Christmas

Jar of Toe Jam

Friday night was the MMC’s annual Christmas Party. I really kind of dislike giving a store bought gift for the gift exchange, so when I can, I like to make something sort of crafty. After last year’s Wrench on the Bench I really felt like there was no way to top that. So this year I dropped back and bought some stuff, admittedly non-standard stuff, and added a little crafty delivery system.

I didn’t get a cut of sales of the Blipshift shirt I inspired, but I did in fact get a $100 credit at the company store to use as I see fit. So on Cyber Monday when they offered these cool Cargyle Socks, I decided to spend some of that money. Because it was two pair I figured the second one would be my gift to give away. I also bought a set of the laser-cut ornaments and then I could use one of the four as decoration on the sock delivery package.

Initially Donna was going to bring a bottle of Blackberry Gold that we bought in Hendersonville over Thanksgiving from the Flat Rock Ciderworks. I was going to some how stuff the socks into a wine bottle so that we would both show up with identical shaped gift bags. This planned crashed for two reasons, first Donna opted to take the hard cider as her gift to the Valve Store’s Lady’s Christmas party the night before and second it turns out wine bottlenecks are too small to stuff a grown man’s sock through.

What you see above is Plan B. I was impressed with my effort, the person who ended up with it on Friday night was not. I was not too surprised by that though as the car club is stuffed full of non-car guys. Even if every person in the Club was there, I bet it would take less than one hand to count the number of folks out of the nearly fifty member/member families who would know the significance of the color pattern of the socks.

Stop The Madness

Subject: Christmas/Holiday Gift Giving At Work
To: Workgroup
Cc: Department Boss

Folks,

Every year I have been going around and asking (begging/cajoling) for some amount of money to pool together to buy the boss one big gift card. The decision of what store that card should be from is haggled over until a consensus is reached. I then go get the gift card from said place, stuff it in a Christmas card that we present to the boss at our annual holiday lunch at a local restaurant. At that same meal, the boss usually turns right around and hands out an individual gift card to each and every one of us, for about the same value as our individual donation to his card, in appreciation for our “hard” work during the year.

Well, this year I propose we stop the madness. Let’s avoid the whole senseless swapping ‘X’ amount for the same ‘X’ amount already. A free lunch on the company, a hardy handshake and a “thanks for everything” is all that any of us really want during this holiday season. I think it would be better for each of us to take that gift card money and drop it in the red kettle outside a grocery store or donate it to a charity that you feel is doing good work (or buy yourself Independence Day: Resurgence on BluRay.)

If someone else wants to take up the mantle of gathering money to pass along something up the food chain, please leave me out of it. I’m not a total Grinch, so if anyone, group or individual, wants to give another individual in the department a gift, by all means go for it. And after this, if someone still somehow feels the need to give me a gift, I will thank them profusely and promptly go out and buy a share in a goat in Zanzibar of equal value in their name.

Brian

P.S. Immediate Boss, please, don’t take this personally just because this is your first year as the boss and this is the year I’d like to opt out of the gift card swaperoo thing, it’s been festering for a few years now.

A Variation On The Elf On The Shelf

A Variation On The Elf On The Shelf

Back in February when I needed to replace one of the Emperor’s 02 sensors I bought it and the wrench I needed to change it online. The sensor showed up, but the wrench was back ordered, so I went down to the local Advanced Auto and bought one to do the job with. Naturally the online wrench arrived a couple days after I finished the job. I couldn’t return the used one locally and I didn’t feel like spending the $5 to return the online wrench just to get $6 back, so now I have two of the same wrenches that I might not ever have to use again.

A couple times during the year I thought that maybe I’d just give one away as a “Door Prize” to an attendee to one of my MMC led events, but never did. Well it is now towards the end of the year and the MMC Christmas Party was coming up, maybe I’ll just wrap it up and put it under the “tree” for Ol’ Swapperoo Gift Exchange.

Then a couple of weeks ago I overheard my cubical neighbor telling another co-worker about his experience with The Elf On The Shelf and his 3-year old twins. I had heard of The Elf On The Shelf before, but never knew what it was all about. So rather than let on that I was ignorant of the subject, I Googled it. WOW! There is a whole subset of America’s mommies that are The Elf On The Shelf disciples and are not afraid to swap stories and activities and tips on how to make this “fun” for the month of December. This is where I discovered that some folks, that now knew what TEOTS was about, but didn’t feel like spending the money on the book and the official elf doll and could just make their own. A light bulb figuratively illuminated over my head at this point, I’d turn the extra wrench into a automotively themed TEOTS.

What followed was a weeks worth of some fun and some frustration for me and mostly frustration for Donna as we perused local stores scanning shelves for the ingredients for my MMC Christmas present. I already had some red paint for the wrench/body, but needed a small Santa hat, a styrofoam ball for the head, red pipe cleaners for arms and legs and some colored felt for the hands, feet, etc. Then we needed just the right size plain box to put him in. Just when finding all the required pieces proved too elusive we got lucky in Hobby Lobby when we found a $6 elf ornament for half price.

