't want to 'worry' me and hoped that it would just go away.  I should add that she's had previous experience with bowel obstructions, so when she suspects it I need to sit up and take her seriously.

One step can be one step to far

I knew this day would come.  Her echo is back.

Caitlyn

It had to come eventually.  When I first posted my 'goodbye' post on Caitlyn's Masks, I vowed that I'd "Stay Away" from anything Caitlyn for at least one month.  No posting, no attempts at capping, no commenting.... nothing.

At least nothing on an 'active' scale.  I would still visit blogs, read caps, and most importantly read posts from other cap artists.  But I wouldn't lest myself interact.  It would have been just too easy to slip back into that mask and try and speak with her voice.

So I went quiet.  Like the submarine from Red October.  I'd become what I was before Caitlyn... a lurker. But eventually that would have to end, and for two very good reasons.  1) I want to ensure that the Masks blog stays up.  2) I want to interact with my friends... just not as Caitlyn or any imitation of her.  So eventually I'd want to comment on someone's blog.  Eventually I'd want to update the blog.  At that point I'd face the spectre... the echo.. of Caitlyn again.

That time is now.

The whining continues...

So in the previous post I complained about Spirit air and promised to complain about Netflix.  Here's that issue:

My family seemingly has always been proud TV viewers.  I recall being a child that my nickname seemed to be 'Remote Control', as I was the one tasked with changing the channel.  Thank God there was only about five channels and channel surfing wasn't yet in vogue.

Even without a remote control, our TV was fairly glorious back then.  I don't recall the size, but it was big, it had a beautiful wooden case, and even had the full VHW channel dial.

But back then, that was about all there was to having a good television.  Have it big, have it in a good looking case, and ensuring that you could get all the different channels.  Ever so slowly as the television landscape evolved, we've added more and more accessories.  The first was the VCR.  I remember those heady days when VHS had beaten back the superior Betamax foe.  It was a Christmas gift from Grandpa and we suddenly added 'going to the Video Rental store' to our lexicon.

Excuse me while I whine about having enough money to travel via jet aircraft and lazily stream movies from the interwebs right into my big screen television and home theater system

If you don't get what the image is, just search google for 'first world problems'.  Yeah... I have problems that I really shouldn't ever EVER complain about.

But I'm going to complain about them none the less!

Before I get into the meat of this rant/post, I do want to point out that my life is wonderful.  Every complaint I have I would still take over real world problems like hunger, hatred, war, disease, and other assorted issues.  I work, I have enough money to live my life, I am loved, and I love.  In the grand scheme of things I am doing well and should always sing the praises of my life.

But then again, I'm a natural complainer, and complainers will always complain.  So this post is dedicated to my increasingly expensive addiction to netflix streaming service and the horror show that is Spirit Airlines.  Let's go ahead and start with Spirit as I was only recently falling over myself to compliment them.  Bastards.

Getting everything in order

Twice in the past couple weeks I've caught myself thinking about dying.  Since the first focused thoughts, it's been mulling around in the back of my head.

The first time it crossed my mind I was heading in to work.  I had to go early as I was stopping by the local (local to work, not my house) court house to pay my speeding ticket.  I had no idea how long the process would take so I gave myself an extra hour.

It took 5 minutes.  So I had 55 minutes to kill.  I ended up in a parking lot near to the prison so that I could smoke and listen to the radio.  If it had been a 'normal' day I probably would have done just that... but I was getting over a cold.

A quick aside... I don't get over colds as fast as I used too.  My annual 'colds' used to last 3 or 4 days.  From the fist cough to the final one.  While some colds do last that long, I get sick more often now and sometimes they last for weeks.  Let's face it, I don't take good care of myself and with 16 years of smoking in my rearview mirror, it's no wonder that colds last longer.  Anywho...

The evolution of a driver

I've been caught speeding; 

once when I was 25... 

I enjoy speeding.

It's just as simple as that.

Well, it's just a simple fact. 

When I drive something,

I want to drive it fast!

Those are slightly modified lyrics to the Jane's Addiction song 'Been Caught Stealing'.  They're apt as a couple days ago I got a speeding ticket.  My first such ticket in about a decade.

I've been driving for just under 24 years now.  Back in my day (I feel old when I say it that way....Get Off My Lawn!) we took school sponsored Drivers Education classes at 16 years old.  Once the class was finished we went to the secretary of state, took the drivers test (written and practical), and were issued a license.  None of this 'can only drive during daylight hours with a responsible related adult over the age of 25 for the first year' type of limited licence crap that my niece is currently going through.  Nope... the state said I could drive any time I wanted to anywhere I wanted with anyone I wanted.  Suckers.  I could easily be used as an example of WHY they changed the rules as I was quite the little (well... not little) hellion when I first started to drive.

Vacation Recap

I have returned safe and sound from my vacation.  I would love nothing more than to say it was magnificent, wonderful, amazing, or any other superlative description.  It WAS good.  It WAS fun.  But overall it felt like driving over to my friends place when he lived a couple hours drive away.

And you know what... that's good enough.  If I had to describe this in as few words as possible it would go something like this:

I flew down.  I hung out.  I flew back.

I guess since I went into so much detail in my last post about flying, I should cover how that went.  I could say that I overworried about it, but I believe that honest worry helped me research it fully and be prepared for everything that came up.  I ended up getting a ride to the airport and they dropped me off at the curbside 'departures' area.  Walking into the airport I was presented with a very long 'hallway' with all the ticket counters.  I had checked in online 24 hours earlier and therefore didn't have to stop at the counter so I stopped and packed up the last few things.

The 'Spirit' of travel

I mentioned a few posts ago that I'm traveling down to Dallas to visit with some friends on a surprise Vay Cay.  After Fiona's accident with the coyote I had decided on taking a flight down instead of driving.  I honestly didn't expect to have Fiona back.

Never having flown before, I had to learn rather quickly about buying tickets.  When I first looked at flights I was surprised by how expensive they were.  Originally I was looking at flights for the July 19th weekend and it seemed that I could get tickets for most airlines around $300.  The week of July 4th?  Yeah right... try $500.

I did shave a bit of that cost off by selecting to fly back on July 5th instead of the 6th.  But I still hesitated... and that hesitation cost me.  When I was ready to pull the trigger the costs had gone up quite a bit.  Delta, American, US Air.... they were all asking between $700 and $900.  For economy!  The only standout was Spirit Air.  Their price was still hovering around $300.  I may always try to select the best thing, but there is just no way I'm going to pay over double for something that I don't know is worth double.  So... I entered the realm of Spirit Air Bare Fares.