Unexpected lay-off's

Blog 052908

Sigh, more lay-off’s at work.

Seems Callaway is closing their New York plant and moving it’s production to China. Yea! China, land of 100 cities of 1 million or more people. Land of no unions, questionable health care and whatever other issues that the unions here and America at least partially solved. And land of cheap labor. So 130+ jobs from New York are gone and not being replaced.

I didn’t realize it but we ship 30,000 dozen golf balls a day to New York. Now we won’t have to. That means probably half of third shift at our plant is getting laid off. Oy. I think there are enough people under me in seniority that I won’t lose my employment but I could very well lose my current job. I could get bumped and forced to bump into a area or old one and possibly even another shift. It also means that since these jobs are probably eliminated permanently that anyone laid off is gone for good. So bumping to stay employed will most likely happen by those losing their jobs. So all our temps about to be hired are in serious jeopardy. Some are good and some suck but they are probably all gone. The union usually makes sure that there are no temps if union workers are laid off. And since New York closes entirely July 31, our lay-off’ could happen quite quicky since we are the supply chain to New York.

On Monday I went back to my parents for the holiday. In checking out my car knowing I had to repair some rust I was utterly sucked to see the amount of damage to my car. It’s only 9 years old but I can fit my whole hand literally into my car and feel around. I knew I had some rust but didn’t realize the extent of the damage. So now I have to slap on some sheet metal to cover the holes to pass inspection. Mainly the holes are on the underside of my car where the rear quarter panels wrap underneath the car. My jury-rigging won’t cost much, maybe $20 and should work but my car will look ugly and like a beater instead of a common car.

VERY frustrating start to he weekend

052508


Messed up weekend so far.

My baseball team is really getting squashed. I was losing 0-14 out of 14 categories. Saturday my team limped up to an astounding 1-12-1. But I have no pitchers scheduled to pitch and I’m inning strike-out’s by a measly 3 K’s. So I expect to go to 0-13-1.

Work’s been bugging me badly the past few days. I really didn’t want to work this weekend and I was really bummed out when our 3 day holiday weekend was cut to 2 with Saturday becoming mandatory. That was bad enough but then my supervisor said he was taking Thursday and Friday off. Joy. That means 2nd shift stooge would be in. Oy.

What REALLY pissed me off was ship’s fool. Once again on a holiday weekend she called out. Last time it was Thursday and Friday and didn’t show on a mandatory Saturday because nobody told her. Stooge was working that weekend and felt it was the employee’s responsibility to call to find out if we were working. So Ship’s Fool filed a grievance with the union and won 8 hours of pay although she tried for 12 because over-time that she never ever signs up for was available.

So I tell Stooge on Thursday that Ship’s Fool is probably going to pull the same shit again. I recommended all he had to do was call her maybe each day to tell her we are working. He pretty much poo-poo’d the whole thing again claiming it was the worker’s responsibility to call to find out. I decided I’d better tell the area manager because this was exactly the way things went down the last time. He showed up just late enough that I was almost out of the building and I didn’t want to ambush him before he even reached our department.

Friday arrives and surprise surprise, Ship’s Fool doesn’t show up. So I’m thoroughly disgusted by this although I have a pretty good night at work. I again explain to stooge what Ship’s Fool is going to do come Tuesday. She will play her song and dance about ‘DID YOU KNOW WE HAD TO WORK SATURDAY?!’ like she didn’t know. And she will file a grievance with the union and with the standard set to win, she’ll win 8 hours pay again because Stooge won’t lift a finger to call her. The guy was oblivious and blew off that the exact same thing happened last time on his watch and she won. I decide I’d better tell the 1st shift supervisor my thoughts on the subject. Friday was a decent night and 1st shift super shows up. She has a ton of people surrounding her as they look to see where she puts people. A number of these people are friendly to Ship’s Fool so I decide to hang back. 1st shift super disappears and I’m like ‘FUCK!’ I punch out and go home. It’s fate. Ship’s Fool is destined for free money by beating the system despite my efforts.

