Back To Work

Started at the new job on Monday.  All this week and part of the next will be training and learning the ropes.

A lot of differences from my last security guard position.  I'll be working at a large facility that makes sports equipment, covering about fifty acres and a dozen buildings, with hundreds of workers.

And in an odd coincidence, one of those dozen buildings is one I've actually worked in before, back about thirty years ago.  Early in my career with the Postal Service, one of the stations I worked out of was a temporary station in a leased warehouse, serving the expanding areas of Northwest Phoenix.  Eventually a dedicated Postal Service station was built about a mile further north and all the postal employees in that warehouse were moved to the new facility.  The sports manufacturer, who was located across the street from the warehouse back then, tended to buy up surrounding business properties as they became available.  That warehouse was one of the properties they bought and expanded into.

(The manufacturer is planning on some major construction and renovation in the near future, and that old warehouse is one of the buildings slated to be torn down.  It was already a pretty run-down building when I worked in it three decades ago.)

The old warehouse isn't the only memory-evoking thing about the new workplace.  My dad was a machinist for an airplane-parts manufacturer for most of the years I was growing up; sometimes we'd pick him up from work if Mom needed to use the car that day, and the company's Christmas parties were frequently held at the plant itself.  So the sight and sound and smell of the manufacturing equipment is a familiar one.

(Although most of the big milling machines are now computer-controlled, and enclosed in big sound-muting enclosures.  When Dad did milling, he did so right up beside his machine; I don't recall him ever having a serious injury, but his arms frequently had small nicks and burns from sharp, hot bits of metal coming off the pieces being milled.)

The other thing the new workplace makes me think of are the trips I made to the Parmaount Studio lot back in 1990, when I pitched the story and wrote the script for the "Clues" episode of STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION.  Both places hold numerous buildings of various sizes, built over decades, many refurbished and re-purposed over the years, with hundreds of employees and executives going from building to building in a hum of activity, either on foot or in golf carts.

The new workplace seems to have its act together better than the old one, too.  Policies, instructions, and responsibilities are pretty straightforward and clear.  At my previous workplace, you never knew from day-to-day what you might be yelled at for, because policies there could turn on a dime and change at management's whim.  (One of the major reasons I didn't stay when they converted to an in-house security department.)

So, so far, I'm pretty happy with the new job.

Don't Blink Or You'll Miss Him

"No, I'm tired of working as a temp.  You're my agent, get me a real job."

Hilde and I got around to watching the first episode of the new Ashley Judd action drama for ABC, MISSING, last night.  I hadn't realized that Sean Bean had a role in the episode, as Judd's husband.

If you remember what happened to Sean Bean's character in LORD OF THE RINGS, and what happened to Sean Bean's character in A GAME OF THRONES, it probably won't take you three guesses to know what happens to his character in MISSING.

So what's next for Sean Bean?  I hear Spinal Tap is looking for a new drummer....

But Wait! There's Good News Too!

In contrast to the previous "Black Candles" post, there are actually positive things happening.

I had a job interview earlier this week, for a Security position at a popular sports-equipment manufacturer's facility.  Got the word this afternoon that I'd been selected for the position.

I'm pretty enthusiastic about the new job.  The commute will be about half what I'd been doing before, the pay starts at fifty cents an hour more than I'd been getting, and -- whoo-hoo! -- no damn drunks to deal with*.  In the morning I go in for physical and drug-screening and paperwork, and there'll be a background check, but I expect to actually be working there within a few days.

So color me pleased.


*I used to think I disliked drunks.  But then I started working at that upscale shopping center with the over-serving bars, and had to deal with drunks on a frequent basis.  I learned there that I don't dislike drunks; I despise them.

(photo is by ScooterZen, from stock.xchng)

Burning The Black Candle At Both Ends

We're getting to the age where far too many of our friends and acquaintances from our generation are starting to disappear.

Our friend Jan Lockett passed away in late January.  Back in the mid-1970's, Hilde and her then-husband moved to Tucson, which was where that husband walked out on Hilde and their son.  Jan was one of the Tucson people who gave Hilde support in that trying time.  When Jan was enthusiastic about something, she could be very enthusiastic. ("Excited puppy" is the phrase that comes to mind.)  This last year, she'd had a series of medical emergencies and complications that really made it difficult to maintain that enthusiasm.

