Ups & Downs

First of all, let me say how much I hate being sick. I know, I know... Everybody says that. I'm one of those people that get sick very, very seldom, so maybe I notice it more, I dunno. I just know that I hate it. I hate it so much that when I start to get the telltale warning sign of a slightly sore throat on one side, it pisses me off and ruins my day right there. It hit me full force yesterday, and I had pretty much all of it: Nose, coughs, chills... I was lucky yesterday went at smoothly as it did, all things considered. I almost didn't go in to work.

Our company is in the midst of a very important certification process, called Third Party Registration. Imagine a company that makes parts for Boeing, and they submit a bid to another company to get their work as well. You tell them you make parts for Boeing all the time and do nice work. The other company asks you if you're certified, to which you answer "yes." They ask you who certified you, and you answer, "Well, Boeing did." Not good enough. The potential for "looking the other way" on little things is too great when you have a customer certify you to make parts for them. To avoid a scenario like that, some companies will go for the method we are in the middle of. It's a completely neutral 3rd party that we hired, and they spend a full week going over every aspect of your company.

We are in the midst of that right now.

We have been prepping for this for at least 6 months, and even hired a guy solely to put together a complete company policy/procedure manual (a requirement) in preparation for it. The certification guy has been spending time with all different sorts of people, asking questions, checking paperwork and processes, and noting deficiencies. Yesterday was my turn. He spent 2 hours with me going over my job as material receiving manager (or whatever they call me). To have that happen when you're well is hard enough, but I passed. A little later in the day, our general manager (who was also present during my grilling) came by and said, "Nice work, that went smoothly." He's going to be spending today and tomorrow out in the shop, asking employees all sorts of random things and observing their answers. It's pretty nerve-wracking, but if we get this certification it will mean our little company will be suddenly even more notable than we already are. The work we get in could suddenly increase by a lot.

In other news, Denis came by a couple nights ago with my front fender. He had sprayed it with the filler primer and brought it for me to sand in preparation for the final paint. He looked over my job on the rear fender and told me it looked real good. We are all set up and plan to give it all the final black paint tomorrow night. Woohoo!

In related news, when I was in the garage working on Sunday, I put a "wanted" ad on Criagslist for some factory Harley turn signal brackets. I wanted the ones that come on many models that have the turn signals mounted in "hang-down" mode up on the handlebars, using the mirror bolts. Right after I posted it, a guy emailed me, saying that he had a set he'd let me have for $10 and they even had the lights (which I didn't really want anyway). Turns out he was just out of town from me here, slightly past Sarah's school. I went up and got em last night and they are like brand-spanking new. I think they were taken off the bike right after he got it. We spent a little while talking about Harleys while I was there. After all, how could I not? He had 3 of them, and had parts all over the place. I'll keep his number because he could be a potential source of parts in the future. You never know when you might need that special little bolt, bracket, or part at 9pm on a Friday night... When I got home with those brackets and went out to the garage, they were a perfect fit--Much better than anything I could have come up with on my own.

Things are looking up!