From commentor Bella Q:
If you will take wild pets, I have a couple. Twins from last summer. That photo was taken in our front yard under an oak tree.
Twins and a singleton from 2012. Those were taken in the back yard next to ours. Twins are the norm for a mature healthy doe when food is plentiful, and actual triplets are not unheard of in times of abundance.
Bucks hang out in bachelor groups in the summer, and I came home week before last to find 4, still in velvet lounging in the same area where the fawn shots were taken. Sadly, I did not have a camera handy to get a photo of the stag party, so I am on the hunt for future opportunities.
Our three dogs, when there were three, looking at me (I had a treat!). All were rescues, Layla (largest!) is the baby and is now eight. Django was dumped at a truck stop and found me on my way back from a horse show. Lulu (Louise) was found at a friend of mine’s farm (with her sister Thelma) under a trailer, two years earlier. She got in my lap at a horse show, and my friend sent her home with me. There are more details, but those should suffice, as I’m guessing you don’t want novellas…
***********
Everybody breathe…
What’s on the agenda for a day when, as Churchy LaFemme would put it, Friday the 13th falls on a Wednesday?
raven
No one read the Yearling?
Betty Cracker
Those are three highly focused dogs.
SuperHrefna
I’m going to the podiatrist to have the numb toes I got from flying to ( and from) Australia looked at.
Apart from that I’m watching twitter to see what the hell is going on in Ferguson. From what I’ve seen on my feed, the police shot a woman last night, possibly through the head and she may still be alive.
Is there any way some responsible grown ups could take that police department over and stop them terrorizing the town? Their behavior is monstrous and clearly provocative.
SuperHrefna
Done some more research, according to this article the police shot a man last night and the woman was shot in a possibly unrelated drive by: http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/another-police-shooting-in-ferguson/article_7fb366f0-2f29-5bdd-b18b-34c9d8c688e7.html
Phylllis
Thank you for the lovely photos. And thanks Anne Laurie for the reminder to breathe. I’m dealing with two major clusterf*cks at work that are a direct result of no continuous operations policies in my organization and that aren’t really my responsibility. But I’ll surely get kicked if I don’t fix them.
Breathe in, breathe out. Yep, feel a bit better. Back to lurking.
Betty Cracker
This seems to be a particularly rough week for a lot of people. Too much bad news. Annoying work bullshit, etc. Here’s hoping things turn around starting today.
OzarkHillbilly
@SuperHrefna: Yep, police say he was armed and pointed a gun at a cop investigating “reports of shots being fired and men wearing ski masks carrying shotguns.” Also, this was a STL County cop not a Ferguson cop, which is a horse of a different color, more disciplined etc. The local cops tend to be the ones who for whatever reason can not get on with the state, county, or STL city, or who were let go by the state, county, or city police.
OzarkHillbilly
@Betty Cracker: Here’s some good news:
Fields Medal mathematics prize won by woman for first time in its history
SuperHrefna
@OzarkHillbilly: It’s all just so dizzying – I’ve been trying to think how I feel about the clarifications coming out and it’s just bewildered and sad. It is somewhat reassuring to know that these cops aren’t quite as bad as those other cops, and it is possible that this time the man shot might have been guilty of something (though nothing worth being killed over) but given how many innocent black men are victimized by the police every day and how much swallowed rage is coming to a head in Ferguson right now, the timing sucks to say the least. And the police have lost their credibility.
SuperHrefna
@OzarkHillbilly: yes! This has made me very happy. Such a long over due award in a deeply sexist field, I hope it is the first of many but knowing what mathematics is like, I am not holding my breath. But this one means a whole hell of a lot.
Another thing that is making me happy right now is that my darling girlcat, who the vet told me was dying last month, seems to be on the road to recovery!! She is curled up snoozing on my feet right now, and I just feel so grateful that I get to keep her a while longer. She is the most intelligent and nurturing cat I’ve ever had.
Betty Cracker
@SuperHrefna: That’s good news about the kitty. Pets are such a comfort when life gets you down. I don’t think I would have made it through the first half of 2014 without my pups.
