2002-12-05 - 1:26 p.m.
And the rain came down�
When the rest of the world gets snow we get rain. There is nothing worse than 35 degrees and raining. Give me snow any day.
There was a point in my life that I actually put my Horticulture degree to use in order to make money. I worked at a production nursery out in Floyd County while I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. I was a stock puller. This means I picked up order sheets, got on my tractor and went from one grow house to another pulling plants for shipping. It was a physically hard job. It was a mind-numbing job. It was a suck job.
On any given day I could expect to pull 1200 3 gal Liriope plants, a grassy looking ground cover. Now a 3 gal plant when wet weighs about 20 pounds, and we were expected to carry them 8 at a time, 4 in each hand. That is 150 trips in to the grow house. That is a total of 24,000 pounds. I had 4 hours to get the order filled.
Now lets add to this weather, specifically rain. We worked in all weather. 35 degrees and pouring buckets didn�t matter to the folks up in the main office. They just told us to buy (yes we had to supply all of our gear out of pocket) good rain suits and good gloves. I have spent days working in the bitter cold and driving rain�it sucks. At least when it was snowing you didn�t get as wet. I hated that job. That job is why I am not working in the industry now. Perhaps if they had put me on the job they specifically hired me for it would have been a different story. I was supposed to be a propagator and an IPM (insect pest management) assistant. Oh well� I guess I should be happy that I had that job. If I hadn�t, I might not be a teacher now�which has its share of drawbacks, but at least it is dry.
I am to the point that I don�t think that I can win with the SHO. It seems as if every time I go and get something fixed it never quite works out right. Right now I am fighting with 3 problems. None of which are very serious�but the irritate the shit out of me.
First issue: Passengers window was replaced because of the break in. The repair cost me $150. The fuckin window still ain�t right. It shrieks like a banshee when you put the thing up. It almost sounds like there is still a glass fragment grinding against the glass somewhere. And if that were not enough, the window doesn�t go up smoothly. It is as if it is binding halfway up. I�ll be damned if I take it back to the same yahoos though. They have had 3 chances to fix it now. They don�t get any more. I am heading over to the garage during lunch today to try and fix the damn thing myself. And if that doesn�t happen�well I am taking it to a different glass shop. Sigh�this is ridiculous. Replacing a piece of glass should not be that hard. I don�t think it is the SHO�s fault. It is just a Taurus door and mechanism. It just should not be this hard.
Second issue: The SHO does not like shifting into first. Not in the sense that the syncros are going. There is no grinding gears or anything like that, it is as if something is slightly out of alignment. I just have to push the gearshift further to the left than I should. Problem is, it is something that needs to be fixed before it causes something else to fatigue and break. Bah�The rub is I can�t find an adjustment to correct this problem. Guess I will just have to disconnect the entire linkage and reassemble it while the car is in first and hope it corrects it�s self. Sigh�
Third issue: The steering/handling seems to be fighting me a bit. Now I am hoping this is just an alignment issue. I have recently been told that every time you pull the sub-frame you need to get the alignment re-done. So here is hoping that my problem is being caused by too much camber and toe in. But once again there is a rub. I can�t take the car to just any ole alignment shop. With all the suspension modification work that has been done to the car you can�t get it into Manufacturers specs. You need to be smart enough to see/be shown the work that has been done, and understand how to compensate for it. So now I have to pound the performance shops around here and get some leads for high quality alignment shops. Cause I SO don�t want to suffer through more incompetence. I would like for once to take the SHO in for a repair and not have to go back again to get the repair fixed.
But other than this stupid stuff, the SHO is finally running well. Nothing more than a few tuning issues left to deal with. Ahh�finally I will be able to get back to driving my car and not fixing it. Gotta love high performance eh? When it runs, its a true joy�but when it don�t, its a HUGE pain in the ass�
So I had intended to continue recounting my turkeyday weekend�but I have found a lack of motivation to write about it today. Bah�
I just finished talking with the new Bossman. I think that we are going to get along VERY well. Hmmm what a treat. He has all sorts of neat and interesting projects for me to work on. He gives me challenging tasks. And best of all he is going to push the city to foot the bill for me to peruse an MSCE. Hmm�it�s going to be a pile of work�but hey it�s free, and it will allow me to make much more $$$ than I am currently capable of making. So lemme see. Bust my ass for another 2 years of schooling and double(or even triple) my income�sounds good to me. Now all I need to do is find a place to take the classes at. That ought to take up the rest of the day�.hehe.
Today I learned that the formula for figuring the numbers of hours worked based on a person�s in/out time is amazingly fucked up. For those of you who have a burning desire to know what it is�here ya go.
Sorry but I had to write out less than for the formula, cause the html thinks I am trying to tag something
=((F5-E5+(F5 Less than symbol E5))*24)
where f = the out time and e = the in time. Ex: Bob came in at 8:00 AM and left at 5:30 AM. To figure out how many hours he worked you would need to use that fucked up formula. Geez�.It took me 3 hours to figure this shit out! Arrrrgggghhhh�
So what have you learned today?
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