Yesterday, Ed and I headed out to start a new job. It's cool, I always like to start up a new job. It's even better for Ed, as it's only about a half an hour up the road from his house, but I get to drive an additional hour each way (1.5 hrs one way). Bummer. We got out there, and got things started, but due to drive time, and other assorted issues, we didn't get as much done yesterday as I'd wanted.
Back out there today, and we jump right to it. We're rolling right along, getting the rails up and plumb, getting the jacks up and plumb, and then the "Security" guys come and see us. They are rather important on this job, as we are installing an elevator in a new "Judicial Center", and it's in the "jail" section of the facility. This is providing us with some unique challenges, as this particular car will have no "Car Operating Panel" on it at all. All you will see when you look at the inside of the car will be blank stainless steel walls, and one little digital indicator that'll let you know what floor you're on, and what direction you'll be travelling in. All "car calls" will be handled from a remote touchscreen that'll be at the ward boss's desk. Whee! Fun!
While looking in the job blueprints about how this type of control was going to be allowed to them, I noticed something that gave me pause, so some further investigation was needed. Normally, we have a contact strip behind the COP where our travelling cable "lands up" from the controller side, and all the rest of the stuff on the car (door operator, the levelling head (aka. selector), any on car Posistion indicator's/arrival chimes, and the cartop "inspection station") tie in as well. After checking out all the parts, I realized that this contact strip was nowhere to be found on this elevator. This revelation initiated copious cell-phone usage (that since we're way out in the boonie's is spotty at best, and nonexistant at worst.) that gave us no immediate resolution to the problem. We'll find out something in the next few day's I reckon.
After we left the job this evening, Ed's cell went crazy with calls. From what I could hear from his side of the conversation... he was to report tomorrow at a residential job that has problems. I sat there wondering what I was to do, but I figured that it would resolve itself in due course. After another three phone calls, I learned that Ed will not be at our current job for a few day's (at least), and I'll be getting a helper first thing in the morning.
Yep. Starting tomorrow morning, I'm the "Mechanic In Charge" on the job we just started. Finally, I get a chance to prove myself as an Elevator Man. I'm excited, apprehensive, worried, and elated all at once.
I'm confident that I'll do a good job, but I'm certain to fuck something up. When I'm going behind someone else, it's easy to see what's been done incorrectly, but when you're doing it yourself it can become a situation of..."I know there's a forest around here, and I could find it if it weren't for all these trees!".
At any rate, another goal's been achieved...Finally.
I'm currently enjoying a seasonal favorite in the form of a tall glass of eggnog. Jennifer brought some home a few day's ago, and begged me to go to the liqour store to get something to punch it up with. For some reason, she had it in her head that I should get some Brandy to put in there. I don't know about you, but I've never ever heard of putting Brandy into eggnog. To me, that's akin to the whole Laphroiag epside that Bou went through awhile back. You don't waste good liqour by pouring it into some concoction. It's to be enjoyed in its own right.
Well, I went down and picked up a small bottle of Bacardi Gold, and I'm proud to say that it goes perfectly in the eggnog. Just pour yourself a healthy double-shot into a 12 oz glass, add the plain eggnog on top, and stir. MMmmm, Mmm! That's a holiday treat! I think I'll go make myself another one.
(I'm back.)
Last night, Steven almost performed a gigantic feat of blasphemy by leaving 3/4 of a bottle of chamagne on the coffee table when he went to bed. Luckily I was there to save the day by consuming that bubbly with zealous abandon. Jenny took one look at me and said "I didn't know you liked champagne." She should have known better, it's got alchohol in it, so she should know that I like it.
I'm doing my part to ensure that no alchohol gets wasted... How about you?
I just got back from having a wondrous Thanksgiving feast over at my Aunt and Uncles' place. Got to hang out with the 'Rents for awhile afterward, and caught a fish. Pretty-damn cool holiday if you ask me. Since I have some "Comp" time stored up at work, I get the honor of taqking tomorrow off. A four day weekend! I think they'll have to retrain my ass after having so much time off.
