Country Music

Here we go

About 3 hours ago I promised to prepare a blog post summarizing my opinions on country music.

Country Music Sucks.

But to be clear, country music didn't always suck. The origins of country music did not suck. Bluegrass rocks. Johnny Cash rocks

I blame Mr. Elvis Presley. OK, maybe not blame, but I put him as the focal point. He was the point where country and rock diverged. After him country music became sort of it's own thing, but not really. It always seemed to parallel the developments of rock, but yet seemed determined to be defined as separate. This creates an identity crisis worthy of your average emo kid. While rock music continually developed new moves in genre, country simply moves along nearby, defining it's self as a more "down to earth" alternative to the mainstream of rock, while still it's stars live the same extravagant lifestyle.

I guarantee you Big n' Rich never shot a man in Reno just to watch him die

That's all for now, have a nice day

-Mark

Training... Tornadoes... Transvestites

Ok, two out of the three of those are true, the other is just added to get your attention, I'll leave it to your clever skills of deduction to figure out which one.

I spent last week back in Paducah, KY for my second and final week of training to become a six sigma black belt. It was a lot of fun. It was a lot of fun to be able to spend time with other younger engineers. We had a house party a couple nights at the home of one of the engineers who lives there. The bigger one was held on Thursday night, and I must say it was a blast. It's nice to feel like even though I'm into my grownup career, I can still have a good time with my peers every now and then.

Funny story from my training: our instructor had a very unfortunate tic. Every few minutes, he would "adjust" himself. I hope that's clear enough, do I need to give you a picture? Ok, fine...

Anyway, we all noticed this during the first week of training, and so we decided to keep track of the number of times he did this. The grand total: at least 225 times in 36 hours of training. If you're keeping score, that translates to a scratch every 9.6 minutes.

On to the return home, my plane got in at about 4. It was kind of cool on the flight back from Memphis. All of the southern US was covered in clouds, but the plane cruised above the drearier ones. To the west, however, you could clearly see the top of a thunderhead that would be shortly behind me on the way to Mobile. The first cell hit around 7 PM and it was a doozy. The storm was as bad as anything I'd seen all summer. By the time it passed to eastern Alabama/western Florida, it was spawning tornadoes.

Skip forward to 4 AM. I woke up in the middle of the night. At first I didn't know why, but now I know it was because of the storm. At around 4:30 the storm was in full force. It was louder outside than anything I had ever heard weather produce and the power went out. I just laid there in bed listening to it all blow through. In all likelihood, the sirens went off, but I didn't hear them.

The power never came back on, and at 5:30 I had to try going through my morning routine sans light. It was a little frustrating. I would constantly be setting either my keys or cell phone down, but in the dark not be able to find them again. Frustrating.

It wasn't until I got to work that I heard about the significance of the storm I listened to. Apparently a tornado touched down and blew down some trees and power lines while significantly damaging a McDonald's and gas station. According to Google Maps, these buildings are only 0.5 miles west of my apartment, and the thing about tornadoes is they don't necessarily follow the roads.

The reality of this was a little unsettling. Imagine if the cell had been only a half mile off from where it was. Or if it were a little stronger and the twister spent a while on the ground. In all likelihood it would move east, and tornadoes are known to move at around 30 mph. That means that a stronger tornado could have reached me in as little as one minute.

I guess it's best not to think along these lines, it played out the way it played out, and I came out fine. I guess I should count my blessings.

So I really don't have an update right now, but I realized it's been a while since I posted anything, so I thought I'd give my eager fans (who I know are chomping at the bit) something to tide them over. Here's what's new:

Going back to Calvert City next week. This time I'll be flying, so what was a 6 hour drive to Memphis will now be a 1 hour plane ride.

Oh, related note, I got my corporate credit card for travel purposes. I don't know who the company thinks it's kidding, apparently I am camouflaged as a responsible adult.

I invented a new recipe today. I took a normal frozen pizza (Red Baron 4 Meat) and lathered it in Mac and Cheese, then added crushed red pepper. It is amazing. Here is a picture:

And before you ask, yes that does count as original.

That's all, sorry it wasn't more interesting

Last Week

Last week was sooo busy. It's kind of surreal looking back on it. Also, there's not much I can coherently manifest into blog form, so instead I leave you with the following thought:

It is considered normal to eat birds, and it is considered normal to eat fish, but it is considered weird to eat amphibians or lizards

That is all, have a nice day.

1:30 AM... Revisited

5:00 PM

Ahh... What a difference 15 hours can make!!!

Big day today in many aspects.
Short Story: I'm going to the Six Sigma training next week!!!

