The fall television season has brought back The Walking Dead, Person of Interest, This Old House Hour, and a bit of Top Gear. I've added another show to those that I record and watch regularly... This Week With John Oliver. If you haven't caught this HBO news mocumentary, then you need to catch it. John Oliver, who started on the Daily Show, is quick witted, funny, and presents the week's news with a really interesting spin.
The older shows that I've caught up with are: Mad Men, Breaking Bad, and Luther. All three of those shows were great successes. I enjoyed watching them and feel better for having watched them. I also re-watched HBO's The Newsroom in anticipation of the third season. So far, all of that has been a success. I've entertained myself thoroughly by watching those new and old shows alike. But then no all is quality in TV watching world. There are two unsuccessful TV watching experiences.
The first was American Horror Story. My brother highly recommended this FX series, and it has a unique twist that I found interesting. Each season is a full story. Beginning, middle, end. The first season was titled 'Murder House', where a family moves into a haunted house. The second season was about an old insane aasylum the third about a coven of witches, and the current season is about a circus freak show. All of them have the same core actors with a few single season stars. I think one problem was that my brother got hooked on the second season, while I tried watching the first season first. The first season is... well it's not good.
The dialog is often flat, the filming is taken directly from the 'how to film a horror story' book, the music is reused from other major films or television shows (enough that I still associate certain scenes with Kill Bill and Brahm Stroker's Dracula), and the story changes. And not in a good way. A particular plot point actually changes, making previous assumptions now moot. I don't mind not getting the whole story in easy to digest pieces... but don't give me a piece of the puzzle and then laugh when you tell me that the particular piece is a lie.
I didn't finish the first season of American Horror Story. I may go back and try the second season (which my brother assures me is MUCH better). But I'll just leave the first season three quarters finished.
I also tried to watch Sherlock. Sherlock is the British pre-cursor to Elementary. It's good. Very good... but I can't keep watching it. You see, here comes the rub... I think I'm done watching as much television.
I've always had television as one of my main stays in entertainment, but the amount of television I watch waxes and wanes over time. From June until now, I've been feasting on television. Maybe it's time to cut back again. While having Mad Men, Breaking Bad, and Luthor in my que, I couldn't wait to get back in front of the television and watch more. But now... I find myself browsing the web more.. not that it's more entertaining, but I think I'm looking for entertainment outside of television.
In years past, I could dive into video games... but that just doesn't have the same appeal as before. I played about 30 minutes of Team Fortress 2 last week. It was their annual Halloween event (Scream Fortress), but after 30 minutes I was happy to walk away. This past spring I played through the newest Wolfenstien game, but it took me months as I just didn't want to invest all that much time into it. And right now, there are no new games that I want to invest any time into. Maybe when GTA 5 comes to the computer I'll jump into it... but probably not.
The other time sink I've had (and I use that term affectionately), over the past few years has been capping. I still feel that hollow space left by Caitlyn, and will sometimes consider making a caption... but even when I get a basic idea that might be intereting in a cap, I don't feel that 'need' to give it a try. And after the last year of my capping, I just don't think that giving it a go to give it a go is a good idea. It's addicting. Not making good caps (although that's addicting on a whole other level), but trying to make a good cap. I can't currently think of a good way to direct those photoshop/storytelling elements, so that's just a no go.
So where does that leave me? I still have television to watch after work. That's the best time for it as it helps me unwind and get ready for sleep. But the mornings... I have a good two hour window thats normally open for television. If I fill it with a hobby, it will have to be a hobby that can be taken in two hour chunks.
Hmm... I just sat back and thought about it for several minutes, and nothing comes to mind. I'll give it more time and hopefully come up with something either entertaining or helpful to spend time on. In the meantime I'll probably just que up Star Trek Enterprise. I enjoyed that, and it's worth watching again.
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A couple odd quick hits:
R (my older brother) finally took over paying his vehicle insurance. That saves me about $60 a month and is a bill easily in his economic reach. I find it funny that he beleives he's overpaying at $57 a month. He only carries basic insurance on the van along with comprehensive coverage.
