Packrats and Moving

Across the street from Sarah and Teresa live Larry and Nita (whom I lovingly refer to as the "churchy lady"). They are a classic example of how NOT to move when you decide to relocate.

I guess they're moving to their daughter's place in another state, so they're moving it all on a full sized semi truck. It's the kind that's an open flatbed until you put the segmented tarp walls up. I saw the truck parked in front of their house when I dropped Sarah off from school on Wednesday, but didn't think much of it because there was no activity of any kind going on that suggested that it was there for that purpose.

Based on what I witnessed last night, it should have been parked there a week sooner. I got the impression that they just started their moving yesterday, when in reality it should have been started a year ago. It was a classic example of "too little, too late". There was nothing really even packed into boxes yet.

I used to think Teresa was a pack rat. Well, she is kind of a cross between a hoarder and a pack rat. These people however, could have written the book on pack rats. Their whole house was so full of stuff that there was just a small area in the living room that was usable. After being there last night, I saw that the rest of the upper floor was the same way. The master bedroom was totally packed. I only recently found out that they actually had a garage in the house! I mean I knew the space was there, but as long as I lived across the street from them had never seen it open, so I assumed it was a converted space or something. I guess I just never thought about it. It was packed. The house had a full basement too. You guessed it: Packed. The whole place was that way.

I took a look at the whole scenario when I first got there and was shocked. They are actually flying out this morning! It still amazes me that someone could wait until the last minute for a project that enormous.

There were people there helping when I got there of course, and I helped too. Nita herself was doing nothing except running around talking and telling stories about certain items that people wondered about. We only wanted to know if they were going on the truck, but she wanted us to know about them. Larry, on the other hand, was methodically going through piles and boxes, taking way too long. He would spend all this time going through a stack of books or something, then finally hand it to someone to put on the truck or into another pile. It was unbelievable. More people came and went as the evening wore on, but only a few people that came actually came to help pack. Thank goodness for them.

There were piles everywhere as the evening wore on. There was a pile in the back yard that was just empty cardboard and product boxes that were destined to be recycled. There was a pile in the front of the house that was destined for the people from St. Vincent to pick up. The whole garage evidently was eventually destined for the "junk man" whoever that is. ( That one kind of floored me, as there was lots of really good stuff in the garage.) A lot of the local helpers also had "piles" of their own set up in various places. Naturally, Teresa got a lot of good stuff (fortunately I talked her out of taking one of those giant military/Boeing surplus style light green metal desks).

I'd be lying if I said I didn't get anything myself, but all I got was 3 complete, like new antique Kaypro computers. These are old and collectible. I also got a huge pile of books and software related to them. All of it filled my car to the brim. Unlike stuff everyone else got, I plan on liquidating mine for a profit. After I play with them first of course. These are the brand of computers that we sold back in 1985 when I worked as an outside salesman for Enumclaw Computer Center (long gone now).

I finally had to leave at 8:30 last night and come home. I was wrung out. As a matter of fact, I'm going to take the Harley to work today because my car is so full of stuff. I didn't even have the energy to unload it last night.

My new cell phones from Virgin Mobile showed up at work right before quitting time. When I picked Sarah I knew that I would end up over there helping move, so before I took her home we stopped at my house and threw a bunch of beer into a cooler first. Sarah and I sat on the deck of her house for about an hour while I got her phone service switched and she transferred her contacts from phone to phone and stuff. I still haven't touched mine yet. She looked very pleased to get a new phone though. According to the guy on the phone, the $25 free air time that came with the phone was indeed there, and in addition, when I start my phone up as a new service and use her as a referral, she'll get an additional $20 added to her account. What a deal. It's a win-win for me, beings I'm the one paying her bill anyway.

By the time I got home last night, I was so tired and hungry... I nuked a couple burritos, wandered off to the shower, then hit the sack.

I have no idea how all this is going to play out for them. One of the gals that was helping had a professional interest as well--In addition to being a neighbor just up the street that we all knew, she was a real estate agent and would be handling the sale of their house. She just kept shaking her head when we would comment amongst ourselves from time to time. I guess I'll stop by again after work tonight and see how it's going.

Yep, too little... Too late...

Picture Album Update

Steve posted most of his pictures online from our bike ride last Sunday, so I added them to my web album. Now it's over twice as big as before!

I wanted to also add a tip or two for your viewing pleasure...

If you click the "Slideshow" button on the opening page you'll get a hands-free picture show, and also have the ability to go faster or slower or even pause the action, but that's about it.

However, if you want to be able to do things like zoom or be able to read the comments that are attached to each picture, then just click any picture in the series rather than the Slideshow button. With that viewing method you can zoom the picture (one time) and pan it back and forth by holding your mouse button, and the buttons to go forward and backwards to the next pictures are still there too.

If you want to save a picture, you could just right click on it and do a "save as" but I wouldn't do it that way. If you do, you're only getting a 640 x 480 picture. If you click the "download photo" link over on the right you'll get the picture in its original large size! Pretty slick...

Anyway, I'll post the link again here: Enjoy!

The 25th Annual Anacortes Oyster Run - September 24th, 2006

66 Photos

Pain can be such a pain

I had such a headache this morning when I got to work.

I hesitate to use Excedrin first thing in the morning because of its caffeine content. I just don't feel like having more caffeine right after polishing off two 16 oz cups of coffee at home. So, what do I do? I put up with it. I do my best "mind over matter" imitation, willing the pain away.

So anyway, back to the headache. It was the kind that is behind your eyes... You know the one. There may be technical name for it, but as far as I'm concerned it was just a throbbing pain. It seemed to be concentrated more towards my right eye actually, but I didn't really care.

It was just pain.

Then at one point I ended up with a feeling of discomfort in my right eye. It's the same exact feeling I might get when there's a teeny little eyelash swimming around in it. Not everybody can touch the surface of their eyeball, but I can. I went to the mirror in the bathroom and carefully wiped my finger across the surface of my eyeball, gently rolling it as I did. The instant I did so I saw a red spot in my eye. Thinking I had something red on my finger, I gently wiped again. This time I witnessed it smear. WTF? I either made my eye bleed by gently wiping it the first time, or it chose to bleed regardless and I just happened to be in there at that time. When I tried to wipe it a third time, the red stayed. Obviously it was just below the surface of the eye at that point.

I left the bathroom... Still in pain, but somewhat concerned. I've never had a big rid blood spot in the white of my eye before. I decided to just monitor it from time to time.

Throughout the day, the headache came and went. Holding itself at bay just enough to keep me from taking my Excedrin, but making itself known enough to be a nuisance. It seemed like about the time I wanted to take something for it, it was almost lunch time, and it would've interfered with my nap.

Add to that the fact that I just noticed a nice, healthy canker sore in my mouth too. That's just fine... Might as well have everything crap out all at once.

Fortunately, I was doing okay by the time I went to pick Sarah up after school. My eye spot was gone, but instead just looked overly bloodshot in that area of the spot. We went to the store and bought some goodies to eat and drink, then went to her house where we hung out on the deck and talked for an hour or so.

Spending time with Sarah was a good way to end a painful day. It kind of lets you know how much pain is nothing but a little something in the way of the rest of your life.

Step around it and move on.

The 25th Annual Anacortes Oyster Run

What a perfect weather day to spend riding all over the Puget Sound yesterday!

