About This October

October is our busy season on the job, but this year is going to be different- management has outsourced a lot of the seasonal tasks to contractors. There are temps of all sorts working for the organization, and I am sorry to say that my part-timers have had the rug pulled out from under them, hours-wise. Even worse, the employees of the contractor that is handling our work are incompetent- there have been multiple occasions on which they have been caught sleeping... this has even happened at 7AM, when these guys know that the day shift will arrive. To compound this shitshow, upper management doesn't seem to be doing anything about it.

There are also some new faces in the organization. In one case, a new hire has been appointed daytime Manager On Duty for one of our sites. I immediately took a liking to the guy- he comes across as low-key and competent. He wasn't given a master key to the site he's managing, and his alarm code is a temporary one. There is one master key that a bunch of employees have to pass among themselves like the Graeae passed their eye and tooth. I met with him last Saturday to give him the combination to our retail shop drop safe, and left with the thought: 'This poor man doesn't know what he's gotten himself into.' He was thrown into the deep end of the pool, and I have confidence that he will be a good swimmer, but it's not because management is helping.

From a staffing standpoint, upper management keeps moving the goalposts, and I am not happy about it. I had cobbled together a schedule for October and November by the end of the first week of August, but I currently don't have an approved schedule due to main office dithering. My immediate supervisor, a great guy, has been doing his level best to convince the muckety-mucks to commit to a schedule, and one which doesn't totally bone by part-timers. I've gotten to the point where I've said my piece, lobbied for the guys in my department, and finally thrown up my hands in frustration... though I should be able to finalize an October schedule tomorrow.

My job has never been like this before. The organization has always hired a small army of seasonal temps to help pull off our fall fundraisers, but this wholesale outsourcing is something new, and my department, usually insulated from this sort of thing, has been negatively impacted by the hiring of incompetents. October has always been a bit rough, but this is unprecedented and nonsensical.

The one thought that is getting me through October without banging my head against my desk is 'Winter Is Coming'.

If It's October...

Every October, two things happen to me... October is the major fundraising month at work, so it involves long hours and a lot of running around (one of my running jokes is that my job is cushy, except when it's not, and October is an entire month in the "not" column. As if that weren't enough, my volunteer gig restarts on the first Saturday in October (since it's a kids' athletic program, it roughly coincides with the school year, specifically the months between fall and spring sports seasons). Suffice it to say, I pretty much pull a Captain Nemo- I basically won't surface for a month. My tradition is usually to post a video for my all-time favorite Sex Pistols song, but this year I'm posting the video for Let's Submerge by the late, great Poly Styrene and the X-Ray Spex- BLAST THIS ONE!





I've gotten savvier about posting in the years I've been blogging, so I'll try to set up posts for those days when I leave home in the vicinity of seven o'clock Saturday morning and don't get home until one-thirty or so Sunday morning, and I don't have any downtime for posting (for the record, I'm writing this at work because it's quiet now- all of the techies setting up for our fundraiser have left the site, but that's all about to end this weekend). I'm going to try to maintain a decent blogging schedule, but the posts will probably be shorter ones, with a fair amount of video embeds.

October: The Yearly Slog

October is our big Fall fundraising month, so it's always a slog. Oddly enough, though, the worst part for me has been last week and this week, in the runup to the big month. Once October gets into full swing, I actually have fewer hours to work, but it'll be a run of six week days. At least I won't be working 5PM-7AM overnight slogs.

October typically means a month of scheduling posts, often about Gothic or horror novels/authors or films/shows. I tend to go light on politics and current events for the month, only occasionally keeping an eye on news just to avoid 'falling off the skin of the Earth'. Even my social life takes a bit of a hiatus- I preface the month by telling everyone, "I'm going to pull a Captain Nemo, I will surface in a month."

When November arrives, things get quiet again. I can't complain about the October endurance tour, though, the fundraisers are what keep my paychecks from bouncing.

