12 hour shifts, new music, a new car for mom, and Joanna.

Well, I've had my first week of 12 hour shifts.  Obviously with an 80-hour, 2-week pay period, there is a 'light' week (working three 12 hour shifts), and a 'heavy' week (working three 12 hour shifts, along with an eight hour shift).  In my case this difference is actually enhanced by the way the days on and off are arranged.

This past week was my 'light' week.  I had Sunday and Monday off, then worked Tuesday and Wednesday.  Thursday and Friday are off, then Saturday on.  I'm now entering my 'heavy' week as I worked Sunday, have today (Monday) off, but will follow it up by working Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.  On normal pay periods, that last Thursday will be my eight hour shift.  Because there was a holiday this pay period (YAY for getting paid for President's Day!), the eight hour day got moved around a lot and finally ended up on tomorrow (Tuesday).

Now I can't possibly make up my mind on whether I like the 12 hour shifts and its accompanying schedule better or worse than the 8 hour shifts and their accompanying schedule after only working four shifts and having four (now five) days off.  But I can at least share some of my impressions so far.  First, sleep hasn't been as much of an issue as I thought it would be.  Before this schedule started, I normally woke up between five and seven in the morning, and went to bed between eleven pm and one am.   To ensure that I get up in time to go to work I now set my alarm for six am.  That gives me enough sleep, and gets me up with enough time to have a casual cup of coffee, peruse some websites, and get ready for work.  Oddly enough I woke up naturally at five am this morning.  As I didn't have to work, I just got up and assume that I'll take a slight nap later this afternoon... if I had to work I would have rolled over and waited for the alarm to get me out of bed.


Even though the shift only starts four hours earlier, it is laid out far differently.  On eight hour shifts, there was 'first' shift and 'second' shift.   First shift had two or three RNs in the clinic and two LPNs in the med rooms.  Second shift had one or two RNs in the clinic and two LPNs in the med rooms. Between 1:30 and 2:00 we would all be there and doing shift reports.  So far under the new shifts, there is one or two RNs and two LPNs that show up at 5:30.  They work 'alone' for four hours, then one or two more RNs show up (one of which is me).  Two hours later two LPNs show up (they are on 10 hour shifts).  We all work together until 4:00pm when the 'first shift' LPNs leave.  Two hours later the 'first shift' RNs leave, leaving the remaining nurses for the final four hours.

Obviously this causes a lot of overlaying, and at one point for four hours there are 4 med room nurses and up to five clinic nurses.   BTW, I say LPNs in the med room, but we don't actually have enough LPNs to cover all the shifts so often one or two of those med room nurses are RNs.

My normal schedule on the eight hour shift was to get report, perform a tool count, take care of any current urgent or emergent cases, perform my call outs (scheduled visits with inmates), and get ready for the ride ins (inmate's transferring into the facility).   Now when I walk in, I get a mini report.  It's a mini report as the RN reporting to me isn't leaving.  Instead of handing off any issues to me, they are simply catching me up to whats currently going on.  They have plenty of time to take care of any issues that are still up in the air.

The count is... odd.  Technically each 'shift' needs to perform a count at the beginning and ending of their shift.  But the counts are set up so that as one nurse counts at the end of their shift, the next nurse is immediately confirming the count by counting it again at the beginning of their shift.  As is, we now have a beginning count at 5:30am, a beginning count at 9:30am, a final count at 6:00pm, and another final count at 10:00pm.  I'm going to have to seek out my supervisor for clarification on this... maybe we do a first count at 5:30, a 'final' count and a beginning count at 2:00pm, and a final count at 10:00pm?

Once the report and counts are done, we all are doing our call outs, and they have almost all of them scheduled between 10:00am and 3:00pm.  After 3:00pm our only call outs are those that can't be performed earlier... people returning from med visits outside of the facility, ride ins, and call outs with inmate's that work at the factory (they get out of work at 3:00pm).  Even if I'm coming in as a med room nurse, I still have plenty of time to get a lot of callouts.  And if the med room nurse I'm replacing is also an RN I don't even get into the medroom until 6:00pm.

Overall, it's to early to say that I like the new ebb and flow.  Right now it's just different.  I can say that it's not difficult... it's not as though it's entirely new or difficult to work 12 hours as opposed to 8 hours.

The days off... well they ARE different.  Today will be more of a 'normal' day off.  I only have one, so everything I want or need to get done, needs to get done today.  A little shopping, paying some bills, working on a cap, playing a game, corresponding with friends... stuff like that.  But the other days... well I'm just not used to having multiple days off in a row.  On the Thursday/Friday days off, I did everything I had planned to do on Thursday.... leaving Friday to be a complete waste of time.  Occasional days spent that way aren't bad.  It's a good way to recharge the batteries, so to speak. But this will be happening regularly.  In fact at the end of this week, I'll  have four days off in a row.  That's great if I can plan something that takes up a good chunk of that time (a trip to visit friends?), but if I star getting bored on Saturday... well I'm just screwed for Sunday and Monday.

