Within my construction job I have a lot of "co-workers." Everyone on the site is my co-worker, technically. However, when I speak of my co-workers I'm usually talking about my fellow traffic control people. We're a very special club, and it takes a lot to get in. Watching the entirety of a video more cheezy than the sex-ed ones from high school (no, really, Sammy The Sperm has NOTHING on the chick in the armor in the CDOT Flagger Certification video....) and taking a test that it is impossible to fail. Why is it impossible, you ask? Because, my friends, should you fail this test that you are allowed to ask questions during, you will be handed your corrected answer sheet, told to go over the questions you missed, and given a fresh answer sheet, to take it again.
Yes.
Like I said, a very exclusive club.
Anywho, my co-workers are a varied bunch, and only my favorite ones leave much of an impression at all, the rest of them tend to fade into the landscape. Which, in some cases, is the way they prefer it, and who am I to argue with them?
Several of my favorites are guys, around my own age. They're people that I know outside work, socialize with, and one of them can blame me for getting him into this whole mess.
I've known T since we were kids. His older sister has been one of my best friends since elementary school, but it was only recently that T and I began socializing much on our own rights.
For some reason, everyone is convinced that T and I are a couple. Some of them are obnoxious about it, maintaining the claim even after we both explain that it would be akin to incest for either one of us to think that way about the other. Since we can't seem to convince them otherwise, we've decided to have fun with it.
One guy in particular is convinced that I have VERY round heels, and that they're round for everyone on site... except him. Thanks to his firm (and fanatic) belief in this, I got treated to him taking his shirt off and doing one of those manly show-off-the-chest type stretches. Which I normally wouldn't argue with, as I like a little eye candy as well as the next girl, but this one had me searching the first aid kit for the mental iodine.
After that, he was fair game. One of his favorite assertions is that T and I "fool around" in the pilot car. So, as T was giving me a break (supposedly the time when we're supposed to be fooling around) I made the suggestion that it might be entertaining to find out just what kind of reaction we got if I... disappeared... as we were going by his particular flagging station. T found the idea entertaining as well, so I hid in the floorboard, while T drove by. The stubbornly deluded gentleman in question was facing away from us as we were going by... so T honked the horn and gave him a thumbs up as we went by.
Knowing that the fact that I wasn't visible wasn't entirely an indication of anything, I planned ahead, rolled my seat back a little further than I usually do, slumped down into the seat in a languid pose, threw one arm up on the steering wheel and made sure I was smoking a cigarette as I went by.
No fallout on that one yet, but we haven't worked with the guy since.
Of course, T and I are fairly comfortable with each other, probably encouraging the idea that we're dating.
Today, he was being a brat and sat on the window opening of the Silver Streak after I'd rolled it down to talk to him, so I reached out and pinched his butt.
You know something? T sounds remarkably like one of those damsel in distress types you see in the movies, when you pinch his bottom unexpectedly........
Saturday, June 23, 2007
Reaction Time
This one happened at work today, and a short note to those of you in fairly risky jobs and professions.... if you're going to work in a job or a profession in which physical danger is pretty much an every day occurrence... you should have a pretty good crisis reaction time. I'm not talking about run out to your car or truck and get to the "scene" kind of reaction time, I'm talking about in your face its happening now to you or right in front of you reaction time.
Also... situational awareness, people, situational awareness.
So I'm driving the pilot car today (the Silver Streak, still) and about my third round of the morning, I pop over the hill on the north end of the site to see one of the workers' trucks in the live lane in front of me. (Live lane being the lane that traffic is running on, dead lane being the lane that traffic is shut off from. Its a little confusing right now, I admit, because we've got traffic going from one lane to the other, at each end of the site.) No big deal right? I figured he was in the truck and going to move out of my way. Then I realized that not only was he not rolling, he wasn't even in his truck. He was on the opposite side of a big honkin piece of equipment. About the time I had the little sheepies slowed down as much as I dared and leaned on the horn, he looked up, and bolted for the truck, and got it moved. All is good, except for the fact that I had to slow traffic down to nearly a stop, which is a major no no.
Right after we rearranged the site so that the traffic went on the new concrete closer to the south end, I'm headed south. And my supervisor says over the radio that M (one of the workers) is ahead of me. No biggie, right? He'll get out of the way. Wrong. M had, apparently, had a brain dead moment, and left his truck parked right smack in the middle of the live lane, pointed north, and was walking south, away from it. I had to honk the horn a few times to get his attention, before he, too, bolted like a scared jackrabbit for the vehicle and got it out of my way. (By the by, he was on the opposite side of the vehicle from me for most of it, but my supervisor saw it, and she says that M runs real purdy.)
