Year End Approaches

Well, the end of the year is approaching. I'm finally fully moved in to my new house. We are cleaning Megan's old apartment tomorrow, and then everything will be officially complete.

In the mean time, tonight we are having a small get together to celebrate the new place. Was originally going to have a fire tonight, but the wind and snow are making that look unlikely.

Oh yeah, it's snowing. Has been since some time last night. I'm not really happy about it. I had to scrape my car today before I left because of all the snow on it.

Blair just had her surgery, so she's been spayed and can no longer have babies. She's not happy because she is in the cone of shame and has to take medicine twice a day, but she is doing well and does not seem to have any complications.

Well, pretty soon it will be Christmas. I'm not really ready for Christmas, but it's coming ready or not.

I thought I had more to say, but I guess this is a short post.

Later,
Joshua

New Place

So Megan and I have decided to move in together. We have been looking for almost two months now, and next week we are signing a contract for our new home.

This house will be our home until we can afford to buy a house of our own. Today i am sitting here awaiting the arrival of the gas company representative so that the last of our utilities can be turned on and we can start cleaning and painting in prep for our personal move in date scheduled for November 10.

It's definitely a small place, and the rent is a bit more than I was honestly looking to spend, but the landlord allows our two cats and maybe even my small dog. The house is in a nice neighborhood and has a fairly large yard out back, so I was willing to make concessions.

Right now, though, I really just want the gas company truck to arrive so I can stop sitting around here and get something done. I took a half day and since my landlord has yet to mow the lawn I thought I would have time to do it myself. However, the appointment window was eight to noon, so I fear I may be waiting a while yet.

Oh well. Wish me luck with this endeavor, and cross your fingers that the gas truck pulls up soon.

Later,
Joshua

Blair!

You forgot to remind me to get on the next day!  Now look, weeks have past...

Well, the day before the removal of my wisdom teeth, I had driven out to our PVC Extrusion facility, WIN Plastics, in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio to help set up a system that I use in Pittsburgh everyday.  The point of the system is to help simplify the purchasing process and info the purchaser of what is needed to replenish stock, but that's not the point.  The point of the story is that while I was there, Cheryl, the receptionist there asked if I wanted to take a kitten home with me. She had found three in a box and she was looking for homes for them.

At first I said no, but I was shown pictures and videos and got to meet them and of course there's no saying no to that.

So I brought home Blair.

Check out my Facebook page for pictures of her. She's so cute.

By the way, since it has been so long since I started writing this post, I'd also like to point out that I'm finishing with the use of my brand new nexus 7 tablet. It's pretty awesome.

Halfway Through Summer

Well, I just saw that my last post was in April...oops.

I did learn how to cook a ham for Easter, by the way, and it was very delicious.

The rest of April kind of slid by.  Time was very funny then.  It seemed to both crawl and fly, if that makes sense.  All I know is that my days were unbearably long, but nothing ever seemed to change.

May began much the same, but things started to change when I was contacted by Megan so she could get some closure about our relationship.  She had some questions she wanted to ask me and some things I knew she wasn't going to be happy to hear that she wanted to talk about.  She emailed me, but I told her it would be easiest if we talked in person because a lot of what I was going to say would be painful enough for me to talk about and I wanted to have the option of her right there to ask questions and keep the conversation moving.

The next day she picked me up and I rode around with her while she ran errands to prepare for a party that weekend for one of her friends that had just graduated.  She asked questions.  I answered as honestly as possible.  I spent too much time while we were dating lying to deny her the truth any more, and by the end I was pretty sure she was going to hate me.

A funny thing happened while we were at Walmart, though.  She said something and I made an absolutely terrible joke making fun of our terrible relationship, and both of us cracked up.  We laughed for a full minute, and people were staring at us.

I guess that's when things really started to change between us.  A week later she had a really bad allergic reaction to something (we're still not sure what) and broke out in the worst hives I've ever seen.  She called me to come and take her to the Med-Express (I still wish I would have just taken her to the hospital) because her boy friend wasn't around to help her.  I spent most of the rest of the week with her while her boyfriend ignored/avoided her (she was borderline scary looking), and by the end of the week, I think she had already made up her mind to break up with him.  It took a few more weeks, but during those few weeks she hung out with me more than him, and then she finally just ended it with him.

