Wing's B day Bash!

Freezing rain & snow in P-town!

Friday nite was fun!....
Saturday... cruz'g in the valley in search of W-Valley wineries with A... then P-town, jolly time!
Grandma: there is white ppl talking...why?
Boringfish: Yes granny.. I am having dinner in a restuarant.... I am ordering water...sorry
Sunday.... was wanting to go to Hood with Dave, then snow & freezing rain stopped me. It turned out not too bad cuz I just slept all day! Getting ready for another hectic week with process and foreman work....white top & PMP & DAFing are the bulk of it.. probably catching up with HH. 4 days week is always rad, no to mention free food from work all week long. Goodies from farmhouse and maint feast... JOY and fattening! 2 more work weeks... then the new year!

W-Valley Wineries

Friday... I finally will have a break!

The weather in C-town has been very chilly. ICY!

Things are on the upside again in my papermaker world. It turned out that the cull rolls that we made yesterday were salable for specific application. They will make coffee cup holder and box divider....

I finally feel great being a junior foreman..making contribution that impact production positively. They listened and excuted my ideas today...FGS, Sweet! Bill is fun to work with, he is so easy going. We had another incident with the polymer again this evening.. this time, the chemical froze! I think I handled the whole ordeal really well... at least I hope. I thinks foreman job is a piece of cake on a GOOD day. However, you never know when that is in a paper mill.

JK continued to be around... things are doing ok, I feel comfortable that I am being watched...This is just a heck of the week for a new guy to show up. We sure did hell to welcome him. Are we a bunch of fools? 36 hours boiler outage, 24 + hrs for PM2 and 12 hrs for PM3 & AFL downtime, contaminated condensate as filtrate in washer definitely was impressive.... black liquor pulp, pH 12 in HD6, foamy party in APM. I definitely put on lot of mileages to my feet, well my jaws dropped a lot too! The mill will need its healing time and get back to normality. White top could be a challenge.

Tonite was fun with A. I gonna miss him...or maybe NOT, if he won't call me from corn central... yeah... I am 'mafan'.
Weekend should be a blast.... no work......

Congru to Peter, he is getting married today, hurray!

FOAMy Bubble bath & SNOWING!

Just a quick log before I return to the world of paradise.

I showed up to work this morning to find that the mill was at a worser shape than it was as I left on my 14 hours day yesterday. It was liked we made pulp-snow in the mill. Everywhere, and (I mean it) was covered by FOAM... I soaped myself into the foam pool as there was my ONLY way to get into the machine building. AFL, PM3 were down already, then 6:10, PM2 went down as well....this is the worst week ever. we gonna make cull paper and be rid of all the bad stock all day long... no production at all! It all started from contaminated condensate.

JY made it to town yesterday, I finally got to introduce myself as we were trying to thread PM2 around 8. With the mill upset condition from the 2 weeks, it was a great way to impress your manager, and we all need to avoid the execution room and may as well start looking for employment somewhere else. So far, the impression from my peers was disappointing. Effective leadership is the concern!

W just announced permanent closure of 2 machines.... we need to reconsider our position in the organization.

It's snowing outside... Let's get a snapshot!.. Boy are we in trouble? Most outside equipment got frozen up! SF got a recordable injury because someone slipped and fell. Water on the ground turned to ice... we could skate out here! Clean up, clean up, clean up. The bugs in the pond are not doing so hot either, they have been swimming in pulp, foam and liquor!

Sweet hours!

It was another long day...14 hours...but I survived my first shut as a mini-F, I even completed my first lockbox at PM2 Quill Inspection & got a foreman lock key. (I probably will need to return that). We were losing steam and running out of stock, they have to shut AFL down for WL inventory, PM3 were making culls most of the afternoon (4 breaks)
The pic were taken outside the PM3 CR as I was on my way to Farmhouse lunch.... I was still in good spirit at that time. Barry was taking pics on the damage press ceramic shoe and he took a snapshot of me.... OH NO!