The thing is, both of these men have, presumably, years of experience. They're both well above your average D-1 Dozer (read: shovel) operator in their company, so they should have a decent amount of experience to back it up. M is also the Traffic Control Liaison for his company, so he should have a decent idea of whats going on with all those confusing orange thingy-ma-jiggers.
Both of them stared at the situation for full seconds before reacting.
Maybe I'm expecting too much out of your average person, but I would think that if you grasp the dangers of a job, you'd make sure you kept aware of them, and have some kind of something figured out for when/if it happened. I can understand a couple of seconds of hesitation if its something utterly unexpected and unplanned for, but a traffic line coming down the live lane shouldn't be a surprise. No, really, guys, it happens about every fifteen minutes or so, depending on where you are within the site.
I'm not saying people aren't allowed to have braindead moments, I'm not saying that everyone has to be perfect every time. I've screwed up myself, and I'm not ashamed to admit it. But, and this is where the situational awareness part kicks in... both of those guys could have been well out of the way if they'd been even half watching for the pilot line. They wouldn't have risked their vehicles, their lives (yes, I mean it, their lives, even at twenty miles an hour, a semi doesn't leave much behind if it hits you) and the lives of everyone in the pilot line, including Yours Truly. German Engineered or not, I don't want to find out how well a bug holds up to being in the middle of a pickup and semi sammich, thanks.
It all worked out ok, and no one got hurt, today. It just got me to thinking about how few of the people that I work with, who don't work in traffic control specifically, think about safety. I can't count how many times I've snatched a big burly worker back by the collar of his shirt, because he was about to walk in front of a car, and on this job specifically, I had a surveyor decide to walk down the live lane in front of a semi. Really. He looked at me, asked me if he could cross the road, looked back and forth with me at the gap in the line, before I told him he had time to get *across,* and then trundled his happy way down the middle of the live lane. I thought I was about to see the invention of a grill ornament, but luckily the trucker was paying attention, and hit his brakes... thus causing the guy behind him to hit his brakes... etc... etc. It about caused a pile up, but it was narrowly avoided.
Thinking about it, my job is a never ending series of near-misses, of one sort or another. Sobering thought, ain't it?
At least M had the grace to be embarrassed about his slip up. As I went by where he'd gotten the pickup off in the ditch, I looked over to see him hunched over his steering wheel, shoulders around his ears and not daring to look directly at me, like a puppy caught piddling on the carpet, in front of company. He looked like he thought I might stop right there and beat him with his own measuring wheel.
Wonder who told them THAT story?
Also... situational awareness, people, situational awareness.
So I'm driving the pilot car today (the Silver Streak, still) and about my third round of the morning, I pop over the hill on the north end of the site to see one of the workers' trucks in the live lane in front of me. (Live lane being the lane that traffic is running on, dead lane being the lane that traffic is shut off from. Its a little confusing right now, I admit, because we've got traffic going from one lane to the other, at each end of the site.) No big deal right? I figured he was in the truck and going to move out of my way. Then I realized that not only was he not rolling, he wasn't even in his truck. He was on the opposite side of a big honkin piece of equipment. About the time I had the little sheepies slowed down as much as I dared and leaned on the horn, he looked up, and bolted for the truck, and got it moved. All is good, except for the fact that I had to slow traffic down to nearly a stop, which is a major no no.
Right after we rearranged the site so that the traffic went on the new concrete closer to the south end, I'm headed south. And my supervisor says over the radio that M (one of the workers) is ahead of me. No biggie, right? He'll get out of the way. Wrong. M had, apparently, had a brain dead moment, and left his truck parked right smack in the middle of the live lane, pointed north, and was walking south, away from it. I had to honk the horn a few times to get his attention, before he, too, bolted like a scared jackrabbit for the vehicle and got it out of my way. (By the by, he was on the opposite side of the vehicle from me for most of it, but my supervisor saw it, and she says that M runs real purdy.)
The thing is, both of these men have, presumably, years of experience. They're both well above your average D-1 Dozer (read: shovel) operator in their company, so they should have a decent amount of experience to back it up. M is also the Traffic Control Liaison for his company, so he should have a decent idea of whats going on with all those confusing orange thingy-ma-jiggers.
Both of them stared at the situation for full seconds before reacting.
Maybe I'm expecting too much out of your average person, but I would think that if you grasp the dangers of a job, you'd make sure you kept aware of them, and have some kind of something figured out for when/if it happened. I can understand a couple of seconds of hesitation if its something utterly unexpected and unplanned for, but a traffic line coming down the live lane shouldn't be a surprise. No, really, guys, it happens about every fifteen minutes or so, depending on where you are within the site.
