Holidays and absences [3]

{{ Stay safe Forest, and if possible I'd avoid eating and drinking on the flight, just keep your mask on the whole way. }}

Stay safe Forest.

Having first hand experience I can say I would happily look like a twat and wear a mask etc to have stopped the shit going on in my body right now!

Was supposed to be enjoying a holiday in Turkey starting tomorrow. Happily it got cancelled by the holiday company so didn't have to lose our money or force myself through the travel ordeal.

Have booked up a safari for October 2021 though!!

Forrest: If you keep a bunch of incense burning on your tray that should do the trick.  I foresee no complications with this plan.

Lance: I believe the mask mainly keeps you from spreading your own droplets around, but if someone else's droplets have evaporated on something you touch, the virus has it's pathway. So I don't think the mask protects you so much as others. But it's the right thing to do in a plane situation. I do get somewhat annoyed at all the people walking down empty streets wearing a mask. I don't think it accomplishes much of anything except increasing the average level of social annoyance.

Wearing an N95 mask DOES protect you from other peoples droplets, that is the whole point why doctors and nurses all wear PPE, it is to protect them from sick people.

Forrest you must keep a mask on ALL the time, even in the toilets, and ALL the time in the airport when walking about,  it is a pain in the bum but it is sensible to protect yourself. it would be even better if you also wore goggles and disposable gloves. Never touch your face with your hands, and eat and drink before you go. Use hand gel like crazy, and try not to touch surfaces where others have had their grubby fingers on it, like elevators, and plastic surfaces. It is wise to be a bit OCD and paranoid, it is only for a short flight so you should be ok.

IF you can get your hands on an N95 mask. Most people don't have 'em.

Any mask that covers the face in a tight fit is better than the surgical masks which are loose at the sides. Masks must fit the face or they are pretty useless. The ones with valves protect you but not other people, you need a mask which fits tight and has some layering of the various strata, not just one piece of material like cotton or elastic neoprene.

Everyone sounds so worried for me!

Well I'll let you know how that goes a couple weeks after. I do have some N95 masks left over from work that I'll be wearing. It's required to wear some kind of covering in public where I live, and also in the airport I'm sure, but this should be a little more effective.

As for surfaces and goggles... Well, last I heard that's not a matter of much concern. We'll bring some hand-sanitizer and use it now and then anyway.

Oh and yeah, I'll just light up some incense, maybe some scented candles, spritz down my part of the cabin with essential oils...

{{ Hope your trip went well Forest }}

I for one am not worried about Forest at the moment because he doesn't leave until tomorrow.  But I wouldn't interpret our interest as worry so much as boredom.  

Then again, California is trending far above it's previous highest death rate, so maybe once you get to Minnesota you should stay there for a bit.

halfwise wrote:I for one am not worried about Forest at the moment because he doesn't leave until tomorrow.

{{ Now that is exactly the sort of thing a sober person would say! I'm preemptively worrying about him incase by tomorrow I've passed out }}

I made it back! We'll see if I have caught anything within a week or so.

The trip was delightful. I love Minnesota at this time of year. We swam in the stream near my house, over in the Mississippi, kayaked down the Upper Iowa River down in Iowa, and just generally showed off the area to my girlfriend as well as I could with things shuttered down as they are.

MN just put in a mask requirement state-wide while I was there, but in the nearby city of LaCrosse, Wisconsin and in the local grocery store people were wearing masks. We hit up a local distillery while we were there. The first round of mixed drinks were kind of meh, not strong enough! But then we had an Old-fashioned that was pretty darn tasty with plenty of kick. We ended up running into a friend of my mom's while we were finding relatives of mine on the new war memorial they've set up after they moved the graveyard. She was fun to talk to, congratulatory on our being a couple, that sort of thing.

I'm afraid I didn't take any pictures. I turned off my phone when I got there and barely touched it until I left. It makes a vacation feel more like it, you know?

