Gargamel rears his ugly head

Today, as all Thursdays are, was check day. This is the day my week's labor comes to a head and I give out checks to our (currently) 80 employees. Typically everyone is very happy to receive their checks. We have one employee that very nearly resembles Papa Smurf. He's an elderly gentleman, a carpenter helper. He is very nearly illiterate. He can read and write although it pains him greatly and takes him enormous amounts of time. He is a very nice man but he does have a tendency to not speak clearly and has a reputation of that. Today was a hard day for all of our guys and many of them came out looking like they had rolled around in the mud and most were still completely soaked from head to toe in sweat. The humidity was relatively high today although it was only in the mid 80's. The worst part of it all was the deadline of having the twenty some foot wall ready to pour tomorrow. There were many down attitudes at the end of the day but Papa Smurf came out nearly last. I try to keep the guys' spirits up and be somewhat jolly when they come in and leave though it pains me sometimes. Papa Smurf is one of the guys that is nearly always in a good mood. Tonight I asked him how his day was and without looking up he said it was a bad day. Knowing it was a bad day for most I assured him it would be a better day tomorrow and he replied that, "No, no it won't be better."

With that response I knew it was more than a bad day. On our last project this man had gone home one weekend and had a heart attack and didn't return until I invited him back on this project. I knew if he said it wasn't getting any better something was very seriously wrong. I asked him about it and he simply asked what time I'd be in my office in the morning. I replied I'd be up there about 7:30 after the night shift left and I had them all checked out. Then he began with "They moved me down the line."

I'd heard his foreman, we'll call him Moose, at lunch say something about he was going to give me a list of names that he didn't ever want me to hire again. I knew he was just aggravated because our company does not operate like that. I didn't give it much thought until I heard Papa Smurf say this cryptic line about moving down the line. We don't work in a factory style and there are no "lines" to speak of so I was quite baffled. I asked him what he meant and he finally looked at me. He reached into his pocket as he started to speak. He said "they" had cut him back in pay by a dollar since he was here last time. He showed me his check stub and sure enough he was exactly correct. I felt as though I had just kicked baby Jesus. I assured him it was nobody's fault but my own and I was eternally sorry. I told him I would fix it in the morning and make sure he got all the money that was coming to him. The apology and the promise of making it right put him in a much better mood. His posture corrected itself and he forgave me.

Hopefully tomorrow Papa Smurf will have the strength to conquer Gargamel.

The Subtle Knife - His Dark Materials Book 2

I downloaded this onetoday. I've listened to the first 16 minutes now and no Lyra. Also, this is odd. They never really dated the first book but they had electricity but the master of Oxford college still used oil lamps. Now we're talking about cell phones and whatnot. I sincerely hope Lyra isn't 50 years old and still searching for Dust.

The first one was a stunning performance so I had really high hopes. This book is a bit shorter than the first but not too much so to detract if the storyline is as well written.

I have to say it again, I love my audible.com listener plan. I'm considering getting another account so I can get more audio books per month. Currently I get 1 audio book and 1 subscription program per month. I thought it would be too much at first but I quickly found out it was not nearly enough. I do wish they would just allow you to add two plans to one account but alas I'd have to make another account. That's the only thing holding me up.

When did Microsoft buy Motorola?

Motorola Programming Primer

I've been studying on buying a two way radio most of today. This has been a harrowing experience. I decided to purchase one of my own so I would not have to put up with people taking mine away from me or not being able to be issued one. It's a rediculous situation all around to be certain. The guy that programs the radios for all of our job sites is quite a treat and I refuse to deal with him unless it is absolutely necessary. Thusly I decided I need to buy a programmable unit with all of the accessories to program it. Those accessories include the radio, the software, and the cord to connect the radio to the computer. This is not rocket science. It is a programmable radio. I tried to find something at radio shack that is more like what I used to see with all of the numbers and buttons and whatnot but it seems they have gotten out of that line of retailing. Perhaps they just don't show it on their web site. I found out what frequencies we use here at work and I thought I was home free. Not so said the retailer I spoke with. Now I needed to know if it was open squelch / carrier squelch or if it used tones. I called our local radio shop and they indicated that we are on a tone system. I was sure I was in the bottom of the 7th inning and I would soon be asking how quickly they could fed-ex me my new radio. Turns out I need to know some number associated with each channel for the tones. The guy (oddly enough his name was Van) indicated that I might not be able to glean this information since it is typically kept private to keep people from buying radios from other retailers.
As I mentioned one guy does all of our programming but he is the radio gestapo. To obtain the frequencies we use (which likely could have been queried using some fcc database) I had a female coworker call and tell some half truths about the nature of the inquiry. Actually she mentioned that she could get the info and I just stood at her desk in awe as she sweet talked the slime ball. She certainly didn't mention my name and I'm not certain how we would extract this newly necessary information from him to accomplish our goals.
Van said he could read the tones from an existing radio if we could send him one but therein lies the problem. I'd need a radio to send him to get a radio for myself. Van is in Los Angeles, I'm near Atlanta. Even with Fed-Ex that's going to take up to 4 days in the middle of a shut down. In short: not going to happen.

Now on to the Motorola / Microsoft connection.
Everybody uses these things. Police, fire, hotel workers, wal~mart employees, construction companies, delivery drivers, hospitals, the military, the list goes on forever. There are literally millions and millions of these radios in use today. First of all they are unduly expensive. One might think a hundred dollars or so. Not so. It seems as though Motorola has asked online retailers to yank the prices on their products but when one can find a price it is always in the $500 - $1200 US Dollar range. Used equipment can be had at a fraction of the price but then you need to check into the mysterious Motorola RSS programming package. I have as of yet to see a price for that. I'm on hold with Motorola presently out of curiosity. First there is the approximately 2 day wait to get an account set up. Then there is the approval process for your application of the software license. Next up, as my pleasant customer service representative noted, is a charge of "typically between $275 and $300" for a 3 year license. ...Uhhh, no. I think I'll buy from their competitors who have a $89 software package / cable option.

...and someday I swear I will learn C and make this crap open source.

Grammar Nazi

Dictionary.com/ornery

It eats at my very soul when someone says "Onery" instead of the proper pronunciation. There is no word in the english language that equates to "onery."

As much as I try to overlook it I have a substantial amount of trouble dealing with ignorance.

Genesis

I have been inspired. I just finished reading this blog and it prompted me to start writing things down. I found that link at the hippie commune and I posted as such:

johncub
Wednesday, September 29, 2004 at 12:58:03 mid:1738-1642
Kind of like in True Porn Clerk Stories.

That was the best online reading I've done in months. I too was a porn clerk but we didn't rent any of that "actual movie" crap, just hardcore porn and we sold the accessories. It was one of the most interesting times in my life. I learned a lot about people and the world while working there. Things I learned that the narrator didn't cover:
1. "The mob" is a real thing and very well alive all around our great nation.
2. People will give up drugs to watch porn, as in drugs for payment. I never understood this.
3. People will watch porn as a group and ghastly things happen in there (we had 2 theatres at one of the stores and 1 theatre at the other)
4. The token areas are not really about the 1 minute per 25 cent token booths, it's about the gay men that hang about preying on whatever wanders in.
5. There is no need for a customer to be ashamed at looking at whatever is in the store whether it is straight or gay. The clerk has seen it all and couldn't care less about your sexual curiosities.

I deeply regret never keeping track of my day to day adventures. As I age my memory is slipping and I know I'll never get those memories back. I wrote a blog program which as far as I know is still functional but with less and less time to maintain any programs I decided to use this off the shelf version and deal with it.