I Wasn't Prepared for This! (story) and more! · 1:30am Dec 6th, 2015
This is a two-parter, so bear in mind. We've got a story update here, a re-titling, and a status update.
Did I say two parts? I meant three.
I'll put the story update first, why not? That way those of you who only follow me for my literary genius can skip ahead.
I Wasn't Prepared for This!
Is a new chapter of Not Another Pony in Equestria. I actually wrote almost all of it way back in July. You see, Present Perfect had written the shortest shipfic, and I wanted to beat his wordcount, but obviously you can't publish a story on its own with fewer than fifteen words, and so I needed a companion story (or two) to go with it, and had actually written all of this one and was planning a second when I suddenly remembered I had a catchall story for shortfics like this, and the rest is history.
There's really not a whole lot to say here.
Real birds moult; they don't lose all their flight feathers at once because that would be evolutionarily idiotic. A flightless bird is just a snack for some hungry carnivore.
From the Wiki*
I'm such a jerk
As for estrus . . . well, despite all the 'heat' fics I've heard are on this site, real equines are seasonally polyestrus. That means that for about two thirds of the year, they're just like us; unlike humans, though, they get a few months off during the winter. You can read more about it here (Wikipedia's considered SFW, hopefully).
Winter coats . . . that's another thing I don't often see brought up. Real equines get shaggy in the winter, to help keep them warm. Lots of animals do, in fact. Even humans—based on Facebook research over the last month, I can say that men grow beards during November, in preparation for winter.
In all seriousness, though, real horses do. To the ponies, who presumably put some value on appearance if Rarity is any guide, this presents a problem: do you remain pragmatic and keep your winter coat, or do you make extra trips to the spa and make up for the lack of a coat with stylish fashion accessories?
I think it's fair to say that different ponies would all have different answers to this question.
Source
Finally, you're probably wondering why I used the British spelling in the title. Y'all know I'm not from England; in fact, some of my relatives fought off the British, both in the Revolutionary War and in the War of 1812, in order that we could spell things without 'u's. That, and we didn't like tea.
Sometimes, I think the British spelling is better. It feels more in-character with the setting, which is why (despite the advice of my pre-readers) the plow in Apple Honey's shop had mouldboards, and why the ponies sometimes wear shoes with caulks.
So just above, I mentioned both Liquid Diplomacy and Not Another Pony in Equestria. Those of you who have been following me for more than a couple of weeks might have noticed that I used to have a story titled Not Another Pony in Equestria, and that I re-named it.
Long story short, Liquid Diplomacy is being re-named as of this blog post. Henceforth, it'll be called Not Another Pony in Equestria, thus keeping up the theme with Not Another Pony on Earth, Not Another Human in Equestria, and the soon (eventually) to be released Not Another Equestria Girls Fic.
I suppose if you want a longer explanation of why stuff got called what it did, you can ask in the comments and I'll retcon it in, but I'm not sure anyone actually wants or needs to know how my mind works.
ASE tests!
(I'm at the gold patch)
Source
That's right, I finally collected them all.
Well, no, not really. There are a boatload of ASE certifications, and I'm not qualified to earn many of them.
I've already touched on this in an earlier post, but what makes ASE different than some other professional certifications is that you actually have to have experience before you can get the cert—you can pass the test, but no practical experience = no certificate. So I can't earn the School Bus certificate, nor any of the Heavy Duty Truck certificates, and so on.
For general auto mechanics, though, there's the big eight, and when you get them, you're considered an ASE Master Mechanic. Once upon a time, I had them all, then they lapsed (this is another place where they're different than some professional certifications—you have to retake the tests every five years to prove that you still know what's what). There's also L1, which is an upgrade I hope to get in the future, but right now I'm tested out.
There was no reason for me to keep them current.
My job didn't require them, nor did I get any job-related benefit for having them. My boss wasn't going to give me a raise if I had some or all, and it was money and time out of my own pocket to take them. So I didn't.
Now that we're changing to a NAPA store from a TechNet store, though, they mattered again. The way I understand the rules, at least one tech is supposed to be ASE certified, and while there are probably ways around that, I decided that that was enough impetus that I'd give the tests a go again. After all, there were times I felt guilty that my work uniforms still have ASE patches on the shoulder, even though they were technically invalid.
So over the last five weekends, I went up to Lansing, and took one to three recert tests at a time. Some of them weren't really in my area of expertise—we don't do engine rebuilding, so I barely passed that test, and we don't do internal transmission repair, so there was a lot of guesswork on those questions, too. It was good enough; I now have a valid ASE Master Mechanic certification again. And in six to eight weeks, I'll have a certificate suitable for framing proclaiming it's so to the whole wide world. Or anyone who stops in the shop, at least.
Again, in my current job situation, it doesn't matter. The only promotion I could get is 'owner,' and I probably won't get a pay raise, either.
