A Week of Ups and Downs

First of all, let me backtrack to Saturday when Sarah was over for a visit. I bent down under the desk to plug her laptop power cord in and had my weight on my right arm. When I plugged it in, I pushed myself up and heard (and felt) a triple-pop come out of my right shoulder. Little by little pain started drifting into the area. I was worried how bad it would get at first, but after it got to the point of a deep, dull ache it finally stopped growing. It just sat there and throbbed at me. It didn't really give me much trouble sleeping or anything and I basically stopped worrying about it.

The next day I drove the truck to a guy's house that had firewood for sale. I made one trip home with a load of wood, moved a bunch of our existing wood (to rotate the old to the front), unloaded the truck, then went back for the rest of the load. After unloading that and putting all the other wood back in front of it I was exhausted. I mean almost drop-dead tired. I thought if I would have gotten into the hot tub I would have just fallen asleep and drowned so I didn't even do that. By early evening I was about out of it so I decided I'd go to bed--I think it was about 7 or 7:30--thinking I'd sleep like a log (cheesy firewood pun).  Wrong.  It was probably one of the worst sleeps of my life.  My shoulder screamed in agony all night causing massive tossing and turning.  Unfortunately that was a work night and I suffered the following day.  To add to the shoulder issue and lack of sleep, all that bending and lifting firewood also gave my butt cheeks and upper legs an overdose of activity.  They were hurting bad all day at work too.  I did at least manage to get a good night's sleep that night.  If memory serves me, the following night of sleep was a repeat of tossing and turning due to the shoulder pain.

The good news came Tuesday evening.  That's when I got to go to the airport and pick Suzie up!

The poor dear... She ended up working her fanny off almost the entire two weeks that she was at her folks' house in Kauai.  It was no vacation.  Meanwhile, the cold, dank Seattle summer (or lack thereof) we were having finally turned around the day after she left and we were blessed with perfect temperatures the entire two weeks right to the day.  I did a good job of keeping all of her plants alive and all that.  I didn't have any wild parties or do anything wrong.

I blew the dust off the Harley Wednesday morning and rode it to work.  That was a high point.  Okay, maybe not so much going to work, but the ride home is always good.

We're both trying to get our sleep groove back.  Between my off and on shoulder pain and her time adjustments/jet lag, we were having some trouble.  I think it's getting better though.

Yesterday at work was a nasty day because of the shoulder.  I spent about 3 hours on Thursday afternoon doing brazing, and it definitely exacerbated my shoulder pain (although it really didn't show up until later that evening).  Because I had to spend most of yesterday doing the same thing (which is not my regular job) I opted to do the whole day standing up so my right arm could operate at a more relaxing angle.  Trouble is, that's pretty hard on the back, neck, and everything else.  Let's just say that when quitting time came, I was damn glad to see it.

It was a good Friday evening with my wife finally.  Out to eat at our local joint, and a nice, relaxing soak in the hot tub.

Okay, that's enough whining about my tired and abused body.  Tomorrow I'll whine about the predicted steady rain... Yep, it's back.

No Autopilot

Sometimes I wish there was a way that I could click a button and put whatever I'm driving on autopilot.  Car, truck, Harley--whatever.

I almost always have my camera with me wherever I go.  After all--you just never know when you might be blessed with that Pulitzer Prize-winning shot that ends up on the lower right corner of some obscure blog somewhere right? Yesterday was no exception.  I had to take a drive in the work truck (as opposed to the van) and of course, I had my camera with me.  It was a beautiful day.  Sunny, clear, and a seemingly endless supply of excess traffic so speeds where slow enough for me to ponder my surroundings from a slightly higher vantage point (which is why I like to drive that truck instead of the van).

The first thing I saw that was interesting was an older couple going by me on a Honda Gold Wing.  They were going the same direction as me and passing on my left side, so I had a perfect view of them.  The bike had a tricycle conversion (which is something you don't see many of), but that's not what I found interesting.  Nor was it the bright emerald green jackets they were wearing.  That color contrast was striking (okay, gaudy) against the beautiful deep red color of the motorcycle, but again--not what caught my eye.  What did catch my eye was the fact that she was reading a paperback book.  She had it open against her husband's back and she was doing her best to pretend she was actually riding shotgun in the comfort of her Lexus instead of on the back of a noise machine.  Did I get the picture?  No.  I grabbed for the camera but the wrong lens was on it.  Doh!  Right then I could have used that autopilot button.

