Joy In The Morning
Hello World,
Happy Flag Day Plus One! Of course, Thursday was the day that all of us amateur vexillologists could be expected to run up the colors and fly our flags with giddy abandon, and long may they wave. And I can assure you that "vexillologist" is a real word to describe someone who studies flags, for which we can thank our friends at the Page-A-Day calendar, and their careful selection of a timely word for June 14. (Please feel free to stop by their web site at www.pageaday.com and see for yourself.) Although the weather in the morning did not look promising, it refrained from raining, and so the local scene was improved with my upstairs and downstairs flags adding their patriotic hues to the neighborhood. I had gotten a new flag bracket for the upstairs flag, because I wanted to move the flag to a different spot and wasn't keen on trying to remove the old bracket and move it, and having a whole new bracket eliminated that extra step. Instead of waiting until I had more time to devote to it, I hurried up and banged it into the wall using an assortment of bent and raggedy mis-matched nails, and I was concerned later that a good stiff breeze might carry the flag and the bracket right off the house and sailing away to who knows where. So it was with no small measure of relief that I came home from work yesterday, to find Old Glory right where I left it, and none the worse for wear. Re-attaching the flag bracket in a more dependable manner, using sensible wood screws, is a project for another day.
In local sports news, I can report with some certainty that there will in fact be joy in at least half of Mudville, because the Mets and Yankees are playing three games in the June version of a Subway Series, and no matter which team wins, it will make at least half of the home-town fans happy. Right now, the fans who need the most cheering up would be the ones of the national league franchise (The Underdogs) more so than fans of their cross-town rivals (The Overdogs) who already have plenty to cheer about. In an interesting coincidence, both teams are also in a race to build a new stadium, as both Shea Stadium and the venerated Yankee Stadium are being replaced by new ballparks that should be ready for baseball by 2009. So it should be interesting times ahead, at least for fans of new arenas. I don't know if that would necessarily constitute joy in Mudville, but I suppose if your favorite team is going to lose anyway, at least the fans can have a fancy new stadium to be miserable in.
The following may not qualify as sports news, in fact, it's apparently not news at all. Our friends at the AOL Welcome Screen, where illiteracy is no barrier to hiring their writers, wanted me to check out their reports about World Cup cricket coach Bob Woolmer, who died under suspicious circumstances in Jamaica last week. Their gambit to entice me to delve further into this story was a screaming headline on the Welcome Screen that wondered, "WAS COACH REALLY STANGLED?" Although I know absolutely nothing about the case, I can state categorically that since the beginning of time, nothing has ever been "stangled" to death, and the only thing being stangled in this situation was the poor abused English language, may it rest in peace. The story goes on to state that Jamaican officials rejected reports of drugs or poisons being involved, and they never mentioned strippers, so people supposing that the writers had meant "spangled" instead of "stangled" were left with their own disappointments, and more's the pity, I'm sure. Talk about no joy in Mudville, and then some.
In other international news, and this of a more joyful nature, we have this other AOL News headline that gushed: "Thousands Cheer Bush's Arrival in Albania." Of course, what they didn't say was that the people cheering were in Washington DC at the time, and glad to get rid of him. (Oh, hit that easy target!) Actually, the press reported that he got such a tumultuous reception in Albania, you'd be forgiven for thinking he'd be out of his mind to come back here, where every other pundit is taking pot-shots at him. This is sort of the White House version of Paris Hilton. Without all the spangles, of course.
