Squid’s Home On The Net

I just picked up a 95 Chevrolet Suburban K1500 5.7TBI 4×4 from a friend at work. It’s got some issues, but nothing that I think will take long to sort out. I was hoping to find a 4×4 truck to use to haul stuff and power around in the winter time, but couldn’t find any deals anywhere near what the burb was. I have a previous owner with knowledge of the last few years of it’s life at hand that did a pretty good job of taking care of it. He only stopped driving it for a few issues and high gas prices last winter and after sitting the problems seemed to get worse. It has a recently rebuilt transmission, decent tires(though they were originally studs that wore off in summer driving), and a body with rust just starting to take over. I’m planning on stopping the rust in it’s tracks with the truck because I don’t want it to end up looking like my last car and only last a few years.

Here is a pic the wife shot of the truck after it got towed to our driveway.

Lately I’ve been having this idea stuck in my head that I can’t seem to do anything right.  There is a bunch of drama going on at work that I’m trying to stay clear of and I can’t seem to make time to get anything done around the house….I dunno, maybe it’s just the fact I’m a year older and no farther along with anything really.  It seems like I’m constantly on the verge of getting demoted back to my old job because of personnel issues that they are having in my old department.  I guess that wouldn’t be a bad thing, but I really can’t deal with a pay cut that I know they’ll want if I do end up back in that department.

I have made some progress on my truck.  It actually moves under it’s own power at the moment and I’m currently trying to take care of wiring issues that have made it a bit unrealiable in the past.  Most of it is stuff that I would fix later and never really did.  I have lights and blinkers again after messing that up the other day when I was trying to shorten/neaten up the wiring.  I have a radio installed in the truck sort of, but it seems to have a mind of it’s own as to what button does what and I can’t seem to turn it up or down…guess I’ll have to splurge and buy one if I want to listen to music while driving.

My motorcycle is sitting there waiting on me to get my act together and fix it.  The only really tough issue is the tank is rusted so thin in areas I don’t think that a tank sealer will hold for very long.  I’ll probably get around to that in the next week or so just to see if I get lucky though.  I miss riding terribly, though I’ve been really frustrated with my inability to shift smoothly due to my lack of ankle movement on my left leg.  I’m not sure what the solution to that problem is…I’ve thought of reversing the shifting, but am worried that I won’t be able to downshift then.  It sucks getting old sometimes I guess.

Maybe the feeling will pass and I’ll be the same easygoing person that I try to usually be…I hope so because I hate this funk that I’ve been in for the past month or so.  Only time will tell I guess.

I like this picture a lot.

They got this new thing going on with work trying to do a better job of helping us stupid employees healthy and keep our health care costs down.  We had the intro meeting today where they threatened us with living out our retirement in old folks homes where 60 percent live and 30 percent of us will die, took our blood pressure, had us fill out a fitness survey, and step on to a Tanita body composition analyzer to check our body composition.

Guess what the Tanita told me I’m fat   Here are the results:

weight    271 lb

bmi        37.8

fat          40.4%

BMR        2428kcal

Impedance   441 Ohms

fat mass        109.4 lb

ffm                  161.6 lb

TBW                118.2 lb

Ideal fat mass      14-40.4 lb

hydration               43.5%

So yep I’m as fat as I think I am…..

Just wanted to post some pics of my broken elbow and some x rays for the folks at work….most folks have seen this stuff before

straight broken elbow…note it was like this for about 5 years before I had it fixed

here it is bent notice the big chunker on the back of my upper arm

Here is the xray of the broken piece…note it’s circled to show the whole chip.

The scar after it healed from the surgery.

This is the metal they stuck in there to hold it all together….

Yessiree I’ve managed to get another year behind me without acquiring any more broken bits and pieces.   I’m hoping to get my back in better shape for the next year, but it’s slow going.  I still can’t do a lot of the things that I enjoy doing, but I’m able to walk better now than 6 months ago.  I really wanna drive my truck this spring summer and fall at least when I feel like cruising around.  I like my little rusty car, but I haven’t driven anything with any real power since I parked my truck last.