We talked a bit about it at the dinner table, and I swear I don't' think he even heard me. He makes the point that he's a good driver. His driving record is perfectly clean for the past 10 years, he's over 40 years old (but not yet over 55), and drives less than 5 miles to work. Having a friend working in the insurance industry, I shared some information with R. I told him that he's only considering one part of the equation. Yes, he's a good driver and a good bet on not having an accident. But they also look at the vehicle. If the van he's driving has been found to be in many accidents, or if it's expensive to repair when it IS in an accident, that will invariably raise the price. Just like no matter who the driver is, it's more expensive to insure a sports car. To the insruance company it's all just a math equation. Take the likely hood that a vehicle will be in an accident, add in the cost of the average repairs, and subtract the likelihood that a particular driver will be in an accident, and you get the premium.
I can tell you that working on a Chevy Astro minivan is no walk in the park. Anything in the engine area is a royal pain to get in and fix... raising the average repair cost. I have no idea if Astro's are in more accidents than the average vehicle, but just being more expensive to repair will hike up the premiums on it's own. R's comeback argument was more or less "but I'm a good driver".
Umm... A+B-C=Preimum. If I"m debating/agruing about A and B, your counter can't be to continue talking about C. I agree... C is good. But look at A and B. "But C!!?!"
Grr.
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I've had a couple oddly dull days at work. No transfers, and only a small handful of call outs. It finally left me enough time to try and figure out the best way to store and organize all the paperwork that we generate. In addition to all the documentation that we do (which thankfully is almost all on teh computer), we also have to keep track of our equipment. Yes, all nurses have to keep track of their needles and such, but in a prison they are critical tools that much be counted each and every shift. That means signatures on paper to prove that it was counted. That means many MANY pieces of paper that we have to store for over seven years.
Ouch.
Between my supervisor and I, we came up with a pretty good system. One person (me), would take the paper work as it's generated and file it away. Every few months, that paperwork would then be bundled up and boxed up, and stored out in our shed. That system will be FAR better than putting it all into a single pile and ever six or nine months re-organizing all that paperwork and storing it into the shed.
The biggest hurdle to that system is where to file it. We found a filing cabinet drawer that I could claim, so long as I got all the old paperwork out of it. By 'old' paperwork, I mean OLD paperwork including forms from the 1980s. Most of that just had to be thrown away, but there is a good bit of educational material that we could save and re-use. Well... that meant putting that educational material with all the other educational material. The rest of the educational material was in a different filing cabient drawer... that was full. So last night I took the first step... putting out as much of the current educational material so that I could free up room for the older educational material, so that I could free up room to put the gludge of paperwork.
The funny part was looking over some of this material. A lot of health education hasn't changed over the years. Educational material on diabetes, Hepatitis A,B,C, back exercies, high blood pressure, all still made sense even if it was 20+ years old.
The one that got me though was the HIV pamphelet. It had a whole page on how the current research was working on a vaccine that would eventually beat the disease. That pamphlet was written in 1986. I guess that haven't had much luck with that vaccine as we now have almost two full generations with HIV and no current hope of a vaccination or cure.
Those pamphlets got thrown away.
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I got my most recent work review. This is the big one. It's my 12 month review and takes from an RN 11 to an RN 12. That alone means a raise. But my supervisor ladeled the praise over me, ensuring that I should (SHOULD) get a big raise. Add in the fact that from recent negotiations between the State and our union we get a 1% raise AND we get a one time 'bonus' of sorts (it's not a bonus, it's a one time payment in lieu of a bigger raise), and additionally add in all of the holiday's between now and 2015 (Election Day, Veteran's Day, Thanksgiving, Black Friday (yes... that's a paid holiday), Christmas Eve, Christmas, New Years Eve, New Years Day) and I should be flush with cash come January. That should lead to a good vacation with my buddies in the new year!
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Speaking of vacations, my friend E contacted me a few weeks back about getting together. He's in San Fran, so 'getting together' meant a lot of money and time off of work. I more or less begged off, but when I requested the Saturday of the Michigan/Ohio game off, I ended up taking a total of five days off. So I emailed him and that I did in fact have the time... just not that much money. If he was willing to fly closer to me, we could hook up and hang out.
The perfect place for this get together? Well Chicago of course! I started dreaming of spending another few days in those concrete canyons and my heart started to soar.
Sadly, my friend came to the same conclusion as I did weeks ago... he really doesn't have the money now for a vaycay. So no Chicago. :(
More than likely when we are flush with cash, we'll hit up some other city. We may even go international.
OH... did I mention that I'll be getting my passport soon? YAY!
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That's it for now.... talk to ya'll later!
C
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