After getting up at 4:30 and having my usual morning coffee, I loaded my stuff and went to Kent (the next town over) to meet up with Steve and some others that would be accompanying us on the ride. We met at Gators, a bar and grill that's open for breakfast at 6am. They dish out quite a big breakfast, and nobody left hungry. We ended up running a little later than other years, but it was okay because there were more of us. It's just a little more fun when there are more people sometimes, you know? At one point, we detoured off the freeway in Lynnwood to pick up another rider and continued on our way.

We got to Anacortes at about 10:00, which is only one hour later than usual, but we had to park almost all the way at the end of town! Maybe it was the 75+ degree sunny day or whatever, that place was seriously packing them in when we got there.

We did all the obligatory stuff we were supposed to do... Ogle the ladies, hit the beer gardens, buy a t-shirt of the event. I ended up having a bowl of clam chowder (one of my weaknesses) at one booth, and a salmon burger at another. Both were good, but lacked seasoning to me. I like my salt & pepper you know... We wandered around quite a bit up and down the street--Taking pictures and absorbing it all.

I don't know exactly when we left because I never wear a watch when I'm off work. From Anacortes we turned onto the road leading South to Whidbey Island, opting to go by ferries instead of a boring freeway ride home via Interstate 5. We made a couple picture stops at Deception Pass, and continued South. We ended up taking the ferry over to Port Townsend. In case you didn't know it, it's the home of Fort Worden--The place they filmed An Officer and a Gentleman. We didn't care anything about that... We were just riding. Continuing onward, we rode across the Hood Canal Bridge onto Bainbridge Island, and worked our way to another of Washington State's ferries--This one taking us to downtown Seattle. By this time we had already lost two of our riders, them having opted to go different directions for whatever reasons. As we worked our way down toward our starting point, more and more left. By the time I got off my freeway exit, only Steve was continuing farther South.

I got home at about 7pm, and was pretty tired. I wasn't sore or hurting or anything--Just weary. It felt good to park my ass. I ended up getting a shower and hitting the sack an hour earlier than usual.

I posted the few pictures that I took on Picasa, which is another fine Google product (free endorsement). It works pretty good, and especially considering the fact that it's free image hosting. Here's the link to the picture album:

The 25th Annual Anacortes Oyster Run Pictures

When I get together with Steve and exchange pictures, I'll add to them and announce it here. For the mean time, however, enjoy what little there is!

The Saturday Morning Report

I'm drinking my coffee black this morning. I poured my milk into my cup, then poured the coffee into it as I always do, but was greeted by the strange sight of the milk curdling wildly. It was strange. I smelled the milk and it had no smell and seemed fine. It was only a week and a half old too. Oh well, it was near the end of it anyway. Good thing I wasn't planning on having cold cereal this morning.

It's been a long week, and it felt even longer with my having to work last Saturday. The week at work has been one frustration after another, coupled with days when I didn't really feel 100% physically. That makes a pretty tough time of it. The blues were just about totally erased yesterday at quitting time though, because the 6.5 hours of overtime in conjunction with my recent raise made for a nice little paycheck!

I went home for a little bit and then decided I'd go to the library to return the movies I had checked out, and pick up a pizza on the way home. On the way over I stopped and visited at Sarah and Teresa's house. (You like how easy I say that? I could say "my old house" but in my mind I'm completely out of it, so this is the only way it sounds right to me.)

Sarah and I visited a bit and talked about school stuff. She had brought her new school pictures home yesterday and she handed the packet to me.
"I'm going to get retakes" she said, "I'm smiling too big."
"No you're not," I countered, "These are perfect. Wow, look at that hair!"
"I spent a long time on that." she said, obviously pleased with my comment.
Not another mention of retakes after that. I think she felt happy about it at that point. And rightly so don't you think?

At one point I asked Teresa, "So when are you going to pay me my half of the income tax refund anyway?"
"Oh... Yeah..."
She went and got a calculator and figured it out and handed me a check for it. She also handed me a list of costs that I owed her for my half of Sarah's "extra" school stuff that we agreed to share. Things like pictures, ASB card, etc. She asked me if instead she wanted her to just deduct it from the tax refund or the "big" payment (the house settlement) next month. I told her no, that I want all payments both in and out to be their "full" amounts so that I can trace or find them within my record keeping when or if I need to.

As I was leaving I told her I'd like to come by today and wash at least the Harley if not the Neon too. They are both so dirty. I will wash her car of course too... That's part of our deal. Isn't it good when ex's can make deals? I think so.

After I dropped my movies off at the library drop chute, I continued on to Round Table Pizza for my dinner. After ordering my pizza and handing the gal my $2 off coupon, she hit me with the total of around $18, which floored me.
"Eighteen? Is that right? Did they go up or what?" I asked.
"Yes, the "specialty" pizzas all went up." she said apologetically.
"Fuuu...." I said, not quite finishing the word I really wanted to blurt out.
"I know," she said, "It just going to send more people to places like Dominos..."
Well by that time I had already had that particular pizza in my mind so I paid. While I was waiting I went across the parking lot and bought half gallon of vodka. You know what? There are way too many brands of vodka to choose from.

Anyway, I watched part of Animal House while I ate my pizza. Yeah, it was good pizza... It's a good thing too, because it will probably be the last one I get from them. Too bad too, because they were my favorite. Oh well, like that old song The Wildwood Weed said, "All good things got to come to an end..."

Jumping on the Bandwagon

The technology bandwagon that is.

Last Christmas I bought Sarah a cellphone. It was a very, very basic cellphone, and had pretty much no frills at all. It was a folding model, but was at the absolute bottom of the heap of folding phones--The only thing under it was the non-folding ones.

When I signed her up, I went with a prepaid plan under Virgin Mobile for a couple of reasons.

• First of all, Virgin Mobile is very well supported in our area and I never hear of anyone not getting a signal.
• Secondly, I wanted a prepaid plan for her because I know how tempting it can be to go nuts with mom and dad's minutes. I wanted to see how responsible she would be.

Well, she's proven to be pretty responsible with it. I have been fairly happy with her usage. She does tend (as all teenagers do) to overuse text messaging though. I was perusing the Virgin Mobile website last night and doing my usual math calculations on her usage--You know, comparing usage with other plan variations. Because she gets docked 5 cents for each text message, whether incoming or outgoing, it has reached the point where it's running about $15 a month. That's about 300 "in and out" text messages. Up to now I didn't have her on any specific text plan, just a basic phone service. They have other text plans on their website to pick from now, and I chose one that offers up to 1000 text messages per month for $9.99. That gives her a huge buffer, and gives me a $5 savings.

The real reason I went on the website though was not just to check her usage and compare deals. I was looking for a deal on a phone for (GASP!) myself. It's getting harder and harder to coordinate with her these days. Either she's off somewhere with friends or staying after school for a club or sporting event, or I'm having to work overtime or whatever. Now add to the mix the fact that I will be her after school transportation from now on, and you have the potential to have crossed signals for sure. Her mom and I decided that she would take her to school each morning and I would pick her up (when I could). This all came about this year because of the Auburn School District tightening up their boundaries between schools and dropping a few bus routes in the process. Sarah's was one of them. She actually was supposed to go to the main Auburn High School, but got waivered in to attend the new school last year. It was mostly the fact that almost all her friends were going to go up the hill to that school. The potential for transportation problems always existed just because of that reason, and now it has hit.

