2009-01-11 (Sunday)

[mrbeany]

So my new baby is getting fed every 3 hours, and it is leaving me too tired to work on this week's song.

QotD: What is the strangest schedule you have kept, and how did it negatively impact you?

The strangest schedule I've kept would have been when I was much younger. I was working at a grocery store making donuts. The shift started at 2am. I would frequently take a 2 hour nap before work, then get the majority of my sleep in after my shift ended. This had the odd effect of making my overall schedule the same as those with normal 9-5 jobs, except for roughly switching the hours of sleep and work. It really wasn't all that bad, though I didn't enjoy it enough to do it again.

[mrbeany]

If that QotD doesn't float your boat, you have another option:

QotD2: If you had one super-power, what would it be?

Neither of these is actually the first question I thought of. I decided that question was inappropriate. (If you were a porn site, what sort of content would you provide?)

QotD2: I would like to teleport, as I hate to travel, and I really hate to commute.

[slats]

You're really supposed to emphasize the importance of breast feeding your new baby to your spouse. It's healthier, promotes bonding, and allows dads to sleep during the process overnight.

As for the QotD, I've been a rotating shift worker for over 20 years. I currently work an 11 week rotation that mixes in 12 and 8 hour shifts to add up to 40 hours per. I get seven weekends off out of eleven. I worked a similar schedule with babies, too (unable to get the breast feeding thing to continue for the second one), all while working all the overtime I could eat. I'm hoping to catch up on my sleep when I retire.

Ironically, the worst schedule I work is when I'm temporarily assigned to straight days. I hate my alarm clock. I hate traffic. I hate crowds on the weekends. Sleeping in and heading off to the beach at noon on a Tuesday is the way I roll. 8)

[Rabid Garfunkel]

I'll bite on the unasked question.

partylikeits1899.com
All ankles, all the time. Down-boot shots, "medical" examinations, ankles ankles ankles! I'd even have snakebite shots for the more discriminating anklophiles.

[mrbeany]

You're really supposed to emphasize the importance of breast feeding your new baby to your spouse. It's healthier, promotes bonding, and allows dads to sleep during the process overnight.

We're on a strict 3 hour schedule. I usually get to sleep much of the night, which will make going back to work much easier. Still, things have yet to completely settle in to a workable routine. We have hopes of a routine starting, well, tonight. It is a matter of whether we stick to it, though...

The milk never quite came in due to the blood loss during the C-section. (Nothing major, not even enough to need a transfusion, just enough to mess with milk production.) This means I'm as much a part of things as my wife -- except that she gets to stay home, and I get to escape the routine by going in to work. The plus side is that babies on formula usually only poop once a day, while breastfeeding babies poop a lot more frequently.

Baby Beany is currently on tube feedings. (She breaths a little fast for a bottle right now.) Basically this means:



With the exception that she's a baby and not a kid, and we put the tube in through her nose.

Ironically, the worst schedule I work is when I'm temporarily assigned to straight days. I hate my alarm clock. I hate traffic. I hate crowds on the weekends. Sleeping in and heading off to the beach at noon on a Tuesday is the way I roll. 8)

This is why I love working in the technology sector. I've usually had jobs where I can set my own schedule. If the work day starts at, say 10am, then in most cities that will be late enough to avoid the rush of traffic. I've worked with people that literally worked from noon until 8pm every day except when there were meetings.

I avoid crowds on weekends by going nowhere, and doing nothing. I realized I liked to do this when I lived out in California where there is a lot to do. This was one of the reasons I decided to move back to the Midwest. There's no need to have opportunities to do things when I'm not going to use them. As it is now there are more things happening in my little spot of Indiana than I actually do...

It isn't that I actually do nothing, it is just that I like to make things with my brain. This feels like nothing to people who think that doing something involves going somewhere else.

[signboy]

I think what he's getting at is that he's been taking a load off the wife, and doing the breastfeeding himself
QOTD 0: "I'd be a paper bag over the head" site, as I don't think there's enough of that out there.
QOTD 1: I also did a night shift, at the 7-11. On my days off, I had to be up all night so as not to ruin my sleep pattern. I would sit in the band's practice studio and muck with a pirated copy of sony acid. It was my first experience with computer DAWs, and very twighlight zone-ish in the middle of the night.
QOTD 2: I would choose the power to replicate myself. Then I'd have a band, and we could be Eli and the Elis. After the show, SHAZAM! Roadies!

