Riding For Tyrone

They ride these things every day.  

It's part of their job.  But today....

Today they rode in remembrance of our friend and coworker Tyrone, who lost his battle with COVID-19 on July 18, 2020.

The blog will also be observing a day of silence for Herman Cain, who lost his battle with COVID yesterday, July 30, 2020.  

Random Thoughts Of A ....What Day Is It Anyway?

1.  My coworker's 5 year old grandbaby is sick, and they don't know what it is.  It's not the COVID, because he already had that.  Today, they had to take him to get some blood drawn.  When they got back into the car, the little boy said, "Those people are trying to kill me."  

2.  A bit of good news:  my cousin's husband was released from the hospital yesterday.  He's the one that had been battling COVID.  He's still has to get his strength back, but they no longer feel his life is in danger.  

3.  I got some new candles from my friend Kristine's ETSY shop, Stormy Blue.  I know Krampus is a Christmas candle, but it smells of fresh cut lumber, which is just about one of my favorite scents in the world. 

She's got lots of unique scents, so do check her out.  I'm still trying to convince her to make a couple of custom scents for me.  One is sweet feed and saddle leather, and the other is salt air, creosote, and dead fish.  I'd call that one Bolivar Ferry Landing.  Every time I lit it, I'd hear the sea gulls calling....

4.  Stalker is seriously jonesing to get his old job back.  I overheard The Big Man Up Front telling him, "It's not a matter of you being on the shop floor.  It's a matter of whether you want to be here at all."  Somehow, I don't think he's going to get that job back.  Funny thing is, a couple of weeks ago, he was telling us they were begging him to take it back, and he turned it down.  Eh, he lies more than the speaks the truth.  Nobody even listens to a word he says. 

5.  I did some science last week.   I'll write up a whole post on it whenever I have a minute to breathe, but I can tell you for sure, that myth about dog's mouths being cleaner than humans' mouths is so not true. 

I think next time I do science, I'm going to take my photos against a darker background, though.  You can hardly see my bacteria cultures.  But more about that later...

6.  I saw a new fawn a few days ago.  So far, there has only been one.  I haven't seen my older doe, either...the one that was so poor last year.  I'm afraid she might not have made it through the winter.  By the way, Walmart has deer corn back in stock.  I'll probably still go to Tractor Supply for my bird seed, though.  They have a 50 lb bag for only $15, and the birds seem to really like it.

7.  I've caught two little birds in my live trap this week.  Both were released unharmed.  I think they were sparrows.  

8.  It's really hard to practice your sight reading when you're so tired you can't even see.  

9.  The plant handed out care packages yesterday.  See?  It even says so. And just to show you how much they care, they put photos of front office people with their families on it. 

So they can show us how much they care as they're driving us into the ground like a bunch of dogs, I guess.

10.  And what was in said care package?  Five masks and a pack of gum.  

Oh, boy.  I feel so cared about.  Half dead with exhaustion, but hey, they care!

11.  Cody got stuck behind a tractor on his way to work this morning.  What I really want to know is, why in the world was there a tractor in downtown Memphis, and more importantly, what was it going to plow???

12.  Stalker is about to get his butt whipped.  He's always been one to play childish pranks on everyone, and now that he's a peon, he's driving the poor lady who works beside him up the wall.  One day last week, he wrote "You're a ho" on one of her pieces of copper.  We told her she should have taken it to HR, but she'd already wiped it off.  The next day, she had a little pile of brazing rod on her table.  When she went to pick a piece up to braze a part, she found he'd melted the ends so they all stuck together.  Then he runs over to one of the part stagers and cries about how it was only a joke and she had no business getting mad over it.  

13.  Today, the other brazer who works across from him, and the one he's tormenting made up a little song.  That song goes as follows (substituting his name for the word Stalker):

Stalker's a fool, and I don't care,

Stalker's a fool, and I don't care,

Stalker's a fool, and I don't care, 

I wish he'd go away!

They were singing it loudly, too, and didn't even care that he was standing right there.  

14.  That's about it for today.  It's already past my bedtime, and I still need to practice my piano, so goodnight everybody!

So, That Also Happened

Me:  Oh, I'm so tired!  All these long hours are wearing us out!  They're driving us into the ground!

Also Me:  Sure, I'll volunteer to work Sunday!

Also Also Me:  Ugh, why did I say I'd work Sunday?  I'm going to tell her I'm not coming in.

Also Also Also Me:  You know good and well you're too broke to be turning down overtime.