SuperHrefna
@Betty Cracker: they do so much for us! The times in my life when I couldn’t have a pet ( for a long time I lived in a shoebox) have been very lonely ones. I think it just does us good to interact with other species, to learn to communicate and cohabit with them. And their love is so warm.
Mustang Bobby
Jesus H. Christ in a birchbark canoe, WTF do they put in the coffee on Morning Joe? I woke up to this crap? I’m going back to sleep. Wake me when the bus gets to Key Largo, okay?
BillinGlendaleCA
@Mustang Bobby:
My guess is LSD.
raven
@Mustang Bobby: “IT’S BETTER THAN DOING NOTHING”!!!! What a slimy fucking bitch.
satby
@SuperHrefna: That’s great news! And a happy what to be welcomed back home.
satby
BellaQ, what great pictures! Thanks for sharing.
satby
@satby: a happy way… gah kindle!
BillinGlendaleCA
I just scanned a negative from our 1998 trip to Korea, it’s my wife and our tour guide in Jejudo who’s name was pronounced B J.
Talentless Hack
We have a red-tailed hawk this year. It claimed the airspace over our place, whereas the cats have the ground. The other day, it was perched on the edge of the roof when it let out its well-recognized shriek as it flew off, leaving a stream of shit in the front yard.
I tell you all, when a red-tailed hawk shits, boy, does it shit. I’m hoping last night’s rain washed it off the shingles.
Talentless Hack
@BillinGlendaleCA: Partially cut the cord a few days ago. Can’t say that I miss Morning Joe. Nope.
Mustang Bobby
Speaking of Key Largo, I never met Lauren Bacall but I sat behind her at a performance of “Richard III” at the Stratford, Ontario, Shakespeare Festival in 1980 when Brian Bedford was playing the lead. Later we saw her at the next table at The Church restaurant. She and I shared the same birthdate.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Talentless Hack: I can usually only tolerate it for about the first hour. It’s how I test my sobriety, if I don’t start chugging my mouthwash after watching Joe for about 15 minutes, I’m good.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Mustang Bobby:
You’re 89?
Schlemizel
@Mustang Bobby: @raven:
I seriously don’t understand why you do that to yourself. Wouldn’t you be happier & calmer at the start of the day if you left the damn TV off, or maybe checked out cartoon network rather than to have to listen to those people?
I guess I am the exception as my work has gotten better the last couple of weeks. My useless boss has found a project to occupy his time and has left me as the defacto supervisor. His boss (who hates my boss & is trying to get rid of him) basically told me he wants me in charge. I have spent my career trying to to be a manager (I like working on things not on people) but have decided I can do a whole lot better at it thanthose currently around me. But work actually has be pleasant for a change
Amir Khalid
This is a story about an Australian boy, who is only seven and can’t be blamed for what’s going on, in a gruesome photo taken by his dad. What bugs me here is that the boy’s face is blurred out and he goes unnamed in the story, presumably to protect him, but he has nonetheless been identified. The story identifies him by naming his dad.
If whoever originated this story didn’t want to identify him, they shouldn’t have named his dad — who would have only one seven-year-old son. That might leave them with no story, but the media should always put protecting the innocent before scoring a scoop.
Schlemizel
@BillinGlendaleCA:
Mouthwash? Those shows make me want to chug draino!
You went with the joke I was thinking in your next comment – good show!
OzarkHillbilly
@Schlemizel:
Amazing how much better life is when that happens.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Schlemizel: It’s the end of the day for me, I’m a night owl.
Mustang Bobby
@Schlemizel: I usually miss it because I get to work before it comes on. I’m on vacation this week and turned on the TV because it was on MSNBC when I went to bed last night. I switched to the Weather Channel now.
Amir Khalid
@Talentless Hack:
I guess a case of the runs is painful for a red-tailed hawk.
Mustang Bobby
@BillinGlendaleCA: Feel like it sometimes. Same day, just 28 years apart.
Another Holocene Human (now with new computer)
Had a dream that a legal department I’m hitting with sunshine law requests told me to fuck off.
I guess that’s not surprising as they’ve already emailed me telling me to fuck off once. But I’m not finished with them.
In short, I wish everyone weren’t such an asshole. The end.
Betty Cracker
@Schlemizel: Well, it’s good that it has improved despite the generally shitty circumstances. I know what you mean about preferring to work on things rather than people.