I'm not saying people aren't allowed to have braindead moments, I'm not saying that everyone has to be perfect every time. I've screwed up myself, and I'm not ashamed to admit it. But, and this is where the situational awareness part kicks in... both of those guys could have been well out of the way if they'd been even half watching for the pilot line. They wouldn't have risked their vehicles, their lives (yes, I mean it, their lives, even at twenty miles an hour, a semi doesn't leave much behind if it hits you) and the lives of everyone in the pilot line, including Yours Truly. German Engineered or not, I don't want to find out how well a bug holds up to being in the middle of a pickup and semi sammich, thanks.
It all worked out ok, and no one got hurt, today. It just got me to thinking about how few of the people that I work with, who don't work in traffic control specifically, think about safety. I can't count how many times I've snatched a big burly worker back by the collar of his shirt, because he was about to walk in front of a car, and on this job specifically, I had a surveyor decide to walk down the live lane in front of a semi. Really. He looked at me, asked me if he could cross the road, looked back and forth with me at the gap in the line, before I told him he had time to get *across,* and then trundled his happy way down the middle of the live lane. I thought I was about to see the invention of a grill ornament, but luckily the trucker was paying attention, and hit his brakes... thus causing the guy behind him to hit his brakes... etc... etc. It about caused a pile up, but it was narrowly avoided.
Thinking about it, my job is a never ending series of near-misses, of one sort or another. Sobering thought, ain't it?
At least M had the grace to be embarrassed about his slip up. As I went by where he'd gotten the pickup off in the ditch, I looked over to see him hunched over his steering wheel, shoulders around his ears and not daring to look directly at me, like a puppy caught piddling on the carpet, in front of company. He looked like he thought I might stop right there and beat him with his own measuring wheel.
Wonder who told them THAT story?
Friday, June 22, 2007
Comments
Usually its my practice to answer each comment, at least with a thank you.
I'm not exactly used to having this much response, though. Don't get me wrong, I love it, but since I don't have enough time to sit down and write a specific response to each of you, please consider yourselves thanked when you post a comment complimenting me.
I'll reply to any questions, or anything that I feel needs responding to, of course.
And, I'll try to remember to put something up every so often thanking everyone who has complimented me. I've found I work well under the influence of positive reinforcement, and I really do appreciate all of the compliments and want to keep them coming, so that I can keep entertaining all of you!
Plus that whole part where my momma taught me to be polite and thank folks for sayin nice things 'bout me......
I'm not exactly used to having this much response, though. Don't get me wrong, I love it, but since I don't have enough time to sit down and write a specific response to each of you, please consider yourselves thanked when you post a comment complimenting me.
I'll reply to any questions, or anything that I feel needs responding to, of course.
And, I'll try to remember to put something up every so often thanking everyone who has complimented me. I've found I work well under the influence of positive reinforcement, and I really do appreciate all of the compliments and want to keep them coming, so that I can keep entertaining all of you!
Plus that whole part where my momma taught me to be polite and thank folks for sayin nice things 'bout me......
Bikers Love Bugs
Working as a flagger is not all sunshine and light, and we get some really pissy people who are absolutely convinced that we get a call that they're coming, and rush to put together this whole elaborate scam, just to inconvenience their day. Of course we did. Millions of dollars spent by the government just to screw up YOUR schedule. Yes, you, in the massively expensive four wheel drive vehicle, thats never seen dirt in its life.
Mostly, though, its pretty fun. I get to be outside, albeit pretty much tethered to one spot, and I get to meet a lot of interesting people, both on the crews that we work with, and people going through.
The job I'm working now, is on US highway 287. Its a fairly busy truck route, being one of more straightforward routes between I-40 in Texas, and I-25 and I-70 in Denver. (Not even the truckers want to drive in Colorado Springs!) We get a lot of traffic, and since the paving operations involve laying down a twelve inch thick slab of concrete, we have to run traffic control twenty four hours a day. We also run a Pilot Car, since, you know, theres a twelve inch slab of concrete with pieces of re-bar sticking out of the side of it for eight miles in the north bound lane, and we're running traffic up on it, or down off of it, around some culvert replacements and bridge replacements. Pain in the patoot.
On weekends, I drive the Pilot Car. Thanks to an engine blowing in the ratty old pickup that they had been using for a pilot car last summer, the owner of the company went out and bought a 2006 diesel fueled VW Bug, in mint green. She got it cheap, when she needed it, and that little sucker will run for twenty one hours before we have to fuel it. Plus, bonus for those of us who drive in circles for twelve hours at a time, its pretty cushy inside, too. Heated leather seats, Monsoon CD stereo system, sunroof, the works. Deciding she liked the concept, she also went out and bought a used Bug, silver, with purplish go-fast type decals down the sides, tinted windows, but no CD player, which makes me sad. Now I have to load my audio books on my MP3 player and buy batteries for the wireless FM transmitter, until the green one gets out of the shop. I'm so deprived! (insert dramatic wrist to forehead fainting motion here.)
