Been gone a while

Sort of. I’ve been home, had access either hard-wired or wirelessly to the ‘net pretty much continuously but I haven’t read much or written anything. I have no idea why.

Our district manager came in last week to walk with the managers at my level. Normally he walks with the Facility or Senior Managers, but there were some things he noticed in an episode at another store (not one of his own) that he judged to be a sign of an appalling lack of training of the management teams in that district and wanted to be sure he was not failing, through some oversight, to develop his own people. Apparently I outdid myself, and am now considered promotable again. I really wish they’d make up their minds. At the urging of my Facility Manager and one of the Senior Managers I’ve put in for a Senior Manager opening at a store south of mine in the same district. I’ve worked for that Facility Manager before, when he was a Senior Manager, and he’s a good man, but the store is a bit of a mess, physically and financially. I’m not sure it’d be a good move career-wise, but I haven’t even gotten an interview yet so we’ll see.

The final season of Eureka has started airing, and it looks like they are going to go out with a bang. Good for them.

There was a bear incident at the house two nights ago. Sucker woke me up flinging trash cans around the neighbor’s driveway like the Hulk on a rampage, then came around to my front porch and knocked my plants off the railings and onto the porch. I turned on all the outside lights and re-loaded the shotgun and still didn’t get much more sleep that night. I have a friend who has also had bear issues lately: trash cans scattered, cars mauled, nose and paw-prints on her front door (which is basically a window on hinges) and the DNR has said there’s not much they can do. Either it’ll move on by itself or if it breaks the glass she and her husband can shoot it. Trouble is her husband has been working nights lately and the ancient Mosin-Nagant they own is a) too much gun for her to handle and b) has a bolt that is too stiff for her to reliably operate under stress. Also, the 7.62 mm round it fires is way too hot a round to use if there are other houses downrange of the bear if she misses on her one and only shot.

The upshot of all that is I’ve dumped the anti-intruder/turkey loads from my shotgun and bought a box of 3" shells with 00 buckshot in them, should I need to use it. I’ve checked and most sites recommend either 00 or 000 buckshot (or slugs if your shotgun can fire them) for bears. I don’t want to shoot it, but I will if I have to. Ammuntiontogo.com sells flash-bang rounds for 12ga shotguns, I might buy a box of those as a less-than-lethal alternative, but they’d be useless as a deterrent if it got in the house.