Good news (no question mark)

I talked to my current employers and they said they "don't want to hold me back" so they're fine with today being my last day.  This sounds great as I know that AIG can get me started training tomorrow if I'm free.  I'll probably even leave a bit early today just so I can tie up those ends a bit easier.

~Matt

--
"A room without books is as a body without a soul." -Cicero

Sleepover

Last night I slept over at my sister's place. She and most of the family headed down to my brother Larry in Tennessee to enjoy some Spring Break vacation. One of the older boys stayed behind, mostly so that he could get in some extra hours at McDonald's I think. Well, my sister asked me to stay over last night when he had some friends over.

I haven't gone anywhere in a while, so I did have to think for a bit before I got everything together that I would need. I needed the chargers for my cell phone and PDA as well as a spare alarm clock to ensure that I would wake up on time. Then I brought some of the bread that I baked yesterday, and the rest of the fixings for lunch (except for the chips, I stole those from my sister, ;-)).

I even remembered all of my toiletries, though I shaved last night rather than bringing my razor over. Well I slept well and even woke up early thanks to a second alarm on my cell phone. That one I set so I'd get up early enough to get the bread ready yesterday. I didn't get up with it (about thirty minutes early) but I did doze off and on and then got up about five minutes early rather than my usual five minutes late. That bit of time made a difference, even with the slightly different routine here at my sister's house rather than at my apartment.

I was ready to go about ten minutes before I need to. Then I discovered a problem. I couldn't find my keys. At first I looked everywhere that I'd been in the house (only a couple places as I pretty much just went straight to bed last night) and couldn't find them! Then I was thinking that I was sure I'd had them and they must be here, so I looked everywhere again. Finally I reflected again and realized that I wasn't so sure I'd had them last night after all. I do need to lock the door of my apartment when I leave, but not the front door of the building.

My hands were full when I left to cross the street last night, and I'm sure that I somehow just forgot them. Thankfully this is the first time this has happened in six months. Because of the cold snap though, even though I'm at my sister's place I elected to leave my car in my garage, figuring that a bit longer walk was worth a warmer car. This though leaves my car locked inside my apartment. I do have a spare car key, but no spare apartment key.

I'm going to call my landlord later (at what I can figure is a decent hour) and see when he could let me in. At that time I need to ask him if I can get a spare key that I could leave here at my sister's place. I'm not too worried about work besides the lost pay as they've not been keeping me that busy (in contrast to the Cincinnati plant where there is plenty that I could be doing right now!). I called in and let them know of the situation. Once I get access to my car I'll call them back and figure out the plan for the day.

Joy, joy, joy... ;-)

~Matt

PS UPDATE No, Mark, you may not quote me yet again, but I am an idiot. Of course this only happened after I left a message with my landlord (and haven't heard back) and finally called work to tell them that I couldn't make it in for sure. I found my keys. I replaced the water in one of my nephew's frog cages (as apparently needs to happen each day). His brother is supposed to do it, but he is still sleeping and I doubted that he would remember. I started moving the cages around and spot my keys laying there. Of course it is only now that I remember that my sister's front door was locked last night so I had to use my key to open it.

Earlier I couldn't remember that and so could convince myself that I must have left my keys. By this point the work day is nearly half over. I'll miss the day of pay, but I don't really want to have to call back in at this point--I'll just write off this day as a mistake and head into work tomorrow morning.

This side of the river

Apparently I'll be heading back to Kentucky to work. My main day job wants me to work at the Kentucky plant again, even though I'm nowhere near done with what I'm doing in Ohio. At this point I'll just wrap up what I can tomorrow so as not to leave anything hanging and then head back to Kentucky on Monday.

I enjoy some things about Ohio more--but it will be nicer to be closer to home again (and thusly using less gas) and able to shop on the way home or drop by the library. Of course I don't know how long I'll be doing this. Hopefully I'll be back in Ohio at some point, but I'm not sure.

~Matt

China in Ohio?

I pass this building every day on my way home from work. I finally had a chance to snap a picture of it today while I was waiting at a red light behind a long line of cars.

My job is working out well and should last for quite a while yet. Hopefully I'll be offered a full-time job when my temp work with the company is done. However, I'm not completely sure that this will happen. Right now I don't have enough free time to job search (at least if I like to have any sleep!) so I'm not worrying about it. I have enough saved up that when this job ends I can pay bills for a couple months while I look for work--not that I anticipate it taking too long to find something.

In the meantime though I'm just trying to make do. ;-) My internet connection should be hooked up on Friday and a neighbor just gave me a computer desk! :-)
~Matt

Five hours

I was on the road for five hours to get home through the snow! This route normally takes me around thirty minutes (or just a bit under that). And I think I only made it home so early (around eight--having left work at 14:45) because I left the interstate at one point and took some surface streets that my brother-in-law pointed out might be quicker.

