Raisin Juice

Sort of. The icky fluid turns out to have been from water, that used to be ice, leaking out of a hole in a plastic bag and soaking through a box of raisins. Donna remembered what it was when she started to empty the insulated lunch pack we carried some of our goodies in last night.

Dodged a big bullet today. About 20 minutes before quitting time I heard one clap of thunder. I looked outside and although it looked really ugly I was on the fence about putting the top up with it so close to quitting time. Erring on the side of caution I went out, removed the cover, removed the boot and raised the top. While I was in the process, seeming to validate me choice, it started to sprinkle. After the top was up and I returned to the building the drops stopped and it looked like it would blow over. Precisely 2 minutes before 4 o’clock the skies opened and it poured down. Whew.

Purchased Today: $0
Money spent since 03/03/03: $1140.66
Started down, went up, still up.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 210

I Don’t Think That Is What Lady Bird Had In Mind

I have plenty I could rant about this evening as I have just returned from Atlanta and I despise big cities and the urban sprawl that surrounds them. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want 200 acres of woods, live in a cabin I built myself in the middle of it and feed off the wild game I trap there. I like smallish towns with just enough civilization. But I digress…

Somewhere between there and here I noticed a very small patch of 4 foot tall Black-eyed Susans growing in the median. Right in front of it stood a 2′ x 3′ brown sign with white lettering on it proclaiming, “DOT WILDFLOWER PROJECT. DO NOT MOW.” The sign had more square footage than the plot of flowers.

Ick, What’s That?

Up this morning in Dahlonega, Georgia and even though Holiday Inn Express’s cinnamon rolls are awesome Donna wanted eggs for breakfast. We asked the desk clerk where to go and she directed us to Danny’s just up the street. When we got there about 7:15AM we weren’t sure they were open because there was only one car in the lot. The sign said they opened at 6:30 so we went on in. Glad we did, nice home cooked breakfast type place. The food was good and cheap. And it showed, by the time we left the place was nearly full.

After chow we headed to Marietta by as many back roads as we could. There was even a 15 mile detour around a bridge that was out on GA53 we hadn’t planned on, but it was Ok because GA136 was a real nice Miata road. And like most of these roads in North Georgia on a Sunday morning, deserted except for us. We eventually had to get on I-75 to finish the trip to R-speed for there 4th Annual Open House. We got there at about number 25, by the time we left 2 hours later the lot was nearly full, probably 150 Miatas and about a dozen Minis. I was not swayed to buy any of the bargains, but did buy a new Rspeed T-shirt.

When we got home this evening and started to unpack the trunk I noticed what looked like brown water all over some of the bottom layers of stuff. At first I thought it was muddy water as we had tossed our dirty hiking boots in there. Upon closer inspection it looked like spilled Coke, which is weird because we didn’t have an open soda near the trunk all weekend. It took me about a hour to clean up the mess and I still need to let the bottom carpet dry from the cleaner I sprayed on it before I can vacuum it and then put it all back together.

Purchased Today: $14.75 in gas
Money spent since 03/03/03: $1140.66
Started up, went down, went up, back down, back up, down again, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 209

Corn Maze

After our complimentary breakfast at the hotel, mmm…cinnamon rolls, it was off for the drive to Robbinsville for our reconnaissance mission.

First stop was in Andrews, NC for a peek at our first possible fun thing to do, a corn maze. After spending about 15 minutes talking with the manager that runs the thing, Donna remains excited, while I am now convinced that it will be not be and might possibly be too much like work to find our way through. As an option for the folks in our group who may not be able to do the walking, the field covers 7 acres and the maze has a total of 3 miles of paths, there is an indoor flea market a mile or so down the street.

Next we drove the final 25 miles to Robbinsville to check for possible restaurants. We had heard from another Club member that there have been the addition of Mexican and Chinese places to dine. One in which we were interested in is apparently not open for lunch and the persons inside would not even come to the door to give a menu after a couple of knocks on the glass. We may still try them out when we are there.

After a quick tour of town we headed north for a dragon run. I decided to turn around about 5 miles from reaching the goal as I was number 6 in line of minivans, pickups and SUVs that I just knew would make the trip through the dragon agony. Besides there were plenty of e-ticket roads that we had already driven and would drive this weekend. Definitely need to hit the gap in the early AM before the normal folks get there.

Next up was a trip into the Joyce Kilmer Forrest for a look at possible non-car diversion #2. There was a short, rated easy hike in the woods with two distance options. After Donna and I walked 25 yards into the trail we knew that it would not be doable for more than 50% of our group. Way too steep, slippery, etc. Oh well, maybe it’ll rain and we will all stay inside and watch HBO on the telly that weekend.

Now hot and disappointed, with the cheap BBQ sandwich bought at the “Outback Trading Post” broiling in our bellies we headed the 90 miles back to Dahlonega. One good thing about the return trip was we detoured over to GA60 for 44 miles of new twisty pavement. The last 12 miles are almost as good as the gap. This road, nicknamed the Snake, is a favorite of Atlantians who own sport bikes or cars as it is only about an hour and a half away for them.

Purchased Today: $26.50 in gas
Money spent since 03/03/03: $1125.91
Started up, went down, went up, back down, back up, still up.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 204

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 PM. 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 through out 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 lunch box 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 it’s 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 BBQ their $9 back. When I tried 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.

Walmarts Are All The Same

The drive to Dahlonega, GA that normally takes 3 hours took us 5 this afternoon. To be fair this is the first time we have made the trip in the afternoon. The other half dozen times it has been an early morning drive, which is what it will be from now on, trust me.

First came the 15 minute delay while we waited on a sporadic line of school buses leaving from the Lula school complex. There were 13 buses total in various states of fullness. They had a State Trooper stopping crossing traffic at a tee intersection. A good thing probably, as that was quite a line of busses that would have had to come to a stop and wait for traffic to clear on semi-busy GA52 before making their rights or lefts.

Next happened only about 5 miles down the road when we came up to a just closing railroad crossing. We sat for about 5 minutes watching train cars full of wood chips move by. With no end in sight, the train much to our chagrin, started to slow and eventually stop. At this point all the other cars and trucks in line with us started to make u-turns. After waiting a few more minutes with no sign of movement we figured these were probably locals and they knew better, so we too did a u-turn and headed back to the last intersection. We pulled out a map and headed in a likely direction. As it turned out we ended up going south about 7-8 miles and then prompting headed back north to come out about 3 miles further down the road we were on. Moving was better than sitting.

After we checked in to our room in the Holiday Inn Express it was off for pizza at our favorite little Italian place on the square, Caruso’s.

When we finished dinner it was time for a little shopping as we needed toothpaste and I wanted a paperback crime fiction book to occupy the time normally spent doing this. We went to the Wal-mart on the edge of town and parked nearly as far out in the parking lot as we could, to get in a walk and avoid door dings. I found a book, we snagged the toothpaste and headed for the checkout. We ended up just placing our items down on the nearest flat spot and walking out though, as there were 4 or 5 cashiers with at least 10 people in each line.

Unbelievably there were 2 cars, 1 in front and 1 next to, parked near us when we got back out to the north forty. WTF? No door dings though.

There was a chain drug store right across the street that had everything Wal-Mart had except the long lines, where we found a book and the toothpaste no problem.

Purchased Today: $16.50 in gas
Money spent since 03/03/03: $1099.41
Started down, went up, still up.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 200

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 bee-line 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. He husband had shown up and she was sitting in the passenger seat of their pick up 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 paper, maybe he thought that 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 didn’t get published.