Tickle my Feet

First, work: I survived my 73 hour work week, and I feel very good about my performance, in spite of physical exhaustion. My 'B' crew day was alright. I was mostly puzzled about the direction of the mill because of the mill manager's announcement of his December retirement. Maintaining high morale is crucial in this kind of situation. My 'D' crew day was very good - I felt very confident, and enjoyed the busy foreman day. My 'C' crew started with a great learning experience -the machine was hay out twice with a total of more than 3 hours. Frustration, fatigue, rushing, definitely set in amongst my crew. It was stressful trying to get the machine rolling again. Thursday morning I got a chance to chat with Fred for a couple of minutes. He was complimenting me for doing a great job - that certainly eased some of my anxiety. I took a couple hours off on Friday to finish some process projects. Saturday was pretty good - things were running pretty well, and I felt I was doing well as a foreman. Now, the fun stuff...

Thursday my mom came down from P town to deliver me my uncle's used dining table. Very nice of them to do that for me. A got to meet with my mom as we all went out to dinner afterwards. Saturday afternoon I went hiking after work in McDonald Forest. It was good to catch the last of the daylight, before it got freezing. I am jealous that Dave got to go snowboarding on Sunday - I would have liked to go, but I was needed for some festivities in Portland - Wing's Birthday. We went shopping at our regular spots, Woodburn and Fry's - and we both spent some money. For dinner we met up with Sylvia without our designated waitee, and we pigged out at Todai. It was not as good as I remembered, but they did have some cake for the birthday girl. Austina is on her way to HK now. Have fun there! & party on.

Emily will be traveling back to huskies state for awhile. She is going miss her boy.

25F..(-4 c)... icy!

Happy Birthday to Wing!

Long Day, many more to come.

Today was my first "official" day shadowing the foreman - they get good exercise, and cover a lot of ground. Making the rounds, fixing problems, and always thinking 'saleable tons...saleable tons'. I had a thirteen hour day today, and that 13 hours consisted of a half hour lunch, two fifteen minute breaks, and a brief stop to use the phone (and another one for email). I am more tired than I expected, and I was planning on being pooped. On top of that I have been discouraged by the sudden retirement of our mill manager at the end of the month. I am more upset by his departure bacause he was a big piece of my introduction to Albany, and I felt that he was watching over me. The new manager, from OK, has already been announced. I had a chance to meet him on my job hunting trip, but I never did - I guess I will get my chance soon. Looks like changes have finally begun to touch Albany - we will see how this may change my training, and the general state of the mill. I have been making some big progress lately, and I hope he will not interfere with my advancement. Hopefully his W background will not clash with the leftover w folks.

Today we had an equipment shut, with lots of lockout and tagout, and a minor injury. The PM was doing poorly when I arrived, but at least I got some ideas for improvements from my talks with the tenders. My DAF was 'ill', not taking the wet strength well, and the poor thing was overwhelmed. There was a silo leak, a crack in #2 hiD and a number of leaks in the dryer section (apparently they think I am the only staff member small enough to fit in there with the moving rolls and high temps). Both winders were acting up - I don't totally understand the pump speed variation theory for energy saving. I attended the PM3 shut meeting, and my project on #3 HB was canned - it was too much trouble to add the jet vel. scanner rather than to do without. Tomorrow I will be meeting a new crew, I think I was well received today, and those will be my crew members for my foreman trial - hopefully they will help me along the way. In 30 days, I will be the person in charge - there is a huge amount to keep track of, and I think it might be a little overwhelming. Deep breath. Lots of safety talk, and it is hard to see how they can compensate foremen for the stress. I learned a little lesson about privacy... and how to be supportive of the crew in their daily ops.


I miss Emily! My doggie misses me! Emily is back in P town as of this weekend. She is going to get fat without enough exercise and eating too much human food. I went to Portland and spent time with my mother over the weekend. It was a good visit, and productive. Last friday I went to a play. It was a wordy play, but generally enjoyable.

Set back! Step back!

I had some conversations with my confidants over the weekend.....then I had some conversation with A tonight. I am NOT obsessed about what we have right now, but he sort of upset me. I wish things are simple and I am not jealous of some imaginery competitions.

I will write more later, probably after my first day in charge of the machine. I am anxious in all aspects of life... Need to calm down and slow down... Take a deep breathe.

