Lifestyle Changes!

 The end of October 2019 my wife decided to go on Weight Watchers (now called WW). After about a week and a half, she asked me if I would join as well. Admittedly, I wasn't totally on board with the idea. It was, however, difficult for her to do the program with me NOT being on it. I decided that I would compromise with her. She had a huge Starbucks habit. I figured if I could offset the cost of going to Starbucks nearly every day with paying a monthly plan fee for WW, I would come out ahead. Never would I have believed that I would become a huge WW proponent.

I initially didn't think I would be thrilled to be doing the program with her. We attended the in-person meetings (pre-COVID). My first weigh-in I was down 2.4 pounds! I started November 1st and was thinking that the upcoming holidays would be a bust. Well, at the November 22nd weigh-in I was down 5.6 pounds! I was floored. I wasn't working out, or walking, or doing cardio. All I had done the previous three weeks was change what I ate.

By this point I was wholly on-board with what we were doing. I wasn't going overboard and probably "cheated" more than I should have on the weekends. Yet, I was still losing weight. I was pretty amazed at that point. After the holidays I began doing some workouts. I did ten minutes or so on the elliptical every day for a while. That kind of trailed off as I began to start using dumbbells for an upper body workout. I would alternate dumbbells one day and bodyweight exercises the next.

Fast forward nine months. I'm down forty three pounds! I've been at somewhat of a plateau for a couple of months. I'm hovering around the 180 pound mark. Having started off at 221 pounds, I am still in awe at the progress I achieved. I never could have imagined that I would have lost this much weight in this amount of time. Having someone to share the journey with definitely helps! I think trying to do it alone would have been much more difficult. 

I'm ten pounds from what WW says is my goal weight. I think I can make it. I may need to focus on some cardio. Not my favorite thought but I am certainly willing to try. This has been a life changing experience and I am very grateful that I chose to participate with my wife! 

In the Android App Market

I created an Android application for access on the go to my blog. Now that means all three of you that read my blog will need to be sure to pick up an Android phone so I won't be the only one to have downloaded my own app. For thse of you already clamoring to the market, here is the link. Looking forward to having at least ONE download and maybe a decent review thrown in for good measure.

Future Tense

Here we are gently creeping into 2012. The year that will inevitably be the end of the world. According to the Mayan's, or even Harold Camping. I used to listen to Art Bell a number of years ago when my shift work made his overnight radio program easily accessible. He used to talk about what he called "the quickening". It was his impression that technology, world events, political change, etc. were changing faster than ever. Whether this was actual or perceived was difficult to quantify but none the less interesting. I find that my perception of the world is changing as well. I'm not going to give it a moniker like "the quickening" but it does seem that events are moving at a more rapid pace. That may be due to the increased access to information and information delivery. The twenty four hour news cycle and all news cable channels give the impression of constant "breaking news" and "alerts". Natural disasters can be viewed in real-time like the Japanese tsunami. 9/11 was essentially a live event. I recall getting ready to leave for work as the second plane plowed into the towers live on Fox News. News headlines are fed to our phones and displayed on monitors in coffee shops, restaurants and gas pumps. Twenty five years ago I had no thoughts of retiring from my current job. It was just the next best job that came along. I'm now three short years away from being eligible to retire. My frustration is mounting daily with the economic situation of this job. The feeling of being "trapped" here until I retire. I could actually leave now and have the same pension benefit that I would in four years. The reason for staying is the dang retirement medical coverage. That in itself is a HUGE reason for staying. My actual wage has diminished to where I am earning a mere fifteen cents an hour more than I did when I got hired twenty five years ago. I am tempted to forego the retirement medical coverage and get a job with a wage I can survive on. Working overtime is not the way I want to increase my income stream. I treasure my days off. Having a job with lousy hours and ridiculous days off used to be offset by a decent wage that made it worth the sacrifice. No longer do I see it being "worth" anything. The company has stripped us of our hard earned benefits under the guise of keeping the doors open. Yes, this is an industry in it's death throes. I hope it can cling to existence for just a few short years.