At first I was afraid to try and ask her out again, even though I wanted to, so for a week or so we were just trying to be friends.  That didn't last long, though.  After spending that week hanging out, we both wanted to give things another shot, so we went on our "first" date the second weekend.

Things were looking really good between us, but then the guy she had been dating was in a car accident, and he was killed.  Granted, they had been friends since childhood, and she had only just gotten out of a relationship with him two weeks prior, but the way she broke down really worried me.  I ended up calling off work the next day so I could be with her while she was unstable, even though I wasn't sure at that point how I could possibly help.

After a few days, and especially after the funeral, she started moving on, and that's when I found out a few things about what upset her so much.  The obvious was that they had been friends for a long time and that she had cared a great deal about him.  However, she also told me that she had never dealt with the death of someone so close to her before, and especially not someone so young.  I guess no one in her high school died while she was there like in mine.  The worst for her, though, was that he was the father of a two year old, who will now have to grow up without his dad.

Since then, though, things have been going fairly well.  The most important thing the two of us seem to have taken out of this entire chain of events is that life is going to happen whether we want it to or not, and that we love each other and don't want to waste life wondering if there might be something else out there for us if we're happy together.  We've both grown a lot and I am happy to say that we are "going steady" now.  I spend most of my time with her each week, and I couldn't be happier.

Today, however, I am home in bed.  This morning I had four wisdom teeth removed, after which Megan brought me home and put me to bed, where I spent most of the day sleeping.  I've taken a lot of pain medication, but there is still a dull ache on the bottom right side of my mouth where the most impacted of the teeth used to be.

The removal was an experience, though.  The surgeon told me ahead of time that he was going to put me under, but I was really nervous.  I REALLY don't like needles, and when he was trying to put the IV in my hand (which I thought was weird), I guess I was tensing up a lot and he was having trouble.  I tried to calm down and I must have loosened up enough because he got the needle in and started the anesthetic.  I was really surprised; I didn't know the surgeon was also taking care of the anesthetic.  I thought that would be two different doctors, and that's the last thing I remember thinking before I woke up and was walked to a different room.  My mouth was completely numb and filled with gauze (I only know because it was puffy and they told me that was why).  I couldn't really talk for a few minutes, and even after talking with the gauze was difficult and I didn't do it unless it was necessary.  They prescribed me vicodin, which I honestly thought would be unnecessary at the time (I felt great), but we went and picked it up anyway (thank goodness!).  A little after I got home the local anesthetic wore off and I started to feel my mouth again...

Well, I felt a lot less great at that point.  I took a vicodin and went to sleep after I changed my blood soaked gauze.  In an hour I woke up again, in even more pain.  I checked the vicodin bottle, and sure enough I'm only allowed one every six hours.  Luckily the nurse told me I could take ibuprofen in between, so I changed my gauze again and took two of those.  I couldn't get back to sleep with the new gauze in, though, and it seemed like the bleeding had mostly stopped, so I just spit it out and went back to sleep.

Now I'm awake.  I tried eating some pudding, but it hurt.  I took more pills (antibiotic and steroid), and with nothing better to do, I decided to get on here and write since I knew it had been some time since I last wrote.

Remind me tomorrow to write about my new kitten.

Later,
Joshua

Suddenly Spring

Well, again I seem to have lost a month.  It's April, and I'm not really sure what happened to most of March.

What I do know, though, is that lately the weather has been phenomenal.  Until last week (and maybe a bit of the week before that), we were having plenty of sixty, seventy, and even eighty degree days.  I could live without getting up to the eighties, especially in March, but I've been able to spend time outdoors, and that's been really wonderful.

St. Patrick's day was one of the highlights of last month.  I woke up early for a 5k, which arguable I could have performed better in.  I placed 23 out of something like 160 people, though, so I guess I did alright.  My biggest concern was that I had to walk up half of a fairly large hill and in doing so let half of those 22 people who finished before me in front of me.  I had previously spent most of my time running indoors or on the outdoor track at Brady's Run, and consequently had not prepared myself well for the hills.