But here's someone else's photograph of the area we kayaked through:



There were dozens of these little guys, Cedar Waxwings, catching bugs over the water in the cliff-side stretch of the river:



They're impressive flyers.



We have a bird-feeder set up in the yard and we saw the following while we were there:

Blue Jays


Goldfinches


Rose-breasted Grosbeaks


House Wrens (they didn't eat at the feeder, as they catch bugs mostly, but there were two nests of them in our nest-boxes in the yard. They are teeny and adorable.)


White-breasted Nuthatches


Black-capped Chickadees


Red-bellied Woodpeckers


American Robins (on the lawn anyway, they don't eat the seed we put out)



My girlfriend and I also saw a Scarlet Tanager while we were walking through the Effigy Mounds National Monument in Iowa (it's a park of burial/ceremonial mounds built by the... well the mound-building people of the area something like 1500 years ago.) It's a brilliantly coloured bird.



Various other birds too, there's lots of birds around there. Pheasants, Bald Eagles, some kind of vulture, Red-tailed Hawks, some kind of swan I think, Mallards, my mom saw an Indigo Bunting while she was out driving one day:



And oh my goodness what a year for the chipmunks, they were everywhere! In our yard, in the woods on our hikes. You can hear their call from a distance. https://www.soundsnap.com/efx_ext_chipmunk_chirp_01_b_eastern_chipmunk_wav

They have a particular way of holding their tails when they run, pretty adorable.

What gorgeous birds they all are !! I dont blame you turning off your phone, its nice to get away from the real world for 5 mins. Really lovely pics !

Chipmunks are the best.

Incase anyone was wondering why I haven't been around much in the last couple of months I can confirm that I am completely fine and in a good place mentally/healthwise.

I started a Xmas temp job in mid november (working the night shift at a local supermarket) which has just been made permanent (well, permament in the sense that I'm being kept on indefinitely and subject to the same six month review/rules as other employees etc) it's part time hours (plus overtime) but only 15 minutes walk from my house, I rather enjoy the job and having spent much of 2020 unemployed it's been a huge huge relief to secure employment in the midst of the pandemic, not to mention a massive boost to my self confidence.

I quit my last job back in March last year (due to workplace bullying...let me just say I wasn't in a good place mentally at all, and was advised to leave asap by a Doctor...) and the pandemic/lockdown etc took an even further toll on my mental health, it's been a bit of a struggle to get where i am now, but I'm pleased to say I'm doing quite well atm overall.

Hopefully the job continues to go well, it's not my dream job, but I do rather enjoy the role (it certainly helps that my co-workers and manager are all genuinely nice and helpful people...unlike my last set of colleagues...)
I'm so damn relieved to have secured stable employment again (especially in the current situation), so I plan to stick at this role for a while if they'll have me.

Does feel a bit weird though, having gone from being unemployed before lockdown, to now being one of relatively few people working regularly not at home.

{{ Good to see you back Malick, and even better to hear things are looking up for you. Been a tough last 12 months all round, and very happy things are heading in right direction for you. Night shift suits some people (me among them) I still miss my old job in the hotel as night porter, and even when I was in care work I worked more night than day shifts overall. Heres hoping 2021 continues to be good to you. }}

cheers petty mate

I'd never worked night shift before and wasn't sure how i'd adapt to it, but it's gone quite well overall (I tend to work in three night blocks, so it's easier catching up on sleep which helps...I think my many late nights staying up posting/reading here over the years may have helped me adjust too )

One of the advantages of working night shift is not having to deal with customers My girlfriend works in Matalan (though she'd on furlough again right now) and has told me many a horror story about some of the entitled brats she serves, don't know how she has the patience for it...

Happy new year Malick.

Good to see you around and well.. in fact seemingly doing really well!

Just out of interest, what is your dream job? Mine was a fighter pilot but I was an arsehole at school and didn't achieve what I needed to there!

Lancebloke wrote:Happy new year Malick.

Good to see you around and well.. in fact seemingly doing really well!