When I walked in the door at my house, I realized that my roommate had been doing a little drinking at his parent's place. He informed me that he'd drunk four bottles of champagne over there, and he stole four more to bring home. Sometimes it's not who you are, it's who you know... Here I sit, POW/MIA T-shirt on, boots, jeans, listening to Dobie Gray wail out "Drift Away" on the MP3 player, and drinking a glass of $100 a bottle champagne. Don't worry though. I ain't puttin' on airs or nothin'. It's not like I'm raising my pinky-finger or nothin'.
Here comes "Don't go breakin' my heart" by Elton John and some unknown chick he was trying to give a carreer start to. Yes indeedy. I'm in an "oldies" kinda mood this evening. So far, things is good. Earlier today I got to spend three glorious hours of solitude here at the "casa de closet", and it did me no end of good. A little peace every now and then is definately good for this old loner.
Ah Exile's "I wanna kiss you all over" on the player. Excuse me while I sing along for a minute... Ah that's nice. I haven't spent wnough time with my parents over the last six months or so, and I feel a little guilty about that. Luckily, the holiday season gives me reason to get up offa my butt and go over there. Also the Crappie are running, so there's even more motivation. Now all I've gotta do is catch a few "keepers" and the end of this year will be a good one.
Let's see... John Conlee's "Rose Colored Glasses" is now playing. (Nothing like live-blogging my playlist huh?) a little depressing, but I just enjoy his voice. This is the type of stuff that I listened to with my Mom when I was growing up. Late Seventie's early Eightie's country. Shoot, if I ain't careful I'll wind up crying in my Champagne. (Not bloody likely) I can't help it. This music gives me a warm fuzzy.
Linkin Park's "Numb". That'll clear out the cobwebs. Still kinda depressing lyrics, but that guitar line is a straight out rocker. Jeebus! It seems like I'm answering a meme with this post. The "What's on your playlist right now?" meme. Luckily my playlists are dictated by mood and never saved. Constantly fluid, and normally no more than about thirty songs.
"Sweet Caroline" by Neil Diamond is now on. I have more fun EarWorming a guy that I work with with this tune. "Look at the night...and it don't seem so lonely. We fill it up with only two," is all I've got to sing, and then five minutes later I'll hear "Good times never seemed so good". wafting up the hoistway. It's normally followed immediately by: "Goddamnit! Johnny, you're a Bastard!" Hey, I do what I can.
Yes friends. I'm secure enough in my manhood to admit that I'm a big fan of Neil Diamond. Good music is good music, and I don't give a shit what genre it comes from. On most things, I tend to be an elitist, but when it comes to music, I'm totally a slut. Give me a good croon, and I melt. A screaming bass-line? I'm there. Just one guy and his guitar singing a little folk? "Hell. What chords are you usin'? I'll play along."
Ah geez, I guess that's enough bloggy abuse for this evening. If you didn't get it from the above...Things are sweet right now. We'll see how they are in the morning when the wine hangover catches up to me.
Oh yes...I hope all of your Holiday's are going as well as mine.
So today was pretty frickin' okay. I got to work at about a quarter 'til seven in the morning, and Ed showed up at a quarter after. I woke up with a very mild headache, and was able to completely obliterate it with 800mg of Ibuprofen, so the start was quite bitchin'. Once work actually started, it went pretty smooth. We squared up the cab, and got rid of a problem with some seismic guides that were scraping on the rails. (Seismic's are there to provide a certain protection in the event of an earthquake. Regular guide shoes on a hydraulic elevator are made of cast aluminum, and have a plastic runner that actually makes contact with the rail. Cast aluminum, while being quite light, is also very brittle, so if the forces of an earthquake are exerted upon it, it will break at an unopportune point, and the car can fall off of the rails, damage itself and the people inside it, and get itself stuck in the hoistway where any survivors cannot be extracted. Seismic guides are merely a 1/8" piece of formed steel that has a "U" shape cut into them, that runs perpindicular to the rail. It is there to hold the elevator in line wioth the rails if the regualr shoes fail. Yeah, it's overkill, but welcome to the elevator trade.)
Then we dealt with a popping sound that was coming from one of the twin jacks. As the car came down, one of the horns that are attached to the stiles was making a bad noise. The bolt that goes up through the mhole in the horn was the source of the noise, telling us that the jack was slightly out of plumb, and some adjustment was needed. With some judicious use of a hammer, the problem was soon solved.
