Procrastinating

Well, I'm here looking to procrastinate a little from doing the more important activity of studying. Today has not been much of a study day anyway. Filled with chores and such. You know - that living thing. There was no studying yesterday either. See these wayward travelers from Finland are here again assisting us [at work] in commissioning this new tool. They have been here since Tuesday and will leave Tuesday morning. There have been a number of problems for which most have been worked through. We worked all day yesterday. From 8:30 to 7:30. And no lunch break for me. Total disaster I tell you. If you are like me, food MUST happen on a regular basis. There is flexibility on the specific time that that happens, but it must happen several times a day. Oh well - I lived. Very nice people I tell you. I think I may have angered them in doing something earlier than expected yesterday. High probability that it was a communication misunderstanding. Disappointed I am, but oh well. Things worked out.

I'm listing to a radio program that just ended called The Prairie Home Companion on the local Public Radio station. The host was telling a story [unknown if it is true or fictitious] about a couple at an airport in which the husband was preparing to fly to visit the wives sister. An argument broke out regarding whether the husband was really looking forward to seeing her sister. The wife expected a truthful answer on the spot. The announcer inserted the following comment: [regarding relationships] from a mans perspective, seeking the truth is a lifelong quest. How funny - and probably rather truthful.

Well now time for little surprise. I almost didn't think I was going to be able to post this little tid-bit as I was having difficulty in signing in to Photobucket. Anyways, I stayed late to do a favor for a person at work on Thursday. When I showed up Friday morning . . .

THIS little surprise was on my desk.

How nice of him. First one to have done something like this. I've done many favors of this nature and most seem grateful on the one hand, but on the other hand, seems as if the mental attitude is like "about time" if you know what I mean. Again, a very nice gesture indeed.

Well, time to get back to it. I just finished some popcorn and will now down a half PB-n-J. Should set me up for the rest of the night. And if you are out there Chris, I got your phone message. Sorry I'm a bit reclusive at the moment. On the plus side, only two more weeks of regular classes and then finals. Will have finals on Monday and Friday the week of May 13. Both running from 7:30 - 9:30 . . . A.M. Dear God. Pray for me . . .

Slacker

Well, here I am. Blog Slacker at large. That's right, SLACKER! Here is the first bit of free time I've tried to take for myself in about three weeks. Well that's a lie and if you believed it, good for you.

Let's see, actually, I took last Saturday night off in a spur of the moment to see I am Legend playing at the dollar spot. It's the new one with Will Smith. I thought it was pretty good. And for you ladies out there, Mr. Smith got buff for this roll. Now I know that got you interested. Then on Sunday, after a full day of chores and a few hours of work, I hung out with the folks. Nice evening. Then it was back to the grind.

What else has been going on? Bad news on two fronts, that's what. First front: my boss is accusing me of being a slacker again. What a guy. He says that he has flat out tried to can me, but HR is saving my ass with the notion that I am unaware that my perceived work performance is not up to par. If there is one thing you do not do, it's call me a slacker. He also does not like my troubleshooting skills. OK, so I do the best I can without having ten years of Intel or Phillips behind me. So I'm now in save my job mode. My ability to change things will depend on how much other job duties lighten up. Some of which my boss just does not understand. Just how do you prove the validity of many of the intangible task that I do.

On the second front, work related again, I had a major screw up late Thursday evening. A repair that (in the end) took only about 45 minutes to find and fix, turned into a nightmare that in the end will suck about a day and a half of my time and cost around a grand to repair! It's a long story, but in short, all accounts of my fuck up can be placed on me. In hind sight, I made too many assumptions based on past experiences during the repair with out confirming. I'm not happy to say the least. For one, this comes on the heels of the above crap with my boss, and two, it put a number of people in a pretty inconvenient position. I busted my ass to try to resurrect the tool, but no luck. Now I'm waiting on a part that should be delivered Monday morning.

