You Know What Really Grinds My Gears? Now with 3x more gears...

[Sr. Mints]

Originally Posted by DoubleF

About 3-4 years ago, I seem to recall that Bear Spray was in the mid $40s range. When was the last time you grabbed some?



Also, how expired is it and is it likely to still spray? To address the likelihood the spray was still OK even due to expiry date, the unlikelihood of using bear spray and saving money from not buying too many of them... some of my friends would basically bring 2/3 cans unexpired and the spare reserve spray as the recently expired one.



I believe they started doing this when they ran into a situation where they couldn't find bear spray to buy and just continued using this method when they started trying to save money and got sick and tired of their main spray and reserve always expiring.

Maybe 2013-14?

Bringing both is the plan, although it's quite tempting to fire it off in the yard or somewhere. I don't know if it would be more satisfying than shooting an expired epipen into an orange or not.

[DoubleF]

Originally Posted by Sr. Mints

Maybe 2013-14?

Bringing both is the plan, although it's quite tempting to fire it off in the yard or somewhere. I don't know if it would be more satisfying than shooting an expired epipen into an orange or not.

It'd be about as satisfying as firing a super soaker through a silly string canister with danger/pain from the fall out...

Highly recommended.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Sr. Mints

Maybe 2013-14?

Bringing both is the plan, although it's quite tempting to fire it off in the yard or somewhere. I don't know if it would be more satisfying than shooting an expired epipen into an orange or not.

It’s worth doing just to understand range blowback and duration. I suspect you will be surprised by how close you will need to let the bear get and how little time it runs for so waiting is very important.

Also do it on a breezy day with a crosswind just to watch how the cloud moves and how it feels when some gets in your lungs.

[DoubleF]

Originally Posted by GGG

It’s worth doing just to understand range blowback and duration. I suspect you will be surprised by how close you will need to let the bear get and how little time it runs for so waiting is very important.

Also do it on a breezy day with a crosswind just to watch how the cloud moves and how it feels when some gets in your lungs.

I watched a demonstration of one in Canmore one summer. I think it was just a pressurized canister with colored water rather than a real can of bear spray.

IIRC, the individual doing the demonstration said that bear spray is a complete last resort because a bear at full speed can make up the firing distance within 2-3 seconds. You're far better off with prevention and avoidance if at all possible. The advice for firing was also to aim at the ground at around 45 degrees first and then whip upwards and outwards at the bear. Agreed on duration. It wasn't long at all.

When you see a pressurized spray like that go all over the place, it makes sense. It's more droplets/mist than aim-able spray after around 8-10 feet. Someone actually commented that it looked about as accurate as aiming a pee stream.

[pseudoreality]

Originally Posted by DoubleF

I watched a demonstration of one in Canmore one summer. I think it was just a pressurized canister with colored water rather than a real can of bear spray.

IIRC, the individual doing the demonstration said that bear spray is a complete last resort because a bear at full speed can make up the firing distance within 2-3 seconds. You're far better off with prevention and avoidance if at all possible. The advice for firing was also to aim at the ground at around 45 degrees first and then whip upwards and outwards at the bear. Agreed on duration. It wasn't long at all.

When you see a pressurized spray like that go all over the place, it makes sense. It's more droplets/mist than aim-able spray after around 8-10 feet. Someone actually commented that it looked about as accurate as aiming a pee stream.

A little over 20 years ago I had some bear training, including the use of shotguns and bear spray. Everyone in the course could handle the 12 gauge no problem, but the bear spray people had problems. It was a calm day at first, but after everyone had a chance to discharge a can, the wind picked up, blew it back, and everyone was bent over hacking up a lung. It was pretty funny. The aim does take some getting used to as it sprays more down than you would think.

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by GGG

It’s worth doing just to understand range blowback and duration. I suspect you will be surprised by how close you will need to let the bear get and how little time it runs for so waiting is very important.

Also do it on a breezy day with a crosswind just to watch how the cloud moves and how it feels when some gets in your lungs.

These are good points. Some people get a false sense of security by carrying bear spray, but if used incorrectly or at the wrong time, it can be dangerous to the user.

Probably the worst story I heard was a girl I used to work with said she went camping with her friends and used bear spray around the perimeter of their camp site thinking it worked the same way insect repellent works, when in fact, bear spray when used in that manner, can actually entice bears and other predators.

[Sliver]

Originally Posted by pseudoreality

A little over 20 years ago I had some bear training, including the use of shotguns and bear spray. Everyone in the course could handle the 12 gauge no problem, but the bear spray people had problems. It was a calm day at first, but after everyone had a chance to discharge a can, the wind picked up, blew it back, and everyone was bent over hacking up a lung. It was pretty funny. The aim does take some getting used to as it sprays more down than you would think.