Don Markstein passed away last week.  Don and I became acquainted when we were both publishing fanzines in the 1970's.  Don enjoyed being an iconoclast, a gadfly, a devil's advocate.  Sometimes he got too close to, or even stepped over, the line between "gadfly" and 'troublemaker".  But he was witty and funny, and I liked him.  I'm sorry we had, except for the occasional brief encounters at conventions, pretty much fallen out of touch. 

And I got the news yesterday that my cousin Linda had passed away.  She'd been diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor last year, so the news wasn't all that much a surprise.  Linda was loud and brassy and sometimes vulgar, but she was also one of those relatives who act as a glue for the rest of the relations.  It was frequently her place where family get-togethers took place, for Christmas and other occasions.  I'll miss her.

It's hard to keep a positive attitude about growing older when so much bad news comes along with it. 

(I've said it before, but: "The Golden Years: They Kinda Suck".  Perhaps I should have that put on a t-shirt.)

(photo by Vassil, from Wikimedia Commons)

Supersized Music

The local Musical Instrument Museum's latest email noted that their octobasse was one of the instruments used for the soundtrack to the forthcoming HUNGER GAMES movie. The octobasse is a bowed lute. If a regular lute is considered normal, then something like a bass cello would be a bowed lute on steroids. Which would make the octobasse the Incredible Hulk of lutes, because it's TWELVE FRIGGIN' FEET TALL!!! Here's a picture to show the scale:

The performer has to stand on a stool to play the octobasse, frets are done by a series of levers on the side of the instrument, and its lowest notes can be outside the normal range of human hearing.

What it most reminds me of, though, is something in comic books.  Not the Incredible Hulk, though that's a pretty apt simile, but Batman.

Yes, Batman.  Back in the late 1950's and early 1960's, one of the comics memes that appeared frequently was Batman chasing and fighting crooks and villains in and around oversized, giant objects. 

For an extra thrill, you could always add in one of the semi-lame supporting characters from that same era, like Bat-Hound or Bat-Mite or that early version of Batwoman who clearly suffered from some form of color-blindness:

"Surrender, criminals, before
 I make you rip your own eyeballs out
 from an overload of garishness."

God, I am such a geek.

YouTube videos of the octobasse in action available here.

Clementine Abstract

Clementine Abstract, a photo by Bruce on Flickr.

Picking off the unwanted threads and veins from a clementine, I noticed they made an interesting abstract where I laid them on the leg of my jeans. My handy smart phone's camera function meant I could take the picture without having to move.

(Smart phones are addictive. I find myself using it more and more often, for more and more applications, than I ever expected to.)

Guinea Pig? The Family Discussion

Over at the latest Open Thread on Making Light, there's been a fair amount of discussion about having a guinea pig as a pet.  So I thought I'd sound out the household about the idea of having one.

That's right; I asked the cats!:

Me: "Hey, cats, how would you feel about having a guinea pig in the house?"

Sethra (long-haired prima donna): "No. And get rid of all the other cats, too. And feed me tuna. Only tuna."

Aliera (pre-confused shorthair): "Huh? What?" [long gaze into space] "I'm sorry, did you say something?"

Bastet (stodgy old overweight black cat): "Would its food be something I'd enjoy stealing?"

Cassie (professional lapcat): "Only one fluffy, adorable, sweet-tempered animal at a time, please."

Tyr (the new 6-month old Siamese): "A smaller fluffy animal that runs around on its own, without batteries? Wow! Great! Yeah! YEAH YEAH YEAH YEAH YEAH!!! GUINEA PIG! GET ME A GUINEA PIG, RIGHT NOW-W-W-W-W-W!!!!"

Me: "That settles it. No guinea pigs."

More Changes

Now that I'm officially unemployed, part of the job-hunting experience is worrying about your personal appearance. I was due for a haircut anyway. But I looked at how far my hairline has receded as I've gotten older, and how thin the hair's getting, and decided "Maybe it's time to go really short."

