More Questions

Back in January I had a post just answering some oddball internet questions.  I thought it would be fun and something that I could do on occasion.

It WAS fun... but I never came back to it.  I honestly don't know why.  While persusing the blog this morning (after being awakened by my phones Amber Alert at 5:40 AM), I saw that I even left that post with a cliff hanger question.

OK... not much of a cliff hanger, but still.  I obviously intended to get back to it shortly.  Much like when I wrote that original post, I don't have much else to write about.  I've talked about my upcoming road trip (vacation time has been approved at work), my new watch (Kickstarter campaign ended, will get delivered in July), and my new 1911 (still haven't even loaded it).  Work is going well enough, friends are fine, family is good.  There just isn't anything on my mind.  So... back to the odd questions and hopefully thought invoking answers.  I believe I left off with this:

11) Would you break the law to save a loved one?

That's an easy question to answer.  Yes.  The question doesn't specify what law it's asking me to break but there aren't many (if any) laws that I wouldn't break to save a loved one.  'Loved one' in this equation is my immediate family (Mom, R, B, niece, nephews), and my three closest friends (A, E, and the other A).  It's easy to say that I'd break a law.  I'd jay walk.  I'd speed.  I'd drive carelessly/recklessly.  But lets get into hard core law.

A long drive

I've been planning (in the loosest sense of the word planning) several trips this spring/summer/fall.  I was hoping for an international trip as my buddy E has traveled quite a bit over seas.

Speaking of E, he lives in San Fran and I've always wanted to visit there.  And if I'm visiting friends, I want to go visit A down in Dallas.  A just bought a new house and I always enjoy spending time with his family.

In addition to these longer, more expensive trips I also want to hit up Chicago again with my local buddy A.  That would be the easiest as we could quite easily head down Saturday morning and return Sunday evening.  I wouldn't even have to talk time off for that trip.

A little quirk came up in scheduling at work recently.  As a union member there is a pretty strict way of taking vacations.  There are two vacation books per year and you put your 'request' in them.  If anybody is asking for the same days off and it will affect the scheduling then it goes by seniority.  I'm no longer the newest nurse at the prison, but I'm still fairly low on the totem pole.  By union rules the vacation book has to be available for a month before it's figured into the schedule.

Give and Take

So I was at work last week internally complaining about some skills.  There are a lot of nursing skills to know.  A LOT.  Many of them are skills that I simply don't have to know in my job.  How to use a doppler to get a bladder level.  How to give a proper bed bath.  How to perform a detox assessment.

These tasks just don't come up all that often, if ever at all.  But one that does happen almost every day at the prison is drawing blood for labs.  Monday through Friday there are between 5 and 25 separate blood draws each day.

Thankfully those are almost exclusivly performed on first shift.  That makes perfect sense as many of the blood draws have to be done after a minimum 8 hour fast.  No food, no water.  Just like in a hospital those are best performed just after waking up.  The patient then only realistically has to go without food or drink for a few hours before bed, and almost immediatly follow up the blood draw with breakfast.

Happily working on second shift means that I don't have to deal with drawing blood.  At least not all that often.  There is one test that requires the blood to be drawn just before it is delivered to the lab.  At our facility that's at 3 pm.  That's firmly in second shift territory.  Thankfully every time that's come up on a day I was working, there was a morning nurse doing her 12 hour shift and she was able to do it.  There are also occasional surprise blood draws.  For instance when an inmate has just experienced a seizure and we want to show that it wasn't in fact a seizure, we can draw blood and do a particular test.  That blood has to be drawn within an hour of the non-seizure though.

Striving

'I don't always know what the right thing to do is, my Lord, but I think the fact that I want to please you pleases you'

Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence

If you look for perfection, you'll never be content

Have no fear of perfection - you'll never reach it.