After my 5k, I went to Iain's championship basketball game.  I kind of feel like I brought them bad luck, though, because they lost, and I think they only lost one other game all season.  I left the game to head over to my mom's house and help Jeff clear out the fire pit.  Last year we burnt a lot of brush that he had cleared from around the property, and the ash pile was too large to allow anything else to burn.  It took a few hours, but we got the pit cleared out and a new fire set up.  Then we picked up a bottle of Irish Whiskey, lit the fire, played some Flogging Molly, and had a good family get together.

March's other major highlight was my trip to Kalamazoo, Michigan, for training.  I think I mentioned that I was promoted at TMI to purchasing in February, and one of our vendors that we do a lot of business with is located in Kalamazoo.  Eliason makes swinging doors that we resell, and spending time at their plant really helped me to understand the doors that I'm constantly writing purchase orders for.  I was seriously impressed with their product line, a good portion of which I don't think most of our sales people even know about.  I was also impressed with the production facility, which is much cleaner and seems more efficient than ours.  I think we could learn a thing or two from them.

I can say one thing for sure:  our facility may not be as clean or as efficient, but we still seem to be able to ship things when our customers ask for them.  Part of my job is to keep track of the vendor performance, and Eliason is one of the worst vendors in terms of shipping things when we ask, or even shipping things on their own expected ship dates.  I think the problem, though, is TMI's relationship with Eliason.  I get the feeling that if we were on better terms with them that they would be more likely to ship things on time for us; at least I don't think they do the same thing to some of their better customers.  That's a touchy subject, though, and I think I'll just leave it at that.

I did learn a few things about life while on the trip.  I went with Joe P. and Joe S. from another division of our company.  Their division, unlike the main company, has more of a partnership with Eliason, and they went not only for training but also to do some negotiations.  The Joe's are in a different social class than I am, and this was very evident throughout the entire trip.  For example, for dinner on Wednesday night we went to an amazing restaurant called Bold.  The meal was beyond fantastic; however, I think the bill for five of us came to around $500.  There were two bottles of wine involved, and my main course (they were fairly insistent that I have three courses) was a $28 fillet steak, which, believe it or not, was the cheapest thing on the menu.  I don't want to talk down the steak, though, because it was so delicious that I had to savor each bite.

The life lessons really centered around something Joe P. said on the way home.  I haven't been able to stop thinking about it since.  As you may have heard by now, Highmark had a bit of a scandal on March 25, which resulted in CEO Ken Melani getting fired.  I heard about it while we were driving back from Michigan.  Joe S.'s wife works for Highmark, and both he and Joe P. know Ken personally (which is why I am calling him Ken: they called him Ken the entire time.  It took me a little while to figure out who they were talking about).  The Joe's have played golf with him, and Joe S. has had dinner with him and his wife several times.  As if that on its own wasn't enough to rattle me, Joe P. then started talking about how much money Ken would have left once he got fired, assuming (reasonably) that his wife would also divorce him because of the entire ordeal and take roughly half.  He tossed around some figures and came to a conclusion of about 3 million dollars (assuming his financial situation before becoming CEO was not impressive enough to make a huge difference).  Now, my first thoughts on this are: "With 3 million dollars, I may not be able to get another job as a CEO, but I could probably do something reasonable, make enough money to cover my day-to-day expenses, and basically retire.  At least I'd be very comfortable.  Joe's first thoughts, though, were a lot more morbid.  He honestly said, "If I only had 3 million dollars, I'd probably jump off a bridge."  My response, besides being nearly dumbstruck, was to ask if he'd then leave that money to me.

I cannot fathom the amount of money that Joe must have to make 3 million dollars seem paltry.  This whole ordeal has really been challenging how I think about life.  These men really do live in a different world, and I don't see that there's really any way I can ever be a part of it.  They spent their time joking around, making business deals, and talking about golf.  I spend my time striving to pay my bills and have enough left over to have a social life one or two nights a week.  I don't really know how to cope with the thought of someone believing that 3 million dollars isn't enough money to live.  He even went on to say that he couldn't even invest that money, which further blew my mind.  That's the kind of money I'd love to have to invest.  Maybe someone else can explain the whole thing to me so that I can stop laboring over it and get back to my day-to-day life.  What are your thoughts on the whole ordeal?

