Saturday, October 27, 2007

Not another day at the office

For those of you who do not know me, I work in what is called a pre-treatment facility. This is where the wastewater from the polutry processing plant (no not human waste!) is sent, the pre-treatment facility processes the water to compliance standards and, we send it to the city wastewater plant and they in turn, send it to a "dry creek".
Anyway, I work in this pre-treatment place, which is know simply as "wastewater". There are thousands of gallons of water coursing through 10-12" piping, there are machines whirring, air compressors chuging and sludge in the making. We use a polymere type of chemical to treat all those thousands of gallons of water. This polymere comes in a powder form and mixed with water becomes very slippery..........
Now you may have figured out by now, (if you have read it this far) what has happened. If you have or if you haven't it doesn't matter, I'm telling it anyway...............
There are many hazards in a watertreatment plant, and one has to be extremely careful. I go to great lenghts to be a safety-conscious person.
I do not like Pain, it hurts.
I roll up hoses, pick up crap a person can trip over, make sure my shoes do not have water on the bottom of them when I get around this dry polymer.
It can get slick.
Maintainence and major housekeeping projects abound on the weekends. This weekend I decided I would paint some walls. The bathroom, it also needed a makeover. So on I go, paintin' away, la-tee-da-la-tee-da. The day is going well, not a breakneck speed like during the week; the typical day at my office.
I thought I had forgot to turn off a pump, I'm in the bathroom painting away. La-tee-da, la-tee-da, off I go, paint roller in hand. The floors have two fresh coats of paint all nice and dry and shiny.
The shoes I have on are slip/skid resistant. No, they are not.
Between the water standing in the bathroom from a leaking pipe and what seems to have somehow magically adhered itself to the soles of my slip/skid resistant shoes is, you guessed it, dry powder polymer.
Up comes a smooth spot in the floor, down I go.

Here are somethings I get reminded of when this happens:

Fact #1 Large women do not do the splits.
Fact #2 Large women are not particulary attractive rolling around the floor.
Fact #3 Large women tend to grunt when they land
Fact #4 Large women have to use all available means in order to pick herself off the floor

The paint roller? It bounced away, leaving nice white splotches upon the newly painted floor.

Fact #5 Large women grunt when they have to bend over to wipe up the mess they made.

It could have been worse, but nobody sees me wallow around on the floor, priceless!

Friday, October 26, 2007

A quick note to all of my fans!

I haven't fallen off the face of the earth, just a lot goin' on these days! I just love all the comments being made. Thank you my wonderful fans! LOL!!!! I will have more to share on my days off, I know everyone is simply dying to know what's going on in my world!

Sunday, October 21, 2007

Thornbirds and a contest

My how time flies! Just when I get sick of mosquitos and sweat, I'm shivering and standing in front of the wall heater. Sigh, I need to live in Jamaica, (sigh again).
I have committed myself to a suicidal project involving another novel. The goal is to produce a finsihed novel, 50,000 word minimum, and 175 pages long. Whether I complete this remains to be seen, and it really does not matter if I do. That being said, let me explain....
I have had this story stuck away in a dark corner for nearly thirteen years, not sure if I wanted to touch it ever again. I started it in October of 1990, as a matter of fact, I think it was around this time seventeen years ago. I wrote and wrote, poured out my heart and soul. And nearly lost it all. If I have learned anything from writing, back your stuff up, a hundred times if that's what makes you feel secure. I think I must have tossed some of it out, whole chapters are missing, but after reading what I still have, probably no big loss anyway. Some of it was okay, surprised I wrote it, other stuff, good God, how could I have wrote that?
I decided that this project, sponsored by National Novel Writing Month, (aka, NaNoWriMo), is what I need to drag out that first novel and see if it will be salvageable.

I love to read. My motto is anything that holds my attention, gets read. If it's really good, it gets read fast.
I finished a novel called "The Thornbirds" by Colleen McCullough. It takes the reader through three generations of a family who moves from New Zealand to Austrailia. The main character, Meggie, is a small child, her family poor. Her story takes you through her pains and joys, the heart cries because she cannot have the man she loves. A priest.
All in all, I liked the book. The thing is with these types of novels, I like to drag them out, sort of put it into a time frame that makes the story a little closer to reality, regardless of the era. Historical fiction with a touch of romance thrown in I think are one of my favorite reads because the novels are huge, span years of history and gives the reader a chance to know the characters better.
What I didn't like about it was, and this could just be that the author's style is foriegn, I tended to get al little lost on POVs. The parts would be titled one thing and lead you down a differnt path with a little of what the titled part portrayed.
Obviously the book became a best seller, there was even a movie made about it, although I haven't seen it. I usually find the movie to be a disappointment after reading the book, largely in part because I can't see the characters thoughts.
That children, is all for today

Thursday, October 18, 2007

Just wanted to let you know.....

Although no one has read this, I don't really care, this is my place to rattle on about things running through the brain. If you post a comment, great, I'll read it and pop off about it I'm sure. I know I have it labled as my daily log, chances are that's not going to happen, and I haven't decided whether to change the name of it or not. However, I do have another blog, In the next few days I will begin posting my novel in the works, "Savant". Again, I don't care if you comment on it or not. With that being said I have things to do and in November will be taking on a project that will let me see just exactly how well disciplined I can be. Some of you may have heard about National Novel Writing Month. A 50,00 word novel in thirty days, it's a challenge for sure, so come November, I'll be keeping weirder hours than I do now. I have no established sleep pattern so it will not matter if it's non-existent (I know too many negatives). So in leaving tonight I have one thing to say and it's
"I'm on a slick trip and I'm ready to kick ass" -Tesla

Friday, October 12, 2007

October 11, 2007

It's the end of another long day, but alas, I'll have to do it all again tomorrow. For the last two days, my co-workers and I have busted our asses painting, cleaning, washing, and scrubbing for the big audit. Our boss was told the auditos were looking in every nook and cranny, so that's what we cleaned, painted and scrubbed. We did all wo could do the waited. And waited, then cleaned some more. More cobwebs were found, a bucket of used oil found emitting an obnoxious odor (triggering the gag reflex). God knows how long it sat in wherever it was found. Then we waited again. Just when I thought the boss would have to be hog-tied and fed valium, the phone rang. The caller told me to tell the boss he could chill out, the auditors were heading to another plant. I said I would but that right now, he was yelling at some driver who just washed off a trailer of chicken parts onto the ground, but I would more than happy to relay the message.
In a way, I felt cheated out of that audit, glad we were passed over. I'd like to say that our little waste water treatment plant is not pristine, it looks better than it did. I give it a week before it's trashed again.

More stuff

I'm new at this blogging stuff and still tyring to get it all figured out. I am writing stuff down long hand and when I get more than two minutes, I'll fill ya'll in on what's happenin' in my world. Right now I know this is some really, really boring stuff, but trust me, I have stories to tell and opinions to soapbox about. I think this is going to be a great tool for me tho. I can rattle on about nothing in particular and not worry if someone listened to me or not, and not be pissed off if they didn't!
I have been attending the Muse Online Writer's conference when I can. It's been a great expierence for me and have solid plans for attending next year! I have found some new friends and it boosted my morale, although it was hyped up anyway. I cringe when I have to do something else, fill in for somebody at work, anything that takes me away from what I love to do and that is write.