Next year’s goal is to get a decent vehicle for my wife to drive so I don’t have to worry about another run of car trouble eating up a bunch of money.  I also plan on keeping my ear to the ground to see if any good job opportunities come up.  I’m hoping by spring I can get enough put away to look at cars that aren’t rusting so bad that parts from inside are falling outside from time to time

I guess that’s it for now….hope everyone else has a good new year.

I’ve been on 3rd shift as maintenance for about a month now and I can tell ya it’s pretty boring most nights.  I’ve only gotten to do a few interesting jobs since working on 3rd shift.  I spend most of the night walking around trying to find something that needs fixing that doesn’t require parts we don’t have.  I’ve found a used welding helmet laying around the shop with the old flip down dark lens that I cleaned up painted so it looks decent.  I practiced with the TIG setup and with the better vision afforded with the welding helmet my stick welding is back up to par.  Most nights I wish that I had more work to do so the night goes faster, but I’m thinking they don’t trust a lot yet and hopefully that will change.

I picked up a cheap socket set with case and screwdriver set at walmart a few weeks ago so I don’t get quite as frustrated trying to do stuff around the house.  I also picked up a stick welder to use around the house on car and other projects that I gotta get done.  I still have to pick up a plug for the welder as it’s a 230 volt welder and needs a NEMA 6-50 plug.  I’ll probably steal power from our ac unit for the time being until I decide what I want for a more permanent setup.

I also did a bit of winterizing around the house and got the snowblowers out of the shed.  One needs the little 20 dollar belt for the drive and the bigger one needs some safety switches redone and in impeller welded up from chewing up some rocks.  I also moved the picnic table and yard swing back to the rear of the house to make it more open in the front for snow removal.  Hard to believe that it is already that time of year again, but I hope to actually get everything working before we get snow that needs to get shoveled.

I started in the maintenance department on September 15, and am working days 7am-3:30pm while I’m training.  So far I’ve done a bit of plumbing of steam lines, fixing of mechanical do dads, and a bit of electric diagnosis and trouble shooting.  It’s not as technical as some of the jobs that I’ve had in the past, but it’s interesting enough to pass the time.

I did a bit of stick welding and had a bit of trouble with the electrode sticking to the metal and being able to see through the borrowed helmet.  I’m used to being able to turn off lights so that I don’t end up with light leaking in the back of the helmet keeping me from being able to see what the arc is doing.  The helmet also had a small lens on it so the view was pretty limited as far as picking up landmarks to see what is what in front of me.  I did an ok job of welding, but not nearly my best.  The guys don’t like working with the TIG welding even though it’s just a few switches and a bit of gas being used instead of welding rods.  They also have a MIG welder that has a bad liner in it that messes with the feed rate that they still have apart.  I’ll have to see about getting a better welding helmet so that I can practice with the welder and get a bit more used to stick welding.  At one point I got so frustrated I was tempted to get the torch over there with some hanger wire and weld up the bench I was working on.

I still haven’t changed out the springs in my car yet and Terri’s van is needing a muffler replaced so I got some work to do around the house.  Unfortunately I had to put together a set of basic tools from my home tools, so I don’t have a box of decent tools to use on home repairs.  I’m gonna have to do something about that before long because what tools I have at the house are in boxes and it is gonna be just about impossible to find anything to work with.  I guess I’m gonna have to get a couple of crappy sets of sockets, wrenches, and screwdrivers to use around the house.

My truck is still sitting in the driveway without anything significant done to it in several months.  I don’t really have the time or the money to get it going down the road and that doesn’t look like it’s gonna change before another winter sets in.  My motorcycle is also in need of some work to make it safe to ride.  The fork seals are leaking fluid all over the front brakes and one side seems to have lost more oil because the front end chatters through corners with or without bumps.  That will probably have to wait until next year to look at as well.  I’m hoping to start putting away some money so that I can get some stuff done early in the spring so I can maybe get my truck back on the road and my motorcycle ready to ride without having to worry about mechanical issues.