Meanwhile at work, we recently found ourselves being caught up the maw of federal regulations that required all employees in health care organizations to have mandatory emergency preparedness training on the principles of the National Incident Management System. This is a process developed by the federal government that can be used to respond to large-scale disasters such as 9/11 or Hurricane Katrina, and one of its key components is standardizing terminology and procedures, so that multiple jurisdictions or authorities can work together cohesively and accomplish better results. The complete NIMS training, which is required of all emergency personnel, such as soldiers, police officers or fire fighters, is actually 18 hours of classes. For those of us farther down on the emergency response scale, such as secretaries, the program has been condensed to 7 hours, which everyone at the hospital was required to attend in one 3-hour class and a follow-up 4-hour class. Being the good employee that I am (especially when it's mandatory) I had already attended the first class in May, and was scheduled for the second class last week. I left the second class with my brain so full that it would have been impossible to absorb one more iota of data without my whole head just exploding from the pressure. In retrospect, I realize now that I really should have gone straight home right then, because trying to do anything else under those conditions could only be considered a lost cause, and sure to invite disaster, perhaps on an epic scale. Instead of going home as I should have, I decided to send out a memo to all departments at all four facilities in our health system, notifying everyone that the Print Shop would have reduced hours for vacation coverage in July, so that people would anticipate their printing needs accordingly, which is a notice that I send out on a routine basis. What was not routine about this one, though, and for which I blame my brain over-load from the mandatory class, was that it was dated June 8, 200. Mind you, I went to all the trouble to have this notice distributed to 2,300 employees in 400 departments in four institutions in two cities, and only realized afterward that it had the wrong date on it, which is pretty close to being a disaster on an epic scale for the work I usually do. Now, to be fair, the dinosaurs and I happen to remember the 200's very fondly, especially those sunsets over the Nile, but I would be less than candid if I said that I had any joy in Mudville over this lapse in the pin-point accuracy that I strive for. Mighty Casey has indeed struck out.
On the other hand, we have Bill to thank for this brilliant insight into the hospital's inner workings, which is remarkable considering that he doesn't even work there.
=================================
I hope you at least get to nap at the mandatory. Hey -- maybe they'll have some prizes left over from the blood drives that didn't happen. If YOU won one, they'd probably cancel the mandatories too, so sign in at least twice (you gotta be in it to win it!) Good luck!
=================================
Of course, we all know how I worry when things like this start to make perfect sense to me! Also at work, I happened to bump into our retired co-worker (you remember Helga!) who was at the hospital earlier in the week, visiting her son who works in our Pharmacy downstairs. She was bemoaning the fact that her son was so busy, working full-time at our hospital, plus filling in per diem at other sites, and a variety of other claims on his time that were just getting to be too much. When he needed to take some time off for a family obligation, no matter how he juggled his schedule with the other staff, he despaired of getting the days off that he needed. When I saw her in the hallway, she threw her hands up in an exasperated manner and said, "I'm afraid this time, he's really pasted himself into a corner." I have to admit, that's a mental picture that's going to stay with me for a long time, in spite of my best efforts to shake it loose.
We're one of the happy families in TiVo-Land, and have been for more than a year. We use it to record programs that we like, and it also has a handy feature that you can pause, rewind or slo-mo even live TV programming, which is great for sports. TiVo is always looking out for our best interests, and routinely records programs on its own that it thinks we would like, based on the past history of shows that we've recorded. One that it is sure that we like is on The Discovery Channel, called "How It's Made," and we would hate to hurt the TiVo's little feelings, but we really don't find this show all that interesting. Each episode takes a very cursory look at the manufacturing process for some common items, such as hiking boots, solar panels, computer chips or jelly beans, but it's so simplistic and scatter-shot that it entirely fails to engage your attention. But TiVo, bless its little misguided heart, is convinced that this is the show for us, and keeps recording it for us anyway, and we watch one every now and again. We recently saw one about how they make what the narrator referred to as "ice resurfacing equipment," and I'll let that sink in for a moment while you think about whatever in the world that could mean, because even if you watch a lot of ice hockey, as we do, it's a long way from there to figuring out that they're describing what everyone else in the entire world calls a Zamboni. Apparently they didn't have permission to use the registered name of the product, which like Polaroid or Jello, is extremely hard to describe without using the name that everyone knows it by. It reminded me of the old brain teaser of trying to describe a spiral staircase without using your hands. If it was up to the people at "How It's Made," when the New York Rangers would be having a special ceremony during one of their games, they would make the public address announcer change his comments to: "At this time, we ask that you please direct your attention to the ice resurfacing equipment gate" instead, and 20,000 people would look at each other and scratch their heads. Now, that's my idea of no joy in Mudville!