That kind of leads me back to work days... I had gotten used to getting up, having my cup of coffee, perusing web sites, corresponding with friends and lightly using all the time I had before heading into work around noon.  Now?  Well each morning I've had to interrupt my normal morning schedule because I had to get into work.  I'm NOT happy about that as I did enjoy my mornings.

So... again, it's too early to say whether I'll like this better or now.  I figure once I finish up this six week schedule (three turns at the two week schedule), I'll have a better handle on it.  At that point if I decide that I'm not enjoying all the days off, and still miss my 'mornings' I can always tell them that I'll return to the 8 hour schedule.

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I added a couple songs since I last posted:

Arctic Monkeys "Do I Want To Know"

I really like the slow bluesy feeling of this song.  I don't think it will end up as a long time favorite as it seems to be a little too static... yes I like it, but I don't know if I'll continue to like all four and a half minutes of it.

Blue Swede "Hooked On A Feeling"

I've obviously heard this song before (it was used in Reservoir Dogs), but it never made enough of an impression for me to consider adding it to my collection.  Then I saw the trailer for "Guardians of the Galaxy":

The song is used in the trailer and immediately caught my interest.  It both had a good groove and made me laugh out loud as it was used.  Outside of how I got it, I really do enjoy the song.  It just has a great groove and every time the kick up with the "Ooga-Chaka Ooga-Ooga" it just brings a smile to my face.

Now to the trailer... I consider myself a fan of comic book and super hero movies.  From the 1989 movie Batman and on, I've caught just about all the major releases.  And since X-Men came out in 2000 I think there's been an excellent resurgence of quality super hero movies.  To me, they seem to follow two paths... the new Batman movies (Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight Rises) and the new Superman movie (Man of Steel) are one one side of the spectrum, while Spiderman, Iron Man and Thor are on the other side.

The Batman movies in particular seem to be following a gritter more realistic tone.  That batmobile isn't an fish-finned Lincoln... it's a tank.  Superman isn't the 'All American Hero'... he's an alien.    Iron Man and Spiderman on the other side tend to focus more on the funny, and often deliver it very well.  One outlier was "Green Lantern".  That seemed to try WAY to  hard to be funny and it just failed (at least in my opinion).

So when I first heard about the up coming "Guardians of the Galaxy" movie a couple months ago I was ready for it to just fail massively.  First, I heard that the comics were already trending toward humor.  Humor that works on the page doesn't often work on the silver screen (Watch "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" and try to disagree).  Second... one of the characters is a Raccoon.  I couldn't get the idea of "Howard The Duck" out of my head.

So when I saw a friend post this to his facebook page (I die a little on the inside whenever I admit to using facebook), I watched expecting to see a train wreck.  But you know what.... I think I'm going to see this in the theater.  The humor seems to be fine, the action and special effects seem to work really well, and that Raccoon doesn't come off as ridiculous as it sounds.  In fact he looks really mean (as most Raccoons are wont to do).

I obviously have to wait for more... basing a movie off of a single trailer is a sure fire way to get your movie loving heart broken time and again.  But at the very least, the trailer did not make me NOT want to see it.

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Station Wagon Glory!

I mentioned in the last post that I was considering buying my Mom a car.  I guess I should expand a bit upon that.

Mom currently drives a 2003 Astro minivan.  It was the last vehicle that my father bought in 2004 and actually the third Astro that my parents owned.   It seemed like the obvious extension of what they had driven ever since having my brothers and I... station wagons.  I still have very fond memories of that 1976 root beer brown Plymouth Gran Fury.  The photo provided here is of the same model, but ours was a deep metallic brown that sparkled in the sunlight (hence my father calling it 'Root Beer Brown' in color).  While mom and dad had that vehicle for a long time, it was eventually undone by the unreliability of those 1970s vehicle electronic systems.  After the 15th or so time replacing the same wiring connector Dad got fed up and traded it in on a 1984 Buick Regal Century Station wagon.

A small pic for a small wagon

The Buick wagon was an exercise in getting what you want at the expense of what you need.  Yes, it had air conditioning (a first for our family... a full decade before the house got AC), and yes it had a lot of options that the Gran Fury didn't have including cruise, power locks and windows, power brakes, and an electronic system that worked reliably.... but it was small.  Very small for a family that included three large and growing larger boys.  The last family vacation with the entire family in this car was.... crowded.  

By the time Mom and Dad were ready for a new vehicle, they traded up for a 1992 Astro Minivan.  At this point my older brother had graduated high school and was out on his own.  I was just graduated from school (they bought this in 1993 or 1994) and my younger brother was just about to graduate.  It's a shame as it really did fit our family FAR better than the itty bitty wagon.  My dad fell in love with it.  Not only did it have the convenience and cargo capacity of a full size station wagon, it had GM's 4.3 Liter V6 engine.  Which was more or less a 350 V8 with two cylinders cut off.

Later on they traded it in for a sweetheart deal on a newer (I honestly can't remember the model year, but I'd guess close to 2000) Astro that was a conversion van.  This one had all the bells and whisles... inside running lights, four captain's chairs, curtains (yes... curtains!), and a wooden center console.  After driving this for several years, Dad traded it in again for a newer one that wasn't a conversion van, but that he added the featuers he missed (like the wooden center console).