Racing Towards the Future

Nearly three months having passed since I last wrote, I return with trepidation. I skimmed over my last few blog entries to get an idea of where my head was in the last quarter. In the midst of my father's passing was where I found myself. In the time that has slipped by since then there have been a number of events that have given me pause. They deal with daily life, work, family and future.

A new union contract at my place of employment has put a new perspective on a great deal of my daily life. The changes from the previous contract are significant. Top of the list would be a nine percent pay cut coupled with a completely new health care package that involves new costs and restrictions. There was also the loss of a week of vacation and the elimination of the job I currently perform. That doesn't mean I lost my job, it means I have to bump a less senior person off their job and take that one. While this has happened numerous times in the past, the current incarnation of the procedure lends itself to a paradigm shift in my overall perception of my job and near term future.

I have an opportunity to get a class A commercial driver's license with this change. I have had a class B license for about twenty years and have had the occasion to use it on the side for part time employment to supplement my income. Obtaining a class A license that will accompany me when I retire from the company in a few short years will provide an additional opportunity for work once I actually do retire. Wait...doesn't retirement mean ceasing to work? Well, at most times and in most economies it does. However, living in the San Francisco Bay Area the cost of living is astronomically high. I have been fortunate enough to earn enough so that my wife has been able to stay home and raise our kids and be a homemaker once they were old enough to fend for themselves. Now that the kids are (mostly) out of the house, my pay has descended to levels slightly above the rate I was making twenty five years ago when I started here. That does not bode well for the future. I want to be able to retire and live comfortably on my pension and whatever income I may need to earn to supplement that.

The new health care package involves changing from a PPO with little or no restrictions on who or where we went for care as long as they were in the network to an HMO. Previously we had no co-pays for office visits or medications. Great coverage you say? Yes it was. We paid dearly to maintain our coverage. Our contractual pay raises were diverted to pay for the rising costs of our health care coverage. Our new HMO has co-pays for office visits and prescriptions. We are able to stay in a Teamster plan so we retain our retirement healthcare benefit. That is essentially the only reason I stay at my current job. Sad but true. The few years I need to reach retirement are what keeps me there.

Years ago I could say that I actually enjoyed my job. We still had the worst schedules of anyone in the valley but in the past we earned enough to make it worthwhile. We had five weeks of vacation that was well deserved. This job takes it's toll on your body and your home life. You essentially live on the opposite side of the clock from the rest of your family. The middle of my work day is the middle of their night. I'm punching out and heading home when their alarm clocks are ringing. If one makes it to retirement they most assuredly posses numerous surgical scars from repairs of rotator cuffs, knee ligaments or replacements, back surgeries. The list goes on. I earned a good wage and had good benefits so subjecting myself to the rigors of the job seemed worth it since I kept a roof over our head, food on our table and we seemed to have a decent amount of disposable income. There was also camaraderie with the other guys I worked with. We could have fun, work hard and earn a good living. Fast forward to the present day.

I recently found out that I qualify for P.G.&E.'s low income rate assistance. That was an eye opening moment. I realize the industry I work in is breathing it's last gasps of breath. I know for sure that the company I currently work for does not care one bit for the struggles of it's workers. It's their bottom line. Cut, reduce, consolidate. Whatever needs to be done so the profit margin maintains some elusive level. At the moment I'm reevaluating the basic services that we bring into our home in order to see which are necessary and which are luxuries. I find us shopping more at Dollar Tree and looking for bargains in even more earnest. Juggling bill payments between paychecks seems to be my part time job now.