During my corporate career (which I eventually ditched in favor of working at home in a solo capacity), I was good at what I did, which perpetually put me in danger of being kicked upstairs to manage people. I was general successful at resisting that, but not always, and it was invariably a mistake to accept. I didn’t completely suck at it, but it always made me unhappy.
I don’t know why managers believe that when someone excels at Skill A, it automatically means she will succeed at managing people performing Skill A. People management is an entirely different thing, and managers, of all people, should get that. But many don’t.
BillinGlendaleCA
@Amir Khalid: Diarrhea killed 2 US Presidents on the same day.
Another Holocene Human (now with new computer)
@OzarkHillbilly: Dammit, that’s why I went into the field I did and chose the employer I did but then some horrible people were put in charge of my department and then my wife was all “No way, we can’t move” but then her job ended and I had already agreed to take over the union and we’re halfway into a wage fight with the employer. So here I am.
And now I’m having thoughts that I might as well stick around and get that pension. *slaps hand* Bad me!
Another Holocene Human (now with new computer)
@Betty Cracker:
It means you worked at a place that realized that the alternative was worse, that it’s better to have managers than intimately understand what their underlings do every day rather than do the easy, lazy thing and just promote or bring in social dominators who, over time, will destroy your entire business but will feather their nest and drive away all the talented and/or sensitive people in the meantime.
Yeah, it’s tough to become a manager but there’s some research showing that picking leaders by random actually leads to better outcomes than picking the people who jump up and say “pick me!!!!” Maybe because the latter group are bugfuck nuts with massive personality disorders, empathy deficits, and lack of aptitude or interest in practical skills other than pushing people around.
Leading is HARD if you care about your people, that’s why it’s a burden. It’s a FUN PLUM if you’re a jerk.
Patricia Kayden
Those are some beautiful dogs and deer. Nice way to start a hump day.
Baud
@Betty Cracker:
Ha! I have the opposite problem. Can’t get promoted despite being the most qualified person to save my life. I’m at the point where I’m going to have to make some serious and likely depressing career choices.
Another Holocene Human (now with new computer)
@OzarkHillbilly: Thanks. That is good news.
Another Holocene Human (now with new computer)
@OzarkHillbilly:
Oh great. Probably Ferguson pays too little starting pay to get anything but the rotting apples at the bottom of the barrel. Seen it before.
Their hiring choices remind me of the state cops at University of Florida. Three of them were caught harassing residents (while driving drunk!) in an impoverished, majority Black neighborhood close by the University. The fourth dude in the car was a Gainesville city narcotics cop who was quietly let go. UF then hired him. Then he shot a disabled grad student with mental illness in the face on a welfare check and claimed this crippled dude came at him with a metal pipe (apparently that’s how he described a hollow aluminum cane). Students from SDS were protesting and marching on the admin building because nothing was being done. So finally UF let him go and the City hired him BACK as a bus driver but then he was arrested for an assault on a pregnant woman (his girlfriend? apparently?) and HR terminated a few hours later. One hopes the one man crime wave left town.
Anyway, tells you everything you need to know about UF police and their standards.
BruceFromOhio
Despise deer, the furry Gaia-damned locusts. They bring destruction to anything green, endless piles of poop, and ticks. And with the utter lack of fortitude by local leaders to back any culling or population control programs, pretty soon I’ll have to elbow them out of the way to get to the mailbox. Short of building a fucking fortress surrounded by armed guards and disgusting smells, we’ve essentially given up anything resembling gardening.
Betty Cracker
@Another Holocene Human (now with new computer): That sounds about right. Still, I’ve had really good managers — people who not only understood the work but who also knew how to manage groups, separate fact from bullshit, influence non-direct reports, handle conflict, etc. It shouldn’t be that goddamn hard to find people who are good at THAT and put THEM in charge.
