Wednesday, November 14, 2007

The Job Market (i.e. the scary desert)

For obscure and not really sufficient reasons, I spent an hour or so looking at job postings in the Pittsburgh area on craigslist. Ultimately, I wonder what else is out there besides this straight 'n' steady white collar line I've always been on. So I clicked through retail/wholesale, media stuff, architects/engineers, skilled trades and food/hospitality.

First off, I'm grateful for HAVING a job. Not having to sell myself, try to prove I meet the qualifications, hope I hear back, keep looking...

Next, I'm grateful for my salary. I may be on the low end of starting ChemE salaries for this area, but compared to so many other jobs out there, I've got something to be happy about.

From a couple postings, I'm brushed with a breath of something different and interesting. Working at a vintage artsy items store ("Your Mom's"), responsible for making creative and artistic signs for the store, updating their websites, going out and finding cool stuff to sell, setting up for live sound on the weekends, etc. Sounds like fun.. less the minimum wage. And for a more exotic shot, if I had experience and skill with maintenance, I could go work in Antarctica for 3 months! The stuff of National Geographic.

Lastly, I'm genuinely scared at the lack of low-experience chemical engineering jobs posted. Everybody and their sister company are looking for mechanical and electrical engineers, but I only found a handful of ChemE postings, and most of them wanted experience. Everybody wants experience. Reading over lists of requirements makes me want to learn specific, demonstrable job skills like software programs, project management, supervision, systems integration, design, etc. etc. Seeing what employers are looking for makes me want to get my butt moving at work. I've gotten a shot of the career-minded motivation I've often scorned. What a young fool.

I'm grateful God led me--half wondering why--to look this over tonight. I don't know how long this motivation will last, but it's a shot at least, and I think I needed it. I think I'll be gladder to go to work tomorrow, and I pray I'll dive in further, trying to learn, insert myself into what's going on, and get things done.
Easy to want to do, easy to imagine, but terribly hard to do in front of real people, full of ignorance, awkwardness, self-doubt and stupidness. I guess I'm not as much of a go-getter as I thought. I wish I could say "I don't get awkward," but it's a real impediment. Bleah.

One other thing brought to mind--something that's been brewing up a ton lately: I hate saying stuff like I just wrote about. Yeah I'm motivated now, but I'll probably go right back to how I've been tomorrow. I hate jumping the gun, talking all about something, and then not following up on it. Like my blab about studying recording. I'm still looking at it, but almost all of my desire for that path is gone right now, and I've done very little towards it. The more you talk about something at first, the more you have to let down, the more respect you lose, the more you hate yourself when the future comes and you don't do anything. Speak from a position of accomplishment, not planning! DO, then talk. Or better yet, be someone truly worthy of respect and just DO, and let another man praise you, and not your own mouth. I wish I could be that kind of person.
But for now I thought I'd write about this to maybe remember it down the road and be knocked into a healthy appreciation for my job again.

Peace.

--JPB

Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Seamos Recordando

Pure Boss has a new song!
Recorded, that is.
We've got lots of new songs, quite a bit fuller and better than our first album, but we've let two summers go by without coming through on our promise to "record the album this summer." So per Brian's idea, this weekend I packed up my PC and interfaces and we set up musicmaking shop in the loft of the Chima's barn. Which consequently became even MORE the coolest place in all of Ohio :-) The rain drizzled outside in the gray chillyness, but up in the loft the light glowed off the warm wood roof and avocado carpet scraps, and we filled the little hunched room with drums, mics, guitars, amps, pedals, and cables cables everywhere.

The plan was to practice Friday night and nail down the song(s) we wanted to record. Instead, we took a long time to set up, and devolved into Brian and Stephen playing X-box and me laying on the floor watching and being tired. We pretty much hit the sack that night, in Brian's now-sweet, Nick-vacated room, with Dora trying to get us to play tennis ball even though it was 1am.