I don't want this to sound like I am whining because I honestly am not. I am trying to frame my current point of view and how it affects my perception of the future. I can't hardly stand the wait until I can leave this place. I know I can get an exponentially more satisfying job than this one doing something I like to do for a company that appreciates my efforts. We are currently viewed by management as overpaid. The same way they view the contractors who actually deliver their product. They are trying to cut the rate of pay to just above the point where a contractor would want to quit because it's not worth their time and effort. Here's a thought...reward your workers for the hard work they do and make them want to work for you. I know that won't happen so I've resolved to "make it through" the last few years I have to put in. Sad commentary on twenty five years of life.

The silver lining is that once I leave here, "my future's so bright, I gotta wear shades"!

Ticket Home

That was the subject line of the email my Mom sent out after the doctor appointment for my Dad where he was told there wasn't much that could be done for him other than try to make him comfortable. His cancer has spread to his liver and a kidney. The cancer in the lymph glands kn his legs is making mobility extremely difficult. The swelling of the lymph glands affects the circulation in his legs and they are collecting fluid. They feel like telephone poles. Thick, heavy and the skin is very tight. He is very constipated from pain meds. Just another issue to pile on top of all the others. I know both he and my mom are not afraid to die. They are both confident with the promises God has made. They are however concerned at times over the manner in which they get there!

Ethan's First Amusement Park Ride

This shot was from back in April at Funderland in Sacramento, Ca.

Sleepover for Ethan

Picking up the grandson to spend the night. These will be few and far between once they move to Sacramento. We will take full advantage of the time we have left with them being less than fifty miles away! I only wish it wasn't a work night for me. I have to sleep all afternoon and get up when it's Ethan's bed time. Still, every moment is precious.

Mobile Blogger Post

I just downloaded the official version of Blogger for Android and thought I would take it for a spin.

I'm on my luchbreak hogging the wi fi at Starbucks and pondering the increasing speed at which technology is changing the way we live our lives. That sounds like a strong statement but is certainly backed by truth.

A brief year ago I would need to be sitting at home on my computer to post to my blog. While there were ways to post by text message they were rudimentary and lacking functions. Here I am seated (albeit uncomfortable) in a Starbucks writing a blog post from my phone. Certainly not a Silicon Valley first. For me it is light years ahead of previous methods. Who knows, this may lead to posting more often than biannually. I must admit my blogging has suffered quite a bit at the hands of Facebook. The short status update was easier to do than write a tome of unkown origin or destination.

Facebook was simply a lazy way to "interact". I think I became more of a lurker than anything. I would read most friends status updates and just move on to the next. Voyeurism I suppose. Leaving a comment or a "like" would require some amount of effort with possibly a needed follow up. I guess I'm just not that interested. My own life has it's own myriad of intricacies. Why would I want to be subjected to more, let alone someone elses.

Boy does that make me sound shallow. I think there are a lot of folks who can relate to the general idea but don't nessecarily publicize it. I guess the saying is true..."give someone enough rope and they will hang themselves".

Welcome to Ethan Lucas Evans-Ratzman. Born April 7, 2009 at 10:28pm. Six pounds, one ounce, nineteen and three quarter inches long. Mom and baby are healthy and happy, just a bit tired! This picture was taken when he was just a few minutes old.

Sharing Some Wisdom

Today I'll not berate the sparse few who have meandered over to this diminutive corner of the series of tubes called the internets. I will take it upon myself to impart some wisdom. Unfortunately that wisdom is gleened from the minds of others. I know I have some but I think I misplaced it somewhere. A mind, that is.

I'll start with the quote below that is specifically intended to describe the current political atmosphere here in Amerika.

Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.

C. S. Lewis

For my buddy, Joe

If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were precisely those who thought most of the next. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this.

C. S. Lewis

and...

"Atheism turns out to be too simple. If the whole universe has no meaning, we should never have found out that it has no meaning..."

--from "Mere Christianity" by C.S. Lewis

Joe and I can probably agree on this one as well. Only we come from different perspectives.

"Of all bad men religious bad men are the worst."

--Reflections on the Psalms, C.S. Lewis

Christmas In The Nest

The empty nest, that is.

