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UPDATE: HAH! The call came at 5:35am, well under 12 hours after the first call. I was stuck on R1 today. From the looks of things (explaning the situation would take a whole new post and I don’t feel like it) I’ll be on R3 tomorrow. I’ll be very surprised if it turns out otherwise.
Got a call from the post office today at 6:15.
PM.
As in after dinner.
They want me to do route 8.
What are the odds, do you think, that I will actually wind up delivering 8 tomorrow?
… have turned into monsters
Unless you’re a member of my family you probably will have trouble believing this…
| You Are a Werewolf |
|
You’re unpredictable, moody, and downright freaky. You seem sweet and harmless, until you snap. Then you’re a total monster. Very few people can predict if you’re going to be Dr. Jekyll or Mr. Hyde. But for you, all your transformations seem perfectly natural. Your greatest power: Your ability to tap into nature Your greatest weakness: Lack of self control You play well with: Vampires |
but it’s true (except the part where I look like a girl).
thanks to ScaryBeth
One of my current articles for the business mags is up at the 422 Business Advisor web site. You can find it here.
[So yeah, about five and a half seconds after I posted this, Will pops up and says “I have IMAP! All I did was log out and log back in.” There may or may not have been a silent razzberry in there too.
I dutifully logged out and loogled back in, and…]
Even though I say nice things about it and pet it every day.
I [still] have no gmail 2.0 yet. Not even IMAP.
C’mon g, don’t do me like that!
I think the supervisors have started reading my blog. They figured I wouldn’t answer my phone today so they waited until I arrived and worked on route 8 for an hour before telling me that the carrier for R6 had called out for a second day.
Looks like they got my number.
Read the first installment in this exciting saga.
Today I am scheduled for one of the smaller routes, number 8. It used to consist of about 100 houses all in one development with four centralized groups of cluster boxes. It took about forty five minutes to deliver the whole thing. It’s grown to almost 300 houses and now includes some driving stops as well and takes a whole morning. Even so, I should be done before noon. Doing 8 also means that I’m already on the schedule and should not receive a phone call this morning, not that it hasn’t happened before.
Still, it doesn’t take all day. R6, although not a full size route (in postal jargon, it’s a J route while a full size route would be a K), does take all day because it’s all over the place. This disjointedness makes for a confusing mail case too, and since I hardly ever do the route, it’s even worse. When I called the postal peeps back yesterday, it was in the hope that I would be able to avoid doing route 6 which always takes me longer than it should.
John, the supervisor who phoned me in the vet’s parking lot, was nowhere to be found so Rich tried to answer my questions.
“Hi Rich, it’s Jim Jannotti. Did John find anyone to cover route six yet?”
“I’m not sure James.” He always calls me James. “Let me check.”
I waited.
“Yes, sure James, you can come in.”
I thought but did not say, “Rich, I’m not asking permission.” What I did say was, “So [the other sub] didn’t call back?”
“Well, they’re casing on it now.”
If you’re keeping score at home this makes two consecutive questions which haven’t really been answered.
“When John called me I was with my dog at the vet’s. She’s sick, and…”
“Is your dog sick? My dog was sick last week. And you know what, I think it was the food!”
“I’m sorry to hear that, Rich.” And I was. Sick dogs are no fun. At the same time, R6 was still ominously unserved and my questions were unanswered.
“Yes, so when John called,” I said, “I was kinda concerned because it’s so late.”
“They just started casing,” said Rich.
“So I guess I need to come in then.”
“Yeah. I guess so. Now, real quick, about the dog, is she throwing up? Mine was so bad I thought I might have to put her down.”
Rich’s dog survived and the answer is yes, I did have to do route 6 yesterday, and yes, I got in at 10am, and no, it didn’t not suck.
Yet once again, mucho props to my pal Ann, who helped me at the case until that route was completely set up. She also came back later and cased all of my afternoon flats.
Back at home after 5pm, Fig received her first dose of antibiotics. Her bathroom breaks, though less frequent, are unchanged in hue but otherwise she’s fine. When I came down a few minutes ago she pranced around the kitchen in hope of food. A hope that was soon realized.
This story began on Saturday when I delivered route 7 (my primary) for the first time in a month. I took out 20 feet of mail, which is pretty heavy especially for a Saturday, but it was great to be back on ‘my’ route. What’s sad is that delivering the mail was the best part of the weekend.