Just out of interest, what is your dream job? Mine was a fighter pilot but I was an arsehole at school and didn't achieve what I needed to there!

thanks lance good to be back

Well, I'd love to work in a museum as a tour guide/researcher etc (I was a long term volunteer at three different museums in recent years actually, i still volunteered at two of them ocassionally until just before the first lockdown) or perhaps in a garden centre or as a librarian. I've got a huge interest in history and really enjoy gardening/working outdoors, and seem to enjoy customer service interaction more when it ties in with my own interests/isn't so far fast paced.

I'm just happy to have a job right now, though I have applied for/been interviewed for museum jobs etc before and done alright in the interviews but it's a very tough competitive field to get into, and sometimes they prefer to go for people with degrees (I didn't got to University and have never wanted to really) or more experience.

I live in Hampshire (near Fareham-just down the coast from Portsmouth) so there's absolutely tonnes of museums/historical buildings/art galleries dotted around (and I live within walking distance of the beach and a big nature reserve). My girlfriend also enjoys history and is a self taught artist so it's something of a hobby of ours visiting such places, though obviously we haven't really been able to do so for a while...

I know that now isn't a good time to be thinking of anything like this, but have you considered setting something up yourself?

I am not really sure what you could do yourself... guided walks or tours of places? Not sure if doing something like that is easy and whether it would give a longer term 'in' to some of the things you mentioned.

Again... not something for right now!!!

I am totally in my job because it enables me to do the other things I love, not because I really enjoy the role a huge amount.

In the last few years I've pursued the route of trying to find my own funding rather than letting others do it for me. Means I'm broke.

This last year I've learned the lesson of "gentleman's agreements" : don't do them. Even between friends that you work with, get all payment and tasks clearly spelled out in writing. Including the source of said funding. People you trust make promises they can't keep, in large part because they didn't establish where the money would come from.

Great to hear from you Malick and good luck with the new job, it looks like you have a good working environment, having nice colleagues make 100% difference and if you like them back it makes it a more pleasant experience.
In my experience an office full of women is the worst of the worst. that's why I am a permanent student.

If you can gain lots of experience volunteering in museums and galleries it sometimes helps as much as qualifications because you get to know the people and the set-up and you are in the right place and right time when jobs pop up.
That's what happened to me in various jobs, I was on a work placement and I was offered a job because I showed willing.

Malick, Your news is so happy & you sound so happy that it made me feel happy Oh if I could go back & do school/education differently, but then, where would it end ? you'de be hoping about backwards in history all the time, cause no end of chaos. Drives the point home that youve got to grab opportunities & chances when you can, you gotta know what you want & bloody go for it ! And when you become a parent one day please give your children good strong advice, constantly I loved biology at school, would have liked to have gone into forensics, tho anything to do with biology would have suited me

Not meaning to be a busybody...but! I work in heritage, and from my experience, coming from a retail background can help you get your toe in the door. Entry-level jobs are more about guidebook kpis or upselling replica armour than extensive historical knowledge. I don't know if this has always been the case, but paid tour guides are mostly retirees. Just because the work is so irregular I guess.

I started out waitressing at an English Heritage cafe. I did a few other fairly menial jobs for similar organisations before I managed to get (what I consider) a well paid/rewarding career. If you're able to move around the country for jobs that can speed up the process. But the jobs are definitely out there.

Good luck!

I would also suspect paid museum tour guides are mostly retirees because their monetary demands are less than those raising families and such.  I'd think the real tour guide money would be in outdoor historical tours, where you get paid by the head.  Most tours I've been on run from $25-$35 per person for maybe 2 hours with groups of 5-10 people.

Never heard of "heritage" as an area of employment, or even a heritage cafe. Is this about creating environments from the past? Whatever it is, it sounds interesting.

A heritage job in the UK would be in historic houses, gardens, museums and palaces or even industrial heritage sites, archaeology and churches. it is a wide range of things really.