Whatever

Where Are My Shoes?

Got up this morning to go to work and my shoes were not where they were supposed to be. I checked in the bedroom closet, I looked in the living room, I looked everywhere. Twice. No shoes anywhere.

When we get home from work we enter through the garage and come into what we’ve named the Computer Room (for obvious reasons), but it is also the shoe taking off room and the coat hanging up room and the dropping the mail on the desk room and the Goodwill donation staging area.

Monday night we had to do some running around and our Goodwill pile was big enough that we decided to drop it off while we were out. That’s right, on Tuesday morning my shoes were in a box of similar items in the back room of the local Goodwill Store. The heck of it is, looking back, I think I carried my own shoes out of the house and put them in the trunk.

Brian Bowls 300

300 Game

It only took until the 3rd frame of the 3rd game to get there too!

I got to go Cosmic Bowling. The Valve Store(tm) purchased a lane and the rights to have up to 8 employees bowl for free from 7 to 11. They were having trouble getting volunteers to go and Donna happened to be talking with the ringleader of the event this afternoon and agreed to have the two of us do it.

We got to bowl as much as we wanted, we each were given 2 drink tickets and they had hors d’oeuvre before hand plus nibbles at every lane. Even the shoe rental was free. We ended up with a total of five people bowling, Donna and I, another couple, Heather and Al and one of Donna’s department members, Mary.

There were prizes for the top three scoring teams and a prize for the most spirited. Our team of non-bowlers won nothing, but we did help raise nearly $10,000 for a local children’s charity. All five of us had a great time and I bet all of us will wake up in the morning with a sore shoulder.

The Smithsonian Called

Bid AuctionOn occasion at the Valve Store(tm) we do some modernization to or buy new equipment. The replaced stuff that is beyond our usefulness get discarded, recycled or offered up to employees to bid on once a quarter.

Right now we are in the middle of revamping and rearranging the entire assembly floor, so there is even more stuff that is unneeded. Now once a month they place the items in a spot somewhere in the plant, put an Avery label with a number on them and publish a list. The November bid list was chock full of about 50 items that I had zero interest in, but there were plenty of people who did, as only 2 items went unsold, a typewriter #6 and an overhead projector #45.

I can’t even remember when it was the last time anyone used an overhead projector for a meeting or presentation. And where did they dig up the typewriter? The young women in HR who creates the lists was so unfamiliar with the thing that she didn’t even know that typewriter is one word.

The No Hot Chocolate Incident

Dunkin Drive UpI’ve been thinking about this for about a week now on how I could write about this and not come off as a little stupid, but have been unsuccessful, so here goes anyway.

If at all possible we like to start our day off with a couple of hot beverages from Dunkin Donuts. The DD on the south side of town, because of being shoehorned into an already existing lot has kind of an interesting drive-up line. Coming from one direction you have to drive past the store, then turn sharply back into the line as it crosses in front the store. But if there is no one in the line you can cheat and sneakily turn into the entrance of the Captain D’s next door.

It was early and no one was in line yet, so I cheated. When I placed our order I was informed that Donna’s beverage of choice was unavailable, the hot chocolate machine was not working. This has happened before and our usual recourse is to drive to the other side of town and try the other Dunkin. Because there was a car ahead of me waiting to get their order, I checked my driver’s side mirror to see if anyone was behind me and started to back up. I didn’t get far. Bump!

Had I checked my interior rearview mirror I might have noticed the Isuzu Trooper behind me. He, like me, had come in the cheater’s way like I had so he was invisible in the driver side door mirror. Fortunately the plastic bumper of the Purple Whale was almost the exact same height as the bumper of the Trooper, so there was no noticeable damage to either vehicle.

The only damage was to my pride which was exacerbated by the fact that I couldn’t back up and had to drive past the drive up window and everyone inside who heard the whole incident through the ordering microphone.

Save Me Some

Here at the Valve Store(TM) in the cafeteria we have an industrial sized ice maker/dispenser so everyone can fill up their cups, mugs and glasses. I get ice three different times, morning, lunch and afternoon break because I drink three different beverages throughout the day.

Because of the quanity of ice the machine produces and I fancy myself a sort of a smart-ass, whenever I get in line behind someone who is getting ice I always say, “Save me some.” Because it will never run out, most people ignore me.

Here is an ice machine conversation from yesterday:
Me Save me some.
Co-Worker Every time I get ice, I end up with ice on my arm.
Me Maybe you did something bad to the ice machine in a past life.
Co-Worker I don’t beleive in past lives.
Me Maybe the ice machine does.

That’s Fair

Fair

We started the day with breakfast with the MMC at a Steak and Shake in Augusta and we’re ending it on the couch watching the FRS play playoff baseball. In between we walked around downtown Aiken to pay our bills followed by lunch on the porch of a small restaurant. This afternoon I finished up my center console modifications by installing a lighted push button that operates the garage door remote in the old cigarette lighter spot.

While I was in there I tried sliding the top of the upper shift boot up the shifter some. I mentioned a couple of posts ago that shifting into 1st and 3rd required a bit more oomph than it did with the old torn boot, well today, shifting into 5th was met with progressively more resistance. So much so that on this morning’s post breakfast drive the shifter popped out of 5th gear about three times just because of the tightness of the rubber boot wanting to force the shifter into neutral.

After dinner we took in the sights at the Western Carolina State Fair. It was a beautiful night for it as it actually felt like fall. They had quite a few awesome looking rides and that is pretty much all we did was look at them because even if we did want to try one out the lines were very long. The only thing we bought was a 1/4 pound of fudge from a vendor after 2 failed attempts to buy an ice cream cone from an outside cart.

Started up, went down, went up, back down, up again, down again, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1268