Then there was lunch. The truck driver showed up to haul away our gang-box, and we used him to help us out with setting one of the car doors. That process took beter than an hour, when it should have taken fifteen minutes. Too much gossip and kibbitzing was going on, and my Ire began to rise. I got the door hung and Ed was left to adjust it out while I got into wiring the traveler into the Car Operating Panel. I landed around 60 wires while Ed did the door, and I'm very disappointed in his performance. He should have been able to beat me by a country mile, but I was able to outdo him by twenty minutes. I am absolutely certain that my shit is right, but whatevr else happened is still suspect.
Did I mention that my "MyBrain" headache came back at around 1:00 PM? Didn't think so. By the time that "quitting time" rolled around, I was in complete misery. My frustration with the progress of the job was in the stratosphere, and the second car door had not yet been hung. All I wanted to do was to down some more medicine, and stare at the wall for awhile. All I did was read blogs, and that was enough to get me back in the game. Hopefully it'll last until the morning.
In regards to my headache problems that I've been suffering, I've been admonished to "go to the damn doctor" a couple of times. Unfortunately, I don't trust doc's enough in these situations to go talk to 'em.
You see...each of us has a unique physiognomy. We all will react to different treatments in differing ways. If you've not gone to the same doctor for the majority of your life, then you are seeing someone who is working off of averages to determine what is acceptible in any given situation. For me, that ain't good enough.
I see a scenario where I show up and explain my current headache issues, and the doc responds with a battery of tests. Since I don't regularly see a doc, then my results will be compared against national averages. I'd be prescribed every type of medication from high blood pressure to mood enhancers, just to deal with my little issue. Not to mention the "Drug of the week" (brought to you by big pharmaceutical amalgamated) that treats hives, headaches, vaginal drip, rickets, and erectile disfunction. (Side effects may include: headache, back pain, sexual disorders, anal bleeding, backache, headache (yes, I said it twice), nasal leakage, anal leakage, poor birth wieght, nausea, and depression.)
I Fucking Think Not.
I'll beat this eventually, and I'll be fine without the side effects listed above. This is just a long-winded way of saying... I ain't goin'.
Well...I've been pretty-much ill of health for better than three weeks now. It started out with your basic Flu symptoms, body aches, runny nose, coughing jags, the works. It then progressed into a stomach virus kinda thing, lot's of gastrointestinal issues. Nowaday's, it's merely a runy nose, and a headache. I can deal with the nasal drip, it's just that the headache has lasted for better than a week and a half.
I'll down 800 milligrams of Ibuprofen, and it'll go away for a couple of hours, and then it's right back in full force. I'm taking up to 2400 mg's a day, and the problem is still not going away. It's affected my thinking in merely all the aspects of my life. On this last elevator, I've redone more tasks than when I started with the company...due to stupid shit that I've missed because I'm thinking about my headache more than the job. It pisses me off, because I know that I'm better than what I've shown. But Godammit. I'm sick.
Anybody got any good home remedy's?
As I am perusing the old 'roll this fine evening, I ran across a post by Contagion that really hit home.
I can't begin to understand all of what has generated your anger, but I think I've felt something similar. Unfortunately, the booze niether expanded nor contracted my rage, it just redirected it... outward instead of inward. I'd like to think that if I had three boy's and a wonderful wife, that I'd keep them in mind before I took me a big "Drank" of liqour, but I can't make that guarantee. People do things that they know they shouldn't all the time.
I'd just like to (drunkenly) say that "I feel your pain", and "I'm with you brother". You obviously understand responsibility, but this is a time that I'd like for you to not beat yourself up about in the future. We've all got plenty of that. No need to add more.
Last Monday, the call came down. Kev's phone rang in the early afternoon (I don't have a phone provided by the shop) and the boss wanted to speak to me. He asked if it would be allright if he sent me to help out Ed and get a two-stop holeless hydraulic elevator started, as the building is scheduled to be turned over quite soon, and there were a few people out sick. Well what could I say? I told him "Sure".
It was initially to be just for Tuesday, but that afternoon, the Boss stopped by and asked if I could stay another day. He stopped again Wednesday, and asked if I could work out the week. Friday he stopped by again, and we all went to lunch. I asked him what his intentions were for me to do, and he had decided to go ahead and pair me with Ed for the forseeable future. I've got no problem's with htat, I can work with anybody.
