Year: 2006

Soggy Sunday

Soggy SundayI took one last picture of Neon in the company parking lot on Friday. Tried a couple of panorama shots, but those really need a tripod to work well.

Pretty much spent the day inside because of the rain. We did venture out around noon to get a Firehouse Sub and then do the weekly grocery shopping. The sun made a brief appearance around 3 PM, but didn’t stay long.

There is a threat of a car drive after the West Wing at 9 PM, but that is dependent on the rain staying away long enough. (It did.)

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 128

TAC

ASCO was recently awarded the biggest contract ever in the company’s history. Caterpillar has picked us to make a series of 4 valves that will go on every one of their diesel engines starting next January 1st. The government has tightened the diesel emission regulations and our valves will take the sooty exhaust and send it through some sort of afterburner to clean it up. The folks from Caterpillar have been in the plant for most of the week going over how and where we will build their product.

On Thursday they gave us this huge flag/banner about 9′ x 15′ in size with the Caterpillar logo on it. Early Friday morning it was given to a couple of the maintenance guys to hang from the ceiling at the end of the hall leading into the assembly area. A couple of minutes after they had finished hanging it I walked by on my way into the cafeteria. There were a couple of other people looking up at it, so I did too and this is what we saw:

TAC

I walked into the back and asked the maintenance supervisor about the TAC flag. He said, “You mean CAT?” I replied, “I thought that was what it was, but the flag was hanging backside out and upside down, so it looked like TAC. Maybe we should get it hanging right before the Caterpillar representatives come in, see it and decide maybe we weren’t really capable of assembling their valves correctly.”

Mobile Bill Pay & Long Distance Lunch

Forget automatic debit, forget paying online, we do things the old fashioned way – with a check. But then we throw in a twist, we ride our bicycles around town and put those checks in the drop box at the cable company, the power company and the city (for water & sewage.) We tacked on a few extra miles by exploring some of the rapidly expanding sub-divisions on the southside of town and ended up going a little over twelve miles on the tandem.

In celebration of having our Miata back we decided to go to Maurice’s BBQ for lunch. Big deal you say, BBQ, well the closest Maurice’s is in Lexington, SC about 50 miles away. It was in the upper 70s with a bright blue sky and some fluffy white clouds for contrast, a day that was tailor-made for a convertible drive. One hundred mile trip at 25 MPG and with gas at $3 a gallon we spent twelve dollars to get a $14 lunch. You can bet the trip was worth every penny.

Started down, went up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 127

Catch Me If You Can

During today’s visit to the cancer center I was sharing the waiting room with a little ol’ lady. She was obviously a cancer patient because there was no hair under her butterfly festooned hat. She sat in a wheelchair and was doing a crossword puzzle. When she wheeled across the room she didn’t use her arms she just kept working the puzzle and pulled herself by moving just her feet on the ground.

Donna called me down two doors to the lab area where she was waiting on Margo the nurse to come back. She showed me her numbers and they looked pretty good, but the doctor wanted to give her one more dose of the Nuepogen. When the nurse came back in she started to load up a needle while Donna tried in vain to bargain her way out of the shot.

As Margo was about to stick Donna’s arm the nice ol’ lady wheeled herself to the lab room door with her feet and asked if she could go yet. “Nope,” replied Margo, “I have to take blood for a test.” Our lady protested, “But you said I didn’t have to.” Sorry said Margo, the doctor forgot to write in the orders, but he just told me he wants it done. To which our butterfly hatted lady said, “Catch me if you can.” With a big smile on her face and a wink took a couple of shuffle steps forward moving all of 8-10 inches.

It took a full minute before the laughter died down so that Margo was composed enough to give Donna her shot.

Cinco de Mayo

Most people don’t know that back in 1912, Hellmann’s mayonnaise was manufactured in England. In fact, the Titanic was carrying 12,000 jars of the condiment scheduled for delivery in Vera Cruz, Mexico, which was to be the next port of call for the great ship after its stop in New York.

This would have been the largest single shipment of mayonnaise ever delivered to Mexico. But as we know, the great ship did not make it to New York. The ship hit an iceberg and sank, and the cargo was forever lost.

The people of Mexico, who were crazy about mayonnaise, and were eagerly awaiting its delivery, were disconsolate at the loss. Their anguish was so great, that they declared a National Day of Mourning, which they still observe to this day.

The National Day of Mourning occurs each year on May 5th and is known, of course, as Sinko de Mayo.

Gone

The Neon is gone. I left it at the body shop and drove home in the freshly fixed up Miata. It still smells a little like paint on the interior. They did a nice enough job and they also took out the two small dings on the right rear quarter panel that I have put there over the years. As a side effect of the paint blending process, a couple of scratches disappeared as well. Spent a hour or so once I got it home putting all the junk back in the trunk (and glove box and center console…) While the Neon wasn’t a bad ride for a while, it sure is nice to get the car back.

The Nuepogen is gone. Donna had gotten one shot of it on Monday at the doctor’s office, the company nurse give her the next two on Tuesday and Wednesday. On Thursday she went back for a blood test and the results showed that after Monday’s low White Blood Cell count of 2.5, the WBC was back in range at 4.5, but her platelets only rose from 1.0 to 1.8 and still remained a couple ticks below range. So she got neupogen dose #4. We had another oncology appointment this morning, with another blood test. The WBC was now over the top (10 is the upper limit of the range) at 11.4 and her platelets were up in the normal range too. She figured she was home free, nope, the doctor wanted her to get one more. The good news about that was, he then didn’t need to see her again until next Friday when she is scheduled for chemo treatment #2.

The hair is gone. Started to come out last night and there was lots more hair in the sink this morning. Tonight after supper we went out onto the back deck and I used my beard trimmer to cut Donna’s hair down to an 1/8 inch high. We then came back inside where I shaved her head. It may have been falling out, but it was still very thick. I used 4 Gillette Sensor3 razor blades. Now all she has is a five o’clock shadow. I didn’t want to try and make it baby bottom smooth because her scalp had taken enough of a beating getting to where I got it.

Started up, went down, back up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/06: 126

Neon Diaries Continued

Called the body shop at 2:00 PM to make sure the Miata was ready. They were putting it back together, so they could get it washed up. The fellow said it should be ready by 5:30 (coincidentally their closing time.)

Tonight was the May meeting on the MMC and we needed to be in Augusta by 6:30. A 5:30 pick-up time would be cutting it close. About 4:00 PM we decided it wasn’t going to work out, so I called the body shop to let them know I’d just get the car tomorrow. The receptionist passed me through, but I spent the next 2 minutes on hold. I just hung up. Tried again at 4:30 with the exact same results. When I tried at 5:30, still no one picked up the phone in the body shop. Probably all frantically trying to get my car ready. To bad, I wasn’t coming.

I’ll call again tomorrow at lunch and see if anyone will answer the phone then…

Started up, still up.
Neon Top Transitions since 04/24/06: 0