Brian worked on Saturday, so I slept in (a bit too long) and met Jess after her shift at Starbucks for some catching up. Starbucks sure seems like a cool place to work! It's kinda filed away in my mind as a backup plan if I ever get out of my current career and need to find work. Next on the agenda was Guitar Center, where I finally bought the Line6 delay pedal I decided on 2 weeks ago. I met Steve there, and my cell phone finally ran out of batteries (I forgot to bring the charger), and eventually Steve and I ended up back at the Chimas. Steve put on his new drum heads, and I hooked up my new pedals. Steve Gole swung by at 4 o'clock and we got in some good jams with him before he headed to Canton to visit an old friend there. Brian was back by that time, but we didn't really get anything done with the rest of the day 'cause Brian and Steve went to a pumpkin carving party and I went over to Emily's house to hang out and watch a movie.

It was nice to have some chill time with the Fab Four (minus Christin), and by the end of the night Craig, Steve and Brian, Josh, Dave Potter, Jenica, Jess, Jen, Emily and Christin were all there. We watched The Office and Shooter and had some pizza, and by the time we left it was 2:30 and we were all 3/4ths asleep. Good times with Akron folks.

Did we go home and crash like sensible people? No no. We laid in Brian's room and talked about the band, and then Brian was like "Hey guys, we should watch that video of our concert at my grad party!" So we headed down to the basement and stayed up till 4:30 watching and critiquing our last show. Good times indeed :-)

Sunday was work day (how ironic that sounds). After church Brian and I came right back (Steve just slept through the whole morning), we ate a bit of lunch, and then hit the studio. We were up there till 11, minus a break for dinner (yay Mr. and Mrs. Chima for buying us subs!). We got drums, bass and guitar, leads, and vocals down for "City Lights Behind Me," but none of it was tight, and I got increasingly bothered by the flabbiness of it all as we went along. It's a great song--my favorite of Steve's--but the recording wasn't coming together, starting with the bongy, flabby drums and getting worse from there. I have now found peace by considering this our first pass at the song, and mostly our calibration of the new studio setup. We'll come back and record it again after we've done some more songs, and then we'll make it SWEET! But at the time, it drove me up a wall.

At the last, when the song was burning to a disc and Monday loomed ominously on the horizon, I couldn't make myself tear down the studio we had labored two days to set up. So I thought about it, decided everything there could take the cold, and left it all set up, with the promise to return the following Sunday and record another song. I took my guitar stuff with me, but left the rest.

I stopped at Starbucks on the way out to cheer Jess up on her 11:30 closing shift, and found that they had let her go early, which was merciful considering she was opening at 5:30 the next morning. So I ordered a pumpkin latte from strangers and headed home, mulling over the unavoidable mountain of time that lay between me and where I needed to be the next morning. I find it interesting to contemplate the finality of the distance when I'm in Akron. There's no way to weedle around it, bs through it, or save it for later. The miles must be crossed and there's nothing for it but to suck it up and drive. I almost went straight to work and slept in the parking lot, but I figured that was a bit weird, and I'd probably get strange looks when the shift change came in at 6. So I just headed home and did all I could to stay alert. I made it, and another week began.

It was a good weekend. Akron is one of the only areas in my life that I am relatively satisfied with right now. I'm not constrained there by my self-imposed drive to get home, be in control, and do my own things, so I actually end up with some interesting and memorable experiences, and a lot of good time with people. And that's all coupled with the enriching and purposeful band stuff, which is the best thing musically that I have going right now. So, thank You Lord for Akron, and may it serve Your purposes amidst the great fun and enjoyment!

--JPB

P.S. To clarify, my sense of usefulness and satisfaction from being in Akron is NOT because the people in Pittsburgh stink or I don't like them! The difference is in myself: I'm more the person I want to be over there, because I'm removed from home and my habits of laziness and independence. Akron is truly great, but Pittsburgh is home, and Providence is my family.

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Speed Dial (and digression)

One of those random bits of life that I'll enjoy remembering 20 years from now:

1. Don't use this one, for whatever reason. I just assigned it to Steve Gole.
2. Brian Chima
3. Dad Cell
4. Mom Cell
5. Home
6. Daniel
7. Hoffmans
8. Steve Hoffman
9. Quinlisks (I forget I have this one assigned)

Notice the logic of the arrangement: Rather than arranging by importance numerically (i.e. home = 1), I arranged it geometrically, since 5 is the most central button.