OzarkHillbilly
From the Michael Sam watch:
Michael Sam’s preseason debut proved he can play in the league. He still faces stiff job competition with the Rams, of course, but now other teams may rethink his viability as a depth defensive end. Sports on Earth scribe Mike Tanier raised that point after reviewing Friday night’s game against the Saints. He wrote:
There is a very good chance that the Rams have no roster room for Michael Sam. (Robert) Quinn, (Chris) Long, (William) Hayes and Eugene Sims make four defensive ends: two Pro Bowl level players and two backups who can start for many teams. Michael Brockers, Kendall Langford, and (Aaron) Donald make three starting-caliber tackles. The eighth and ninth defensive linemen, if the Rams decide to keep them, will have to be versatile performers: ‘wave’ defenders who can play tackle or end, or speedy ends who can contribute on special teams. Sam cannot be the former. He is working to prove that he can be the latter, but it is an uphill battle. The Rams are almost as deep in quick-footed tough guys who can chase kickoff returners as they are in defensive linemen.
The Sam who reached the backfield a handful of times against the Saints simply may not be good enough to make the Rams roster. But he could make at least a dozen other rosters around the NFL. Because he received early playing time, scouting departments around the league can now see that.
Front offices around the league now also know that: a) the foundation of the team practice complex did not crumble when an openly gay player entered the locker room; b) neither the Westboro Baptist Church nor Oprah Winfrey descended on the complex to throw lamb’s blood or new appliances at players, coaches, and fans; and c) even the obligatory socio-political bibble-babble is just that, a controversy-of-the-week which, at its loudest, ranks about one-fourth a Manziel Unit of hype. Sam is shaping up to be a pretty good fourth defensive end, a hustle guy and a non-distraction.
However this story ends, Jeff Fisher did a world of good for the NFL by drafting Sam and then treating like just another job candidate — which was the best way for this scenario to play out.
Betty Cracker
@Baud: Maybe they can’t do without you in that role. I’ve seen people’s careers get bushwhacked that way too. Fucking work. As if life weren’t hard enough!
satby
@Betty Cracker: People management IS an entirely different skill, and the best option is to have the manager of a group be promoted from within so that they understand the work being done. The trouble is most places just promote by seniority and never train new managers on the new skills they will need to manage the people doing the job. And the seniority promoting also often gives a management job to someone who is manifestly unsuited for it; and few people are willing to forgo the increase in income that a promotion will bring even if they know in their hearts they aren’t really up to the job.
OzarkHillbilly
@OzarkHillbilly: Looking at that, it is unclear that I wrote none of that. The non-italicized parts are Jeff Gordon’s.
Schlemizel
@Betty Cracker:
The guy in the job now is a good guy but he has some major problems, the first being he would rather work on things. He is also confrontation adverse so when something is going wrong he trys to ignore it rather than confront & fix it (e.g. we had a contractor here he was doing outside work on another contact while he was here & not getting our work done. My confronting the guy did nothing & it took 6 weeks of pushing to get the boss to talk to him about it. He still was not going to walk the guy out but the guy decided he didn’t need the hassle & quit!).
Over the last 45 years I have developed a mental list of what it takes to be a good manager and at least could fake the ones I am not good at. My boss took the job because he wanted more money & a title but has never given a moments thought to how to do the job. Its a big mistake to take a job you won’t like.
Botsplainer
@Another Holocene Human (now with new computer):
That’s police departments everywhere. Anecdotally, 1 cop in 3 is worth a shit, the Number 2 slot is filled by sluggards marking time until pensioning out, and that final 3rd is represented by stupid authoritarian bullies who get off on power, and who drive the department agenda.
satby
@Betty Cracker: actually, that’s really hard. Think of how few people out there use any critical thinking skills at all, and then think of how many managers there are.
Schlemizel
BINGO!
Being a good engineer or a good accountant or a good any-skill does not mean you can be a good manager. Managing people is a different skill and companies never seem to understand that. Too many people accept the promotion & don’t realize that & never develop the skills needed.
satby
@Baud: I bet that you’re too valuable where you are… so you will have to jump to a different company if you want to move up.
Which is a management failure at your current location.
Another Holocene Human (now with new computer)
@Betty Cracker: Those are learned behaviors. A lot of people with the chops never get trained these days because companies don’t invest in that stuff any more.
Baud
@satby:
Yeah. That’s a large part of why it’s depressing. I would like to stay, but that’s looking unlikely.