Anyway, back to the phone shopping. On the Virgin Mobile site, they occasionally have special sales on reconditioned phones, and that's what I was looking for. This time I must have timed it right, because they have a nice Kyocera Slider V5 phone on sale for $24 and includes $25 of prepaid air time! How can you lose on a deal like that? I ordered one for myself, and one for Sarah to replace her old one. While it's not "feature rich" like a new camera phone, it does have lots of better features than her old one. In addition, there is also one important feature on it that I wanted her to have: the built-in GPS locating service for the 911 operators. I'm sure it's basic and included on most phones now, but it isn't on her old one.

I'll end up getting a free phone for myself, and a free phone for Sarah. Okay, it's not quite "free" for me because I wouldn't yet be spending any money on airtime, but in Sarah's case, the airtime purchase would happen on a regular basis anyway, so I might as well get a free phone with it, right? If Teresa gets a wild hair, maybe she'll sign herself up and use Sarah's old phone. She still doesn't get how much trouble it might save her. She just sees the $$$ signs.

Yep, I'm one of the last cell phone holdouts, but it was inevitable. I was just waiting for the right time and the right deal.

Wood Stoves and Voting

The smell of fall is in the air. No wait... That's just in my living room.

I don't know why, but yesterday when I came home I had this wild desire to see if I could make the wood stove in the living room work. It really wasn't cold out, but yet when I went into the house there was a certain chill. I guess it was either try the wood stove out or turn on the baseboard heat.

I really only have one problem with baseboard heat, and that is the fact that it always takes a certain amount of time to heat the room up. This is of course compared to a central forced air furnace, which blows air almost instantly. I do think baseboard heaters have gotten a bad rap though. Everyone associates them with a wildly spinning power meter. Well it is true--They do use a lot of electricity, but one advantage with them is the fact that you can only turn on the heat in certain rooms if you want. That can be a good thing. My baseboard heating works just fine to me.

Anyway, after I got home and decided to fire up the wood stove, I went and got a beer and started perusing the web for tips, tricks, and general information about lighting and operating a wood stove. I didn't find much, and it was all pretty basic stuff. I know how to start a fire in general--Newspaper, kindling, and fuel wood, but I really wanted info on controlling stove dampers. Oh well... Fuck it, I'll try it anyway.

I went to the garage and grabbed my hatchet and cut up a bunch of nice, small kindling and did my fire starting stack in the stove and lit it. It took off just fine, and after it got going I shut the door. The flame went down a little bit and smoke started swirling around inside the stove. Hmm. "Oh yeah... There's another damper down here under the firebox." I pulled out the air intake damper and the flame once again shot up and all the smoke disappeared up the chimney. I watched it for a little while and was feeling pretty good about things. I played with the intake damper and was able to get the flames to slow down just a little bit so the wood didn't look like a blazing campfire. I was feeling pretty good. Did it all by myself!

I went upstairs to read the news online and ended up chatting with Rhon for a little while, who (thankfully) reminded me that it was voting day. After I ate my dinner a few minutes later, I zoomed out to my voting place and did my thing. They had a new machine over in the corner that was all electronic, and they asked me if I wanted to try that instead of the usual "color the circles" method. "Sure," I said, "I always like to try new stuff." I have to admit, a touch screen voting method was very cool. It worked superb. I have to wonder though--What's the point of their being only one machine? I also noted that before I did go over there the check-in lady had to fill out one extra little form first. Well, if they have to fill out more paperwork before you do electronic voting, what's the point? And why only one machine? Too expensive? Maybe next time we vote we'll be voting on a levy to pay for more voting machines...

When I went back home, my living room was nice and comfy, and the fire was burning low. I put in another piece of wood and decided to watch a movie. It was actually warm enough in there at that point that I was able to be comfortably nude. As a matter of fact, after the movie started I even went over and turned the flame down even more. It looked like this could work!

This morning when I woke up, I detected a little smoky smell in the air, but not too bad. When I walked downstairs though, it was a lot of smoky smell. Obviously, I need to do something a little different. I'm going to end up smelling myself and everything in the house like a forest fire. I probably should start closing my closet doors too, just in case. No sense in everything I own smelling smoky.

I guess I just voluntarily knocked my wood stove cockiness down a couple notches. I'm still not quite ready I guess, but it's a start.

Juggling Hats

One of the owners of my place of business' favorite things to have is a multi-talented employee.

It only makes sense. Any employee that can do more than one thing proficiently is just like having more than one employee. From a business standpoint, it's like getting a two-for-one special.

Part of the problem is identifying somebody's talents. When they hire on, the hiree may not think to mention a particular talent, in their mind not associating it with the job in front of them. They may be hired (as most people are) to perform a specific job and that's it. After they are hired however, it's up to the employer to be able to spot their particular forte' and make use of it. Some employers could care less about extra talent while others may milk it.

I was hired right off the bat as a "production worker." Phil, who co-owns the company with his brother Bernie, does the hiring and is in charge of the day-to-day operations of most of the company. Bernie, on the other hand, is the money man. When Phil interviewed me, he told me right off the bat that it was "grunt labor" and that I was overqualified. Looking back on it, he probably felt that my coming from Boeing meant that I was "ruined" as far as a work ethic goes. Boeing employees are not exactly known to be barn-burners. One of the things that did clinch the deal for me being hired was my 10 years in as a delivery driver for The Peterson Company. One of the things they've always had trouble with where I work is trust. Who to trust? Especially when it comes to a big truck and the product that may be within it's cargo area.

Of course I was hired, and during the first two years where I work, did a lot of driving. This was in addition to fork lifting, and shipping and receiving of things. I did quite a number of little things not worth mentioning as well, such as assembly work.

Anyway, in the last two years I've been running the high-speed press (which is a HUGE trust issue to them at $750,000 dollars) there has been a young guy about 21 or 22 doing my old job. It looks like I may be sporadically getting the driving part of it back. As of yesterday, he lost trust when he crashed their truck on the way back from a delivery. He wasn't paying attention and/or following too closely and wiped out the front end on the truck. He wasn't hurt, but the truck never came back.

I'm sure they'll keep him, but he will be wearing one less hat, and I'll have to dust one of my old ones back off again from time to time.

What a Crazy Weekend!

It seems like it just flew by.

Working Saturday morning didn't help any either, but at least I only had to work until noon. I kinda figured that I'd be staying there until 2:30 like a normal weekday, but I guess everyone there was leaving at noon, so that pretty much decided it for me. My Saturday workday running the press started out pretty slow and frustrating. I had parts that were running that "looked" okay, but were barely within spec. From a company standpoint, that's fine as long as it's closely monitored. From my standpoint however, it leaves no room for error. Being the sort of anal perfectionist I am sometimes, I was constantly stopping the press and tweaking & adjusting it. After an hour of that crap, I relented and let it run... Keeping a very close eye on things. I had very little problem and ended up running a decent amount of parts in 6 hours so that was good.

When I went to leave, I loaded the pallets into my truck that I had been saving and took them home. I was originally going to just use a skilsaw and cut them up into usable pieces, but after I got them home and saw how easy I could knock them apart with a hammer, I decided to break them down first. After 5 hours the job was complete. I forgot to count how many there were, but I think it was 12 pallets. I ended up beating them completely apart with a big hammer, then ended up pulling all the nails out of them for the sake of safety and ease of stacking. I used my chop saw (or miter saw to some people) to do the cutting. I finished at about 6pm after cleaning up my mess. Oh, and during one point, a guy walking home with his boy offered me some more wood if I wanted it, saying it was just around the corner. I was going to decline, but when he said it was hardwood flooring cut-offs, I agreed. I drove the truck down around the corner and he loaded me up with a whole bunch of brand new oak pieces which I also cut up. All in all, I ended up with quite a pile of wood when I was finished. It may be somewhat hard to see well because of the picture size, but you can get an idea:



I was so dead tired by the time I was done that I was almost out by 8 o'clock. I managed to hang on until about 9:30 before I finally crashed.

