I've said it before, I live in southwest Florida. I'm 80 miles Northwest of Miami. It should NOT be this fucking cold for this long. Here's a photo of the rear window of the RT Mobile when I got off of my shift this morning. I'm very good friends with several life-long residents of the area, and none of them ever remember it ever being this cold for this long, ever. Yesterday when I got home my thermometer on my front porch read a steady 25F. Again, I know it's nowhere near as cold as most of the rest of the Country to date, but for here it's damn cold.
So cold in fact I had to put cardboard in front of my locomotive's radiator just to keep it up to operating temperature and to get the cab warm enough so I didn't freeze... The beast is over 50 years old and not very well insulated, so it's like sitting in a tin can in a freezer all night. I'm not going to get into a big pissing match with people, but right now I'm not buying into Al Gore's Chicken Little~like fear mongering about Global Warming.The Earth cools, the Earth warms up from time to time. It's done it for thousands upon thousands of years. Don't get me started on Cap & Trade, but to me it's another excuse to tax us even more when we're already being bled dry. It's not working in Europe and it won't work here.
One volcano blows it's stack and we've got more "Greenhouse Gasses" or "Pollutants" thrown into the atmosphere in one day that one nation emits in a decade. Remember Mt. St Helen?
Remember when it was not "eco-friendly" to use paper bags at the grocery store? Paper bags kill trees they all told us. So now all we have is plastic bags to lug or food to our cars. Now the fuckers are telling us that those very same plastic bags are harming the environment.
Now what am I supposed to carry my Dolphin~Friendly tuna to my eco-friendly socialist-made Traban with? A bag made from hemp fiber?
Al, go fuck yourself.
Now on to my office again... Here's where RT sits for 8 hours a shift... Nice and clean, is it not? Not. I walk into a pigsty every fucking night.
Just a view of the controls I use...
Yeah, a fucking pigsty. It's company policy that every crew when done with their shift to remove all garbage from the locomotive. Above it's what me and my crew walk into every night. We decided a few months ago just to leave it there. I refuse to clean up some other crew's shit.Myself, my conductor and switchman bring one of the ecologically unsound and dangerous bags with us every night and remove our garbage at the end of our shift. I refuse to clean up other people's shit.
Now onto another thing that's been pissing me off, and it came to a head the night before last. A very good friend of mine, the Rambling Hillbilly, moved down here at the beginning of the crop and came to work with me as my switchman. I know he wants to become a police officer at some point, but to finish his degree he needed a better paying job than what he was getting paid in West Virgina, and I went out on a limb to get him the job here.
He started off OK but thing began to go bad because he wasn't paying attention to detail and that almost cost him his job about a month or two back.
I love him like a little brother, and I really felt bad later about having to do it, but I lit into his ass and gave him both barrels. It wasn't pretty, but it was the truth.
Inattention to detail will get you killed. Here on the railroad (the guy I replaced when I started here four years ago was killed when he was coupled together between two rail cars) and as a police officer.
This is the easiest job I've ever had. I make obscenely good money doing it. And I got here to paying attention to detail, something that was thumped into me head a long, long time ago in Army Basic Training.
I notice everything.
It's kept me alive for 44 years.
Read what The Rambling Hillbilly's had to say.
I really hope he does a good job, because the people who he thought were out to get him were the people most often trying to protect him and saw his potential.
You can do the job, Bill.
Stay fucking focused and keep doing what you did all night last night and me and Jay will turn you into a railroader!
Photos and rambling diatribe Copyright 2010 Thomas J Wolfenden
9 comments:
Rambling Hillbilly, you are lucky to have such a boss.
I have to admit, I giggled quite a few times reading your rant about effin global warming.. What gets me all the time though is not that people say, it's getting warmer, but that they say "Safe the planet !!!" As if this planet needs to be saved.. but I shall not even start to get into that... want some hot cocoa? And about your friend.. man, there is always one out there who doesn't get it until it's too late, eh? Hope he get's his act together and appreciates a concerned friend!! Okay... how about some warm thoughts and a drink with an umbrella in it??
Hi honey. I want to be the first 'Emperor of the North' or should I say 'Emperess of the North?'
hehehe...
Not really, a hobo's life...just doesn't do it for me.
Come on Al Gore has a point. We should be going GREEN and stop poluting the planet. It's getting like your a locomotive...a pig pen. Somebody has to tell everyone to clean up the fucking locomotive...I mean clean the planet.
You work in a pig pen, be like Al and tell the fuckers responsible to clean their fucking mess up.
later sweets. xxx
FishEagle: I'd agree, but then I'd be getting a big head. Just helping a brother out.
Liane: Glad you liked. Rum Runner for the lady?
Spiky: I'll go along with Al when he starts practicing what he preaches. Right now he's a hypocrite.
There are some people making a lot of money by selling all of the 'earth friendly, reusable' stuff, like canvas shopping bags. Once we all have WAY too many shopping bags to use in our lifetimes, then they will have to come up with something new to try to scam us about. At that time, the pendulum will swing back to 'disposable is good.' ;)
That cab[?] needs wallpaper and cozy lighting!
I need a man who makes obscenely good money!
Just saying...
CMK: We need so stop acting like sheep is all a start acting like people again.
Uber: And I'd like a woman with a great (if not slightly warped and jaded) sense of humor whom I don't have to explain Monty Python to...
Just Saying... ;)
I frequently get handed a dirty ambulance at shift change, so I clean it. Takes all of 5 minutes, and I make 'obscenely good money' to do it.
Take a spray bottle of Fantastic! and a rag to work tomorrow, and every day after that..... pretty soon Al will feel like a schmoe getting into a clean cab at shift change and bring his game up.
Police this area, soldier!
Don: Did that before. It's like pissing into the wind. We take our own garbage off the locomotive at shift change. After 4 years of putting up with this crap, I refuse to clean up other people's shit ever again. Yes, I police the area like a good soldier, but from now on, I only police my own shit. I'd really hate to think what these other people's homes look like...
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