Training begins Friday

One of the things my Mom has taught me as I was growing up is that you should be the best at whatever it is you do. Whether it be a 'lowly' janitor to CEO of a company, if you do your job and do it well, at the end of the day that is what matters. It was one of the things that stuck with me, and would grow to understand it more as I got older. To respect people for what they are worth rather than how much they are worth.

Struggling as a single parent holding two low pay jobs on top of showing a daily unyielding devotion to her own ailing mother at the nursing home, she somehow manages to keep what is left of this family afloat despite a lack of 'proper' education to obtain better jobs. Although this accomplishment leaves her weary and exhausted each week, she still tries to seeks different avenues of self improvement. Through culture or art for example, improving on one of the many languages she knows, visiting new exhibitions at various museums, imitating new dishes after seeing it once, or simply writing calligraphy - she does it well.

Through my eyes, she is already great at her job ... just being a mom.

we find out why bob pulled his neck or whatever it is.
turns out he was in the bathroom about to leave to get on the shuttle with me, he must have been rushing and he said he was looking down at his penis, when he jerked his head down (for some reason)and hurt himself so badly that he needed to take off three days from work.

yeah a likely story. we were right, only he can pull something like this off.

Diversity event today

This is the month just happens to be when we celebrate [see title]. Every year is different, they choose the topics for the months and we alternate the event. In the past, we've done women's history month, black history, Italian, Irish, gay & lesbian, all sorts of topics. There are guests speaker, guest performers, and the taste of food related to the topic/event.

Bob was suppose to be my backup technician for today, but as I got on the shuttle, he nextels me and says his neck is in a cramp and he can't go. I seriously thought he was joking because I saw him not 10 minutes ago and he was perfectly fine at his cubicle.
I'm telling you, these things only happen to Bob. How he gets himself into these binds is a cosmic mystery. My supervisor told me Bob said it was a very embarrassing story, and I will have to find out what caused his injury tomorrow. My theory is Bob is like a giant lumbering dinosaur, he needs to move slower or else go extinct.

hate giving speeches.

It isn't even that interesting, except for the first few sentences.
My final speech if it were up to me would be, "welcome everyone. enjoy the food."
Instead of spewing statistics and figures to people. The history was a bit interesting, however too much of that and we start losing people. But that's the price of free food. We must make them suffer for it.
I will be the well dressed, but uncomfortable harbinger of boredom.

The more people that show up the more I have to talk.

The acting president of B&T, acting president of the LIRR, vice president of the MTA, keynote speaker Councilman Liu, the musician and his cohort (who is nominated for a grammy), all the departments, it never ends.

*shakes fist defiantly at the diversity committee*

Everything went pretty well. I was about to skip Liu, and introduce the musicians, but he showed up just in the nick of time, and only had two minutes before I put him on the spotlight. Gotta luv live events where anything goes.

I had a suspicion though, that Liu was going to drop a bomb on us, the MTA, since I read in some articles there was issues and he was upset about the way Transit handled certain matters. Doesn't bother me much as I always wave my magic wand and say my patented line, "I don't work for Transit, I cannot give you a free metrocard, I don't accept complaints about your lousy commute. But hey, if I see you on one of our bridges, I will be sure to try to run you over."
Anyway, he started off great, told us a bit about himself and was very entertaining with some jokes. How when he was first elected and everyone else had their own caucus, the women's caucus, the black, the latinos, etc, but since he was the very first and only Asian currently elected in NY, he looked around and tried to join the women's caucus but that didn't work, so he had an in depth meeting with himself and resolved some meaningful issues that day.
Although he was not the straw that broke the camel's back, he certainly contributed to Rosie getting fired from The View when he sent that email to Barbara Walters.
He covered a lot of topics, including the hate crime that happened in Flushing at the end of last year. Then at the very end went on the touchy subject about conductors being able to wear turbans instead of a cap, while they have the rest of their uniform on when driving the subway car. It got a bit too quiet room, and then it was over as he wrapped up.
Hey he is the Chairperson of the Council's Transportation Committee, what did they expect he was going to say?

Ha!

Then as I introduced the musicians I was looking around the first rows where I expected them to be seated, and had no idea where they were. Probably somewhere in the back by the food tables. They quickly ran up to the front and jumped right into action. I liked their first two scores, you can listen at their myspace page in the links previously given.

All in all, not a bad day. Something different for a change.

today was classic.

The tour started off right outside the job at Battery Park at 8 am. It was too bad Bob couldn't make it as I suspected earlier. It turns out he had paid for it, but couldn't get the equipment. Sometimes I just don't know what is going through his mind.
Next year the Bobs and the consultants may join in. We'll see. They always talk the talk.

There was just way too many people. 42,000 total they said. (I'm thinking they made close to two million bucks in registration fees) So being the impatient new yorker, I took one of the side streets up a few blocks and merged back in around Chamber street and Church.
The beginning was interesting, because there was music and an announcer. He kept asking people where they are from and proudly saying their state or country. This tour it turns out, has an allure beyond just the five boroughs. People from all over the world in fact and out of state people as well attended this event.

Block after block I was amazed that they had those blue wooden horses to barricade both sides of the streets

Ok not that kind, but picture this orange one, but all blue in color with no reflective markings on it.

There was usually a cop or two at every barricade as well. The resources this must have taken to put all that in place. They blocked off most of the traffic for the whole route and we had full run of streets, bridges, highways of NYC.

If I go again I will bring my camera next time. No exciting pictures for my dear readers This year was a test run at level 0. All I had brought with me was my bike, helmet and gloves, some change and ID and keys. Nothing else. No water or cameras or backpacks.

