Nothing going on

Just about each morning I stop by here and see if anything is going on.  There really isn't a reason to as this blog doesn't have a following and doesn't inspire conversation, but it's like picking up a diary and reading the last entry... it reminds me that I talk about what ever is on my mind.

When I see the last post at any given time it will remind me of what I had just talked/written about and will often inspire me to write something else.

Well... for the past couple weeks I haven't had much on my mind.  I see the last two posts I wrote (about Ginger and my new work watch) and see them as materialistic.  I don't mind materialism, but would like to think I'm deeper than that.

I normally write about an upcoming event... but there isn't much I'm currently looking forward too.  Short term, we're still a little short staffed at work and I can't get the days off.  Longer term, I'm in a holding pattern.  It's either too far away or I'm waiting on other people.  Watching the news will often bring up a subject that I want to parse out... writing about it helps me define my own feelings... but there isn't much news to get me thinking.  So.... I'm going to write up a quick little 'nothing' post.  At the very least, when I read this years later I'll be able to look at the last couple weeks of July 2015 and see that it was a calm time.

'Super Space Car'

I've had Ginger for four and a half months now.  I'm now over the 'new' aspect of her.  I've put over 10,000 miles on her, given her an oil change, driven her down to Texas and back, and have just now set up an appointment for her first recall (something about steering mounting bolts).

Now just because she's not 'new' doesn't mean I've fallen out of love with her.  I talked awhile back about how my love for her has lost the 'passion' that I had for Fiona.  And that's still true.  I don't go ga-ga over Ginger the same way I did with Fiona.  She can still make me smile, but it's more of an appreciation that she's the right car for me, rather than her being a special car for someone.
Why is she the right car for me?  She's roomy.  She's techy.  She's stylish.  She's quality.  She gets amazing gas mileage (for as big as she is). Those things are not easy to get all together, and are all very important to me.  But as 'right' as she is for me, she's just not on my mind all the time.  I'm not as eager to talk about her as I was Fiona (even after having Fiona for over a year).  But when she does come up in a conversation... well it's always a good thing.

Dumbed It Down

So I finally pulled the trigger and got a new dumb watch.  I settled on the Vestal Digital Doppler watch.  I had several others in contention, but like many dumb watches out there, they just aren't worth talking about.

I like watches.  I think they are a good combination of style and functionality, and seeing what someone has on their wrist can say a lot about them.  For example at work I see many of the officers have a simple leather/leatherette/rubber banded digital watch.  It's easy to look at, it can generally display in 24 hour time, and it can take a beating.

Most of the nurses have standard 'clock style' watches with metal bands.  The metal bands are far better when you have to get them wet (washing hands) many times a day.  And the clock style is great because they almost all have an easy to read seconds hand.

Style wise... well there are some people at work who care about the style of their watch, but most don't.   At least the ones that I've talked to about it.  Obviously I feel that the perfect combination of style/functionality is the Pebble Steel.  It just looks classically good, and with the faces I have for it, has GREAT functionality.  But we all know how that's going down.  I still don't see a future where they allow it.

Streaming Music?

I've talked about how I get my music (mostly iTunes).  How I explore for new music (movies, television, commercials, rarely online radio at work...), and in my last music post I talked about how I play music (my iPod and my phone).

For the most part, I assumed I was being high tech.  I know people that still get CDs.  I have a friend who's introduction to digital music was getting a car with an internal hard drive.  He would rent CDs from the library and rip them right into his car... leaving him with a good selection of music that will go away whenever he ditches that particular car!  So sharing my music between the computer, the iPod, and my phone was still rather cutting edge... at least I thought so until I listened to a podcast from Wired magazine.

It seems that the new 'it' thing in music is streaming services.  Google Play Music, Spotify, Pandora, Amazon Prime, and of course the new gorilla in the line up... Apple Music.  Here's what I 'knew' about these services before the podcast:

• You could use them for free.  You would have limited selections to start from and there would occasionally be commercials.  You could skip a song or two, but eventually you'd be prevented from skipping.  
• On the Free tier you could select a particular song to start from, but it wouldn't play that actual song. 
• If you paid for the service, you could get more skips, you would get no (or at least less) commercials.  You could also be more specific or general in your streaming... say you want chill 70's singer-song-writer guitar heavy songs.  
• And.... that's about all I knew.

Constitutional Questions

Happy Independence Day!

Yeah Yeah... I'm posting this on the 5th, but I was doing the whole 'family' thing on the 4th and this is the first opportunity to post.

Before I get into constitutional or political quandaries, lemme go over the holiday.  It was a rare holiday as both of my brothers and I had the day off.  R gets every weekend off, I get every other weekend off, but B normally works on Saturdays.  So having a Saturday holiday with all of us is quite rare.

We spent the day and grilled at my Aunt's house.  I'm sure I've said before, but my Mother and my Aunt always make too much food for the holiday meals.  I don't think they can quite come to terms that they make a LOT of great food and that it's just not reasonable for them to make everybody's favorite dishes.  Nor can they come to the conclusion that they aren't feeding the 15 people that we had before.  This year was large... 10 of us... but they still cooked as if feeding a small army.  We had burgers and dogs on the grill (this included my brother's chicken burgers), corn fresh off the cob, fried potatoes, baked beans, potato salad, taco salad, and tortilla chips and queso.  They really reigned it in for desert as we 'only' had strawberry cake, preacher's cake, and blueberry desert (more or less blueberry and whipped topping no-bake cheesecake).

Dumb it down

I guess I shouldn't be surprised.  I explained in the previous post that my Pebble smart watch was banned from the prison.  I wasn't about to let this go as I really love my Pebble smart watch.  Not just because of the features that work with a cell phone, but because it's faces are perfect for work.