So:

The last time I had a crewcut like this, I was about eight years old. That's half a century, plus a bit. So I expect people will be fairly surprised. Especially those who know that for most of my life I've worn my hair long and in a DFH ponytail.

posted from Bloggeroid

Living In The Grand Canyon/Copper/Valentine State

The "Copper Chopper", built for the Arizona Centennial.

"Happy Arizona Centennial Day!" is probably not the best thing to say to your wife on Valentine's Day morning.  Just sayin'.

My family moved to Arizona when I was about three years old, around 1955, and -- except for my 3-year stint in the Army -- I've lived here ever since.  So I've seen both the 50-year and now the 100-year anniversary of Arizona's statehood.  It may be simply because I've never known anything better, but I've always thought it's a pretty cool place to live.  (I do admit, though, that sometimes the attitudes and politics of the place lead me to think that -- after "The Valentine State"and "The Grand Canyon State" and "The Copper State" -- a good nickname for the place might be "WhatTheFuckizona".  Evan Mecham?  Really?  Jan Brewer?  Really?)

While I was in the Army, I spent some spare time embroidering the Arizona flag on a denim jacket.  Old-time fans might remember seeing it at some conventions.  I dragged it out of the back of the closet this morning for some photos:

close-up

Some grumpy old guy takes a break
 from chasing kids off the lawn to model the jacket.

The inside.  Back then I didn't know you were supposed to subdivide embroidery skeins
 into smaller, more manageable groups of threads, so the embroidery was done
 with the thread-bundles as they came off the skein. 
Getting that bunch of threads thru a needle was a bitch!

The "Copper Chopper" at the top of the post is something I saw on display during that fill-in shift at Cityscape I did a few months ago, so this is a dandy excuse to post a photo of it.  It was won in a raffle a few days ago by some young woman who's never had or ridden a motorcycle before.  Bikers everywhere are gnashing their bug-spattered teeth in frustration.

Forty Years Ago Today

I was doing a walking patrol at work in the early AM this morning, with jacket and ear mitts and gloves and knit cap on, thinking that if the weather got much colder in coming days I'd have to dig out my old woolen long underwear left from when I was in the Army.

And that was when I realized that exactly forty years ago was my first day of that three-year enlistment in the US Army.  January 23rd, 1972.

It was an interesting three years.  I had some of the best experiences of my life, and some of the worst.  All my service was at Stateside posts.  I never saw combat.  But there was one period when things got stressful enough I would have jumped at a chance to go to Vietnam rather than stay where I was.  (I got lucky, and ended up in a different company at the same post, with different people and doing a different job, and did pretty well the rest of my enlistment.)

The deep tint on my rose-colored glasses faded a lot during those three years.  I met a lot of good men, and some outstanding ones.  But it was also the first time in my life that I met, and lived and worked with, bad men, men who would probably have ended up in prison in civilian life.  Some of whom were in the Army because enlisting was offered as an alternative to prison, and a few who went to military prison in the end anyway.

But the worst was learning that... well, when I went into the Army it was with the belief that officers were the cream of the crop.  They were smarter and wiser and better trained for and more suited to leadership than us ordinary grunts.  And you know what?  Some of them were.  And then I learned, from harsh experience (this was part of that very bad period I mentioned above), that there were some officers who put the welfare of their careers ahead of the welfare of their men.  Hell, ahead of the lives of their men!  It was... disheartening.

But overall... overall, it was a positive experience.  I learned I had more strengths and abilities than I'd thought.  That was a good thing.  And I learned what some of my weaknesses were, and are.  And that was a good thing, too.

For years after getting back into civilian life, I had the thought in the back of my head that if things got rough in the real world, I could re-enlist in the military.  Sometimes that seemed like a tempting thought.  And then one day I found myself taken quite aback when I realized, "Holy crap, I'm too old to re-enlist anymore!"

(photo above from Library of Congress, via Flickr Commons)

Changes In The Works

For the last three years, I've been working as a security guard ("security officer" if you want to make it sound a little more important) during graveyard shifts at an upscale shopping/office development in Scottsdale.  The company I technically work for had a contract to provide security there, but for most of those three years the actual management of the development has said they intend to move to providing their own in-house security team "in a few months".

