Goodbye Nightshift

Ahhhh, I am breathing a sigh of relief and am a bit overwhelmed with joy as my final nightshift draws to a close. To make this joy even more complete, I am on vacation next week, so I will be off for 9 days! It has been an interesting year, to say the least, working a rotating shift. I have learned much, experienced much, and overall decided that shift work is entirely unnatural and I prefer not to partake of it. The bitter counterpart to that sweet is that shift work brings with it a cameraderie of sorts that is not found in the dayshift world. We deal with issues and problems with very few people on site during night and weekend shifts, so we really have to work as a team. The other aspect of shift work to be missed is the off time. Although I have worked a lot of overtime this year, I have had 3 separate stretches with two weeks off, which is unprecedented in my 5 previous years here.

I may have some more thoughts later, but right now I am headed to give turnover to the dayshift foremen and wish them well for the next few weeks.

I will try to remember the photo of the week later on today. And before I forget, GEAUX TIGERS!!!! I am going to the Peach Bowl tonight and hope to see the LSU Tigers take the Miami Hurricanes by storm.

Morning Diversion

I should be fast asleep by now, but this morning I saw one of those rare glimpses of sunrise that captured my attention. Unfortunately my attention was captured for about 30 minutes. In fact, I gave up after a few unsuccessful tries at capturing it in a photo, but before I made it home I was turning around to give it another shot. The good news is that I didn't miss the greatest part of the sunrise. The bad news is I am realizing that it is near impossible to actually portray what I saw in a photo. This was the best I got, overlooking the Augusta canal, but it's a far cry from the real thing:

My favorite part of this shot is the hazy fog you can see hovering over the water.

Waffle House Wisdom

Waffle House is hands down my favorite restaurant. This is a place that offers familiarity, good food, warm smiles, cheesy music, and hot coffee 24 hours a day. What more could one ask for? There are also added bonuses for regular customers, such as receiving your "regular" without having to order, getting advice on any and everything from the staff, and discussing the local and national news with those of (extremely) varied opinions.

This afternoon I was having a pleasant breakfast at WH when a "regular" walked in and sat down at the WH bar. The waitress asked him how his Christmas was, and he replied that it was pretty good, could have been better, etc. Then he said, "I don't have everything I want, but I've got more than I need." It warmed my heart. Only at WH can one overhear such simple but profound everyday wisdom, because everyone at WH is there to dine together.

Merry Christmas (a day or two after)

To all who I have not spoken with this week... Merry Christmas a little late. I arrived back in Augusta last night from Columbus, GA where I spent Christmas with my family. It was a different Christmas for us, now that we have two young kids (my brother's) in the family, but different in a good way. My nephew was old enough this year to understand that we were celebrating Jesus's birthday and also to understand the idea of gifts. As of now, he can grasp the idea of receiving gifts but not giving them. One day he will discover the joy of giving, but that's a bit much to expect of a two year old. I think the fact that we all got to sing happy birthday to Jesus with little Ben leading the moment was a good enough gift for us.

Oh, the Places I Go

On my way to work last night, I passed a favorite Augusta landmark:

Then, on my way home this morning, I saw this:

Deep Thoughts from Deep in the Night

It's amazing how our brains work...

For instance, I can look at Chinese characters or some foreign alphabet and be utterly unable to make sense of them. However, I can look at words in English and be utterly unable to make nonsense out of them. Try it. Look at this page, or a page in a book, or a box of cereal, and try to trick your brain into not reading the words but just seeing gibberish shapes. So I guess that means we are trainable but not untrainable? I don't know what it means, but I just thought I'd share.

On another unrelated note, I have become aware recently of a band that I think I love. They're called O.A.R. Very well-done website also, at which you can listen to any and all of their albums all the way through. It is when I make discoveries like this that I really have to thank Sirius satellite radio for being infinitely more hip than the old-school radio. I would be lost in a world of bad music without it.

movies:::movies:::movies:::movies:::movies:::movies

I've seen the following movies in the past two weeks:

March of the Penguins
Elizabethtown
Pay it Forward (I had totally forgotten how this ended!)
Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants
Cinderella Man
Upside of Anger
Chronicles of Narnia - The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

I think my favorite of these was Cinderella Man, though I really enjoy most movies. You might say I should cut back on the movie-watching, to which I would reply, "I don't think so." Unfortunately, movies always come in spurts for me. Usually those spurts are just prior to a round of nightshifts when I am trying to stay up late (or right after the nightshifts when I just can't sleep). Trust me, there is really nothing else more worthwhile to do at 2am.

I still want to see Walk the Line, and I'm sure there are other good ones I can't think of right now.