So, when you roll up on our construction, if you're first in line, you get a thirty or so minute wait, a chance to chat with the flagger, and a front row seat when the little Bug with the flashy light rolls up on your end, with a big 'ol bullrack behind it. Its an amusing sight, and I see it every day.
One of the days that I was working, as I neared the middle of the site, checking my mirrors to make sure all of my little sheepies were in a row behind me, and not deciding that they knew where to go better than I did, I hear some broken-up chatter on the company radio. Now, our radios aren't the best in the world. The big units in the vehicles do all right, but the hand helds just don't reach out and touch someone every time you need them to. So I didn't think much of it, until I heard the supervisor say something about pulling them up to the front of the line.
My first thought, medical emergency. We get a few of those: someone is having a heart attack and doesn't want to go to Podunk Hospital, so they get someone to drive them to Slightly Larger Podunk Hospital, forty five minutes away. I can't really blame them, PH isn't set up for a lot of things, doing anything more than stabilizing a heart attack patient being one of them. So, I'm preparing to speed my traffic up as much as I dare, to get them through faster so I can get the heart attack/stroke/hypochondriac victim out of our site and on their way.
I get on the radio, ask the supervisor if there's anything she wants to let me know about, and she responds that all is kosher on the south end. Not a medical emergency then. I breathe a little easier and continue on my merry way, being careful to show the people immediately behind me how to dodge the pot holes caused by bog-only-knows how many individual vehicles driving over the same lane all the freakin time. And trust me, some of those potholes could swallow the Pilot Car whole. I think we actually lost a Mini Cooper in one, but by the time I got back there to check they'd patched it again.....
As I roll up on the south end, I see a plethora of motorcycles, and I perk up a bit. Nothing like a big rumbly machine that goes between your legs to get a girl's attention. Even better, they're Harleys!
I do my little song and dance of diving out of the way of traffic and only hitting the brakes once they're not gonna smack into me, which places me in the north bound lane, facing all of the traffic that has been stopped while I've been gone, and tends to make the jumpier drivers twitch, if they happen to be in the front of the line. Only then do I notice the cameras.
It seems that the Rocky Mountain Chapter of the Harley Owners' Club were coming home from a rally in Texas, and because of the kind treatment of my supervisor, pulling them out of the exhaust fumes in the middle of the line and putting them up front where they wouldn't get as many rocks spit at them, and offering them all water, they'd been chatting with her. I maintain that her reasons for being nice to motorcycle riders stem less from a humanitarian urge and more from her desire to ogle the pretty bikes, as long as they're real road bikes. I've never seen her pull a crotch rocket up front.
So they decided they wanted pictures of the bug, and had their cameras ready. They got a couple snapped as I pulled in and came to a stop, and then my twisted sense of humor kicked in.
See, it gets HOT in southeastern Colorado in the summer... so I had stripped down to my sports bra underneath my regulation blind-me green vest. I slip the car into park, rummage in the back seat for my regulation orange hard hat, plonk it on my head over my S&W 1911 ball cap and climb out. I saunter to the front of the car, rip open my vest (yay snaps for dramatic effect!) and pose against the hood of the car, saying "If you're going to take a picture, take a REAL picture!"
They loved it.
I'm pretty sure I'm on a clubhouse wall somewhere, now.
Mostly, though, its pretty fun. I get to be outside, albeit pretty much tethered to one spot, and I get to meet a lot of interesting people, both on the crews that we work with, and people going through.
The job I'm working now, is on US highway 287. Its a fairly busy truck route, being one of more straightforward routes between I-40 in Texas, and I-25 and I-70 in Denver. (Not even the truckers want to drive in Colorado Springs!) We get a lot of traffic, and since the paving operations involve laying down a twelve inch thick slab of concrete, we have to run traffic control twenty four hours a day. We also run a Pilot Car, since, you know, theres a twelve inch slab of concrete with pieces of re-bar sticking out of the side of it for eight miles in the north bound lane, and we're running traffic up on it, or down off of it, around some culvert replacements and bridge replacements. Pain in the patoot.
On weekends, I drive the Pilot Car. Thanks to an engine blowing in the ratty old pickup that they had been using for a pilot car last summer, the owner of the company went out and bought a 2006 diesel fueled VW Bug, in mint green. She got it cheap, when she needed it, and that little sucker will run for twenty one hours before we have to fuel it. Plus, bonus for those of us who drive in circles for twelve hours at a time, its pretty cushy inside, too. Heated leather seats, Monsoon CD stereo system, sunroof, the works. Deciding she liked the concept, she also went out and bought a used Bug, silver, with purplish go-fast type decals down the sides, tinted windows, but no CD player, which makes me sad. Now I have to load my audio books on my MP3 player and buy batteries for the wireless FM transmitter, until the green one gets out of the shop. I'm so deprived! (insert dramatic wrist to forehead fainting motion here.)