I am careful not to confuse excellence with perfection. Excellence, I can reach for; perfection is God's business

There are a million and one quotes dealing with perfection.  The vast majority of them are like these... more or less don't go for perfection as you can never achieve it.   I think I know why there are so many quotes like this... because far to many people strive for perfection.  I'm one of them.   These quotes are a good example as I was looking for that last one (not to confuse excellence with perfection).  It's a quote from Michael J Fox.  I couldn't remember it exactly so I just spent 20 minutes googling for it.

Yeah... I spent 20 minutes striving to find the prefect quote about not striving for perfection.

Ginger - A Month Later

So I've had Ginger for a little over a month now.  I've put about 1500 miles on her.  I've had her washed about 5 times.  I've filled up 4 times.  I've had people admire her, and I've had people be jealous of her.

And while I really really like her... I don't think I can say that I truly LOVE her.  At least not in the same way that I loved Fiona.

And that's not a bad thing.  Not in my eyes anyway.

Lemme go over some reasons that I LOVED Fiona.  She was unique.  Yeah, a Ford Focus isn't exactly a rare find, but it isn't the most common car out there.  In the area that I live the Hatchback is shunned quite proudly.  People around here want a coupe or a sedan.  Hatchbacks are for those hippy, hipster, euro trash commies.  Add in the Yellow Blaze paint, and she stood out even more.  It took me a good year to see another Yellow Blaze Focus Titanium in town.

Beyond having a rareness, Fiona also screamed youth.  Both in good ways and bad.  She looked like 'fun' even though a hatchback is far more useful than a trunk.  I didn't have the sport package on Fiona, but she was definitely a sporty ride.  She stated damned near flat when I'd take a curve/corner at almost any speed.  She let you feel the road (and all of the potholes).  The interior was styled after a motor cycle and just screamed youth.

She's NOT back, Depression

I'll start by saying that 'Caitlyn' is NOT back.   But I'm getting far more comfortable with her old haunts.  When I closed down the blog last June, I took a 'no Caitlyn' stance.  I still visited some other blogs, but I did that before Caitlyn.  Plus it was a way to keep in contact with some friends.  But I refused to update that blog once I hung the closed sign up.  And no, I don't consider the 'UnMasked' posts as updates.  Those were and continue to be mere attempts to ensure the blog stays up.  I didn't log into the Haven for a long time and didn't go to D+X either.  After a few months, I started to lurk.  I wouldn't allow myself to interact but I'd log into the Haven every once in awhile. It was even easier to lurk at D+X because it didn't require me to log in.

One of the things I did at D+X was to re-read some of my steamier posts.  The reaction I got from within was... odd.  On one hand I was turned on.  Not by the thought of being feminized, but just by the pure raw sexuality of the posts.  The ones that turned me on the most were actually my later posts.  By that time I was playing a fully feminized 'girl'.  I had no humiliation play or 'forced' play.  I was a woman there enjoying myself with other women, shemales, and yes even guys.  Where I remembered writing those scenes as the 'woman' I actually was enjoying them from the male perspective.

5 Block

I haven't talked much about work lately.  It really has become a J O B.  That's both wonderfully good and horribly bad.  Mostly the former.

I just want to catch up on a few things, and before I get into my major grip, I want to look at the good.

The pay is so good.  I can't get into the more soul satisfyingly good things before mentioning that.  I've had better jobs before, but I'm not at them any longer because they didn't pay well.  So the pay is good enough to keep me there and keep me happy.

I work with a wonderful and wonderfully diverse set of co workers.  I'm not sure I would call any of them true friends.  I don't hang out with these people, I don't go over to their homes, nor would I invite any of them over to mine.  There are of course some that I wouldn't want to call friends.  Bitter people that love to bitch and complain and always look for the worst in any situation.  The 'worst' is pretty easy to find when working in a prison.  So those that look for the best in any situation are truly special people.  Thankfully there are plenty of those.  While I don't consider any of them friends, I do look forward to spending time with them.  Talking with them, sharing life and work stories, and just working together.   They are a joy and make the work day go faster.