Boringfish
PS. Early Happy Birthday to Abbie, Melvin, Sherry, Wing, Fiona & Pauline! Party on Dude and Dudettes!

Date Night

It's new for me to have one of this...
so another one tonight to a play at Albany theater.

Fake date/ real date...so complicated

Cutie!

Nov30


Yes..Emily is much prettier, she knows how to open her eyes and look at the photographer....


My lovely companions! Coffee is wearing his MJ's gloves.


Coffee and Boringfish in snowland, he is looking for big foot!


Coffee and Boringfish were smooching. Coffee: I am embarrassed that you caught me kissing her!


Techie Doggie! Smartie! Emily: I am a graduate.


Pic was taken on 10/26 by Wing. Emily and Boringfish were smooching. Boringfish: You look tasty!

Late August

Boringfish is trying to sort the jpegs from my trip to the South, found them and will post them at a later time: hush puppies, memphis ball game, AK, OK, TX & LA, CA....Yipee!--Please go to Archive May/05 .. It has been updated.

Dave & Chris

We miss you, Chris!

Time to say thanks and reflect a year in passing

A 4 days weekend was a very nice break from the paper world. Too bad that I can't match my schedule to volunteer at St. Francis or other places on T-day. Besides the regular turkey day festivities, I went to Newport for the day with A. It was fabulous time. We even cooked dinner together; well, we attempted. Food was saturated with black pepper. It was HOT. I would say we are going well and it has been wonderful for a change. Time to say thanks and see what will come of it. I definitely have my worries as this relationship grow, meanwhile, let's just go with the flow.

I was a home body on weekends, chilling with Dave, Wing & Emily. No golfing though and I am still in search of my dummies book... where did that go? Kung Fu Hustle is so-so, Stephen Chow is still pretty good with his HK style humor, but it could be tiring sometimes.

Monday started on a sour note (work week 48, 4 more to go). As the 4th quarter at work has been rough; the economical time just couldn’t allow us to end the year with a cheer(depressed market conditions and the surge in transportation and energy costs). (They might shut down my DAFs for energy saving?!) We had been plagued with power generation, liquor and recaust and pulp problems. We have been slowing down in pulp production and machine speed and made grade pattern adjustment to adapt the shortcomings in operation. In the midst of this, PM dept continued to focus on building a stronger team. I am part of the change as I will be starting my temporary foreman training in December of 05, straightly on days, with the intent that I will alternate my roles between process engineering tasks and foreman duties in the first 6 months of 2006. This is absolutely a big deal to my career development. Some folks started to congratulate me as it definitely perceived by others as I am climbing upward in the world of papermaker. Don't worry, I am still the grunt of Horace. We are still partners and we will have each other's back! I don't know how I will work/sleep/eat/fun *wink*, but I will manage with my superb multi-task talent.

I got a present from a vendor today, WOW. I am worthy now!

Today, more dampening news has announced from SMT, they have decided to sell MDF operations in Albany and Eugene, OR and indefinitely idle-ling NO 1 containerboard machine in Plymouth, NC (I was trying for a position, back in April) . I have been very optimistic in the past to encourage folks from Albany not to think of us as the next news clip. I still believed that we will be around making paper for many more years to come. We worked hard to show that Albany is a world class mill and we are among the best workforce in W. “In response to fundamental market challenges, W has recently announced the indefinite closure of a pulp and paper facility in Saskatchewan, a box finishing operation in California, a sawmill and pulp mill in Washington, and a plywood mill in Oklahoma.”

PM2 shut today went long...lots of appointments (will get a new set of ear plugs)....December... here we are. Time to start on my x'mas letter, what an eventful year, don't you thinK? I want to go snowboarding.... Pink Martini... white top/PM3 HB/foreman training... hmmm! HELP!

The better I know you, the happier I get

Last friday night was quite a surprise. My gathering plan with the coworkers did not fall through; instead I was chilling with A. A dinner and a movie afterwards, the chemistry was here. Folks, I am happier!

