New Job

[Mike in tx]

I am finally leaving purgatory and leaving Dec 9 for a travel job in Edinburg, TX. I got what I asked for so they must be desperate. Hopefully I will get an extended stay housing as it is a busy season in south Texas this time of year. I will be working cardiac telemetry and will be able to float to all but ICU. I am excited.

Mike

[Hellrazor]

Congrats.

But the last few days reminded me that traveling sucks. I drove 1.75 hours each way to attend training the last 2 days. Now I remember why I live close to where I work. Wouldn't want to drive for a living...

[Mike in tx]

I got assurance of 3 consecutive shifts so I can be home and awake 4 days. Travel nursing is different than traveling for work. I used to stay out 140 nights and put on 80000 miles per year. I did that for 14 years and yes the last 2 years were hard. I was happy to get off the road but there are days that I miss it and then I remember that working for yourself is the hardest work that one can do. I am hoping that it is a good rotation(13 weeks with completion bonus). Then I will need 1 more rotation and then New England here I come. I should be there by July 1 of 2015.

[versifier]

I hate driving. I wouldn't wish that kind of commute on anyone. I seldom drive more that 5-600 miles a month these days and even that's too much. But I'm looking forward to you being up in this neck of the woods. This year we'll have a chance to do some serious shooting.

[Hellrazor]

80,000? F that.

I hit 500 miles this week going to meetings and trainings on Weds through today. So my new F350 @work has 550 miles on it the first week I had it. 11MPG @ 500miles = 45 * 2.95 = $132 in gas.

[Clayt]

What, Biddeford Maine in the winter wasn't an option?! I could keep a path in the snow out to my camper for ya! :mrgreen:

I hope it works out well for you!

I put on ~20K business miles, put 175 on today with 8 stops. Only put in a 10 hour day, good thing I don't work for somebody other than myself, or I'd QUIT!

[Mike in tx]

Biddeford and Lewiston were on the list. LOL Can't wait for July.

[Clayt]

You don't speak enough languages for Lewiston.
How are you going to get time hunt in January?

[Mike in tx]

Clayt We're going to have to play it by ear. Steve and I have already discussed the situation and have a PLAN

[Mike in tx]

I just finished the 11 tests for the travel agency. The last one was a pisser and I passed on first try. Glad it is over. I now qualify for critical care, as if I have not been in ICU but this one was difficult. Time for a drink.

[Clayt]

Hitting that urine sample vial was a challenge for you?

If it was taken in Maine it would have been "Wicked pissa!" :razz:

[Mike in tx]

LOL By taking a pisser I can now take care of you in critical care. What a joke on the patients. Can't wait for you to get here in Jan. Time for hogs to go down, hopefully.

[Mike in tx]

Well, this hospital is a pisser. Nationally one score is needed to pass the test. This hospital requires a higher score. Took the test over, beat their required score by a bunch. Now I can take care of all you sick people in PCU LOL

[Hellrazor]

Are you sure you want to take care of Clay? :)

[SkyKid]

I have something wrong with me nobody can fix
I'm French:lol:

[Hellrazor]

I can't believe you admit that in public... :smile:

[versifier]

We are generally pretty tolerant here up Noth where he got transplanted from. As long as someone grows up learning the superfluity of too many r's, a person can be French or Irish or Italian or Hindu or black light purple with greens spots, yellow stripes and an extremely poor makeup job (we're bundled up much of the years so you can only tell in the summer - I'm certain the lady across the street was a brood sow in a former life and possibly this one though litters are very small - one - in this incarnation, not sure about the guy next door either, he only speaks to my dog and never directly to me, the dog likes him so I've decided he's OK, just pleasantly nuts) and you act civil except to Democrats and flaming liberals everyone just treats you like a human and pretty much minds their own business unless you get in their face, which generally you don't as long as you are minding yours, too.

Such a society likewise allows me to indulge the Italian (like Mark indulging his French) by also making gallons of good wine (yeah, French and Italians, Irish, Greeks, Brits, Slavs, hairy Northern Europeans, hairy Southern Europeans, Jamaicans, all have a great grandfather that made wine or beer or whiskey or rum or vodka too - such talents are still appreciated in a rural society even in this computer age) and also the Irish by consuming them in pleasant company and mass quantities over the holidays and most certainly through the Month of March (pronounced "Maaach") towards the end of which we are known to don our green clothing and celebrate our cultural New Year with the enthusiastic support of all of our less-than-sober and less-than-Irish friends and neighbors of diverse backgrounds and ethnicities. Then, after this three months of joyous cathartic bacchanalia, if you still live on a farm then slam comes lambing season and then preparing for and onto planting. That's why it happened when it did and does, at the bleakest, nastiest, sick-of-winter time of year when there isn't a lot of work to do on the farms, a lull before the snow melts and it all gets serious again all at once. It still to this day gives everyone a good way to let off steam together.

Shooting and anthropology all in one website.

Blueberry wine this year, we're very happy with it and might have enough to last into summer, more than enough to get through March.

What did you make this year Mark?

[SkyKid]

I haven't made anything since I moved
I would like to make some shine [smilie=s:
Apple pie would be my choice

[Hellrazor]

make some applejack... wait, you need to be somewhere it gets cold to make that.

[Mike in tx]

Use the freezer for applejack. Shine though is better

[SkyKid]

mmmm apple pie:lol:hic

[versifier]

I love cider, but I have a hard time getting it without pasteurizing and added preservatives, but here's how to get a lot more bang for your buck. Add 25lbs of sugar to 5-7gal cider and champagne yeast. When that has fermented out to 15-18% you leave a plastic jug of it outside when it drops below zero. Cheesecloth. You get 1-1.5 quarts of pale yellow applejack from a gallon of very hard cider. I figure it's 80-100 proof, the colder the more concentrated. -20F works really well. You do the math. Easier than distilling. All the nasty solid stuff that settles out of the cider is frozen into the ice crystals and stays in the jug when you pour the jack out of it through the cheesecloth. You cannot taste the alcohol in it when it is served really cold, it's like you're drinking apple juice until you realize how much of it you've had. Hope you're with good friends.

Shine is great if the right persons are making the mash and running the still. It is not the easiest process to master even for a trained chemist. We have some talented folks up here, some not so.

Anybody that can run a blender and cook a pot of oatmeal can make good beer or wine with a little practice. Wine is seasonal and you make it in larger batches, beer you make in big or small batches of one to five gallons every week or two as you'll need it.

[Mike in tx]

Well, it is time. I spent 2 days in Edinburg for orientation, have 1 more day Monday, orient on the floor Tuesday night and on my own Wednesday. It will feel good to get back to work. What am I going to do come the end of June.
Edinburg is 30 miles from Brownsville and 10 miles from McAllen, TX. The locals tell me the horror stories are just that, fairy tales. Hope it is so. I do carry in the truck and room which is legal in TX now. I have spoken to a CCL instructor and will be taking the course soon. He is expensive but it is a 2 day course with 1 full easy day on the range. Take care and will me back on line soon.