Also Also Also Also Me:  Yay!  They cancelled Sunday work.  I'm so glad I don't have to come in!

Also Also Also Also Also Me:  But that paycheck sure would have looked nice.  

Alrighty, then...

There I was at work, just a working away, when I heard someone call my name.  Turning around, I saw my coworker Linda.  She said, "I was in Walmart yesterday, and they have the Autumn Mix out.  I saw it and said, 'Becky is going to be happy to see that!'"

Boy, do my peeps know me or what!

And since we aren't going to have our health screenings this year, I can go ahead and start buying it up!  Normally, I wait until afterwards, so my triglycerides will be a bit lower -- I hope-- but they've waived it this year because of the pandemic.  So, yay for that.  

I mean, cancelling the health screenings.  Not the pandemic.  Boo for the pandemic.  

Thank goodness its all fake, right?

His Life Mattered

Say his name.  

Tyrone Herrod

February 13, 1977 - July 18, 2020

It's gotten bad here in Mississippi. Really bad.  Texas and Florida maybe getting all the attention, but here in this land mass between New Orleans and Mobile, we are fighting for our very lives. 

According to state health officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs, we are seeing roughly 1000 new cases every single day, in a population of less than 3 million. The hospitals are full, and it's getting worse. they will be at capacity within a week or two.  Many of them are having to implement their surge protocols. The four hospitals in the Jackson Metro area have one ICU bed available.

ONE.

The nine largest hospitals outside of Jackson have none. Not one single ICU bed is empty, and of the patients in intensive care, 40% are COVID patients. They've converted the ERs into COVID wards, cancelled all elective surgeries, and are having to send patients as far away as Missouri to find an available hospital bed. 

There is even talk of converting some of the National Guard armories into field hospitals.  

So you'll have to forgive me if I get a little short with those of you who keep insisting it's all fake. 

A Second One

Well, I lost another coworker to the COVID yesterday.  His name was Tyrone, and though, I didn't know him well, I still knew who he was.  He'd been in the hospital for a couple of weeks, battling the virus, but in the end, it was stronger than he was.  

Meanwhile, my cousin's husband is still in the hospital, fighting his battle with COVID, and how has the added complication of blood clots in his legs.  

Y'all just go on pretending this isn't real, that it's all a big hoax so the government can take away our freedoms.  Some of y'all are so determined to push your conspiracy theories that you don't realize, or just don't care --that real people are really dying from this.  

So take off your tinfoil and try to show some compassion, will ya?

In other news, I got me a new Funko yesterday.  

When I'd added it to my cart on Amazon, it was like $15.  A few days ago, I was ordering something else and noticed it had dropped in price to $6.50-ish.  Naturally, I had to snap it up.  And that's about the most exciting thing that has happened this week.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got to go finish writing a letter to my Australian pen pal.  

Ribbit

So, there I was at work, just a working away, when there came a big commotion in the brazing department, complete with screaming and running. 

Looking up from my work station, I saw many of the brazers over in the area where we put our completed work.  Glancing around, I saw a few more looking and pointing towards the floor.  I looked at where they were pointing, and lo and behold, there was a frog!  

Not Actual Frog

Now, how in the world that little frog made it all the way to the sub-brazing area -- which is slap in the center of the building -- without getting squshed is beyond me, but there he was.  

One of the less frightened brazers grabbed a cardboard box and attempted to get the frog to hop into it, but the little Kermit was having none of it.  So, me being me, I just reached down and picked him up.  

And I named him George and I hugged him, and squeezed him, and petted him, and patted him...

OK, not really.  I was afraid I'd hurt him.  I carefully carried him outside through the scrap dock doors, and released him into the grass on the other side of the fence.  I hope he is OK, and that he didn't absorb too much oil and chemicals that he dies from that.  

But while I was walking through the plant, crowds of people parted before me like the Red Sea.  Even one of the supervisors like to have fallen over getting off of her Blartmobile.  One lady screamed and ran, then turned around and said, "Becky, what you got over there?"  It's a frog!  Then she screamed again.

After I stopped laughing, I carried the frog outside and let him go.  Returning to my work area after washing my hands, I felt I had to record this incident on my down time sheet.  Wondering how to word it, I finally came up with an acceptable statement:

"Chasing people with a frog."  

And how was your day? 

I Figured It Would Happen

Ok, well, I didn't so much figure it would happen as I'm not surprised that it did. 

And what was it that happened, you ask?  Well, I'll tell you. 