When I got home on Saturday, my wife informed me that our dog Figalwicks, who is almost 16 years old, was going to the bathroom frequently. Just before dinner she ran outside and didn’t even get off the patio before stopping to pee. I laughed at first but then saw that there was some blood too. Our vet (their office is on route #1) was closed. Phone calls made on Sunday during their supposed ‘on call’ hours were not returned.
This morning, thank God, the PO did not call so I was on the phone with the vet at the stroke of 8. They told me to come in at 9am and bring a sample. This procedure involved me going outside with the dog and following her with a shallow glass lid, held strategically.
Off to the vet. At 8:59 I opened my back hatch to help Fig down to the parking lot when my cell phone rang. Pottstown PO said the display.
I looked at it. Thought about not answering. Then hit the button. “Hello,” I said.
“Jim, it’s John from work. The carrier for R6 called out today, any chance you can work.”
“…”
“I know it’s a late call but we tried calling [another sub] and she hasn’t called back.”
“John, can you keep trying to reach her. I’m standing in the parking lot of my veterinarian’s place. My dog is sick,” I said, conscious that this sounded like the lamest excuse ever even though it was completely true.
“Okay, I’ll keep trying.”
“I’ll call back when I’m done here. It shouldn’t be too long.”
So into the vet’s office I went with my saran wrap covered glass lid in one hand, and with Fig at the end of her leash pulling my other arm out of its socket.
Fig is very old and I was concerned that this might be the beginning of the end. It may still be, but the vet said it is probably a bladder infection. He gave us two weeks of antibiotics and said that should do the trick. If not, we’ll go back and see what’s up. So that was kind of a relief.
I waited until I arrived back at the house to call the PO. My hope was that the missing sub would call in since it was really her responsibility to do the route today.
[to be continued…]
There’s a dual purpose to this post. Okay three purposes.
a. To tell you about something new from google
2. To tell you about the blog from which I got it
– It’s 8pm and I haven’t posted yet today.
Google will soon be introducing a new version of gmail. They announced IMAP support for gmail a few days ago and created quite a buzz around the web, but I find the prospect of a newer, faster, more versatile version of the program to be much more exciting. According to the blog Google Operating System (more about that in a moment), the new gmail will include
- pre-fetching messages
- a new contact manager
- increased integration across google web apps.
It’s that last one that will potentially make gmail the killer online application. One thing I wish gmail would do currently is allow you to create a google calendar event based on an email with one click. It will eventually, and maybe even in this coming new version. Word is that the new contact manager will also work with gdocs and gcal. I’m hoping for a large leap toward full integration of calendar, gmail, and docs. Flippin’ sweet!
Now, about that blog. Google Operating System is written by Ionut Alex Chitu, who describes the nature of his reporting on his about page.
I didn’t invent the concept of Google Operating System, I just wanted to tell its story. The platform is already there, some pieces are already built, but Google’s operating system will continue to amaze us in the years to come.
You’ll find news, tips, secrets, analysis, written in a way I’d like to read them. But nobody writes them elsewhere. [link is from the gOS blog]
Unlike some other google watchers, Mr. Chitu zooms in with laser clarity on features that play into google’s larger ambition to be an online operating system that, as he puts it, “stores and processes our documents, memories and desires.” His post topics range from the quizzical to the diabolical to the whimsical.
Google Operating System can now be found among the selection of high quality blogs on the roll.
Although your plastic is just fine.
Giz reports that the NYT says that you can’t buy an iphone with cash anymore. It’s plastic only, which allows Steve and Co. to keep you from reselling your phone(s) on the black market. Oh, and speaking of plural nouns, you can only buy two iphonez with your credit card. Though maybe if you go to two different apple stores and use two different credit cards…?
Check out the comments in the Gizmodo post. I love the ones suggesting that apple might be breaking the law or violating some sort of code with this credit only policy. They obviously haven’t rented a car in the last, oh, fifteen or twenty years.
I have news for you all, until you buy the iphone it’s apple’s property and they can dictate the terms of sale.
Is this a wise move on apple’s part? I have no idea, but I don’t think it’s going to change anyone’s mind if they’re planning on buying an iphone. Will it hurt apple’s image? Probably, for about twenty minutes.
Besides, iPhone are so July. The iPod touch is the way to go, and you can still get that for green.
serotoninrain 
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