Then a little later I glanced over to my left and saw the strangest little dog looking directly at me.  I must have felt his eyes boring holes in the left side of my head.  It was the size of a kitten but it looked more like a Schnauzer with a summer haircut.  It was just... I don't know--odd.  But the fact that it was standing up with his feet against the window looking at me instead of the truck I was in made me wish I had the right lens on.  Or an autopilot button.

Then on the way back home there was an accident on the opposite side of the freeway.  Nice visuals--although somewhat ordinary these days, and for that I did have the right lens on, but you know what I didn't have?  That's right--an autopilot button!

Ah, but my day didn't go without my capturing something.  Based on my travels, only in two places in the US would you see something like this:  San Francisco or here in the Seattle area.  I wasn't going to let this one go by so I just grabbed the camera, aimed, and shot a few "from the hip" because obviously you can't put a camera up to your eye while you're driving, and you know why:  No autopilot.

A Moment's Lull

I was outdoors today, puttering mostly.  At one point I was inside the garage, staring out the garage door... Lost in thought apparently.  It suddenly dawned on me:

There were no sounds.

The usual dogs barking, cars, birds... Everything was absent.  It was eerily quiet.  I probably could have heard a pin drop out front in the street.  This is very unusual in our neighborhood.  Usually, there is a cacophony of canines adding their voices to the already-present planes, cars, and birds that are making themselves heard.

When it occurred to me, I stood there and noted it.  Reveled in it.  Then I walked out into the yard and turned my head around like a sound-seeking radar.  I didn't count, but I'd say for about 15 or 20 seconds it was still.

It was weird.  This was a level of quiet that is seldom achieved even in the wee hours of the morning here.  There's almost always some sort of sound.  Usually it's a dog or a car.  It was about 2pm--usually a very non-quiet time of day in almost every neighborhood.  Even out in a very rural area there is the sound of a bird somewhere, or crickets, or something. 

Then slowly, the sounds of urbanhood begin to taper back in.

A small airplane in the distance tapered in first--faintly from far away.  Then I heard the muffled tones of the neighbors next door talking in their back yard.  I think it was a bird or two next.  Little by little, the neighborhood returned to its usual midday recording session.

It was cool, but yet insignificant moment that I felt I had to share.

Quiet House

Yesterday was a strange day in many ways.

I didn't get up with the alarm clock.  The reason?  I was to drop Suzie off at the airport at 9am-ish so it really didn't make sense to go to work for an hour, go back home to pick Suzie up, drive back to the airport and then return to work.  If any of my readers know where I work, the proximity from work to airport is not all that far, so it made more sense gas-wise to just hang out and deliver her to her flight and then go to work.

She has been gearing up for her trip for quite a while.  Her annual visit to her folks' house in Anahola, Kauai is something she looks forward to.  Because she is a workaholic she always has a list of stuff she will accomplish while she's there, and this visit is no exception.  We have an arrangement that I will go with her every other year, and because I went last year (that was my inaugural visit to that beautiful island) she is going solo this year.  She also usually travels with something she is going to deliver to her parents' house.  This year it is a disassembled cast iron garden planter.  It's not big, but it has a lot of pieces, and they all weigh like they are made of... cast iron.

She covers herself pretty well when she flies.  It's something like 5 hours to get there, and that means a person has to have a lot of stuff to occupy their time.  Because you can only get so much play time from a battery, she ended up with movies to play on her laptop and a portable DVD player both.  She also kept saying, "Don't let me forget my wrap!"  The "wrap" she spoke of was a flour tortilla sandwich wrap that she bought for her trip.  Wouldn't you know it--we were blasting down the road this morning when she says, "My wrap!"  Ha, we turned around and went back (luckily we weren't far away yet) to get it.  Funny thing--remember me saying the whole day was strange?  Well, I got up without the alarm clock, but did still make myself a sandwich for lunch.  I had no sooner dropped her off at the airport when it hit me:  I forgot my sandwich!  No biggie--I just worked through lunch.  No reason to stop when I had no sandwich, but I did benefit from making up a little time.  The important thing was that Suzie had her wrap.