This morning was a whole different thing. I woke up after getting a decent amount of sleep feeling pretty good. I spent some time chatting online with Rhon, which is one of my favorite things to do. While online, she's checking out Craigslist for a new TV set. She finds a hot deal on one, but it's up in Redmond, which is only about 2.5 hours from her there in Aberdeen, so I said, "Call em up... If it's still available I'll run up and have a look." Well, to make a long story short, I blasted up there after their first caller was a "no-show" and bought it. A 36" Toshiba for only $75!? How could I not... It was their only TV and was on when I got there so I knew how well it worked. As a matter of fact, her little boy got pretty tearful when she turned Arthur off and we started unplugging all the other stuff. I'll tell you--36" TV's are some kinda heavy! It's just shy of 200 lbs. I already knew that of course, because that's what size mine is. Fortunately I could get the truck real close to where we had to load it, but I went across the street and "borrowed" a guy that was out working on something in his driveway to help me load it up onto the tailgate. While I was over getting him, the first callers drove by. They were definitely looking for an address, and the lady said they fit the picture of who she was expecting. I'm glad for Rhon that I made it first, and I didn't make it by much. Ya snooze, ya lose. I backed up to my garage and offloaded it onto a work table that I have to keep it until such time we can get it to her house. We'll have to coordinate helpers (for that killer flight of old stairs) and watch the weather reports. It'll happen soon.

The rest of the day was spent going to grocery stores and shopping their "loss leaders" for hot bargains. I also hit the library and picked up three more movies that were in for me. I was going to go bother my brother for a wood stove lesson, but he wasn't home.

Well, back to work tomorrow. Odd... It seems like I just worked yesterday...

Emails and Political Correctness

I used to be one of those guys that forwarded funny emails to everybody.

The key words here are "used to be". I've followed the rise of the Internet since it's humble beginnings, and the "thrill" is gone. The amazement, the wonder--All gone. Now the Internet has become a necessary household tool that most people look at with more focus than they did when it was new technology. I remember when Microsoft didn't even have a browser yet. When Windows versions started shipping with a web browser in it, the public was smacked in the face with the Internet and all its wonder. Even though it was terrible compared to the Netscape version at the time, it was free, and it was included with their operating system.

Then emails became the cool thing. Suddenly emails were "going to replace the post office" in everyone's mind. Add to that the ability to send attachments on your emails, and suddenly you had a whole new method of entertainment. This whole new way to entertain people usually came at the expense of productivity at offices that had networks and computers. Before too long email attachments were so rampant that software was developed to "screen" the attachments for potential harmful ingredients. With the advances in technology and computers, programs to develop these media files got better and better, and there became more of them to choose from. Nerdly creativity, marketing, and human talent and ingenuity had turned sound files, movie files, and picture files into works of art. Works of art, as you well know, have the ability to shock, please, disgust, and every other human emotion you can think of. Email attachments were no exception.

Then people started to complain about email attachments. There were stories in the news and situations in the workplace where people had plainly been offended by an email that they had received from a colleague or coworker. Most of the time, they were just one of many, many names on an email that was sent. People would, without thinking of the consequences, hit the "reply to all" button, or forward it to everyone on a particular mailing list. Why? Because up to that time there really weren't any consequences.

I've worked at Boeing in my past, and that is a prime example of a place where email attachments were rampant. I was just as guilty as the next guy--I forwarded many an email in my day. Even as selective and as thoughtful as I am, I still managed to screw up on occasion, though not seriously. Boeing and most other large companies started creating rules and policies to govern email attachments. They also started monitoring email attachments and screening out certain types of them. Hell, they just about had to just to protect themselves against liabilities and legal problems that might arise, and given the size of their company and workforce that was no small undertaking.

It hit me some time ago as well. I was offended by an email attachment. Seriously offended. I love creative movie files, songs, pictures--All those things. I'm a total nut when it comes to humor files, and I've collected quite a few over the year (yes, I save them). There is one thing that offends me greatly though, and that is when someone sends me some file that depicts someone getting hurt. I had one guy at Boeing one time actually send me a movie file of a girl getting hit by a train! Can you imagine? I was totally disgusted, and went over to his cubicle and told him in so many words that if he ever sends me any shit like that again he would be sorry. God, even thinking about it now creeps me out. It truly was a traumatic thing for me. Over the years there have been many others. Somebody breaking an arm skateboarding, hit by a car while crossing the street, all of it's his horrible and all of it offends me. I do NOT ever want to see any of it again the rest of my life. As a matter of fact, I just got another one this morning. I movie of a guy innocently pumping gas into his car and his hit by a fast rolling large tire that had obviously came off of a vehicle at speed. He was totally smacked and knocked on his ass, and had to have been seriously hurt. Evidently the sender thought it was funny and thought I should be entertained too. After all, he was... Right?

This is why I do not send out blanket emails to anyone any more. I have a long list of people in address book, and there is no way I can guarantee that everyone I send something to is going to like it. I have caught myself time and time again going through the motions of forwarding a hilarious (to me it was anyway...) email. I would take the time to clean up the text and take out all the extra crap that always ends up in emails that are forwarded, and get to the task of selecting the recipients. I start going down the list, and as I go farther down and end up thinking about it more and more, finally would get to the point where I would say, "Ah, fuck it." and delete the email without sending it. Sure, I'd save the attachment file for my own enjoyment of course, but more importantly, I saved myself from worrying about offending someone. Anyone that knows me will know how highly I place personal respect and consideration on my list of values.

It just occurred to me yesterday that I had done this far too often in recent months, and it needed to be addressed. If any of you out there wonder what happened to all the great stuff I used to send you on a regular basis, now you know. I keep it... But I'd rather not send it.

Evidently it's not just me either, because my email attachments are considerably lower than they used to be. Yep, it's a changing world out there, and face it--The novelty of the Internet and email attachments are a thing of the past. They have to be treated with the same respect that you would give any other potentially life-altering decision you might make in your life. It may not alter yours, but it might someone else's...

The Saturday Morning Report

I have to work today, so it's definitely not off to a good start.

It was a frustrating day at work yesterday, and I'm not looking forward to today. I changed the product over, putting the other part die into the press and getting those parts all set up to run. After fighting the settings for about an hour, I only got about half the usual amount of parts because of all the stopping and starting. At that point it got an internal problem and we had to take the die back out (no small undertaking) and dissect it. I barely got it back in and fired it up to make sure it would run before quitting time. Now I've got to face the whole thing all over again on a day I don't even want to be there. At times like this I wish I was just sitting on a blanket on the nude beach in Maui. Oh hell, who am I kidding... I'd opt for that any day.

I took Sarah out for dinner last night and we had a good time. We went to a local small restaurant in town that is relatively undiscovered (for whatever reason). It's a nice little place with your average "American" menu. I had an avocado cheeseburger and had the salmon chowder with it, and Sarah had a standard cheeseburger with a Caesar salad with hers. We split a platter of fries between us too. Add to that the couple beers I had and the giant strawberry lemonade she had and we were both stuffed. I delivered her up to a friend of hers' house for a prearranged "study" visit afterwards.

