Slight Change

As much as I log on here to make new posts, I never really get around to reading my old posts. It is interesting to go back and see what I wrote about. Today I happen to read the “about me” section and realized that it was very out of date. I outright said in the about me section that I dislike my job, and that is no longer the case. Alas, it has been updated and I fell much better about it.

Since I happen to have a camera with me at work, I thought it would be a good time to update the picture of my cubical. You can see that my new work space is a bit better than that old work space. One of the panels in my cube is a window which is really nice. I don’t feel as closed in, and when the people across the hall have their office doors open, I can see outside. The only awkward part about the window is that the fax machine is on the other side. Whenever someone goes to send a fax, they stand square in front of me and try to avoid making eye contact. Most of the time it is pretty funny.

In this post I am including a special picture for Keith. He had requested some time ago to see and updated picture of my cubical to check out the basketball hoop that we had one at Dave and Busters. The picture that I put up does not show the hoop, and I couldn’t find another angle that captured the essence of my cubical and included the hoop. Therefore, here is a picture of the basketball hoop. It is located on the right side of my cube, around the wall in the other picture I put up.

A Step Back in Time

The last week or so I have had the privilege of doing some inventory counting at one of our companies cylinder plants. I have to say that this was an experience that I will not soon forget. Walking into this plant was like walking to a factory you would picture from 40 years ago. Most of the people working there were either young guys working for the summer, or people that appear to have spent most of their lives at this plant. They are covered in sweat and dirt and are all working very hard.

Aside from the building being beat up and unfixed in 50+ years, the oddest thing I found at the plat was that almost every employee smoked. At this day in age I was very surprised. I feel like it was the 50’s or 60’s and they hadn’t yet heard that smoking was bad for you. Then again, most of them probably didn’t care because they were destroying their body in the work they are doing anyway. It is more likely that they will die from the smoke coming from the forge, or bits of steel filling their lungs than cigarette smoke anyway.

The plant has apparently got really bad in the past few years. While pushing cylinders through the process, they just started stacking up the ones that failed for some reason or another. Instead of scrapping them or reworking them, they just found an empty piece of real estate to stack them up. Our count of inventory that has just been sitting around outside for 3+ years totaled over 29,000 cylinders! Ridiculous.

Aside from the feeling of the plant taking me into yesteryear, I learned some very interesting history about our company. I knew some of our plants had been around for a number of years, but I thought that our company name was introduced at the end of last year. I was way off! Our name was formed in the early 1900’s when 2 companies that were building rail cars and other metal items combined. It was at that time that the plant I visited moved to Harrisburg. The routes of our company actually trace all the way back to 1742 when I guy bought some land and built a forge to produce wagon wheels. How sweet is that!? The company I worked for has been forging steel for over 260 years. They produced bomb casings during the world wars, and even made cannon balls for the Revolutionary War. SWEET!

Here are some pictures of the cylinder counting. And for a bit of history, the GM of the plant found this old newspaper from the 2nd WW. The top headline is "... to celebrate 200 years of progress." Check out that sub-headline. Very non-politically correct.

To New Readers of My Blog

It has come to my attention that some members in my family and possibly other friends have stumbled across my web log. In fact, I believe some of them who may not know as much about web journals have expressed concern that my personal notes are being leaked to the public. I assure all of you new readers that this is not the case. I created this page for anyone in the world who may take interest in my life to learn about me and what is going on. There is nothing in all of the 35+ posts that I wish to keep a secret simply because all things shared are the truth, and I choose what content to make public and what to keep to myself.

If you are new to this page, then I gladly welcome you. Feel free to read through all of the past posts. You may find things in there of interest, or it may be boring. There are times of humor and times of sadness. You may even find some things that are surprising or even offensive. I hope that is not the case, but I stand by what I have written in the past. If in fact the posts give you thoughts or emotions you wish to express, feel free to leave comments. Take a tour around and enjoy yourself. Just remember, most of the writing has purely been “Nonsense From a Bored Man.”

I’m in the Juice Isle

Yes, I am in the juice isle that others know as work. Everyone else is off having fun. I can see they all have party hats on. This week has been rough to work because the week of the 4th of July everybody in Liz’s family takes off to spend together eating delicious food and playing games.

Liz and I spent last weekend with her family as everybody came in and was getting their wonderful week started. There was a great time to be had, and it was painful to leave. It was even more painful to come to work knowing that most of Liz’s extended family was having a great time, and knowing that this coming weekend I get to go up to Camp for a weekend of golf crazed fun with my family. There is so much going on… how could I possibly work?

I've been doing my best to be productive, but it has been a rough week. I would love nothing more than to blow off the afternoon and be home, or have some fun, but oh... responsibility. Good thing this is a 4 day week. I'm gearing myself up to get out of here this afternoon and drive up for a weekend of great fun and excitement.

I wish everybody a great 4th of July weekend! Wish me luck in golfing this weekend and not blowing myself up in our annual fireworks display.