GreyShuck @ GreyShuck @feddit.uk

Posts

162

Comments

217

Joined

2 yr. ago

In my case, I approached our usual plumbing contractor who have a couple of labs that they usually used. I now go directly to those labs.

I manage utility services - among other things - for a group of properties - and have had the mains water analysed for chemical and biological contamination at various times. The results have always been absolutely fine. Not just with EU limits, but far, far, far within them for almost everything and definitely well within them for all measures.

I've got no issues at all with drinking tap water in the UK, even given the state of the rivers etc.

Re-decorated their living rooms, fitted new kitchens, built patios and bbqs and so on.

We were the ones fitting the plexiglass etc.

I was considered an essential worker, along with a few colleagues.

There were three phases: going into it, being in it and coming out of it. During the first and and third of those there was new legislation and instructions coming in pretty much every day that needed to be interpreted and implemented and we had to do all of that. It was exhausting. And then everyone else came back from furlough and told us all about the DIY they had done and the books they had read and so on.

In the middle though: well, I work across a cluster of heritage and wildlife sites. There was a bare minimum of checks and maintenance that we were expected to do - pretty much alone - one at each site. Once that was done we went out and did patrols. They are some beautiful places and there were a few days when I completed the entire circuit of the site and saw absolutely no-one. Just me and the wildlife. That was excellent.

The single biggest thing for me is having a range of knowledgeable and intelligent friends and spending time with them. It very soon puts things in perspective.

The last couple of weeks have been pretty full-on at work, but this week is fairly straightforward so far - and looks ok over the next few days too.

Had a good weekend as well: some gardening, repaired the microwave instead of having to chuck it out and get another - which I was pleased with - and got out for an enjoyably bucolic walk. Also played chess with my SO - which is the first time for years - and have agreed to play backgammon in the near future. I have only ever played that a couple of times before and it did not grab me then. Maybe my SO will convert me though.

The first I thought of was Dead Horse, Alaska. Permanent population 25 - 50, I understand.

I really can't recall where I first heard of it though.

I have probably heard of a few other odd ones like this.

It is about dealing with damaged or diseased trees mostly, or just reducing the tops to make them safe and so on.

I spent my time climbing trees then hanging from them on ropes while playing with chainsaws. Very enjoyable and satisfying work, but extremely physical.

It depends how you want to count them. Does self-employed (artist), self-employed (IT consulant) & self-employed (tree surgeon) count ad one or three? Especially since all of those overlapped to some extent. And do promotions count?

However, looking at long-term, full-time roles only, then about 5 - most of which involved at least one internal promotion. Probably closer to 15 if you include all the odds and ends. I'm in my 50s and will probably be staying put now until I retire.

My brothers - quite a bit older than me - had one job (including promotions) in one case and two in the other.

Nicholson Baker's The Mezzanine - basically takes place over the course of a lunch break - with a few footnotes and digressions.

OK, a LOT of footnotes and digressions. But, still, a lunch break.

Never touched Instagram. Deleted Facebook a decade or more back.

It's difficult to tell how many there are around here overall. There are a scattering of pagan, witchcraft and occult communities, but pretty much no activity on any of them: I have made a few attempts.

But then every so often someone does post something on one of them and at least some of those posts get a significant number of up votes - but then no follow-up activity at all... so I don't know who is up voting or what their background is.

Anyway, howdy back at ya.

The "British Warm" was the intermediary as I understand it: a shorter greatcoat favoured by Britsh officers in WW1. The Trenchcoat itself was modeled to fit over, accompany or replace this.

The original type of coat that would have been worn when riding was the Great Coat - which did cover the whole body, down to the ankles (and included the front of the body much better than a cloak). Those would have been worn by military officers, particularly.

Those were fine for riding, but then if you were off your horse and end up in the newly developed trench warfare - starting from around the US civil war onwards - you ended up wading through mud which got caked to the coat. So then they started cutting the coats shorter and they became Trench Coats.

The actual reason that we don't is pretty much because of the invention of sewing machines. Once sewing machines were widespread, making coats became sooo much cheaper than they had been. Coats need a lot of tightly made seams which took time and so made coats very expensive. With sewing machines, making these seams was vastly quicker and more reliable.

Coats win over cloaks in so many ways because you can do things with your arms without exposing them or your torso to the rain and cold: impossible with a cloak.

Capes were the short versions - and intended to cover the shoulder and back without seams that might let the rain in, but with the new machine made seams, they were not needed either.

The really big change was when it became affordable to outfit armies with coats instead of cloaks or capes. At that point all the caché and prestige that was associated with military rank disappeared from cloaks and capes and they were suddenly neither useful not fashionable.

Nowadays, of course, they are no longer what your unfashionable dad would have worn: they are quite old enough to have regained a certain style.

I am a pagan. There are pretty much no widely accepted texts within paganism that make any statements about subject. In my experience most pagans are quite happy to coexist with other religions in general - and given that in almost all circumstances pagans will be in a small minority that makes perfect sense. On the other hand, most pagans that I know are far less happy to coexist with the more bigoted and hateful varieties of religion.

There is a strong feminist trend within paganism and this - particularly linked with the ahistorial but often assumed heritage of witchcraft, and the associated history of hanging and burning of witches - does not lead the more patriarchal end of the Abrahamic religions to sit well with a lot of pagans - and I know a lot who are far happier about visiting the roofless moss-covered shell of an abandoned church, with a hawthorn growing in the apse than they are visiting an occupied one (unless it is in search of a sheel-na-gig etc).

On the other hand, there is a strand of Norse paganism that crosses into white supremacy and neo-nazism, so that brings its own hate, bigotry and patriarchy. I do not know what their stance on other religions is.

"customers weren’t willing to pay for the added cost of cleaner fossil fuels." says CEO of company that made $36 billion in profits last year.

Part of a wave of spam that has been hitting the fediverse recently. It is a bot.

Just report it and move on. Stuff is happening in the background and hopefully it will stop soon.

I'm in the UK - live in a rural location and work at several other rural locations. It is a 10 - 45 min drive depending on which one I am at. There is no suitable public transport to any of them - and since I sometimes have to head over to another for some incident or another, cycling - which would be possible to the closest one otherwise - would then prove difficult.

In my first job, I used to cycle 5 miles each way daily, and I was able to walk to one job for a while, but pretty much every other job has required me to commute by car/truck - mostly 20+ mins. One short-term job involved driving 1 hour 30 or more - but it was only ever going to be short-term.

Subscribed|New pretty much all the time.