Jump to content
gdf

Life

Recommended Posts

My friend made his post public so people could share it, so reckon it's fine to post it here (spoilered because long).

 

Thanks, Bjorn. I live south of the areas most likely to be affected, but I'm going to bring this up in conversation with friends (and possibly stay with my girlfriend, who lives near South County) to be ready if it goes down. I'm lucky enough that a passing interest in militaria and Fallout-style costuming has left me with several sets of goggles and a filter mask, at least!

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Thanks, Bjorn. I live south of the areas most likely to be affected, but I'm going to bring this up in conversation with friends (and possibly stay with my girlfriend, who lives near South County) to be ready if it goes down. I'm lucky enough that a passing interest in militaria and Fallout-style costuming has left me with several sets of goggles and a filter mask, at least!

 

Benefits of being a geek!  I haven't followed it closely enough to know what kind of time frame they think this might happen in, the bit of reading I've done makes it sound like the underground fire is not the easiest thing to track or anticipate with great accuracy, and it's the fire that is the primary concern.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I'm sorry too, and it happened to me too.

 

It's shitty as hell and I hope you'll be okay.

 

This also happened to me recently. It's unexpected, and I can't believe how much people I've never met affect me.

 

Please stay healthy, you all. It is not ok if any of you die. I'll be cross.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Hey St. Louis people (aka Gormongous), I'm assuming you're well aware of the impending nuclear fallout in St. Louis?  I had seen my StL friends posting about this over the last couple of weeks, but someone who has work experience in disaster preparedness just put up a Facebook post on what to expect and what preparations people should be making now for when/if the fire hits the radioactive part of the dump.  Somber reading. 

I'm so mad at how irresponsible the parties that created this situation were/are. Does this mean everyone has to leave?

 

Wish you the best Gormongous.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I'm so mad at how irresponsible the parties that created this situation were/are. Does this mean everyone has to leave?

 

Wish you the best Gormongous.

 

Look up the Centralia fire some time. Go out to see it! Take your grandkids to see it.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

so this happened

attachicon.gifIMG_20150928_212125.jpg

 

its pretty much the greatest.  ive got a lot of thoughts - but cant quite articulate it all just yet.  But we've been home since wednesday, he sleeps great and eats better.  My wife is well and getting back to full power

 

its really great, i never would have thought been into this, but im pumped on all fronts and look forward to the next challenge

Congrats so hard!!!!!! It's so insane, but so wonderful.

 

2 months in, and we're still loving it over here:

 

rfQtf20.jpg

 

I just started going to work again. it's so fucking hard to say goodbye to that face in the morning. 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Congrats so hard!!!!!! It's so insane, but so wonderful.

 

2 months in, and we're still loving it over here:

 

 

I just started going to work again. it's so fucking hard to say goodbye to that face in the morning. 

ah thanks! i was actually thinking about you and your little one - wondering how it was going.  My wife is home with the lad for another few weeks, i had only a few days - but coming home is a nice treat

 

He is pretty much the best thing, its fairly incredible (at least in my case) my world flipped and immediately in love and protector.  i was fairly uneasy going into the process, worried about nurturing skills, etc. - but hes still alive and seems happy

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Yeah the experience going from no-kid-haver to holding it in your arms is unbelievable. I still can look at this picture and feel it all click into place.

 

IMG_4750.JPG

 

Glad to hear everyone's enjoying their time with the freshly-squeezed humans. I look forward to reading your complaints once they turn ~2.5 :)

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Heading to Chicago again this weekend for Valorcon and I'm staying at the appropriately lux Palmer House because I liked how the lobby bar looked.

