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

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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.