I analyzed my failure and I believe I've finally learned something of myself. Most of the time, I can slowly plot my path to a successful repair or maintenance procedure, but in the times that I have had either a failure or a rash of unclear thinking, what I might honestly consider borderline incompetence, I believe the root of that is that my mind begins to race with the notion of "let's do this and don't think about it." It's like I'm running all the stop signs without stopping to look both way's before I proceed. Very frustrating. I'll certainly have to make a mental note of this and try to realize / recognize the onset of this condition in the future.

On the work front again, I've got to work tomorrow. There is a new tool that is being commissioned and wouldn't you know it, we've got company reps from out of the country in town. This will be training in operation as well as some of the technical details of the tool. We did about half a day today. Interesting stuff, but a mountain of information to learn. Not only in operation of the tool, but also in practical knowledge of the process. Surely will not be learned in a one day training marathon, but we'll make the best of it.

School wise, going OK. I got a C on my first test in Fields and Waves. A miracle in my book. The Microprocessors class is still going well. It is getting rougher, but still, at the moment, feel like I'll need CPR if I don't make an A in the class.

Next week is spring break!!!! Oh yeah!

On a fun note, heard the new song from Miley Cyrus? First of all, what a little hottie. She's growing up not only physically, but vocally as well. She's voice is both deepening and maturing. Her new hew song, "See You Again," is right up my alley of favored music. Check it out here. I think I'll pick up this CD when it comes out. If the rest of the new album is as good as this single, it might actually compete with Kelly Clarkson's My December. We'll have to see.

Anyways, time to go. I'll need to be at work no later than 7:45 in the morning and last night was rather sleepless spazing over my work problem and the fact that I went in at 3:30am to check on things. Oh well. Some people wonder how I do it. That is, deal with the school and some of the work issues without (apparently) affecting me. Well first, I think it has to do with my Taurus roots. I used to read that stuff with a grain of salt. But now . . . I believe, it's who I am. Who else would continue with school despite my past failures / setbacks and for that matter, who else would slug forward at work to serve the needs of many despite the misunderstood perceptions of one. And second in this line of thought is the motto that I live by. I've said it many times, and I'll say it many more:

IBS:
Deal with it and move on.

Another Day

Tuesday night already. This can't be so. On the stove is some brown rice and thin spaghetti. Good ol standby's. Well I had to deal with a past co-worker this morning who I simply do not like. There has been a vacuum problem with a piece of equipment that we just have not been able to resolve. We do have a device called a helium leak detector used to find such small vacuum leaks. Actually, we have two of them. The one that I'm most familiar with has been broken for some time and I just can't seem to fix the damn thing. The other one I'm not as familiar with and I don't think it works that well. Anyway, I used it on this particular problem and had no luck resolving the issue. So we called this past employee in to have his hand at finding the leak (he runs his own company) and I'll tell you with in 20 minutes after getting setup with his own equipment, he found the damn leak. I'll give him huge credit for finding it and now we can move past that problem. On the flip side, it really angers me when I've done something with no success and someone else rolls around to do the same thing and is successful. If I ponder deeply, I think that I'm more angered with this person because of how much I dislike him and if I think deep down, my distaste for seeing him succeed is just a function of this dislike. I should just chill! Forgive and forget - right. Well that's tough seeing how I tried that once when he was still working where I'm at. I thought, "let me just put the past behind me and start over with this guy." And he threw it in my face. I should just CHILL. Learn from him. Learn him. Know him. Be him. Is there a psychiatrist in the house? Shrink PLEASE.

Weekend Challenges

Dear God. This again!

That time of the month.
Never ending.
Fuck'en gum. How do you get this shit out. Perhaps Shout will save me. Stuck to my backpack waiting for the shuttle bus at school. Transfer to shirt. Ah Crap!
Suck'en up floor space.
And when it's all over, perhaps a little rest bit. But not before I get some homework done!
The mission starts tomorrow - with - - WORK. On a weekend even. How did I get sucked into this? Turns out me and this other guy have been trying to schedule some work on this analytical equipment. While he has had plenty of time, this week has been a "no-go" for me. Next week ain't look'en any better. So here we go folks.

