Occupying Time... aka My Day Thus Far

Hidee Ho everybody. How y'all doing other there? Hope every is having as good of a day as I am. Actually today has been just like every other day, sleep, work, find out that Wal-mart doesn't sell stamps. Watch annoying co-worker attempt to read supermarket novel and laugh as he fails and tries to sleep in the world's most uncomfortable chair. Ok, so that is an exageration, I'm sure there is a chair out there in the world that is more uncomfortable. I imagine the chair would have spikes on it instead of cushions, and everytime you sat in it, the chair would eat part of your soul. And if you stayed in it too long you'd be forced to eat a kitten. That chair would be far less comfortable than these but none the less these chairs are completely uncomfortable.

So work today has been uneventful. Rain threatened, so I had to wrap the stupid monitors in ziplock bags or garabage bags.. then there was a problem since when I sent coworker out, he let the bag go over the intake, so I was getting pump faults all over the place. Just goes to show that one should never send a completely idiot out when a trained monkey would suffice. I swear, I'm guessing most people would have listened to my explanation of what not to do with the bag. I told him quite explictly not to allow the plastic to cover up the inlet, but no.. apparentely that didn't get through his thick skull. Actually I'm surprised he didn't end up sufficating on the plastic bag. I can just picture myself, standing over his body.. contemplating giving him CPR or not.. all the while remembering the total pain in the ass that he has been. Now, I know some of you are thinking, "but Dave, every life is precious.." and I completely agree. But i also believe that if you are a complete waste of space and organic material, that there should be a serious reconsideration over whether or not what he had should really be considered a life. But enough of my crazy sadistic thoughts.. on to more cheerful things.

Joey sent me a link last night, to a comic that I've really fallen in love with. It is www.toothpastefordinner.com. A very fun site that I've been reading a lot of over the past 24 hours. My current favorite at the moment is this one. Man, I totally would save that account. Ahh, polar coordinates, brings back memories. I really hope Stuart sees this one... I think he would enjoy it too.. not nearly as much as he enjoys NOT WORKING *cough* slacker *cough* but still, it is funny. Check it out.

Enough of fun happy facts. At the plant this morning, the power went down. Honestly, totally freaky. Alarms start going off, I'm afraid that tanks are going to start exploding and ruining my shit. But nothing serious happened. The power came on 5 minutes later and everything is fine. But as I'm walking out to the car to drive back to the hotel, I look across at the other side of the facility (keep in mind the facility is huge!!) and there area huge towers of flame coming out of a bunch of release pipes. I'm talking, maybe 50 feet high, and billowing thick, black smoke. I believe they were burning off excese gas from their holding tanks. I thought it was a little odd, since normally I don't think they are allowed to do that, so I continue on and start driving. About 2 minutes outside the plant, I notice a thick haze hanging over the ground. Then I notice a new smell that I hadn't smelled on the plant since i got here. So I immediately started the AC on recirculate rather than pull in fresh air and just continued driving. About this time I noticed a bunch of vehicles on the side of the road from the Texas Department of Environmental Health, and they were using all this really fancy air monitoring devices. That is when I sort of start to get wierded out. But I just kept driving, through a haze for about another 10 minutes. So, that was the strange incident of my last 24 hours.. well that and the coworker not killing himself on a garbage bag.

Ok, this has rambled on more than long enough.. I must go change some batteries and pretend like I am working for the next... crap.. 5 hours. Night is going by incredibly slowy tonight. And Joey just signed off.. crap. No more interesting conversation from the man in AZ.

later

One more week

One more week, that's the word floating around the tank farm, along with a bunch of deadly gases and scary smells. Hopefully they'll be done circulationg the tank by then and I can get the shit outta Dodge. That is what I'm now calling this horrid place. But Amanda called me this evening, as well as Michael and one wrong number, so tonight has not been so bad. I've dominated the internet from the idiot Ashley, and at the moment he is off sulking or something out of the office. Go me.

