Tales from the County: The Printer that Hated Me

I got a call, someone had a printer issue. The issue was, the printer was dead. No lights came on, it didn't do anything, it was like there was no power getting to it. This printer was up on the third floor (in the bigwig area, I have to ring a doorbell to get in), so up two flights of stairs I went, to verify it was actually plugged in.

The printer was plugged in, and the power strip was turned on, and the printer was getting no power. I happened to have the exact same model of printer on my desk downstairs, so I decided to take the printer down, verify downstairs that it was truly dead, and replace it with my printer if it was.

I carried the printer down the two flights of stairs. When I plugged the problem printer in in my office, it lit up instantly. So I figured, maybe the problem was the power cord.

I took the power cord from my printer, and the problem printer, and carried them back up two flights of stairs. When I got back to the bigwig office, and plugged the printer back in with the new power cord, the one that had just worked downstairs, the printer was dead again.

After trying several different outlets, it was clear that the printer was not going to turn on. So I took it back down two flights of stairs, and plugged it in again in my office. It stayed dead this time. So my printer then made the trip up two flights of stairs, where it got plugged in and worked fine.

The problem printer didn't get to take any more trips upstairs. I took that out to the trash in the parking lot. Teach it to lie to me like that! Least I got lots of exercise...

Tales from the County: It Wasn't True

Around here, we like to send our old people to live in a nice little town called Green Valley. Because there are a lot of elderly people there, it does have it's own unique issues...

During my defensive driving class, the instructor shared with us the story he had heard about a little old lady in Green Valley. Her vision was so bad, that whenever she approached a traffic light, she would come to a complete stop, and pull out binoculars to check the color of the light, so she would know if she could continue through or not. He did not believe this story, and decided to check it out.

He was correct, the little old lady had not been using binoculars to check on the traffic lights... They were opera glasses.

Tales from the County: Job Security

Once I've passed my 12 months of probation, it will be very hard for the county to get rid of me. Take for example the following true story I heard at the County Orientation. Keep in mind, this man kept his job.

In Waste Water Management, there was a bay where employees were not permitted to park their vehicles. Our hero decides to park his motorbike there anyway, to keep it out of the sun or something. At some point through the day, the bike gets knocked over. The bike is missing it's gas cap, and gas spills onto the ground. Part of the reason vehicles are not permitted in this bay, is that work is being done... work that creates sparks. A spark hits the gas vapors, and it ignites.

Our hero see's that he's going to be in trouble, and runs for a fire extinguisher. He grabs hold of the fire extinguisher and tries to pull out the pin. Except he's holding tight to the part the pin is there to keep apart, so he can't pull it out. After some trying, he grabs another fire extinguisher, and has the exact same problem. He can't pull out the pin. Since these devices will not work for him, our hero does the next obvious thing. He grabs a water hose, and sprays the gas fire.

This man was not fired. Once I'm through with my 12 months of probation... I don't think they can get rid of me.

Lesson 18

The dogs need to be leashed now. Poor Pia... at least she found a good place to dig.

Today I got to ride Gretsky again. But no canter. The morning was actually quite cool, I was even wearing a little jacket to start!

Today we were working on half halts. I started with trotting a serpentine through the arena, and when I passed through the chairs, I was supposed to slow to a walk, then trot on again. Once I got that, we went to halting between the chairs, and then trotting on. Unfortunately, Gretsky decided my telling him to stop actually meant he should just walk really, really, really slowly (I think he thought he might get carrots if he got to Anna, she was not of the same opinion). So it took quite a while to convince the horse that stop did in fact mean STOP! Once I could actually get the halt, we moved on to asking him to stop, and when he started to, asking him to go again (which is a half halt?). By the time we were done with that, Anna's next lesson was arriving.

I don't know if you can make out what's going on in these pictures, but this is what I saw when leaving. That's Domino and (I think) Ikarus. They're both holding onto a rubber ball, and they were walking around in circles. It was just a very odd sight.

First Day

First day at my new job (yesterday was a holiday). Wish me luck!

Lets see if I can find the right hallway...

Lessons 16 and 17

I'll start with last week. I got to ride Domino, and I got to canter! Domino's canter, much like his trot, is big and springy. The movement of canter is easier to sit though, so as long as I kept my back loose, and moved with him, it was really fun.

Was still having steering issues though. Apparently, when I want to go right, I should be pulling the left rein more. If that makes no sense to you, join the club. If you understand, please share. It seems very counter intuitive to me.

This week I got to ride Gretsky again. After Domino, Gretsky's trot seems very small and stunted. He's also much harder to keep moving. But still a fun ride.

See his neck there? That's not what it's supposed to look like, and that's what we were working on the whole lesson (canter on Gretsky comes next week). The picture below is a little blurry, but that's closer to how he should be looking.

Next week I should get to canter on Gretsky, and work on getting him give me his head... This week every time he looked like he does above, it was instantly followed by him tossing his nose in the air. Oh well, I'll get there.