Meanwhile, back at the Hospital... Kev has been powering on with the last of the big traction's. It was determined that the hospital's "Service Guy" was to help him out in my absence. He called me this afternoon with the news that he'd turned the last car loose on automatic. With the lesson's that we'd learned putting the first two in, there were no instances of the problems that we'd seen previously. He just had to plug the numbers into the computer, and turn that mother loose. I'm proud to say that the fabrication work that I put into the job had something to do with the ease of adjustment.
Working with Ed has been a learning experience. He's around 6'3" tall and wieghs about 390 lbs. He's so strong that he has used that aspect of him as a crutch to lean on. He winds up doing things the hard way just because he thinks that his strength will overcome it. He's been taking 3 to 4 weeks to put in a two-week elevator. It's my job to teach him how to get it done on time. The dichotomy is kinda cool... He's reminding me of what I forgot about building these little elevators, and I'm teaching him how to do it better/quicker. Don't get me wrong... I'm still letting him Fuck Up and do things the slow way, but I'll let him know where the mistakes were on the back end... Gently. Ed is a smart dude, but he doesn't have much confidence in his brainpower... I'll give him that.
Did I mention that Ed is the Bosses Son? I didn't think so. Work'll be interesting for awhile, until Ed comes up to speed. Then I'll be running my own crew. It's gonna be bitchin'.
As you may or may not know, I am a former Navy Seaman. I was designated a "UFTG" which is an "Underwater Fire Control Technician". I was to be responsible for the toropedoe's and the three-inch launcher.
I made it through nine months of my training before I gave up and left the military on a technicality. It didn't suit me. I have the type of personality that makes me a "free thinker", and it makes me less responsive to the type of indoctrinization that our young people subject themselves to every day. I just can't do it...release myself to a higher power that "knows more" than I do. I'm much more of an Elitist than I knew I was then.
I ran. The responsibility was too great for a person who had doubts...to his ability to serve, to his ability to stand firm in the face of adversity, and in his ability to to "not let down" his fellow man. In that, I'm a failure.
Every Veteran's Day...I'd like to consider myself among their number, but I just cannot. They are the one's who stayed the course, and made our America a better place due to their sacrifice.
I'm merely a poseur in the light of these people... I can't compete with true heroism.
I'm sorry America, for being a big pussy when it comes down to defending you. I ran away from my obligations. That's why I'll never refer to myself as a "Veteran" on this site, or any other.
Sure, I was in the military, but a Veteran I ain't. That's reserved for people who've actually done something.
When last I reported, I was sick...and I'm sorry to report that I still am. I did something on Wednesday that I've done very rarely in my work carreer, I called in sick. I basically had a really severe head cold. Stopped up nose, bad cough, equilibrium off due to the head stuffed with phlegm, generally all around fun. I pounded Thera-Flu like it was going out of style, and generally just rested. I felt good enough to go to work on Thursday, but I still wasn't 100%.
I got a call from a friend Thursday night, so I went out to the bar. It was a bad idea to be pouring alchohol on top of the medications I'd been taking for the cold. I wound up breaking the dispatcher for the elevator's on Friday, and had to go into work on saturday to fix the problem. (Orderred a part overnight from California, and it fixed them right up.) Saturday afternoon I decided to celebrate by going out to the bar again. I began to notice that I was having Gastronomical Issue's during my tenure at the bar, and got the sneaking suspicion that it wasn't going to bode well for the rest of my weekend.
I've spent all day today drinking gulp after gulp of Pepto in hopes that it would calm the storm that started in my belly. Along with the moments of "Green-apple quick-step", I had the privelage of stomach cramps pretty-much all day. Needless to say, it's not been a very fun week/weekend.
I don't get sick all that often, so it's obvious that I don't know enough to stay out of bars when I am. Chalk that up to a lesson learned the hard way. I still owe everyone an update of the blogmeet, and I'll do it sometime this week...If I can stay out of the bar that is.
I really wanted to do a recap of the big blogmeet that I went to over the weekend, but (as luck would have it) I've fallen ill. Just go and see the man who made it all happen, and bask in his glory. Thank you Eric for the good time, and for everyone else who was there, I promise to give you some love soon.
The NyQuil now overcomes me.