Minor rant thread. Post your rants o' the day here!

Having a rough week. Wife's new boss is being a total crazy to her due to her moving to a better position soon. Car accident a week ago and my insurance not being exactly on the ball, first one in 22 years really. You would think with a 100% perfect driving record and 0 moving violations ever they would actually listen to what I am saying to them.

Truck not behaving and somebody stole my windshield wipers and arms who knows why.  I have 15ish days of vacation to burn and 50 days worth of work to get done before the end of the year. PM sheets to fill out.

Got back on the horse about making things simpler. Got an agent for next year to list the house again so that we can find something we can pay cash for. Took a deposit on the Cadillac which is a 6K lb weight in the shop and my neck. Lost a few K and a few dozen hours of work hours on it but at least it should be going soon.

Got a check coming in for the car that was totaled. Then I need to decide what to do as I have been selling off parts and cars for the last 6 months. Feel freer having done that. 

One foot in front of the other for a while is what this is going to take, just need something to mark the time as it all just seems to be work again. I feel so berkeleying old right now.

Dusterbd13-michael said:

Duke said:

Dusterbd13-michael said:

But somehow, moisture got in (been parked under a carport in the dry, so i dunno) and the entire interior is slightly musty/growing.

The Manic Miata gets that way over the winters when it sits unopened for a long time. It is usually just a haze of fine green dots, kind of evenly distributed over the interior.

Wipe it down with window cleaner on a rag.  It should go away and not come back once the car is in regular use.  I don't think you need to remove the entire interior unless it is radically worse than that.

Cool. Its mostly dime sized green dots. Couple of worse spots, maybe dollar bill sized on passengers side seats.

Will just wipe down. Car gets used one month a year, and sits except for me running it around for a weekend a month on average. Im hoping that they decide this year its cheaper to rent a car for a month than to have one sitting here.....

It cleaned up nicely! 

Thanks for suggesting the non-nuke it from orbit option. 

Im also not fixing the rattling heat shield or dead radio. Firmly in the not my problem category. But ill put 5 gallons of fresh gas in it for them.

Holy. Berkleying. Shirt. O_O

The Dancer and I are going to try and knock out the rest of our Christmas shopping tonight in time to be able to ship things off to relatives and stand a chance of their arriving by Christmas- so there's a strong chance we'll be eating dinner out tonight. So, I figure it might be smart to look ahead at where we're more likely to be eating and get an idea of what I could order at each place to have the least amount of sodium and ideally be meatless and... holy carp, I think just looking at the numbers is making my BP go up...

First place I check, as it's one we really enjoy and haven't been to for a while: Bonefish Grill. Under normal circumstances my usual order would be to share an order of potstickers with the Dancer and get a burger with a side of greens. Assuming nothing else (don't have numbers for their bread and dipping sauce), that would clock in at just about 3000mb of sodium- twice what I'm generally aiming for. Biggest eye-popper on the menu? The Pad Thai (which I don't think is available at ours...), which if you get it with chicken clocks in at a hair under FIVE THOUSAND MG OF SODIUM. I'm having a difficult time finding any combination of meatless options (to be fair, the ones WITH meat are even worse...) that doesn't add up to over 1000mg for enough food to be remotely filling.

Old Chicago, for one, doesn't appear to have a working nutrition info on their page but from what I can find at least their veggie calzone has 'only' 670mg of sodium, and I can get a salad for the 100-200mg range.

I have to give major props to one of the local restaurants who has EXTENSIVE nutritional info on all of their menu items- but still doesn't have any particularly solidly low-sodium meatless options (though I'd likely get my usual breakfast dinner without the bacon and ask them to make the eggs & hash browns as low-sodium as possible).

Red Lobster... yeah, not even going to bother describing this one.

-_-

In reply to Ashyukun (Robert) :

Dude you need to move to Portland. Vegan cultural capital of the world here.  We got your low-sodium meatless needs met in spades with actual flavor and choices, too.

In reply to Javelin :

I'd not complain about that, and I imagine the Dancer wouldn't mind either (from what I remember the area has a thriving arts/dance scene as well). I liked it well enough when I got sent out there for a few weeks 5 years or so ago to help out at a company mine had bought.

