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.

Fire!

Actually this is only a half-hearted rant. I had a brainstorm on Wednesday while at work for what I wanted to shoot for Theme Thursday, of course my camera was at home. I brought it today, but didn’t get a chance to use it. I was going to take the picture at lunch as to not disturb the actual work process, unfortunately about 11:45 the fire alarm went off. I had just got my lunch plate, so I picked it up and headed for the door knowing I’d get an impromptu picnic on the front lawn during the drill. Bad news is it wasn’t a drill. One of the machines in the back of the plant ( a wheelabrator thing that deburrs our parts) had actually caught fire. We had four fire trucks, including the ladder truck drive around the back of the plant, along with 20, count ’em 20, police cars. I think that is the entire contingent of city cops (to be fair all our cops are trained as fireman and vice versa.)

I my haste to grab my lunch, I neglected to grab my new camera. The fire was quickly contained but not before smoke filled most of the plant. No one would be allowed back in until the smoke was cleared. The rest of first shift was canceled and if you had your keys, purses, etc. you could go home, if not have a seat in the shade of the pines and wait. I’m not sure when they let people back in, but by the time I went back at 4:30 to get my stuff, 2nd shift was at work (all except the one department where the machine was) and the place looked clear, but still stunk of smoke.

Tomorrow is a half day at work and Donna and I are off to the Gap for a little fun in the Miata. I will try and get my photo in the morning, but may not post it until Sunday when we get back. Don’t worry, you won’t miss a moment of my exciting life as I plan on analog blogging for transcription on Sunday night.

Hey Little Boy

An old man was sitting on his front porch down in Louisiana watching the sun rise. He sees the neighbor’s kid walk by carrying something big under his arm. He yells out “Hey boy, whatcha got there?”

Boy yells back “Roll of chicken wire.”

Old man says “What you gonna do with that?”

Boy says “Gonna catch some chickens.”

Old man yells “You damn fool, you can’t catch chickens with chicken wire!”

Boy just laughs and keeps walking.

That evening at sunset the boy comes walking by and to the old man’s surprise he is dragging behind him the chicken wire with about 30 chickens caught in it.

Same time next morning the old man is out watching the sun rise and he sees the boy walk by carrying something kind of round in his hand. Old man yells out “Hey boy, whatcha got there?”

Boy yells back “Roll of duck tape.”

Old man says “What you gonna do with that?”

Boy says back “Gonna catch me some ducks.”
Old man yells back, “You damn fool, you can’t catch ducks with duck tape!”

Boy just laughs and keeps walking.

That night around sunset the boy walks by coming home and to the old man’s amazement he is trailing behind him the unrolled roll of duck tape with about 35 ducks caught in it.

Same time next morning the old man sees the boy walking by carrying what looks like a long reed with something fuzzy on the end. Old man says “Hey boy, whatcha got there?”

Boy says “It’s a pussy willow.

Old man says “Wait up…. I’ll get my hat.”

It’s Here

I got a visit from the UPS man this afternoon. Perfect timing too, as we had just pulled into the garage minutes before.

New Digi-Cam.

It’ll take a while before I can digest the instruction manual, as it is about a half an inch thick (to be fair that is four different languages.) One nice thing is that Win2K recognized it as soon as I plugged it in, so I didn’t have to install several hundred megs of Olympus software. Smaller than expected, but this is a good thing for when we go backpacking or I decide to take it along on a bicycle ride.

Praise The Lord, But Get The Hell Out Of My Way

For the last couple of months my wife and I have been meeting a few of our fellow Aiken Bicycle Club members for an early morning ride on Sundays. We have been riding more or less 25 miles by picking a loop from the Club’s inventory of past and present Spring Century rides. It is a small group of 4 to 6 riders of around the same abilities and inclinations so no one is dropped and forgotten about, nor is anyone riding at half speed so as not to get too far ahead. The ride is always fun and a nice work out, plus we are home early enough, around 9:30, so as to still have the whole day left for other things.

Start time is at 7:30 for a couple of reasons. One, it is summer in South Carolina and the heat and humidity make later in the day rides unpleasant at best. And two, traffic is very light at the time of day on weekends. The routes take us on a variety of roads in the lighter populated areas of the county, but in the last 1/2 hour of the ride no matter where we are, car traffic picks up. And these are usually the most rude and impatient drivers. They pass us on two lane roads when there is oncoming traffic and/or as close as possible to us.

The strange thing about these folks is they are all dressed very nicely, obviously on their way to church. I’m a non-attendee of church, so I don’t know why they would endanger our lives, their lives and those of the poor unsuspecting occupants in the other car just to ensure they get a good pew. My recollection of Christian beliefs is not so hazy that I wouldn’t have remembered that being late for church was a sin.