So, when you roll up on our construction, if you're first in line, you get a thirty or so minute wait, a chance to chat with the flagger, and a front row seat when the little Bug with the flashy light rolls up on your end, with a big 'ol bullrack behind it. Its an amusing sight, and I see it every day.
One of the days that I was working, as I neared the middle of the site, checking my mirrors to make sure all of my little sheepies were in a row behind me, and not deciding that they knew where to go better than I did, I hear some broken-up chatter on the company radio. Now, our radios aren't the best in the world. The big units in the vehicles do all right, but the hand helds just don't reach out and touch someone every time you need them to. So I didn't think much of it, until I heard the supervisor say something about pulling them up to the front of the line.
My first thought, medical emergency. We get a few of those: someone is having a heart attack and doesn't want to go to Podunk Hospital, so they get someone to drive them to Slightly Larger Podunk Hospital, forty five minutes away. I can't really blame them, PH isn't set up for a lot of things, doing anything more than stabilizing a heart attack patient being one of them. So, I'm preparing to speed my traffic up as much as I dare, to get them through faster so I can get the heart attack/stroke/hypochondriac victim out of our site and on their way.
I get on the radio, ask the supervisor if there's anything she wants to let me know about, and she responds that all is kosher on the south end. Not a medical emergency then. I breathe a little easier and continue on my merry way, being careful to show the people immediately behind me how to dodge the pot holes caused by bog-only-knows how many individual vehicles driving over the same lane all the freakin time. And trust me, some of those potholes could swallow the Pilot Car whole. I think we actually lost a Mini Cooper in one, but by the time I got back there to check they'd patched it again.....
As I roll up on the south end, I see a plethora of motorcycles, and I perk up a bit. Nothing like a big rumbly machine that goes between your legs to get a girl's attention. Even better, they're Harleys!
I do my little song and dance of diving out of the way of traffic and only hitting the brakes once they're not gonna smack into me, which places me in the north bound lane, facing all of the traffic that has been stopped while I've been gone, and tends to make the jumpier drivers twitch, if they happen to be in the front of the line. Only then do I notice the cameras.
It seems that the Rocky Mountain Chapter of the Harley Owners' Club were coming home from a rally in Texas, and because of the kind treatment of my supervisor, pulling them out of the exhaust fumes in the middle of the line and putting them up front where they wouldn't get as many rocks spit at them, and offering them all water, they'd been chatting with her. I maintain that her reasons for being nice to motorcycle riders stem less from a humanitarian urge and more from her desire to ogle the pretty bikes, as long as they're real road bikes. I've never seen her pull a crotch rocket up front.
So they decided they wanted pictures of the bug, and had their cameras ready. They got a couple snapped as I pulled in and came to a stop, and then my twisted sense of humor kicked in.
See, it gets HOT in southeastern Colorado in the summer... so I had stripped down to my sports bra underneath my regulation blind-me green vest. I slip the car into park, rummage in the back seat for my regulation orange hard hat, plonk it on my head over my S&W 1911 ball cap and climb out. I saunter to the front of the car, rip open my vest (yay snaps for dramatic effect!) and pose against the hood of the car, saying "If you're going to take a picture, take a REAL picture!"
They loved it.
I'm pretty sure I'm on a clubhouse wall somewhere, now.
Thursday, June 21, 2007
Kids and Hoses
The points are going out on the well where the cows are at. We've got new points, as of today, and they'll be put on tomorrow, but in the mean time there's some weird processes to go through to make sure the cows have water. Like climbing down into the well house and "flicking" (a very technical term, explained to me by my father to mean jamming a piece of wood into the points and prying them back so that the springs engage properly) the points.
Apparently the cattle were not pleased with this development, because somehow they managed to get the float knocked off the tank. So instead of having a tank full of water sitting on a pedestal of ground formed by many hooves wearing down much mud, we had an empty tank floating peacefully in a gigantic mudhole, today.
We got the tank moved, new hose run, and started filling the tank, when my bottle calf came up wanting a drink. He's just too short to reach the bottom of the tank so I let him drink from the hose. This taught the other calves how to do it, and soon I had a huddle of calves, all sticking their tongues out and lapping at the flow of water from the hose.
Soon, the huddle was all the way around the tank, and I was having to stretch across to give drinks to those opposite me. I didn't mind, they were all too short to reach the level of the water that was in the tank. I had to laugh, though, when the calves opposite the ones getting a drink would continue licking at the air, stretching as far as they could reach, to try and play in the hose.
This seems to be a pattern in little ones of any species. My two year old nephew LOVES to play in the water from the hose. I can remember loving it as a kid. Most puppies will frolic in the sprinklers with great joy.
What I want to know is, what alchemy in the rubber of a hose makes the water coming out of it so much better than any other water in the world? There has to be something, and if I could figure it out, I could sell bottled childhood, and make a mint!