Feeling a Bit Waspish Today

October is our busy month at work. I don't know the exact figures, but I would have to guess that our October visitation rate equals that of the rest of the months combined. Accordingly, I sent an e-mail to my boss, the various site managers, and our event production team leaders requesting an inventory of our first aid supplies. Before we open for the season, I put together an order for first aid supplies, and my boss arranges the purchase. Predictably, we were running low on chemical cold packs and additional small self-adhesive bandages would be necessary. We also had a request for sting and bite pads because the local wasps and hornets seem to be more aggressive than usual this time of year. Last week, my boss received the supplies and dropped them off in my office so I could divvy them out into three care packages, one for each of our principal sites. Last night, I brought one of these 'care packages' home so I could drop it off this afternoon on my way to work at my usual site. My plan was to bring the other package of supplies to the third site after clocking out at 9PM tomorrow.

Sundays in October are usually a wash for me- with my ultra-busy Saturday schedule, I typically don't even think about waking up before noon on Sundays in October. Today, I got a call from one of my subordinates, whose fiancée also works for the organization. She was working this morning, and a volunteer helping out the day shift was stung by a hornet. The one first aid kit that everyone knew about was in a locked building, and no-one who had a master key was on site at the time. I don't know what went wrong with the scheduling, because someone with master-key privileges should be onsite at all times... fall staffing is always a complex situation for us. One of our contractors knew that an upstairs window in the building was partially open so that cables could be run from a power source in the building. He pried the window all of the way open, and climbed into the building to obtain the first aid kit, setting off all of the motion detectors in the building. My subordinate's fiancée called him, they live less than a half-mile from the site, and he was able to travel to the site, reset the alarm, and inform the local constabulary that there was no emergency.

Being a conscientious man, he called me to inform me of the turn of events, and I audibly groaned, "Sheesh, there are two-hundred 'Soothe-a-Sting' pads sitting in my office, and I was going to deliver them on Monday night." Murphy's Law, people, is a thing. At any rate, even if these supplies had been delivered, they probably would have been locked up, and the same situation would have occurred. Tonight, I am sending an e-mail to all of the mucky-mucks to suggest that we keep a small first-aid kit (an ice pack, some bandage-strips, a couple of antiseptic and bite-and-sting swabs) in one of the tents that we use for the big outdoor events. I don't mind getting that '3AM phone call', which in my case is an 11AM phone call... it goes with the territory, but if I can avoid any needless emergencies, I will certainly do so.

It's the first weekend of October, and we have a single bee-sting and a burglar alarm activation... it's going to be a SPECTACULAR month.

September is the New October

One theme that has run throughout my blogging career is the annual descent into madness that is October. October is our major fundraising month, with every weekend occupied by major events. This year, my department has two fewer staff members than last year, and I am the guy who has to cobble together a schedule. Four department members, three sites to cover over seven days, with simultaneous events occurring every weekend. I'm jumping through hoops here.

Today, besides trying to get feedback from everybody regarding the October schedule, I have been running around all day. Today was the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, so we had a lot of Hasidic families visiting the site (the celebration involves getting outside for a good portion of the day, and we provide wholesome entertainment in an outdoor setting, so we have a good number of Hasidic families visiting on a typical Sunday, but today was especially busy). I had to help one of the day shift members close up one of the buildings, and Ginger followed us from one side of the site to the Visitors' Center, where she was a huge hit with our visitors (while she won't replace Moses, she's carving out her own niche).

Tonight, I had to travel to another site to address a glitch in the alarm system there, which took an hour to accomplish. I then had to e-mail my department head to give him some feedback regarding next month's staffing requirements.

It's been a busy, busy day, and it's not even October. I guess it's good practice.

Tomorrow, I'll provide links for the various referents in this post, but I'm out of here in ten minutes, and I wanted to put up a quick post, almost a placeholder.

Short Runup to Halloween

 Typically, October is a very busy month for me- it is traditionally our major fundraising month on the job. My strategy a strategy for blogging in October, has typically involved setting up post ahead of time. Usually I take the time in October to write about horror fiction or scary movies.  This year, a year of genuine horrors and habitual mask-wearing, what is the point of Halloween?  

More importantly, we have canceled two minor fundraising events and truncated another, I just haven't been as busy as I am in a typical year.  The hectic nights of running around making sure event logistics are adhered to have been replaced by low-key nights playing with the cat and reading horror fact, not horror fiction.

