ranting against !!s in emails.

My boss has ticked me off before throwing exclamation points into an email where I made a minor mistake, forgot to type in a chgrp command to make a set of files accessible outside our group when we load them to the mass storage area.   "Please fix this and make sure it doesn't happen again!"  I wanted to tell him off at the time but I pushed it down and told myself I was being overly sensitive and only mentioned it in the supposedly anonymous survey of his supervisor style I had to do for his "leadership academy class"

Sunday when he was on call he wrote a snarky subject header of "XX needs to be fixed (again!)"  to our partner agency in Taiwan and the issue was not even a repeat on XX,  it had happened on YY a few days earlier and XX had been having off and on issues related to not having sufficient battery power, so thus having partial shut downs and having to wait until the solar panels caught things up to be functioning 100%.  And even if had been a repeat issue on XX, it is not something that happens because the partner agency didn't fix something correctly it is something they have no control over. 

If it was not my boss I would march in their office and tell whomever wrote the email that I think it was unprofessional and don't they think they should pay attention and not throw the !!s into work emails as though they are emailing or texting their teenage kids,  "what if you offended these folks,  and you cc'd their big boss as well with that stupid teeny bopper, EMO, over the top subject header" 

But I'm pretty hesitant to dress him down since he is officially my boss.   I believe his boss still gets these emails, so I should just leave it to him but OTOH I really really have a problem with flinging those damn !!s and have considered that I might inform him he needs to knock it off or I'll resign on the next one if he flings !s at me again over some trivial issue so perhaps I should try to approach the admins and say "perhaps we need a memo about writing professional emails?"   I'd feel like a snitch, but perhaps that is better than having a loose cannon writing emails that piss people off.

  I'm hesitating, wondering if *I* am being the EMO one and putting too much into the damn !!s and no one else in the world would do that, even in an Asian society where "saving face" is very important and I think they have pretty rigid social rules (underling do not ever solve a new problem if they can't clear things with their boss first) and I have chafed about that with them before.  

Redneck approach to snowy driveways.

I guess Kansas got a genuine pretty big snow storm and will get more tonight/tomorrow.    We had some snow and some wind on Sunday.   DIA got 9 inches.   I think we probably got less, maybe 6, its hard to tell when we have the wind as well.  Giggle of the day was listening to the evening news and hearing the them over hype it as a BIG storm, "certainly not #1 but maybe in the top 5"   Maybe in the top 5 of only the last few years LOL.    We may get another couple of inches tomorrow. 


Today Dr Mike was out and floated Sadie's teeth.    He did find a little ulceration on her left cheeks from sharp tooth edge(s).    They were not terribly bad,  I told him "yah, she may be a bit of Princess and the Pea" for discomfort stuff.   

I drove the pickup to work today.   It had been 3 weeks so I ran it to work Friday, then today the car would likely have high centered if I tried to just take it and I have adopted dad's redneck philosophy wrt to snow shoveling/blowing.    If the pickup can get out then there is no reason to mess around with a shovel or trying move snow with the little tractor loader and we don't get enough snow to mess around buying a snow blower.   I ran the pickup back and forth a few times to make a packed snow lane for the cars to go over rather than just a pair of ruts.   With a little bit of melting the Saturn should be fine tomorrow with its studded snow tires. 

Must make bank run

Buying a 40 bag pallet of "hay in a bag"  for AJ tomorrow, to have an extra 2 weeks or so cushion on hay supply vs. if I just fed him the mixed hay we bought last month.     Gal wants cash only.   Can't blame her,  I'm sure lots of people rationalize kiting checks or whatever its called to feed their horses these days.   Between the drought and inflation driven high hay and feed prices and the Democrat economy folks are squeezed awfully tight. 

  I hope I can be wise about putting down my older horses,  and otherwise adjusting so that I can do right if I get into an economic squeeze some day but in the meantime I hate the damn liberal idiots who have put so many people who don't have perfect characters but would have kept doing the right thing if their financial situation had not been ruined by the Oconomy into situations where they dump older dogs at a shelter because they have to move into a rental; or they cheat, steal or slowly starve their horses because they can't afford to buy the needed feed and so on.   

  There are many old sayings about how evil it is to lead people into sinning.   Unfortunately liberals think concepts like guilt and regret are just foolish superstitions + they are willfully ignorant that it is their  actions that have caused the job losses and inflation and so forth.    Useful idiots that forces of evil are using to great advantage these days. 

Decided Sadie needs dentistry before more riding

So much for me really ramping up the hour per week of riding her.   But she has been chewing on her bit off and on for 3-4 weeks now and my initial "oh maybe she's just working to get every last speck of horse candy"  blow it off reaction no longer feels right.

Sunday it was a bit windy although warm enough to still feel fine.  I decided to ride in the paddock though rather than go out though and Ms Sadie was GRUMPY.   I don't ride in the paddocks often and she has been getting grumpier about it.   Sunday I pushed her through a few bits of mild bucking but the clue bat connected and I got off and felt in her mouth and went "Aha,  yes it does feel like there are sharp edges of teeth way back in your jaw that may be irritating your cheeks when you have to bend doing flat work circling in the paddocks."     So cut the ride short, and called the vet's office on Monday to schedule him to come out and float her teeth.    If she is still grumpy after we get her teeth done I'll just have to push her through it with  "You are a riding horse, not a pet, so suck it up and do what I ask of you"  mentality but I want to rule out the sharp teeth first. 