I will probably be on 1st shift for at least another week according to HR.  I’m probably gonna have a heck of a time getting used to sleeping in the day again, but after a few weeks I’ll probably be back in the habit.  I guess that’s about it for now

It’s been quite a while since I could say that I’ve been somewhere for only a year….my last job lasted for 7 years, I haven’t been back to Arkansas in 10 years.  In case you haven’t guessed it I have been at Anoplate now for 1 year officially.  Unlike most companies Anoplate gets you a card every year thanking you for your work, which actually means more to me than the money they put in the card as a reward.  I know that the money is more useful, but that they take the time to make up and have the president of the company sign a card for every employee on the anniversary date is a cool thing.

I am scheduled to start the maintenance position in a couple of weeks, so it will be like starting over a bit with learning how the maintenance department works.  I will probably be a little over my head with some things, but overall I think I can contribute a little bit to making things run a bit smoother hopefully.

Here’s to anniversaries that actually come with money

Well, despite my doubts they decided to give me the maintenance position on 3rd shift.  It means a pretty decent pay increase in a larger department with at least a few guys older than me, so I might be able to change shifts in the future.  I’m looking forward to getting to work on things again, but some of the wiring and places that you end up doing work are a bit scary to say the least.

I don’t get to go to maintenance until they train a replacement for me, but lo and behold they found a guy and he started training on 1st shift with my supervisor and will be training with me on 3rd within a week or so for a few weeks so he can get a grasp on what he has to deal with on a daily basis.  I’ll be back on third after a week of training on days so I’ll be around for him if he gets into a jam and doesn’t know what to do.  It will probably be mid to late September before I get to maintenance and get the pay increase, but I thought that I would have had to wait longer.

My back has been sore for the last couple of weeks with back spasms every so often after my back cools down after I have worked for a shift.  I’m not sure if it’s a different pain or just spurts of my old pain coming back, but I’ve been playing it safe and getting a lot more sleep while I can and trying not to do anything that gets my back yelling at me.

In other news Terri is currently looking for a new job for at least part time after some weird stuff went on with her temp assignment.  She was just coming due for a vacation and next thing ya know they decided they didn’t need her there anymore.  Her old boss was acting a bit weird when she called, so we decided it wasn’t worth her going back there because of how odd he was acting towards her.  I’m hoping that my increase in pay will allow her to only work a few days a week to keep us safely above water financially.

Mikey has been down in Virginia visiting his dad this week and is having a pretty good time from what I’ve heard.  He’s due back up here on Saturday sometime.  He is still going to be tutored instead of school until April of next year, so we should be getting pretty close to that starting again so I have an excuse to go and sit in the library

I still haven’t gotten anything done on my truck or checked the belt or anything on my bike because of my back.  My to do list is getting longer as we were looking at laminate flooring for the living room which will require the pulling up of the carpet a bunch of cleaning and rearranging.  If it goes well over the winter we might be doing other rooms to try and spruce up the place a bit….I guess 21 years is a fair life for a trailer’s carpeting   I am just a few steps away from having my truck driveable, but they are of course putting me through my paces with thinking of how to get the linkages set up for the clutch and shifter.  After that I just have to put the plug wires back on, hook up the starter wires, throw a battery in it and see if I can get it to run.  My bike needs a shock replacement in the back( I have a shock that should fit), but I really don’t wanna take the bike off the road for an extended period of time.  The forks also need new seals and some spacers in to keep it from bottoming out quite so easy to go with the new shock out back.

That’s about it for now I guess….I’ll post again when I start my maintenance job at work or get the truck or bike worked on or maybe even the new floor in