I'm going to go ahead and take my truck to work and get the pallets I've been saving and get those home and cut up. It looks like a dry day ahead, and around here you shouldn't waste those when you have something you need to do.

Yesterday I converted my blog to the Blogger "Beta" setup they just came out with. To the casual observer nothing is any different, but now we blog posters have just a little more creative control over layouts and things. One of the things they did was improved the way spellchecker works. The conversion also made the template that I already use come out slightly different, which I like. If you look to the top, the paragraph overview that's below the title used to be over on the right and above my picture. I like it better this way. I also played with margins a bit and got a little more visual appeal on the header layout. Once a geek, always a geek...

The End of Summer

(sigh) Yep, it's pretty obvious from my perspective--I had to wear my robe when I got up yesterday morning, and even added slippers to it this morning. No more nude mornings. Deep Sigh.

I rode the Harley to work yesterday morning for no reason in particular other than it's been a while. It always takes a good 5 minutes longer to get going when I ride it to work. I have to warm it up for a minute before I leave, and I have to gather up all my goodies to wear and put them on. When I got on it and started putting my helmet and goggles on, one of my glasses lenses goes *boink* and falls out into my goggles. I'm already borderline on being late at this point, and now I have to open the garage door again and find a jeweler's screwdriver and put my glasses back together. It was a great ride to work though. This time of year the air is a little heavier and more moist, and the Harley just loves it. It runs fantastic on these days.

I've been sitting on some oak pallet boards at work that I plan to cut up for my woodstove, and it's looking like now is about the time to do it. These aren't your average oak pallets--These are specialty ones made for the heavy ribbonlike coils of stainless steel we run through the press. They only have 5 slats, but they're almost 1.5" thick, and they also each have two 4x4's running underneath holding all the slats. They're very good wood for burning, and are very easily cut up with no waste. I won't bother with nails because they can be burned and swept out with the ashes. I also like the fact that because they're all dimensional lumber they'll stack fairly nicely here at home.

It's looking like I'll be working this Saturday. I don't like overtime, but I have to admit--Since my last raise I have a new outlook on it. That raise put me to the point where a little time-and-a-half income every now and then is worth my time. Up to this point I always considered my time to be worth more than any extra income. I still don't like overtime, but now I'll do it from time to time. The reason for it this time has to do with my job anyway. We're a little short on people, but the main problem is that the Sonicare toothbrush company suddenly raised their orders for the next couple weeks. Normally that wouldn't be a problem, but they actually wanted two complete orders at one time, and that was something we normally are not ready for. Between my making the parts, the washer guy running the loads of them through the washer to clean the oil off them, and the packaging guy boxing them up (my old job way back when!) it will take us a couple days. No problem. Actually, when I go in on Saturday, the packing guy may or may not even be there. I understand he's going in to get wisdom teeth removed tomorrow. I have a feeling that I will be doing his packaging instead of running the press. Oh well, the good thing there is that I always liked that job, and I won't have to wear hearing protection and will be able to listen to music.

I can also tell that we are entering the dry hand season. I'll be using more and more hand lotion on a daily basis, that's for sure.

I still haven't decided if I want to be here for Halloween night or not. All my life I've had to stay home while Teresa took Sarah door to door trick-or-treating. I feel that I really missed out on that little part of Sarah's life, but it was usually because they always went with a friend of Teresa's, and also the fact that it gave me an evening somewhat to myself--Even if I was always answering the doorbell. I live in a more populated area here, so I have a feeling that I will have to double the amount of stuff I hand out than I ever did at the houses we lived at. I just feel like I would like to keep an eye on things just in case of vandals or whatever. I don't know... I'll see how I feel as it draws near.

Yep, bye-bye sun... Bye-bye nudism...

Fulfillment or not?

When it comes to a person's feeling of personal fulfillment, I think there are three different kinds of scenarios for people, and I've outlined them:

The first type of fulfillment is that of the people that actually get to personally experience success during their lifetime--Either their own success or the success of their offspring. They are able to reap the fruits of their labor and experience the joy first hand, and to bask in the limelight of their successes. They get the immediate gratification that might make some people say to themselves, "My job here is done." The Catch-22 here is that a lot of people that achieve what others would call success never would think their job was done. This type of fulfillment is apparent to both themselves and to those around them.

The second type is the seemingly missing feeling of personal fulfillment. This one belongs to those that never know their place or purpose in life. They don't necessarily grieve or rue their lack of accomplishment, but ponder their life and wonder if they missed their true calling. They might think that if they had made a different choice at some point in their life things might have been drastically different. Opportunity is a key factor in this type of person. Some people have opportunities and others don't, and some people just have more opportunities afforded to them to begin with. In some cases, it's simply a matter of being able to spot the right opportunity that's being presented to them. Not all opportunities come with a sign saying, "This is an opportunity for you... You'd better seriously consider it."

The third type is the definite lack of fulfillment. The person who, either through fault or no fault of his own doing, has his life cut short without continuing the family bloodline. These are the people that never lived long enough to choose any particular path to begin with.

I obviously fall into the second category. I'd be lying if I said I had never wondered where I screwed up--Wondered if things would have been vastly different if I had chosen differently as some point in my life. I can't beat myself up over it though, and the reason is because I simply don't know what choice or choices I would have made differently. If there was a choice that I could have made at some point in my life, I certainly failed to recognize it. Instead I would like to believe that my son and my daughter will both achieve success in their lives and enjoy the gratification that I feel that I missed.

While I may or may not experience a particular success that either of them accomplishes during my lifetime, I can at least rest assured knowing that I have left behind two beautiful people that are better equipped than I was for the rest of the world to enjoy, and I'm okay with that.

Philosophy 0.5

I had a good chat with Rhon last night, as most are.

Our topics seemed to bounce around to many somewhat philosophical topics last night, brought on by a movie I had watched with my dinner, called Brazil. This was a pretty weird movie, but a good one nonetheless.

After we talked for a while, she brought up the question of whether or not I had ever taken any philosophy classes, to which I answered no. She thought that I would have really enjoyed such a class, and I have to agree. My schooling back then and my interests and focus (or lack thereof) nowadays don't necessarily coincide very well. I was allowed free reign over class selection by my parents. That may or may not have been a good idea.

• It was a good idea because they wanted me to be able to choose my own path.
• It wasn't a good idea because nobody urged me in any particular direction that might offer me more "tools" to help me through life's many and varied decisions.
• It was a good idea because neither of my parents are very well educated, and although they would have had good intentions, would've probably inadvertently sent me the wrong direction. Case in point: My parents forced all of us kids to take a musical instrument. The main thought was an excellent one, and I believe it was a good experience, but the main reason from my dad's perspective was totally wrong: "You can make good money playing in bars." His words exactly.

I have enjoyed some good discussion over the years, but would have welcomed even more. I certainly have a lot of thoughts kicking around upstairs. I think I may have to expand on this topic.

Anyway, until next time... It's time to go to work now.

Another Great Sunny Day...

...In the nude.

Yep, I went once again to Issaquah to the Fraternity Snoqualmie Nudist Park. This is only the second time I've ever been there, the Nudestock event from a couple weeks ago being the first. The first visit was free, but this one cost me $17, and I'll tell you, it was certainly money better spent than yesterday at the Puyallup Fair!

The weather was gorgeous... About 75 or slightly warmer all day. I felt like it was very possible that this could've been the "last gasp" of summer weather and that I would kick myself all winter if I missed it. If I'm pleasantly surprised by another nice weekend day in the upcoming weeks, you can bet I'll take advantage of it.