Schlemizel
@satby:
I had that at a company I worked for. There was a position I wanted & was well qualified for and they gave it to a total doofus. I had a long talk with my boss & it boiled down to the fact that they could not afford to lose me so he prevented my promotion. Oddly enough, they lost me anyway – well, not sure if ‘anyway’ is the exact right word, ‘because’ would be closer.
Another Holocene Human (now with new computer)
@Botsplainer: If the US adopted British-style policing (US-style was — I guess? — developed in New York City and is paramilitary in nature), less ranks, more responsibility for the ranks closer to the bottom, continual training, moving up requires proving you know the law inside and out, uniform does not get to walk around with weapons 24/7, not only would there be more room to transition to more evidence-based methods (very uneven in the US, some depts use best practices and some seem stuck on stupid) but the bullies might be dissuaded from even becoming cops because it wouldn’t be as exciting.
Although the British system did have its weaknesses as those scandals in London in the 70s proved. From what I’ve gathered the detectives were so chummy with the criminals that they all went in business together. As we know during the 60s in NYC the mob and the cops had a pretty good “business arrangement” going on as well.
satby
@Another Holocene Human (now with new computer): Yes, they are. And I have been (but now am not) a manager for over 30 years. My first management job I probably sucked at, but I had a worse manager over me and I learned by doing pretty much the opposite. By the end of my career, I was generally considered one of the better managers in my old company. Which didn’t save my job; but I always tried to live up to the list of qualities Betty enumerated. But I basically had to teach myself; through 3 different industries and 30 years not a single place trained me in any real management skills.
Schlemizel
America’s finest new source is thinking along the lines of work today also:
http://www.theonion.com/articles/man-brings-son-into-office-to-see-where-dad-emascu,36674/
Baud
@Schlemizel:
Perfect. The one saving grace in my life is that I’ll never have children to disappoint.
Another Holocene Human (now with new computer)
@satby: There are or were some jobs where the junior management made less than the senior line employees. I think those sorts of things are going away fast, though.
Another Holocene Human (now with new computer)
@satby: My union has failed to do this as well. We had a class on “what not to do” but not a lot about how you are in a sense going to be supervising people and what this means. You see people who have been rank and file their whole life get elevated to a leadership position and all they know how to do is micromanage and talk a lot and drive their subordinates up a wall.
Schlemizel
@Another Holocene Human (now with new computer):
Back in the 80s the place I worked recognized the problem. Too many bad managers made out of great engineers. The developed a ‘2-track’ system where the best engineers could get promoted without going into management. I have no idea how that worked out as a couple of years later Marvin Rainwater bought into the company & blackmailed them into screwing up everything. They fell apart, divested stuff & eventually got bought up.
satby
@Schlemizel: And losing a valuable employee was, IMO, exactly what your old company deserved. Unless someone communicates that they prefer not to be moved into a management role, or unless they’re really temperamentally unsuited (in which case an honest discussion about that needs to occur) people need to have paths to advance. Bad managers hold people hostage, smart managers help their stars move up and on, and then train new stars.
Uncle Cosmo
@Schlemizel: And occasionally accepting that promotion to management can be a clever career move.
When I worked for a defense/engineering division of Westinghouse, the highest rank an engineer (which is what they called me in those days) could reach on the technical track–I believe it was “Consulting Engineer”–was nearly impossible to obtain by merit, as it required a long history of consistently stellar work, peer-reviewed publications…it would have been easier (& surely faster) to go back to school & get a PhD.
But there was a simpler & foolproof way: Upon reaching the next rank down (Senior Engineer), one could arrange for a transfer into management, & then fuck up royally. When your superiors tumbled to your utter ineptitude as a manager, the company would then kick your sorry ass back over to the technical track–at the Consulting Engineer level.
Of course that was a generation ago, when technical talent was at a premium, & what we called the Circle-Bar-W Dude Ranch is long since dismembered & scattered to the wind’s twelve quarters…
Betty Cracker
@satby: Fair point.
Bob In Portland
MH17 has disappeared off the media radar. No one asks why it’s taking a month to produce the black boxes. No one asks why the US won’t produce satellite intel. No one seems to know where the air traffic controller tapes are, and no one seems to care.
Just those horrible Russians trying to bring in supplies for cities that have been shelled by patriotic Ukrainians.