While it is my favorite time of the year for friends and family, meals and drinks and gatherings, this year is very different than all the rest. This year I do not work Christmas morning. Only the fourth time in twenty one years that has happened.

This year I won't worry about rushing home from work as soon as I can after punching the clock. I will not quietly open the front door or step lightly down the hall avoiding the dog sleeping by the bedroom doors. This year there will be no delighted little ones scurrying to the fireplace to dive in to the goodies in their stockings. Actually those "little ones" haven't been around for years, but it's a pleasant thought anyway. This year I can sleep in if I want to, which I don't. This year it will be just me and Mrs. Farfromgruvin.

The morning will be quiet. We'll have the Christmas music on. The fresh, piping hot pot of coffee will be brewing in the kitchen spilling it's fragrant aroma throughout the house. Maybe there will be cinnamon rolls in the oven or eggs on the stove. Slices of cranberry orange bread on the table with a selection of jams and jellies. The tree with it's warm glow in the early daylight will complete the scene. Everything will be perfect. Perfect except for the absence of our kids.

Both son and daughter are out on their own now. Both starting new lives as independent adults. Doing the daily adult routines, working, paying bills, cooking meals (maybe not that one!). No matter the age they will always be "the kids".

It's been a sobering month. The realization that "the kids" will never again jump out of bed and scramble into the living room to see what Santa brought them has dampened spirits in the household. Not soaked, only dampened. There are still nice plans for Christmas dinner with my folks. My brother-in-law and his girls are coming as well. My son should be there for a short stay. He says he has plans with friends and can't stay too long. My daughter will be in Los Angeles with her fiance's family. In the end, it will still be a wonderful and memorable Christmas. They always are.

Reminiscing

In 1978 my family took a trip to New Jersey to visit relatives. My father's side of the family was spread around the state. I believe we were there because my grandmother was going to have surgery on her optic nerve. She was very active with friends and traveled all over the world. Most of her travel was by rail and the majority of it back in the 1930's through the 1960's. The heyday of rail travel. It was extravagant and lavish. Service was the centerpiece of the experience. She knew I had a fascination with trains from a young age and gave me a number of documents and souvenir's from her travels. At the time I wasn't overly enthusiastic. I was a fourteen year old kid that just got a bunch of "old stuff" from his grandmother. Granted it was old train "stuff", but it just didn't have the pizazz that a fourteen year old boy is looking for. I do recall enjoying the look of the publications and the musty old smell of the pages. I really had no clue as to what they would eventually mean to me in the future.

A few months back while looking for something buried deep within the black hole that is most peoples garages (unless you are one of the sicko's that parks a car in there!!), I came across an expandable folder with an elastic closure. I recall having had a few of these style envelopes with keepsake type items inside. They were being discarded at my fathers office and I felt they had a few more miles in them before they were relegated to the trash heap. I knew one folder contained all of my Naval discharge paperwork. Assuming this was that envelope, I casually opened it just to confirm before it placed it back into it's makeshift tomb. The first thing that caught my eye was a large 9x12 envelope. It wasn't the envelope itself that caught my eye, but what was printed on the outside. A blue Nickel Plate Road logo! I knew I was in for a treat. Some 30 years ago, my grandmother gave me some memerobilia and souvenir's that were now in the envelope I held in my shaking hands. I recalled the mild disinterest when she gave them to me thirty years ago. I also remember thinking I would someday come to appreciate their meaning. "I suppose that someday is here", I thought. I had a slight sensation of giddyness. That Christmas morning as a child feeling. I was grateful that my grandmother was able to see the interest within me for railroads, to part with souvenir's of magnificent trips and memories of a lifetime. I slid the envelope out of the folder and saw this.



Some vivid memories came rushing back. I recall looking through this very envelope at the pictures from her trip to Promontory, Utah in May of 1969 for the centennial anniversary of the Golden Spike Ceremony. That celebrated the completion of the transcontinental railroad. There was a recreation of an original poster on the wall of that room with "old west" style fonts announcing the "Great Event".