Saturday arrives and I’m sleeping on and off. I notice the road outside seems pretty quiet and decide I’d better check the time. It’s already 8:15pm. By the time I’m out of the shower it’s a little after 8:30pm. I’m really dreading work and mull calling out the 90 I have before leaving. I end up heading to work in a sour mood. I arrive and notice that Ship’s Fool is listed under ‘OUT’ along with some other people. It then dawns on me that when I read the board for worker job assignment that Ship’s Fool had finally been pulled out of the spot that she works with me. In other words, as of Friday night when the Stooge made the board he already had her out. The whole impression I got from him over the situation is that he wanted as little to do with it as possible. So a worker’s out for 4 days straight with no repercussion yet scamming the system to get a free day’s pay. It was just too much trouble for him to call her to let her know we were working.

I walk off so incensed that I’m almost shaking. I’m ready to rip anybody that says the wrong thing to me a new asshole and shit down their neck. I punched in at 10:50pm and can’t stop mulling over the situation. I notice that I’m to cover 7 machines. Doable but maybe tough if the stampers decide to work hard. The table is also half empty meaning I’ll have to have 11 out of 12 machines loaded with three orders each for Tuesday morning. Fuck it. I walk past Stooge who mentions a greeting and I mutter ‘I feel like shit’ and then something like ‘I leaving.’ I grab my stuff and punch out at 11:05 pm and go home.

I feel guilty about abandoning my friends and my post but I don’t want to work for a wuss that’s just looking to be everyone’s friend. Fuck him. And fuck his touchy-feely-ness. Yup. He’s one of those guys that has to touch you – a tap on the hand, a hand on the shoulder. He’s been told by higher-up’s NOT to do this and I guess he stopped with the women on his shift but not the guys. The company has fired employees for touching other employees. I might just file a grievance with the union if he touches me again. It’s a running joke on our shift now. It also makes a lot of people wonder if he’s gay. It’s not a big deal if he’s gay but he’s really wussy and a toucher and that makes people wonder. The guy even reached over about 2 feet to try and touch me. He missed so I may have backed off from him.

I had told my brother that I could be home early and I was home 20 minutes after 11pm. I was happy he was still up because he’s sleeping on the living room couch and I could still make noise in trying to relieve stress. I played 3 games of Call of Duty 2 that helped immensely totally taking my mind off the subject. I also finished first in killing people 2 of the 3 games. My brother headed off to bed which rather sucked because most of the house’s entertainment devices are in the living room. I retired shortly to my bed room and finished a drawing and started and fully inked another. I listened to my working mp3 player to help keep my mind off things. I produced a decent drawing because I was still somewhat pissed. Part of my weakness as a person is that I have a hard time letting some things go. Seeing people abuse a system and people that could probably stop it not doing anything about it really pisses me off. So I’m still slightly pissed as this essay shows.

I finally feel asleep around 4:30am so my Saturday was kind of a wash which sucks. Today is beautiful though. Maybe a little cool outside for the shorts I currently have on though. I’ll see later when I head outside.

My young nephew has joined me on Rockband. I almost get the impression that my brother doesn’t care for him playing with me or at least playing on Rockband. Today he told my nephew to keep playing his Playstation 2 game while I played alone on Rockband. I was suggesting my nephew join me when my brother chimed in ‘did you ask Uncle Jim?’ to which my nephew then asked to play with me. Actually, I WANTED my nephew to play along with me. That’s when my brother said I wanted to play alone. We made a little band: him on drums, me on guitar. My brother seemed a little strict today compared to his usual self. Maybe something’s up I’m not aware of. Maybe he’s pissed at my niece. She doesn’t do anything when she’s here. She just sits on the couch like a vegetable watching whatever is on TV. She usually goes to bed around 9:30pm. I NEVER wanted to go to bed when I was 13 and certainly not on a weekend. I don’t know. I’m not sure what I should do or say.

I expect to spend a chunk of time at my parents’ this holiday weekend. My mom wants to paint the kitchen and I need to get some rust off my car to pass inspection in June. I expect to do both at my parents – and leech supper of them. : )

I ordered up my core rulebooks for D&D 4th ed from Amazon yesterday. I think it was $66 for everything. I could probably pick them up at my local Walden’s book store but I didn’t want the hassle of maybe having them sold out or something. The books are due for release June 6th.