There were plenty of rest stops along the way. Some with food and drinks, all with portable toilets or they used local parks as a rest area. Had a long break in Astoria park and watched some jugglers perform. I was going to ask them to lend those pins so I can practice, but thought better of it and continued on.

The route we followed went from lower Manhattan, then up through Central Park, over the Madison avenue bridge into the Bronx, Third avenue bridge back into the city, down the FDR drive, onto the Queensboro bridge, the Pulaski bridge into Brooklyn, went on the BQE and finally the Verrazano Narrows bridge to our final destination Staten Island.

Some moments to remember:

Cops everywhere.

Watching bewildered pedestrians on the sidewalks trying to fathom the neverending stream of bikers, as they attempt to figure a way to cross the streets.

All kinds of weird contraptions that pass for bikes:
Picture a giant tricycle you move by swaying side to side.
tandem bikes, mini low riding bikes, and those lazyboy reclining bikes and you pedal in the air.

Lots of accidents considering the lemming trails. I managed to avoid one myself when someone fell in front or stopped short. But then I almost ran over a policeman escorting an old lady across the streets.

Endless mesmerizing streams of bikers along the roads.

Painful cramping from muscles I didn't know I had in my quadriceps.
Bike butt! oooww.

The long lines, the waiting! I think a third of the route was a 'walkathon' since people kept stopping and walking their bikes due to congestion.

This was one experience i won't soon forget.

Bike maintenance today

Some not so useful equipment. The helmet is required for the tour. I can tell already I will be suffering under the heat. I don't see how going 6mph with 30,000 other people requires a helmet.

Tire check.
Odometer resets.
Oil chains.

check & check.

Spiderman 3!!

Sold out

Another wonderful Friday. The weather outside is not too cold and not too hot, but sunny.

Enjoy your Friday

Here are some more email forwards:

NEW YORK (Reuters) - If the typical stay-at-home mother in the United States were paid for her work as a housekeeper, cook and psychologist among other roles, she would earn $138,095 a year, according to research released on Wednesday.
ADVERTISEMENT

This reflected a 3 percent raise from last year's $134,121, according to Salary.com Inc, Waltham, Massachusetts-based compensation experts.

The 10 jobs listed as comprising a mother's work were housekeeper, cook, day care center teacher, laundry machine operator, van driver, facilities manager, janitor, computer operator, chief executive officer and psychologist, it said.

The typical mother puts in a 92-hour work week, it said, working 40 hours at base pay and 52 hours overtime.

A mother who holds full-time job outside the home would earn an additional $85,939 for the work she does at home, Salary.com.

Last year she would have earned $85,876 for her at-home work, it said.

Salary.com compiled the online responses of 26,000 stay-at-home mothers and 14,000 mothers who also work outside the home.

(Reporting by Ellen Wulfhorst)

computer
A SPANISH Teacher
 
Was explaining to her class
that in Spanish, unlike English,
nouns are designated as either
masculine or feminine.
 
"House"
for instance,
is feminine:
"la casa."
 
"Pencil,"
however,
is masculine:
"el lapiz.."
 
A student asked,
"What gender is 'computer'?"
 
Instead of giving the answer,
the teacher split the class into two groups,
male and female,
and asked them to decide
for themselves whether
"computer"
should be
a masculine or a feminine noun.
 
Each group was asked
to give four reasons
for its recommendation.
 
The men's group decided that
"computer"
should definitely be
of the feminine gender
("la computadora"),
because:
1. No one but their creator
understands their internal logic;
 
2. The native language
they use to communicate
with other computers is
incomprehensible to everyone else;
 
3. Even the smallest mistakes
are stored in long term memory
for possible later retrieval; and
 
4. As soon as you make
a commitment to one,
you find yourself spending
half your paycheck
on accessories for it.
 
(THIS GETS BETTER!)
 
The women's group,
however, concluded
that computers should be Masculine
("el computador"),
because:
1. In order to do anything
with them,
you have to turn them on;
 
2. They have a lot of data
but still can't think for themselves;
 
3. They are supposed
to help you solve problems,
but half the time
they ARE the problem; and
 
4. As soon as you commit to one,
you realize that if you
had waited a little longer,
you could have gotten
a better model.
 
The women won.

Home -  Chris Daughtry

I'm staring out into the night,
Trying to hide the pain.
I'm going to the place where love
And feeling good don't ever cost a thing.
And the pain you feel's a different kind of pain.

I'm going home,
Back to the place where I belong,
And where your love has always been enough for me.
I'm not running from.
No, I think you got me all wrong.
I don't regret this life I chose for me.
But these places and these faces are getting old
So I'm going home.
Well I'm going home.

The miles are getting longer, it seems,
The closer I get to you.
I've not always been the best man or friend for you.
But your love, remains true.
And I don't know why.
You always seem to give me another try.

So I'm going home,
Back to the place where I belong,

And where your love has always been enough for me.
I'm not running from.
No, I think you got me all wrong.
I don't regret this life I chose for me.
But these places and these faces are getting old.

Be careful what you wish for,
'Cause you just might get it all.
You just might get it all,
And then some you don't want.
Be careful what you wish for,
'Cause you just might get it all.
You just might get it all, yeah.

Oh, well I'm going home,
Back to the place where I belong,
And where your love has always been enough for me.
I'm not running from.
No, I think you got me all wrong.
I don't regret this life I chose for me.
But these places and these faces are getting old.
I said these places and these faces are getting old.
So I'm going home.
I'm going home.

Twins came over again this weekend. Turns out aryan was hearing voices in the marines. he's on probabation.

we went and saw Hot Fuzz. not bad for a british flick. they certainly have their own unique style of comedy.