Pressure Canner Bleg

So, my dad gave me his old Mirro Matic pressure canner (16qt, model 0406).  After some frustration I finally tracked down the correct gasket for it.  And I downloaded the basic Mirro manual that seems to apply to all their products.

I’m looking for books on pressure canning please!  I have the Ball Book of Home Preserving of course, but is there anything else that you folks can recommend?  I don’t know that I’ll be doing anything hugely fancy, but Hubby and I were talking about canning chicken and bacon and the like….


*@&$?**

My computer was running fine yesterday, no glitches, or new updates, or anything.

I left it on overnight, so that it could run its usual set of scans and the like.

When I got up this morning it was off.  I didn’t think much of it.  Figured Husband had shut it off for some reason, he’s done it a few times.

Except it won’t turn on.

The light on the front turns yellow instead of blue and nothing happens.

I spent a few minutes unplugging and replugging with no success….

Dammit.

We JUST replaced the power supply.  I suppose that could be the problem again, but if it is I’m going to be PISSED.

And of course this had to happen at THE right time of the year when we’re strapped for cash due to several major bills all coming due at once…..

*sigh*


I don’t feel complimented

You know…..it doesn’t reflect well on your company when you, as an Assistant Store Manager and department head, tell a brand new barely hired employee that you hired her specifically because you could tell she’s competent enough to be dropped onto the sales floor with less than one days worth of training and no help.  Especially since I over-heard the HR head tell said ASM, after the FIRST day it happened, that doing that was against company policy.  Yes, it happened again.

And I really do mean “dropped on the sales floor with no help” and one days worth of training.  I “shadowed” on register for less than 4hours and completed less than 6hours of “online training” before being put in a register enclosure with no other trained cashier within hand-waving distance.  Sure, the “supervisor on duty” was “only a phone call away”…..which means that if I need their physical presence at the register its going to take them 5 minutes to get to me…..

I suppose its a compliment, but its one I don’t want or need thank you very much.  She got damn lucky frankly.  Its been 5, almost 6, years since I last ran a register in that kind of environment.  If I wasn’t as computer literate as I am, and as good as I am at learning new systems with no training, she’d have been royally screwed.  I have more than enough experience to recognize the HUGE list of things that could have (and still could) go wrong.

It doesn’t help that the assistant supervisors are not only OK with this whole mess (cause it gets them out of having to run a register due to someone’s stupidity in planning for college kids back to school), but they have no problem berating me when I do or say something that isn’t correct because this company does that differently than the ones I worked for before…..

As of when I left work yesterday I’ve had less than 4hours of “shadowing” time, and barely 8hours of “online training”.  If the same mess happens again today, not only will this job not last over 2-3years like I’d hoped, but it won’t even last 2 weeks!


Active Shooter Policy?

So those of you who read here semi regularly know that I quit my last job back on Dec 31st after telling my previous boss to go to hell.  After spending a few months doing household projects that had been on hold I started looking for a new job, preferably one I could be happy in for more than 2-3years which seems to be my usual limit.  I just started my new job, and unfortunetly I don’t think its going to make it past the 2-3yr mark, but I have to relate this piece of info I picked up yesterday.

This company is a major (nationwide) retailer.  I’m deliberetly not saying who as I had to sign a confidentiality clause and I can’t figure out from reading and re-reading the paperwork if thats supposed to include the following info…..

They have an “Active Shooter Policy/Procedure”.  When I first saw the title I figured it was more of the “hide and plead” type you see everywhere these days. 

Its not. 

It was 3 steps. 

The first is Run: if you can safely get out of the building while not attracting the shooter’s attention DO SO, and take as many c0-workers and customers with you as you can without endangering your own safety.  Call 911.

The second is Hide: if you can’t get out, shut the door to the room you’re in, turn off the lights and lock the door, block the door with something if possible, and if all else fails find something large to hide behind.  Call 911.

The third is Fight: if the shooter happens to find you while you’re running or hiding, FIGHT, and do so with all violence necessary to save your life and the life of others.  If there is more than one if you in the hiding spot, pig-pile the shooter.

*blink*blink*

Damn, someone had a head on their shoulders when they wrote that….


WAAAAAaaaaaaaa!

Untitled-1(screenshot of a local news channel’s weather page)

I couldn’t find what I really wanted to post…..according to both the news-weather guy last night AND this morning there are frost advisories for at least two counties here in central/upstate NY for tonight.  Now neither of them is my county, infact neither of them is next door to my county.  But dammit!  Its barely September!  I’ve hardly gotten anything out of the garden!  I’ve seriously gotten less out of the garden so far this year than I have previous years when I planted far fewer plants!  I don’t want fall yet!