Saved!

What a long day. It started this morning when I actually got to work at 7:30! Can you believe it? Got a decent amount of crap done before having a refresher course on that tool I talked about last night. That went well. I broke for lunch around 12:10 and headed back into the cleanroom around 1:00. Time to finish up some maintenance on a another piece of equipment before someone was scheduled to use it at 2. What perfect timing!!! Except if it were not for the fact that I fucked up! After any major clean, there is a conditioning run that has to be run before the equipment can be released for general use. So I start the run and begin to research a question about certain recipes that require additional processing afterwards. Well turns out I found out the answer and wouldn't you know it - that's where the fuck up came in. See how much I know about processing? Anyways to correct it, I would need to do some additional cleaning that would require an additional 30 minutes, running well into the scheduled time of the next user. I ran into him and gave him the story of how I screwed up and wouldn't you know it - turns out he would be running a process that requires the additional clean as well. SAVED !!!!!!!!!!!! I was so angry with myself I couldn't see straight. The steps I was taking as part of my maintenance in the past has turned out incorrect. Lesson learned. I tell ya, I've got to learn more about the application side of things. I know a lot about fixing them, but piss poor knowledge on the other front.

So after that ordeal turned out, I ran back to toy around more with the tool of this morning. Through toying around with it and reading the manual, I learned a lot and even learned of some incorrect actions that where shown to me earlier this morning. I'd be set if it was not for the fact that the guy I need to train need to use some of the more advanced capabilities of this tool. I've scheduled to train with this guy on Thursday morning. I stayed until a little after 8 tonight and will plan on staying late tomorrow until I get things down. Cross my fingers ya know.

Day two of eating this green stuff had the same results. Got hungry earlier. I washed the dishes when I got home, so that put me around 9:10 or so eating. Stuffed it in! Perhaps too much.

Well I'm off to chill on the couch with a popcycle before hitting the sack. Bahhh!

Reading Time

Taking a break from other breaks and reading the manual for this piece of equipment I have to train on later this week. Originally, I was going to hang at work and fondle this equipment, but I found someone who "knows" how to use it and has some samples to measure. We've agreed to meet tomorrow morning at 9. Should give me enough time to run in and do a few other things before that. If I can d r a g myself out of bed, I can hopefully be at work before 7:30. Today was a busy day and tomorrow looks to be that way as well. And I don't mind at all. Helps the day go by faster.

My appetite has been up there for some reason today. The only difference today is that I ate some green leaf lettuce and broccoli at lunch and with my late afternoon snack. And in both cases, I got hungry before what has become normal times to get hungry and eat. I'll be grabbing something when I finish up here. I'll continue to eat the greens and see if it affects my appetite the rest of the week in the same fashion. Interesting.

No other real news to speak of so I'll wrap this up short and tidy, grab some food, and get back to reading this instructional manual. Ahhh, great bedtime fair. - Cheers.

Work'en DVD Please

Got the shower done, got the belly filled, got the random photo updated, got . . . oh, that's all I got. Well three things isn't bad. The only thing left to do is get the damn DVD player to work on my new computer. The cd player did come with drivers, but . . . turns out I need to get some Dolby digital driver which I can freely download for a 30 day trial period. Somehow, I feel my wallet getting lighter. Must be a sixth sense or something. Anyways, the guy I purchased the computer from says that there are other programs on the computer that will run DVDs. Macrohards Windows Media Player being one of them. Well I downloaded all the updates for the Media Player and I've got a new error message that says there's a data encryption problem between the player and the video card - try downloading updated video drivers. OK!! S o u n d s easy enough. Not. Although my video card comes up via a serial number search (on their web site), I cannot find the drivers geared toward my specific model card and version of windows I am running. They have a lot of technical release notes to sift through, but still, none reference my video card or Windows version. Fortunately, they have an 800 number to call. Oh yeah - we'll have to see how much fun that will be. Since they are closed now, I'll reserve that excitement for tomorrow.