Lying there in the sun... A little beer in the belly... I was so relaxed that I wouldn't have cared what happened anywhere else in the world. To lie there on your blanket with your eyes closed, feeling the warmth of the sun caressing your body, hearing the chitchat of people nearby, the laughter of naked people playing in the pool, a person nearby playing softly on an acoustic guitar, the drone of an airplane lazily flying by--I was an idyllic setting for sure. To sit up on the blanket and watch people playing Frisbee one direction, see the pools filled with happy nudists the other direction... And you look up into the blue sky and see occasional hang gliders lazily swirling downward from their launching point nearby...

At one point a butterfly landed on my blanket, and when I put my finger down to it, it walked right onto the end of it. He was sitting on there for at least 5 minutes while I inspected him eyeball to eyeball. It was cool.

When it came time to put clothes back on and get in the car to drive home, I turned the radio on and was greeting with some good reggae music.

I'm telling you, it doesn't get much better.

Times Change

I went to the Puyallup Fair yesterday, and although it was a nice day and nothing went wrong, I left there feeling kind of empty.

I've lived here all my life, so I've been going to the Puyallup Fair since I was teeny. Little by little, it has changed so much that it's just a tiny fraction of its former self.

The first notable change that I can recall came back when I was in school: One year they had a big fire in there, and lost the building that held the Spook House, the Fun House, and the House of Mirrors. It also damaged one end of the giant wood roller coaster. They never rebuilt any of those attractions. All three of them were the kind of attractions where you could spend all day in them if you want, wandering back and forth at your own speed. The fun house was where I first found the job I wanted to do for the rest of my life. There was one section of the fun house on the second floor where you walked by an opening along the side where you could see the crowd below and they could see you. On the ground below sat a worker with the perfect job: He had a string hooked to a valve in the floor of that section of the fun house, and when a girl or lady walked through, he could yank on it and a blast of air would blow their dress up. God, I wanted that job...

It used to be that the first thing you noticed when you went into the gate, no wait--Even before you got to the gate--Was the cacophony of smells that instantly assaulted your nose. The fair's famous onion burgers were the big one--The huge pile of limp, grilled onions that smothered the burger so completely that you could hardly see what you were eating. The corn dogs, the raspberry scones, the smoke from Pete's BBQ... All classics that are still there, but for some reason are not nearly as noticeable any more.

One thing that angered me this year was a way they sucked you into another mailing list. It's not unusual to be sucked into mailing lists. Some ignorant people don't notice that the booth you were at when you filled out the card for that "free car" drawing was manned by someone selling windows, or hot tubs, or time share vacations, or any number of things. Anyway, this year as you go into the gate you are handed this little credit card sized paper card with a barcode on it.
"What's this going to do for me?" I ask.
"You might win gas for a year." She says, obviously already explained it 5 million times by then.
As you walk in, directly in front of you is a whole "bank" of electronic touch screen terminals where people are lined up. I looked at it and decided that I would just come back later. Later in the day I did exactly that and walked up, swiped my little card in the card reader and started in. It asked name, address, phone number, then started asking all sorts of marketing questions. I said WTF is this and cancelled out of the whole thing, tore my card up and walked away wondering how I could have been so stupid as to fall into the sheep fleecing thing that I so proudly managed to elude all these years. Then it hit me--It was the "package." The electronics, the touch screens, the actual interaction you got to make. Screw that... A mailing list is a mailing list.

I also got the impression that the animals were there in much smaller numbers than they used to be. Maybe it wasn't that, maybe it was just that there didn't seem to be much human traffic in those areas. Yeah I think that was it--People don't go to the fair for animals anymore.

Ditto the food displays. The careful arrangements of fruits and vegetables that were lovingly grown and nurtured by people and associations and schools... Pretty much a thing of the past. Sure, they were there, but very few of them.

A few things were still there and will probably always be. Things like the vibrating "foot massagers" that are all over the grounds, the booth inside one of the building where there was a giant panel with blinking lights on it that offered "instant handwriting analysis", the people with the microphones around their necks that drone on whether anyone is listening to their cookware sales pitch or not.

The prices are definitely out of control. Over the years the Fair management as squeezed the vendors so hard that they have been forced to jack the prices of their goods accordingly just to stay in business. I mean come on--$3 for a soft serve ice cream cone?! Hardly any food items are under 5 bucks any more either, most being like 6.50 or more. 3 bucks for a small bottle of water? Isn't that pathetic?

Oh well, it's still one of the best places in the world for one of my favorite pastimes: Planting my ass on a bench and looking at the people that walk by.

Waking Up

Okay, this is a weird thing... And it sounds like something that would come from my odd little mind...

I woke up this morning in the same state as I do most mornings. I lay there for a while thinking about it, and I tried analyze why it is that guys wake up with woodies. What the hell is that about? Is it something built-in that's designed to keep us in bed for while longer? Is it designed to keep us from accidentally rolling out of bed?

I'm not a dreamer for the most part. I wish I was--I feel I'm missing out. Maybe I dream every night and just don't remember them--I don't know. Sure, occasionally I may have a dream I can remember. It seems like the only time I do remember them is when I wake up and then go back to sleep for no more than about a half hour before the alarm goes off. But the point is, none of the dreams that I can recall having are ever erotic dreams, so why a morning woody? Sure, sometimes I wake up and have to pee right away, but sometimes not. The state of my bladder seems to have no bearing on it either.

I lay there this morning wondering if it's another of our body's system checks. You know? Like when all of a sudden you get a ringing in your ear that tapers in... Plays for a minute... Then tapers back out. Someone at the control panel in your brain logs in on the clipboard and says, "Left ear checks out okay at 14,000 hertz." Then he gets on the intercom and hollers out, "You boys down in the penis section, don't forget--It's the weekend, so your scheduled firmness check isn't until 5:14 tomorrow morning."

Can't you just see that? It's like one of our self-diagnostics... A "check engine" light if you will.

What it kind of makes me worry about is this: What about those few mornings I wake up without a hardon? Does that mean I had a system failure? Ohmygod...

I'd better enjoy them while I can.

Again--Easy Come, Easy Go...

Boy, times sure change... Technology has changed even the way people buy and sell used cars.

This morning, right after I made my regular blog post, I got an email from the guy selling the Nissan Sentra I was looking at. It turns out that some lady was there waiting at his car for him when he got home from work at (get this) 4:30am! Wow... Had it occurred to me that it was even a possibility, I would've met the guy at midnight the other night and scoped it out. Damn. Turns out he is an exchange student, and he probably didn't know what he was selling. I'd be willing to bet that he got a tuneup and the mechanic said, "You know, with over 140 thousand miles you need a new timing belt." I doubt if there was a single thing wrong with that car. Damn again. Chalk it up as a learning experience.

I was thinking off and on today at work... What would be a good picture to put on my blog? A picture that shows the real me. At first I thought maybe a nude picture would be the "real me", but I didn't feel like I wanted to set up a special pic with something strategically placed to block my goodies. Then I thought about something that shows the plain ol' oddball me, and I decided on this pic of me trying on my new goggles. Sure it's a webcam grab, but still... It's "me" for sure.

The Friday Report

Yes, it's Friday. Even though it was a short work week, it felt like it took forever to get here. I finally had a pretty good day at work yesterday. I have no idea what felt better or what felt different--I just know it was a better day. I also had a pretty good production numbers day too. A good day of running this particular part on the high speed press is anywhere in the 75-85 thousand range. Yesterday I got just a hair over 100 thousand parts out.