Now the smaller ramifications in list form

1. My Plant Manager: I've been on the fence about my new plant manager in Mobile. At times he's seemed genuinely involved in the plant and the people who run it, while other times he's seemed more concerned with how his bosses view his plant. This is obviously a trade off with all managers, but my plant manager in Blooming Prairie who clearly stood behind his plant at all costs, generally not caring how his own bosses felt. Not to name names, but I've also heard of a manager at another site of our company who blatantly is known to put the safety of his own site second to corporate interests. Like I said, I've always been on the fence as to where Tom sits on the spectrum, but he earned points today... I won't reiterate the discussion about Six Sigma training from my last post, go read it if you need a refresher. Apparently it had an effect on Tom though, because today he came into my office and asked if I'd be capable of making it to the training if he pushed to get me in. I told him I could, and within 90 minutes came the email I couldn't get after a month of trying... I was registered in the training. I'd imagine there was some resistance to expanding the training at the eleventh hour, but it means a lot that someone fought that fight for me.
2. My Project: ...or rather lack thereof. For those unfamiliar with the Six Sigma process, certification requires you to apply Six Sigma methodology to a specific project, and you should have this project begun before starting the training. My boss and I had tentatively looked at a project, but planned to develop it further when I officially had a training time for Six Sigma set up. That meant that the four hours between when I found out I would be going to training and everyone leaving for the weekend became very, very stressful. It gets worse...
3. Goodbye Training Wheels: I didn't know this until today, but my boss took today off. Also, the only Six Sigma Blackbelt (err... in training) left around the same time I got the good news for a two week trip to Europe. This means I had almost none of the support I needed to prepare a project charter, especially assuming my project was nothing more than a vague idea (and after some analysis, a bad, vague idea). Basically I wound up developing a totally new project with the help of another of our engineers. It will be a good project to use for six sigma, though. My boss got a quick phone call with which to OK it.
4. Homework: I need to develop a powerpoint of my project, to be presented on Monday. Better get started...

All said and done, not a bad day. I get to see the Zemans tomorrow.

Life is good

-Mark

1:30 AM...

...Which means I have to be to work in less than 6 hours

OK, it's not so bad. About 15 minutes ago I woke up from a nap. Retracing my steps, I think I fell asleep for that at around 6, so I've actually gotten 7 hours of sleep in already tonight.

In a very related note, I've decided to try giving up caffeine again. I came to this decision today during a meeting where I realized that I was only drinking one cup of coffee a day. I'm going to try making it through the day tomorrow with none at all, but if this task proves impossible, I'm going to allow myself a half cup of coffee. For the record, I still can't stand the taste of coffee, but if it's a choice of that or falling asleep at my desk, a grudgingly accept the coffee.

You may wonder why I bother giving up caffeine. The reason is that I gave it up when I was a senior in high school ~February 2005. I kept this up for a long time, ultimately falling apart ~August 2006. I felt amazing. Without caffeine, my body was unbelievably capable of regulating staying awake and sleeping on it's own. I had an inordinate amount of energy. Just the removal of pop from my diet made me shed weight. I want that again. You could say I need a fix of uncaffeine. (I'm going to find that a lot less clever tomorrow morning.)

Anyway, I mentioned earlier that I had a meeting today. Today was our quarterly review meeting where we met with a group of corporate higher-ups and discussed the plant's progress over the last 3 months. I didn't need to present anything today. I gave my input on a couple projects I have going on, no big deal. The most surreal moment I experienced was seeing a man in his 40's get his presentation torn apart, Caretta style. (In all fairness, it was not a great presentation, he clearly wasn't prepared for the meeting.)

At one point, me and several of the people at varying levels above me got talking about Six Sigma training. This is a kind of management training I'm supposed to be getting. I am currently on the waitlist for this training next week, however since there is only one day left for someone to cancel, I don't think it's going to happen. This is the same training Two Is Better Than One referenced in her recent post. After talking about it I am lightly angered by the fact that I won't be attending for a few reasons.

1. Normal six sigma training is general to all industries. The training next week is geared to the chemical industry specifically. Corporate expects this will be the best training they've ever done. I won't get it though. I'm going to have to settle for some training intended for fast food managers or something in a few months.
2. This is the first time they've ever had so many people signed up that they needed a waitlist. I am the first name on that waitlist.
3. This is the first time they've ever had no one cancel who was signed up
4. I know several of the people on the training roster for this week, including some former co-workers and one Mrs. Chini Zeman. I'd be nice to see people again, but fine, OK

Just a sidenote, when we were talking about it, our Global Manufacturing Director mentioned offhand that maybe he should talk to the man doing the training. I think he was just joking, but maybe...

A man can dream....

OK, that's all for now. Time for bed

Waffles

I had this thought a while ago while driving to work, eating a waffle for breakfast.

If I ever were to choke while driving, that would be it. Not only that, but I'd take a lot of innocent people with me. Oh and I drive past a school on my way to work. Oh and I easily drive 20 over as I pass it. So one of my delicious waffles could kill a bunch of bright and upcoming high school students. (Remember, they go to school in Alabama, so they're really not that bright or upcoming.)

Hmmm....

That's all for now

-Mark