The past week has not been a great one. I've been putting in a lot of hours at the second job, due mostly to the fact the boss hasn't gotten around to hiring a new hotline assistant. My friend Judy, who helped me get this job, gave her notice more than three weeks ago. Her last day was the 16th (except that she's working today, since I'm working at the paper today and there's no way I could have done both jobs on a Saturday), and the boss is just now putting an ad for the job in Sunday's paper. Until now, all she'd done was call some people who had applied for the job at the same time I did -- months ago -- and couldn't seem to understand why none of them called her back. Duh!
It didn't help that the other hotline assistant had a family emergency and couldn't work two of her days. So I've had six days on this week's pay period alone -- twice what I should have! Add to that I had to get the paper's annual bridal tab laid out this week, and put in extra hours Tuesday and had to deal with the stupid software we have corrupting my file more than once, and I've had a very stressful week. And it's not necessarily over, at least until another hotline assistant is hired and trained.
So I'm just kind of kicking back this morning until I have to go in the paper to work. I slept in, and Buster and I went and filled the birdfeeders then played around the yard for awhile. Then we worked on some agility training, and Buster's doing quite well with that! For Christmas, my brother got me this agility kit. We haven't gotten to use it too much because of all the snow and cold and me working, but we got the chance to do it a couple times this week. I'm having fun. Buster has fun, once he figures out what I want him to do, and that the things aren't anything to be afraid of! So far, he's learned to do the high jump (actually the not-so-high-jump), and today, I got him to go through the tunnel a few times. He even did both in succession ... sort of. I can't wait for him to learn the weave poles, but the instruction book says that's usually the hardest part to train for, so I'll probably leave that for last, when the weather might be a bit warmer and we can get out more frequently.
There's no dog agility clubs or competitions where I live (not outside of 4-H, and I'm a bit old for that) at least that I know of, but maybe I'll post something somewhere and see if there's some interest. Even if there's not, it's been fun to do, so great gift, bro!
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Some updates
I've been working on updating my Web site, Bad Dogs and the Women Who Love Them.(If you have that bookmarked, you'll have to change it). It just didn't seem right to keep Nipper on there now that he's gone. I didn't want to do away with it entirely, though, even though I haven't done much with it for years.
So I've redone the index page and profiles of Buster and I. Nipper's presence is still there, of course, since he was the inspiration, and I'll soon prepare a memorial page for him. There will be some other changes, too, slowly. Keep checking in.
So I've redone the index page and profiles of Buster and I. Nipper's presence is still there, of course, since he was the inspiration, and I'll soon prepare a memorial page for him. There will be some other changes, too, slowly. Keep checking in.
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Heat!
We have heat! After two months, the furnace is finally working! And I essentially have a brand-new furnace, for probably less than a third of the cost. It's nice and cozy warm here, and even my closet feels nice.
The bad thing is, dad's furnace went out on him this afternoon, or at some point today. The blower wouldn't stop and it was only putting out cool air, no heat. So he and Mom got it to quit by pulling the fuse on it so that part of the house would still have power and Mom took the space heaters we had been using to his house. Hopefully, it won't be anything big and can be fixed a lot faster than mine was!
It's a cold bugger, out there, too. I think it got to only the 20s today, and isn't supposed to get too much warmer through the next week. So I hope it won't take too long. Especially since Buster needs to burn off some energy! I come home and he wants to play ALL. NIGHT. LONG. He needs to get out for a good walk and some frisbee chasing when I get home.
Which might happen less for a while. One of the other hotline assistants quit, and they haven't hired anyone else yet. So I might have to pick up a few extra hours. But I'm not going to let that go on for long. It's just not worth it to be away from Buster and home (and do things like laundry) or be available to help Mom or Dad that much. There's plenty of other jobs out there, but I do like this one, since I'm basically paid $7 an hour to sit and wait for the phone to ring. Otherwise, I can read, write, surf the Net on their computer or play solitare, or sometimes I'll take my computer and work on personal stuff. If only I could take Buster, it'd be perfect.
The bad thing is, dad's furnace went out on him this afternoon, or at some point today. The blower wouldn't stop and it was only putting out cool air, no heat. So he and Mom got it to quit by pulling the fuse on it so that part of the house would still have power and Mom took the space heaters we had been using to his house. Hopefully, it won't be anything big and can be fixed a lot faster than mine was!