But, there's the matter of pride. You can't put a price on that.
(Actually, you can—it was $176.00)
Besides, if I plan to move to a different job, those certifications will matter.
I probably could have done this whole third section in the earlier blog post, but I was sitting at a bar drinking a pint of Guinness, and my phone isn't all that great when it comes to long, rambling blog posts.
Finally! The last part of this three four-part blog!
When I got done with the tests and the pub, I stopped by MSU's horse research center. I like to go there sometimes and just watch the semi-feral horses, observe their behavior, and so on.
I got there around noon, so a bunch of them were on the ground, sleeping (that's right, horses are basically nocturnal). I tried to get the attention of a draft horse who was in his own pasture, but he ignored me completely, so I went instead to a pasture where yearlings were kept. Two of them were brave enough to come up to me; a black one took the lead, while her colt friend stayed behind. It was interesting watching their thought process as they tried to decide what I was.
The black one with the blaze is the curious filly, the brown one is the colt, and the grey one is the second filly. At this point, they've mostly lost interest in me.
The filly finally decided to give my hand a sniff, then sort of nibbled on it a bit. She kept kind of leaning forward, like she wasn't really sure what to make of me. The colt let her stay between me and him; I think he wasn't real sure if it was safe or not, and wanted to keep his distance, just in case.
Eventually, a third came over, and she (I assume) also was curious enough to sniff my hand, but she never got closer than about eight inches. After a little bit, the three decided that I wasn't a threat and i didn't have food, so they lost interest and went back to grazing.
Hey. I've used shedding in the spring in one of my fics. Diplomat's Daughter.
Also, I wonder why MLP ponies don't ever seem to have a blaze on their forehead where so many horses do? (like your last pic)
I feel the same way with metre.
3596162 Eh, there was at least one pony with a blaze in the show, Starlight's little boyfriend in the flashback. There have been a couple in the comics as well. Then there's Trouble Shoes, who might not have a blaze per se, but he's basically a fucken' horse.
You, uh, you borked the (page_break) there, chief.
~Skeeter The Lurker
3596162
Haven't read that one, I don't think.
Can you imagine how much horsehair is blowing around Ponyville in the spring?
I honestly think it's an artistic choice. Sunburst mostly looked like he had a piece of tape stuck to his nose.
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3596186
I don't do it in meter, but I do in theatre.
3596238
Yeah, I think it's just animation convenience. Sunburst looked kinda dumb, but Trouble Shoes looks good with the blaze/stripe thing.
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3596254
Oops. Screwed up a HR, as well. Both are now fixed; thank you!
Not all of us!
3596295
A fair point. I should have specified that some of my pre-readers speak proper English and drink tea and are fine with extra us in words.
Congrats on the certifications!
I'm out of my depth here, but from what I understand being a mechanic gets more and more complex every year, as cars get more and more sophisticated integrated computing systems. So these days you have to manage everything a mechanic used to, PLUS at least intermediate level IT support.
3596297 ...for a given value of 'proper'
... Nah, not in my version.
Maybe some might but not the majority.
And congratulations again on the certifications.
3596297
3596359
Do note that the "speak proper English" and "add pointless letters" categories
don't necessarilynecessarily don't apply to the same people....3596292
The main use I've found for BE spellings is specifying between different definitions of a word. For example, I usually use "luster" for the person-that-desires-something definition and "lustre" for the shininess definition. Of course, flipping letter sequences backwards is relatively close to tame - thus far, I've never been able to work past the revulsion at intentional inefficiency long enough to seriously consider trying one of the more... iconic BEisms.
3596585 Or certain ponies like Dotted Line simply get shaggy-er in the winter. Without a good long coat, the Secretary is at risk of looking kemp or sheveled.
3596297
Ours is a noble struggle, staving off the death of proper English.
You've got an error here.
3596344
It does and it doesn't. We've got far superior tools to diagnose things than we ever did before--we can directly control on-board systems now, for example, and the computers are largely self-diagnostic. It was a significant change when you could fix a car by re-programming it, though. Plus there's a lot of old stuff that's gone out the window--we don't rebuild many components these days, just put on new ones. It's a constantly-changing world, that's for sure!
3596359
Funnily enough, I just read a survey which rated Cockney accents as more trustworthy than, say, American. In fact, according to the survey, native Americans speaking English rated last. Of course, given our current crop of presidential hopefuls and political pundits, I can see why.
3596585
But . . . fluffy ponies!
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3596684
I love intentional inefficiency. It's an art I learned in college; I claimed my computer had a "Homeric pad" key.
3596713
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It's a donkey, but close enough.
3596888
But I did write almost of it back in July.
3596866
Keep fighting the good fight.
3601507 Cool, sounds like a bit of an arms-race between the complexity of the cars and the complexity of the tools you get to understand them.
3601544
It pretty much is.
3601518
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