That's the van that Mom is still driving to this day.  It's a little old in the tooth with various small problems.  The ventilation system is practically guaranteed to break at least once a year.  It might be the heat, it might be the AC, it might just be the fan system... but something in the HVAC system needs repair almost all the time.  Mom accidentally tried to move it into the garage with the rear hatch open once, and that screwed up the rear windshield wiper making it useless.  While I was backing it out of the garage once, I broke the driver's side mirror in half.... which sadly would cost over $400 to repair.  It's had a few electronic problems that have stopped it from starting, but I don't know if those were every really systemic problems as they haven't repeated since being repaired.  Lastly the rear tires are damn near bald... which is bad on a rear wheel drive vehicle with a ton of torque and not a lot of weight back there.

On our current winter roads it's a nightmare to drive, and Mom no longer feels comfortable on taking the van for long vacations (she had a planned vacation to Florida that was canceled because my Aunt's car was in an accident... taking the van was never considered an alternative).

So one day while driving my mom around on her monthly shopping trip (why she has to buy almost all of her groceries in one shopping day is beyond me... I was just there to lend a hand!), I got firsthand knowledge of just how bad it drives.  Since I had just got winter wheels on Fiona, my first thought was to take the van in and get new tires for her.  It would cost between four and six hundred, but it really does need them and I have the money.   But then I started to think about it... if I put new tires on it, the HVAC system would still need repair (it isn't broke at the moment, but we're all holding our breath waiting for it to break.  It WILL break).  The mirror would still be broke.  The rear windshield wiper still wouldn't work.  There are several cosmetically damaged parts on the outside (various dents including the front bumper pushed in about a half inch on one side).

In other words, I was starting to look at the van like I looked at Lita... is it worth it to put ANY money into it?

Now don't get me wrong, the van (with replacement tires) is still safe to drive.  The engine (beyond those electronic problems) has been just about problem free, the suspension is fine, the brakes were just redone by my brother a year or so ago.  So in that way, it isn't like Lita... she had major safety issues.  But it's still a 10 year old mini van... for a woman that primarily drives alone or with one other person.

Mom loves the power of the engine (did I ever mention that my mom used to drag race cars?  No?  Well she did... with me and my brothers in the back seats!  That Gran Fury was a BEAST!), but she also hates how much it costs to fill it up.  The van has a huge gas tank, and gets about 18 miles per gallon.  Not as bad as the Plymouth, but far away from the gas milage she could expect on just about ANY replacement vehicle.  She normally spends about $75 to fill up the tank.

She never planned to drive this van to it's (or her) grave.  But with me soaking up all her extra cash the last few years for my own bills (thanks again Mom for always offering and never making me ask!), and the recent money she's put and is putting into the house (the new furnace/ac unit and the roof later this year), he just hasn't had the extra money for a car payment.  Thankfully the van has been paid off since Dad's passing as he had the death and disability insurance on it.  When he passed away, so did the car payment.

While I was searching for a car Mom had mentioned that she would probably look at getting a new one in a year or so.  That mean's right around now... but then the furnace/ac/roof came into the picture and that's more or less her car payment.

So I started to look into what I could seriously afford if I were to get her a vehicle.  After doing quite a bit of research, I figured I could afford about a $200 or $250 car payment.  With no trade in or money down, and at the same interest I got on my car, that should be between a $12,000 and $14,000 vehicle.  That's if we bought it on a five year loan.   If that happens, I wouldn't even be buying it for her... I'd just be picking up the payments for a couple years.  When she could afford it, she could always take over the payments.

I've even considered a lease.... for a $200 payment she could get into a nice entry level car.  Like a Ford Focus.  She does like the Ford Focus.

So I talked to her about it, and as I expected she immediately refused.    I never thought I would get her on the first try.  Mom is just to damn proud to ever consider having one of her son's buy her a vehicle.  But I  haven't given up on it and am making her think about it long and hard.   I emphasized that this is something that I can afford (she would never take it if it put me into a tight spot), and that I feel that I still owe her for helping me out through school.  If she hadn't been there to help I probably wouldn't have even got into nursing school, let alone be pass it and become a working nurse.

It's been a couple weeks since I first brought it up to her, and I think I'll mention it again today.  First, just because I've given her another week, but more importantly because we are going to be getting some more snow.  If we aren't doing a new vehicle, then I need to at least get  her some new tires.

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Last thing... for the past week and a half I have been having a wonderful discussion with Joanna on her "Happiness" blog.  It's the first discussion in a long time that has really made me think about things that I've always considered to be 'fact'.  The fact that the government is for all intents and purposes a good thing, and the fact that laws and the enforcement of laws is a good thing.  It's also first discussion that I've had in a long time where two differing opinions don't quickly end up in a "We have to agree to disagree" or turn into a true argument/shouting-match.

I really wish I had more discussions like this.  I didn't have time to respond to her post from this past Friday and was thinking about it all weekend.