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.

Television shows, Saving lives, Snow, Clock withdrawal, Guns, Wallet 3.0

I finished (re)watching Band of Brothers.  Man... that's a damned fine show. Just heart wrenching in some scenes.  So long as I finished an HBO series, I figured I'd check out one that I hadn't seen.  I tried watching the first episode of "Oz"... but that just didn't work for me.  First, it's from the 90s, so it's done in 4:3 format.  I just don't like watching shows in that format unless I know they're good.  Yes, I've heard that Oz is very good, but it's also early in HBOs attempt to make good quality series televison.  So the production quality is somewhat lacking.  And maybe I can't get into it as I work in a real prison.  The more realistic parts bother me as it's things I see at work.  The less realistic parts bother me because I KNOW they're unrealistic.  Anywho... I didn't even finish the first episode and decided to pick a different series the following day.

Wednesday at work was more hectic.  More transfers that came in 'late' so that put me behind.  And one inmate that came to us with tachycardia.  Tachycardia is a fast heartbeat.  Normal is between 60 and 90.  This cat's heart was beating at 170, occasionally up to over 200.   That's not just fast... that's deadly.  If your heart beats that fast, it's not actually pumping enough blood.  I got the PA on staff to take a quick look  and she immediatly decided to send him to the local ER via ambulance.  I worked on getting everything ready and called the ER to give them a report... sadly I misdialed and called the prison system's hospital ER.  When I spilled the beans and told the PA what was going on he freaked out.  We had it under control, but I had to actually calm him down before I could pass the phone off to the PA and actually do my job by calling the local ER.