[fluffy]

1: When I was a student I had a tendency to stay up later and later, and so I'd end up just getting lots of "power naps" during the day and then not going to bed until 5 AM or whatever.

2: Instantly remove peoples' anger. I can think of both benevolent and evil uses of such a power.

Porn: There are two ways to interpret this question. Either, "What kind of porn site would you provide," or "if you were represented by a porn site, what sort of porn site would it be." For the first I'd say hot monotreme-on-monotreme action. Oddly enough, I think that works for the second one too.

[Paco Del Stinko]

I would probably fly as a super power. Not too original, but that'd be swell. My first thought for weird hours was working overnights from 10PM 'til 6AM, but the army had to have that beat. A regular day was 5AM to 5PM, but those were rare. In bed at midnight and up at 3 for guard duty wasn't uncommon, nor were days working 20+ hours. You never knew. The always looking for a place to sleep image of Beetle Baily is right on the money.

[Ross]

Here.

QOTD: I worked for about 12 weeks pouring piss and blood at a medical testing laboratory from midnight to 6 am. At the same time I also worked about 5 days a week part time in a record store.I think the weirdest part was that many days I slept twice 7-11, twice a day. It was pretty weird getting into that rhythm.

[slats]

The milk never quite came in due to the blood loss during the C-section. (Nothing major, not even enough to need a transfusion, just enough to mess with milk production.) This means I'm as much a part of things as my wife -- except that she gets to stay home, and I get to escape the routine by going in to work. The plus side is that babies on formula usually only poop once a day, while breastfeeding babies poop a lot more frequently.

Baby Beany is currently on tube feedings. (She breaths a little fast for a bottle right now.)

I was just being kinda snarky. My current marital status suggests that I'm really not qualified to give marital advice.

I hope everything works out with your Beany Baby and the Mrs. Things sound well in hand. As you've already discovered, C-section babies come out looking much nicer than those so-called natural ones. So right off the bat, that's a plus.

It isn't that I actually do nothing, it is just that I like to make things with my brain. This feels like nothing to people who think that doing something involves going somewhere else.

Wait 'til that baby's a teenager. At this stage of the game, we're not actually doing anything until I'm spending money.

[Billy's Little Trip]

QOTD 0: Scantily dressed cafeteria ladies in hair nets making sangwiches. Ah yeah, pastrami sliced so thin, you can see right through it, piled high on fresh buns, and a slice of cherry pie!

QOTD 1: My toughest schedule was back when the band played 4 or 5 nights a week, plus I had my swimming pool biz during the day. I would sleep about 3 hours a day.

QOTD 2: Invisibility. Oh yes, the things I'd see sneaking around.


Good luck with the baby Mr Beany. That sound tough to do. For me anyway. I get squeamish real easy. But I guess it's different when it's for your baby.

[mrbeany]

I was just being kinda snarky. My current marital status suggests that I'm really not qualified to give marital advice.

I manage to somehow get by. My secret is to try to be nice as frequently as possible, so that when I'm an ass/arse (which will happen eventually) things don't get too carried away. It has been working so far...

I hope everything works out with your Beany Baby and the Mrs. Things sound well in hand. As you've already discovered, C-section babies come out looking much nicer than those so-called natural ones. So right off the bat, that's a plus.

You didn't see my baby when she was born. She arrived a little early. Sure she had a nice round head and all, but... she had translucent skin and fused eyelids, too. (This means you could, in fact, see her eyes under her eyelids.) She didn't have an ounce of fat on her body. Throw in a little golden orange cast from the bellirubin, and a nice deli-style belirubin spot-light... We like to say she looked like a roast chicken.

It isn't that I actually do nothing, it is just that I like to make things with my brain. This feels like nothing to people who think that doing something involves going somewhere else.

Wait 'til that baby's a teenager. At this stage of the game, we're not actually doing anything until I'm spending money.

I'm really hoping that what I'm seeing is a sign that Baby Beany's temperament is like mine. If so, then... We'll just say I was an exceptionally easy to manage teenager. And as a kid I practically disappeared in to my own devices. My only problems as a kid stemmed from the fact that I was part of a largish family and I was incredibly easy to neglect.