The other reason is that I thought I might have a 2nd rider to join L.   But I thought Razz would be a better mount AND I thought the gal had more riding experience then she does.   So I have ridden Razz a few times and she rode him twice but he spooked and she came off the second time.   Razz was spazzy that day and I thought maybe he was just freaked out by the smell of sheep that had been grazing there a couple weeks earlier so I tried giving him Valerian root twice.   First time it seemed to help quite a bit had given just a modest dose and  I rode him out by himself on a day with a cold front moving in and he still did a couple of small spooks but he was not nearly as goosey as the day C came off and I rode him home.   I thought C was ok but she is having some tingling sensation in her calf --may have a pinched nerve or something,   I feel awful about that.  

But L came out and rode Lady on Saturday so I grabbed Razz giving him what I think was a bigger dose of Valerian root but from some loose powder I bought rather than capsules that I had had on hand the first experiment.   He again was not all spazzy the whole ride but the bugger did spook 3 or 4 times.  

Now I am scared to have anyone ride him although it doesn't take a bronco-busting cowboy to sit his spooks and he can be pulled up after he jumps it does take being able to sit through a spook and I don't want someone coming off again and getting hurt.    I guess Razz will only get ridden if I'm resting all my arabs or dad rides him.    C may come out and ride Lady and possibly she can come out with L and ride CJ a little bit.   I have some reservations about putting folks on CJ but he has been pretty darn good at hunting the last 2 years.  I'm pretty sure he would be good if we hauled out and just did a walking trail ride and I think he'd be OK at home as long as someone stayed back with him.  

 BUT I have to ride him a few times first,   I've had him fairly lean the last couple of years and after he colicked at hunting this fall I upped his hay and grain and have kept his grain up at 4lbs/day to get him and keep him not just back to where he was in October but to having more weight over his ribs so he'll have a little reserve in case of getting sick.    So I definitely need to ride him and make sure he wouldn't be too full of p and vinegar with the extra grain he's getting now.

Rode AJ on Saturday after we went out one Lady and Razz.   I had given him Valerian root too, but did not know that he hadn't eaten his grain (picky bugger, but he did eat it later)   He seemed more relaxed than when I rode him just a few times 3-4 years ago and got a leaser who only came for 5-6 weeks and I was thinking it was the Valerian but I guess it was just age and me thinking "he wont be quite so wound up"     I wouldn't like to sell him at 20, but if someone liked him and wanted to take him on a 'feed' lease for a year or 2 while he remains sound it would simplify our horse keeping during that time.

Aww crud the snow is slowing down already

Hope we at least also get the couple inches of wet stuff that fell in Boulder at home.  Even better would be if we get more but I don't think that will happen.   I don't think its even an upslope type storm.

I rode Sadie yesterday in the paddock.   We'll call it decent training.   It was colder than I had thought it would be and Ole ran off before I had gotten saddled so I scratched any thoughts of riding out down the road.  Rotten dog.   He did make his way home at least. 

Rotten bosses had scheduling issues and decided to have the weekly meeting at the pub to combine lunch and meeting.  Not a bad idea to combine lunch and meeting and I guess it has been a while since they did the lunch out but I was kind of annoyed at having virtually a command pub lunch.  

They could just do a brown bag lunch at the cafeteria and then we could bring in our own lunch and even if we did not it would only cost 1/2 as much.   Not that the $15, would have been $17 but the top boss paid extra, strained my budget, its just the principle of the thing --bosses shouldn't schedule work stuff that forces the rest of us to spend our money in a certain way.

WooHoo,  snow picked back up.   Hope the whole region gets a good shot of soil moisture. 

Going to try to ride Sadie 3-4 times a week

I rode her last friday,  tuesday and today.   I'm going to have to stop skipping on nice mornings.  We'll probably get some winter days in Feb and March.    She was pretty good on Tuesday and I am getting some anticipation back of "she could be a very good horse for me."    She is so balanced/strong.   OMG it makes me grin when she trots down a hill and I'm asking her to keep a slow pace, feeling her back round up and the way she can maintain that bit of collection downhill.    She also doesn't seem to get as rattled as Shade although she still does the green horse stuff.

Today she was less cooperative,   but we did get a ride in.  I was able to keep horse side down, saddle side up and convince her to go pretty much where I wanted.    She just needs more miles so that it becomes automatic that I get to decide where we are going and I will occasionally let her offer input and then sometimes tweak the route based on that input but only when I think it makes sense. 

I rode the young bayrab this morning

She didn't want to stop munching grass out of the ditch and actually do the ride part but it was not too hard to convince her that it was going to happen.   I need to be putting more miles on her, she is about bursting with excess energy but was not bronc-ey about it.   I was a bit up because I wasn't sure if the sheep might be grazing where we would be riding and how she might react if she crested a hill and they were right there.   They were not around though.  

She stepped in wire a couple times.   I like that the sheep have eaten a lot of tall grass that hid holes and things but they have also knocked a lot of wire loose.   I need to do some cleanup.   Both times she was annoyed, kind of hopped her back foot up that had the wire touching it.   Safest would be if she would freeze but she didn't get panicky either time and was fine two steps past getting free of the wire.   I need to get miles on her and exposure her to new things like trailering out for a lesson but I think once she has had some wet saddle blankets she will be a steadier mount than Shade which is good since I'm not getting any younger. 

Yesterday I bought dad some Hank the cowdogs books off ebay for V-day and today I bought some blackberry sage tea from Amazon that he had tried and liked from some back east eatery from his trucking days.   I suppose I should order bro and sis something too but I do hate expansion of shopping with the various commercialized holidays and I don't have any tradition of sending them so much as a card with any regularity so if I forget its no biggie.