Weekend:
A big day to get all errands done in P-town before the homecoming of my mom. Things went well as it was hectic as usual, stopped by all my regular places. The break at downtown was refreshing, we went to saturday market and Powell's Bookstore. Sunday was a good day to catching up on sleep & chores. Doggy Park with Dave and Emily was a big plus. Emily & Dave got plenty of exercise; I too, was doing some running & walking. The service on Sunday night was fine.

Work Week 48:
Monday was miserable for my stomach. I suffered through the combination of anxiety and abdominal pain. At least the work week will be short, just 2 days for me! That evening, I watched 'mail order bride', it was pretty funny as it was a fake documentary.

Tuesday, we went to MU for a performance of belly dancing. At work, I was told that I will start my temp. foreman training in December. I will be doing 12+ hours of shift work! Lucky me! No seriously, I am looking forward to that assignment. A great learning opportunity for my paper maker world!!! The work day ended with a hello wish from Scott. It was nice.

Wednesday, I was so focused on my engineering tasks, that I didn't even notice I was wearing my shirt backward until a vendor asked innocently if I had any particular reason for my fashion statement. I was a little bit embarassed, and as soon as I had some privacy, I made sure to turn my shirt back to the standard orientation. I started my foreman work a little bit early as PM2 was taking downtime to change press felts, prior to the next scheduled shut. It was a very good day for learning and running up and down from wet end to dry end. Jones refiner is back from the shop and we had to cut Horace's lock! I am a bad girl/partner as I have his dirty evidence in jpeg. He will get a ear full from Ted.
Cheesecake!

Happy Thanksgiving to y'all! Mine should be interesting!

Quantity vs Quality?

A question from another blogger:

Would you like to be with someone everyday, see their face everyday, but never do anything special together, or would you like to meet someone only once in a while but when you meet, everything else is dropped and you have the time of your life?

Boringfish wants both in moderation and in balance. Just being with someone you adore is priceless.

Is it Friday yet? oh IT IS

Work is full of surprises as always. Drainage study was waiting for me yesterday as I walked into the mill. It turned out the application engr was the same guy I worked with 3 years ago at NBend. It was a busy day anyway. Jack and Dan are a handfull but they are great guys to work with. A few follow up items for me to tackle today and possibly next Monday.

Horace and I will be visiting with a press expert today; Mr. Woo, a native from Korea is a research scientist at corp. He is interested in mill daily issues.

I watched Napoleon Dynamite last night; it was funny and very quirky, but cool.

Friday is here, well let's see if some co workers of mine will wanna go have dinner and drinks tonight?

Shout out to Die hard fish ball gal!

Folks,

Just wanna give a shout out to FionA.
Congratulations on her transition to a new job! May the opportunity grant her a fresh breath of air for professional and personal growth.

You too Richard!

Gotta get back to work.

Boringfish

PS Hey girl, what happened to that phone call?

Oh... It's November already

Hey Folks,

Long time no chat. Work week 47 is here! I am still the DAF/Kajaani/spill control gal. PM3 shut today, Fiberline shut yesterday. HB project will be pushed to December. White top will be there too. 5.5 weeks till the end of the year! So little time with lots to do! I have been working on my 5 steps program in SPILL & SWIMS control. So groovy. There was a minor spill again on the 8th, so folks are taking my tests and responding well to the steps. Holidays are around the corners! I will try to do my best to update folks on what happened to me for the past couple months.

Emily has been staying with me for the last month or so. It's been wonderful to have another femme company around, a feisty and very naughty one too! Coffee is being stubborn and continuously refusing to show his face. I am worrying sick about him and wish every second of that he will turn up and give me plenty of loving. Fish are doing fine. Ultimately, survival to the fittest is happening to my household as the residents in the fish tank have gradually shrunk from 8 to 2 now. We have had them since September 17th. New addition to the aquarium is in planning.

What’s cooking? My newly adopted phrase. Well let's see, I am on my uphill ride in my social roller coaster, don’t have much to share at this point. I will keep you posted, I am sure of that.

Veteran’s Day weekend wasn’t too bad, I was on call for work and it was a pretty low-key time. I was watching a lot of TV, Beavers lost to Stanford and Ducks won! Go Beavers in the civil war!

