[lit-ideas] Re: Of Bog Sprites and Teaching
- From: Mike Geary <gearyservice@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 23 Oct 2013 13:45:40 -0500
Sayeth Richie:"It's, after all, what I do."
Me? I spent most of 37 years fixing (mostly) restaurant equipment and
commercial / residential hvac/r. I enjoyed it about as much as you can
enjoy doing anything of a non-sexual nature. Now, however, I work for Home
Depot -- closing out a month now. They believe in e-learning. I've spent
at least 72 hours watching excruciatingly boring videos about Home Depot.
The first 30 minute video was entitled "Watch Your Signature" I thought it
was going to be about identity theft, but no, it was an anti-union video
advising "associates" (otherwise known as labor) to be very careful about
what we sign lest a labor union sneak in through the thoughtless, careless
signing of a card. "You don't want outsiders telling you how to do your
job do you?" O my, if they only knew whom they had signed on -- Commie me.
But, after all, this is what I do now. Best keep my mouth shut until the
time is ripe.
My previous job had me sitting or squatting or lying down or standing up or
precariously balanced half-upside down or else in some seemingly unnatural
contortionist position as was necessary to work on a whatever. Now I stand
for hours on end, stand and walk, walk and stand and at day's end it's
"Lord God, Heavenly King, God the Father Almighty!! my feet and legs and
lower back are stiff and competing in pain. I curse my body, that once
served me so well, for its pitiless recalcitrance. Where's that Union card?
Mike Geary
Reluctant Worker of the World
On Wed, Oct 23, 2013 at 1:26 AM, David Ritchie <profdritchie@xxxxxxxxx>wrote:
> Have you noticed that our list is called "lit ideas"? What do people do
> with the unlit ones?
>
> Well here it's gutters followed by gutters. We took gutters off the house
> when we remodeled. I was tired of cleaning the damn things out, way high
> off the ground. "Give me French drains," I said, knowing that the French
> were, historically speaking, among those who had particular drain issues.
> The setup worked reasonably well and we haven't, like our friends, had the
> slope slide away at a cost of thousands, but I thought possibly the norm
> was something I ought to conform to, so I had sales people come give me
> estimates. It turns out that gutter folk will shepherd water all the way
> from your roof down to the ground. After that you need to call in
> drainpersons, who are, as the Irish would say, completely
> differentkindahpeople.
>
> In the Western World we spend all this money educating kids broadly,
> insisting that they know Latin, Greek, Calculus and Fingerpainting and it
> turns out that water from here to there is in one kind of universe and
> water from there to there is a totally different proposition. Thus
> whatever you're quoted for a price doesn't actually tackle the whole point,
> which is keeping water away from the house's foundation.
>
> I have a theory that gutters are all wrong. In my world gutters would be
> angled at thirty or more degrees. I have even drawn up plans for a kind of
> ski jump idea wherein the water accelerates away from the building at
> considerable velocity and then sprays on the verdant green below. Also, of
> course, those guests who choose to arrive during a rainstorm. No, the
> whole slow slope trickle thing doesn't convince me, and when you live near
> trees? I think not.
>
> But who listens to anyone with water sprite advisors? Downspout
> salespersons sway the floor like demagogues. (Did you know, as I found out
> when I checked the spelling, that someone had invented the term
> "femagogues"? Apparently Obama "sides" with them:
> http://mediamatters.org/video/2012/02/09/malkin-with-contraception-rule-obama-is-siding/186089
>
> He, of course, does quite a lot of siding.
>
> E the chicken daughter is gone again, wandering around in cranberry bogs.
> I'm envious. I've always wanted to see that whole deal. After tennis
> this evening we had dinner with another E. and J. They may have had some
> luck, so they were ebullient. He went to school near by where Ocean Spray
> do their thing and his sense is that cranberries go along like normal
> bushes until harvest time, whereupon you flood the field and float the
> fruit. I'm looking forward to our daughter's version or one day going to
> see.
>
> A friend wrote of sleeping people in her classes, which were the bane of
> my previous year, my schedule being Monday at 6pm for three hours,
> Wednesday at eight am for three hours and Friday more towards civilized
> hours. Though you may have guessed I love the seminar room, I am not
> missing teaching at present. That makes me sad and happy both. Today was
> a good writing day, so I feel, if not useful at least not entirely without
> something to contribute. Or spray. But I wish I missed my job more.
> It's, after all, what I do.
>
> Carry on.
>
> David Ritchie,
> Portland, Oregon
>
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