Much to almost everyone's surprise, that's actually going to finally happen, on February 5th.  Most of the current security personnel are being offered the opportunity to be hired on as part of the "new" security team, but a sizeable proportion (including me) have decided to pass on that offer and try to find new positions elsewhere. 

(At times over those three years, there have been issues with the workplace that have left me feeling very frustrated and unsatisified.  Particularly recently, and I'd already told my shift supervisor earlier this month that if things didn't change soon I'd be leaving.  The move to an in-house team isn't a move that will solve those problems, so....)

I'll probably be offered a position at one of the other properties my company has contracts with, but it may be a while before an opening becomes available.  So in the meantime, I'm already starting to send out resumes and applications to other companies and places.  With three-plus years experience and some good references, I should be able to land somewhere fairly soon.  It would also be nice to end up someplace with better pay and/or better hours and/or a shorter commute and/or a better working environment.

I'm also better off than some of the people who are leaving, because I have my retirement checks from the Postal Service and Hilde's disability that cover most of our monthly expenses.  So the idea of being without that extra paycheck for a while isn't as scary as it might be otherwise.


(No, I won't actually work for books.  But I'm willing to work for that extra paycheck that allows Hilde and me to buy books.  You can get the t-shirt that image comes from at the Unshelved store.)

Weird referring sites

One of the things Blogger Stats keeps track of is the "referring sites" where people can find links to various posts here.

One of the recent such was a hemorrhoid treatment site in France.  Say what?  To the best of my memory, I've never mentioned hemorrhoids here, ever.Or ever had any thoughts to write such a post.

But hey, if you have to mention hemorrhoids:

Writing: the middle is the beginning

More on my renewed efforts at writing.  Here's a brief excerpt from the current work-in-progress, tentatively titled "Alice In Zero":

"There are no wonders in this world," said the Zero King.

"Oh, sir," Alice replied.  "I believe you are much mistaken. I have met a cat that consumes itself in fire, and is born again. I have spoken with eagles, and they have spoken back. I have sailed with pirates on a sea of mirrors, and fished for the reflections of shadows. I have outplayed the Crooked Man with his own deck of cards, and won an Unbreakable Promise. And, sir, you yourself live in a palace carved from a unicorn's horn a full mile high."

 (Not, as is probably obvious, from the beginning of the story.  But sometimes you start writing from the middle, or the end, to know where the beginning will come from.  I know, now, where the beginning begins, and where the end will end.)

Resolutions

Like most people, any New Year's Resolutions I make tend to be better in concept than execution.

But the Ur-resolution, which would pretty much apply to any more specifc resolution I'd make, would be to try and become more organized and effective.  To Get Shit Done, Quicker.  Like, oh, writing and posting about New Year's Resolutions on January 1st, when it would be most pertinent.

Two specific goals I'd like to accomplish this year:

1. To get back into fiction writing.  I'm trying to write a little bit every day, hopefully several pages, but something, even if only a paragraph.  (So far, so good, on that.)
2. Get my backyard garden reestablished.  At present, it's devolved back into bare dirt, weeds, and grass.

One of the big time and energy commitments the past several years has been acting as personal representative (aka executor) for our friend Anne's estate.  That should finally be resolved and concluded by sometime in the spring, which will be a considerable relief. 

(Anne died without a will.  Write a friggin' will, people!  Don't make the whole mess of dying even messier for your family and friends.)

The Santorum Surge

In the last few days leading up to the Iowa presidential caucuses, candidate Rick Santorum has had a sudden surge in his support.  One news source accredited this to his "impeccable conservative credentials."  As a public service, I thought I'd translate that bit of Newspeak into plain English:

• "impeccable":  bat-shit crazy
• "conservative":  bat-shit crazy
• "credentials":  bat-shit crazy

You're welcome.

Christmas Connections

Sixty-nine years ago in 1942, these American soldiers in the South Pacific were celebrating a makeshift Christmas, with a "tree" decorated with bits of surgical cotton and cigarette cartons.