A Good Month for Musak!

It's funny how things go sometimes.  I'm constantly on the lookout for new music.  I'm listening to the radio (both music and talk), viewing iTunes' recommendations, listening to internet radio at work, and even getting tips from other music fans.  If I get a new song that I like every month, I consider that pretty good.  If I get a couple songs a month, I can consider that a bumper crop of good music.

Since my last 'musak' post, I've tagged 5.5 new songs, and I like them all.  The 0.5 comes from one being a remake.  I got the remake AND the original.  Only one is a truly 'new' song, while the others are years old but still 'new to me'.

Before I get into the songs themselves, lemme go over the various ways I listen to music.  There are currently three primary ways I consume my tuneage.  Sitting here at the computer I have my simple Bose Companion 2 series 1 speakers.  Yeah yeah, they ARE Bose so for a two speaker set up they are fairly nice, but they aren't really all that good.  They highs and mids are crystal clear, and while the bass isn't distorted, it IS diminished.  I have the car speakers.  Fiona's system was grand.  It was VERY bass heavy, but that was due to the 6 inch sub-woofer in a proper box.  Ginger's system is a more full sound, but not nearly as good at loud levels.  She has two subs, but they are sitting in the back deck behind the rear seats.  They don't have a good box underneath them, so they aren't very loud.  When the volume goes up the various speakers (I think there's 11 speakers in Ginger) start to distort long before I get to max volume   The last method used to be my clock radio, but is now my phone.  Thankfuly the Nexus 6 has stereo speakers that are perfectly balanced at quiet levels.  At 'normal' listening levels and certainly at loud levels the speakers come across as very "tinny", but while drifting off to sleep and the speakers at almost off levels, they sound pretty good.

2 Weeks With Ginger

I’ve had Ginger for just under 2 weeks now.  It’s not really enough time to give a good review, but I can give some highlights.

The ride on Ginger is smooth as silk.  She glides over bumps and humps and hardly shakes the cabin.  That’s wonderful on these horrible winter roads and great on those hour long drives to and from work.  I imagine that the tradeoff will come from losing that tight sports car like handling that Fiona had.  Fiona could corner like nobody’s business.  I imagine if I ever get Ginger up to spend and try to change direction that I’ll find her leaning heavily against the turn. 

I’m getting mixed results on the mileage.  So far all of it has been better than Fiona which is saying a LOT.  Fiona, in the winter time, was getting between 32 and 34 miles per gallon.  I figured that by the most accurate method… gallons into the tank while filling up divided by miles driven since the last fill up.  Well… I haven’t been able to use that method with Ginger yet.  I did fill up her tank once, but I hadn’t set the trip odometer when I picked her up.  I will have to fill up the tank again either today or tomorrow and then I’ll get a good measurement.  For now I’m just using Ginger’s own computer and that says I’m getting a low of 34 miles per gallon on one slippery trip from work and a high of 42 miles per gallon on a really nice trip to work. 

A Quick Decision

Last September I decided to stand pat with Fiona. But that voice whispering 'get a new car, get a new car, get a new car' never really stopped.  Yes, I love my Fiona but I also love that 'new car' feeling.  I love the research, I love the search, I love the first view on the dealership lot, I love the first time sitting in a car, I love learning about all the new tech toys, and I love finding out about all the oddities and curiosities.

For the most part, I just kept this up as a game inside my head.  I'd watch car comercials and breath a sigh of wistfullness, wishing that I was in the market.  But what I learned in September was still true... I owed to much on Fiona.  And I couldn't expect to replace her with a car that I loved nearly as much.  At least not without trading some of my core needs away.  Sure, getting a classic '69 Camaro SS would be awesome.  But reliability and gas milage make that just impossible.  Getting a Cadillac CTS-V would be amazing, but gas mileage and cost make that a pipe dream.   So the dream stayed just that... a dream.

A fantasy.

Until Wednesday February 4th that is.