Tomorrow will be weird, overtime has been authorized because people expecting events will show up, so someone has to be on site to ensure that they don't improvise kicks on the premises.  It's fewer hours than a typical October weekend, but a little extra cash will be a nice treat during this tricky year.

A Ghost, Oh!

I can't believe that it's already August... the year has just flown past. Given the nature of my job, all I can think is, "Damn, it's practically October". October is our busiest month on the job. I had to come in early last Tuesday and I had a good long chat with a couple of guys on the day shift who are just about the nicest people I know. It helps that they are cat people- they were cracking up at the fact that Fred and Ginger had followed me all the way across the property when I came a callin'. Ginger promptly plopped herself on the cool floor of the room in which we were hanging out. These guys are already starting to set up for our major October fundraiser. There are all sorts of other tasks that are underway, but October's big ticket events pretty much take over everything until mid-November rolls around and everything is stowed away again.

The post title is a play on the Spanish translation of "August", but it also has some bearing on the job. Last year, we had the infamous "Waste of Big" incident, in which a new hire, a huge man by all accounts, didn't finish his first night because he was scared of the dark. He wasn't the first individual to check out before his first night was over- before I started on the job, a guy they'd hired called the supervisor to tell him that he'd seen a ghost, and that he wasn't going to stay. The supervisor, who lived about a mile from the site, told him that he'd be right over. When the supervisor got to the site, the new hire handed him the company cell phone and said, "I saw a ghost, I can't stay here. I quit." He was so freaked out, he ran the red light at the parking lot exit in his haste to get away.

My take on ghosts is that, if you don't believe in them, they don't believe in you. I've watched too much classic "Scooby Doo" to believe that ghosts are anything more than corrupt real-estate developers trying to scare people away so they can put up a condo development. Every so often, on the job, I'll get a call from "ghost hunters" who want to do a "paranormal investigation", and I refer them to the Public Relations department so they can get a denial from someone above my pay grade. A couple of weeks ago, I met an attractive, intelligent woman who firmly believed in ghosts, and as "proof", she cited a photo that her son had taken at an abandoned site near their home. I was diplomatic enough not to say anything about "double exposures" or the like... no need to inject an acrimonious air into an innocuous conversation over gin-and-tonics.

Ghosts, not scary, but the fact that it's already agosto? Terrifying!

The Typical October Madness

Longtime readers of my blog will know that October is an insane month for me. October is our major fundraising month on the job, so my ordinarily cushy job becomes decidedly not-so-cushy. It also marks the beginning of my volunteer gig as a coach in a children's athletic program which roughly coincides with the school year. As is typical, I try to compose posts when I have free time and schedule them to post automatically. I also tend to post more videos than usual this time of year.

I managed to pick up a copy of Roger Zelazny's A Night in the Lonesome October to read in the downtime. From what I've heard, it's a fun read, perhaps best described as fan-fiction written by an industry giant on a bet, which he won. The book has thirty-two chapters, an introduction and one chapter for each day of the month. I had been toying with the idea of reading a chapter a day, but the early chapters are very short compared to the later ones. I think I'll read the book in conventional fashion. The book is a love-letter to the turn-of-the-20th-century pulp fiction, so I think I'll relish every page. I sure hope I do!

It Begins

October is our 'hell month' on the job- we have several concurrent fundraisers occurring simultaneously. My standard line about October is that I pull a Captain Nemo- I'm going into the submarine and I'll surface sometime in November. This month, it's particularly nutty because one of the guys in my department is recovering from a fractured humerus (that's no joke) and will be out for an additional two weeks under optimal circumstances.

To compound matters, my volunteer coaching gig starts this Saturday- I will put in a cameo appearance on the first day and discuss the upcoming weeks with the other coaches. There are usually four or five of us in the judo room, so I can take three weeks off if necessary. Things get really quiet come November. As things stand, I'll be working at one site from about 3PM to 7PM, then work another site from 10PM to 6AM. This schedule is pretty much set in stone, but hopefully will be adjusted if my co-worker is able to return to work.

