I have a water bed, and I'm moving into my new apartment sometime tomorrow, which means I need to make the water come out of the bed. The mattress bladder, when filled with water, weighs probably 600-1000 lbs and is sort of unwieldy.
The bed came with a panoply of pumps, faucet adapters, and manuals, but so far I can't remove the water. There is some kind of pump I'm trying to use, which uses what I assume to be Bernoulli's Principle, by hooking up to an ordinary faucet, and also to a hose which is connected to the water bed. The faucet is turned on, a siphon is started, and in 1-2 hours the bed is emptied. In theory. I've yet to make it work, for reasons I can't pretend to fathom. It's very possible--likely--that I'll fail utterly, have to call my friend Travis to help me (because he can make his hands do things), and be forced to find alternate sleeping arrangements. I'm on what will be my final attempt for the night right now, and the prospects are bad.
Watch this space.
UPDATE 1:20 AM
I thought the problem might be that the hose I bought at Wal-Mart has one of those awful plastic caps on it, that turns independently of the metal end and has a purpose I'm not familiar with. It might have been breaking the seal, so that the hose wasn't airtight, making it useless for siphoning. I pried a rubber gasket out of one of the pumps I wasn't using, and jammed it in there, hopefully to create a seal. This time when I started the pump, the hose began to wiggle slightly at my end. A good sign? I don't know!
UPDATE 3:00 AM
It didn't mean anything--I am completely incapable of siphoning anything out of this water bed. Total failure is the result of tonight's efforts. Hopefully, tomorrow will yield more.
UPDATE 2:38 PM
I managed to make it work, actually. It ran from about 4:30 AM to 6:30 AM and got it drained! Hoorah.
Friday, July 20, 2007
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Personal Data
I had my first day at the University Parking Ramp, wherein I sat in a box for 6 1/2 hours taking tickets and reading "Fast Food Nation" while my training instructor read Harry Potter and occasionally told me what to do. It was definitely the easiest job I've ever had.
The only significant occurrences follow--
Crazy Troll-woman
Around the middle of my shift a woman came through in an older model Buick bearing handicapped plates, and wearing a neck brace. I had a premonition that something would go wrong, because when she handed me her ticket to scan, it had no blue stick affixed to it. When a patient parks in the Hospital Ramp and then undergoes medical treatment of some kind at the Hospital, they can have their ramp ticket validated with a blue sticker, which means their parking is free. About 90% of the customers had these stickers. This woman, though clearly a patient, did not. On a side note, this woman was high up in the running for ugliest woman I've ever seen. Not so much obese as bloated, with maybe four teeth, but with plenty of acne scarring and warts to make up for the deficit.
I assumed there would be trouble, but I could not have anticipated what occurred. She gave me the ticket, I put it in the machine.
"One dollar fifty-five cents, please," I said.
"NO! NO! I don't pay anything! I just came from PT!" she was shouting from the word 'please,' maybe just an angry person.
I politely explained, "If you're a patient at the hospital you have to have your ticket validated in the hospital. Otherwise you have to pay money. Sorry."
"NO! I'm not paying. Just call up... just call up to physical therapy! They'll tell you! I don't have a dollar!"
My training guy took over at this time. "Well, they can't really help you with this over the phone, you need a little sticker. If you go back up there, they can give you one, and then we'll be okay."
"I--I can't go back up there! I'm handicapped! You're not supposed to treat handicapped people this way!"
"I'm sorry, we can't let you leave without $1.55."
"JUST CALL THE PT!"
"We don't have their number. You can fill out a form and we can bill you, or you can dispute it, whatever."
Unfortunately this form requires that they give their social security number for some reason, and I can tell from her demeanor that this woman does not give out her soc. Sure enough, she gets angry at the mere suggestion, probably believing us to be identity thieves, and she yells at us some more.
Training guy: "Let me just call my supervisor."
"Yeah, you call him so I can talk to him!"
My training guy calls the supervisor, but sort of spazzes out dialing so he has to try a couple of times. Once he gets the guy, the woman angrily demands to talk to our supervisor, so she gets the handset.
"Hi? Who--! Who is this?! What's your name?! What's your name?! What's your name!?"
(at this point the guy on the other end, not actually the supervisor yet, apparently believed that my training guy was putting him on with a practical joke. The supervisor was put on the line quickly, once it was determined to be otherwise).
The woman's conversation continued. "These two boys in your booth are being belligerent and telling me I have to pay a dollar because I don't have a sticker and they are VERY RUDE and I want them both written up." To my training guy: "What's your name?!"
He elected to give her only his cashier number, which was all she needed anyway. "I want him written up! Are you--are you writing him up right now! Because you should be, he's been rude and belligerent!"
A pause. "What--What's your name?! I'm going to write it down so I can call your supervisor! Let me... let me get something to write it down with!" A minute's search for a pen, and her silent accomplice in the passenger seat, also apparently handicapped, takes the name down. "All of you are gonna be out of a job!" the woman yells.
At this point the supervisor apparently informs her that we were completely correct and she can't leave the lot without paying. She gives us back the phone, which now smells of cigarettes and body odor, and reiterates her refusal to pay.
