Catching Up

That's what this post is... Time to catch up. Throughout the week, so few interesting things have happened that I evidently waited for them to accumulate into a worthwhile blob of blog. I guess my (or your) wait is over.

This is the time of year when things are at a reasonably slow and steady pace at work, and that means that things are more predictable. Sometimes it's good to have the factor of unpredictability thrown in, but not all the time. I like to take it easy on occasion just like most people do. The good thing at work is that they got rid of the guy in tooling a few weeks ago, and ever since that happened things have been going very well. Our tooling department is very important to an industry like this. That goes double for a high-speed press like I run. The slightest little imperfection in the grind of little portion of the die (I know... Blue-collar talk) and it's practically impossible to get things to operate right. It's kind of the trickle-down effect: One little thing can end up affecting many other things downward from it. At any rate, our tooling work is being done by a very proficient guy that they have on contract. He owns his own shop and we bring him in to work whenever we need it. He's been a lifesaver lately and we all breathe so much easier.

I'm getting low on firewood. I have a big stack of my special pallets at work all ready to be cut up, but nobody is working there this weekend. I guess I'll go back to work after dinner on Monday evening and take care of them. We have a shift that works until 1am so that time of evening won't be a problem. I'm pretty sure I have enough to get me through this weekend.

Sarah was over for dinner with me on Wednesday night. It was great to have her. She ended up staying late after school for a club she's in and by the time she called me to pick her up I already had the house all cozy warm (fire of course!) and dinner mostly ready to eat. She had a bunch of homework and started doing that on the couch. I could tell that she enjoyed being here because she was comfortably warm, had good light, lots of room to work (she likes the whole couch and coffee table) and had a nice, big TV to provide the necessary ambient noise. We had a good dinner and she and I both enjoyed ourselves. Teresa was at her brother's house for a birthday party for one of his daughters. I could go on and on about how miserly he has become of late, but I think I've addressed that enough in other posts. When Teresa stopped by to pick Sarah up, I asked her, "So, did you get fed Top Ramen with only half of a seasoning packet like he feeds his girls?" She laughed and said no. This time it was the thing that her family uses for special occasions: Papa Murphy's take & bake pizza (it's good but cheap--A very important factor to them). I told her too bad... We ate better.

I'm a little frustrated with my car, but I have no one to blame but myself. I've had signs that the heater core was letting go since way back when in early summer, but did I put a new one in? No. So now that I really need it I guess I'll have to finally get off my ass and do it. I put it off because it's a very labor-intensive job on a Plymouth Neon. The whole dashboard has to come out. That means an awful lot of cussing and skinned knuckles. I need to feel just right to tackle a job like that. I may actually get into it this weekend, who knows. I know I would surely love to feel HOT air and NO MOISTURE coming out of my heater and defroster. I remember the days when that car had such a killer heater... I could have warm air coming out in less than 6 blocks back then.

Thanksgiving is almost here, and for me that means something a little different this year. I used to be kind of indifferent about the big shopping day on the Friday following, but I have to admit-- I really love a great deal. Almost every store has "loss-leaders" to entice the crowds in at an ungodly early hour. It's not that hard for me though, because I always get up early anyway. I live in an area where I can do a lot of shopping very quickly. The stores are close by and I know all the traffic patterns and back roads for easy access. Add to that the fact that I have one less person to shop for this year, and I think I'll do well. I'll be able to concentrate on myself and Sarah for the most part. The trouble is that I'm not subscribed to any newspapers like I was at this time last year, so I won't know exactly what's in the ads unless I buy them. The trouble is, not all the ads appear on the same day. It looks like I'll have to buy a paper each day this coming week, starting with Sunday the day after tomorrow. I don't want to miss out!

Today was my coworker Elaine's birthday. I bought her one of those BIG Hershey's Special Dark candy bars as a gift. Like most people (ladies especially I think), she loves chocolate, and her favorite is the semi-sweet kind. I know part of the reason she likes it so much is that it is the fact that it's high in anti-oxidants. Anyway, I wrapped in a big pile of packing paper and put it into a box. After taping it with package tape, I added that special "Rick" touch--Steel strapping. Say what? We have a steel banding system that we use on heavy crates and to attach items to pallets and the like. I put one around her present in each direction just like ribbon, only instead of scissors, she needed tin snips to get it open. It was great. She told me that up to that point it was the high point of her day. What that means is that her husband didn't do to well in the early morning hours of "birthday acknowledgment". I hope for his sake that he does it all well this evening.

I received a book at work today that I ordered on Ebay, called the Field Guide to Meat. I like to have things shipped to work so I don't have to worry about insensitive delivery people leaving my package in a bad place at home. Anyway, this thing was advertised as used, but it looks absolutely brand new. It was cheap too. It's a very small book--Much the size of a thick paperback book, but it has a huge amount of information in it.

Well, I think I'll stop there for now. This post is already way too long.

And I'll leave you with this thought: Remember, if you can't be good--Don't get caught being bad...