 

Also been dealing with random anxiety due to my cat pouncing on me in bed when I try to go to bed - insomnia after kicking it for 15 years is not fun in the slightest. 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I gotta say, I'm over people comparing whether Back to the Future II 'got things right'. It suggested the possibility of Jaws 19 directed by Spielberg's son. It was not trying for accuracy. It was flattering an 80s audience: the idea that in 30 years the two worst teams in baseball would be the best, that the Iranian revolution would loom large in the psyche of the nation, that we'd be watching sixteen channels because people already channel-surf, amirite? Skateboarding is still relevant, except now it floats! Flying cars are real because of course they are in the future (even though in the back of our mind we know we don't actually want the reality of flying cars, of every crash being lethal and having to navigate in 3D space).

 

Or, as a wag on Twitter put it, its boldest prediction is that Elijah Wood would be 8.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Gah I feel so accomplished today. I heard from my boyfriend yesterday that my mum had landed us some volunteer work setting up a computer network for a brand new office floor in a government sublet department. Anyway 6 hours, 70 terminals, 20 phone hubs later and we've transformed a jumble of lcd screens, cables, and thin clients into a professional office. The IT Operations and the Project Manager were really nice, we ended up meeting my mum's boss who bought us a lunch, and said hi to the head of IT for the company and checked out their flash new server setup. It was really cool to go from studying Comp Sci, and even doing It Operations as a paper to seeing related skills being applied in a real environment. Plus we have some kick ass referrals from the head of their IT coming our way :D

 

The only thing that could top that is if we ended up being accepted to work on the help desk for the office we set up seeing as we both need some stable income and it'd be a really solid line of work to have on our resumes plus they've seen us work to a great standard. They're a place that sends emails back if you're no longer being considered so the hope is that we end up being accepted into the January/Feb recruitment and I actually land some real damn work that isn't seasonal farming or once in a blue moon film industry gigs (as a boom operator).

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Been a while since I checked in!

Been in my new management position for a little under 3 months now and I'm finally starting to feel comfortable with it.

Around the same time as my promotion, I found a kitten stuck up in the guts of an SUV in my apartment parking lot. She's super healthy now and very cute. And with 3 cats, I'm officially undate-able. Alas! 

Anyway, here's some pics of Tilly:

 

Also my shitty car shit itself and cost me more to fix than it's worth. But I can't afford payments on a new one.

post-35115-0-24092200-1445919538_thumb.jpg

post-35115-0-03582700-1445919558_thumb.jpg

post-35115-0-94881500-1445919572_thumb.jpg

post-35115-0-71538000-1445919586_thumb.jpg

post-35115-0-63680200-1445919601_thumb.jpg

post-35115-0-69834300-1445919626_thumb.jpg

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

My boss is explicitly talking about making sure they have a new contract lined up for when my current one expires.

 

It expires in 8 months.

 

This is probably a good sign.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

It's the beginning of the semester here in Manchester, and I've been tasked with looking after an undergrad.

 

When will my boss learn? I can't teach. I can show them where stuff is, but I can't explain things to people in more than one way. Either they understand my first attempt to explain, or I can't help, I don't have different ways to understand things stored in my head. I have my way, because that's all I've ever needed.

I also have no patience at all, especially when it's so easy for me to forget that undergrads don't know the basics of the thing I've been immersed in for 3 years. I find it much easier to explain to lay people what I do, than to someone who I feel should know the basics. 

 

Although I did see something quite amusing. After telling her about "n" numbers and "n=7" her report has "we used end is 7." It took me a few minutes to figure out what she was trying to say. Do they not teach undergrads about experimental repeats any more?!

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

The anxiety issues that have been murmuring along in the background of my life since the turn of the year seem have seemingly turned up their volume again in the last couple of months.

 

(I'm gonna stick some stuff under a spoiler because although i feel i need to get it off my chest somewhere it hopefully makes it a bit more private)

 

 

The good news is i know what's caused that upswing, the bad news is that its because someone dear to me is having to deal with unpleasant treatment for a serious illness.

 

Hearing someone I've been close to your entire life say they couldn't "see a way out of this" is a pretty heartbreaking, no matter how hard I try to rationalise my reaction to it.

I know confronting your mortality and the mortality of those around you is a pretty fundamental part of the human experience, & in this case their prognosis is more good than bad, but there was evidently still enough of the bad for it to feel overwhelming to them.