Otherwise, all is well in la la land. Tomorrows another day at work and as we all know, that leads to the weekend, except for those poor folks in the retail and restaurant sector. I remember those day's. When I was young. When that's the only job I could get. When minimum wage was $3.35/hr. When you'd work holiday's unless you were lucky. When your weekend may have been Monday and Thursday! Ahh yesss, those where the day's. Trust me folks, if you ever work that sector, you simply get used to it and it's just part of the grind.

One pot discoveries

Just because I know your just so curious . . . .

One Pot Spaghetti
8 oz ground beef
1/2 cup chopped onion
1 garlic clove minced, or 1/8 tsp garlic powder
1 14-oz can chicken broth or beef broth
1 3/4 cups water
1 6-oz can tomato paste
1 tsp dried oregano, crushed
1/2 tsp dried basil or marjoram, crused
1/4 tsp black pepper
6 oz dried spaghetti, broken
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

Cook beef, onion, and garlic until beef is done. Drain. Add rest of ingredients except spaghetti. Bring to boil. Add spaghetti gradually, stirring constantly. Reduce heat to light boil and stir regularly until spaghetti is done or desired sauce consistency is reached.

In other news, my work partner made a huge discovery today troubleshooting a tool. I mean, this discovery earned his annual salary alone. This piece of equipment that was donated to us operated for years in production, but always with a little problem that could never be figured out. Even from the manufacturers techs. We have had the tool for about three years now and although it has been doing the job, there has always been a slight there's something not right feeling hovering in the background. Well today's discovery brought it all to light. WOW !!! This guy I work with is damn good and there's noooooooo fucking way I can match him.

On a lighter work note, today was good otherwise. It was a busy day and I managed to make a couple of troubleshooting repairs myself.

What's on tap tomorrow? More equipment troubleshooting, some training in the afternoon, and maybe a little design work thrown in for good measure. Otherwise, it's time to get tonight's dinner in the fridge and get ready for bed. Have a good one.

Work'en Eye's

Well here's your Cool Random Photography picture as I promised earlier. Another lucky shot in my opinion.

So let's take a look at some eye exercises, shall we? Here is the link to my original post discussing some success I have had with the so called natural vision correction with eye exercises. After doing some roaming around the web my self tonight, I found quite an interesting tid-bit from the American Vision Institute. It has some great descriptions of various eye problems and conditions and has a downloadable PDF file outlining an exercise program along with examples. Check it out! I'll warn you that the PDF file is around 17 Mbytes for those of you that are using dial up service for your internet access. Ahhh, Ieeeee remember those days. Anyways something to get you started. There is common information that is presented in the Vision for Life program that I got, but has some slightly different exercises.

Aside from that, I should be getting ready for bed. I've got to be to work around 7 in the morning to get some work done before our weekly meeting at 8:30. I got step A started before leaving work today. Step C is a long wait period which requires completion of step B. So I need to get step C going before the meeting, otherwise face a number of wolves who'll be eying me for dinner.

Bed Time. Let's see - 99 bottles of beer on the wall, one fell down, 98 bot . . .

Good Day!

Oh yes, today was a better day than yesterday. The morning started on a note a bit better than yesterday and improved as the day went on. I'm feeling pretty good as of now and actually have a couple of missions at work to look forward to.


And as an added bonus, check out what I received at the end of the day! A research student just returned from a month long trip to his home country of Egypt an returned with this as a gift to me. HOW COOL !!! Click on it for a larger image. It's made of traditional papyrus paper. An enclosed paper reads (in Arabic, English, and French):

We guarantee that papyrus planted and made in our factory farm is an Egyptian craft it has the same chemical and physical qualities that our ancient Egyptian papyrus had. It has the same fibers. The dark legenic sells the horizontal and vertical lines, its ability to be rolled in addition to long life. Colour, coat, and use the typewriter.

