Irritations, Food Division

Today had a bite to eat at a Smashburger. Place was clean, the service fast, and the burger tasty although a bit salty.

I believe the owner was working. Man about fifty, looked like a retired linebacker, and well but discretely groomed. Asked me how I liked my meal. DAMN!

Why do these people ask you anything when they can plainly see you are chewing? I don't like to talk with my mouth full. Yet it happens over and over.

My internal response is, "Just fine until you started talking, you passive aggressive asshole". My external response is a grunt and a small wave.

Yep, WSF, you are  certainly leading a hard life with this being your current major problem!

Drat. Poor Computer Skills

Saturday, July 21, 2012

Scared Witless II

A repost since this wouldn't come up as a comment of Juvats post on Old AF Sarge's blog. http://oldafsarge.blogspot.com/2015/09/airport-festivities.html

In view of the Aurora, CO tragedy, something light; a flying story from the past.

‘Hey, you have a Commercial ticket?” “Want to make fifty bucks?” asked the man. I replied “Yes” to both questions. He said, “I need a copilot for one trip.”

Dumbfounded, I stared at the man walking towards me from a PB4Y slurry bomber on the ramp at the Jefferson, CO airport, circa 1968.

I’d ferried over a C-150 to have an annual inspection and, while waiting for my ride, wandered over to the US Forest Service’s  slurry station to ogle the aircraft on the ramp.

That was my one and only encounter with the late “Red” Avery from Greybull, WY, one of the early slurry bomber operators. He was there fighting a fire on Mt. Evans.

“Don’t have a multi rating”, I told him. “You don’t need one to be a copilot”, he replied. “Look, the flight engineers does everything. You just need to sit there but I need a copilot to be legal. My copilot had to leave.”

A chance to ride in a WWII bomber, and get paid? Hell, yeah.

So the start up, taxi, takeoff, and climb out toward Mt. Evans was thrilling. Then, at the fire, he put the nose down at a much steeper angle than I thought possible. Into the smoke. Looked like we were going to crash into the fire. He dropped the slurry and we ballooned upward.

Smoke, noise, g forces; too bad you can’t make a carnival ride that will duplicate the experience.

I’ve been in thunderstorms and mountain waves but have never been in turbulence like we encountered. Scared me witless. I was still shaking when we landed.

“Want to stick around”?,  he asked me as he was writing out a check. “Sir”, I said, “I don’t have enough hair on my ass to every do that again.” He just laughed and thanked me for helping him out.

As Dirty Harry said, “A man should know his limitations”.

When you see the aircraft on the ramp, the size of the thing impresses. Once you are in the cockpit, it is small and cramped. You start thinking about the crews that spent hour after hour there and you gain a new respect for what they accomplished.

As I remember, the controls felt fairly light during the brief period I had them while straight and level.  Other than my sister, I’ve shared this story with very few people. Not my most shining hour, so to speak.

Nice Morning

The day started with a shoe falling apart and later my spilling my pills. All this at 0230. Decided I was not going to be bothered/upset. Rewarded later this morning with this vista South of Torrington, WY.

Did I mention the cat wanted/demanded to be fed? Depending on my middle son's employment status, housing status, marriage status, and relationship status this feline has lived with me for five years off and on. The cat hates me! Hisses if I try to pet her. From her point of view,  good staff is hard to come by.

Usually animals like me but not this one. She "tolerates" others but is completely bonded with my son. My threat, to sell her to a Vietnamese restaurant,  he doesn't find amusing.

Clear Thinking., Baltimore Riots Edition

http://johnjudyc.blogspot.com/2015/09/baltimore-riot-explained.html

Wandering Thoughts

Once again WSF’s mind goes wandering down a cloudy, poorly defined thought path.

Over the years I’ve observed a vast increase in “overhead” personnel, often at the Management level.

As an example, in my high school with some 180 students we had a Principal, his Secretary, a school nurse and the kitchen staff in the cafeteria. They also covered the Junior High School. Add a couple of janitor/maintenance people and that was it. Looking at their current on line profile they have 650 students and  23 non teachers out a staff of 76.

I spent a large portion of my working life in the automobile retail business. Most places I worked ran “lean and mean”. Guess I got spoiled.

Everywhere you look, especially in government, there are bloated staffs. Consider the level of staffing in “Human Resources” in larger companies. Seems they spend a great deal of their operations filling out various reports fed to bloated staffs of government agencies.  The same is true of other departments. Damn few people actually doing revenue generating tasks as opposed to those doing “drone” work. Humans, being human, want to feel important and in power, “drone” or not, so days are filled with meetings and more paperwork to afflict and control the revenue generators.

I blame the University system. Thousands of graduates each year well schooled in what? Yes, I understand the process produces people who have proven they can sustain effort to follow a prescribed course. Bravo! Can they do anything worthwhile?

These people need to be employed, and they feel entitled to being well compensated. They are not stupid, but have been raised with certain expectations. I maintain much of government employment is “make work welfare” and at a deep level these people know that. Perhaps this explains an IRS Lois Lerner. The demands made by the government spills over into the private sector forcing more bloated administrative overhead.

This post may well piss off people. It is not meant as personal criticism. We all have to do what we do to survive and live in a system we didn’t create.

Do I have an answer? Not really, which bothers me. I hate finding fault without offering some solution. My major tactic is to resist (politely) authority. YMMV

Will I Ever Grow Up?

I’m 71. By now I should have a grip on my explosive temper, don’t you think? No so, as I relearned that lesson today.

As part of my job, I seal boxes of medical specimens for shipment. This involves dry ice, packing tape, I Pad  entries, etc. My last stop is the Regional West Hospital in Scottsbluff, NE.  In a nearby parking lot are some nice shade trees so I park in the (very broad) traffic lane and do my ten minute job. Doesn’t inconvenience anyone and the hospital security people are ok with it.

Today as I’m working a blivet and blivette (a blivet is two pounds of shit in a one pound bag) pull up along side of me in a ratty Geo Tracker. The blivet driver proceeds to say something along the lines of, “You Colorado drivers are real dumb shits, parking in the RED Zone” or words to that effect and starts to drive off. 

My reply, “Go fuck yourself”, resulted in him slamming to a stop, jumping out of his POS, and getting in my face. He is about 50, a few inches shorter than me but just as fat. So now we have two hot heads jawing at each other. He left before it got physical, damn it. (Maybe my lucky day).

Turning around I saw this older lady with her cell phone recording the whole thing. Her remarks clearly showed her to be sympathetic to me.

“What was his problem? You are just doing your job”, she said.

 I thanked her for having my back.

My lesson from all this is, I still have a hot temper and a short fuse. Despite all the problems this has caused me in my life I don’t have good (or any) control. Fuck it, don’t mean shit, drive on.

Where Are The Birds?

Driving my Wyoming/Nebraska route I've had a nagging feeling of something missing. Realized yesterday I'm missing magpies.

For as long as I can remember where there was road kill there was magpies but this year I've not seen a single one.

I've seen a few crows or ravens, I really don't know the difference, and a few raptors but no magpies. Puzzling.