As if this baseline craziness isn't bad enough, this weekend is supposed to be characterized by horrible weather- we are already experiencing a flooding rain, and Hurricane Joaquin might be making landfall in the vicinity (at any rate, we'll get a ton more rain from the storm). I have already stockpiled cans of sardines in case I have to camp out on the job like I did post-Sandy. I'll have to top off the gas tank in the car tomorrow when I finish the overnight shift- I still have over half a tank from my last fill-up, but I've been bouncing from site-to-site due to the manifold tasks I've been performing (luckily, I get reimbursed for mileage and drive a small car, so I make out nicely). On a smaller scale, one of the electricians working on site setting up for an event jumped a curb in the parking lot and knocked down a light pole that was crowned with a wireless router for our point-of-sales computers. GOOD TIMES!

The month is not exactly starting off on the most auspicious note, but it's adversity that makes one strong and resilient. In thirty-one days, things will get extremely quiet, and remain so for the next six months. It's a cushy job, except when it's not, and October is when I pay my dues.

Taking Back Saturday

Today's the last day of my Saturday volunteer coaching gig until October rolls around. For twenty weeks out of the year, I either leave the house before 8AM and head down to Manhattan to teach, then head straight to work, or I head down to Manhattan straight from work... either way, I don't spend a lot of time at home on Saturdays from October to March. As much as I love it when October rolls around and the program begins, I'd be lying if I said I wasn't equally happy when March rolls around and we have our closing exercises. Today, I will leave work in about half an hour, rush home to shower and put on some decent clothing, then head down on the subway to coach two classes and then attend the post-program luncheon and awards ceremony. Next week, I will have time to hit the brewery on Saturday, or to hit the bar after working the midnight shift (last call is 4AM) and sleep late, or to generally goof off. It's my time once again...

In seven months, it'll be back to Saturday spent away from home. The kids will all be about three inches taller than they are when I part company with them today. I'll be happy to see them, and happy to put in another twenty weeks, but I will have relished the thirty-two weeks of free Saturday mornings.

October Opening... Oof

Last night was the first night of our October fundraisers. Yesterday was also the opening day of my October to March volunteer coaching gig. I actually traveled to Manhattan around 8AM, met with everybody, and we taught two classes. After we were done with the kids, I went for two not-too-punishing rounds of randori with my great and good friend Gentle Jimmy G. In the locker room after our workout, I mentioned to another player, "Jimmy'll kill you, but he'll never hurt you." The general consensus among us (judoka, wrestlers, MMArtists) is that he is the perfect opponent- someone who plays hard and smart, but clean... you fight with him, and you'll be in Asskick Central for three to five minutes, then you'll leave the dojo feeling tired, but physically intact.

I got to work at 4PM and hit the ground running- we had to prepare the parking lot and a couple of satellite lots for the influx of visitors, then the event started. As longtime readers will remember, the organization had a round of layoffs last January. A lot of the tasks that used to be handled in-house are now handled by contractors. We have one custodial worker, an extremely nice guy from the Dominican Republic, who is cleaning three sites during the week and doing interoffice mail on an ad hoc basis- "Can you stop by head office on your way to the other site?" For the weekend events, custodial duties are handled by a cleaning company.

The two cleaners who worked this weekend covered two of our sites- they worked a daytime event then hotfooted it up to another site to work the evening. Last night, while they were preoccupied with traveling from Point A to Point B, a custodial nightmare took place... there was not a single square of T.P. in the women's restroom. I didn't know what sort of arrangements had been made for the weekends, so I was operating under the assumption that we were custodianless. Our shop manager called me in a near-panic about the situation (luckily, we have a second women's restroom and a handicap-accessible bathroom) and I had to step in to fill the vacuum. I had to rummage around in the custodial closet to find the set of housekeeping keys, then I had one of our part-timers, the daughter of our office manager, stand guard at the women's bathroom door while I figured out which key opened the T.P. holders. I then had to grab a bunch of rolls of paper to fill the holders completely (each holds two rolls). After that, I decided that the place needed a good sweeping, because there were paper towels all over the place... I feared that the night would be a long, onerous one, and I was scheduled to work until 8AM.

Staffing is a major issue now- the "realignment" that sent 10% of our workforce packing created a situation in which we could cope, through a great deal of creativity and hard work, with the day-to-day operations of the organization. Now that we are in our major fundraising month, with multiple events each weekend, the short staffing has the potential to put us in crisis mode. Speaking for myself, I don't mind the occasional challenge of having to jump through hoops of fire, but it's not something I want to sustain for a month.

