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DharmaSurfing: One down, one to go…

 

Scratch this one.  I forgot completely about a key matter affecting the logistics related to today’s job interview and probable job location.

 

Sugar beets.

 

I experienced the near-worst-case scenario for the commute to and from the Gal Friday job.  The commute is 45 miles at a minimum on this two-lane state road (possibly longer than 45 miles since the placement company refuses to name the employer or disclose the location).  The commute meanders through the heart of the state of Michigan, quite literally; there are six small towns through which I’d have to drive each day, with speed limits of 55 mph between each burg and as low as 25 mph in the middle of each town.  There is no highway to by-pass these towns. 

 

Friends who’ve traveled this stretch from time to time told me this was a 40-minute drive.

 

Yeah, late in the evening mid-summer, when the only thing slowing you down are bugs on the windshield.

 

Certainly not in autumn during the height of sugar beet harvest.

 

There is a sugar beet processing facility half-way between my home and the anticipated work location.  This means for the next month and a half, depending on weather conditions, there will be large trucks, single and double-dump trucks carrying 15,000 to 40,000 pounds each of sugar beets, lumbering along at speeds up to 40 miles per hour.

 

If you’ve never had the pleasure of seeing them, sugar beets look like large clods of dirt or manure, about the size of child’s head.  They weigh between 2 to 6 pounds each; when they fall off the back of a truck onto the road, you’d be wise dodge the falling mass if at all possible.  When the roads are wet, the trucks slow down more and the pavement is usually quite slick from the cloying dirt the trucks drop along the way.

 

It’s sugar beet season here.  I followed beet trucks along the road, taking an hour and a half to travel this 45 mile stretch.  The commute was exacerbated by construction through two of the small towns; the entire length of one town was ripped up, with traffic slowed to a crawl.  At the other stretch of construction I waited 15 minutes to cross a bridge which was closed down to one lane.

 

I can’t begin to imagine what this would be like at rush hour.

 

I can’t begin to imagine how bad this road is during the winter.  It was pretty damned bad now.

 

I'd go through this again come spring, with the large slow-moving farm implements moving into and out of the fields, shedding soft, slippery clay soil on wet roads.

 

Worse, I’d have to drop my kids off somewhere more than an hour before school started; I have no clue how to make that work.  And I’d have to pick them up later than six each evening – this excludes the after-school program since it only runs to six each week night.

 

Agh, I can’t even begin to think what it would be like to get a call from the school saying one of the kids was sick, could I come and pick them up NOW…

 

I showed up, blew through the application and questions, told them this wasn’t going to work.  Especially since they couldn’t disclose salary, either.

 

I really felt like depositing a freshly harvested sugar beet or two on their desk.

 

  7:35:22 PM    comment []

Ý

 

WARNING: SLOWISH BLOGGING TODAY

 

A sick kid here at home, parents stopping in and out, and an interview on my schedule this morning mean that I’m going to be quite busy.

 

Sure hope you’ll keep me posted on developments with the CIA/Valerie Plame story!

 

I should be back this afternoon to fill you in about the interview.  Oh joy.

 

  9:29:57 AM    comment []

U

 

Build-A-Meme Project:  Status Report: Project Frog-walk

 

Both Rob Salkowitz at Emphasis Added and Kriselda at differentstrings.info are all over this developing story this morning.  You need it, they’ve got it, short and sweet with link-rich posts.

 

If you’ve got a lot more time on your hands, be sure to check in at DailyKos, Atrios at Eschaton, and Talking Points Memo.  But be prepared to be there awhile.  Yesterday’s post at DailyKos was well over 364 comments deep when I checked it early evening; you can get lost in that kind of crush.

 

Never fear -- there’s a new thread started for the Frog-walk project at the Freedom 2004 website.  Feel free to share your efforts, add your two-cents, read along with team members as the action moves along.  Hope to see you there!

 

By the way, I’m sure some of you are wondering why the use of Frog-walk for this project instead of Frog-march.  Yes, that’s what Joe Wilson said, “frog-march”, but tracking this phrase will be quite difficult with the amount of press working on this story.  It will be easier for us to track our efforts at the index sites and Google if we use Frog-walk.

 

Besides, I have a feeling that at some point somebody will “fall on their sword” and walk out the front door of the Administration before allowing themselves to be marched out the side door.  Or at least you’d think the Administration would be smart enough to encourage the culprits to frog-walk under their own power than under forcible Justice Department escort…

 

Which leaves me wondering along with countless others: 1) Does Ashcroft do the right thing or does he squelch this?  2) Who are the unnamed official(s) guilty of leaking a covert operative’s name?

 

  9:25:12 AM    comment []