Apparently the cattle were not pleased with this development, because somehow they managed to get the float knocked off the tank. So instead of having a tank full of water sitting on a pedestal of ground formed by many hooves wearing down much mud, we had an empty tank floating peacefully in a gigantic mudhole, today.
We got the tank moved, new hose run, and started filling the tank, when my bottle calf came up wanting a drink. He's just too short to reach the bottom of the tank so I let him drink from the hose. This taught the other calves how to do it, and soon I had a huddle of calves, all sticking their tongues out and lapping at the flow of water from the hose.
Soon, the huddle was all the way around the tank, and I was having to stretch across to give drinks to those opposite me. I didn't mind, they were all too short to reach the level of the water that was in the tank. I had to laugh, though, when the calves opposite the ones getting a drink would continue licking at the air, stretching as far as they could reach, to try and play in the hose.
This seems to be a pattern in little ones of any species. My two year old nephew LOVES to play in the water from the hose. I can remember loving it as a kid. Most puppies will frolic in the sprinklers with great joy.
What I want to know is, what alchemy in the rubber of a hose makes the water coming out of it so much better than any other water in the world? There has to be something, and if I could figure it out, I could sell bottled childhood, and make a mint!
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Apologies
To all who will look at this blog in the morning and expect to see something other than what this is. I just can't seem to think of anything funny or entertaining to write about.
So, instead, I'll make with the time honored past time of shamelessly stealing someone else's words for inspiration.
By the way, I firmly believe that the entire works of Robert A. Heinlein should be required reading for any student before they graduate high school. Jubal Harshaw and Lazarus Long taught me more about how the "real world" works than any of my teachers did!
On with the quoting.....
"There is no way that writers can be tamed and rendered civilized or even cured. The only solution known to science is to provide the patient with an isolation room, where he can endure the acute stages in private and where food can be poked in to him with a stick." -- Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988)
And in pondering, I thought of another that should be shared, on the subject of writing;
"Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of, but do it in private, and wash your hands afterwards." -- Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988)
There are others from RAH that are applicable in many, many circumstances, but these came to mind because I was thinking about the act and practice of writing for the consumption of others. And they are all too apt in these days of prolific blogging, and ease of spreading said writings. Especially in certain specific cases that I've run across in my time surfing the blogosphere.
Hey, folks. Yeah, you guys, all of you who can't seem to write about anything but being nasty for no apparent reason other than being nasty, and can't even seem to make said nastiness entertaining for the rest of us, or who post to a public forum without taking the time to make their post anything more than incomprehensible gibberish. You're taking up valuable bandwidth that other people could use. Take a break, learn to spell, basic sentence structure, all of that jazz, take a creative writing class or two, then come back and try again.
Otherwise, stop polluting my internet!
kthxbye!
Disclaimer: I know that I play fast and loose with the rules of writing. However, I do have a nodding acquaintance with them. I'm speaking of the people who can't be bothered to stop, take a breath, and re-read what they've written, to realize that it makes no sense whatsoever. Pure Gibberish! This has no bearing on anyone who has been mentioned in this blog, or will be mentioned in this blog in the future, unless otherwise stated. Thank you for your time.
So, instead, I'll make with the time honored past time of shamelessly stealing someone else's words for inspiration.
By the way, I firmly believe that the entire works of Robert A. Heinlein should be required reading for any student before they graduate high school. Jubal Harshaw and Lazarus Long taught me more about how the "real world" works than any of my teachers did!
On with the quoting.....
"There is no way that writers can be tamed and rendered civilized or even cured. The only solution known to science is to provide the patient with an isolation room, where he can endure the acute stages in private and where food can be poked in to him with a stick." -- Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988)
And in pondering, I thought of another that should be shared, on the subject of writing;
"Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of, but do it in private, and wash your hands afterwards." -- Robert A. Heinlein (1907-1988)
There are others from RAH that are applicable in many, many circumstances, but these came to mind because I was thinking about the act and practice of writing for the consumption of others. And they are all too apt in these days of prolific blogging, and ease of spreading said writings. Especially in certain specific cases that I've run across in my time surfing the blogosphere.
Hey, folks. Yeah, you guys, all of you who can't seem to write about anything but being nasty for no apparent reason other than being nasty, and can't even seem to make said nastiness entertaining for the rest of us, or who post to a public forum without taking the time to make their post anything more than incomprehensible gibberish. You're taking up valuable bandwidth that other people could use. Take a break, learn to spell, basic sentence structure, all of that jazz, take a creative writing class or two, then come back and try again.
Otherwise, stop polluting my internet!
kthxbye!