About that same time, my father would have been on a ship, also somewhere in the South Pacific.  He rarely spoke about his service in WWII, but I wonder if he and his shipmates would have tried to do something similar for their own Christmas celebration away from home.  (My mom once pointed ut to me that, since my dad's shipboard duty was running water purification systems that involved fire and steam and long pieces of pipe and tubing, he very likely knew how to make moonshine.  Not that he ever made any for us kids, to be sure....)

I don't know if any of the soldiers in the photo above died in WWII.  I know that my father saw combat, and saw shipmates die.  (He never talked about it.  Never.  But among his military mementoes were some photos of ships he had served on, and that were sunk in combat.)

Thirty-eight years later, my father would die on Christmas Day 1980.  That was not a good Christmas.

Shift to today, a family get together at a cousin's.  My mom and brothers, assorted cousins, with spouses and children and grandchildren. 

This was a good occasion, for the most part, but with an underlying bit of melancholy for me.  Seeing my family reminds me just how old we're all getting.  My brothers are all grey- or white-haired now.  My mother seems thinner and more frail every time I see her.  And the reason why so many more than usual of the relations got together this year was because the cousin who was hosting the party had been diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor several months ago.  (She's had surgery, and is undergoing chemo, and actually looks pretty good, considering.  But still, the chance that she'll be around for next year's Christmas is a lot less than it seemed four months ago.

I don't like this getting old.  It kinda sucks.

But then again, the youngest person there was a grand-niece, an oh-so-cute toddler with a head of curly hair so flamingly red it would make the entire Weasley clan gnash their teeth in envy.  Someone with a long life still ahead of her.  Someone to feel positive about.

Christmas Past, Christmas Present, Christmas Future.   Dickens got it right.

More Tyr



Tyr (15 weeks)

The new kitten is losing the fluffy and starting to grow into a cat.

Catbus

MY FRIEND TOTORO is a cool movie. But the coolest thing in it was the Catbus. Which is why I've had this sitting by my printer for several years:

Catbus

Cute and charming and whimsical.  Great fun.

BUT... in that alternate universe where Spock has a beard, the movie is titled MY FIEND TOTORO, and instead of the Catbus, you have...

SHARKBUS!

Well, that will certainly give one nightmares.  We need something to soothe our minds and let us sleep at night again.  We need something... even cuter and more charming and more whimsical than the Catbus.  But what could that be?  What could that possibly be?

There's only one thing cuter and more charming and more whimsical than a Catbus.   And that thing is...

Today In Headlines

 From the Phoenix New Times website:

This Cat Is Now Dead

Rikkus

I wrote about Rikkus earlier this year, in a post titled "This Cat Is Not Dead".  In that post, I mentioned Rikkus had been in poor health and we'd come close to having him put to sleep.  But I'd realized almost at the last minute that adjusting his thyroid medication might make him a little better again.

And it did, until just recently.  He gained back about a pound and a bit of weight.  Still very thin and frail, nothing like he'd been at his peak of health, when he'd been a stocky and robust cat who could hold his own against other cats.  But... okay.  He ate, he slept, he purred when he was petted.  He seemed to be okay with his life.

About a week ago, he stopped eating.  Completely.  He'd sometimes been picky about which flavor of canned food was being served him.  When all else failed, though, he'd always eat tuna.  Not that nasty, smelly, reddish cat food tuna made from scraps and ends, but the good stuff, the Human's Tuna.  He'd never turn that down.

Except now he even turned away from the good tuna.  I hoped maybe he'd get his appetite back in a few days, and offered him bites of various cat food flavors several times each day.  But he showed no interest, and it became clear that he wasn't just sick, he was getting ready to die.

He never seemed in distress or pain.  He was just... waiting.  Occasionally he'd totter over to the water bowl and get a few licks of water, but that was all.  He still purred when he was petted.  That pound of weight he'd regained went away, and more.  He was growing visibly weaker.  He still purred faintly when I stroked him about 10:00 this morning, but it was clear the end was near.  When I woke up about 1:30 this afternoon, he'd finally passed away sometime in those few hours.

We gave him a few extra years by taking him in when his previous owners abandoned him and moved away.  We gave him a few extra months when we adjusted his medications earlier this year.  He was never a snuggler or a lap cat.  But he was a good old guy.  I liked him, and I'm going to miss him.