Lexington HAS some good local restaurants, unfortunately they're not really near where we're likely to be shopping tonight...

Dear coworker,

If you can’t understand why the contractor is having issues with your design then go and see what they’re talking about in person. The jobsite is only 20 minutes away and our company pays mileage.  The foreman has 36 years experience so I doubt he’s “just stupid”. Stop living in a bubble and go see what a construction site actually looks like. Talk to the tradesmen and learn some stuff. 

I think I have truly begun to loath work. Between being constantly scheduled with the same co-workers who drive me up the wall because they never shut up or understand the idea that I need some time alone to get things done in quiet. They also rarely do any real work, so I get stuck doing it all, and a boss who is a raging alcoholic that you never know how he will react and never ever takes a day off and usually racks up 20 hours of OT a week (so he is always there), I just cannot find any way to muster even an ounce of enthusiasm towards work.

I realize part of it is due to the personal stress I am under. My father almost accidently killed himself again by ODing on his pain meds two weeks ago, and my highly bi-polar sister is coming down thursday for a week or two or five..

Dusterbd13-michael said:

Dusterbd13-michael said:

Duke said:

Dusterbd13-michael said:

But somehow, moisture got in (been parked under a carport in the dry, so i dunno) and the entire interior is slightly musty/growing.

The Manic Miata gets that way over the winters when it sits unopened for a long time. It is usually just a haze of fine green dots, kind of evenly distributed over the interior.

Wipe it down with window cleaner on a rag.  It should go away and not come back once the car is in regular use.  I don't think you need to remove the entire interior unless it is radically worse than that.

Cool. Its mostly dime sized green dots. Couple of worse spots, maybe dollar bill sized on passengers side seats.

Will just wipe down. Car gets used one month a year, and sits except for me running it around for a weekend a month on average. Im hoping that they decide this year its cheaper to rent a car for a month than to have one sitting here.....

It cleaned up nicely! 

Thanks for suggesting the non-nuke it from orbit option. 

Im also not fixing the rattling heat shield or dead radio. Firmly in the not my problem category. But ill put 5 gallons of fresh gas in it for them.

Excellent!  Glad to hear it was not the travail you were expecting.

Nothing says "we don't need working people's money" like a shop that closes during lunch hour (high-end makeup shop, buying a Christmas gift for my sister).

Staff finally came back after 20 minutes, just as I was about to post this. Place had an Apple all-in-one being used as a point of sale system.

And I may have to come back here again too...

Edit: Far sooner than I thought. Almost made it back to the office before I got news that she wants something different. If there was a global anonymous poll only open to adults to cancel Christmas gift-giving, I think that would be the end of it.

It's my day for the "school field trip" tomorrow. Activities include dealing with 17 snot nosed little brats and watching frozen. I hope my ear drums pop tonight so I don't have to sit through that.

RevRico said:

It's my day for the "school field trip" tomorrow. Activities include dealing with 17 snot nosed little brats and watching frozen. I hope my ear drums pop tonight so I don't have to sit through that.

Let it go!

alfadriver said:

In reply to RevRico :

Thanks, but we'll get one here.  :)  

It's just funny how we've managed to let technology pass us by.  Not sure how that happened- I didn't even notice.  Even though the last few albums I've been downloading.  How could I have missed that. LOL

I won't buy media digitally because I have yet to have an MP3 player made in the last 15 years that doesn't have a gap hetween tracks.  This annoys the hell out of me.  

In reply to GameboyRMH :

I would absolutely opt out of serious adult gift giving. We buy for our nieces, nephews, and friend’s kids because it’s fun.  My sister, brother and I exchange cheap gifts because my mother thinks we should. My in laws go crazy with giving each other gifts.  It’s absolutely asinine.  A 40 year old should not be handing out wish lists. You have a job, don’t pay rent, and have no kids.  Buy your own E36 M3.  

In reply to Wally :

We've taken the tact of only giving serious gifts to the children in our family and only exchanging gag/humorous gifts with all of the adults. The older adults (our parents/grandparents) always want a list from us, but we generally just shrug and say exactly what you said- we're solidly middle-aged, have decent jobs, and for now no kids so we have a decent disposable income so if we want it, we tend to buy it. I have a wishlist on Amazon simply for the purpose of saving things that I might get around to later and my parents tend to find things from there.