"Through to San Francisco in less than four days, avoiding the dangers of the sea!"

The room had a reddish wallpaper with some sort of design, probably paisley. There were toys from her childrens youth and some from her parents. An old wicker baby carriage, handmade dolls and clothes. The poster was placed in a way that it was a centerpiece for the wall.

"Pullman's Palace Sleeping Cars run with all through passenger trains."

Opening the envelope I gingerly removed the contents. Just beneath the envelope there was a dated publication. It was a Burlington Escorted Tours summer 1935 tour book. It described 20 tours ranging from seven to twenty five days in length.



Inside the cover of the tour book was a pocket itinerary


On the front page is the name of the Burlington escort, T.W. Coover. The itinerary was for tour "P". I didn't put two and two together at first. Later I realized the tours in the tour book were given letters. The pocket itinerary matched that of tour "P" in the larger book. The itinerary description...




What I found amazing, this twenty day trip had a maximum price of $321. Folded up further inside the tour book was a passenger manifest as well as a Southern Pacific passenger ticket for August 29th.



I looked on Google calendar to see what day of the week August 29, 1935 was. It was a Thursday. Looking at the pocket itinerary, they would have arrived in in San Francisco by ferry from Oakland that day. It's possible she took the Southern Pacific commute train that went down the peninsula to some location for the evening. Her ticket was punched for one zone only meaning she didn't travel very far. CalTrain currently uses the same type of zone ticketing. Your fare is determined by the number of zones you will be traveling through.

Digging deeper into the stack of discovery, I found a Pullman brochure from the 1939 World's Fair in New York. This page showing the average fare for a three hundred mile overnight trip.

I wish I could post each page of every item I looked through. They brought back wonderful memories of my grandmother and enjoying the same pages as a child. Unfortunately there is not enough time in the day to blog about all of life's simple pleasures. More fond memories of relatives and childhood will have to wit until another day.

You can see all of the scanned items on my Flickr page!

My Job Needs Resuscitating

Back in April, the job that I was doing for the paper that I work for was eliminated. I ended up taking an entirely new job just created that no one else had done before. I would be replacing three soon to be former employees. I received a grand total of about one hour worth of training from the outgoing guy who had all the single copy sales responsibilities. That's the papers that are sold in stores and in the vending machines. I received zero hours of training from the slacker who was responsible for the home delivery distribution. She decided to call in sick her last week of work rather than stick around to help out the poor schlep who was booting her out the door. The warehouse guy was really the only reasonable one to work with for the last week that they were employed. At least he didn't bail and stick it to the new guy. Well, not actually a "new guy". I have 21 years in circulation, just not the circulation they were responsible for.

The first month as the big cheese, I worked seven days a week around 12 to 14 hours a day. I was essentially training myself. I had to learn everything about this new position on my own. To top things off, one of the home delivery dealers had given a 30 day notice that was effective the day before I took over the area. Making matters worse, he had a carrier who quit on him two days before that. I was throwing a route that took about 2 and a half hours to deliver. It was nasty...apartments, condos, businesses. I couldn't take a day off until someone knew how to do my job. Even if they knew the job, I couldn't leave them to throw the route. It would take them about 5 hours if they didn't know the delivery.

My "swing man" who works for me on my two days off could only be trained by me on overtime on my days off! He worked other districts his other three days. After about three weeks of training, (that's my 2 days off each week) he was able to have enough knowledge of the nuts and bolts of the job to at least let me have my days off. There were still things that he could not do that were necessary to the operation. I had to do these when I got back from my off days. This usually caused my Monday to be excessively long. I had become a zombie of sorts. Eat, sleep, work. Eat, sleep, work for weeks on end. My wife wasn't real pleased either. I missed some birthday's, doctor appointments, and various other promises of "I'll be home by....." all for the job. I felt obligated. I couldn't NOT be there and let the district blow up. How foolish to have such concern for a job well done. I could have easily taken the route of a slacker and been none the worse for wear. But that's not me.