I also re-upped my year long subscription for my Tracfone. That was $100. Mainly it’s a peace of mind thing as I don’t use my cellphone except in emergencies or rare incidents like when I travel. I never use all my minutes or even half of them.

Harry Potter 6 is fairly interesting and I’m plowing through it. I’m not sure it’ll make for a good movie though. It mainly explains the history of the bad guy so far and there isn’t really any fighting going on. But I’m enjoying the character development of it and it’s kept my interest.

I’m at a bit of a loss as to what I’ll do before bed once I finish the series. I expect that to be around July. I have another Anita Blake novel that’s long as all hell. Unfortunately, the last couple of Blake novels have been just okay. I’ve found reading a book about an hour long before sleeping has seemed to help me relax. I’m not sure if I’ll keep reading books or try drawing or something. Drawing is not really good though because I don’t mind putting a book down but putting a drawing down means I probably won’t finish it.

I saw Prince Caspian last Sunday. It was okay. I don’t expect to watch it again nor buy the dvd. It had two scenes that made me go ‘but I saw that almost exact same thing in the Lord of the Rings movies’ so I had a bad ‘been there done that’ feeling walking out. I was also surprised by the amount of violence for what I considered a kid’s movie. Technically it’s probably an ‘all ages’ movie but the original series of books published in the 1950’s won all sorts of awards for novels for kids. The series is pretty much a retelling of Bible stories using kids as the protagonists. C. S. Lewis was big into Christainty. So because of that I was really surprised by the new ‘cute’ character that would make a funny comment and then slash his opponent’s throat or stab him in the face. And he was a ‘good guy’ to boot. So there was no blood in the movie but the amount of characters that died could quite possibly be 20 to 30 in number. The movie added a lot of fight scenes that the book never had either. I’d give the movie a B- for a grade.

Okay, I’m wasting time instead of fixing my ripped up lawn with new seed and my new American made rake.

The usual, cramming the weekend full of things

Blog 051908

As usual, a fairly busy weekend but mostly good.

I didn’t sign up for over-time this weekend because I wanted a break. I’m not sure of the last time I had two weekend days off. My mind is a bit blurry on the subject though. The previous two weeks I did 56 hours and 48 hours. Combined with the 48 hour week we were short a man so it made the week exhausting.

I got out Saturday and was worried because my brother has the kids. The house becomes quite cramped because almost all the various entertainment media of computers, TVs, games, and stereo are all in the same room. Everyone hangs in the living room. But my brother jumped ship because of an appointment and brought the kids up to my mom’s. I stayed up to cash my paycheck and stopped at Lowe’s. There I bought some grass seed, a rake that I made sure was made in America, and another raspberry bush. The bush was only $4.50 because it was half dead.

I got home and read some of Harry Potter 6. I’ve gotten into the book after putting it down in boredom. I caught some sleep and then went to my parents for a visit and supper. They had marinated steak and it tasted terrific. People usually think I’m a vegetarian but I took the biggest strip. It was a solid and quite good. At the moment, I can’t recall what I did when I got home Saturday night. I was somewhat tired because I hadn’t slept much. I didn’t stay up late because my brother sleeps on the living room couch when the kids are staying over.

Sunday was fairly busy as always. I woke up really early which pissed me off. One of the things that really sucks about naps is that I get into a sleeping pattern of 3 or 4 hours of sleep and then I’m awake regardless what time it is. I know I awoke somewhere around 4am or so because it was pitch black in my room. After some tossing and turning I eventually fell back asleep for a few more hours finally getting out of bed around 8 am. I was reading some more of my Harry Potter book before 8 so I think I woke around 7:15 am or so.

I hopped on the computer to do some fantasy baseball stuff which resulted in me winning this week 8-6 and remain in 2nd place. I took a shower and then planted my new raspberry bush. That took like 5 minutes and I hardly got dirty at all. Some Rockband on the Xbox 360 was after that. I got my nephew to play it too which was kind of cool. He actually stopped playing the Playstation game he was playing to join in. It was fairly fun playing in a band with him in the game. I asked my brother if he wanted in and he game me his uppity, “I play the real thing’. The whole point of me asking was to make it a family thing instead of his usual watching from the couch with the usual, ‘good job’ which sounds mechanical even to me.