The last two miles I was on the interstate too me two hours to travel!! *sigh* My van is parked down the street at the house of my brother-in-law's mom since I don't want to risk my very sloped driveway in the morning. My landlord just plowed it out--he was working when I came home--but I don't want to take the chance.

I like snow, but this was crazy. One bad thing was that I didn't have my camera. I would have loved to have taken some pictures while I was stopped in traffic for minutes at a time!

~Matt

PS Here is a link to a map of the route that I normally take home. I followed it until I was nearly to the river--that is where I deviated.
--
"A room without books is as a body without a soul." -Cicero

Eventful, eh?

This is my car, or rather the current condition of the rear end of my vehicle. The vehicle is over ten years old (it is a 1994 Ford Aerostar that my parents purchased at the very end of the model year) yet not in terrible shape.

Earlier this winter (during the first snow, which I'd forgotten about because it has been so mild since) I did have to replace the starter, but that is about all I've had to do since I purchased the van from my parents.

Last March I was involved in a minor accident, but no structural damage occurred and everything went on as normal. Yesterday was a different story. If you happen to live in northern Kentucky or the Cincinnati area then you'll probably recognize what I'm about to describe--or perhaps you know of something similar where you live. The exit ramp from Hell! No, I'm not exaggerating, this belongs along the route to Sheol.

Both I-75 and I-71 (I almost typed the 75 and the 71 before I remembered that I'm not in California, ;-)) run north/south (odd numbers) through Cincinnati. They actually split right north of the river to take divergent courses through the city, after joining together some twenty or thirty miles south of the river. I-275 is an interstate route that roughly runs around the city.

The exit I use to get to bigg's is the Erlanger exit off I-75/71. Unfortunately as you exit to your right two lanes join this off-ramp area to the further right. One is a straight on-ramp, the other is a merging lane from I-275. Now to actually exit the freeway you need to merge right at least one lane, but preferably two. Most of the traffic coming in from the far right (and always going a good clip) wants to merge to the far left, rather than exiting the freeway. This is bad enough when traffic is light and the lanes essentially need to switch from right to left and left to right. Now mix it up some.

Add in heavy rush hour traffic coming into the exit ramp area from the right and add in a setting sun that has been hitting you in the eyes (despite your lowered sun shield) for the past ten minutes. All of this together is a recipe for disaster.

I was trying to move over to the right so that I could exit and get to bigg's when I realized I wouldn't make it over. Since the car ahead of me was also having difficulties moving the driver had had to come to a stop. I also had to stop behind him, a bit quickly, but still safely. Unfortunately the car behind me did not have such good fortune. He did hit his brakes, but too late to avoid slamming into my bumper.

The impact was at a low speed, and I wasn't physically injured, but he did damage my bumper as you can see above. His car was damaged slightly, but nothing like what happened to my bumper. I'm not sure yet what his insurance will cover--I'm waiting to find out. I need to get the police report sometime near the end of the week (if I have time to go to the police station). Thankfully it isn't structural damage and I could survive without fixing it (I don't have collision insurance for my vehicle because of its age), it just wouldn't look pretty. Unfortunately my trailer hitch (which I haven't used yet--but I have hopes of using if the van holds out for years yet) was jarred out of place. I'm not sure if it is currently safe and/or usable. :(

On a more positive note I have my security badge for work. The Kentucky plant just issued me a contractor's badge--but the Ohio facility is larger and has actual security personnel (or at least one). They insisted on giving me an actual badge. Unfortunately I forgot to comb my hair before the picture, and my glasses were dark. I have Transitions lenses that turn dark in the sun, but before my long walk to the guard shack today I haven't spent enough time outside in the sun for them to go dark in many, many weeks.

~Matt

It's a long walk

>From the entrance back to the maintenance building. The facility where I normally work, in Florence, is housed in one large building to which additions have been made as the plant expands. Here the philosophy was apparently to make many small buildings. Perhaps in the spring and autumn this makes for nice walks outside as you go about your business. In the winter though it isn't so fun.

On a more positive note, though I did have to wake up early this morning I didn't hit much traffic coming north. As a consequence I arrived a bit more than thirty minutes ahead of schedule. I think that this might become my new starting time up here (07:00 instead of 07:30). I will have to get up and leave earlier, but I'm afraid that if I try to leave later I'll hit traffic and be even later instead of closer to being on time. This will mean that I leave thirty minutes earlier than I'm used to, and I suppose that is a good trade off for loosing a bit of sleep. I might be able to avoid evening rush hour (or at least the worst of it) and still have time to do some thing before heading into bigg's.