Happy Flag Day Plus One! Of course, Thursday was the day that all of us amateur vexillologists could be expected to run up the colors and fly our flags with giddy abandon, and long may they wave. And I can assure you that "vexillologist" is a real word to describe someone who studies flags, for which we can thank our friends at the Page-A-Day calendar, and their careful selection of a timely word for June 14. (Please feel free to stop by their web site at www.pageaday.com and see for yourself.) Although the weather in the morning did not look promising, it refrained from raining, and so the local scene was improved with my upstairs and downstairs flags adding their patriotic hues to the neighborhood. I had gotten a new flag bracket for the upstairs flag, because I wanted to move the flag to a different spot and wasn't keen on trying to remove the old bracket and move it, and having a whole new bracket eliminated that extra step. Instead of waiting until I had more time to devote to it, I hurried up and banged it into the wall using an assortment of bent and raggedy mis-matched nails, and I was concerned later that a good stiff breeze might carry the flag and the bracket right off the house and sailing away to who knows where. So it was with no small measure of relief that I came home from work yesterday, to find Old Glory right where I left it, and none the worse for wear. Re-attaching the flag bracket in a more dependable manner, using sensible wood screws, is a project for another day.
In local sports news, I can report with some certainty that there will in fact be joy in at least half of Mudville, because the Mets and Yankees are playing three games in the June version of a Subway Series, and no matter which team wins, it will make at least half of the home-town fans happy. Right now, the fans who need the most cheering up would be the ones of the national league franchise (The Underdogs) more so than fans of their cross-town rivals (The Overdogs) who already have plenty to cheer about. In an interesting coincidence, both teams are also in a race to build a new stadium, as both Shea Stadium and the venerated Yankee Stadium are being replaced by new ballparks that should be ready for baseball by 2009. So it should be interesting times ahead, at least for fans of new arenas. I don't know if that would necessarily constitute joy in Mudville, but I suppose if your favorite team is going to lose anyway, at least the fans can have a fancy new stadium to be miserable in.
The following may not qualify as sports news, in fact, it's apparently not news at all. Our friends at the AOL Welcome Screen, where illiteracy is no barrier to hiring their writers, wanted me to check out their reports about World Cup cricket coach Bob Woolmer, who died under suspicious circumstances in Jamaica last week. Their gambit to entice me to delve further into this story was a screaming headline on the Welcome Screen that wondered, "WAS COACH REALLY STANGLED?" Although I know absolutely nothing about the case, I can state categorically that since the beginning of time, nothing has ever been "stangled" to death, and the only thing being stangled in this situation was the poor abused English language, may it rest in peace. The story goes on to state that Jamaican officials rejected reports of drugs or poisons being involved, and they never mentioned strippers, so people supposing that the writers had meant "spangled" instead of "stangled" were left with their own disappointments, and more's the pity, I'm sure. Talk about no joy in Mudville, and then some.
In other international news, and this of a more joyful nature, we have this other AOL News headline that gushed: "Thousands Cheer Bush's Arrival in Albania." Of course, what they didn't say was that the people cheering were in Washington DC at the time, and glad to get rid of him. (Oh, hit that easy target!) Actually, the press reported that he got such a tumultuous reception in Albania, you'd be forgiven for thinking he'd be out of his mind to come back here, where every other pundit is taking pot-shots at him. This is sort of the White House version of Paris Hilton. Without all the spangles, of course.