Someone turned the plant in to OSHA for safety violations.  They are required to post it every time someone does that, and I saw the form on the bulletin board this morning.  And what was the complaint? 

Apparently, someone thinks the plant allows people to continue working after they have been diagnosed with COVID - 19, and they don't clean and sanitize the place, and don't enforce social distancing.  

OK, I agree with that last one, because we brazers are practically standing on top of each other as it is, but the other two are absolutely ridiculous.  As my worker who recently recovered from COVID said, if you get it, you aren't going to be able to come in to work.  It laid her out flat on her back for 5 days. My cousin said the same thing when she had it.  She felt so weak, she could hardly get out of bed.  Even if they allowed it -- which they don't -- it's highly unlikely you'd be able to come to work anyway, so that one is just stupid. 

Now, here's the thing.  I don't know who made this complaint to OSHA, because these things are supposed to be anonymous.  However, there is one person...if they came out and said, "Oh, yes, she's the one who called them", it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest.   See, when my coworker tested positive, they had the cleaning guy come out and spray everyone's stand down with some sort of disinfectant -- as if a 1500+ degree flame hadn't already killed any hint of virus that was on them.  

But oh, well.  Anyway, he got to the last person's stand and ran out of cleaner.  He said, "I'll be right back", and went and got some more.  Only it was a different type of cleaner.  The first bottle he had had blue fluid in it.  This one had clear fluid.  This particular person pitched an absolute wall eyed hissy fit that would make any two year old proud, because she said he was using plain water on her stand.  He wasn't, but she refused to listen.  They even got the head of safety and the man in charge of chemical storage to come out and try to talk her off the ledge, but she insisted the cleaning man was just using water. 

This is why they need to do away with that idiotic zero tolerance policy.  Some of these people desperately desperately need the stupid slapped out of them. 

Back to my story...no matter how many times they told her he'd used a real disinfectant on her stand, she stuck to her claim that he'd used plain water -- because it was clear.  

"I assure you he did not use plain water on your stand," said Safety Lady.  

"But it was clear!"  

Yeah, diluted bleach is clear.  So is isopropyl alcohol.  So is hydrochloric acid, though I seriously doubt he'd use that on her stand.  Heh, she wouldn't have much of a stand left if he did.  

"But he got that from over there," she said, pointing.  

"Yes, we have chemical storage over there," replied chemical storage man.  

What made it really bad is that the person pitching the fit works at least 15 feet away from the one who'd gotten sick.  Even if Sick Coworker had coughed coronavirus all over her stand, it's not like the virus is going to get up and jump all the way over to Hissy Fit's stand.  So the whole thing was just ridiculous.

We're supposed to have a town hall meeting tomorrow morning, so maybe they'll discuss the OSHA complaint with us.  I'll let you know how it goes.

One more thing, another one of my cousin's has had to put her husband into the hospital with COVID.  He's got a rare lung condition that makes it especially dangerous for him.  He is in the pulmonary care unit at his local hospital.  Please lift him up in prayer if you've a mind to.  

I know it would be appreciated.  

Well, That Was Interesting

So, there I was at work, just a working away, when all of the sudden, half of the lights in the plant started flickering. Not all at the same time, either.  It was really weird.  The light fixtures have four fluorescent bulbs in each one, and even they weren't flickering at the same time.  It was like being inside a giant disco ball.  

I'm not sure what caused it, but after only about 15 or 20 minutes of this, they sent everyone home for the day.  Everyone but the sub brazers, that is.   They originally said we would have to stay the whole day, but it didn't pan out that way.  Turns out the computers were all down as well.  We couldn't scan anything out, or get new pick tickets printed, or anything.  We couldn't even get blueprints for the header assemblies.  

Before long, someone got the idea to shut off the lights that were flickering, which was a relief to me.  I can handle a lot of things, but strobe lights isn't one of them.  Our youth group at church used to do a drama thing with a strobe light, but I couldn't even watch it.  I had to sit there with my eyes closed for the whole thing.  

The electricians were out working on stuff, trying to figure out what was going on,  and along about 2:10, all the lights in the plant went out.  I'm thinking they'd shut a circuit breaker off or something in order to work on ---whatever it was.  At this point, the bosses threw in the towel and sent the last few of us home.  

Heh, I was going to say I had a short day -- which I did -- but it was still a 10 hour shift.  Still, it was nice to have time to practice my piano and blog, both in the same day.  

