Am I Missing Something?

As is my usual morning routine, I was watching CP24 and eating my bowl of Oatmeal Crisp (it's not oatmeal!) when the news scroll flips over this: "Transgender woman sues LPGA for right to play".

I did what I usually do...I Googled.  Here's the story...

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Transgender Woman Sues LPGA for Right to Play

Published October 14, 2010 | FoxNews.com

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Lana Lawless, a transgender woman who underwent a sex change five years ago, is suing the LPGA over their refusal to allow her into the league. 

The LGPA's "female at birth," requirement violates a California civil rights law, according to Lawless. The 57-year-old retired police officer is also suing three LPGA sponsors and the Long Drivers of America, which holds the annual women's long-drive competition. 

Lawless participated and won the event in 2008 with a 254-yard drive, but the organization has since changed its rules to model the LPGA's. "I am by all respects, legally and physically female," she said in a statement Wednesday. 

"The state of California recognizes me as such, and the LPGA should not be permitted to come into California and blatantly violate my rights. I just want to have the same opportunity to play professional golf as any other woman." 

Organizations such as the International Olympic Committee, the Ladies Golf Union in Britain, the Ladies European Golf Tour and the United States Golf Association do allow transgender athletes to compete. 

On its website, USGA states, "In the event that a player has had gender reassignment surgery at any point after puberty, that player must provide certain documentation to the USGA in accordance with the procedures set forth below." 

Lawless wants the LPGA to change its policies to admit transgender players before play resumes in the state of California. "Transgender is at the forefront of civil rights," said Christopher Dolan, Lawless' attorney. "Transgender people have been pushed into the dark for too long." 

The LPGA's CVS/pharmacy Challenge began in Danville today. 

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

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Hmmmm

So it gets me thinking...

She was born a he...and professional athletics are divided by gender.  Now as a female who was relatively athletic a hundred years ago, I have never taken offense to the division.  In my limited experience,  men are, generally speaking,  bigger, stronger and faster than women...it's only fair to the athletes to measure their physical skill and strength by gender.   

Track and Field measures the skills, strength and speed of individuals.  Just for a quick comparison, Canada's Donovan Bailey still holds the record for 50m sprint with a time of 5.56 (held since 1996...yay for Canada and our friend Donovan!)  The woman holding the record since 1995 for the same 50m sprint is Irina Privalova from Russia, and her time was 5.96.  Here's a link if you are curious http://www.trackandfieldnews.com/records/  Go ahead and do the comparison...the men are consistently faster, jump higher and further and throw things further.  If these are indeed the best of the best, then I'd say it's a reasonable source to back me up.  Right?

I know there are exceptions as always...but if we removed the gender division in physical competition, would it be fair to the women?  I don't think so.  

So if a man has surgery to become a woman, should he be able to compete against women?

I'm fairly certain its not the reproductive system that makes the difference in athletics.  In fact, I'm quite confident its the muscular system.

So she's ticked off that she can't play in the women's league.  Maybe that's because she should be competing, in all fairness, against the men.

So am I missing something?

Monday in Paradise

I brought cake. 


I'm not sure what's up with me, but lately I'm a regular Betty friggin Crocker.  The problem with the baking is the eating that inevitably follows.  Which is primarily why I came up with my original weight loss plan:


Feed everyone at work endless amounts of sweets, fatten them up...thereby making myself feel smaller.


It's an awesome theory.  I should publish this ..  It's got to be at least as good as stuffing 20 pounds of bacon down my throat everyday.  Right?  


No huh?  hmpft...well I tried!


Either way...I'm baking a lot lately, and the kids at work are okay with this...since I just bring it in for them to eat.  Which is how today started.


Cake placed in makeshift kitchen, I returned to my hovel, tucked my jeans into my socks, slipped on my work boots...threw on my stylin fluorescent orange safety melon, the hip hop happenin' goggles... and stepped outside for my morning stroll through paradise.  

How's that for a run-on sentence?

Mud.  Lovely squishy mud.  Slippery, splashing up the back of my legs, beautiful baby poop brown, mud.

And I love it.  Beats the hell out of pantyhose and heels boyz and girlz!  Well...on a regular basis anyways.  There are days when I miss looking like a girl...but at least I'm comfortable.

So I walked the ozone...the filter gallery...chatted with young QA dude who described problems associated with testing the big spool of pipe..won't bore you with it..  Nothing much to see outside, so I tramped back through the muck and headed for the plant.  Checked out a couple of places I knew they had planned on working last week...didn't see anyone though.  yawn.

So I was back at my desk fairly quickly...

Buddy was buggin my Work Sista about some friggin CD labels he wanted her to get for some project he was working on.  I keep forgetting how our ovaries make us beatches to some dudes.  I told him if he asked me I would have thrown him a marker.  Cuz that's how I roll.  Doitchaself arsepick!  Hard to believe that the mentality really hasn't changed ..  Women have come a long long way in the workplace, but there is always the underlying bowshit that we can't seem to shake.

I don't take it personally anymore, but it sure gets old fast.  Really, if I've learned anything, the only way to handle it is with a light hearted reminder that you just don't have to take that shit from the knuckledraggers... No sense in getting all upset..that only feeds the fire.  So I joke about it and forget about it...  meh..

I repeated my walk over to the plant in the afternoon and at least got to have a decent convo with the foreman there.  Ma brotha.  :)  And it was back to the desk shortly thereafter.

As always, the kids cleaned up every last crumb of the cake.  My ass is most grateful.

Hmm.. maybe with all this walkin, I'll walk away from the extra 15 pounds that's grown so fond of my exterior parts.  Hurray for me...a little bonus!  I can be a big loser too!

Just you leave that alone...I knowed whatcher thinkin!!