Fiona and Richard are in transition to their new employment. Hur-ray! & sucker, welcome to the cruel real world.

I have on call duty on Oct 1-6, 14-20, 28 to Nov 3, Nov 11 till present. After the 17thof the week, I will have a long deserved break from weekends stuff. I won’t be on till February. Richard, are you ready for some on call actions?

OUCH, a broken wrist!

Last weekend, Horace and I were both on call. A serious mishap resulted in a mill employee concluding his work day and his probationary period with a broken wrist. The event triggered several minors and near misses. I am assigned to develop machines spill control plan as the outcome of this unfortunate event. We were 3 days short of celebrating the mill’s 1 year with no lost time injury record. It reflected badly upon Horace and me as we were the chemical duo at the mill. Go wet end!

Sylvia’s birthday, no bowling for us in this celebration. We went out for dinner! Instead of the usual hour long wait at the Red Lobster, we had a designated waitee, who provided us a choice table, and saved us an hour of waiting in the cold. And then he didn't even stay for dinner! What a sacrifice. Thanks from the three of us! The day went by fast as Wing and I spent time at outlet and Fry’s.

Halloween was uneventful. I had 5 young adolescent trick-or-treaters. WOW.

I went to mass for all Saint’s day on Wednesday. I missed my grandpa and coffee a lot and I hope they are happy.

On Thurday I went to my first APM career counseling section, the experience was positive, encouraging and frankly, I am more confused then ever. It raised a lot of questions and my prospects got cloudier. We will see what’s cooking, later that evening, I went to Bio-diesel seminar in Salem; it was hosted by the AICHE Pacific section. It was a fascinating topic and I have so much more to learn.

Friday night was little nervous, Too much going on to explain. Just take my word for it. On Saturday, Scott, Jenny, Emily and I went to the coast. What a lucky guy when he was accompanied by 3 pretty girls. I had fun even though it was pouring rain in Florence. I would like to hang out with him and Jenny more before they decide on their move to Central Oregon. On Sunday, I went to Portland for the day, a lot of errands.

Maple trees are shredding skin, lots of leaves to rake for the handy man. I continued to have headaches caused by trees in Portland, gutters /fence/water spot/plumbing, the joy of being a house slave.

Flu shot was given out at work...hm....Ouch, needle!

Maple Tree in my front yard

11/4

A new hair cut & hot pot dinner!

My long hair


YUMMY!




I got a new hair cut... Austina and Wing put on a production and it turned out great... but they cut off about at least 8 inches of hair. They tried to get me to do some highlight... well they tried!

Just a quick update; Whitening and DAFing

Continuing to go DAFing this week. I gave a presentation last week about the path forward and training documentation. We had a mini shut on D3 to fix a broken flange and to mount additional paddles to 2nd rake. I like it. White top has been ok so far. The aged pulp/Clay combination presented a challenge to production. I am getting the hang of the white top though. This is like my 5th or 6th one now, 1 order in December before I call it a wrap for 2005.

Farm house lunch was interesting: visitors from Valliant. On call weekend for me, yeah!

Gotcha... heck I am confused too!

Feeling confused? Renee & Hunting? Yup, I went Elk hunting in this past weekend at Vida. More like Cruising in the wood in a truck in the rain, trying to search for that heart shaped white target in the sea of green.

As I was on call, I felt the urge to go to Fiddler’s Green to spend some hard-earned cash on some golf accessories. Afterwards, I decided to give Scott a call and see what he was up to. Drum rolls, please! ELK hunting, here we went. It was interesting, let's leave it at that.

Same night, I went to see Dave, the drummer with Dave, the bassist. Confused again? Mare Wakefield band was in town for a show. I know Dave, the band’s drummer, so I met Dave, the bassist of NERO at the bar to give out my support to Dave, the drummer. The last time when I saw him perform, he was playing with Love, Death and Agriculture in 2002?

Autoline is here. What should we do? DAFing has been going well. I like the process, now the problem is to make it better with no money for limitation improvement. Individual DAF Level Control Please! On a similar note, I was informed that my interns won’t be coming back in the winter and next summer because the funding of my proposed projects did not get approved. It was a pity and I was having a tough time to break the news to them.