Well, we've had several more people out at the plant who've been through the COVID, and sadly, have had our first loss.  The guy, Big Teddy, had gone to the hospital, but all the beds were full.  They were going to put him on a gurney in the hall, but he didn't want to do that.  He went back home, but didn't make it.  Someone said his fever was so high, he was delirious.  I'm not sure of all the details, but it was a sad day indeed.  I didn't know him well, but Big Teddy was always very nice to me.  He will be missed.  

Mississippi, and particularly my county, is one of the hardest hit in this latest spike, even though Florida, Texas, and California are getting all the attention.  A lot of the area hospitals are out of beds, and no it doesn't matter that they're not all COVID cases.  When they have to line up gurneys in the halls, or transfer patients to out of state hospitals, or send people home to die, does it really matter what the other patients are there for?  Those of you saying this virus is a hoax, or it's all faked to try to take our rights away, well, you just need to shut your stupid self up.  It's real, and it's deadly.   

With that in mind, when I was out yesterday, I picked this up, mainly because it's made in the USA by veterans.  

Given the choice, I will always support a veteran owned business, or one that employees primarily veterans.  

Sometimes, I'll even buy stuff I don't need, just to help a brother or sister out.  

Cody and I made a flying trip to Texas over the weekend, which I will tell you about in another post.  It was so nice having him drive the whole way there and back, though I did offer to spell him should he need a break.  It got nearly a whole hat finished, when I discovered I'd left my measuring tape at home. 

Cody told me to just eyeball it, so I did.  When I got to where I thought I should start the crown decreases, I set it aside, because I didn't want to have to deal with DPNs in a moving vehicle.  I pulled this old scarf out and worked on it for the rest of the trip.  

When I got home, I pulled out the old measuring tape, measured my hat, and low and behold, it was exactly the right length.  I guess I've done knitted a few, huh?

Finally, I think my malaise towards blogging has been caused in part by the changes Blogger has made to the site.  It used to be a really user friendly platform, and they had to go and make it all complicated and stuff.  Look, I just want to write a post, and let my friends know how my day went.  If I wanted to wrestle with HTML, I wouldn't be blogging.

I'd be writing code somewhere.  

Still Kicking

Yep, I'm still alive and kicking.  I've been in a real writing slump here lately.  I've had stuff to talk about, but I just can't seem to make myself sit down and write it all out.  

About a week ago, I signed up for a new streaming service called FRNDLY.  It only has 15 channels, but three of them are Hallmark.  I will be able to watch my cheesy Christmas movies for a whole lot less money this year.  The packages start at $6 per month, but the only difference is the number of streams you can have, and the length of time your DVRed stuff is saved for you.  I got the $8 package, because with these hours we are working, I can't watch anything live.  I have to record it all and watch the next day.  Anyway, it also has UP TV, INSP, The Weather Channel, QVC, and some outdoors channel.  There are a few more, but I can't remember them right off the top of my head.  

I finished the hat I was working on.

I started another one, but didn't take a picture of it.  And like I needed more yarn, I picked this up out of the clearance bin at Walmart.  

I've been admiring this yarn for a while, so when I saw it had been marked down, I had to get me some.  Unfortunately, only one skein was in the clearance bin, so about all I can do with it is to make a couple of hats.  

There I was, a couple of weeks ago, working on my sight reading exercises, when I happened to glance at the back of the book and saw these:

It's got simple pieces that are meant to be played only once per day.  The point is to force the student -- in this case, me -- to actually read the music, and not just feel it out.  

I'll let you know how that goes. 

Cody has a new job.  He decided the car industry is about to go belly up, so wanted to get out of it.  I disagree, but didn't argue with him.  Two things we Americans aren't going to give up are our cars and our air conditioning.  

Anyway, he's working for a logistics company, and his office is in downtown Memphis -- over looking the Mississippi River.  I said, I'd never get anything done, because I'd be looking at the river all day.  

I guess that's it for today.  I hope this malaise passes, and blogging picks up soon. I'm sure you feel the same way.  

Crawling Out Of The Woodwork

I'm crawling out of the woodwork here to let you know I'm still alive and kicking.  And I still don't have symptoms of the 'Rona -- though the dust is still so high here I wouldn't even know it if I did.  Before it was all said and done, they'd quarantined five sub-brazers.  I'm not one of them, even though I worked right beside the one who had it.  People are questioning that -- why the didn't send me into quarantine.  Yesterday, I had the following conversation with a coworker (who admittedly is a bit on the slow side):

Me:  Safety Guy said as long as I'm not showing symptoms, I'm not contagious, so I'm OK to come to work.