I am concerned that my nephew does nothing but play video games and that’s it. If there’s a good reason to do something physical he’ll do it. He helped a lot the other day with the firewood at my parents. But he’s starting to get fat and I have to believe it’s all about his diet and lack of exercise. It actually makes me long for the days when my parents would kick me out of the house and ‘play outside’.

After some Rockband I headed out to catch the new Narnia movie. It was okay. It seemed like they really added in a lot of scenes that weren’t in the movie. I was really surprised by the amount of violence in it. It was implied several times in the flick that a mouse would slash people’s throats with his miniature sword. And the mouse was a good guy. In two of the main combat resolving scenes it seemed the movie makers outright stole ideas from The Lord of the Rings movies. It really gave me a ‘been there, done that’ feel which took away from the movie.

In the end, the movie was decent but I vastly prefer the original one.

From there I headed down to Connecticut to a comic shop. It’s not that far from my house, maybe 20 minutes but because it’s highway miles and out of state although just over the border it feels like it’s 30 to 40 minutes. The shop actually has a lot more stuff than my friends’ shop that just closed but it’s still awkward feeling to me. I forgot about another store that’s fairly new and maybe five minutes closer that I may try instead. A couple of friends go to that one so it may get more of a hang out feel than the CT store.

I ditched going to Wal-Mart and went home and took a nap after reading my favorite comic book first. When my alarm went off 40 minutes later I didn’t want to get up. I kept saying ‘5 more minutes’ until I got up about another 30 minutes after I had intended too. I drove to my parents in a zombiefied state and had supper with the family. I woke up after everyone left and hung out with my parents chit-chatting during the nightly national news.

Mom sent me how with some stuff and I called up a friend to see about playing cards. No other players were there but I went anyway. Turns out I haven’t been there since before Christmas except for one random Monday night. After awhile the regular card crew showed up and we had fun geeking out to Magic the Gathering. My play style is all about making the other guy groan in misery and if I can win that’s cool to. So the other guys usually either kill me first or leave me alone depending on how I affect them. In the end, I think the other guys like my decks because I play stuff no one else does which adds a wrinkle to the game rarely seen in their playing cliché. In my first game and going first I was able to Dark Ritual a Pox on the very first turn which made the others groan like hell. Nothing like losing a third of everything before you even have a chance to play. That’s my play style – screw everybody! And I love it, too.

So I got home around midnight and crawled into bed after brushing my teeth. And here I am Monday morning with a slew of chores to do which is fairly typical but I don’t have to leave the house which is nice too.

Finally feel rested!

Blog 051508

I finally feel somewhat rested.

Last week Ship’s Fool was out. This was actually good news. However, I either had to run the two person job pretty much by myself or try to run it while teaching new people what to do. So I was exhausted at the end of the week. What I thought was good news almost turned disastrous. I won over-time for that Saturday from 3pm to 11pm. I thought this was pretty good because I could have my whole Sunday, which was Mother’s Day, off and I could be well rested. Well, I pretty much didn’t sleep between getting out at 7am Saturday and returning to work for 3pm. I think I snuck in maybe 30 minutes between 9am and 9:30 am. I was totally exhausted heading into work and considered calling out. However, once I got to work I was okay. It’s pretty hot – over 80 degrees – and very active for a job so I believe that kept me awake with no problems. When I finally got home about 11:30 pm I was in bed and out cold in 10 minutes.

Sunday kind of sucked. My brother had switched days with a co-worker. I woke up at 5:30am and heard someone walking around the house. I investigated and that’s when I discovered my brother working on a day he never works. Then I couldn’t get back to sleep. So the rest of the day was spent with some spot napping and being a zombie. My mom ended up cooking a terrific ham dinner which I kind of felt bad about. But we did shower her with gifts.

Monday and Tuesday I was worn out. I ended up sleeping 9 and a hour hours Wednesday morning and eight or eight and half hours last night so I finally feel rejuvenated and alive. And I specifically didn’t sign up for any over-time this weekend. I think I’ve worked 6 days a week or more for 3 or maybe even 5 weeks straight.

