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Chance the Gardener - "The Day the Dogs Took Over" (1996- Warner Brothers Records) Pretty cool roots-rock (think Wilco) My Photographs You like photos? I love taking them. Click here, if you wanna see some of my work
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Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2003 - 7:29 p.m. Vacation over, so I finally had to return to work today. Usually, whenever somebody is off for a week or more, they are greeted with jokes about �Who�s the new employee?� and, �You�ve been off? I didn�t notice!� Not today. Instead, I found out some bad news- Our beloved governor, Little Big Man, had fired anyone who was still on probation while I was away. In our storage, that was the last two guys hired. They were the ones who were originally hired last December, and then told that they didn�t have jobs on the day before they were to report to work. They didn�t get to start their new jobs until a couple of months later, after legal wrangling forced the state to bring them on in. So that meant they were almost through their 6 month probation period. One had a week to go. The other was told he was fired on the last day of his probation. So these two workers (and good workers they are) have now suffered the indignity of being fired, without cause, by the little dictator running our state. Oh yeah, I almost forgot- no reason was given for their firing. Either time. I saw the paperwork from one of the guys today (he brought it in with him), and all it said was �Pre-disciplinary hearing: Be notified that as of September 25th, 2003, your services are no longer needed by the state of North Dakota. Sincerely, Hatchet man for Little Big Man�. No reason need be given, if you are on probation. But this is the kind of political garbage that goes on in Bismarck (known here as �The Big City�), which is where Little Big Man hails from. His party was out of power in the capitol for over 24 years, so I guess they want to make up for lost corruption time now. The next step, in my opinion? Hire political lackeys for the vacant lead worker positions. Let them be hatchet men, firing one man here for being 20 seconds late, another one here for damaging his snowplow in a blizzard, until they can replace all of the experienced workers (re: me, with 20+ years) with foot soldiers from the �Machine� that feeds his party. The party of the workingman? Not in this state, it isn�t. It�s more the party of �how deep are your pockets, and who are you willing to blow to get a job?� Grrrrrrrrrrr! The union has offered to defend these 2 guys (and another 31 in our district alone- maybe as many as 200 state wide). They should, because they told us to vote for Little Big Man, and donated $60,000 of our union dues to his campaign. If they allow honest , hard working people (who were hired non-politically, btw) to get fired, just to bring in their flunkies, then our Union is pretty much worthless. Time will tell how this pans out. But in the meantime�..there are 200 less trained highway maintainers, making snow removal even more dangerous this winter. Oh yeah, I almost forgot- Little Big Man�s people also decided to fuck with the �temp� snowplow operators, the extra help that only works during a snowstorm. Figuring that many of these people were hired by the other party, they decided to make the old hires (some with as many years experience as I) drive all the way to the headquarters, 140 miles away, to fill out a new application. They also required the old guys to file a resume, with two letters of recommendation. This, on top of passing a drug test and driving to London twice even before they are hired, was enough to run most of these operators off. Our district alone is 70 temps short, out of a head count of 120, of what we need to cover all of the routes. Oh yeah, and another 31 full timers not available to do the job, too. So, because the folks from Bismarck love to run power plays, and run their government offices in a manner that would embarrass Mafiosi, the taxpayers (remember them?) will be at severe risk driving our roads anytime it snows this winter. One more thing- I bet they have PLENTY of foot soldiers, ready to pass a drug test and fill those vacant positions. What do you think? Alright, enough bitching. I just thought that this is information that should be out there, instead of hiding it behind the Iron Curtain in Bismarck�. How about those Bears? Worse than I thought they could be. If they can�t get up for opening night in a state-of-the-art stadium, then they could go 0-16 this season. I can tell you this much- my weekends won�t revolve around game time this season. Might even find time to catch a few more fish because of their incompetence�.. Scattered frost tonight. Widespread frost tomorrow. An early end to the summer garden, but I�m ready. I will pick all of the ripe tomatoes and peppers tomorrow, and a few green tomatoes just in case they are right. They usually aren�t the first time they predict a killing frost���.
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