Incidentally, it's little things like that that will keep me from ever really fitting in with normal people.

That's a thought that touches on what's becoming very obvious at work: I just don't fit in with the "cool crew," the good ol' boys, the hang-out-at-the-coffee-machine crowd. My humor, my actions, my thoughts, my comments, my questions, my mannerisms, are all different. They all kill the mood, or break the conversation, or leave a hanging silence. Most of what I do is more logical and thought-out, or at least more free from the constraints of public-school-bred social conformity, but it still hurts to not fit in.
It has made me grateful for the people at church who let me fit in. I had forgotten what it feels like to be a tagalong, to be in the way, to be awkward, a minute late, missing the point, out of the know. Fundamentally I'm still a homeschooled geek, but I love the Christian people who let me forget that.

Hrm. Way more deeper than I was looking for here. Logic-based behavior vs. public-school-bred social conformity. One of those thoughts that I should compile into a series of essays. Something like "Logical systems and principles of everyday life: You'll say 'Hm, I never really thought about that, but you're right!'"

--JPB

Monday, October 22, 2007

Discouraging Poem

I include this poem not because it's how I feel right now, but because it still socks me in my gut with how I felt a week ago. Right now, thanks to a nice talk with Mikey after College Night and a couple days' dose of time, I'm feeling contentedly optimistic. But here's how life seemed not long ago, and how I'm still not convinced it isn't:


Your wings have feathers and here you sit
Watching them folded at your side
You didn't know which way to fly
And so you never tried
You write the songs but never make a sound
You'll spend the rest of your life on the ground



--CA

Monday, October 15, 2007

A Good Saturday

That I want to remember.
Because it wasn't the kind of Saturday you'd remember.
But it was the kind of Saturday I seek so often, and I want to remember why I have sought such days, and that they weren't just wastes.

Mom, Dad and Grandma Sweetie all went up to Grove City for the day, from noon till sevenish. So I was by myself. I got up and drove to the church office at 9 to meet with Jeremy and talk about the state of things for awhile. Before going home I went to Wal-Mart for the glamorous purchase of deodorant, work socks, regular socks, and boxers. At home I straightened up my room (at long last), alternating sets of pushups with weeding out old clothes and neatening the beds. Then followed a period of eating lunch, watching Heros, doing laundry, and catching up on email and Facebook.
Daisy was getting bored, so I went out in the delicious cool air and we played frisbee for awhile. I marveled at how well she tracked and caught that little disk, and it was great to see her so happy and energetic.
Now follows the only real wacko, non-ideal part of the day: I was shooting the BB gun at trees and such out back after frisbee, and ended up literally shooting out the window of our motor home, which was parked on the dead end street up from our neighbors! Long story, not *quite* as dumb as it sounds... but pretty much :-P So that was a bizarre diversion as I revisited the foolish 8-year-old days that I never really had.
To close it out, the folks got back home, Daniel's friend Skipper was there, and I went downstairs into one of those rare, wonderful recording times. "College Song" is finally coming together, and the tracks seemed to be uniting as a whole into more than the sum of the parts, which is something I can't make happen.

So: lovely day at home, catching up on life and enjoying it. I may not always be able to recalibrate myself with times like this, and that may not be the highest goal of life, so here's to the relaxing and useful days that have gone by, and here's to what may come ahead; may we all give ourselves to what we know to do.

--CA

Sunday, October 14, 2007

Life: Revised

I'm gonna tap out the new plan for my life that has just materialized, to represent the thoughts and ideas that have been building up of late:

I work through May at Guardian, giving them a year of service to be fair, and then quit this job for which I am discovering I am not very well suited. I have a chance to do some travel if it works out, plus I can plan and run Youth Camp 08 during the summer, and in the fall I start taking classes at the Duquesne University school of music for a degree in sound recording or some such topic. I flourish in the environment, the formal training fills in the gaps of my homespun skills, and I make connections and build qualifications that lead to a job as a sound engineer in a studio when I graduate in 2 years.