So I emailed the inspector and explained my position.  It was a long email, but this is the gist of it:  The watch only connects via blue tooth.  The watch does not connect to computers.  The watch is a valuable tool for me.  The watch has no microphone, camera, or cellular technology.

I suggested I bring him the watch so that I could show him first hand what it can and cannot do.  He agreed and yesterday morning I met with the Inspector, watch on wrist.  My first impression of the inspector was... well technophobe is probably a bit to far, but he wasn't loving technology like I do.  He had a phone (he works outside of the secured perimeter), but it was a dumb phone.  A flip phone.  Just the way he had his desk set up made it clear that he didn't even like his computer.  It was pushed off to the back corner where the front of his desk had room for papers, pens, and pencils.  This didn't bode well.

He also seemed to immediately take this as a "Me Vs Him" conversation.   He had a stack of papers that included a photocopy of my watch and a print out from the Pebble website explaining all the features of a watch.  Specifically they were talking about the new Pebble Time.  While I have a Pebble Time (Steel) on order, I do not currently have one.  He turned the papers around and tapped his finger accusingly on a highlighted passage and said "This is why I don't want you to have this watch."

Monday, Tuesday, Thursday...

So Tuesday at work was one of those days that I enjoy and dread in equal measure.  It was Busy.

The busyness came mainly from scheduling.  Our clinic generally schedules between 20 and 40 appointments a day.  Those appointments are spread between many nurses, and my share is often a bit less as they have to leave room for the various transfers that invariably come in.

On Tuesday we had 64 scheduled appointments.  Even with reducing my 'share' of appointments and leaving me room for transfers I still had 10 appointments.  So once the day started, I got running and never slowed down.  There were only four transfers, but I didn't even START getting them ready until around 7 PM.  And of course there were a few urgent cases.  By the end of the shift I had taken care of 16 appointments.

That number alone doesn't convey just how busy I was.  Sometimes appointments are things like taking a blood pressure, or reading a test result.  Most of my appointments that day were full on assessments.  An inmate has a complaint, and I get to start from scratch.  "Oh, your back hurts, well let's talk about it for 20 minutes while I try to figure out what the hell is wrong with you (probably mental) and what I am going to do about it (or NOT do about it)".  I've had more appointments in a day, but Tuesday was one of the busiest non stop days I've ever had.

Happy Father's Day

Dad.  Happy Fathers Day.

I wrote yesterday about how I don't think I'll ever be a father.  One thing I thought about but didn't explore at all was missing the pride a father can feel for his children.  I've talked a bit before how I try to make my father proud even beyond his years on earth.... but am I?  Are my brothers?  I guess that depends on what would make my father proud.  Would he value financial success?  Would he value personal relationships?  Would he value personal growth?  Would he value the caring for others?  Would he value the continuation of family?  Would he value being right?  How about righteous?

Lemme just explore this a bit.   Let's take my brothers first.

R.

Financially R is in a tough spot.  He has a decent job now and is coming up on having that job for a year.  By R's own estimation he is close to having 'enough'.  While B and I almost constantly dream about having more... about being millionaires, R dreams about having a nice little home, a car that runs, and enough money to maintain those things.  He doesn't quite make enough money for those things, but through years of living with almost nothing R also has almost no debt.  I was surprised to learn that his savings are more than my own.  But then again while I have about $2800 a month in bills, R has around $400 a month in bills.

Fatherhood?

On my last day off I took some time to myself and played a bit of GTA V.  First, that is a damned fine game.  Fun, good story, over the top violence... it can really pull you in and keep you in the "I just have to do this one last thing and THEN I'll stop".

As you probably know, when I game I use my headset.  That way I can have the volume up enough to block out the rest of the world and not bother everybody else in the house.

I had blocked out the rest of the world enough that when my brother R came in to tell me supper was ready he actually had to grab my shoulder to pull my attention away.  I hadn't heard  him knock.  I hadn't heard him open the door.  I hadn't heard him step in.  I hadn't heard him call my name several times.

I also hadn't heard my brother B stop by with his kids for a visit.  That really sucked as I was just thinking that day that I hadn't talked to B in quite a while.  I've been under the weather or had other plans set on my last few days off, so I hadn't gone over for a visit.  So missing him and the boys just kinda sucked.

Thankfully he recognized that I WAS home (saw my car there), and he called later that night.  He was setting up a game of RISK with his boys and invited me over to join in.  I actually really enjoy playing board games.  Risk isn't exactly one of my favorites, but it's a game his kids can more or less play and doesn't consume an entire weekend in the same way that Axis and Allies can.   So I drove on over and joined in.

I kind of miss my brother

Friday I woke up at 8 AM.  I did my morning coffee/internet thing for a while before taking a shower and then watching some television.  I eventually drove off to work, did my work thing, then drove home.  I arrived at 11:05 PM and watched some more television until around 1 AM and then went to bed.

That was roughly my same schedule on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday.  Today is different only because it's my regular day off.

My brother R's day starts around 6 AM.  He does his coffee/internet/tv thing for about an hour before driving away to work at 7 AM.  He works until 4 PM, then comes home.  He has dinner, plays on the computer, and then goes to bed around 10:30 PM.

Yeah... we don't see each other.  Not on days that both of us are working.  And you know what.. that really kidna sucks.  It's not like we hang out from dawn to dusk when we have the available time together.  In fact, we rarely do anything together.  Our friends and hobbies don't really over lap except for playing games on the computer... and we don't do that together.  At least not for a decade or two.  But I still miss him.  I miss the opportunity to just comment on the day's news.  "Hey, did you know that JEB Bush's name is actually John Ellis Bush?  J E B =  Jeb?"  or "Hey, Fallout 4 is coming out in November!"  or "Did you see that new Doom trailer?"