What is it about nice people that attract total idiots?Nice people are martyrs. Idiots are evangelists.

SOCK IT TO ME BABY!!!

Tuesday, March 14, 2017

Tuesday weekend catch-up

So this week's catch-up post comes to you in reverse chronological order.  Therefore we start with today, which had the wheels fall off soon after lunch.  We have an old-style boat made with two longitudinal panels instead of 5 or six side to side ones.  I call it a "whale".  The long panels are about 8 yards long, instead of 3 1/2 yds on normal boats.  So needless to say, I cross my fingers that nothing bad like a defect happens while it's cutting these enormous panels or the fifty thousand or so bands it needs to put it together.

And so, bad thing #1:  These boats are so old, many of them are not on the system with a part number, but with a description, which means instead of it scanning over to my machine, I have to bring it up manually- if I know what the description # is, which I didn't.  This involved a five-minute office trip that got me nowhere I couldn't have figured out myself.  So, "33776A" becomes "SL200LS-ERP-12", and away we go.  I have only about 18 yards left on my fabric roll, and that's about what it's supposed to be, so I have an outside chance of getting it all if nothing else goes wrong.

And so, bad thing #2:  For whatever reason, these big panels have a couple of tight corners that, if the blade is worn and I have the pressure maxed out, it will either reset the machine or break the blade- either of which, on MY machine (thought not on the other) means 8 yards of fabric have just been shot up the butt.  And, sure enough, on the last tight corner on the second panel, the blade broke.  So I changed the blade- not taking into account that the belt on my machine is getting so bad that if I forget to turn the air back on before I home the machine prior to restart, it will mess up the blade.

And so, bad thing #3.  So while I cut some of the bands, my floor lead gets me another roll of fabric ("black cherry"), and soon I am struggling to get the remaining pieces cut.  Struggling, because the blade has a nick from homing it without the air on.  Get all the way to the last piece- and there's bad thing # 4, a defect square in the middle of the last piece.  I take the opportunity to change the blade- again forgetting to turn the air on before homing, #5- and recut that piece.  Change the blade again- this time leaving the air on.  But this time, when I went to put the blade holder back on the machine, the tiny little screw that holds it on fell out and hid, #6.  After wasting 5 minutes looking for it, I turned to the tool drawer for a spare- and found none, #7.  Finally found it after pulling back the belt to see that it rolled into a nearly-inaccessible crevice.

In cases like these, I assume that the boat will sink upon delivery to the customer.


We move on to Sunday, where we saw an exciting NASCAR race that saw my three drivers, Truex, Larson, and Chase Elliot- finish 1-2-3.  And after, Kyle Busch decides to go kick Joey Logano's butt for wrecking him at the end (which may or may not have been what happened.)  But he went to Logano's pit, where Logano's pit crew were, without taking his own guys along.  As you might expect, it did not go well for Kyle.  In fact, it inspired me to make a meme and post it on FB:



And that brings us to Saturday, which featured the birthday of Jessica's son Aaron, who just turned 10:

Lighting the cake


Love the eyes here...

"Yeah, Peanut, when I turned ten, Dad took me to Hooters..."



I can't wait till I get cake...

2 for one- Jessica picking her nose and Shenan showing off her latest hickey.

And later on, I get my first taste of legal Indiana Yuengling 

10 comments:

  1. Chris:
    ---Cripes, you and that machine. After all of what's happened to you with it, there has GOT to be a SAINTHOOD in this for 'ya!
    I mean, I would have taken the bloody machine apart and left the parts on the floor telling the technician "NOW, YOU put it back together so it WORKS as designed. got it?"
    Yeah, I tend to react differently than most...heh.
    (gotta love planned obsolescence)
    ---Geez, NASCAR is going the way of UFC now...can't be a good thing.
    ---Aaron's amazed with TEN candles? Wait until he gets to OUR age (and the fire dept is on SPEED-DIAL...lol)!
    ---Peanut is starting to outgrow that name already.
    ---Aren't hickeys just a bit SO 70s???
    ---And how'd that Yuengling go down?
    Be curious to see if it's how I remember it from Philly days past. I liked the black & tan.

    Good post.

    Stay safe (with cake, too) up there, brother.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Not exactly the machine's fault this time. These guys have known the belt replacement needed to be ordered weeks ago, but when I asked yesterday, I got, "Well, Dale's gonna check with Missouri and see if they have any extras, and if not, it'll take 3-4 weeks to arrive from the manufacturer." Why not order it 5 weeks ago? "We just didn't think about it." Amazingly, nobody died at this point.

      And the blade breaking? I've been writing down these old #s for three years and hadn't hit that one before. That tells you how rarely these things are ordered, and why the "tight corner" problem will NOT be fixed.

      The Yuengling was great- I woulda preferred to have had two or three, but the place was packed and understaffed, and we didn't see our server from drop off of food until eating was completed. Reported same to their FB page and the manager not on duty let me know his schedule so he could make it "100% right" with us next time.

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  2. Ok bad things are suppose to come in threes not sevens just saying. Someone looked like they liked the look of the cake.

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  3. I think your job would make me crazy. The only reason I can function in my job is that I am more or less left alone to manage my efficiency... it's only when the bosses interfere I get really cranky.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm mainly left alone, too- prolly why I haven't been fired.

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  4. Someone needs to make a meme of Aaron with a caption that says: "Find you a woman who looks at you the same way this kid looks at cake."

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  5. Anymore I sleep, then wake up more tired than when I went to bed and proceed to stumble through the day in a muddled mess. Then I read this post and I'm more confused than ever. Now that I've retired, I'm always tired and when I sleep, I dream about my old jobs.

    You just wait until you're retired! Your dreams will make your job seem like--well, whatever it doesn't seem like now.

    Arlee Bird
    Tossing It Out


    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. They already do- big muddled mash-ups of the worst of every job I've ever had. Sometimes school or the hospital thrown in.

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