Well, well, well.

What a week it has been. I started a fairly promising job on Monday (10-16-2006), and I actually made it through a whole week.

I am now working in the shipping and receiving area of a small to medium-sized metal fabrication company (think metal ducts and tubes, then think of a lot of them). It is like no job that I have had before. I work harder for longer then I have ever thought that I even could. I have to be there at 7 AM, which means that I get up at 5:45, and leave our house by 6:15 or 6:20.

That fact right there was a massive adjustment to my schedule.

I was a marshmallow. I still am, but now that I have had 5 days of significant labor I think that I will be in much better shape for this coming week. One of the biggest problems, and I know that I'm going to sound like such a pansy, is that I haven't spent 9 hours on my feet in five years. Ouch. But by Thursday and Friday my feet were toughening up, and I was keeping up without too much pain. We have to wear hearing protection the entire time, I've been using the little yellow squishy ones, but a pair of the over the head ones (cans) should be coming in this week for me.

I did learn how quick the smallest lapse of concentration can hurt. On Wednesday, after 2 hours of wiping down the insides of ducts and pieces with rubbing alcohol, I reached in a little too quick
to the next piece of duct and the sharp edge (they all have sharp edged that can cut through clothes, some just have extra sharp edges) sliced the outside of my forearm. It wasn't deep enough for stiches, I was able to clean it out, and fold the flap back over and direct pressure stopped the bleed pretty quick. It was my first, and like they said, it won't be the last. I am just incredibly amazed at one simple fact. They have no medical supplies, or written, or even informal protocol for what to do WHEN someone gets cut. I hope you notice the use of the word 'when', and not the word 'if'. Some other shipping and receiving kid got cut pretty bad a few months ago, arterial spurting blood and everything. And after they drove him off to the hospital to get sewn back together my boss' boss came out without gloves, or eye protection and wiped up and cleaned up the pool of blood with towels and kitty litter spill stuff. Oh OSHA, wherefore art thou?

But at least they are thinking about it. Thursday my boss was asking me about my EMT experience, and was pointing out the fact that there is this hole in the preparedness of the company to react when something well, bloody happens. I mentioned to him that there really wouldn't be an awful lot of supplies needed to get together a response kit. I guess that it is a good thing that I have held on to my EMT medical kit that I have been moving with me for the last ten years. Maybe I'll start bringing it in with me. Hopefully if I put together a little list of things that I need they might place an order.

Green grass and blue skies.

Oh, and it is so wild about all the snow in Buffalo! They got nearly 2 feet of snow between Thursday and Friday. It totally obliterated any records since the weather service started keeping track 137 years ago! On CNN there are some pictures, and the most striking is of this guy standing at what I am assuming is the end of his driveway, and in the foreground, and background are just down utility poles, about six or seven of them all in a row all down the line. (In the link above, look on the left-hand side for a link to the Gallery of pictures.)

But here in the Flower City all we have had is a few rain showers. So strange that only an hour and a half away things are so different. I hope all those people will be able to make it through till they get their power back on! 300,000 people? Ouch.

Two sides of a really weird coin.

It almost seems like contemplating an alien landscape. Or perhaps, in the very least a remote and completely different country. But to read about how Yahoo's advertising sales are forecast to total ONLY around $1,150,000,000(that is Billion!!!!!!!), and then to go to the store and pay for groceries for our family on a credit card because it was either that or we couldn't pay our mortgage this month. It is wildly different, and kind of makes my head hurt a little.

That is a major factor in why Michelle and I are going to try to both work full-time for a few months.

I got a job doing shipping and receiving at a company over in Victor, NY. Should be interesting. I guess I will be doing mostly inventory management on the items they maintain a certain stock level of, but the rest of my time will be with the 5 other shipping and receiving guys. I'm pretty excited! I start on Monday!

Oops.

Oh yeah, I guess I should mention that we bought a second car last week, so that I would be able to increase my "work hours".

A sporty little Red Dodge Stratus. It isn't new or anything (I guess you could say: it's used), but it is in decent shape. We got it from a mini-dealer over in town, and since it only had 70,000 miles on it he has to cover it (warranty) for 60 days or 3000 miles.

Now all I need to do is find some more "Work Hours" somewhere.

Soccer

I have been watching (I was going to say international, but it is nearly exclusively British) some soccer games lately. I have been confused every time the announcers say that a player earned a cap (as in getting their 35th cap by being used in that game). Believe me, the announcers talk about it all the time: Steve Gerrard has just made his 51st cap for England; the youthful (19 years old!) Wayne Rooney is at 34 caps; and super Defender Ashley Cole has 4 caps in England's under 21 league and 55 caps for the regular national team. No more Beckam, honey, he "was dropped" by the new England national team coach.

Once I figured out that it meant that the player was being used in that game, I have been confused every time about the derivation of the word. I guess the biggest thing that threw me off was that I thought it was an abbreviation. As an abbreviation I was completely stumped, so I finally looked it up. Basically, the article say way back in the day, players who made an appearance were given......... just guess! Yes, a cap. The funny part, one thing that caught my eye was that they were given all matching caps because back then, the players didn't always have matching uniforms like they do today.

But if you look at the lists that are on that article. Even though the US is so insanely disinterested in soccer the US dominates the record holders in a couple ways. For Men, the US has the most men with 100 or more caps (9). And as for the list of women, the top 6 women are US players, by far (hundreds of games difference). Keep it up!

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And another thing! It is so funny to see all the players doing their thing on the field. And watching so much of them working, and then to hear an interview with any of them, and their voices (especially Wayne Rooney) never match my expectations.

She said I need to find a job,

I guess the right answer to "Where are the kids?" is not "I put those fuckers to bed."