So my life has pretty much been work, work, work. I’m looking forward to this weekend and having it off but it might not be all that. My brother has the kids for the next three weekends. This can kind of suck. It means my brother sleeps on the couch in the living room. All of my entertainment stuff is in the living room. I’m also a night owl. I know he’ll say it’s no big deal if I stay up but it really sucks having someone three feet away trying to get to sleep while I either surf the net, play video games or watch a movie on my big screen. Also, my brother likes to have ‘movie night’ as a way of spending time with the kids. But again, my computer is literally three inches from the side of my computer. So I feel like a chump if I use my computer and I don’t like the feeling that my niece or nephew may be watching my computer screen instead of the TV. A 40 inch screen TV is also very distracting when it is three inches from my computer screen. So I’ll probably end up locked away in my bedroom which is exactly what I did when I lived with my parents. Some things never change. It just really sucks that it’ll be in my own house. Three weekends where I might not be working any over time with one of those weekends being a holiday weekend and I may not be able to do what I want when I want in my house. It’s because of stuff like that that makes me want to tell my brother to get his own place already.

My baseball team is still solidly in second place for now. I don’t expect to reclaim first as the guy in first is a brutal player. He’s able to be at his computer right around midnight and can grab every good player and use them for the day and drop them the same day. It’s all fantasy stuff and legal but makes it very hard to compete unless you do the same thing. I work every week day night and can’t be at my computer to do the same thing.

Iron Man, the movie was awesome. I didn’t expect much from it but I still think about certain scenes almost 2 weeks after seeing it. Great super-hero flick.

My friends’ comic shop is finally totally done and over with. We’ve lost our hang out. That’s the worst part. I know we won’t spend as much time together and that really sucks. And I don’t expect to see a lot of the fringe guys anymore at all.

Between buying Xbox 360 with Rockband and working mad over-time I’ve done virtually nothing on issue three of my comic in the past few weeks. Hell, I didn’t even do the dishes for 5 days straight. I was down to eating cereal out of a 4 cup measuring cup!

I finished Harry Potter 5 the Order of the Phoenix. It was a better book than movie. I don’t recall really liking the movie. The book held my interest through the whole thing. I’m starting book 6 which is actually quite exciting. There is no movie for it and I have no idea what is going to happen. I’ve actually managed to miss all spoilers so I can really enjoy the book.

My stupid 2 gig mp3 player is being a pain in the ass. I recently uploaded songs from two new CDs to it. There were no problems. I then ripped about 20 songs from about 7 CDs to my harddrive last night and tried to put them on the mp3 player. An error on every song again and again and again. This really sucks. I should have the space on the player but there’s something with the formatting or some crap. I’m not sure what the deal is but it really sucks.

I had a nightmare the other night. I dreamt I was asleep and late for work. I really woke up grabbing at my clock to read the time. I had something like 10 hours before having to report to work. I hate those dreams.

I also had a weird dream where my friend Kevin was driving this dinky ass car like you’d see in Japan or something. He was constantly driving off the road and over grass as short cuts. We even went up a highway on ramp and cut across the highway and the grass median to get to the highway lanes leading in the opposite direction. Somehow we ended up in the long hotel that had only one room left. And every couple of minutes a family member of mine would open the door and show up! Eventually my whole family was in this dinky ass room with like one bed.

I know some of that stuff was inspired from the pictures my brother took in Japan. He just recently got home from Japan on a business trip lasting about 3 weeks. One thing that was awesome is that he brought home a whole boat load of Japanese candy. I love this thing called a Meiji chocolate bar. It tastes sort of like Hersey’s and dark chocolate. But the texture once it melts in your mouth is very glossy and superior to the classic Hershey bar which is the only chocolate I really like. He also brought home this candy that’s like a cross between gum and a Starburst. It was strawberry in flavor and was slightly tougher than gum but in a good waxy way. I really liked them. He also got me, upon my request, a book of manga. It’s a huge black and white thing looking something like 200 pages. It’s all in Japanese though (DUH!) so I can’t really determine what’s being said. But it’s neat to have something from Japan. I suppose I could just order it somehow but it’s not the same. It’s a neat souvenir.