I should mention that, being as it's my first day and I'm being trained, I have no responsibility for this situation and I'm able to observe it. I am close to laughter for most of the ordeal, and when she loudly demands that we call the administrator of the hospital and "whoever runs this shitty parking ramp" I wink and quietly suggest to my coworker that we also call the President of the University for her.
At this point we're within an ace of having to call the police on her, because she won't pay and keeps demanding to leave, and in America we tend to exchange money for goods and services, as opposed to just stealing. Not to mention the fact that she is "belligerent," to borrow a word.
But she heads us off at the pass by yelling at passers-by to bum money from, which eventually gets a result, and she's able to leave on somebody else's $1.55. My trainer said that this was the worst encounter he had experienced in 3 years at the parking ramps.
Then later on about 8:00 PM it began to rain like the sky was falling and the county came under a tornado warning, so I got to hang out in a basement and then go home 30 minutes early.
A good first day.
The only significant occurrences follow--
Crazy Troll-woman
Around the middle of my shift a woman came through in an older model Buick bearing handicapped plates, and wearing a neck brace. I had a premonition that something would go wrong, because when she handed me her ticket to scan, it had no blue stick affixed to it. When a patient parks in the Hospital Ramp and then undergoes medical treatment of some kind at the Hospital, they can have their ramp ticket validated with a blue sticker, which means their parking is free. About 90% of the customers had these stickers. This woman, though clearly a patient, did not. On a side note, this woman was high up in the running for ugliest woman I've ever seen. Not so much obese as bloated, with maybe four teeth, but with plenty of acne scarring and warts to make up for the deficit.
I assumed there would be trouble, but I could not have anticipated what occurred. She gave me the ticket, I put it in the machine.
"One dollar fifty-five cents, please," I said.
"NO! NO! I don't pay anything! I just came from PT!" she was shouting from the word 'please,' maybe just an angry person.
I politely explained, "If you're a patient at the hospital you have to have your ticket validated in the hospital. Otherwise you have to pay money. Sorry."
"NO! I'm not paying. Just call up... just call up to physical therapy! They'll tell you! I don't have a dollar!"
My training guy took over at this time. "Well, they can't really help you with this over the phone, you need a little sticker. If you go back up there, they can give you one, and then we'll be okay."
"I--I can't go back up there! I'm handicapped! You're not supposed to treat handicapped people this way!"
"I'm sorry, we can't let you leave without $1.55."
"JUST CALL THE PT!"
"We don't have their number. You can fill out a form and we can bill you, or you can dispute it, whatever."
Unfortunately this form requires that they give their social security number for some reason, and I can tell from her demeanor that this woman does not give out her soc. Sure enough, she gets angry at the mere suggestion, probably believing us to be identity thieves, and she yells at us some more.
Training guy: "Let me just call my supervisor."
"Yeah, you call him so I can talk to him!"
My training guy calls the supervisor, but sort of spazzes out dialing so he has to try a couple of times. Once he gets the guy, the woman angrily demands to talk to our supervisor, so she gets the handset.
"Hi? Who--! Who is this?! What's your name?! What's your name?! What's your name!?"
(at this point the guy on the other end, not actually the supervisor yet, apparently believed that my training guy was putting him on with a practical joke. The supervisor was put on the line quickly, once it was determined to be otherwise).
The woman's conversation continued. "These two boys in your booth are being belligerent and telling me I have to pay a dollar because I don't have a sticker and they are VERY RUDE and I want them both written up." To my training guy: "What's your name?!"
He elected to give her only his cashier number, which was all she needed anyway. "I want him written up! Are you--are you writing him up right now! Because you should be, he's been rude and belligerent!"
A pause. "What--What's your name?! I'm going to write it down so I can call your supervisor! Let me... let me get something to write it down with!" A minute's search for a pen, and her silent accomplice in the passenger seat, also apparently handicapped, takes the name down. "All of you are gonna be out of a job!" the woman yells.
At this point the supervisor apparently informs her that we were completely correct and she can't leave the lot without paying. She gives us back the phone, which now smells of cigarettes and body odor, and reiterates her refusal to pay.
I should mention that, being as it's my first day and I'm being trained, I have no responsibility for this situation and I'm able to observe it. I am close to laughter for most of the ordeal, and when she loudly demands that we call the administrator of the hospital and "whoever runs this shitty parking ramp" I wink and quietly suggest to my coworker that we also call the President of the University for her.
At this point we're within an ace of having to call the police on her, because she won't pay and keeps demanding to leave, and in America we tend to exchange money for goods and services, as opposed to just stealing. Not to mention the fact that she is "belligerent," to borrow a word.
But she heads us off at the pass by yelling at passers-by to bum money from, which eventually gets a result, and she's able to leave on somebody else's $1.55. My trainer said that this was the worst encounter he had experienced in 3 years at the parking ramps.
Then later on about 8:00 PM it began to rain like the sky was falling and the county came under a tornado warning, so I got to hang out in a basement and then go home 30 minutes early.