There we go! :-)

And now I'm on my knees crying out to God again, for Him to show the way, step by step, and help me follow Him NOW, at work, and not do anything that isn't His plan.

The world feels open again, and hope scents the air like a delicious smelling salt. (Or a 15-year-old single malt scotch)

Such was the grace for today. Who knows what tomorrow's will be.

--Clear Ambassador

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

More free coffee!

Happiness is finding that you have over 19,000 points accumulated in your National City account and redeeming them for $30 of Starbucks gift cards.

Tuesday, October 09, 2007

This post may surprise you

To be fair, I am going to post this entry, which I wrote last week. Hm, how the darkness has changed so quickly! I don't know if the light is here to stay, but here's a look into the darkness that has been consuming me for the past month:

***********************************************

Youth camp materials left un-tended-to.
Care package left uncompleted; months and months late; meaningless, stupid and awkward now. Regret sticks through like a thick needle.
Good music coming out of the speakers. Music like I ache to make. Frustration like a straight jacket.
Shaver sitting unplugged on the cabinet since I haven't even unpacked from the weekend yet. Tousled, messy room condemning me from every ugly corner.
Deep piles of mail quietly deriding my negligence from weeks and months past. Have I incurred another overdraft from an unpaid account? Worry like a stab in my stomach.
I read the birthday card from Mom and Dad, and love them, but I just don't agree with their warm words of encouragement. I don't think they're right.
It's 10 o'clock. You're already late. You stupid worthless piece of junk, flopped on the couch doing F***ING INTERNET while your life rolls by you untended into the junk heap and you wring your hands but never do a thing and see the wreck coming but NEVER DO A THING.

I am tired, tired, tired, oh so tired of hating everything I am.

--I am not a clear ambassador. That's a hypocritical signature. I'm a failed launch, hearing loss, an inflammed knee, Applebee's cocktails, and a deserted shopping mall.

**********************************

Just for clarification, the things listed above did NOT make me feel this way. I've finally decided to let a bit of this out, and cleaning up my room just gave some examples to use.

Monday, October 08, 2007

The Perfect Weekend

This past weekend in Akron categorically ranks among the best ever.
A multitude of things I've wanted to do all happened, and all happened well:
[Mike, you'll appreciate all the free stuff]

- Mini (drumless) Pure Boss show at the Sausage Fest. 2 guitars and bass, and everybody said we sounded the best we ever have!
- Latest episode of The Office in the Chima's basement till about 4:30, with Brian, Nick, Craig, Steve and Jes
- Lovely morning alone at the Chimas: sleep in, work out, shower
- Sitting outside in the perfect warmth, sipping a free iced latte and catching up with Jess before she started work
- Unconstrained hours in Guitar Center, getting all the pesky little things like sticks and strings, and trying out a few pedals for my future rig (EVH Phaser = heaven)
- Deuteronomy and Dr.Pepper in Taco Bell
- Got Jess out of work early :-)
- Helped some Tuminos move Jason into his new office at the church. Finally got to meet the new pastor!
- Seamless transition to hanging with the Tuminos for the rest of the day, which I've wanted to do for ages
- A stop at Zack's. Hangin' with Christin and free ice-cream!
- Frisbee for hours in the Tumino's street, till way past dark
- Silly Ninja Game around the fire!
- Arsenic and Old Lace with Craig and Steve. Whew, what a ride!
- Crashed in the Hoffman's den. No trip to Akron would be complete without one of these :-)
- On time for church!!! *gasp*
- Jason preached. And John Joyce played drums!
- Lunch after church at the grace house. = time to hang with everybody
- Going for a hike with assorted Tuminos, Mallinacks, Potters, and Meghan
- SEBASTIAN!!! Goodness gracious, puppies are so cute! And funny! Ahhhhhhh, finally met my puppy-time quotient, which has been building up for years.
- Ultimate Frisbee after the hike. Yessssss!
- Great climbing tree
- Riding back with Sebastian flopped on my lap
- More hanging with the lively and lovely Tumino family (Collin takes care of most of the liveliness :-) )
- Chipotle and music with Craig
- Another free Starbucks!
- Sixth Sense and a quiet, semi-freaked-out drive home on the dark highway

I think all this weekend was missing was some solid band practice time. Other than that, man.. I'm left amazed that it all actually happened, so well and so enjoyably! Thank You Lord for your kindness.