I was sitting at my computer yesterday morning at about 4:30 or so and decided to spend a few minutes perusing the ads on Craigslist looking for a car for Sarah. I find this nice looking car that's in Federal Way, which is just up the hill from me. Here's the ad:

1995 NISSAN SENTRA GXE - $700

---

Reply to: sale-XXXXXXXX@craigslist.org
Date: 2006-09-06, 11:47PM PDT


95 NISSAN SENTRA 140K SILVER COLOR V6 1.6L 4 DOORS, FULL AUTOMATIC.
PERFECT CONDITION NO DENT, HEATER AND AC WORKS PRETTY GOOD.
RECENTLY DONE TUNE-UP NEW AIR FILTER AND BRAND NEW 4 TIRES.
NEEDS TO CHANGE TIMING BELT!
I'M ASKING 700$ CALL JACKIE 5551234567

Okay, first of all, Sentra's didn't come with a V6, and if they did, it sure wouldn't be as small as 1.6 liters. It's obviously supposed to be a 4-cylinder.
Secondly, the leader to the ad said that it has pictures, but there are none.
Thirdly, I see the guy posted the ad at 15 minutes to midnight, so he's obviously keeping very odd hours. I put his phone number into my internet phone number lookup and found that it's a cell phone. (By the way--That's not his real number up there...) Okay, cell phones usually work because you can call them at any hour and leave messages on them. So I picked up the phone at 5am and called the number. An obviously groggy, freshly-woken up: "Uhh, hello..."
Yes, the stupid idiot works nights but wants to sell a car? Jeez. Anyway, he sent me some good pictures in my email. It's a nice car and worth a look. I can do engine work for the most part, but it depends on whether or not he has damaged it or anything like that. Maybe it's nothing more than not being able to pass emissions. I'll find out. Maybe I can get to see it tomorrow.

At work we do a lot of thing with the parts we fabricate, and one of them entails picking them up from the company that does heat treating for us with them kept on ice for the final forming. When we pick them up on ice they are always packed in a box with a bunch of dry ice. Most people know what dry ice does when you put it into water, and usually it ends up being just tossed into our big round hand-washing sink near the bathrooms at work.

Yesterday I noticed a pretty good sized box of parts come in from the heat treater. This time I went and rounded up a small box and gave it to the guy that was going to do the final forming on the parts and asked him if he would put the dry ice in it for me. At quitting time I grabbed my box of dry ice and headed out.

After a stop at the grocery store and then home, I went over to Sarah's house, hoping she was home by then so we could have a little fun with the dry ice. We stood around her swimming pool and threw a whole bunch of it into the pool, effectively turning it into a giant, bubbly, foggy witches brew. It was pretty cool. Teresa still wasn't home from work by then, so I told Sarah to put what was left into the freezer and later to put a couple pieces of it into Teresa's water glass later. I hope she did.

We sat around on the deck talking about her school for a while and had a pretty good visit. She expressed her desire to transfer out of her Spanish class because she thought her teacher was too easy. I admire that--It's certainly not something I would have done at her age. She hates teachers that don't "teach."

I noticed this morning that the lady next door has once again hung some sort of a curtain over her bedroom window. I wonder how long this one will last? I believe it's the third time she's had something hung up there. The 3 pieces of Styrofoam are still standing up in the window though, so I guess her "curtain" (who knows what it really is) is too short to cover the whole window.

Well, it's Friday, and I don't have to worry about stopping to get any special beer after work. I already took care of that yesterday at the grocery store. I always like to be able to just go straight home after work, but actually I've got to stop at the library--7 more movies are in for me to pick up.

Ho Hum

I don't know why, but I've felt "down" at work for the last several days. Sure, I've had some events at work that caused me grief, but I still feel odd lately. I'm sure others notice it when I'm not myself too.

Bruce, my supervisor, always gets to work a half hour after everyone else because he takes the ferry over from Vashon Island every morning. This morning when he came in, I gave him the update on all my problems that I'd been having both yesterday and Friday. About that time, the shop foreman came up and told me and Bruce that the general manager had wondered why I left at quitting time the day before when there was so much work to do and people I could be helping. Translation: It's a short week, and they want EVERYONE to work extra hours every day because they don't have to pay overtime this week. They only pay time-and-a-half to everyone over 40 hours, and there's not much chance of that happening in only 4 days. They (in the front office) consider it cheap labor I'm sure.

Not me. I don't buy into that whole thing. I don't care if it's a short week or not, I'm not staying over and working for standard wage. My time off work is MY time, and I don't want to cut it short. Maybe that had something to do with my mood today, I don't know. I feel strongly enough about it that had someone pressed me on it, I was prepared to say, "Are you ready to lose another employee over this?" I would seriously walk, and I doubt if anyone would press it past that. After all, Boeing probably still wants me, according to my ex brother-in-law.

Anyway, come 2:30 I punched the clock and out I went... No problems at all. I had a very nice drive home, and I drank in the beautiful aroma of ripe blackberries that filled the air between Kent and Auburn. This is the time of year for them, and they are everywhere along the Green River. It's truly one of my favorite smells, and it is usually accompanied by the smells of the river itself and other vegetation that grows along it.

Before I popped my first after work beer (but after I stripped of course) I hopped up and did some chin-ups on the new machine. Ha... It's been a while. I managed to get a whole 10 of them, and let me tell you, that last one took everything I could muster to get it. I was literally shaking as I inched my way to the bar.

Now that I've sat a bit and relaxed, I'm going to go downstairs and make myself up some turkey burgers for dinner. I stopped and got some buns and lettuce and stuff on the way home. I always adjust the recipe, but they are always good!

The First Day Back to Work

My Friday left off with unresolved issues at work, and were somewhat compounded by the fact that my supervisor/right-hand man was off work. Things that jump up and bite you in the ass can hurt more when you don't have anyone to share the pain with and help you out. Yesterday was another vacation day for him, so again--I had nobody to help me with problems that arose. Although I like "flying solo" for the most part, sometimes I just need the ability to ask, "What do you think--Any ideas?" to make me feel like I'm on the right track.

There are a lot of variables within the "tool" that runs in the high-speed press. The "tool" as I call it is actually a progressive die. It's a big block of steel about 2 feet long by a 1.5 feet deep by a foot tall. Inside it are a multitude of cutting, forming, pressing, and bending stations, some made from carbide, some from steel. The material moves through this big die, advancing an exact predetermined amount per stroke of the press. Each time the material moves forward, a different action is being performed on the material passing through. By the time it exits the die, it's a finished part. When a die is as complex as these are, and they are running at 325 strokes a minute, a lot can go wrong. When something does go wrong and you repair it (out on a workbench of course--Totally dissected) you have to spend time completely readjusting the press (speed, depth, etc) to make the parts come out within specifications. It can be very frustrating. The whole idea is to get the the press adjusted correctly to make good parts within the shortest amount of time. The longer it takes, the more material you waste, and believe me, at 325 strokes a minute, you can go through a lot of material. Add to that the fact that whenever the die gets worked on and things changed inside, there's a "settling in" period where things change on their own. Anyway, after about two hours of frustration and frantic activity, I finally had it making good parts again. Whew.