Meanwhile at work, we recently found ourselves being caught up the maw of federal regulations that required all employees in health care organizations to have mandatory emergency preparedness training on the principles of the National Incident Management System. This is a process developed by the federal government that can be used to respond to large-scale disasters such as 9/11 or Hurricane Katrina, and one of its key components is standardizing terminology and procedures, so that multiple jurisdictions or authorities can work together cohesively and accomplish better results. The complete NIMS training, which is required of all emergency personnel, such as soldiers, police officers or fire fighters, is actually 18 hours of classes. For those of us farther down on the emergency response scale, such as secretaries, the program has been condensed to 7 hours, which everyone at the hospital was required to attend in one 3-hour class and a follow-up 4-hour class. Being the good employee that I am (especially when it's mandatory) I had already attended the first class in May, and was scheduled for the second class last week. I left the second class with my brain so full that it would have been impossible to absorb one more iota of data without my whole head just exploding from the pressure. In retrospect, I realize now that I really should have gone straight home right then, because trying to do anything else under those conditions could only be considered a lost cause, and sure to invite disaster, perhaps on an epic scale. Instead of going home as I should have, I decided to send out a memo to all departments at all four facilities in our health system, notifying everyone that the Print Shop would have reduced hours for vacation coverage in July, so that people would anticipate their printing needs accordingly, which is a notice that I send out on a routine basis. What was not routine about this one, though, and for which I blame my brain over-load from the mandatory class, was that it was dated June 8, 200. Mind you, I went to all the trouble to have this notice distributed to 2,300 employees in 400 departments in four institutions in two cities, and only realized afterward that it had the wrong date on it, which is pretty close to being a disaster on an epic scale for the work I usually do. Now, to be fair, the dinosaurs and I happen to remember the 200's very fondly, especially those sunsets over the Nile, but I would be less than candid if I said that I had any joy in Mudville over this lapse in the pin-point accuracy that I strive for. Mighty Casey has indeed struck out.
On the other hand, we have Bill to thank for this brilliant insight into the hospital's inner workings, which is remarkable considering that he doesn't even work there.
=================================
I hope you at least get to nap at the mandatory. Hey -- maybe they'll have some prizes left over from the blood drives that didn't happen. If YOU won one, they'd probably cancel the mandatories too, so sign in at least twice (you gotta be in it to win it!) Good luck!
=================================
Of course, we all know how I worry when things like this start to make perfect sense to me! Also at work, I happened to bump into our retired co-worker (you remember Helga!) who was at the hospital earlier in the week, visiting her son who works in our Pharmacy downstairs. She was bemoaning the fact that her son was so busy, working full-time at our hospital, plus filling in per diem at other sites, and a variety of other claims on his time that were just getting to be too much. When he needed to take some time off for a family obligation, no matter how he juggled his schedule with the other staff, he despaired of getting the days off that he needed. When I saw her in the hallway, she threw her hands up in an exasperated manner and said, "I'm afraid this time, he's really pasted himself into a corner." I have to admit, that's a mental picture that's going to stay with me for a long time, in spite of my best efforts to shake it loose.
We're one of the happy families in TiVo-Land, and have been for more than a year. We use it to record programs that we like, and it also has a handy feature that you can pause, rewind or slo-mo even live TV programming, which is great for sports. TiVo is always looking out for our best interests, and routinely records programs on its own that it thinks we would like, based on the past history of shows that we've recorded. One that it is sure that we like is on The Discovery Channel, called "How It's Made," and we would hate to hurt the TiVo's little feelings, but we really don't find this show all that interesting. Each episode takes a very cursory look at the manufacturing process for some common items, such as hiking boots, solar panels, computer chips or jelly beans, but it's so simplistic and scatter-shot that it entirely fails to engage your attention. But TiVo, bless its little misguided heart, is convinced that this is the show for us, and keeps recording it for us anyway, and we watch one every now and again. We recently saw one about how they make what the narrator referred to as "ice resurfacing equipment," and I'll let that sink in for a moment while you think about whatever in the world that could mean, because even if you watch a lot of ice hockey, as we do, it's a long way from there to figuring out that they're describing what everyone else in the entire world calls a Zamboni. Apparently they didn't have permission to use the registered name of the product, which like Polaroid or Jello, is extremely hard to describe without using the name that everyone knows it by. It reminded me of the old brain teaser of trying to describe a spiral staircase without using your hands. If it was up to the people at "How It's Made," when the New York Rangers would be having a special ceremony during one of their games, they would make the public address announcer change his comments to: "At this time, we ask that you please direct your attention to the ice resurfacing equipment gate" instead, and 20,000 people would look at each other and scratch their heads. Now, that's my idea of no joy in Mudville!
posted by El Tango Fandango @ 7:47 PM
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