I got home around 8:45 in the morning today and slept until about 1:45PM. I woke up stiff and a bit sore, feeling every bit like a not-so-young guy who has had a twenty-four hour beating. A long, extremely hot shower allowed me to crawl up the evolutionary ladder (yeah, I know evolution doesn't work that way) so I was human enough to work four hours this afternoon. I need to be back at work at midnight.

I always joke that my job is extremely cushy, except when it's not. This is firmly a "not" month.

October Is a Moving Target

October is our busy season on the job, and my department is understaffed. Right now, I’m trying to cobble together a schedule with the staff I have, while dealing with moving goalposts. My boss, a saint, is trying to wheedle more hours from an overtime-averse executive branch to ensure proper coverage. Not only are the goalposts moving, but I’m on a moving platform trying to kick that field goal... and I’m not even a big football fan.

Right now, there’s a big ‘then magic happens’ gap in the schedule, pending word from higher up. I am the type of guy who likes to have everything planned out in advance, but that’s not an option in October.

The Metric Which Counts... to a Narcissist

To a TV President, nothing matters more than ratings, so the post-mortem for last night's dueling town halls must have sent him into an apoplexy:

SIREN! The Biden Town Hall on ABC drew 2.3 million more viewers than the Trump town hall on NBC. There is nothing @realDonaldTrump cares about more than ratings. https://t.co/03OMGhEVLM

— Jonathan Karl (@jonkarl) October 16, 2020

Yeah, Trump is a big loser in the ratings.  That is gratifying to see... it looks like people are bored with Trump's tired, repetitive schtick, and wanted to see some sensible policy talk.  Why listen to a buffoon harp on the same old tired topics, slinging the same old lies, when you can listen to actual science-based environmentalism and the growth of green jobs?

 

The contrast between Trump lying his ass off on NBC and then flipping the dial to ABC and hearing Biden talk about how "the biggest carbon sink in the world is the Amazon" is really something. pic.twitter.com/qDlICbKzvS

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 16, 2020

In a hilarious own goal, a Trump campaign staffer tried to insult Biden by comparing him to a beloved children's television show host:

Well @JoeBiden @ABCPolitics townhall feels like I am watching an episode of Mister Rodgers Neighborhood. https://t.co/bC8fIZPxHR

— Mercedes Schlapp (@mercedesschlapp) October 16, 2020

Yeah, I watched Mr Rogers as a wee one, and I'll take the kindly, empathetic Fred Rogers (a more genuine Christian than any religious-right fanatic) over Fred Trump's predator son.  "Won't you be my neighbor?" is a better TV catchphrase than "You're Fired!"

I make no bones about supporting Elizabeth Warren in the primaries, but I'll take a kindly, empathetic Joe Biden any day.  Maybe we need a nice uncle in the White House to soothe the widespread nationwide hurts... as long as he has a tough VP and even tougher AG to clean the neighborhood out after four years of a criminal conspiracy.

End of the Semester

Where the hell have I been? I've been waiting with my best suit on... Today was a hectic day, the final day of the semester for my volunteer coaching gig. Even before the day began, it was hectic- yesterday I received a text message from my supervisor, informing me that a plumbing contractor would be stopping by my principle workplace at 9AM, so one of the guys in my department was needed to open up the building for the plumber. Yeah, not a lot of notice, but one of my part-timers was happy to pick up an extra eight hours. Even if I didn't have classes to teach, followed by a semi-formal luncheon, I wouldn't have been able to work this added shift... on a regular Saturday, I work until 4AM and then return at 5PM. I like to think of myself as a non-wimpy individual, but that would be too much.