It's a cold bugger, out there, too. I think it got to only the 20s today, and isn't supposed to get too much warmer through the next week. So I hope it won't take too long. Especially since Buster needs to burn off some energy! I come home and he wants to play ALL. NIGHT. LONG. He needs to get out for a good walk and some frisbee chasing when I get home.
Which might happen less for a while. One of the other hotline assistants quit, and they haven't hired anyone else yet. So I might have to pick up a few extra hours. But I'm not going to let that go on for long. It's just not worth it to be away from Buster and home (and do things like laundry) or be available to help Mom or Dad that much. There's plenty of other jobs out there, but I do like this one, since I'm basically paid $7 an hour to sit and wait for the phone to ring. Otherwise, I can read, write, surf the Net on their computer or play solitare, or sometimes I'll take my computer and work on personal stuff. If only I could take Buster, it'd be perfect.
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Two warnings
Damn, I'm tired of it being cold in my house. It's not literally freezing, no danger really of the pipes bursting or anything, but it's just hard to get going in the mornings when it's cold. In case you are wondering, my furnace is still not working. Yeah, since before Thanksgiving. Except for the compressor, I basically have a new furnace, I think. And I'm not holding out hope that thing won't go either.
The first part, by the time the guy got my check and it cleared, it was on backorder, so we had to wait. Then when that got in, the furnace was still doing its mini-exlosion thing, so the repair guy had to check with the manufacturer and found it was the control board in the unit. So that had to be ordered. Then when he got that in, while we were gone, he left a note that try it, should work, and when Mom turned it on, the whole house started vibrating. Seems some packing material was still in there and was blocking the blower. He came out the next day, got that fixed, but then the blower wouldn't come on. So he's got some kind of valve ordered and we're waiting for that to come in.
I don't know what's worse. Not having heat because the electricity went out, or not having heat because of this. Now, we at least have electricity for space heaters, and while it gets chilly in the mornings, at least it's not the 40-some degrees inside during last year's ice storm. But after the ice storm, it was only a couple days we were without heat. I just want my damn furnace working.
And yeah, I probably could have avoided this with having regular maintenence done before winter, but know what? That costs money. And my newspaper job paid me only enough to get by with the basics. At least until 2006. I sat down last summer and figured it out. My regular expenses -- and I don't have a lot of extras I pay for -- went up more than 20 percent from 2006 to 2007. My paycheck? Went up by not even 2 percent. Guess what. That don't add up. Hence, the second job. Now I'm having to play catch-up on all the things I should have been able to do.
So, two warnings: Have your furnace checked when the weather's warm, and don't go into journalism if you want to be able to afford to do things like that.
The first part, by the time the guy got my check and it cleared, it was on backorder, so we had to wait. Then when that got in, the furnace was still doing its mini-exlosion thing, so the repair guy had to check with the manufacturer and found it was the control board in the unit. So that had to be ordered. Then when he got that in, while we were gone, he left a note that try it, should work, and when Mom turned it on, the whole house started vibrating. Seems some packing material was still in there and was blocking the blower. He came out the next day, got that fixed, but then the blower wouldn't come on. So he's got some kind of valve ordered and we're waiting for that to come in.
I don't know what's worse. Not having heat because the electricity went out, or not having heat because of this. Now, we at least have electricity for space heaters, and while it gets chilly in the mornings, at least it's not the 40-some degrees inside during last year's ice storm. But after the ice storm, it was only a couple days we were without heat. I just want my damn furnace working.
And yeah, I probably could have avoided this with having regular maintenence done before winter, but know what? That costs money. And my newspaper job paid me only enough to get by with the basics. At least until 2006. I sat down last summer and figured it out. My regular expenses -- and I don't have a lot of extras I pay for -- went up more than 20 percent from 2006 to 2007. My paycheck? Went up by not even 2 percent. Guess what. That don't add up. Hence, the second job. Now I'm having to play catch-up on all the things I should have been able to do.
So, two warnings: Have your furnace checked when the weather's warm, and don't go into journalism if you want to be able to afford to do things like that.
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