Well the story goes along for a few months and I get the operation fine tuned. The operation is purring like a kitten and quite manageable. The home delivery dealers are doing a good job and I'm making sure they get paid. The single copy distribution is still a hassle for paperwork but that's the nature of that beast.

I get a call from my Teamsters Local Business agent. He says he has a meeting with the company the next day and he's planning a general meeting with the membership. This is never good news when those two events occur in close proximity. The news can only be bad and it generally costs us money or benefits. After his meeting with the company the rumors are flying. Layoffs, consolidations, cut backs. You name it we heard it from one source or another.

The next week I'm sitting in the union hall at the preordained meeting reading the informational page that was handed out and lo and behold, my district is being eliminated. The plan was to have my operation folded into the Mercury News operation in the same warehouse. In other words, I did too good of a job starting from scratch taking over from three people and making the thing work with just the one of me. Now I've worked myself out of a job.

The most galling part of all of it is the line that was fed to me by my supervisor. He had been on vacation the week prior when all this went down. He met with me and asked me what was happening like he hadn't been in the loop. I may have been born at night but I wasn't born last night. He said he just heard about it Monday when he came back to work. Yeah, ya lying sack of fertilizer. Nothing happens in his warehouse that he doesn't know about. He always sends some type of email when he's on vacation. He follows up on things even when he's gone, leaves voicemail, etc. Then he asks me what I thought would be the best way of implementing the "plan" for my area. I sat there thinking, "You've got to be kidding me!"

He was handing me rope hoping I would hang myself by telling him how to eliminate my own job. I don't get paid enough to create or eliminate jobs. The company can post the job description and I'll bid on it if I like it. If I don't, I'll bump into another department. The nerve of this guy. The longer I sat there the more upset I became. After repeatedly asking me what I thought I would do he came up with a scenario where I could keep my San Mateo Times district AND pick up the Mercury News circulation in Palo Alto. Let me see, here. That means I would have two jobs. San Mateo Times AND Mercury News. Along with that comes Wall Street Journal, Barron's IBD, Financial Times. Let me check the pay scale. Oh, right. Twice the work, same pay....sorry about that.

Never again will I assume that this or any other company has even a speck of gratitude at all for the work that the employees provide. For twenty one years I have worked Christmas, Thanksgiving, New Years, birthdays and anniversaries. I have missed countless family functions because of the ridiculous hours I work. I've gone to bed before my kids their entire lives. I work when the rest of the city is sleeping. I understand I chose freely to remain with the company all these years. The pay and benefits were just good enough to keep me from leaving. That has taken a turn for the worse as well. We have consistantly been diverting our raises to our health and welfare plan for several years now. This past September we actually took a pay cut to maintain our healthcare coverage levels. While we still have exceptional healthcare coverage, the company is moving closer and closer to eliminating the union. My hope is that they will stay afloat until I can secure a new career path. The newspaper industry is in dire straits with circulation in a free fall.

Get the paddles out, start an IV and CPR.

Layout Tweak

I added the new Blogger "reaction" buttons to my posts. They are customizable so I chose my own text. This way you can share your reaction to the post without necessarily leaving a comment. Try it out!

Vacation Anticipation

Three days on Oahu and seven on Maui. I'm getting a little light headed just thinking about it. I've been to Maui one other time in 2000. It was wonderful. There was a drought at the time so it only rained for a few minutes on one of the seven days that we were there.