Emily is coming home… She is a lucky doggy, traveling to Sequim, BC, Alberta. She even made it to Fort McMurray! Can you believe that? What’s next, HK? She probably will go to Calgary next Spring as my cousin is getting married. Coffee, where are you? Man I am confused! Can you come home now?

Speaking of the Maple leaf land, Michael is doing well, he is taking classes in welding and fabrication, maybe he can be a ME? And he is looking at buying his first home. He was visiting Nick, Lawrence and Ngai with my mom. Happy Thanksgiving to them! They also get to call grandma and wish her a great birthday. I thought that was awesome! Eric and I did the same! Pretty impressive.

Speaking of work, Prince Albert & Cosmopolis came to mind. They are facing difficult mill closures and I wish them well. Fred was my opportunity; Tram was my mentor at North Bend and good luck to Bob.

Medium ran well and we are still waiting for the feedback from the corrugators… Meanwhile… I am THE ONE, THE ONLY DAF person, the land/process of no man.

Time to take a deep breathe! Things can get stinky!

After an aggressive and vigorous preparation for the highly anticipated medium run, the medium was a successful qualified run. Since I got back from my trip to China, I have been working day and night to get the medium work done. After getting multiple planning meetings and crew meetings into the wee hours, the work is over and I have many binders and paper to show for it. The experience was a great one, not to mention, I got to work with my fave scientist again. Dwight. He is one smart man and I have learned things from him every time I talked to him. He gave me a copy of a computer model that can predict strength in STFI and Concora, geometric mean based on machine jet to wire: rushing or dragging. Ok, a pat on the shoulder to Horace and myself and PM3 folks, as well. We all worked hard together.

OK now, what’s next? Fiberline ops class is coming up. I definitely want to take that class on Friday to expand my horizons in the land of the cooking vessel.

Horace left for the corrugators last Friday and today, so I was liked the Lamby person.
Hambybond has been re-named to Lambybond. The medium run wasn’t too bad. Now with the completion of the medium run, ha-ha, no breather for me, I will dive right into DAF and white top and maybe some Autoline & wet strength. I have been assigned to look after the DAF process area. D3 just experienced a costly failure and needed a new person in charge. DAF stands for Dissolved Air Floatation. It’s cool if you can imagine that waste treatment facility use that principle all the time. But I am not scooping poop, I am doing fiber! LOL!

On the side note, I decided to do something with my social life, starting in early October, let see what will come out of it.

Coffee is still on my wish list, but I haven’t been able to make my way up to the Peninsula for obvious reason. I am swamped with work; never ending work. That’s terrible, and I need a new life.

Andy Lau is going to be in Vegas on x’mas eve, I want to go to that. But then, my budget for a piano or ski trips will be over…… decision!

Happy B to Mike & Grandma!

Happy B to Mike & Grandma!

Cousins from summer trip to hk & mainland!

Mike, Ngai, Lawrence, Lois, Boringfish, Vincent

Pinki got hitched!

My friend, Pinki got married this past weekend... Wish her and Devon a happy life together!

HK Street scene

Happy Birthday to Dave!

Coffee was spotted at Pt. Townsend!

Coffee has been spotted again... I will be heading to the Penisula.

Work week 32 was hectic, especially when I am on call for week 33 and Horace is on vacation.

I worked hard cleaning up the house mess on Saturday afternoon to get ready for the night of Majhong party. It was a lot of fun. We had Mahjong, Karaoke, X-box. I was glad that Colleen, Austina, Gang and Adam could come.

Hopefully, the electrical upgrade can be completed this week. Tree Trimming and plumbing will be next.

Emily is a Benton doggie now.. she just got her license.

White top run is coming, get ready to be dizzy!

Next week, I will be seeing 3 cousins from the North of the border, the Maple-leaf land. Can't wait to chill with Ngai, Lawrence & Michael.