 

I have no idea of how to deal with the whole situation, how do you help someone when there is no way (for any of us) to ultimately win the fight. I've always been someone who's needed something to fight against, or to work towards, and its perhaps why death scares me so much.

 

The thought of my own mortality has also started creeping into my head most evenings unbidden, what if when I fall sleep i don't wake up? As soon as that thought surfaces there's almost no way to suppress it again, and not only that i feel shitty to be having irrational fears over my own life disrupting my sleep, when someone else is facing a far more real struggle.

 

How do I help them when i can't even deal with my own fears.

 

 

Now I'm sleeping even less than is normal for me, I'm regularly not getting more than 4-5 hrs sleep and it's leaving me exhausted. Falling asleep has always been a problem for me, my mum once told me that she felt that i'd "never learned how to sleep" that even as a child i was never able to quieten my mind. Now however it's got to a extent where i can tell the lack of sleep is affecting my mood and the anxiety.

 

It all feels like a bit of a Catch 22 situation. My anxiety levels are raised because i can't sleep, and i can't sleep because I'm anxious.

 

This all led to me going to bed this Saturday at 12 and still being awake at 5;30 in the morning, normally when i can't sleep I'll throw on a history podcast or something just to try to give some background noise to break the anxiety loop, and normally it works but not this time.

 

So i tried something else, and in the end the last thing i remember from before falling asleep was the Thumbs talking about the Star Wars Battlefront beta.

 

turns out sometimes I need to be reminded of the absurdity of reality to be able to deal with it.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Aw, Codi, I'm sorry to hear all that. ):

 

I hope things improve for you soon.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

My employer denied my time off request for Christmas despite being made two months in advance, which is the standard work ethic thing I've been taught and lived by my whole life.

 

More to come later perhaps but for now I'm having to cancel a flight and risk my grandmother dying without seeing me one last time because if I still go I'll lose my job and I've had bad luck finding work my whole life and fuck capitalism forever, nobody can convince me it is a good thing.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

American work culture is horrible (it's not necessarily capitalism it's American Capitalism). Pretty sure I've bitched about it before, mainly because I want to work in the US, but I don't want deal with working for Americans. 

 

Listening to how they do it in Sweeden makes me wish everywhere was like that. Hearing the Paradox CEO and COO talk about how "happy employees work harder" and that 6 weeks holiday are just normal in Sweeden. Everyone should listen to the interview Austin Walker from Giant Bomb did with them, it's really good.

 

Also, did you know they're considering moving to a 4 day work week? 

 

I want to live in Sweeden. Actually, I want the US to be more like Sweeden. 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Personally, I'm looking forward to seeing the sun again.  As much as I like* being forced to work all night for 6 days a week for a month and a half every 6-12 months, I do miss the little things.  Like sleep.  But hey, at least I get overtime pay**.  And with any luck*** the outage will be over this week.

 

*I hate it

 

**I totally don't get overtime.  In fact it's in our employment contract that after 40 hours a week, for the first 5 hours we don't get paid at all.  Only after THAT do I get normal pay.  For example, in an average week during this time I'll work a minimum of 60 hours.  20 of those hours are considered overtime, but since the first 5 are free I'm only getting paid for 15 hours.  In other words, for 20 hours a week I'm actually working at 3/4 pay.

 

***We're never that lucky.  These things ALWAYS run over.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

**I totally don't get overtime.  In fact it's in our employment contract that after 40 hours a week, for the first 5 hours we don't get paid at all.  Only after THAT do I get normal pay.  For example, in an average week during this time I'll work a minimum of 60 hours.  20 of those hours are considered overtime, but since the first 5 are free I'm only getting paid for 15 hours.  In other works, for 20 hours a week I'm actually working at 3/4 pay.

 

Jeebus, what the fuck?  How is that even legal?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

It was a free contract negotiated between a free employer and a free employee, where there was absolutely no degree of coercion involved, I bet. 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now

×