--Clear Ambassador

Thursday, October 04, 2007

More Stories

"What're you guys up to today?"
"Jackin' off."

[ . . . ]

"You know, you're gettin' real good at showing up when the work's done."

[ . . . ]

"You guys doing the left side next?"
"It's already done! That's what I told you about showin' up when the work's done."
"Well I didn't know you guys were doin' this!"
"That's why you gotta come over here and see what's going on!"
"I did! I was here like an hour ago!"


That's the story here at the hot end. Real questions are rarely answered, and [semi-joking] fault is zealously found upon any apparent absence or ignorance.
It's not as bad as it sounds in writing here, though, 'cause Kirb shot a smile as he walked out of the control room after that last exchange, and these brief dialoges don't show you the hours of joking around the office, the real communications that do happen, and the camraderie when everybody's sweating away down under the ports. So don't hate my job ('cause I don't), just.. observe and ponder (like I do).

> <> <> <> <> <> <> <

This morning I got an email with the info for a teleconference at 2pm. I'd been in a couple of these before where we go in my boss's office and listen around the telephone to all the Guardian plants in the area catching up with each other. What I didn't know, and didn't find out till 1:50, was that Earl wasn't going to this meeting, so I was the sole Floreffe representative. And it dawned on me as the first few minutes went by, that I was expected to give a report on what went on in September! I was nervous enough just being in Earl's office by myself, on the phone with all the managers and such. I could feel my brain freezing up and ceasing to recall any of what had transpired in the past 4 weeks, but I hunted furiously through the HotEnd drive for report files and sheets.. anything to jog my memory and give me the yield and tons pulled at least. The first plant's report sorta drifted by my ears as I jotted some notes down and found the report I was looking for. And that was a good thing, 'cause then I heard "OK, so, John, you want to give us an update from Floreffe?"
I'm not real good at talking on the fly, so I probably spoke fast and I know I wasn't as coherent and succinct as the other guys, to whom this sort of info is second nature. They were interested in the new Ashur tweel we put in, and asked a couple extra questions about our cutting and lehr issues with the 10mm Crystal Gray (the ribbon of glass basically shattered apart for two entire days). I held my own, though, and it was pretty cool to be "flying solo" amongst "real people."
In all of this, I just love how I got a wordless forward in the morning, and no mention--not even a hint--that Earl wouldn't be there, that I would be speaking for the plant, and that maybe I should get ready a little bit for that!
Ahh, nobody gives me a thought of help here, but that's what gives this job value. It stands out as the one thing in my life that I answer for unhelped; in failure, growth and success. (I guess I've learned guitar that way, but that's not really a real life thing.)

--CA

Tuesday, October 02, 2007

Short Story

I was at the dentist two weeks ago, to get a cavity refilled after its previous occupant had vacated the premises (I thought it was a popcorn kernel. Not so). Dr. Qualk shot me up with Novacain (Carbocain, actually), and waited the customary few minutes for it to take effect. We talked about college, and chemistry, and organic chemistry, and O-chem lab, and O-chem 2 lab, and the triumph of getting an A in O-chem 2. I suddenly realized that the numbness had passed its apex. He was better than he thought at placing that needle, and I had been numbed up about 5 minutes ago.
I chenched the arms of the chair and said a silent, fervent prayer that he would wrap up his collegiate ruminations. Getting one shot was bad enough. Getting another for no good reason would SUCK.
Thankfully after a couple more sentences he picked up his drill and got to work.
Still, by the time the filling was in and he started smoothing it out, he was basically buzzing into my un-numbed gums.
But I said not a word, for a little tingle at the edge of your gums is much better than another needle rammed up your cheek.

Novacain shots were one of the very few true terrors of my childhood.