How Cool! This will be on the wall pretty darn quick. Otherwise at this point I'm going to voice an opinion to the following headline I read earlier just before leaving work: Rosie wants "Price is Right" job. Oh C O M E O N !! I say no, No, Not NO, FUCK NO. It's class and character that has been keeping that show running all these years. Stick with the recipe folks. There! Mighty has spoken.

OK, time to sit back for a short bit, then start playing with Javasript stuff. I didn't get around to it last night, but I do believe I got rid of the damn virus. Hope so anyways. I' return a little later with another COOL Random Photography picture, so hang tight. Okay?!

Maybe News

Hello folks. How'z it go'en? Good I hope. So today was a good day at work. Yet again, stuff to do seemed to fall out of the sky. Which is good seeing how this morning, I was wondering what the hell I was going to do today. I like it that way. Now what I'm I going to do tomorrow? Fuck if I know. I guess I'll find out when I walk in the front door.

News Flash !!! Sprint to Office Max. They got 2GB Verbatim jump drives on sale for 20 bucks. Scored one at lunch today. I know, I know. Next week 4GB's will probably be on sale for 10 bucks. Oh well :(

So I hunted down the medical benefits hand book tonight. I also threw out a bunch of crap as well! I pulled down the box that has my important papers and started rummaging through it. Why the hell do I still have this? Old car insurance papers and medical benefit info. Let me tell ya, the box was a whole lot lighter when I put it away. Time for a recycle run. OK, back to the subject - medical benefits hand book. I searched through for info on patient payment responsibility and sure enough, the $600 I owe is just about the right amount based on the pay plan. My plan caps out at $1500 / yr, so everything over that is covered. So . . . I'm really happy to owe $600 relatively speaking.

Welp, that's about all the news that might be news that could be considered news. Ha. See ya.

Plan'en ta party

All RIGHT! It's Friday night! Hang'en at home giving the body a well deserved rest from last night and, simultaneously, giving it a rest before tomorrow night. That's right, the Spring Crawl happens tomorrow night. Starts around 5:00pm, ends around ???. Expect a late one folks. Expect some good'ol times. Expect a large crowd. And best of all, expect not to remember much of it! Ya know what Iaa mean. Anyways plan is to meet up with K. around 5:30 to grab some grub, then head over to one of her friends house who just happens to live right in the heart of downtown. We won't have to worry about parking and we'll have an emergency crash pad if things get out ah hand. All I require is a flat spot to lay and ah clear path to the bowl.

On a warmer note, today was the yearly maintenance on the building chiller at work today. Now the chiller helps the air conditioners do their thing. Well let me tell you! That lab got fucking HOT! I don't remember it getting this hot in the last several years of cleaning being done. WOW. And those that know me, know that's its got to be 80 in the shade before I even start to feel comfortable. Let me tell ya it was hot. Next year, take the day off I say.

Well, back to chill'en folks. Cheers!

Change of plans

Well there is nothing like starting the day off and then having a wrench thrown at it. I was all ready to start a project this morning. I was getting suited up to go into the lab and then it hit me . . . Oh MAN. I gotta dice with this guy at 9:30. Shit. I made this realization around 8:45 and I really cannot start the project and quit midway if ya know what I mean. So I did some semi-quasi useful stuff until then. But then, the guy shows up with a "I'll be ready in about 10 minutes." Okay man, that's cool. Thirty five minutes later . . . So I'm now eating lunch and will get the original plan started after I take a walk outside to suck up this awesome weather.