My cat’s booster shot cost $90! WTF?!?!?! And I’ll need to buy minutes this month for my Tracphone so there’s another $100 or more on my credit card. Ugh. And I’ll still owe about $188 after my next big payment on the Xbox 360 purchase. Gah. Looks like I’ll be working more over-time in the coming weeks.

And I’m sorry to say that my once greatly growing raspberry bushes all full of green stocks and life on my kitchen table are dying and sickly now that I’ve transplanted them. Two look outright dead. The two best thriving ones seem to be barely hanging on. I bought another bush that ended up being half price for some reason. That one I transplanted fairly quickly and seems to be doing okay for now. The one single bush I bought last year actually has a couple of baby bushes around it so hopefully that turns into a nice base to build a whole patch on. We’ll see. I probably buy one or two more bushes this weekend if they are still available. I’d love to have a large batch of raspberry bushes at my disposable to eat from in my yard.

I’m done. I need to eat the final part of my breakfast and read some Harry Potter book 6 before bed. Then it’s one last night of work and then the weekend!

I'm going to be a ROCK STAR!!!!

Blog 050508


I just spent a boatload of money on myself. I went out and bought an Xbox 360. Along with that I purchased the Rock Band game bundle package. That comes with a guitar, drums and microphone. And I bought Xbox Live for a full year of on-line gaming. Further, just to be safe I purchased store warranties for the items so that if the bust, and lots of people have had them bust, I can get a return at the store instead of sending the stuff to Microsoft. So all that cost me $688. Maybe not the wisest purchase of my life but I want to spend some of my money on me instead of everyone else. I haven’t really gotten to play it much yet but Rock Band is fun. I wasn’t sure how to work the drums or guitar so I just did the singing. Once it gets nice and I open my windows regularly it could be fairly embarrassing to play Rock Band. At least I’m a decent singer. Guitar and drums? I think I’ll need a lot of practice on those…

I bought that all on my action packed Sunday. So let me rewind and tell about the whole weekend.

Friday I left work fuming. As usual, I got stuck working with the Ship’s Fool. This is my idiot, self-absorbed co-worker. Once again she pulled her usual stunts of moaning and groaning about being tired and sore. She didn’t miss a beat on stuffing her face though. A fast food cheeseburger at our work station, a pack of Suzy Q’s at break, more chow at lunch and then soda and coffee the rest of the night. She probably hasn’t consumed a healthy food item in months. It’s not surprising that she’s almost as wide as she is tall.

That night she started in on the hate of the co-worker who’s job she wants. Then she outright abandoned her own job and left me to do the job WE are suppose to do for almost most of the last two hours of the night. She would waddle back, look at the orders, leave the table empty and waddle off to go talk more. She was ‘mad’, and ‘didn’t care’. The problem? She had to do physical labor. The poor baby. I think my friend has it right, she’s spoiled at home so she expects to be spoiled at work. I don’t spoil people. She has to do some work even though I do the bulk of it and it gets her mad.

We had to work Saturday night as required over-time. I was okay with this since I was buying Xbox. With Saturday I did 16 hours of O.T. this week. Between that and this week I’ll have 90% of the Xbox paid for which is awesome. Ship’s Fool got the job she wanted because my co-worker was out. True to form Ship’s Fool sat her ass down at every opportunity including eating and reading the whole local newspaper. I wasn’t surprised in the least.

At first she waddled over to me in the beginning of the night pulling her sad puppy look stating that she wasn’t working with me. I told her ‘Good. I’m still pissed from what you pulled last night’. She was all stunned and I had to explain how she just upped and left at one of the busiest times of the night. She offered no apology. She even told me to my face that ‘that’s wrong, that’s wrong’, I was like WTF?! She came up with every excuse she could and I rebuffed them as false and weak. She basically lied to my face trying to tell me she was in the back area loading balls. She tried to tell me that twice and both times I rebuffed with the truth – she wasn’t because I had checked. When all her b.s. didn’t work it all became about her and how tired she was and sore and this and that. She even pulled the ‘I’m a woman, you’re a guy’ deal on me. What a piece of work. What a piece of SHIT! It then seemed like she was getting mad because I wouldn’t let her off the hook. She finally walked off saying ‘I was mad, I didn’t care. And we’re going to rotate’ still trying to get the job of our co-worker that she’s so jealous of. Fuck her.