It was nice to hear from Richard. Go Annette! (to Russia)

Continued Coffee Rescue

We are still hoping that Coffee will turn up some time before winter - he has been missing for almost seven weeks. We have tried hard to find him, and he still refuses to show his face. I miss him dearly, and hope that he will turn up safe and sound and make his way back to us. I worry that he is too cute - someone may have decided to keep him.

On the other hand, I threw myself into cleaning up the house (bit by bit), and progress is slow and steady. I am not wearing myself out, so I can keep up the constant progress. I am still working on taxes (my extension is almost over!).

There were a few episodes with my roommates, but in general we are getting along well, and learning to live with each others' odd habits. We had a mah jong party/dinner finally in July, which was a good way to make the house more of a home. That party was also a goodbye party for Angela, who has moved back to Taiwan to pursue her PhD in Computer Enigneering. I did not know her very well, but I am happy that I did get to know her for the limited time she was here.

2005 definitely has been quite a year - my beloved Grandpa passed away on Saturday morning (HK time). It has been difficult to accept that he is really gone, but I am beginning to learn how to cope with it. At least I did get to visit him not that long ago, and I spoke to him even on my last day in HK. He will be missed very much. Meanwhile, I guess I will be heading to the far east to pay my respects and love to him.

That is it for now - thanks for taking the time to visit me!

Robbie and the gang

July Update

Since I last wrote in the blog, life has been busy.

For starters, I played in the 3rd annual Golf tournament, where this year I managed to win a prize - for highest score. I received $25 as consolation for my more-than-average performance. I was inspired to purchase a set of clubs to prepare for next year - in hopes of Wie-like prowess (just kidding). I do hope to take some lessons this summer, though.

The other major news has been the search for Coffee. My beloved doggie has gone missing - somewhere in the olympic peninsula he is searching for his humans. We have been to search for him, and have tried a lot of publicity, but so far we have not located our favorite pup. I became devoted to the search, and purchased a tent and flashlight for camping out in the woods in hope of attracting Coffee - however, no luck finding the doggie so far.

In other developments, I now have 2 years of injury-free work, and received my "no injury" safety sticker for my helmet - it will be proudly displayed.

4th of july was ok, and the house upgrade has been a headache - we are still working on getting the first big project finished. I also have been entertaining 3 summer student at works - and have been told what "I played a vital role and resource to them" I am. I am only a junior mentor, but I have made an effort to be very helpful.

While searching for Coffee, I did spend time on the Olympic peninsula - appreciating my mom's new home-to-be in her retirement. I can see that she will have much to enjoy there.

I also just went to my first Country Fair - I loved it - it was a different and interesting experience, and I would like to go back again in my little tie-dye dress. It is a good place to be a hippie child.

Oregon has been blessed with a lot of sunshine lately - we tied the record yesterday at 100 degrees F. On that note, I am going to open a window for some fresh air and call it a night.

The Price of Climbing up the Corporate Ladder

Hello everyone, again. I am back on the blogging circle. Since my last entry my life has been about two things: work, and more work (okay, elecrtical on the house, too). In my professional development it is all about how to multitask when there is only one of you and you are supposed to handle more than 7 projects at all times, not to mention unexpected upset conditions and specific grade runs on the machine that pull you away from what your are supposed to be doing each day. Don't get me wrong, work is still very satisfying mentally, but physically it has been a strain on my body. I got sick with a prolonged cold compounded by allergies, and was told that I had a severe upper respiratory infection. A few bottles of cough syrup later I still feel like a plague victim. I still have a stuffy nose and hurting throat all the time.

The latest challenge at work aside from multitasking is being multitalented - I am learning to accept that I am Horace's sidekick on all fronts. I get comments from superintendent that say we are a good team, and I guess we are. A lot of times, if Horace cannot perform the task (due to time constraints), I am here to pick up the slack (we are a team, and he does the same for me). The summer season is here, and I am working with an intern - kind of like a junior mentor. I think this will be cool, and an opportunity to be the mentor that I wish I had. It seems like the Kappa analyzer has gone full circle - probably it will be back to me again. I cannot seem to get away from Metso. It's funny how that works.