--CA

Messed-up guy

Here's an inventory of my current nonidealities. They seem to have added up to a disturbing plethora at the moment:
  • Right thumb sensitive at extremes of motion, and still can't bend all the way in. From crushing it whilst walking on my hands on railings at Kennywood.
  • Scratches all over my arms and shoulders from clearing brush Saturday.
  • Big beautiful bruise on my right bicep from above.
  • Small spots of poison ivy all over my arms, back, ankles, chin, and ears. From above.
  • Some weird bruise or pulled tendon on my left bottom quad. Origin unknown.
  • Bee sting/stinging nettle on my, well, left behind :-P From Saturday.
  • Some crazy swollen gland under my chin. Just discovered that tonight.
  • Top of mouth all torn up from eating a massive hoagie for lunch. (Yes, I'm a martyr)
  • Some kind of wierdness on my scalp.
  • Rug burn on my right wrist from grabbing something jammed under my subwoofer.
  • Burn on my right wrist from a piece of 400 degree glass.
  • Right patella tendon has been inflammed and sensitive. Worst it's been in a year.

At the moment number 4, poison ivy, wins the prize for most constantly irritating and aware-of. The thumb thing keeps going and going and I wonder if it will ever get better. The scalp thing is disconcerting, the knee is frustrating and discouraging, and the swollen gland makes me wonder if I'm on the edge of being sick. But mostly the poison ivy just itches itches itches ITCHES!

And to clarify, I am not complaining here. This is a status report, not a whine fest.

Good times, eh?

--Clear Ambassador

Thursday, September 27, 2007

Caught Up

For once. Once in the last... four years?

I'm caught up on sleep.

And not in a "bleahh I woke up at 1 o'clock and feel like mush" way.
I woke up at 7, and even though I could've kept pushing snooze, I have remained alert and comfortable since then. It's not the empty overabundance of energy that caffeine gives, but there's no drowsiness lurking just below the surface, waiting to engulf me as soon as I stop moving.

Yesterday I got home at 6:30 from work. Mom and Dad were mostly finished with their dinner, so I said I would get mine separately in awhile. I laid down on the little couch in the family room.. and woke up at 9. Just enough to brush my teeth and move to the bigger couch.
So that's about 12 hours of sleep. And I was extremely hungry when I got to work.

I don't know what to make of this, except perhaps that it shows the difficulty of actually getting enough sleep. We'll see how it goes tomorrow morning...

--Clear Ambassador

Monday, September 24, 2007

>>SMACK<<

AWW MAAN!

Mitch blasts out of his seat and goes hopping around the room, while I collect another jack, slapped from under his nose yet again. Egyptian Rat Slap (and espresso) have reached the breaking point.. his remaining cards have gone airborne, but it makes no difference: my victory has become inexorable. His eyes are bright, and he can't help smiling at his own defeat... yet again... with three times as many cards dealt to himself as me.

Caleb got spanked too, though we had to split our game up between the Pierson's dining room table, the Hetrick's back patio, their living room, and the back seat of the minivan. He was dead set on beating me this time, and it was definitely a battle. The best part was probably the look on his face when another juicy pile of face cards was slapped.. swaggering bravado if he'd won, or a stunned stare if my hand had come down first.

Rat slap is a great game. It gets you empty of everything else in your mind, just zoned in on the cards.. teetering on the brink of the next one to show its face. It was a fun way to hang out with the Piersons (and it's also a good way to jack yourself up before a long drive).

Mad thanks to the Piersons yet again for letting me hang out. Times there always stand out from the roughage of the week :-)

--Clear Ambassador

Friday, September 21, 2007

Payloader Therapy

After enough hours slumped in the chair busying about with raw materials issues and duties, one needs to relieve one's pent up muscles and mind. Couches with beagles on them are in short supply at glass plants, and so are drum sets or electric guitars. But we do have a big payloader and lots of piles of glass :-)






Sunshine, hydraulics, mountains of glass... getting shaken around by forces ridiculously larger than you should be able to control... Therapetic I say. Therapetic!