Otherwise, I suppose it's April now.  Easter is in a week and I think I have to learn how to cook a ham in that time period.  In the mean time, I suppose I should get going.  There's always plenty of things to do.

March..?

Wow, I thought January and February were supposed to last a little longer...

Well, it's March now.  I lost a few months there somehow...Oh well.  I guess a few updates are in order.

I no longer work at ServiceLink.  Right around Christmas I was hired by a company called TMI International.  Basically we make and sell things made out of PVC (like those weird hanging plastic strips that you have to walk through to get into walk in coolers and freezers).  We also sell other dock supplies and air doors (those things that blow air down on you when you open a door), but they aren't made at the location I work at.

Anyhow, I was hired as Invoicing Clerk, and for a little over a month I was doing just that.  I got to work every day, collected Bills of Lading from the trucking companies and tracking stickers from UPS, then going into the system and creating invoices for the products that we sold to our customers that had shipped the day before.  I would then print all of the invoices, attach one copy to our paperwork and mail a copy to the customer.  Finally I would file all of our paperwork so that it could be referenced later in case there was a problem with the order or if the salespeople wanted to check a customer's last price, etc.

Needless to say, my job was extremely boring.  Also, I was making more money at TMI than at ServiceLink, but my student loans went into repayment in December and I was in a very bad way financially.  I was looking for a second job to supplement my income, but because I didn't really like my job, I was completely open to taking a new full time job.  Well, it just so happened that right around that time my Dad's friend Lisa, who had helped me get the job at TMI, knew of a job opening with Herr's Potato Chips.  They were looking for a route salesman, and I thought that I would be just the man for the job.  The hours would be horrible (5:00am to as late as 6:00 or 7:00pm, averaging 60-70 hours a week), but the pay was fantastic and I would get away from my boring desk job, so I went to three interviews and had a ride along with another salesman.

After all of this I was going to take the job, and I was just waiting to hear back about the results of my background check so I could schedule a physical and drug test when my boss at TMI called me into a meeting with our HR representative and the manager of the production department.  It turns out I'd been doing a very good job and they weren't really ready to let me go.  Dave (the production manager) wanted to promote me to his department and match the minimum that Herr's was going to give me.  It took a few days, but I eventually decided to stay with TMI.  I mean, I get to stay at a comfortable job making decent money. I'll have weekends off, and if necessary I can still get a second job.  On a quick side note, I may still get a second job just so I can save up some money because I need to get a new car.

At any length, I've been in the production department for two weeks now, and I'm enjoying my job a lot more.  I only wish that I could learn more about the department.  Some days I don't know why they need me.  I started out as a part of the purchasing portion of production.  I would right purchase orders for sales orders that required items that we could not produce at our facility (like air doors and dock lights and other things that aren't PVC related).  I quickly grasped that and began writing internal purchase orders as well.  Soon I hope to be able to take on more purchasing responsibilities, like contacting the companies that we purchase our supplies from and making the purchases.

However, since I quickly was able to overtake the amount of purchasing we do on a daily basis, I've been learning how to do other production related tasks.  I now know how to close finished jobs.  Whenever we need to produce a product, Ed (who also works in production) creates a job with bar codes and instructions on it so that the people in the shop can scan the bar codes and read the instructions in order to pull the proper material from the right places, as well as keep track of who's working on what for how long, and to ensure that everything is produced properly.  When the jobs are finished, they need to be reviewed and closed, then the material can ship.  I can close and ship the material so that the orders can by invoiced (my previous job).  It's a very cool full circle kind of thing.

Anyhow, I don't seem to be able to learn enough to stay busy.  Some days I run out of jobs and purchases and have far too much free time and I have to go around asking people for work.  Next week I'll be in the shop learning how we make everything we make, then my training is supposed to pick up in earnest.

Well, I'll attempt to not wait three to four months before posting again.

Until next time,
Joshua