There's nothing quite like having to walk around to three of your favorite places to eat near your office over lunch to put up posters for your wife's upcoming show when you essentially can't eat ANYTHING from any of them (a diner, pizza joint, and what's technically a sweets shop but serves a tasty and cheap pulled pork nachos) because of trying to drop my BP. At least I have a bowl of tasty (and more importantly, filling) pasta casserole here for lunch...

I now have no upstairs bathroom and a downstairs bathroom with a giant hole the ceiling. 

I loathe renting!

Wayslow said:

Dear coworker,

If you can’t understand why the contractor is having issues with your design then go and see what they’re talking about in person. The jobsite is only 20 minutes away and our company pays mileage.  The foreman has 36 years experience so I doubt he’s “just stupid”. Stop living in a bubble and go see what a construction site actually looks like. Talk to the tradesmen and learn some stuff. 

This wears me out as much as anything.  I've been on both sides - construction crew and engineer.  Life is so much more pleasant when everyone makes some kind of effort to see things from the other perspective.  I've worked with engineers and draftsmen in the past who could never get any respect from our fabricators because they were convinced that they were right about everything without ever watching stuff get built.  On the flipside, I've got welders now who think all engineers are stupid and don't know anything about welding.

I think it is safe to say I'm unbiased.  I think everyone is stupid.

Wally said:

In reply to GameboyRMH :

I would absolutely opt out of serious adult gift giving. We buy for our nieces, nephews, and friend’s kids because it’s fun.  My sister, brother and I exchange cheap gifts because my mother thinks we should. My in laws go crazy with giving each other gifts.  It’s absolutely asinine.  A 40 year old should not be handing out wish lists. You have a job, don’t pay rent, and have no kids.  Buy your own E36 M3.  

Seriously though, this year everyone is getting a donation in their name to Ronald McDonald house. If you don't like it, you can go berkeley yourself. 

Wayslow said:

Dear coworker,

If you can’t understand why the contractor is having issues with your design then go and see what they’re talking about in person. The jobsite is only 20 minutes away and our company pays mileage.  The foreman has 36 years experience so I doubt he’s “just stupid”. Stop living in a bubble and go see what a construction site actually looks like. Talk to the tradesmen and learn some stuff. 

Hi Wayslow,

In Operational Excellence / Continuous Improvement circles, it’s called going to the Gemba and failure to consistently do so is met with criticism.

Perhaps sharing that the importance of spending ToT (Time on Target) is well known and has been formalized with the term Gemba could help.

Wiki for Gemba

Javelin said:

I now have no upstairs bathroom and a downstairs bathroom with a giant hole the ceiling. 

 

I loathe renting!

Wait...  What?  How did it devolve to that?

wae said:

Javelin said:

I now have no upstairs bathroom and a downstairs bathroom with a giant hole the ceiling. 

 

I loathe renting!

Wait...  What?  How did it devolve to that?

They finally paid the water bill. Then I noticed a water stain in the ceiling above the downstairs shower. Turns out the upstairs toilet has been leaking forever and they already tried patching it once. Now the patch has fallen out of the ceiling and the subfloor has shifted so the toilet is not sealed at all. 

"Talking in your sleep" by the Romantics is already a stupid, repetitive song.  When played twice back to back on one of the few radio stations I can pick up at work, I want to hurt someone. 

Wayslow said:

Dear coworker,

If you can’t understand why the contractor is having issues with your design then go and see what they’re talking about in person. The jobsite is only 20 minutes away and our company pays mileage.  The foreman has 36 years experience so I doubt he’s “just stupid”. Stop living in a bubble and go see what a construction site actually looks like. Talk to the tradesmen and learn some stuff. 

If this ever got to my desk I would be having a conversation with my employee and it would not be a nice one.  

kazoospec said:

"Talking in your sleep" by the Romantics is already a stupid, repetitive song.  When played twice back to back on one of the few radio stations I can pick up at work, I want to hurt someone. 

Listen to pop country for a day, and Talking In Your Sleep will sound like The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.

Sunrise, sunburn, songs that repeat...

In reply to Knurled. :

Break of dawn.

Just got paid.

Hey, girl