Anyway, I think that thing will work out while I'm up here. Hopefully I'll be able to keep busy and be helpful doing something useful.

~Matt

--
"A room without books is as a body without a soul." -Cicero

1453

Earlier I entered item 1453, which of course led me to remember the Byzantine Empire. It was in that year that the last remnant of the Roman Empire finally fell to Muslim invaders as they conquered Constantinople. Even though they renamed the city Istanbul it was known as Constantinople for centuries afterwards throughout many parts of the West.



Of interest is the fact that the name Byzantine was never used to describe the empire by its citizens. They were Romans (even if in later years they spoke Greek instead of Latin) and theirs was the Roman Empire dating back to Julius Caesar, and further back to the formation of the Roman Republic Check out this podcast series if you want to learn more about the Byzantines. I highly recomend this fascinating selection of programs (which are still being produced--so keep checking back for more). The series is up to Basil II, but in 13 episodes still has not covered more than nine of the promised twelve rulers! :-) I'm enjoying that rate of progress as it means more shows to listen to!



~Matt

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Preparations

Well today I made sure that my shifting employment won't cause too many disruptions. Unfortunately I cannot do anything about the fact that as long as I'm heading up into Cincinnati in the mornings I won't be able to drop by the library on the way home or do some shopping. However, I did make sure that I should have plenty of food that I can heat up. I won't have to cook anything this week for dinner unless I have the time to do it. Otherwise I'll just heat up some of the food that I either made today or pulled out of the freezer from previous meals.

~Matt

Shifting

Starting sometime next week I'm going to be working at another factory.  'Tis the same company, and will be pretty much the same work, I'll just be helping them get the other Cincinnati facility functional (ore more functional).  The only problem is that this location is in Cincinnati, so I'll have to drive north on I-75 in the morning.  Right now I drive opposite the flow of traffic, so I don't have many hold ups.  It takes me around 15 minutes (or less) to get to work.  Going the other direction is only a little bit farther, but will probably take me thirty to forty minutes.  :(

~Matt

--
"A room without books is as a body without a soul." -Cicero

Can I redo that?

Lunch didn't go so well today.  As I only had a few minutes in my apartment to change before I left for work today (thanks again for picking me up Chris) an hour late (but I leave an hour late as well) I decided to shower instead of packing a lunch.  I instead took some leftovers out of my freezer--a chicken and rice casserole dish that I'd saved for use as a meal when I didn't feel like cooking, or didn't have time.

The problems started when I got to the break room at lunch time today.  The food was still frozen, so I read my book while I put it on defrost.  Perhaps ten minutes later it was finally defrosted and heated up--but I'd had to test and stir it several times while readjusting the microwave settings.  Then just as I was carrying it back to my table the container slipped out of my hands and the food spilled all over the floor.  A guy looked up and asked if I'd lost my lunch.  When I replied in the affirmative he pronounced that it "must be Monday."

Now, after spending five more minutes cleaning up the mess on the floor I had to turn to the vending machines.  I had a slice of apple pie from my parent's in my lunch container, but I wanted more.  I ended up spending most of the cash I had on me (which is unusual, I don't usually carry cash) on a chicken sandwich and chips.  *sigh*  It wasn't bad, but it didn't have ketchup!  :(  I would rather have eaten the chicken that I didn't have to pay further for, but I didn't have that option.  Oh well...

~Matt

--
"A room without books is as a body without a soul." -Cicero

Long Meeting

Yesterday I had to attend a safety meeting at work. It was scheduled to last from 14:00 to 16:00, my normal quitting time. It wasn't over until 16:45! On the positive side I'll get paid for another hour of work, but negatively I barely had time to rush home, change, and grab some food to eat in my car on the way to bigg's.

~Matt

--
"A room without books is as a body without a soul." -Cicero

Not at work?

Aye, I'm not at work this morning.  After several weeks of trouble (during which time I haven't had the time to attempt to fix it) my starter finally gave out.  I had to call into work where by boss told me to get my car fixed and come in tomorrow.  I'll miss the day's pay, but I'm glad he was understanding about it.  I had to borrow my sister's van to drive down and buy a new starter ($113).  Then I spent a couple hours with my brother-in-law coaching me to pull out the old one and put in the new one.

Oh, did I forget to mention that it snowed this morning?  Had I left on time I think I would have been okay and missed the snow as it didn't start until seven thirty (when I clock in).  It is a cold day.  I'm definitely going to post pictures of my old starter and any I can snap of the snow outside.  It also looks as though there might be another event tomorrow evening at the Museum Center.  Fun, fun these last minute deals.  I'm sure keeping busy!

~Matt

--
"A room without books is as a body without a soul." -Cicero