Based on somebody's suggestion here last year, I bought a can of bear spray that came with an inert can to practice with. Each one of my family members sprayed it a bit to get used to it. That #### shoots far.

When I hike I use bear bangers and carry bear spray. Usually pop off a couple bear bangers as we hike just to keep things moving away from us.

[FurnaceFace]

We were in Banff back a couple summers ago for a hike, MIL wanted to go to Banff Springs for tea. After we were done I picked up my backpack banged the side of it against the table and heard this super short sound. A second later we started to cough a bit. I realized what happened and quickly walked out. I had a bear spray can in the side pocket of my backpack like where a water bottle would go. It appears the orange plastic safety had fallen off and when I picked up my backpack I “lucked out” and it barely tapped the trigger on the bottom of the table sending a half second shot out. I left quickly just to make sure it didn’t recharge more. It thankfully wasn’t super busy and thankfully the canister didn’t fire more or I’d have cleared the tea room.

[activeStick]

Another one related to meetings are people who habitually go over the allotted time. If it's for 30 min, assume that people need to go to another meeting. Don't just go over the time CONSISTENTLY. Have respect for people's schedules

[activeStick]

Originally Posted by djsFlames

Yup. When you've tried your entire life to be that "early riser" that's traditionally highly regarded but its just not you, eventually you have to say #### it. And no longer care to bend yourself into a type that you're clearly not.

Don't know about others, but I need really high quality, uninterrupted sleep to not feel totally doped out and not myself early in the morning. That's achieved only some of the time.

Work should not have to be such a struggle physiologically, and you want to be in a state where you can offer your best work and self.

My conclusion has been that there has to be a good handful of jobs out there that meet my time window where I can be useful. And there usually are.

If you're a nocturnal person that functions best in the second half of the day then all the power to you man. Some of us are just different.

Long mornings mean a lull in energy at 2-3 pm anyways. What's the point. Start your work day at 10-11 and be able to kick ass till the evening hours

Imo it's something we should normalize!

But then you'll have people who need to duck out at 4:30 to pick up kids, etc

[GGG]

Originally Posted by activeStick

Another one related to meetings are people who habitually go over the allotted time. If it's for 30 min, assume that people need to go to another meeting. Don't just go over the time CONSISTENTLY. Have respect for people's schedules

So this is a tricky one. An aggressive half hour meeting that runs 35 minutes is better than a 1 hour meeting.

The key I think would be to make booking meetings more time consuming. There should be a significant cost to invite people to a meeting.

[bizaro86]

We booked tickets months ago to visit my wife's best friend and her family in Toronto. Some sort of price war, and the tickets were $125 per person round trip. Two days before the trip they all test positive and are isolating, so we cancelled. Can't move the tickets, so it looks like the credits from cancelling our 4 tickets will cover 1 ticket when we rebook to try again in the fall.

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by activeStick

But then you'll have people who need to duck out at 4:30 to pick up kids, etc

That's the advantage of being a late riser. We have a guy in our office that doesn't come to work until 9:00 a.m. because he says he's not a morning person. He still ducks out early at times for appointments, etc. like people that start between 6:00 - 8:00 but the big bonus for him is that since he's last to arrive he he can leave shortly after the 8:00 crowd so he essentially works 4-5 less hours per week than everyone else.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

That's the advantage of being a late riser. We have a guy in our office that doesn't come to work until 9:00 a.m. because he says he's not a morning person. He still ducks out early at times for appointments, etc. like people that start between 6:00 - 8:00 but the big bonus for him is that since he's last to arrive he he can leave shortly after the 8:00 crowd so he essentially works 4-5 less hours per week than everyone else.

Just like the liars in the morning showing up at 7:45.

[Cecil Terwilliger]

I start work at 630-7 every day. There’s nothing more satisfying than going home 2 hours earlier than everyone else and still having my full afternoon ahead of me. Especially when it’s summer and I’m going golfing or to the beach. Have fun working until 530 suckers!

[Macman]

I’ve had jobs that start at 8 and the day just seems to drag and be much longer as opposed to starting at 7 when things just go smoother. Much better for me as well to leave at 4-4:30 rather than later.
Also leaves for better flex time if you have to step out for an appointment or longer lunches.

[ResAlien]

It’s been my experience that the people who want to show up an hour or two before everyone else are pretty much the same thing as the late risers. That first hour, hour and a half of mostly solitary unsupervised time is spent dinking around.