Disclaimer: I know that I play fast and loose with the rules of writing. However, I do have a nodding acquaintance with them. I'm speaking of the people who can't be bothered to stop, take a breath, and re-read what they've written, to realize that it makes no sense whatsoever. Pure Gibberish! This has no bearing on anyone who has been mentioned in this blog, or will be mentioned in this blog in the future, unless otherwise stated. Thank you for your time.
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
My Oldest Friend
Ya'll can thank my associational memory for this one. Mentioning the fact that I'm horse nuts in my previous post got me thinking about my horsey times, which brought to mind my oldest friend, as it always does.
You see, my oldest friend is... was.... a horse. I still have trouble sometimes remembering that we lost him this last winter, I keep expecting to see the old man coming up for a treat and his ration of pets and attention.
Growing up, my family raised cattle. I was still tiny when the patriarchal side of the family got out of the beef industry, but I can remember moving cattle on horseback. I was just big enough to hold onto the horn in front of whichever parent drew the short straw and squeal in delight as they took off after a rogue. As a side effect of raising cattle, and because gangly colts are some of the cutest critters to walk the planet, they raised horses. American Quarter Horses, to be exact, of exalted bloodlines, and patient personalities.
One of the best we ever had, in my memory and anyone else's, was Cutter. Cutter was, technically, Hygro Cutter Sauce, but he was always just Cutter to me. He was born in the early '70s, saddle trained, and started on cutting by one of the best trainers in the land, and finished out by my father, after an afternoon chat aided by some copenhagen and a nice breeze. The trainer, while he still had him, won three minor futurities, sitting square in the middle of one of the smallest cutting horses he'd ever trained. Watching this horse work a herd of cows, and he did it mostly on his own, was as beautiful as any Mozart symphony, or Rembrandt painting in the world. He was a short little sorrel, with a blaze down his face and white socks, and a mane and tail that were perpetually ratted, no matter how I tried to keep them flowing.
When I say he worked mostly on his own, I mean, he'd wait for you to tell him which critter you wanted, and then go to work. When in the pasture, he would amuse himself by cutting the calves off of their mommas and taking them off to play for a while.
By the time I came on the scene, Cutter was a solid member of the family, and had already proven his patience and skill with children. He would not allow a child to fall of his back, ever. Unless there was a person standing there with a firm grip on the kid, he'd hurt himself getting well under the munchkin, rather than let them slide off.
This, of course, made him the perfect horse to teach my brother and I (mostly me) to ride. Of course, once I had a few basic skills, enough to stick my butt to the leather, he moved on to some more difficult lessons.
Like be careful when you ask a cutting horse to turn, or he might just spin you right off. It took many years before the ol' boy was willing to let me take my lumps, and he never entirely stopped treating me like one of his "kids," but he spit me out of my saddle a couple of times, when he thought I was getting too big for my britches.
He was my babysitter as a child, watching over me when I would toddle away from my mothers side and go romping in the horse pasture. He was my confidant, patiently listening to the secrets I cared to whisper into his ear and nodding sagely as I told him of the resolution to some conflict. He was my teacher, instilling in me the love and respect of our equine friends that I carry with me today. He was my friend, sharing with me fiery sunsets out in the pasture, one arm over his neck and leaning on each other. When all else had failed me, five minutes in his company could remove the greatest stresses, and calm the roiling seas of my emotions and mind.
Later in his life, he became more and more arthritic. Our long rambling exploratory rides became limited to him insisting on taking me for a ride in the pasture, meandering around a bit as he showed me the best of the juicy grasses, and then depositing me back where he'd picked me up when he was ready, all sans saddle, bridle, or even halter. The last time we went on a real trail ride, we came upon some cattle in the canyons, and I saw him perk up, felt his muscles tense, just waiting for the signal to go get 'em.
That poor old horse's whole body drooped when I kneed him on past the placidly grazing cattle.
Of course, that meant he had to prove that he still had the same turn on a dime and give you five cents change skills that he'd had in his youth, as I discovered later in the ride, when I asked for a sharp right and got one much sharper than I'd intended.
We spent five minutes checking his legs, and another twenty with his girth loosened and me on the ground, the old sorrel giving me the hairy eyeball the whole time for insisting that he not strain himself.
The more arthritic he got, the less we rode. The less we rode, the thinner the old man got. The rough winter this year was just too much for him, and sometime during the blizzards he laid down and let the snow cover him.
I cried when we found him.
The tradition lives, although we lost all our breeding stock in my grandmother's divorce. While at the horse sale, a couple of months ago, looking for a new horse to take to college with me, we found his sister. Or, she might as well be his sister. She pranced into the sale ring with the same "look at me!" attitude he'd always shown in parades, has the same bloodlines, similar coloring and markings, and even has "Cutter's" in her registered name. My grandmother cried, and I bid, and we got her. Her use name is now Etta, she's two years old and well worked with. Next summer, I'll begin training her.