Well I don't have much to say, I need to go calibrate a few monitors and get them working and ready to go out into Dodge. Ok, maybe calling it Dodge is sort of stupid. Maybe tomorrow I'll call it something different. Like "armpit of texas". I actually considered calling it that, but then I figured no one would know which part of Texas I was refering to. Oh, two points for messing with Texas. Once again proving that bumper stickers can't control your life.

I'm going now, some music, movies and literature await the rest of the evening. I'll try to post again and leave a little update on, well nothing imparticular. Oh yeah, American Express sucks but that is a story for another day. And why is it when you are buying 300 dollars worth of batteries people look at you strangely? I thought my excuse of "my car runs on batteries" was pretty funny, but people didn't believe me. Then I just said my girl friend is lonely when I'm at work. People apparently didn't get it since they just smiled and nodded. Go figure.

Enough.. I'm off.
later

Co-worker

Just finishing up my shift here and I've got some terrible news. The company that is doing the HAZ-MAT here, HMHTTC, just switched workers here. There is one cool guy that has been here since the beginning, Larry, he is fun to work with. He keeps to himself, we talk occasionally, but mainly he just leaves me alone. The guy who just left today, Kieth, was also pretty awesome. He was from Jersey and was crude, rude, and hiliarious. Unforunetely the person they replaced Kieth with is a freaking moron. A farm boy from Pennslyvania, he is quite stupid. He really hasn't ever been on a job like this, so has no freaking idea what he is supposed to do. So he has taken to sitting in the office where I'm forced to stay, and just sort of talking. He took over the internet for about 6 hours tonight, playing this stupid golf game. I want him to be like the other guys. Who wouldn't sit in here. They would go sleep in their trucks and just sort of let me do my own thing. But no, this Ashley (he even has a stupid name) just sits and tries to make small talk to me while I'm reading. That really gets me. He won't leave, won't sleep, didn't bring anything to entertain himself with, and complains about everything. Yeah, I know it smells here. Yeah, I know the night shift sucks. Yeah I know you are a freaking idiot. He watched the scrubber screw for about an hour at the beginning of the shift, and he said he slept for most of that. It just irratates me that he is going to totally make these shifts that much harder. No more pushups, no more movies, and no more constant internet. Just, I was making due with this shitty assingment, figuring out how to make the 13 hours pass with only minor boredom. In fact, he is trying to talk to me about rewinding DVDs as I write this. I can't stand it. Going to have to talk to Larry and get this problem fixed.

Ok, the rant this rant is done, and maybe he'll figure out that when I'm completely ignoring him I don't want to hear about his ideas about fucking with people at video stores by putting rewind stickers on DVDs. God, he won't shut up. OH GOD, I'm thinking about destroying my eardrums with the spork from dinner. He won't shut up. Only crap.

Ok, yeah, something is going to have to change here, real quick. Real quick, or Dave is going to be sent home due to beating this fuckhead to death. He just graduated college, or so he is saying now, and I fear the college that would allow this dumbass in. Finally he is leaving, rarely do I wish death on people, actually no, that isn't entirely true, but I'm really hoping he falls into a tank of something terrible. Yeah, like ACID! I think Joey suggested that I tell him the acid is Jell-o and for him to find out what it tastes like. Ahh, fantasies.

Well, I guess this entry entired consisted of me bitching about this new guy and about how I want to ruin his shit with a sledgehammer. Ok, I'm off now. He is gone, and I can put on some music and read my book in peace. At least for the half-hour I have until something needs to be done. *Sigh* an entire evening of good reading and push-ups down the tubes because of a new guy. His death, I've just now determined, must be slow and excruiting.

Later

Water

Well, got another shift just about the wrap up here at the wonderful Stan Trans facility in Texas City, Tx. It has once again been an incredibly boring evening with my exciting moments happening when I realized that I couldn't balance chairs on my nose, and the subsequent injuries resulting from such attempts helped occupy my time.

