The post whore thread.

[BuffCyclist]

That is pretty damn cool! The historical overlays are neat. Ho's back in the day were doing some serious psychedelics to come up with some of that shit.

Yea, those hostronomers were a CRAZY bunch!

With any luck, I'll be moving back to the hardware side of things within the next couple of months. The observing side is nice, where else can you get a full salary and only work 8 days per month? But other than that, the schedule really sucks! We observe 365 days per year, including all holidays. Since there are only 9 observers on my telescope and we need 2 observers per night, you end up working Thanksgiving, Christmas or New Years every single year. I have worked every single Thanksgiving the past 3 years, 2 New Years' and 2 Christmas'. That really sucks to be away from family on those holidays, especially since the weather usually prevents us from opening and we're blizzarded out. Those holidays REALLY suck because you KNOW there is no chance of opening/observing, yet we still have to stay and monitor the instruments and other systems.

[BuffCyclist]

So, in your humble opinion, is Pluto a planet or not?

Haha, YES, it is a planet damnit!!!

For starters, it orbits like our other planets (albeit on a tilted plane, so technically it could be a captured asteroid/whatever). It is smaller than some of Jupiters' moons, but Mercury is also smaller than a few other moons (Ganymede - Jupiter and Titan - Saturn), so if you want to downgrade Pluto's status as a planet, you might as well downgrade Mercury too!

[GilpinGuy]

8 days a month. Damn, hard to beat that but yeah, I hear ya about working holidays. In the casino biz you just have to assume that you're working holidays and weekends. Sucks on the holidays, but I don't miss the weekends much. Having off during the week has it's advantages.

Of course, now I'm off every single day. But I have a few things working. Be back to work soon.

[GilpinGuy]

And Pluto - hell yeah! PLANET

[BuffCyclist]

Yea, that definitely sucks that you're off permanently now! On the plus side, we get 2 months off per year too... So technically I only work 80 nights per year LOL!

We have 1 month off for "Professional Development" where we get a monetary stipend to spend on developing ourselves, be it classes, training, time off for writing papers, etc. We also get 1 month off in July/August (rotates yearly) for summer shutdown where they take the telescope apart to clean it and do preventative maintenance. We do it in July because of the monsoon season. We haven't opened the telescope in the past 5 days because of the rain and high humidity. Tomorrow is the last night before shutdown starts, then it ends on August 23rd, but my next shift doesn't start until 8/30.

I REALLY can't argue with those! Then again, I have already hit the glass ceiling. I will not be able to move up in my position unless I get a Masters or Phd. And doing those part time at 1-2 classes per semester, it would take at least 5-10 years.

[GilpinGuy]

I have a telescope that I haven't busted out in years. I need to get the 8 year old looking at the moon through that. He'll get a kick out of it.

[BuffCyclist]

Back in 10min, time to go get dinner ready.

[GilpinGuy]

I REALLY can't argue with those! Then again, I have already hit the glass ceiling. I will not be able to move up in my position unless I get a Masters or Phd. And doing those part time at 1-2 classes per semester, it would take at least 5-10 years.

<sarcasm> I worked more than 8 days a month in college and had a full 15-17 credit hour schedule! </sarcasm> I get it though. Life gets super complicated. Even with NO job, I can't imagine going through school again. 3 kids, wife, cutting firewood, maintaining a house and the vehicles, fishing, hunting, etc.

[BuffCyclist]

Incredibly frustrating! The sky is mostly clear, the radar returns have moved far away from us, but the humidity is pegged at 97% and the dewpoint differential is at 0.2degC, so as you can imagine, everything outside is wet. So we can't open.

[BuffCyclist]

Haha, I did too in college. I'm currently taking 2 classes a semester, getting another degree (Mech Engr) just for fun and for better job security. I think my heart lies with working with the hardware and instruments than using them to observe lol. And still, it will take me about another 3.5 years to finish only the core classes for the degree.