I don’t blame ya, it’s good work if you can get it. Personally I’d rather not wake up at 5am to start my day but maybe I’m the silly one.

[Nyah]

Originally Posted by Cecil Terwilliger

I start work at 630-7 every day. There’s nothing more satisfying than going home 2 hours earlier than everyone else and still having my full afternoon ahead of me. Especially when it’s summer and I’m going golfing or to the beach. Have fun working until 530 suckers!

For me it's all about the commute. I work 6:30-3:00 and it's ideal. I really love getting into the office early and being able to leave before traffic becomes a nightmare. I'm usually home no later than 3:30 so I still have a lot of day left for myself.

I figure if I lived closer to downtown I'd probably adopt more of a 7:30-4 schedule to get a bit more sleep in the morning, but living in the deep SE that extra sleep just isn't worth the commute I'd be facing every day.

[Hemi-Cuda]

Having to go to a hospital or UC is absolutely horrible right now. I was pretty sure I had a small abcess under my armpit, but I didn't go to get it checked out right away because every medical center in the province is an absolute gongshow right now, and I was hoping it would clear up by itself. It didn't, got worse, so I finally bit the bullet and went to the Airdrie UC yesterday. Got there at 10am, waited about 2 hours to see a doctor, they put me on an antibiotic IV and then sent me to a diagnostic clinic to get an ultrasound done on it. Waited another hour there for the appointment, went back to urgent care to review the results, only to find out I had to go back in line again, which of course was way longer. Waited an hour in line to get triaged again, then 2.5 hours more to see another doctor. First thing he said was "Why do you have an IV in your arm? You should have gotten oral antibiotics". Well great, it's not like having a needle stuck in my arm and wrapped up in gauze for the last few hours wasn't an inconvience or anything. Then he says he'll be right back to apply a numbing cream to the area and they can make a small incision to drain it. An hour later he reappears and asks "So is the numbing cream working?" to which I reply "What cream? No one came by since your last visit", which caused him to rant a bit about some new AHS system they implemented that's causing grief. So instead of making a cut right away he goes to grab an ultrasound machine to see where exactly he should cut, which made me wonder why I had to go to a seperate facility for an ultrasound earlier if they had one there. After the 2nd ultrasound the doctor says it's not one big abcess but a cluster of small ones, so he can't make an incision to drain it all

So after over 10 hours, most of it waiting in purgatory, all I end up with is a prescription for more anti-biotics, which I probably could have gotten from the local walk-in clinic in under an hour. What a complete waste of a day

[Sliver]

Originally Posted by Hemi-Cuda

Having to go to a hospital or UC is absolutely horrible right now. I was pretty sure I had a small abcess under my armpit, but I didn't go to get it checked out right away because every medical center in the province is an absolute gongshow right now, and I was hoping it would clear up by itself. It didn't, got worse, so I finally bit the bullet and went to the Airdrie UC yesterday. Got there at 10am, waited about 2 hours to see a doctor, they put me on an antibiotic IV and then sent me to a diagnostic clinic to get an ultrasound done on it. Waited another hour there for the appointment, went back to urgent care to review the results, only to find out I had to go back in line again, which of course was way longer. Waited an hour in line to get triaged again, then 2.5 hours more to see another doctor. First thing he said was "Why do you have an IV in your arm? You should have gotten oral antibiotics". Well great, it's not like having a needle stuck in my arm and wrapped up in gauze for the last few hours wasn't an inconvience or anything. Then he says he'll be right back to apply a numbing cream to the area and they can make a small incision to drain it. An hour later he reappears and asks "So is the numbing cream working?" to which I reply "What cream? No one came by since your last visit", which caused him to rant a bit about some new AHS system they implemented that's causing grief. So instead of making a cut right away he goes to grab an ultrasound machine to see where exactly he should cut, which made me wonder why I had to go to a seperate facility for an ultrasound earlier if they had one there. After the 2nd ultrasound the doctor says it's not one big abcess but a cluster of small ones, so he can't make an incision to drain it all

So after over 10 hours, most of it waiting in purgatory, all I end up with is a prescription for more anti-biotics, which I probably could have gotten from the local walk-in clinic in under an hour. What a complete waste of a day

Not to be a dick and I could be wrong, but was that really an urgent care situation? It seems like that's what your family doctor is for...especially since it was you that didn't get it checked out promptly. What was the logic in going to UC?

When I read your post, I couldn't help but think your situation is the type of situation they're begging and pleading people to not go to urgent care over.