Yesterday evening a special event took place when a few folks from work met up with Bruce and his wife at Anthony's in Des Moines for a drinks and eats.  I used it as the perfect excuse to take the Harley on a ride.  It ended up being a lot of fun.  Good people, good food & drink, and a good ambiance.  It was good to see Bruce again, and it was also good to finally get a chance to actually talk to his wife, Debbie.  Because it was a nice evening sky and light traffic, it was a good ride home.

To a quiet house.

Bruce is Retiring!

One of my coworkers, Bruce Lansciardi, is at work for his final day today.  He has been with the company for 15 years.

When I first hired in I was almost immediately working with him, albeit somewhat indirectly.  He was managing the high-speed stamping press products that I was counting, packaging, and delivering every day.  A few years later I was promoted to actually running the press full-time, and then worked directly with him.  You couldn't ask for a better guy to be teamed with.  Knowledgeable in seemingly endless areas, he was also funny and easy to get along with.  He taught me a lot about that press and the associated tooling we had to dissect and repair almost daily.

He has been involved with what seems like every facet of the shop in one way or another.  Upgrades?  Sure, he ran electrical cables, ducting, wiring, carpentry, plumbing, lighting--you name it.  He wasn't afraid or intimidated by voltage either--he was into everything from 440-volt AC on down to batteries.  He installed new equipment of every kind as well.  Repairs?  Very few things were out of his league.  Vehicles, giant presses--it didn't matter.  I have seen him working with everything from huge to tiny.  If he could open it up he'd figure out how to fix it.  He might be up on a ladder cutting tree limbs one day and running ethernet cable the next.  He has had tools and toolboxes scattered all over the shop.  I believe he really doesn't know all of the tools he owns that might still be around the company here or there.

It's really going to be strange around there without him.  We will undoubtedly falter occasionally and wish he was still there to prop us up.

In honor of Bruce's retirement, I thought I'd throw a few rhymes up on the wall:

A Tribute to Bruce

A lot of things have been repaired:
Machinery, pipes, and wiring,
but after years of working hard
Lansciardi is retiring.

He has been our "go-to" guy
when things at work would die.
It seemed he could fix anything.
If not, he still would try.

It didn't matter if he was clean
he'd jump right into messes.
He'd clear a plugged-up toilet
or work on oily presses.

Installations and upgrades
were also things he'd do.
No matter how complex they'd seem
He could see them through.

He taught a lot of people things
that they had never known.
He was a patient teacher too,
and taught without a groan.

We always knew when he was near--
his whistle could be heard.
That's how he announced himself
without a single word.

Many times he worked so hard
and he was stretched so thin
he needed clones to help him finish
so his next job could begin.

I'm sure that there are things at work
he'd just as soon forget,
but he'll miss things too--I'm sure of that
but won't too soon I'll bet.

There is one thing that might be good
about Bruce leaving us,
and that's the blame game we can pull
whenever we get cussed.

I can hear it now--just wait:
"Who didn't get this done?"
We'll be able to point a finger
"It was Bruce--Yep, he's the one."

It's time that he slowed down a bit
and treasured things in life;
He'll get to count his blessings
and spend time with his wife.

It will be weird after he leaves
on that you can rely,
but he has worked his years;
it's time to say goodbye.

Rick Williams

At least the internet provides us all ways to stay in touch with someone when they retire.  It doesn't matter how far they go--they're just a few clicks away.

Good luck, Bruce.  May your future be filled with nothing but the good things you've worked your whole life to achieve!

No Wonder

Anyone that follows me here on this meaningless blog knows that I usually pick up a sixer of some kind of "special" beer every Friday.  I have been doing that for years.  Sure, I occasionally skip a Friday for whatever reason, but it's just something to signal the onset of the weekend I guess.  I dunno.

My requirements for my Friday selection are not high at all.  Actually there is only one real requirement: A glass bottle.  Because I drink plain ol' canned light beer most of the time (usually some sort of mass-produced fizzy crap from the Anheuser-Busch company) I like to remind myself that my taste buds do still in fact operate and I have not been using them.