Rather idyllic I must say. We did the road to Hana thing. Being dry it was probably not as impressive as when there were active waterfalls plunging through tropical foliage. Did the deep sea fishing trip. My mother-in-law caught a nine foot Marlin of about 250 pounds. It was interesting but I don't think I would do it again. The most memorable activity was the snorkling. Christmas morning the kids opened the few presents that we brought along with us and then we went to the 14 mile marker on the road to Ka'anapali. We must have been in the water for about four hours. It was just amazing. It was knee deep to chest deep at least one hundred yards from the beach. This meant you had to be careful not to brush up against the coral however. The aquatic life we saw was fabulous. Just like a National Geographic article. Fish with all the colors of the rainbow would swim up to you. I think that was because many people would bring various forms of fish food into the water with them. Kind of like pidgeons and seagulls, these fish were scavengers looking for the easy meal. We didn't have food but they would approach anyway.

This time around I would like to see more in the way of the countryside. There is the Haleakala crater, Iao Needle, the north shore. Tedeschi winery also sounds intersting. They produce pineapple wine. The grounds are reportedly spectacular. We had done a quick jaunt into Lahaina a few times on our last trip. We did the Old Lahaina Luau, Hard Rock Cafe and Bubba Gump's. I think we may have shopped one afternoon. I would like to see some of the historic buildings in the town. I guess when you're an old coot like me (hmm) you want to do those kinds of things. I just find history extremely interesting.

On Oahu we will do the obligatory Pearl Harbor excursions. There is also an aviation museum I would like to check out. It's a mini New York so I guess we won't be bored. It will be my first time there except for being at the airport on six other occasions. If you have any suggestions for the off-the-beaten-path excursion, leave me a comment and any tip that would come in handy on the islands.

A Hole In The Sky

I was working in the field up the peninsula in Daly City and Colma and was coming over the hill to get to highway 101 when I came across this incredible light show. It was a very foggy morning. The small peninsula of land in the center of the picture is just south of Candlestick Park, the former home of the San Francisco Giants baseball team. It was truly a spectacular display! I took a series of pictures over about six minutes. I've posted them on my Flickr page. Check them out if you'd like.




The reason I was up there was because we were trying to determine if a guy we have contracted to distribute one of our publications is just ripping us off by picking up the papers and dumping them (or recycling them for $.08 a pound). He gets a flat fee weekly to distribute and we have audited and found no papers at the locations that he is telling us he is selling at. Thieving dirtbag!

Not Just Gas Prices

I had a meeting with the business agent from my local, one of the other shop stewards and the company lawyer where I work. We were discussing the issue of our health and welfare fund and how to keep it in the black. By August the reserve that is used to cover the cost of our healthcare subscription will have run out. In order to maintain coverage we can do one of two things: pay the $350 a month increase out of our own pocket or go to a plan with less coverage and only pay $240 more a month. Pick your poison.

My personal preference is to maintain the higher level of coverage. It's a big hit on the wallet, yes. At this stage of life it's essential. When I was younger I would always complain of how much of our raise we would divert to the health and welfare fund. I rarely got so much as a cold. "I want that money in my pocket", I would say. The old-timers that were near retirement were bitterly opposed to keeping the raise and accepting less coverage. Twenty years later, I understand why.

One of the main reasons I declined the job offer I received from the Union Pacific Railroad back in May '08 was the costs related health care coverage. They talked about $20 doctor co-pays and $10 prescriptions. That alone would have a huge impact on my wage. I would have been taking a pay cut if I was hired and on top of that I would have the huge increase in helthcare costs. The math didn't figure in my favor. It would have been a real hardship to have accepted the job and left my current one.

I don't know the exact number of contractual raises where we have diverted most or all of it to the health and welfare fund but I can say it's been most of the raises in the last four years. The membership meetings that we have when we vote on whether to divert funds or not are always contentious. The young guys only think about the paycheck. Not that us old-timers don't, it's just that the young guys are not thinking about the benefits of the incredibly good healthcare coverage we have. Our business agent said that the only group in the local to still be on Plan 1A (the cadillac plan) is Young's Market Co. Young's is a statewide operation, essentially a monopoly on liquor distribution.

