Keystone State Thread

Yea I've been enjoying my morning commute home recently. The small town I drive through and my town is pretty much empty. Still hit the only damn stop light in both towns though...

That said, glad my work week is over. Sounds weird, but I'm enjoying my morning beer (don't judge me, got off work at 7am, lol) and kicking back today. Supposed to be warm Friday so after taking the GTI in for inspection I'll be able to clean all the bird shit off my truck.

 

So if you have occasion to get blood work done at one of the independent labs during the 'crisis', pls don't do the following;

- Call first and ask if it is safe to come in, jamming up the phone line
- Throw things at the staff when your doctor's office wrote the script wrong
- Curse and yell "" '' ''
- Curse and yell at the staff when Trump is on the TV when at the window
- All of the above when your insurance declines to pay for the test
- Complain that there is not enough staff at the location ( they know, they would like a lunch break just like the rest of the working world )
- Steal the hand sanitizer from the bath room and the wipes from the waiting room
- Walk in and ask for surgical masks & gloves, accept them when given, and then walk out not ever having an appointment
- Ask the staff to wipe down the chair before you sit to have blood drawn. They are clean people, and clean all surfaces on a regular basis. If they cleaned the chairs that often, they would run out of supplies to keep the site clean.

My wife works for Labcorp, and she is abused & lied to by customers and management on a daily, hourly basis. This 'crisis' isn't helping things.
For the love of God people, just calm down!

Rant over

 

So we've started stockpiling production supplies at work. Just because we fall under the critical infrastructure rules to keep running we can't guarantee our suppliers do.

I'm not sure where we're going to put 60000 boxes but here we are!

 

I looked at my connections for the evap canister. They are covered in left over fluid film and debris. I supposed that could be part of the problem. I'm not going to address it at this point though. I decided that without a smoke machine or knowing how to operate and where to hook it up, i'll start with easy and cheap and go from there. Last night i was going to swap gas caps, but realized i only had one. I was thinking i had a spare on my other bed. I did take the time to clean the filler neck opening, and the rubber o-ring. I did notice some damage to the o-ring. Not dry rot and cracking, but some little tears. I put a thin layer of vaseline on the rubber after reading that in a thread. I figured if nothing else it may condition the rubber a little. I am thinking that may be the cause or leak the system is detecting. Since i split my cap when I was working on the canister, I've decided that replacing just the o-ring on the cap isn't likely to save any time or money. I am going to order a new cap if my CEL comes back on in a day or two. If that doesn't do it, then move onto the filter.

I did notice that the tube closest to the rear of the truck didn't have anything to keep it on the canister. It is just slipped over. Is it possible that after 8 years and 100K miles that it has stretched and is no longer providing a good seal?

The good news is that my job just decided that I don't need to come in until further notice, so I may have time to catch up on yardwork, and tinkering with the truck. Now to just figure out how I'm getting paid. I doubt they are paying out of the goodness of their hearts. So I need to figure out if they are going to try to burn all of my vacation or whether I need to apply for UC. I've never applied for that before, and have no idea how it works. I am under the impression that it doesn't pay 100% of wages though. For anyone in the know, I work 2 jobs and now both are shut down for this. Can I claim for both jobs or only my primary 40 hours/week?

 

We have sent everyone home - with the exception of our maintenance folks who are doing a deep clean and rehab and public safety. Those who have jobs that don't translate to working from home are being given duties that they can do from home from projects we've put off to assisting with reaching out to students to help them complete online. I'm not forcing people to burn sick days or vacation - have told them to use their remaining vacation for the year by taking days off. My going in position that I communicated to my leadership team and my Board was that I will not furlough any of our full-time or regular part-time employees and will continue to pay them through the fiscal year.

 

UC works on the amount of money that is reported to them. You only file once and are paid based on the amount of your reported income up to the maximum amount.

 

Not all employers care about their employees and I feel like that will be what is remembered by this whole deal. I know personally I am paying attention to how local businesses are reacting. The ones helping the community and others will have my business moving forward. My thoughts are this is an opportunity for us all to get back to what really matters, maybe as a society we will look at things differently at the end. Hopefully the lessons learned aren't short lived.

Thanks for the information, much appreciated.

I believe that is waived for the time being.

 

Anyone have some 7.62x39 they want to sell by any chance?

 

The waiting week has been suspended.
https://www.uc.pa.gov/Pages/covid19.aspx

Remember UC is taxable but they don't withhold taxes.

 

Maybe... I dont have an AK but i have some AK ammo

 

I haven't been to the gun store, and no cable. People hoarding ammo now as well? I'm glad i just buy when there are deals, and always keep more than I'll shoot in two years on supply.

This is probably the best advice given yet, and I haven't had one other person even mention it. Do they send a 1099 at the end of the year. Those are the worst!

 

Thank you Guys. I was actually able to order some. Found it after I asked.

 

Tracers...someone is really prepped. I'm just gonna spray and pray at night!

 

We were talking about that today the unsung hero`s who keep the food coming the trucks rolling paper products being made or the electric on When you support the people that keep those places up and running you can`t decide to stay home or at least I can`t

 

That's why I thought it was so stupid that PA closed the rest stops. Look, those guys are literally all that's keeping food on the shelves everywhere. At least give them a place to stop and take a piss or get their 8 hours.

 

I couldn't agree more. That decision was made in haste because the state pays the people that clean them. That simple in my eyes. The problem is decisions are being made without looking at the whole picture or impacts of said decisions. Ultimately, no one knows exactly what we should be doing, so we need to keep that in mind and be flexible. Most of all we need to take care of each other through this. I'm seeing ugly and disturbing trends nationally, but locally it is more of a 9/11 feeling. Local businesses and people making sure that vulnerable populations are being taken care of. Neighbors reaching out to one another. There is some good that can come of this.

 

I had heard they were opening them up to parking and Job Johnnies keeping the buildings locked

I am glad I am not on a job 1000 miles away

 

This is exactly what I told my team the first time we met to begin the discussion of how we would respond. How we treat our employees and our students now will be remembered for a decade. But, we really just need to do it right because that's the right thing to do.