The farmhouse continues to be the biggest headache I have - I moved in on memorial day weekend, finding roommates has been a horrible experience, and very frustrating. I finally realize what a good tenant I have been. Okay, I am getting tired - I will post more tomorrow. Good night!

Bay city, CA

Nice view of the bay from the 22nd floor of the hotel room.

Renee from the South

Catfish, prawns & Hush Puppies... I made Horace proud!

LA

AR

OK

Big W ppl

Memphis' Beale Street

Where was I?

Ok, finally I am back to my blogging schedule... sorry folks, life has been about the T, traveling. Let pick up where I was before.... oh hey the South.

Anyway, the trip to LA, OK, AR and TX were great, it opened doors for me BUT I am not moving to LA. I will stay in Oregon in my fixer-upper. I am moving into the mansion this weekend.

Work week 20 was disastrous. The appetizer was the unexpected total mill power outage that has pushed my Monday into a 17 hours work day. Main course: the twice delayed but highly anticipated White top run with 4 set of trials planned, 4 sets of trials request, 5 group of interested visitors strolling in (SP, Wilsonville, chemists, paper makers and WY-WTC) and multiple operation and quality constraints. The side dish was: Friday when it was all about the fixer upper, mom visit and white top filler trial. Last but not least, the dessert: working on Saturday with unusually high pond level and water consumption condition. Sure look at me.

After packing my bags into the twilight hours, I got on the road to the quest of the Elvis’s land.

Memphis, Tennessee is the house of the blues. Horace explained that people are in misery and feeling blues at Memphis. Anyway the week was uneventfully in the entertainment prospective, but definitely an eye opener and mind blower for my intellectual capacities. I highly recommend ppl to go to that machine optimization seminar.

San Francisco is always a treat to go to. It was a stressful start but I had a good time eating and shopping. The view from the hotel was amazing, overlooking the bay. I even went to a service Sunday morning.

Here I am back to work with a Monday filled with BASF work, PM#3 production episode and refiners plate change out. Adios! Can't wait till June for b-day, July for wedding events....

PS.. Dave has a farmer tan and Wing is going to San Francisco!

Back from Dixie

I was cruising along south dixie in my prius hybrid, enjoying the trees and the fancy car, making my way deep into the heart of Dixie. I had a chance to try out some southern specialities, including catfish and hush puppies, which were not terribly impressive, but made my mentor proud and made for some good conversation at work.

The drive from Dallas to Campti was not too bad, and I made good time (though I could not keep up with the crazy drivers in Dallas), so I had a chance to explore the area. There is not much to keep a person busy around Natchitoches, although I can see how it could be an attractive place for a southern raised family to settle down. Quiet, peaceful, and definitely out of the way. Finding decent chinese food, however, was basically impossible.

After Campti, I made my way via Shreveport and Arkansas, back through Texas, and into Oklahoma. It was hot, and fairly uncomfortable, and there was still no sign of good chinese food. Valliant is an enormous mill, with quite a culture, and they are very proud of their operation. They did not seem very enthusiastic about Louisiana, and discouraged a culturally sophisticated person like me from making a home there. They mostly said they would rather come home with me.

After acquainting myself with the operation in Valliant, I made my way back to Dallas for one last day of entertainment and eating. It was another long drive to get there, but I still had some time to go out on the town.

After making the most of Dallas, it was time to head for the airport, so I packed up the Prius and headed out on the crazy Texas freeway. Just four miles from the airport, I experienced one more little piece of excitement - the Prius turned out to be more than just a fun car. It became a car that kept me safe in a dangerous situation. Driving down the road, cruising along with all the crazies, I saw something fall off the undercarriage of the car in front of me. I had no time to avoid it, so I ended up running straight into the muffler that had plopped onto the road in front of me. It took out the tire of the Prius, and left me stranded on the freeway with a flat, all by myself. Thankfully, my cel phone had enough charge for one call to the rental folks, who promptly came to rescue me. They were there in less than 15 minutes, and had me on my way to the airport right away.

Since Friday I have been learning to utilize my negotiation skills, and at this point I feel happy with the rewards and experience that the trip provided. It was a valuable learning experience for me, and also gave me some more tools to help open doors for my future.