No horse will ever replace the Old Man in my heart, but with any luck I'll do justice to the memory of the partnership he shared with me and my family.
P.S. My grandmother carries around more pictures of her horse than she does of me. No wonder my priorities, when it comes to my equine friends, are skewed.
You see, my oldest friend is... was.... a horse. I still have trouble sometimes remembering that we lost him this last winter, I keep expecting to see the old man coming up for a treat and his ration of pets and attention.
Growing up, my family raised cattle. I was still tiny when the patriarchal side of the family got out of the beef industry, but I can remember moving cattle on horseback. I was just big enough to hold onto the horn in front of whichever parent drew the short straw and squeal in delight as they took off after a rogue. As a side effect of raising cattle, and because gangly colts are some of the cutest critters to walk the planet, they raised horses. American Quarter Horses, to be exact, of exalted bloodlines, and patient personalities.
One of the best we ever had, in my memory and anyone else's, was Cutter. Cutter was, technically, Hygro Cutter Sauce, but he was always just Cutter to me. He was born in the early '70s, saddle trained, and started on cutting by one of the best trainers in the land, and finished out by my father, after an afternoon chat aided by some copenhagen and a nice breeze. The trainer, while he still had him, won three minor futurities, sitting square in the middle of one of the smallest cutting horses he'd ever trained. Watching this horse work a herd of cows, and he did it mostly on his own, was as beautiful as any Mozart symphony, or Rembrandt painting in the world. He was a short little sorrel, with a blaze down his face and white socks, and a mane and tail that were perpetually ratted, no matter how I tried to keep them flowing.
When I say he worked mostly on his own, I mean, he'd wait for you to tell him which critter you wanted, and then go to work. When in the pasture, he would amuse himself by cutting the calves off of their mommas and taking them off to play for a while.
By the time I came on the scene, Cutter was a solid member of the family, and had already proven his patience and skill with children. He would not allow a child to fall of his back, ever. Unless there was a person standing there with a firm grip on the kid, he'd hurt himself getting well under the munchkin, rather than let them slide off.
This, of course, made him the perfect horse to teach my brother and I (mostly me) to ride. Of course, once I had a few basic skills, enough to stick my butt to the leather, he moved on to some more difficult lessons.
Like be careful when you ask a cutting horse to turn, or he might just spin you right off. It took many years before the ol' boy was willing to let me take my lumps, and he never entirely stopped treating me like one of his "kids," but he spit me out of my saddle a couple of times, when he thought I was getting too big for my britches.
He was my babysitter as a child, watching over me when I would toddle away from my mothers side and go romping in the horse pasture. He was my confidant, patiently listening to the secrets I cared to whisper into his ear and nodding sagely as I told him of the resolution to some conflict. He was my teacher, instilling in me the love and respect of our equine friends that I carry with me today. He was my friend, sharing with me fiery sunsets out in the pasture, one arm over his neck and leaning on each other. When all else had failed me, five minutes in his company could remove the greatest stresses, and calm the roiling seas of my emotions and mind.
Later in his life, he became more and more arthritic. Our long rambling exploratory rides became limited to him insisting on taking me for a ride in the pasture, meandering around a bit as he showed me the best of the juicy grasses, and then depositing me back where he'd picked me up when he was ready, all sans saddle, bridle, or even halter. The last time we went on a real trail ride, we came upon some cattle in the canyons, and I saw him perk up, felt his muscles tense, just waiting for the signal to go get 'em.
That poor old horse's whole body drooped when I kneed him on past the placidly grazing cattle.
Of course, that meant he had to prove that he still had the same turn on a dime and give you five cents change skills that he'd had in his youth, as I discovered later in the ride, when I asked for a sharp right and got one much sharper than I'd intended.
We spent five minutes checking his legs, and another twenty with his girth loosened and me on the ground, the old sorrel giving me the hairy eyeball the whole time for insisting that he not strain himself.
The more arthritic he got, the less we rode. The less we rode, the thinner the old man got. The rough winter this year was just too much for him, and sometime during the blizzards he laid down and let the snow cover him.
I cried when we found him.
The tradition lives, although we lost all our breeding stock in my grandmother's divorce. While at the horse sale, a couple of months ago, looking for a new horse to take to college with me, we found his sister. Or, she might as well be his sister. She pranced into the sale ring with the same "look at me!" attitude he'd always shown in parades, has the same bloodlines, similar coloring and markings, and even has "Cutter's" in her registered name. My grandmother cried, and I bid, and we got her. Her use name is now Etta, she's two years old and well worked with. Next summer, I'll begin training her.
No horse will ever replace the Old Man in my heart, but with any luck I'll do justice to the memory of the partnership he shared with me and my family.
P.S. My grandmother carries around more pictures of her horse than she does of me. No wonder my priorities, when it comes to my equine friends, are skewed.
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