A couple hours before quitting time a package showed up for me--The new hearing protection headset that I ordered last week. My old ones were getting worn out from two years of wear and tear. This time I went for a different brand. I put them on and breathed a sigh of relief--They felt fantastic and everything was quieter. Although both headsets were rated at the maximum you can buy (30 db) the old ones had lost their ability to remain at 100%. Also, I bought these on the web and they are in a different color combination than you can buy in stores around here. Mine are blue--The only ones that are available locally are red. I just have to be different you know... Besides, there are lots of red ones scattered throughout the shop--I don't want someone running off with mine.

I got home from work and just stripped my clothes off when Sarah called. The first day back at school translated into a huge school bus problem. It seems that they eliminated the bus stop that was close to her house this year. I don't know if it was an error or what, but she's not the only one that used it for crying out loud... Something must have gotten screwed up. She said she didn't even go in to school until 12:30 (her first day schedule) so she only had 5th and 6th period classes so far. I sure hope they get the busses worked out. It's always easy to get rides home from school, but it's not always easy to get rides to school.

When I got back home I tried out some knee lifts on the new exercise equipment. I really don't know what I'm doing, but I did twisting knee lifts and rattled off 50 of them before giving up. I'll try to do it every other day to give my poor body time to adjust. Maybe I can alternate days and do chin ups on the opposite days.

Well, back to work, and I hope it's a better day.

Good People and Good Times

Boy, you sure can't complain about a summer that had record high temperatures and a record-setting lack of rain, and this Labor Day weekend was no exception to the trend.

I ended up spending most of this weekend in Aberdeen at Rhon's house. I drove down late Saturday morning, getting there just after lunch time. We spent a couple hours catching up on things, and went downtown and did a little shopping. When I showed up, I surprised her with a new handheld shower for her bathroom. I so painfully remember the previous time I stayed at her house and wished so desperately for more than the little wimpy trickle that came out of the pathetic shower head, so I felt a new one was in order. I also received a gift: Rhon bought be a very cool talking bottle opener to go with the ones I already have and love. This one is a Tabasco one, and if you have shockwave installed on your computer, you can click here to hear what it says.

Rhon knows how to spoil me when it's time to eat, that's for sure! Chinese bbq pork, eggrolls, and fried rice--All homemade, and all excellent. I always get stuffed when I visit her, and breakfasts are no exception.

The main reason for my visit down there on this particular weekend is because her brother and his wife were hosting their annual "soup feed" at their place near Hoquiam. The star attraction is basically a huge cast iron soup kettle with homemade soup in it that sits outdoors cooking for hours and hours. All the family and friends show up with more food, and it ends up being quite the festive occasion. I ate a lot, drank a lot, and ended up having a very good time there. All the people I met were super folks. I ended up being on trial in the living room at one point, when everyone started "grilling" me about my experience at the nude park the previous weekend. I guess there's nothing like wearing a Nudestock t-shirt to a party when you're looking for a way into people's conversations! Looks like there could even be the possibility of one of them going next year... Who knows. There's always someone that's intrigued by it like I was.

When I left this morning to head back, Rhon gave me quite the nice pile of leftovers to take home. I ended up having eggrolls and stuff for dinner tonight. Thanks Rhon! I actually left there as early as I did so I could have the option of going to the nudie park again after I got home if I wanted to. After making good time and having traffic relatively trouble-free all the way, I decided that once I got off the freeway I wanted to stay off, so I didn't go. Instead I went to Big 5 Sports and bought a piece of exercise equipment that Rhon and I explored in Aberdeen on Saturday. It's a vertical knee raise/dip machine, and it's identical to the one shown here. I ended up getting it a lot cheaper than this one though. So now it sits in my living room next to the TV.

Does that mean it's a true bachelor pad now that I have the obligatory item of exercise equipment?

The End and the Beginning

That's what this weekend signifies. The end of summer as we know it, and the beginning of life by rules again. For some, that doesn't mean much change, but for others it's like night and day.

Obviously, the biggest change comes with everyone related to children's school year. The obvious would be the teachers (Hi Rhon!) and the students themselves. The ripple effect reaches out quite a ways though. Another related item would be the affect that school starting has on transportation, now that the school zones are back into full use and the big, yellow buses are everywhere you look. Lastly, the parents. For some, it's a sigh of relief--The stay-at-home moms or dads finally get their house back during the day. For the ones that all work, it means having to once again learn how to re-learn wakeup times, juggle meals and travel times, make sure that the kids leave with their school supplies and homework, and a multitude of other possible scenarios.

For me, it doesn't mean much change. Sure, there are the transportation issues I mentioned already, but Labor Day weekend to me means the beginning of the end of being nude without regard to temperature. I've already found myself putting on my light flannel robe while I'm having coffee twice this week (draped loosely and not fastened though). Sigh. My apartment has a nice woodstove in the corner of the living room, and I fully intend on taking advantage of it when I can. I have a pretty much unlimited supply of specialty thick oak pallets at work that only need to be sawn into manageable sizes and I'm all set. They will be some nice firewood. All in the name of nudism, right?

It also means that everyone needs to make sure they have their antifreeze up to snuff and they have a good (buy a new one NOW) ice scraper in their vehicle.

Hunt around in those closets for the winter clothes and bedding too while you're at it. Being a fairly lean household, I don't have to worry about rotating things like that--I just go over to the other closet and grab. That's one of the advantages of not having to share space.

Yep, this weekend will be everyone's "last gasp" at freedom as a family unit. I would place a guess that probably 50% of the people that are doing their travel/camping this weekend are not doing it because they want to, but rather, because they feel they have to. Lemmings, cows in line to be milked--Pick your metaphor. The first 3-day weekend of the year that signifies the beginning of summer (Memorial Day obviously) sees people in pretty good moods. This one, however, many times has families bitching & complaining, tempers short, and moods more somber.

Yesterday was my first paycheck that had my raise on it. That extra $50 a week never looked better than it did yesterday. Not that I needed the money, rather, it signified the end of one of those workdays that I like to lovingly call "The Workday from Hell." Nothing went right yesterday. I seriously felt like crying out of frustration at one point... 50 year-old man or not.

I went home and grabbed two beers out of the fridge and headed over to Teresa and Sarah's house. I had a child support check for T and a couple audio CD's I recorded for Sarah. I figured that for me to be in the right mood (remember my day?) I had to make sure I could sit and have a beer or two whether they were home or not. And it worked out perfectly. Nobody was home so I sat in one of the Adirondack chairs that I lovingly created a number of years ago and enjoyed a beer in the comfort of the shaded deck. I went around to the front porch after I opened the second beer and sat on the front steps for a change of scenery. The nice church lady from across the street came over and was talking to me for a little bit, but for some reason she started slowly but surely going very "churchy" on me. Let me tell you, that is one thing I don't like. I couldn't very well say anything to upset her now could I? Fortunately, Sarah showed up right then--Dropped off by the mother of one of her friends she had been visiting all day. Thank you, thank you... After we walked around back then Teresa drove up too. I cleaned the filter on Sarah's swimming pool, and fixed a few bad connections on their TV/video cabling in the living room.

When got home, the first thing I did (as usual) was strip. I no sooner made it upstairs and turned the computer on when there was a knock on the door. Damn--Hurry and put my shorts on and answer the door. It was my good friend Greg. We had a good visit, and he didn't end up leaving until 10 o'clock. At that point I still hadn't eaten a single crumb of anything since 12 noon, so I made a piece of toast and had a small glass of milk and went to bed.

It's looking like a hell of a nice morning. Damn the clothes--I'll worry about dressing later.