Actually, as most of you know, I like to drink water. Now, it was sort of a joke last time I was onsite in California, I was constantly drinking and staying hydrated. So I have continued the tradition here in Texas. I've been drinking drinking drinking, and then I drink some more. Though I am using a different Nalgene bottle, but it is all good. Anyways I was curious about how much I actually drink in a night of working, so I started logging the times of when I finished a bottle. Now keep in mind, this is a 1 liter bottle, though not completely filled up, but probably 97% of the way. So here are the times:

1 - 2130
2 - 2231
3 - 2342
4 - 0009
5 - 0150
6 - 0345
7 - 0537

Yeah I was pretty surprised that I was downing a liter of water an hour there for a second. I had dinner around 11:30, which would explain the drastic increase in fluids. Now, I'm wondering if drinking 7+ liters of water is dangerous. I mean, they say what.. to drink 8 8oz. glasses a day. So, like 2 liters is that right? So I'm drinking, 4 times the requirement in 12 hours. Does this screw up my system, I have to wonder. I eat a lot of food, all you people out there that who know me know that, plus I'm constant nibbling on salty snacks and the like. So, yeah that was my random deep thought of the night, can a person drink too much water. Maybe I'll go back to the hotel and eat a few spoonfuls of salt just to be on the safe side.

But, if anyone ever has to work a 13 hour shift which is pure boredom, and needs to find a way to stay awake, drinking lots of water helps. I'm constantly having to get up and take a leak, which forces me to stay awake. Work ain't so bad when I'm spending about 2 hours of my time here in the john. Sometimes I start to get drowsy, then I realize I need to pee really badly, getting up and walking around helps keep me up. And it definetely speeds up the drive back to the hotel.. sometimes it is a near photo finish.

Well everyone, I have not much else to note tonight. Played some of these game called "Evil Genius".. seems fun, but then my alarms had to start going off, so I didn't really get into it. While I was away trying to "save lives" my evil mastermind got killed. Made me very unhappy. But still, I'd suggest checking out the game if you get a chance. The demo is pretty nice.

Let's see, what else. I'm hoping to get some good Star Craft single player action going on tomorrow, I've got it all installed, so that might be most of my time tomorrow night. I can't remember a time that I just sat down and played good ol' SC for fun single player. Hours of good multi-player action have taken up countless hours of my life, man those were some good times. *Sigh* Someday maybe I'll find some cool people to play with again, who knows.

I'm out of here, need to make me some reports and print out a crap load of paper. Take it easy world, and keep drinking that water.

Morning.. though it feels like my night

Ahh, working nights rocks.. who else is up and feeling awesome at 4:55 am.. well Joey and Jessica since they both just signed offline after keeping me company all night long. Other friends, take note what true friends are like. TAKE NOTE!

Joey and I had a great conversation concerning zombies. And we made lists of how we would have to section off individuals in a post-apocalyptic zombie nightmare. No, not like listing names, but more along the lines of picking groups of people who would be the first to go, etc. I made the novice mistake of forgetting about the underground slave mines, crucial mind you to a pos-apocalyptic future (not even necessarily zombie infested), but such a mistake made me take heart to my current list. I would publish it here, but I fear retribuation when the undead hordes come. I trust some individuals, but I fear that other groups might be offended and take action. I would hate to be left in the street with broken limbs with the shuffling masses approach. So take heed, if for some reason you fall into one of my categories, I apologize now, for the future is not for all, espically those that would slow me down. :-) Ahh the joys of conversations with Joey while he is on his "bottle of wine night." Good times, good times indeed.

Ok, so I haven't been posting enough, but I'm going to try to fix that. Even if it is a stupid post about nothing other than what I've done work-out-wise, I'm going to post it. Maybe I'll even start putting up pictures.. tomorrow.. I'll do that tomorrow night. I'll invest at least part of my 12 hour night to figure out how to put up pictures, so I can be cool like all the other blogs. BLOGING ROCKS.. or would it be blogging.. I'm never sure. Since it has a vowel... but..... nevermind.

I'm outta here.. take it easy world.. and remember, edged weapons never need to be reloaded.