A good first day.
Wednesday, July 4, 2007
Scooter Libby
The type of generic Cheerios that I favor are called "Scooters." Is there such a thing as coincidence, or do we live in a holistic universe, where nothing is coincidental?
Bush recently commuted the 30-month prison sentence of convicted criminal and Vice Presidential aide Scooter Libby. Personally, I had never believed that Bush was going to allow one of his hatchet men to endure so much as a week behind bars, so count me among the many unsurprised observers. My guess will be that not only will Libby not serve a day in prison, he will also not have to pay his fine, and he might not even be disbarred in the end.
I think what went into the decision was partly a reward for service and loyalty, and partly an effort to undermine the ability of the prosecutor to exert pressure on Libby to secure testimony implicating people higher up. Bush's official rationalization (that Libby had been sentenced to an excessive prison term) is ludicrous. From start to finish the investigation and trial were conducted by Bush appointees, and the Bush "tough on crime" Justice Department routinely inflicts maximum punishment.
The New Times finds some spine.
This article doesn't go so far as to actually call the president a hypocrite, they leave that to the quoted experts. This is a tough article and I'm glad to see the paper of record hitting Bush on this issue.
The Times does skip over an issue that Glenn Greenwald over at Salon.com spends a lot of posts on, being the elitist Washington culture. Bush is arguing that the 30-month sentence was excessive, not because the sentence is always excessive for that crime, but because Scooter Libby was his Friend and a member of the president's Movement, so the rules don't apply to him in the same way that they applto a peasant like you or me.
Enter David Brooks with a stunningly awful column (Times Select only).
Scooter Libby is a plain, straight-dealing man, the only pure actor in the "farce" that is his prosecution, beset and victimized by an army of liberal media figures and overweening judges and prosecutors. Joe Wilson is a rotten bastard clawing for media attention, the outing of his wife was completely unimportant and certainly not a crime, the sentence was excessive, and not only were all the Liberal Media Figures totally overreacting with their anger, but it is so unreasonable to be angry about Libby's activities that even they weren't actually mad--they were cynically faking the whole thing!
Throw in a couple of pointless reference to the suffering of Scooter Libby's family (let's forget the original crime, which was an attempt to punish an administration opponent by ruining his wife's career) and to the Clinton episode (lying about a major felony != lying about a blowjob) and you've got a turgid piece of s**t column, one of the worst I've ever read--and I've seen a lot of stinkers. This column is so bad, so logically flawed, and so venomous that it makes me irritated in the same way as getting a parking ticket, that feeling of deep annoyance and irritation that I can feel in the back of my skull, something no columnist apart from Cal Thomas has been able to do.
Bush recently commuted the 30-month prison sentence of convicted criminal and Vice Presidential aide Scooter Libby. Personally, I had never believed that Bush was going to allow one of his hatchet men to endure so much as a week behind bars, so count me among the many unsurprised observers. My guess will be that not only will Libby not serve a day in prison, he will also not have to pay his fine, and he might not even be disbarred in the end.
I think what went into the decision was partly a reward for service and loyalty, and partly an effort to undermine the ability of the prosecutor to exert pressure on Libby to secure testimony implicating people higher up. Bush's official rationalization (that Libby had been sentenced to an excessive prison term) is ludicrous. From start to finish the investigation and trial were conducted by Bush appointees, and the Bush "tough on crime" Justice Department routinely inflicts maximum punishment.
The New Times finds some spine.
This article doesn't go so far as to actually call the president a hypocrite, they leave that to the quoted experts. This is a tough article and I'm glad to see the paper of record hitting Bush on this issue.
The Times does skip over an issue that Glenn Greenwald over at Salon.com spends a lot of posts on, being the elitist Washington culture. Bush is arguing that the 30-month sentence was excessive, not because the sentence is always excessive for that crime, but because Scooter Libby was his Friend and a member of the president's Movement, so the rules don't apply to him in the same way that they applto a peasant like you or me.
Enter David Brooks with a stunningly awful column (Times Select only).
Scooter Libby is a plain, straight-dealing man, the only pure actor in the "farce" that is his prosecution, beset and victimized by an army of liberal media figures and overweening judges and prosecutors. Joe Wilson is a rotten bastard clawing for media attention, the outing of his wife was completely unimportant and certainly not a crime, the sentence was excessive, and not only were all the Liberal Media Figures totally overreacting with their anger, but it is so unreasonable to be angry about Libby's activities that even they weren't actually mad--they were cynically faking the whole thing!
Throw in a couple of pointless reference to the suffering of Scooter Libby's family (let's forget the original crime, which was an attempt to punish an administration opponent by ruining his wife's career) and to the Clinton episode (lying about a major felony != lying about a blowjob) and you've got a turgid piece of s**t column, one of the worst I've ever read--and I've seen a lot of stinkers. This column is so bad, so logically flawed, and so venomous that it makes me irritated in the same way as getting a parking ticket, that feeling of deep annoyance and irritation that I can feel in the back of my skull, something no columnist apart from Cal Thomas has been able to do.
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