One of my favorite brands of beer has been Pete's Wicked Ale. I don't know when I first discovered it.  They only had a few flavors in their brewery but I liked them all.  While sometimes I will buy some sort of brew that I haven't tried (or just don't remember it), I sometimes look forward to a particular variety of beer.  Pete's Wicked Strawberry Blonde has been the object of my quest for a while now, and with no success.  Now I know why.

They're gone.

As happens so often in today's corporate world, the brand is sold, the brand is monitored by the suits, the brand is deemed not performing to their satisfaction, and the brand is killed off.

I did some digging around on the web and found the story that explained it all.

No more Pete's Strawberry Blonde.  No more Pete's Wanderlust Cream Ale.  No more Pete's anything.

I hope you had a chance to taste one of them while they existed... They were truly unique.

Nice Weekend!

This weekend was the perfect ending to an overtime-filled work week.  I ended up sitting at our brazing station at work all day long for four of the five weekdays, tediously brazing stainless steel discs onto stainless steel rods.  Those days I stayed overtime to try to pick up the accumulation of my regular duties while I was away from my desk.  All told, I brazed a tad bit over 600 of them.  Whew.  We recently lost one of the few guys that did that job, and it is one of the many "hats" I wear at work.  It will be nice when (or if) they finally find or train a suitable replacement.  While I love the overtime paychecks, I hate the overtime itself.

The Harley has been apart for a couple of weeks.  Multiple systems were torn down at one time, making the bike look more like I was doing a complete overhaul of it.  While it's still up on its jack, it's basically finished after I do a few final tweaks and adjustments, and take care of a few little details.  During the process, it received a complete carburetor cleaning and rebuild, a new starter ($), a new battery ($), oil & filter change, primary oil change (it had be completely torn open for the starter change anyway), drive belt adjustment, fixed a spot where the throttle cable was trying its best to rub through one of the gas tanks, replaced a couple of burned out light bulbs in the dash panel, and a few other little things.

The starter was an easy purchase (good ol' internet), but it involved a lot of disassembly to get to it.  Very much a labor-intensive repair.  When I put it in and tested it, it worked much better than the old one did, but was still obviously lacking in something, and that something was battery juice.  I bought a new battery a few years ago, but it was a "non-Harley" battery, and while it worked fine when I installed it, it never fit exactly right, nor did it have the kick that it should have.  Trouble is, you don't notice it when you're going from a completely dead and useless battery to a brand new one.  You just thank your lucky stars that your bike starts once again like its supposed to.  Saturday found me in a Harley "stealership" plunking down $140 bucks for a new one.  When I installed that battery (which obviously fit like it was supposed to by the way) and hit the starter button I was amazed.  The bike has never turned over that fast as long as I've owned it!  I also tracked down suitable replacements for the Harley oil filters at NAPA a store.  Harley gets almost $20 bucks for an oil filter.  NAPA = $5.  It was funny when I was at the Harley dealer and was once again reminded of the rider demographic.  Being a beautiful sunny Saturday, it was filled with bikes.  Everywhere you looked you saw the "bikers" milling around in their perfect leather garb with no road grime anywhere on any of them, perfectly put together in every way, holding their cups of trendy coffee from the latte' stand inside the dealership.  They were there to see and be seen.  I know I've blogged all this before, but I have to wonder how many of them use this Saturday ritual ride to the dealership as their sole reason to own a Harley.  Anyway, Saturday was spent working at a nice, easy pace on the Harley.  It was nice weather even if I did just "waste" it in the confines of my garage.

Yesterday morning while Sue was at her JW meeting I loaded up our canoe.  I built a couple of supports for it to sit on in the back of the truck and also drilled and mounted some anchors in the truck for tie-downs to attach to.  When she got home it was loaded and ready.  We recently found out about Rattlesnake Lake, near North Bend, and that's where we headed.  It was beautiful!  With temps in the upper 80's, we floated and paddled lazily at least three times around the lake.  It was quiet (no boats with motors), just a gentle breeze, and even the water temp was nice.  We enjoyed it immensely.  We even got to watch a falcon or hawk of some kind dive-bomb the water with a splash and carry a fish away!  I found this interesting article about it that you might want to read too.  I love learning the history of places we visit--whether you can see any sign of it or not.

It was a nice day.  We're definitely going back to that lake.  It's close enough, and we liked everything about it.