At any rate, I got the coverage issue sorted out, so I was able to get my customary two and a half hours of sleep before heading down to Manhattan. On the first day of the program, in October, and the last day of the program, in March, attendance is always high. We had two classes this morning, a class of about thirty nine to twelve year-old girls and a class of about forty five to eight year old boys. The real kicker is that some of the kids have been attending regularly, while other kids just show up occasionally, so there is a wide skill gap at play. Because of the vast amount of kids, we actually ran out of judogis for the boys' class, so some kids had to share. We divided each class into four roughly equal sub-groups and ran a big randori- we had the kids play against each other, then had the winners of the individual matches face each other until one kid remained as the winner, then we had the four winners compete to find the big boss. It was a fun two classes, though hectic. After our classes, the amazing gymnastics coach ran two gymnastics classes- she played a bit of judo back in the day, so she's one of us. While the kids took up a half of the mat, we did a little bit of sparring ourselves, making sure we didn't squash any small children... can't have a couple of cartwheeling seven year olds getting squashed by a four hundred plus pound mass of flesh and bone now. I have to note that my right shoulder has been sore for about a week and a half, to the extent that I've been using a heating pad on it every night... after crashing to the mat for the first time this morning, the shoulder pain was no big deal- I'm reminded of an old joke about HMO's.

After the classes ended, we assembled for a luncheon and awards ceremony. Everybody's freshly scrubbed and awards are given to the best kids in each individual sport, and the kids who show the most improvement. This is where we can see which kids are natural athletes- they tend to rack up the plaques. Awards are also given to the kids who demonstrate good sportsmanship and the counselors who demonstrate the most dedication. Our best sportsmanship winner is a young lady who "mustered out" of classes today and will be joining the ranks of the counselors next October. Our best counselor winner is a prince of a kid who has doubled as a basketball coach on an as-needed basis- he'll be going off to college this fall, and everybody is going to miss him terribly.

The last day of the semester is a bittersweet one- we know that many kids will transition out of the program, but that we'll have an influx of new students next October. We actually have a lot of former students return for a visit (today, two of our former students, a brother act, returned to visit while on spring break from college) and some of our former students return as coaches themselves... three of our fencing coaches were former students. One of the great privileges I've had in my life was to see a kid I knew as a five or six year-old go off to college. One of our running jokes in the dojo is that we hope that the kids we're coaching take it easy on us twenty years from now, when we're a bunch of old folks.

It was a busy, busy day... I left the luncheon and headed straight to work, where I shocked my co-worker by showing up in a suit and tie. I joked that I had been in court... he doesn't have to know that it was a basketball court.

Perfunctory October Post

This being October, I'm up to my ass in work. Tonight, we had a low-key fundraiser, but it still kept me from composing a lengthy post. Tomorrow, I have my volunteer gig in the morning, and then a major fundraising event (the low-key fundraiser runs concurrently- it's a mixed crowd that descends on my workplace on such nights). I figured I'd post a video which describes my October... Ministry's Halloween is Every Day:





I remember reading that Al Jourgensen has disavowed the early synth-pop Ministry songs, but I have to say that I like 'em. How could anyone disavow a song with the lyric "Walking around this stinky town, I look up at the buildings and they get me down"?

How about another disavowed Ministry synth-pop number?





Watching that video, I can't escape the conviction that the hair-gel cost more than the sets.

Halloween? HUMBUG!!! or Sorry, Dylan

October is my hell-month on the job. My ordinary workplace dream, time spent wandering a pretty site with funny cats, is replaced by a month of dealing with the public and running all over the site for hours, making sure that the site is ready for the influx of people, and then running all over the site to make sure that the place is cleared and closed.

Aunt Snow, who has been waging a one-woman campaign against beauty deficit disorder, put up a post commemorating Dylan Thomas' centenary. In her post, she linked to Poem in October. Well, I have my own October poem:


Eyes are droopy,
Feeling poopy.
Get no sleep,
I won't weep.
One more weekend,
Then I'm free, friend.


You know your life has taken a nutty turn when you actually look forward to November.

Prepare to Dive!

Another October has arrived, the month of the major Fall fundraising season at work is upon us, so I will be a busy bee. Today is especially crazy, because I have to go to the wedding of two co-workers before heading off to work.

October also marks the start of my Saturday morning volunteer coaching gig. Last Saturday, I ran into my next door neighbor, and he remarked that he hadn't seen me in a while, so I gave him my standard line about October: "Basically, I become Captain Nemo, and I won't surface for six weeks or so."

