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There Is Such A Thing As A Free Lunch

Last fire story—The Activities Committee several weeks ago had set up a Bar-B-Que luncheon for those employees who wanted to participate for Thursday. The cost was $9. A local favorite BBQ joint, Shealy’s, came in and set up their food warmers and laid out all their stuff on a couple tables in the cafeteria at around 11:00 AM. The first group in the plant that goes on lunch break is QA with about 25 people, and they start at 11:30AM. I don’t know how many of them took advantage of the BBQ lunch. I have no idea how many total throughout the plant were scheduled to get BBQ, but QA were the only ones to get a chance. Them and me. I eat breakfast at around 6:30, so at 11:30 I’m digging into my lunchbox even though my scheduled lunch time is 12:15. The fire alarm went off at 11:40ish, about 2 minutes after I got back to my desk with my plate. The caterers were forced to abandon the food to evacuate the building. When it turned out to be an actual fire and the smoke made its way into the cafeteria, the food was no longer able to be served to people (wouldn’t have mattered, as no one was allowed back in the building until around 3:00 PM anyway.)

Friday morning a couple of members of the Activities Committee made the rounds of the plant and gave everyone who had signed up for the BBQ their $9 back. When I tried to refuse the money, saying I had actually gotten my food, they told me that it was easier all the way around for them this way. Cool, I got a picnic BBQ on the lawn for free.

You Can Call Me Dave

When I read the article about the fire at our plant in the Augusta paper this morning, I noticed that the reporter got our Human Resource Manager’s name wrong. He was quoted as Dave Gustafson, not Mark. Upon arrival at work I made a beeline for his office to introduce myself to the new HR Manager, Dave. Mark took my kidding in good graces and said, “Let me tell you a story.”

That reporter was being a real pain; I spent most of my time riding herd on him. Even after a polite request to him that I was the point of contact and if he wanted any information to come to me, I still had to break up him talking to employees several times. We had one female employee of the department the fire was in that was overcome by smoke and was being treated by paramedics on the scene. Her husband had shown up, and she was sitting in the passenger seat of their pickup while she received oxygen. The reporter had taken a couple of pictures, and the husband told me about it and asked if he would tell the reporter not to print the photos. When I asked the reporter to not run the pictures, our fourth estate friend said something to the effect of freedom of the press and that he was allowed to be there and take and use whatever pictures he wanted. I agreed that what he said was true, but only if he did so from across the street, but he was on our private property and as such subject to our whims. That reporter was not there to cover the news; he was there to find a story.

Not knowing whose legal ground was firmer, I guess the reporter decided that he wouldn’t run any of those pictures. Seeing as most people love to see their name in the paper, maybe he thought that he could punish Mark by printing his name as Dave. But Mark is only to happy to be Dave as long as those unflattering pictures of one of his employees don’t get published.

Shiny Metal Object

Bought $13 worth of gas and walked over to Advanced Auto and bought 4 quarts of oil for $7.48. At home I jacked up both sides of the car using my new hydraulic jack and placed the 4 jackstands under the jack points. I removed all four tires to rotate them front to back on the same side as the tread is directional. I pulled the drain plug and drained the oil straight into the recycling container. I used to have to drain into a shallower basin and then pour that into the recycler because the car was too low.

As I rolled the right rear forward to the front I noticed a bit of shiny metal imbedded in the tire. Damn. I had picked up a nail somewhere. Hustled the tire down to the local tire place and they confirmed my worse fears, the hole was too close to the side wall to patch and nobody plugs tires anymore. 2500 miles and I need a new tire.

He offered to sell me some Goodyear HP tire as that was all he had in stock in 195/50-15. I said no thanks, I’m not mixing and matching on my car. Came home and went to Onlinetires.com, the place I bought this set of four about seven weeks ago. They had them still on sale for $59, but with the 2nd day shipping charge of $47.55 it put the cost at over $100. Which is still cheaper than the other two places I checked online by about $30.

Purchased Today: $127.03
Money spent since 03/03/03: $1050.66
Started down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 175
118,500

James Brown Announces Breakup Of Marriage

You may have not noticed this unless you live in LA (Los Angeles) or LA (Lower Augusta) but in today’s newspaper there appeared this blurb in the people in the news section of page 2:

The “Godfather of Soul,” James Brown, has announced his breakup from his wife, Tomi Rea Brown, with a full-page ad in the show-business trade newspaper Variety.
In the July 21-27 weekly edition of the paper, the ad features a photo of the couple and their 2 year-old son, James Joseph Brown II, smiling at Walt Disney World while posing with the costumed character Goofy.
Above the photo, a statement said that because of their “heavy, demanding tour schedule, they have decided to go their separate ways. There are no hard feelings, just a mutual show business decision made by both parties.”
Mrs. Brown is one of Mr. Brown’s background singers.
The pair is touring together in Europe, the newspaper added, and may continue working together despite the breakup.

They are splitting up because of the heavy touring schedule? They’re together! I could understand it is she was home while James toured the world.

They are going their separate ways? Yet she is one of his backup singers and may continue to work together!

I glad to see I wasn’t the only one to find humor in this announcement, why else would have the copy person who culled this from the Variety ad have made room for the part about the whole family posing with Goofy.

Fuddrucker’s For Dinner

Way back in the 80’s when they first started appearing on the landscape, Fuddruckers were the be-all-to-end-all of hamburger places. I remember when the first opened a store in New Orleans there were signs posted outside that said, No Photography Allowed, so no one would steal their decorating idea of leaving empty food cases arranged around the place.

Well it is twenty years later and the bloom is off the rose. The burger I was served was good, but not up to my memory and certainly not the “Worlds Best” with which they billed themselves. Which is why perhaps some truth nazis made them paint over that particular phrase on the awning outside the door.

If you click on the link to the company’s site you will find that they still use the slogan “Worlds Best Hamburgers” in their logos and I presume advertising. The one we ate at in Columbia, SC looked way run down and probably hasn’t been changed or updated since it opened. Makes me want to go to a different one and see if perhaps it was just this particular restaurant, but I probably won’t as there is usually plenty of other places that I would rather eat.

Is That All?

Donna and I went for a hike in Hitchcock Woods this morning. We got in early, 8:00 AM, and it was actually cool in the beginning, because of the hills and trees it was still a little dim as well. After about an hour the sun was penetrating enough that I needed to put on my sunglasses. After about an hour and a half I pushed up the sleeves on my shirt and by the time we exited the woods 15 minutes later I had worked up a nice little sweat. Very pleasant little walk. Probably around 4 miles, but we have stopped keeping track. The only downside was walking though the webs of industrious spiders hoping to catch a morning meal.

The entrance to the woods is probably 2 miles from the house and that is all exercise the Miata got. The drive to and from the walk was about the same amount of miles we covered while in the woods.

Purchased Today: $0
Money spent since 03/03/03: $718.52
Started down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 127

Dawn Launch

Gassed up for the dawn launch. We are leaving the house 30 minutes earlier than we would if we were going to work. It will be a long day, over 300 miles, but it should be worth it. Panoz here we come. Not only are we touring the street car factory, but the race car site and the racing school facilities as well.

Purchased Today: $14.50 in gas
Money spent since 03/03/03: $195.73
Started down, went up, went down again, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 82