Ramble On

Ahh, another beautiful Saturday night at the plant. I would give details about the happenings out here, but that's all top secret squirrel stuff. I am happy to say this is my last weekend of shift work, as I will be starting a normal 8-hr day schedule in January. It is a somewhat bittersweet transition, but more sweet than bitter.

This afternoon when I woke up, I went for a nice run/walk in the neighborhood. It had just rained but was not raining while I was out, so it was kind of nice. I like that damp post-rain feeling for some reason. I ran about 2 miles or so, not including the segments of walking. That's the most I have run in many months, so I was very pleased. I'm really thinking about trying another sprint triathlon next summer. The first and only one I did was in the summer of 2003 I think, and I haven't even thought about it since. But I really think a regular exercise schedule will be good for my neck, and the best way for me to exercise is to have a goal in mind. It got me out for a run today, so that's a start. I've been swimming here and there for the last several months, so the bike will be my next trial. Slowly but surely...

In other exciting news, I will be going to Waffle House after work tomorrow morning. I have been thinking about the hashbrowns (scattered, double-covered, and chunked) all evening. It will be a nice treat.

I can't believe Christmas is only 8 days away... wow, that crept up on me pretty fast. I'm looking forward to spending time with my family, and relaxing!

Photo of the Week

Georgetown, Wash DC - August 2004

Baby it's Cold Outside!

I'm sitting in my house right now, with the thermostat set at 67 degrees. It's cold. I know it's colder outside, but it really doesn't feel very cold in the sun. With gas prices climbing every month, I'm trying to keep a tight reign on the heat use this winter. I normally keep the thermostat on 78 degrees between October and April, so I'm doing well to stay around 67-68.

My realtor just left, and we decided to try to put my house on the market in mid-January. Unfortunately, that's not a great time to sell, but hopefully by late spring we can find a buyer. Now I just need to spend the next few weeks cleaning up and getting the house ready to show. Shouldn't be too much work as I have been taking small steps in that direction for a few months.

I spent the weekend (12 hours Sat and Sun) at work. Not a particularly bad weekend - pretty boring actually. I don't go back until Friday night, so my nice long weekend started last night. I went to a Wigalia (sp?) party last night, which is a traditional Polish Christmas dinner. It was really fun, and the food was good for the most part. The only thing I didn't try was pickled herring - can you blame me? They were also making mojitos, and I had a very good homemade mojito. For some reason I can't get them to mix up right when I try.

Today I will be studying for my Psych final, which is Wednesday. After that, I will have no school or class or tests for a good three weeks, and I am VERY excited! When I start back up in January, I will have only one class instead of two, which will be nice. AND I will be working dayshift, 8-hr days, so I will be almost normal. The other department that wanted to talk to me at work stood me up with the first meeting, and I haven't heard back. I'm still hearing rumors that I'll be going over there, but I still haven't been asked (or told) officially.

For today's simple thoughts, I was looking up the word "simple" where it is used in the Bible. It's interesting, because it seems that "simple" is used to describe idiots, but it is also used to indicate those who the Lord will show himself to and who will understand his word. So I'm still working on understanding that a little better, but I think there is some redemption to be found in simplicity as long as it is the right kind.

Photo of the Week

My Nephew as Santa - Christmas 2003

Photo of the Week

Bucharest, Romania - July 2002

These are children at an orphanage in Romania. Words cannot do justice to the experience of seeing and playing with them. The fallenness of our world really hit home.

Busy Week

Wow, no post since Monday, and tomorrow is already Friday! I know there are many of you out there (ok, maybe one or two of you) highly anticipating the Photo of the Week. If you are lucky, I will remember to do that before I leave for work at the pre-crack of dawn.

My only thought for today that seems interesting to me is that I find it hard to think of much when I have been so busy. On off days and down times, the thoughts are flowing like milk and honey. When I'm running around like a chicken, the thoughts become second fiddle to production, to-do lists, and planning for the next busy day or hour.

Most of the busyness this week has been school-related. Finishing up my on-line psychology course, studying for the anatomy/phys lab that I bombed last night, thinking about studying for next week's anatomy/phys test but not having time. Oh, and work for 12 hours a day. I actually took yesterday as vacation, but it didn't really seem like it due to the studying. Today at work was an eternity of meetings and various other nuclear fun. I found out that tomorrow I'll be having an interview with another department, potentially to start with them at the first of the year. I'm a little torn on whether to accept (assuming they offer me a spot) knowing that my desire is to leave in May. On the other hand, I am wanting to justify the move on two counts: (1) I think I will be utterly miserable in the position I am supposed to have this year if I stay in my department, and (2) I really don't know if I'll get into school, so I may stay at this job longer than I hope to.

Any thoughts/advice regarding this conflict would be appreciated, especially if you help me to justify making the move to the new department.