The bottom line is I'm going to have to hope that the other old-timers here will show up to the membership meeting and opt to keep the current plan. Personally, I'm willing to bear that extra cost because I believe that the plan with lesser coverage, in the long run, would lead to much higher out of pocket expenses. I would love to be proven wrong!

On a happier note....gas just went down four cents a gallon to $4.45 yesterday!

Hired For My Dream Job

Well, sort of.

(edit 7/22/08) The title link takes you to an article by a fellow blogger, railfan, photographer and general rabel rouser that has been in the same situation regarding jobs.

For roughly the last 10 months I have rekindled my interest in all things railroads. Around February I had actually put in an application at the Union Pacific Railroad website. There were openings for "Train Crew Service" in Watsonville, Milpitas and Oakland. I had applied for all three to see what would transpire. I received an invitation to a reading comprehension test in April. I took the test scoring eighty five percent. It was a twenty question test to be completed in thirty minutes. Essentially you read from the freight handlers manual and then chose the appropriate answer. It was an interesting experience since this was a completely foreign area of knowledge for me.

A couple of weeks after I took the test I received an invitation to a hiring session at the Santa Cruz/Scott's Valley Hilton. They gave the lowdown on what the job was all about. Even though I had applied for specific locations, the job actually was a position in the Roseville service area. The geographic points of this service area stretched from Klamath at the Oregon border on the north side down to San Luis Obispo in the south and east to Winnemucca, Nevada. Once your training was over after about 8 weeks, you "mark up". You then bid with your seniority on open positions. Since you have little to no seniority, you may wind up bidding on a slot in Winnemucca, Nevada. You have 48 hours to report (on your own dime, I might add) to the location and find a place to stay. Admittedly, our HR rep doing the information session said a lot of folks sleep in their cars when they first arrive at their new location. However, there is a caveat. You could be on the way to this Winnemucca location and your cell phone could ring. It's the Crewmaster telling you you've been bumped off your newlty aquired position. Time to find a new job to bid on. You find an open shift in Bakersfield. Nine hours into your drive to get there, your phone rings again. Guess what? You've been bumped again. The process starts over. To top things off, you haven't even worked yet so you are not getting paid for any of this. The example is a worst case scenario but it could happen.

There is also a chance that once your training is over you could be furloughed because there are no open positions available. Accarding to the HR rep, thirty percent of the Union Pacific workforce is retiring in the next five years. That would seem to be good odds for moving up in seniority rather quickly. That doesn't mean that the service area you apply for has openings already. They may be hiring to prepare for future retirements.

The discussion also involved benefits. They spoke of co-pays for medical and prescriptions. Currently mine are infinitesmal compared to the described benefits of UP. The kicker was the vacation accrual. After two years you get a week. Nothing out of the ordinary. Four years, two weeks. Nine years, three weeks. Seventeen years for four weeks. Last but not least, twenty-five years years before you get five weeks. This may sound like a good deal to some. To me it was the straw that broke the camels back. I thought long and hard about taking a pay cut. I figured I could do it. I thought about the co-pays for doctor visits and prescriptions. That would hurt a lot. The vacation schedule put a nail in the coffin of my dream job. With the inconvieniences and disruptions in your life and that of your family, the adjustment I would have to make to accept my dream job offer was more than I could handle.

At least I can say I got hired for my dream job! I'll have to keep my part-time "job" as a foamer for now!

Mischievious Kitty

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D.B. Getting Into Trouble

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D.B. wreaking havoc as always. D.B. is short for "dumpster baby". We found him in our backyard when he was about 10 days old. His eyes weren't even open yet. We think his mom dropped him as she tried to transport him across the back fence. Since we have a dog, she was probably not willing to chance a rescue. We had a cat at the time so our dog was used to them. She was the one that alerted us to the stranger in the yard!!

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Mallard

Mallard, originally uploaded by sharkzƒan.

I was eating my lunch (gourmet... in my car) and up walks a group of ducks looking for a handout. I'm thinking, "Hey...get a job!"