austin_dern

So, thing to know about work is that while I go to a state-owned building and work for a state-employed boss doing work for a state agency touching a state computer, I'm actually a contractor, employed by an agency ... uh ... somewhere in the Detroit area, I guess. Area code 248, anyway, which I guess is the ring of cities around Detroit that white people went to so as not to have to have a Black person as mayor. That area, anyway. Doesn't matter.

What does matter is this is a small company. And it has some of that looseness of a small company, like, they've been happy to work with me entirely over the phone and by e-mail. I haven't had any in-person meetings, or even video chats, with any of them, nor any kind of review past them sometimes calling and asking how I think it's going.

Thing is they also have, like, zero chill. So when there is something needing my attention and response, it won't be just an e-mail to me, it'll be an e-mail, and a simultaneous phone call, and maybe a follow-up phone call if I haven't responded in two hours, even when it's a day I'm in office and they're calling my home number. One of those instances happened last week, although when I was at home so I was able to pick up the phone for them. Someone I hadn't heard of there was calling to ask my mailing address which, yes, is the same address they've always had on file for me. I'd barely got off the phone with him (and wondering if I just fell for a phishing sceme, although a mailing address is pretty small potatoes) when my regular manager phoned and e-mailed with the same request for information.

All this, though, is for good news. One is that I now rate benefits: a week of paid sick leave. This they explained was to comply with state law, so, thank you, Governor Whitmer, and a Democrat-held legislature going off and making good things happen. (Also a thing I hadn't heard about, so credit to my employer for not trying to make it sound like they're just being nice.) The other benefit is I can now sign up for a 401K, which is what they needed to confirm my address for. Tuesday or Wednesday I got the packet of forms to fill out and return to them, to sign up for this. And hey, great timing; they say with stocks you should buy on the dips and a Vichy grifter administration is full of nothing but dips.

Anyway yesterday they called to ask if I'd received it and if I could fill it out and return it to them. Guys, relax, I've been busy working, I'll get things done when I have a minute.

Today from Kings Island I bring you photos of the travel posters set up as decoration along the queue into Adventure Express, the roller coaster.

Oh, shame, anyone going on Adventure Express hoping to see the Cobra Caverns is out of luck!

Ah, but at least there's the scenic Amazon Falls. Amazon Falls was the name of the Shoot-the-Chute ride when it opened. When the park was owned by Paramount it got renamed Congo Falls, as a tie-in to the bad but enjoyable movie Congo.

And here's the Forbidden Temple and a great idol figure with absolutely nothing about its design to make you think of racist old movies and stories and stuff. Anyway, no seeing that on this ride!

I do not know what's teased here by the Southern Yellow Overlook, although I see that the Son of Beast roller coaster had a height of 218 feet so maybe that's the reference. (I know what you're thinking and the park's Eiffel Tower is 314 feet.)

Wild Animal Habitat was the name the Action Zone had when the park opened,

Ah, now here's some dramatic arches that you will definitely not be seeing if you ride Adventure Express.

Trivia: In his 725 book De Temporum Natione, written in part to prove Celtic Catholics wrong in their calculation of the date of Easter, the Venerable Bede provides primers on how to read Greek and Roman numerals, the list of units of time as they were known (from moments and hours through to centuries and ages), and also how to count to one million on one's fingers. Source: The Calendar: The 5000-Year Struggle to Align the Clock with the Heavens --- And What Happened to the Missing Ten Days, David Ewing Duncan.

Currently Reading: Lost Popeye Zine Volume 56: Uss vs Themm & Thees & Thoos!, Tom Sims, Bela Zaboly, Editor Stephanie Noelle.

So yesterday at work we had a thing happen. There was some sort of problem with the lights and so they turned them off for a couple hours. This was about the level of excitement you might expect given that we're still telling of how cool it was that time we had a team touchpoint starting up and the place blacked out for a couple hours. This was just the lights being off, though; our computers and the Internet stayed working fine, so we worked in the dark. Also the dark was a better dark than I expected, given that there's a whole wall of windows not too far from where I sit. But this is the basement level and while there's a clear slope from below window level up to the parking lot, it's not like there's that much light from it. It did give the place the air of encouraging us all to take a nap, though.

Also going on? Well, one of the minor disappointments of the new office is that instead of a cafeteria with fountain sodas and all, we have a break room with a couple vending machines. And the vending machines have been dodgy on the whole ``vending'' prospect, based on how long they had signs up saying they don't take bills but a new changer is on order.

This week they had a new sign up, one on each machine, with a message that might be passive-aggressive and might not be. It said this was the 30-day notice that the company was taking its vending machines out of this location and that the State of Michigan is free to contract with other vendors to put machines in here. Also that they're very glad to have served this location for all this time. I can not get a bead on whether this is a matter of the vendor being sick of the clientele, or the building management being sick of the vendor not having a dollar-bill-taking machine, or what. But it does suggest that maybe there'll be a new vending machine company or that I'll have to run to the Quality Dairy on the corner when I want a pop.

Now that you've enjoyed slight anecdotes from work, please now enjoy a half-dozen Gilmore Car Museum pictures.

Motorcycle sculpture outside the motorcycle hall, so that you know what you're getting into: the skeleton of a Tron light cycler.

This motorcycle is dedicated to those who lost their lives on September 11, 2001. I assume in the terror attacks because it would seem petty to dedicate it to those who died in motorcycle accidents.

So here's a delight, a 1961 Dinky-Cycle. The gimmick here is that it folds up into, basically, a suitcase and yet it unfolds into something street-legal-enough considering it was the early 60s and motor vehicle rules hadn't been invented yet.

There's a 110-year-old motorcycle, and one that really makes the case for calling them ``motor cycles''.

They like getting vintage plates for vehicles like this; I assume a 1921 plate reflects the earliest one they could prove had something to do with this motorcycle.

Road weasels, you say? Hmm.

Trivia: Mission Control played ``The Best Is Yet To Come'' and played reveille to wake the Apollo 10 astronauts the 22nd of May, 1969. Tom Stafford, Gene Cernan, and John Young had already woken quietly, eaten breakfast, and were preparing the checklist for the separation of the Lunar Module Snoopy from the Command Module Charlie Brown. Source: Chariots for Apollo: The NASA History of Manned Lunar Spacecraft to 1969, Courtney G Brooks, James M Grimwood, Loyd S Swenson Jr.

Currently Reading: Sign Painters, Faythe Levine and Sam Macon.