Sunday, July 20, 2003

Random thoughts:

Happiness is like peeing your pants. Everyone can see it, but only you can feel the warmth.

If you came into a room and discovered that everyone who had been in that room had been slaughtered, you'd most likely freak out - probably vomit, maybe faint, definitely increased heartbeat. How would a nonhuman react? Like a dog, or a cat or a monkey? (If the room was full of slaughtered dogs or cats or monkeys, that is)

When I was younger (I'd guess this memory comes from when I was maybe in 5th grade?) our teacher had the class come up with "ways to save the planet". Which is, actually, a pretty good idea. Asking children, that is. Children, for the most part, are going to think differently than adults. And different ways of thought are what we need.
My idea was to make cars that run on garbage, and to have a garbage bag placed onto the exhaust pipes of all vehicles. That way, the bags would fill back up with the "waste" and then be reused. [grin] Sadly, I don't remember what my classmates came up with. Figures. Something from my formative years in school that I should remember, and I can't. [doh2]

The other day (Thursday, the 17th) we had the "training" of the new switcher. Basically, it was simply an introduction to what it's going to be like. Apparently, it will (eventually) be fully automated. A "higher up" from another Sinclair (the company that owns the stations here, plus like 60 others nationwide) came by and (re)assured us that the "rumors" that we'd be replaced by the machines were completely unfounded.
At which point, if I had been gutsy enough to do it, I would have asked, "Then why do it?"
Why are they automating the stations at all? Because they can? To save money? To make our jobs easier? What is the purpose of taking this task that is perfectly able to be done by humans, and instead have it done by computers?

Of course, I kept quiet.

My oldest friend, Jared, called me today. Apparently, he has my cap & gown from when I graduated! I didn't even remember that I had been allowed to keep it, let alone that I still had it. (And, I guess technically, I didn't) He found it stowed away with a lot of his junk from High School. Weird. He'll be giving it back to me in the next couple of days. Yay, I guess.

Hmm. I guess that's all. Man, I need to really work on my conclusions, don't I?

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