In honor of my upcoming 'submarine voyage, here's my favorite Sex Pistols tune, from a live 2016 concert by the reconstituted band:





Hopefully, I won't end up missing before the month is over:





At least I won't be freezing in my Spam tin... I'm going to try to schedule posts throughout the month when I'm able to, but I don't anticipate keeping up to date with current events to the extent that I usually manage to do.

The Long Slog

It's the time of year when the organization I work for holds its major Fall fundraisers, which means that it's 'all hands on deck' time at work. The long hours have already begun- I worked from Friday 5PM to Saturday 4AM, then had a bit of a respite, only working Saturday 5PM to Sunday 1AM. I am currently working a 6PM to 6AM shift, and there is a small army of technicians working their butts off- they are a really nice group of men and women, some of whom I have known for years. They should wrap up around 3AM, then I have to do all the i-dotting and t-crossing after they leave. I actually have a day off on Wednesday, but I will be spending that at an annual certification class... fun fun fun. For the record, one of my co-workers put in a whopping one-hundred and two hours in last pay period. He took the day off today so he could attend a vintage car show- it's the calm before the storm, because he'll have few days off in October.

Myself? I have two days off scheduled for the month- both Secret Science Club event nights... gotta support my people, you know. It's not as bad as it seems, though, about one-third of the nights will be four-hour shifts, which are pretty mellow. I usually refer to October as 'pulling a Captain Nemo', because I won't surface for a month, but this coming October, I'll call it 'pulling an Alvin'. At any rate, I can't complain, I like my job, I like my co-workers, and it's a not-too-common opportunity to pick up a bunch of overtime.

I'll try to keep to a regular posting schedule, but I'll be falling back on short posts, video posts, and pre-scheduled posts. I'll surface one of these days.

Commencing Submarine Mission

It's October, our principal fundraising month on the job.  I am transferring from a mode of operation in which I tend to have free time (though I must always keep one eye on things) to busy mode.  Three days out of five, I will be working an event, which entails being 'Johnny on the Spot'.  This month, I won't even be seeing Ginger more than two nights a week!

I always characterize this time of the year as 'Going Captain Nemo'... I will surface in a month.  Typically, in October, I set up weekend blog posts in advance, typically blog posts about spooky stuff, in accordance with the prophecy season.  The initial post, though, is typically submarine-related, as befits a Captain Nemo type.  I figured that, this year, I'd post my third favorite song about submarines, a woefully underknown number from 1991 by a woefully obscure band:

"I'm not drowning, I'm just going under" perfectly encapsulates the month of October for me.

Bronx Beautiful

When the movie 30 Days of Night came out, I thought, "Gee, this pretty much describes the month of October for me." October is a busy, busy month for me, but I can't submerge myself into routine. Sometimes I work the graveyard shift, sometimes, I work the four to twelve shift... I basically throw my "internal clock" out the window for the entire month of October. Once in a while, though, I have to see the sun (it hasn't helped that it has rained almost every day for the past week) and boost my Vitamin D synthesis.

Today being a beautiful day (and not having enough time to head to downtown Manhattan before work) I decided take a walk from my Yonkers abode to the Bronx, where I walked the perimeter of Woodlawn Cemetery. While a pleasant walk, the stretch of Webster Avenue on the eastern verge of the cemetery is pretty desolate- not much traffic, and no pedestrians besides the occasional freak. There is, however, an abundance of wild grapes in the area, so I was able to snack on the go.

For those of you unfamiliar with the Bronx, here is a view along Jerome Avenue, on the western edge of Woodlawn Cemetery- Van Cortlandt Park is to the left of the photo, the Woodlawn terminus of the Number 4 Subway is to the south.





Here's a picture of a D.A.R. memorial north of 233rd St, dedicated to Chief Nimham of the Stockbridge Wappinger tribe, who perished fighting on the side of the revolutionaries in the War of Independence:





A detail of the monument gives a brief mention of the sacrifices made by the Stockbridge people:





Most people don't think of the Bronx as a particularly verdant part of the world, but those of us in the know are aware that the Bronx is the Borough of Parks.

After my walk, I stopped by Rory Dolan's to conduct some research (honest!). Of course, sleuthing being hard work, I had to fortify myself with a pint and a burger. A second pint would have been unseemly, seeing as I had to prepare for the workday.