The rest of my Saturday night was pretty good as I worked with someone else and then it got real slow and I was by myself. Work installed a heavy punching bag for people to take their frustrations out on. How cool is that?! I did let my supervisor know on Saturday all that happened. He told me not to do her stuff for her I think for future planning.

Ship’s Fool was also sniffing around for more free money. Because temporary workers can’t work weekends by union decree, we needed extra people on all shifts. She was getting ready to pass of that the supervisors didn’t ask her to work O.T. and posted it instead. I went right to our union person who just happened to be about 3 feet away and cleared it all up. Ship’s Fool would not get free money by not being asked. She would have to sign the paper if she wanted the O.T. She hasn’t worked non-mandatory O.T. in forever and has absolutely no intention to. That’s why her union grievance the prior week was so full of shit. She claimed that she didn’t asked and filed for the payment of the day. I then caught her lying about not being called. She said in front of three of us, including the union rep, that she was called but that Pee Wee, a co-worker – got the hours. This could only refer to the previous week where she claimed she never got a call and filed for 12 hours of pay. There’s a lot of jostling going on and she may end up with only 4 hours pay if that. One can hope.

On Saturday I was still fuming from Friday and managed only 5 hours of sleep. Ugh. I snuck in another 30 minutes a little before work which saved me. I couldn’t sleep Sunday morning wanting to get my Xbox. I tried to for about 90 minutes but just tossed and turned. I finally got up and showered and got my Xbox. I set it up and played Rock Band for a couple of hours. I took a 30 minute nap before heading off to my parents for supper. I then had two options: play cards with friends or see Iron Man with a different set of friends. I chose Iron Man because there were people going I hadn’t seen in quite some time. Also, that crew owns the comic shop that they are being forced to close so I wanted to be with them a bit more under the circumstances.

Iron Man was AWESOME. Tony Stark, the main character was totally cool. The movie was a lot of fun with a lot of little things only comics fans would know but that wouldn’t burden the movie. It also never slowed. The movie flowed along awesomely. I was dead tired but I never felt it while watching the movie. For me, it was easily the best comic book movie I’ve ever seen. The new Narnia and Indiana Jones movies come out this month so it’ll be a busy movie month for me. There’s a G.I. Jo movie coming out later but my buddy said it won’t be called G.I. Joe because the rep of America is in the shitter world-wide and the studio doesn’t want the name of the flick to hurt global ticket sales.

I got home Sunday night and web chatted with Sara who’s been away for over a month. I then staggered off the bed. I got a good 7 hours of sleep waking up only once or twice. I needed it. Friday to Saturday I slept only 5 hours and a 30 minute nap about 5 hours after that. I got home Sunday and tried to sleep but it didn’t happen. I snuck a 30 minute nap in at 4pm and then stayed up until midnight. Whew!

Monday’s been busy so far. It’s 1pm as I write this. I got up, cleaned the shower, took a shower, cleaned the toilet, folded laundry, started a new load of laundry, folded that when it was dry, made out bills, changed my bed dressings and my parents came over to help cut up a large branch that had broken off a tree during the winter. I haven’t played Xbox yet today but did do some internet surfing. My fantasy baseball team won again but my red hot start has simmered down to winning 8-6 the past two weeks. This other guy continues to maul teams and passed me for first place. He wins every week 10-4 of better. His secret is that he picks up players at midnight and drops them the same day. It’s called streaming pitchers so he has like 20 pitchers going a week to other people’s 6. It’s all legal but it kinda sucks. Anyone can do it but you have to on your computer at midnight to do it.

I’ll be cashing my check and food shopping after this and then washing the mountain of dishes I have in my sink. I haven’t done dishes in probably 5 days because I worked back to back 12 hour days and then over-time Saturday. Sunday was all Xbox and fun so today is chores day. At least it’s a beautiful day out full of sunshine and cool like maybe 70 degrees.

Chow.