The right box was still missing. Google to the rescue again, the 6th link down for DIY Gift Boxes led to a hexagonal shaped box that I could scale to fit. What better style box for a wrench could there be?

Fearing a copyright infringement lawsuit I couldn’t call it The Elf On The Shelf, so in keeping with the car theme called it The Wrench On The Bench. I photoshopped an homage to the actual TEOTS book cover and now I just needed to put something on the inside to tell the story of TWOTB. Hoping to find a passage or two from the real book to inspire a new story once again I turned to Google. No actual words from the book, but I did find a poem on lil’ luna that got me going enough to hack something just long enough to go on the inside of the hex box cover:

How does Santa know who’s naughty or Nice?
The Wrench on the Bench sits in your garage
Watching if what you do is wrong or right
And reports back to the North Pole every night.

Harbor freight junk from Ol’ Saint Nick
Is going to be under your tree if,
You crawl under a car without jack stands, or,
Use pliers when a 6-point socket is called for.

Santa will make sure it is presents you’ll get
If you always consult your Chilton or Haynes,
Use a torque wrench instead of a guess
And at every 3,000 miles your motor oil is fresh.

There are only two rules for the Wrench on the Bench;
1. Never touch the Wrench on the Bench or it will be gone forever.
2. The Wrench on the Bench needs a name that is clever, but not Murphy, not never.

It’s Beginning To Look…

Oh? Tanenbaum.
…a lot like Christmas.

Yesterday afternoon we got a Motoring Challenge point, but in the morning we did some Christmas shopping for the rest of the people on our list that weren’t going to happy with a wreath to decorate their front door. We had some kids to buy for, 1 nephew, 2 nieces and a 5-year old off the Angel Tree at work. We visited several stores looking for just the right items, but in reality we ended up getting almost everything for the 4 of them at one store. We then did a little halfhearted shopping for ourselves with Donna a little more successful than I.

Yesterday evening we decked the halls. The first order of business is to set up the tree. I assembled the two halves and plugged it in. The bottom part lit up and the top stayed dark. Dang. Maybe that explains the extra string of lights in the box? So I plugged it into the spot where the top lights went and tried my mightiest to get those 50 bulbs to cover the top. Nope, couldn’t do it. That’s when I remembered that only the bottom half of the top half was out last year and the 50 bulb string could compensate for that.

Instead of going to out to the nearest store and buying another 50 light string, we said, “Screw it, let’s get a whole new one.” A check of the Home Depot web site showed that there was a nice 7-1/2 pre-lit tree for sale for $120 that would fit our needs. Only one in stock though. Quick like bunnies we got dressed and headed over. Looked for the tree, approved of its looks, located the unopened box and came on home.

Took a bit longer to set up, but that was mostly due to the fact that it is 60% larger than the old 4-1/2′ tall one it is replacing. And boy has pre-lit artificial Christmas tree technology improved in the intervening 8 years. This thing is miles nicer – fuller & more realistic – plus it cost less than that old tree was back then.

Another “Christmas Gift?” Story

Last April my department manager retired. My supervisor, who was also in charge of the Programmer and the 3 engineers, stepped up into the corner office. All three engineers submitted resumes and interviewed to move up into the vacated Fabrication Engineering Supervisor spot. They hired someone from the outside. There were a few ruffled feathers.

Needless to say, I expected a little push back when in the first week of December I asked the 3 engineers for some money for the usual annual Christmas Gift Card for our supervisor. I thought I’d start by asking for a smaller amount than in previous years, but after, “Sure thing, let me know.” I got a, “Well, if everyone else gives…” and a, “No #$%*@ing way am I giving any money for him.” I abandoned the whole thing.

On Tuesday the 22nd, we are all gathered in the conference room for our monthly Tool Box communications meeting and at the end, our new outside hired supervisor hands out Christmas cards to the four of us. Inside is a $25 gift card to Home Depot. A couple of us looked inside and knew we were in trouble, while the other two just knew instinctively that we were going to look bad because we had nothing to reciprocate with. When the meeting broke up, there were a few mumbled thanks as we made our way out the door.

On his way by my cubicle Mr. No #$%*@ing Way tossed a twenty on my keyboard.

Because his wife is expecting their first child, the new guy got a gift card to CRUMBSNATCHERS-R-US from us.

Started up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1446

Christmas in Hopeland Gardens

Hopelands

The last time we walked up to see the lights in Our Fair City’s Hopeland Gardens was 5 years ago (we tried last year, but were shut out.) Tonight we made the walking trip over to see if they had added anything new and they hadn’t. We were slightly disappointed, but in talking about it on the walk back, we decided that it is better if they don’t keep piling more stuff in there otherwise it would get too gaudy.

Happy Holiday

Please accept – with no obligation, implied or implicit – my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low stress, non-addictive, gender neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable tradition of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your preference.

In addition, please enjoy a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2014.