This is All Transitional
Wednesday, September 18th, 2024 10:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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68F and clear tonight.
This is the second night of the suit of Diamonds, and we had a full moon both last night, and again tonight.
However, last night there was a partial lunar eclipse just as it was on the rise.
Very partial... just a dark spot on the top... which I mistook for a cloud, when I first saw the moon at Potawatomi.
When I saw the same dark spot an hour later from my window here in the flat, I googled and figured out it was an eclipse.
Meanwhile, it looks like the weather's finally gonna break on Sunday.
Tomorrow, Friday, and Saturday are gonna be the same old 90F and sunny, but then on Sunday it's STORMY & 74F!.. Yay!
And the current forecast is predicting 70sF and CLOUDY, from there on out to October 2nd!
Oh my god, I cannot WAIT!
Both yesterday and today at work went well, with no conflicts of any kind.
So hopefully I was just being paranoid on Monday night.
But to be on the safe side, I've been trying my best to stay busy and be cheerful and cooperative... rather than sneaking off for smoke breaks, or making sarcastic cracks that never seem to fly.
Tom's off again tomorrow and Friday, so I've gotta be on my toes... cuz Mark's always more touchy when Tom's gone.
But in general, I think the job is safe.
Still, now that I've been at Potawatomi a few months, and am starting to grasp the true scope of maintenance in that building?.. I don't see myself staying there too long!
Some of the stuff is just crazy, like the light bulbs inside the auditorium, which are just... 20 goddam feet in the air, in some spots.
But because of all the seating, you can't use a lift or a ladder to change them.
So instead you have to use this ridiculous pole, that somebody rigged up, 50 years ago, with a suction cup on the end of it... and you get in there and assemble this 20 foot pole... reach it up there to suction the bulb... then just pray you can get a good grip and untwist it!
You then use that same pole to put in the new bulb, and once it's in the socket, you have to yank on this 20 foot long string to break the suction so you can let go... and move on to the next bulb!
And when Tom showed me that a month ago, I was like, "seems like it would be way easier to do this with a drone, nowadays!"
And he pooh-poohed that as ridiculous, but... I was dead serious!
If Kristina were to replace Mark, then I could probably convince her... Give me a drone and a suction cup, and I'll figure out the rest!
Because it's already possible to teach that drone where every bulb is, in that auditorium and simply tell it... Remove G22 and it'll fly up... suction on... spin it out... and bring it back to you!
And if they were all smart LED bulbs, then you could have a system that just knows which ones are out!
So all you'd have to do then is tell the drone... Remove all bad bulbs.
And it would access the system for a list of all bad bulbs and go get them one by one!
Then after it was done, you'd tell it Replace all missing bulbs.
And then you'd feed it one bulb at a time, and it would just fly back up there, and spin the new ones into place.
The new bulbs would then be configured in the system, like, You are bulb G22 now... and you are bulb I15.
None of that is science fiction anymore, but... how realistic is it, that I'm gonna be the guy who implements that change at Potawatomi Valley High School?
In reality, I need to look for that off ramp into elementary school maintenance!
Because that team's just loners in their own vans all night going from one little building to another... and that's way more my speed than some of the death defying stunts we're expected to do at the high school, on the regular.
So, as the shock of things is wearing off... with the new studio apartment, and the new job... I'm starting to see both as being transitional.
PVHS is a rescue ship, same as Allerton Tower.
I live in a cabin on one ship, and shuttle over to work a job in the other.
But this is just the refugee phase, after the disaster at Melody Manor.
I think there's still one more U-haul in my future... and one more move within GeoStaff... before I'm in what will be my actual new life until retirement, and beyond.
But that change happens next June!
The 24/25 school year at Potawatomi ends in early June.
And my lease here at Allerton expires at the end of June.
So this is my life until then, and next spring I need to start applying for both a new apartment, and a new job
And that's fine, because I'll have had time to breathe... and get myself together... but I won't be so rooted down that it's difficult to jump through those new hoops all over again.
And when I do, it won't be because a bank has a sheriff's gun to my head... or an evil spirit is sending wasps after me!
And I won't have to empty out a whole house full of family BS before I pack... or any of that!
I'm not gonna say I'll be moving to AutumnWood, and working on the elementary maintenance crew for GeoStaff, in District 420... but... yeah!.. something like that!
An apartment where I can have an outdoor cat.
And a maintenance gig where I'm a little more independent, with routine work orders to keep me busy... rather than crazy jobs requiring high-lifts, 20 foot suction poles, olympic sized pools, etc.
But I can get there!
Because time is finally back on my side for a while!
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