The New Role

This is what I love about my job....it's always changing :)

Basically, I'm a piping estimator.  Recently it was pointed out to me, by a guy, this doesn't sound very...uhmmmm...ladylike. 

Sigh...

So just to clarify...I'm not looking at crotches and feet and guessing who's hung to where...  I look at drawings of mechanical systems - gas lines, water lines...pipe..I measure the lengths, count the fittings..consider the job from set up to clean up and take a wild stab at cost.  And yeah...I'm used to the jokes, and may have participated in the crude humour once or twice.  Hard not to.  You try taking off (and that's actually an estimating term, perv) fittings...nipples, male adaptors, female adaptors, plugs, valves...you get the picture.  I didn't name the stuff, I just take it off. 

See you just can't talk about this shit without grinning.

So that's what I do when I'm not on a jobsite...I go back to head office and estimate PIPE until a new job is ready to go.

Then I go to site.

The gig I'm on is a sweet deal...but truth be told..am bored to tears after a year of document control.  Paper shuffling with flare.  yawnsville.

BUT...my job is changing.

Sometimes it's a good thing having 2 speeds...and so when I go... I git r dun..and now all the submittals and RFI's are up to date..the asbuilts are complete to date..and apparently that's not a normal thing.  So I've either completely fucked everything up (which would take a frontal lobotamy...possible, considering the amount of time I've been drunk since on this job)...or the other individuals who've done this job in the past are maybe a smidgeon slow....  Either way, and who cares anyway...I'm sitting here with next to nothing to do.  Not a good plan.  I tend to get up to no good when I have nothing to keep me otherwise occupied.    The bad side of having 2 speeds.

So I'm begging for work and the Project Manager has passed me RFQ's and odd things.  Done and Done.

****yawn*****

Low and behold...one the mechanical coordinators is moving on to greener pastures..and I have new responsibility.

Tracking pipe.

Go ahead and giggle...

This means I'm going out into the field and tracking the work as it's completed.  Very cool.

But it's cold outside.  -5 plus wind factor...brrrrrr....   The kind of cold that Cupcake and Clan would consider T-shirt weather, but for those of us here in the Canayjun Suhth...it's fucking miserable cold. 

So yesterday I went to Mark's Work Warehouse and bought some woolies.  :)  I like my new socks the best.

And soon, I'll be headed out into the field...trudging through mud, over ice...into the plant, out of the plant...  Maybe I should leave a bread trail.  Meh...

So at this point, I'm going to ask you to stay tuned as I put you on pause....and I'll return with story of my first Pipe Tracking Adventure.....

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......skidding into room in socked feet.....clad fashionably in long underwear and sporting most disheveled ponytail worn to date.....  I'm baaack!!!  Oh don't panic...I'm not at work looking like this, I'm at home!  Sheesh!

So....

Did you miss me?

Thought so!

Went on fantastic walk of job site!  Jolly Giant is the man who's leaving behind this little piece of heaven in search of greener pastures (as if!)...and twas he who is showing me the ropes...or, in this case, the pipes.

Jolly Giant really is a giant of a man.  The safety melon always adds a couple of inches, and with us all bundled in warm winter outerwear, we all appear slightly Michelin Man...but this man towers above me.  I am certain in fact, that if he so chose, he could place one meat-hook on my head and just pick me up.  Jolly Giant is as it implies however..he's a lovely happy Giant originally from the UK...not far from where me mum growed up.

I tucked my jeans into my fabulous new socks and laced up my winter work boots (as opposed to the summer ones which have no lining).  My winter boots have been worn exactly once since I bought them 2 years ago, so gifted am I at avoiding cold weather walks..till now...  I zipped up my coat, threw on the charming fluorescent orange dickie, my winter hat under my hard hat...safety goggles and gloves.

I knew for the first time exactly how my poor children felt stuffed into their snow suits so fat their arms no longer touch their sides....meh....

Off we trudged through the couple centimeters of snow that barely covered the mud.  Jolly Giant pointed out the spools of pipe installed and the corresponding ISO's, marked off showing progress.  I tried to ignore the men on site that actually stopped work to stare.  Barfaroni.  Jolly Giant thought it amusing.

We made our way across makeshift bridges and down temporary ladders...carefully maneuvered down sloped and winding little pathways.  Jolly Giant slipped and tripped enough to let me know that he was not a good choice for balance or support should I lose my footing.  Graceful lad he is.  We were making our way towards a good vantage point for one of the systems as one of the three overhead cranes began to move.  (Here's a picture of the job site to help you visualize this paradise we call home away from home).

The civil sub was pouring concrete through a hose that was rigged to the crane, so as to reach the high point of the formed column.  As the crane swung around, bits of concrete splattered all over the ground, so close to Jolly Giant and I that even my face was sprayed.  Attractive.  When the coast was clear, Jolly Giant grabbed my shoulder with one oversized mitt and tucked me under his arm (I mean literally..my head was under his arm) then yanked me up a little hill so he could show me the pipe system we were tracking...then we continued our journey.

Dudes I saw pipe I could walk inside of and would have to stretch to be able to touch the top.  Way kewl!!  Remember Tim from Home Improvements? Aaahhhhhhrrrrrr?  ooooohhhhrrrrr....   uhrrrrr uhrrrrrr uhrrrrrr

Y'all did that out loud didn't you?   heh heh heh

I have a lot of prep work to do yet...I've walked the job, seen the systems (knowing I won't remember diddly shit), now I need to go back and match the ISO's to the plans and walk the walk again.  I'll get it though...no worries.

That right there's some fun stuff lemme tell yeh...

And once again I count my blessings...this is a sweet gig...I am in the best business!!

I dooo luv ma job!