It's really hard to feel un-idiotic when you're soaked to the bone. For a group of chilled, soaked people, though, we had a pretty good time.

I'm having the brother and his wife over for supper tonight. We're having peach shortcake (this is the biscuit-y kind you eat hot with milk on it, not those bought spongecake cuppy things which, I'm sure, are very satisfactory but are definitely NOT the kind of shortcake I grew up with) and sweet corn and dead-ripe sliced tomatoes at room temperature. Yum!

-- Jessica

Er, I don't know a heck of a lot about horses, but don't they get all colicky or something if you go riding in monsoon rains?

I am carless. I managed to destroy my brake rotors, and they're having trouble finding parts locally for Daewoos. Damned Korean fly-by-night conglomerates.

Dread Mitch, colic is more a result of predisposition and/or management practices (feeding, type of food, schedule of feeding, leaving the grain bin open...) than a result of the weather one goes riding in. Besides, my horse and the horses of my friends are all-weather horses. They do not take the local weather too seriously because they (mostly) live outside IN the local weather. They have a run-in barn that they can be in or not, as they see fit. When it rains, nobody goes out in the rain to tromp around the field trying to PUT the horses in the barn. They know where the barn is. If they want to be in the barn, they can make that happen themselves.

Basically, horses are livestock. They can live quite happily in fields, like beef cows or dairy cows. You do not have to put them inside when it rains or when it snows. All you really need to do is provide them with a shelter and then let them decide for themselves if they want to be inside or not. They will take care of the rest.

-- Jessica
Off to go riding my unbroke horse...

The unbroke horse and I went out for a spin today up the mountain and out along the ridge and down the mountain again. We went with four other people/horse pairs for safety in numbers. Horses are herd animals, and if you take along a 'herd', they don't usually strike off on their own. This is important when you don't have brakes or steering to speak of.

Nick (the unbroke horse) was a trooper. She didn't buck, spook, or do anything dorky at all. Since Nick has put me off (significant bucking) three times and has also dumped Ash (sturdy fifteen year old boy) on his butt, I was a bit nervous today... but she did a great job. She did well on the 'trail' part and on the 'offroad' (no trail) part. She didn't fight the bit and her steering/stopping improved by a factor of three over the course of the ride. I couldn't have asked for a better effort AND it didn't start to rain until we got back and had all the horses put away.

-- Jessica
Nick is my project horse, the one I am breaking to ride. I have done all the training work with her to get her to 'rideable' status. Today was a really, really successful day and a big step forward.

Edited by author 09-01-2003 07:16 PM
And, since everyone has graciously put up with horse news for the weekend, here are the horses. Horses are NOT as easy to photograph as mushrooms. They are cuter than I have made them appear...

Meat (registered name Four Oaks Teepee), the twelve-year-old 3/4 arab pony mare that I have been riding for the last eight years, whom I trust not to kill me:
http://www.bedford.net/teep/meatcass.jpg
(Cassity, age 6, is sitting on her after the very rainy Barry Hall ride on Saturday)

Nick (registered name GF Nile Kaia), the five-year-old purebred arab mare that I have been twinking with for the last year and a half whom I strongly suspect will kill me one of these days, vicious killer horse that she is:
http://www.bedford.net/teep/nick1.jpg
http://www.bedford.net/teep/nick2.jpg
(These were taken today before we went on the very-successful ride)

-- Jessica

Ah! When you said "unbroken" I thought you were just making fun of my old-maidishness. You mean it was literally unbroken - not quite socialized. Cool.

Meanwhile, my friends keep yelling at me whenever I try to walk home or to work. Admittedly Centre county roads outside of State College proper are not strictly amenable to pedestrian traffic, but I rather think I can make it the three miles from town to the office without getting run over by the Amish or whatever.

(nb: the Amish don't actually ever get this far west in the valley.)

Question for anyone with any sort of management experience out there. Worker A has called out 6 of the last 8 of a certain day of the week, this day being one of the busiest of the week. Is it wrong for workers B, C and D to go to the manager and say "Schedule this day as one of worker A's days off since he won't show up anyways so that we are not painfully understaffed." or is this something that is likely to get workers B, C and D in trouble?

--Ben

Management might not be aware of worker A's behavior. Sometimes the people most able to see the patterns are the people most affected by the patterns. Since worker A's load-related-illness doesn't really confront management, they might not know about it. I'd take it to the attention of the management. Worker A may well get the axe, but as long as you're not worker A, go for it.

-- Jessica

That lousy worker A. He's always causing trouble.

-- Mark

Worker A is the one who's always trying to pass encrypted email to Worker B, right?

--Jon
Software manual humor!

Ben, part of your job is to let management know when the actions of other personnel have begun to effect job performance. So you should tell management about Mr. A's absences, especially if you can get coworkers C and D into the office with you to back up your statements. It's not like you're asking for A to be fired; you're suggesting that it might be wise to change A's schedule to match his/her behavior. This is perfectly fine.

Unless you have a Psycho Boss. In that case, nothing short of alien invasion can save you.

--Jon

Amanda, how's the job search going? And is there anything one of us can do to help, like mailing you the help-wanted ads from local papers?

--Jon

Or getting Mike's coworker A fired so that you can replace him/her?

Dread Mitch: Redefining Evil, Getting Results.

--Jon
I smell a nineteen million dollar ad campaign for MitchCo!

Jon: I smell a nineteen million dollar ad campaign for MitchCo!

Wakka ja wakka ja wakka ja wakka ja
wakka ja wakka ja wakka ja wakka ja
MitchCo!

--Joe
That'll be $19 million. I'll take a check.

/m150
I wrote up a trip report:
http://600seconds.blogspot.com/2003_08_31_...#106252383800196891