I've heard some people consider it a curse to wish that their children's children would be like them. Personally, I'd welcome it. It'll make school a little interesting, as I hated busywork from a very young age, didn't understand why smart kids got more homework, and didn't value letter grades. I was a huge underachiever, but I was fiendishly smart... With the right opportunities, she could succeed at total world domination. (I'm hoping for a little evil genius.) Of course, with the world as it is now, she'll need to save the world before she can really dominate it...

[mrbeany]

QOTD 0: Scantily dressed cafeteria ladies in hair nets making sandwiches. Ah yeah, pastrami sliced so thin, you can see right through it, piled high on fresh buns, and a slice of cherry pie!

I've actually asked that question to some work associates before. I have to say this has to be one of my favorite answers.

I love a nice pastrami sandwich.

Good luck with the baby Mr Beany. That sound tough to do. For me anyway. I get squeamish real easy. But I guess it's different when it's for your baby.

Thanks. It's not all that bad unless she pulls it out. It normally just stays in. I don't really enjoy putting the tube in, but the normal feeding process is really pretty straight-forward.

I've heard of guys being squeamish enough to have problems changing (poopy) diapers. Now that is something that is almost guaranteed to set any relationship on edge. (Unless your partner is really comfortable with you being a day-in day-out ass/arse.)

[fluffy]

I am trying to come up with a suitable Eraserhead reference but am failing miserably, so just pretend I posted a hilarious Eraserhead reference instead of this comment.

[HeuristicsInc]

This is why I love working in the technology sector. I've usually had jobs where I can set my own schedule. If the work day starts at, say 10am, then in most cities that will be late enough to avoid the rush of traffic.

This is what I do, too (software engineer). Except that sometimes people that don't know me well schedule early meetings. Sometimes I tell them I won't go. Heh. But I like to sleep in and I also love doing stuff at 2am.

QOTD 2: I would choose the power to replicate myself. Then I'd have a band, and we could be Eli and the Elis. After the show, SHAZAM! Roadies!

Except that the copies of you would be as lazy as you and refuse to move your stuff (cf Calvin & Hobbes).

Superpowers... the ability to split, to be in two places at once, I could get a lot done and still goof off at the same time. But to experience both things rather than make clones, that's different. But think of it, twice as much time in the day when you wanted it...
-bill

[jast]

QotD 0: I think I'll pass. I can't come up with anything quite as fascinating as the ideas already posted.

QotD 1: back when I was doing the civil service that's required for males to do over here (the alternative is to serve in the army) I had crazy mixed schedules...
I was working in a home for disabled people doing all sorts of stuff: making food, personal hygiene (at least four of the folks there were incapable of taking a shower by themselves or... well, let's not get into that), sometimes cleaning, buying stuff, running general errands etc. I had morning and evening shifts with varying lengths. Each shift typically consisted of a bit of crunch time where I had to do everything at once (the worst part was the morning routine from about 6:05 to 8:00, followed by evening routine). Since the lady writing the schedules didn't always manage to give me the required number of hours per month, she had me planned for really evil shifts in two or three months to make up for that. Here's an excerpt from one of the worse months:

...
Monday: 6-9am, 4-10pm
Tuesday: 6-11:30am
Wednesday: 6-9am, 4-10pm
Thursday: 6-9am, 4-10pm
Friday: 6-11am
Saturday: 2-10pm
Sunday: 2-10pm
Monday: 6-9am, 4-10pm
Tuesday: free! In theory at least. In practice I think I helped set up some celebration that happened later that day but I can't really remember.
Wednesday: 6-9am, 4-10pm (at this point they let me go an hour early because I looked a little exhausted)
Thursday: 6-9am, 4-10pm
Friday: 6am-2pm
Saturday: 7am-2:30pm
Sunday: 7am-2:30pm
Monday: 6-9am, 4-10pm
Tuesday: 6-11:30am

The remaining days were a lot less stressful, at least.

QotD 2: it's not really a superpower because you can actually learn to do it and I'm already working on having it, but it's about influencing people, in ways most people can't influence themselves. Basically an extension of what fluffy mentioned (the ability to instantly take away anger), only with more power in both benevolent and evil uses.

[ujnhunter]

QotD: When my soon to be ex-wife was going to school... I worked at a day job (CAD Manager) from 7:00am-3:00pm and went straight to a night job (Creating/Printing OSHA Signs & Labels) from 3:30pm-1:30am... Fun times I assure you.