I will have to say that, for now, I'm functioning quite well despite last nights sleep deprivation. You see, K. invited me over for chow. While out for chow, I locked my key's in the car! AAA to the rescue! Thankfully, K. had her cell phone. After all that excitement was over, head over to her place to chat a bit. THEN, someone turned up the heater! Ice please.

Got ah buddy?

So it's the end of a workday and it's time to hit the road jack. Head home and chill right along with the weather. Been cloudy, rainy, and cold all day long. Outside. That is. Good thing this wimp wore his heavy coat.

So I'm going to nag about a work related inconsistency that's bugging me. Upper management is attempting to re-enforce the buddy system in our facility. During regular operating hours, users of our facility may do their work alone. Due to the fact that there are more people around to find you in the event of an accident. During non standard working hours, you must have a BUDDY with you when working (qualified buddies must meet certain requirements) to cover you in the event of an accident.

So, some users have requested the right to enter the facility after hours alone if they are only going to use basic analytical tools of no harm (well, hold that thought). But upper management has said NO because WE cannot know for sure of the user will be an honest soul. Allow me to state that the use of basic solvents constitutes a hazard, requiring a buddy.

So, here's my gripe. Apparently, STAFF is allowed to enter the facility alone to do basic stocking and routine checks. Two of these routine activities include handling liquid nitrogen and filling solvent bottles. Hmmm. Is staff more competent than the most experienced user? Is staff somehow immune to accidents?

So I posed the question to two upper level folks via email. Decipher these responses . . .

[Mighty]
Just FYI. I'll be informing A. that the buddy rules apply to his work as well. (A. is staff)

B.'s comment:
As long as A. is not operating facility equipment, he will be allowed in the facility without a buddy.

R.'s comment:
If A. is running equipment and doing so after hours, then I would agree. But, if he is stocking chemicals, supplies, etc. then I don't agree.

I followed up with this response to both (including in the body the above comments).

[Mighty]
Ahh, but stocking chemicals entails a potential hazard. Also filling the LN2 tank on the SEM is also potentially hazardous. Stocking wipes and acid gloves are about the only two other non-hazardous activity.

We'll see how popular I am on Monday.

What I really wanted to say was:

[Mighty]
Regarding the buddy system, does this mean staff is somehow privileged? Does staff have substantially less accidents that any general user? What I want to avoid is users seeing staff doing activities that require a buddy for them, and then asking, "Where's STAFF'S buddy!"

Hope I didn't wear y'all out.
Cheers

I'm I done yet!

Oh man. What a day. Started out somewhat slow. Went to today's class (at UNM) for probably the last time. Only real reason for going was to get my exam back. But alas, they were not graded yet. The instructor did work out the solutions to the exam today, which satisfied me enough to gracefully close out the class. Don't care about getting the test back now. Satisfied. Ever walk into a class and have your mind go into sedation? The perfect analogy is Window's "Starfield" screen saver. Lean back, stare into the void. Your mind registers very little. Ears hear the hum of the propulsion engines. Ahhh yes. When class is over, your instructor ask, "Are there any questions?" Fuck yes!! "Like, can you start over from the beginning?" Let me tell ya folks, NOT gonna happen. I"ll have to spend more time on this state of mind later, but in the mean time . . .

What a day! After class, scooted back here to work, slammed some lunch and got started assisting in a major clean of one of our metal evaporators. Bead blasting the shielding. Oh Boy daddy! I can't wait to get started. Fortunately, my fellow co-worker was around to help (he initiated the work order/request). So while he bead blasted, I cleaned the innards of the chamber. Oh boy daddy! Mind you I started about 12:00, finished about 6:45. There was a small break to deal with other stuff and then a late afternoon snack break to keep my angry tummy at bay. But other wise . . . Oh daddy, I can't wait till it's done. Should be finished tomorrow morning. My co-worker will start early by starting to re-install the shielding. Thank God.

Anyways, I was going to make a pit stop at the store on the way home, but I think that's going to have to wait. It's nap time folks. I hope the carpet has some give where I land.