New link: missiles

Yorktown's SM...



Burke firing SM...






I'm putting a new link to the right. It's from a missile shoot. Turns out it was filmed on my first alma-mater.

Work... (sigh)

Single-pole frames.




Week of 15-19: Not much work for my area appearing on the dispatch, so I spent 35 hours working in other areas.

Last Friday (19th): was told that the guy assigning the work screwed up: lots of work piled up. And could I come in on Saturday? I did.

Monday: noted a few jobs now on the dispatch. Worked 8 hours, as no one asked for more. Figured it was enough.

Tuesday: Came in to find a note from boss #1 saying, "Must have four-poles. Hot Job!" Sigh, as I had just been doing four-poles on Fri, then had switched over to one-poles. It takes four hours of teardown and reassembly to switch machines back. I do that, then run four-poles for 90 minutes. Boss #2 comes over and bitches me out for running them. Turns out, boss #1 told me to run the wrong parts; I was supposed to run two-poles. Get treated like it's my fault. I tell him it'll take four hours to change over to those, and I'll need overtime. (By this time, I'd been there seven hours.) He simply walks away, without approving or disapproving it. Boss #3 tells me to stay late that night, then I'm to come in at noon for awhile: they're going to have someone run my area in the morning, and I'll work noon-10:30, to get caught-up. I work 12 hours that day to get the job set-up for the guy in the morning. It turns out we're way behind.

Wednesday: get called at 6:38 am. They couldn't get the guy to run them in the morning, so I had to come in. Arrive by 8am, find someone else running my machines. This guy hadn't run them in 15 years, and was having a hard time, so he was glad I'd been called. I didn't have the heart to tell him he'd run mostly scrap. Run out two-poles, get halfway through set-up for one-poles. Ten hour day.

Thursday: Come in to find out that my two-poles hadn't been sent to the plating company on time. Apparently, there had been a "blow-out" over this. Though no one blames me for it, it's a sign of the chaos surrounding this place. I complete changover to one-poles, and run a bunch of them. Twelve hour day.

Friday: Notice orders on dispatch are running out, despite supposed need for 28,000 frames this week. I can't send parts out without orders. It's been a full week since any new orders have come in, and it's been three days since I pointed out the discrepancy. Still, no new orders. Decide to quit after 8 hours, and get bitched out by boss #3 for not continuing to make parts. White board in department says "Follow Your Dispatch." Boss #3 says, "It doesn't matter what the dispatch says. When they tell you to make 28,000 frames, you make them." Boss #3 goes to check on exactly how many parts are necessary. When he's gone doing that, I leave.

From now on, I'm following only the dispatch. These people are morons. Boss #1 is nice enough, but couldn't be bothered to get clarification on which parts I was to run. Boss #2 is a guy in his twenties, and part of corporates "Leadership Training Program." They send college grads to different factories, where they learn how to treat everyone below them as dispensable pieces of garbage. (Which is how he treated me.) Boss #3 is the boss of 2nd shift, which is why he came in so late to the story on Friday, literally ten minutes before quitting time. I used to be on that shift, so he had been my boss back then. Now that I'm not on that shift, he still thinks he's my boss. (Rumor has it that he is on his way out the door. We used to have 25 people on that shift. Now we have five. No wonder he's still trying to be my boss. Do you really need a supervisor--and a line leader--for five people?)


We recently had 15 people retire. Another 25 were laid-off. Out of those 40 people, not one of them was a supervisor, line-lead, planner, or coordinator. They were all workers, like me.

No wonder they can't get anything done.

Ice Road Truckers 3

New season. So far, it looks interesting.

New TV, too. Maybe four months ago, the decade-old 36" tube-type I bought from a friend crapped out. After that, I had been stuck watching the 19" tv I bought back in the early 90's. However, I just had to get a new tv for the new season of IRT.

I went pretty much all-out, getting a 42" LCD. I upgraded my cable, too. Good God, the combination is incredible. If I'd had this while going to school, I probably never would have never made it through. All I ever would have wanted to do is to watch tv. It really is hard to turn away from it.

Along with IRT, Tonight with Conan is absolutely gorgeous. And reruns of Seinfeld, on TBS's HD channel, are almost freakishly clear: I could read the cereal boxes in Jerry's kitchen.

I think I've found my goal: to watch TV! At least for the rest of the summer, anyway.

Life After College

Well, it's been a month since I've graduated. And frankly, I feel a bit of a letdown. I suppose it's because nothing's really changed. Does anyone else remember having the same feeling after they graduated?

Also, I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to do with my life now. I spent so much time and energy getting through school, that now that it's done I find myself a bit bored and listless. It's as if, due to a lack of a worthwhile challenge, I feel like life just isn't as interesting any longer. All I do is go to a job I don't care about, watch tv, and sometimes go to the gym.

Obviously, I need some sort of goal.

A different job? Until the economy improves, I'm afraid of taking another one. I figure it's safer to just stay where I am for now.

I thought about getting a master's, but the few programs at my local campus don't interest me. I suppose I could look into the ones up in Tampa, but I put 10,000 miles on my truck just going up there for three semesters. Commuting for the entire length of time it would take to get a master's doesn't seem possible.

I guess for now, I'll go back to writing the sci-fi stories I was writing before I decided to go back to school. As a friend reminded me though, I haven't updated those in two years! Sheesh, I'm going to be rusty...