Slow Coworker:  But you could be a carrier.

Me:  But I'm not showing symptoms, so I'm not contagious.

Slow Coworker:  But you could be a carrier.

Me:  I'm not showing symptoms, so I'm not contagious.

Slow Coworker:  But you could be a carrier.

Me:  I know, right?  I don't know what they were thinking.  

Rumor is that a second brazer tested positive on Friday, so that's when they quarantined the other two.  Rumor also has it that the two who came down with the COVID went to the same big block party, which is where they picked it up.  I remember hearing them talk about it, and that was just about two weeks before the first one started showing symptoms.  But that's just speculation...

By the way, Cody told me that Beverly had it, and her only symptoms were nausea and a slight cough.  I said, "Heck, that's me every day, even when I'm not in the middle of a global pandemic."  

In other news, I finished another Yes.Fit race.  They've got several they're retiring at the end of the year, so I want to get them done while I can.  Well, the ones I want, at least.  The Beauty And The Beast I just completed was one of those, and this is another, Peter And Wendy.  As you may have guessed, it's theme is Peter Pan.  The medal is so cool.  It looks like a pocket watch, complete with tiny watch chain. 

And look at this, it opens!  The inside shows a scene of Peter and Wendy flying over Big Ben -- just in case the photo isn't that clear.  

Then I did this one -- Let Freedom Ring -- today.  It was only a 5K, and I walk more than that just mowing my yard.

Which is what I did this morning.  I thought I could get out there and get it done before it got too hot.  I thought wrong.  It took me several hour afterward to re-congeal, but I got it all done.  I even got  part of the weed eating done before my weed eater and I had a serious falling out.  I get frustrated because the line doesn't feed like it's supposed to.  When I need new line, instead of just bumping the thing on the ground like you're supposed to, I have to stop the weed eater, unscrew the thing and manually feed out more line.  I don't know what I'm doing wrong, but I've never been able to get it wound right. 

A couple of weeks ago, my brother in law and I were chatting on FB about digital cameras.  He'd asked in anyone still used them, and I said I did.  I'd love to get a new DSLR someday, so I can control the depth of field and shutter speed and all that.  Well, Aaron mentioned that he had an old camera he'd send me for free if I wanted it.  It's an old Canon Power Shot, and it's still got its drivers on a CD-ROM.  

My new computer doesn't even have a disc drive on it!  I don't really the disc anyway, as the memory card works with the Fast Stone program I already have on my computer.  I've taken a few photos with it, but want to record myself playing the piano, and see if it has a better sound quality in the videos than my old Kodak. 

I had to laugh when the package arrived.  He had every inch of that box covered in tape.  My first thought was, "He must be kin to my old Aunt Martha!"  She loved her packing tape. 

I took this little picture of one of my chrysanthemums, just to see how it would do.  

I'd always thought of mums as being fall flowers, but I guess when they're in your garden, they bloom when they want to.  I shouldn't complain.  They're the only flowers I got this year.  All those wildflower seeds didn't come to anything.  I guess the grass and weeds choked them out.  

In knitting news, I'm still working on this hat.  

It's taking forever, because I don't have much time to knit, now that we're on these long, long hours.   I'm only about an inch from starting the crown decreases, so I'm hoping to get it done this weekend while I'm watching my Independence Day movies.    

I've about decided I'm done with my level 1 book of my Alfred's All In One Piano Course.  I've started my level 2 book, but I think I'm going to take a bit of a break for a few days, and just play stuff for fun from all those extra books I bought.  I might even record and post a few of them for you.

Oopses and all.  

And finally, when they spread production out so much in the plant, they bought all the supervisors and managers these little scooter things to ride around on.  I call them Blart-mobiles, but that's neither here nor there. They look kind of like this, 

but not exactly, and obviously don't say Police on them. 

One of the supervisors decided his horn wasn't quite loud enough, so one day on his lunch break, he went to Walmart and bought himself an air horn.  You can hear him tooting that thing all over the plant.  So anyway, there we were at work, just a working away, when off in the distance, you could hear the sound of Supervisor's air horn wafting on the breeze.  

I'm not sure what my coworker was thinking, but she called across to her friend, "Patrice, was that you."  

Patrice looked indignant and said, "Now, how am I going to make that noise?"  And I laughed so hard, I couldn't even tell the massive fart joke that had popped into my head.  

And I've been giggling about it ever since.