Radar Online has an excellent list of the 10 dumbest Congressmen.
Thrill to lines like “Those who survived the San Francisco earthquake said, ‘Thank God I’m still alive.’ But of course those who died, their lives will never be the same again,” or “I myself have educated myself about the severity of the Articles of Impeachment, and I want to share with my colleagues and the American people some of the thoughts that I have learned.”
Good stuff.
Knoxnews reports that a drug and slack crackdown at the Molten Salt Reactor here in town cost at least two people their jobs.
Apparently, according to the paper, Bechtel Jacob’s ballbuster squad inspected a ‘break trailer’ where they found employees watching TV, sleeping, and playing cards. They then decided to check the place for pot, calling in Roane County 5-0, and by golly they found “residue” in the trailer.
They then spread out, searched the cars in the parking lot and pee tested all 50 employees. Pot was found in one car, and one employee refused to submit to the test, so both of those peoples were fired. Four employees were found to be “non-negative”, and apparently they’re going to some sort of secret tribunal
Man, what happened to the day when people fought this kind of crap? I know, I know “But AT, marijuana is baaad, and its not legal, mkay?”, and I agree, whoever was smoking up at the office needs to go. However, theres no reason to fire somebody based on the possibility that they may have smoked it in the past 30 days at home, or in Amsterdam, or somewhere else completely unrelated to the job.
Seems like complacancy has dropped down on the American worker, and the corporate world is now capable of unreasonable search and seizure of your wee-wee provided that they give you a paycheck. This is still completely unacceptable to me, whether or not the position is a government job.
For me, tho, the best part is the last paragraph:
Most nuclear work at the Molten Salt Reactor has been suspended for several months because of a fluorine leak earlier this year. The cleanup plan called for additional training this fall and restart of fuel-removal tasks in November. It was not immediately clear if the latest incident would alter that schedule.
OK. So, what we have here appears to be employees with nothing to do but sit around the house, get high, and watch the tube.  All the sudden, the jackbooted Bechtel Jacobs thugs swarm the trailer, the break trailer, and get pissy that people aren’t being productive?  So they accuse all of them of being doped on the job?
Screw that. Hell with Bechtel Jacobs, and DOE, and this whole damn mess.
Here’s another reason why religion and politics shouldn’t mix.
It makes for bad religion (and not the band either…).
Thanks to The Revealer for this one.
So last night I was eating a bitchin hamburger at the Time-Out here in Oak Ridge. I hadn’t been there previously, and only stopped there because GAC was looking for a chair base for her project (which I’m sure she’ll tell you about later, on account of it rocks), and Time Out was something different. Anyway, point is, it freakin rocked, it wasn’t king hell expensive, and they’re getting French Broad beers out of Asheville on tap so I can finally quit bitching about the shitty beer selection on draft in Oak Ridge.
Wooooooot.
So anyway, there I was, eating my burger and onion rings, drinking my Dr. P, and pondering my latest plan: an Oak Ridge Wiki.
Now, this thing is my answer to the talk of late about how Oak Ridge has its nose up with regards to Anderson County, and maybe its true, maybe it isn’t. Who cares. Seems to me, tho, that one of the problems I had with this town until recently is that you have to really dig at the bastard to get the good stuff. Why not make the good stuff public?
Blogs are great for disseminating opinions, but anybody from out of town who reads me and Netmom might get a wildly jilted view of what Oak Ridge is and what it isn’t. Hell, I disagree with Netmom intently on a lot of aspects of this town. Point is, I’m still living here, and so is she, and its because this is a great little place, with an interesting history, and a very cool present. Sometimes.
Anyway, a wiki would be a place where everybody could come in and write about the shops in town, write about the politicians, the newspapers, the intersections. What to stay away from, what to go to, in a completely open and free enviroment, edited by peers.
I like that idea. I like it a bunch, and I want to get other people hyped up about it. Problem is, I’m having a HELL of a time getting everything set up. See for yourself, its at http://www.atomictumor.com/oakridgewiki for now, but it ain’t pretty…
After only three prematurely aborted forays into the seedy world of residential interior design, I have come to the conclusion that it just ain’t for me.
The first job I had was with an overly permissive client who appeared at the outset to have virtually unlimited cash to put into a renovation. As time went on and we pushed him to secure the money, the more difficult it became to contact him. After we had picked out furniture and hired a general contractor, he changed all his contact numbers and email addresses and moved. To Maryland.
The second job I had was really a commercial endeavor, not residential, but it was with a small business owner. We were to turn her recently purchased meat-packing plant into a corporate HQ and bottling facility. After some miscommunication, I was squeezed out by a fellow designer. She and I have since patched up our relationship.
This last ex-job though… whew. An elderly home-owner contacted one of my teachers asking for a student designer. I called dibs and got the lady’s phone number. After consulting with my teacher, I settled on an hourly wage for myself. To say my client balked would be doing it an injustice. She actually laughed when I told her. She suggested a price that was half what I was asking. Since she was elderly, I acquiesced. I went to her home (in hoity-toity Farragut) once to “interview” and look around at what I’d be dealing with. The room she wanted to redo was really quite nice, and I told her that I’d like to leave most of it alone, and just rearrange furniture and purchase some new pieces.
I went out to her home a second time to take pictures, measurements and to match colors. After I was done, she casually told me that she has been in contact with a professional designer and that, if the designer’s prices are right (twice over what I initially asked for, easily), she’ll be giving the other woman the job.
“But don’t worry, we’ll save something for you to do.”
Excuse me?
I was hired. I was given a job, an hourly wage was agreed upon, I’ve begun considering changes and have put time into planning, worrying and consulting with my teacher. And you call to tell me, “Don’t do anything between now and the next time I call you, because I’ll be consulting with the professional designer next week”?
So I’ve decided to be pro-active and call her and turn down the left-overs that she’s saving for me.
Edit: She just called me to tell me she’s going with the experienced designer. She did say that she’d give me a call when she needed another room done, but I politely told her not to bother.
Being civil very well might be the hardest part of my line of work.