I moved about 20 tons from D pad to 2nd level C pad. Which was barely noticeable on D pad, and didn't even make a change on C pad, which is bigger than 2 houses.

Plus I stacked up the transition cullet getting dumped on 2nd row E pad, and pushed up the contaminated cullet recently dumped on F pad.

Ahhh. The world is a better place, and my back stopped aching for a couple hours :-)

--CA

P.S. That picture isn't from our plant, but it's pretty dang close. Our payloader is cooler.

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

I love my boots!

It took a couple months to really break them in, but now it's like a day-long comfy foot hug :-) I would seriously leave them on for days if that wouldn't be weird and make changing pants impossible. Oh, and with steel toes, 2-inch heat-resistant soles, electro hazard protection, 0.4 kilograms of insulation and waterproofing, these are not the boots of a child. They are man boots.

Or moots, as I affectionatly call them.

Looks like I can add my recommendation of Red Wing boots to the thousands already out there. I don't know how, but they sure make 'em well! I regret not a cent of the $180 that brought me and my moots together :-P

--CA

~135

Miles for the round trip to Grove City.

I played guitar for a prayer & worship night with the Grove City Care Group (GCCG), which is now the GCSRCG, since Seth and Patrick are coming from Slippery Rock.

I calculated it out as I ruminated on the odometer on the way home: roughly 120 miles.. 30 miles to the gallon.. $2.75 per gallon... it was about an $11 gig. Which I say not because of my first thought, which was "What a dumb amount of money to spend for such a short thing." I say it for the thought that quickly swallowed that one up: What better to spend money on? What should I save it for? Restaurant food and gas station snacks? More CD's? Gas to go hang out with friends for my own benefit? How good it is to have *something* I can spend my money on that's of real value and service!

I'm not saying this is always my attitude, since if it was I think I would be a much more generous man whose bank statements would look a lot different. But it was a genuine thought, and a feeling I want to chase. A moment of conviction I want to nurture.

--CA

P.S. It took some more effort and grace, but I arrived at the same conclusion regarding my time as I wrestled with going to Fuse Saturday night instead of the Brad Paisley concert with Daniel, Justin & Co. Here is one thing I can do that's clearly of eternal value.. so dig it!

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Poems of Advice and Wisdom (i.e. my mind on sleeplessness)

Sleep will cloud my consciousness
Like wine the drunkard's thoughts.
I'll savor late-night memories
Yet wish I had them not.

Feign the man who hateth not
The art his hands and mind hath wrought.
Wouldst have them stand in line to see?
Then you must your own critic be.


Complaining
Woe the man who makes his life
Finding wrong instead of right.
Has the moment shown its cards?
Play them for whate'er they are!


Sad the man who finds too cool
Himself for splashing in a pool.
Hold you tightly to yourself?
Well, you'll be loved by no one else.

Look as children madly run
From one thing to the next begun.
Heedless rushing in to try,
Thoughtless but to ask you why.
Fail it twice but try again..
Separates the boys from men.

--CA

Monday, September 17, 2007

Flashes

Now I know what it feels like to be an olympic track star winning the gold medal!

While walking in the crystal sunlight of this fresh autumn day,
past the piles of broken glass stacked like bales of glinting hay,
I noted beams of sunshine, caught and captured from the sky,
Flick'ring but a blinking moment, 'till another caught my eye.
Blade by blade, like an army firing freely on the field,
Shots of glass-reflected brightness showed me just how it must feel.
Scattered flashes from beside me, as I go passing by,
But this crowd shimmers silently, and I walk, instead of fly.

--CA

Thursday, September 13, 2007

In the style of Mikey Q

Whole lotta catchin' up:

Trips:
- Erie with UK in the motor home for Labor Day
- Pirates game --> Grove City --> Cleveland to hang with Charlie --> Akron --> home late Sunday night
- Akron second-to-last weekend of July for band practice. Half with Alex, and half with the original trilogy, since Alex was leaving
- Akron last weekend of July for Pure Boss concert at Brian's grad party

Visits:
- One big distended and extended blob of Akronites :-) Steve and Jon Detweiler here to do the roof. Allisons here for a weekend visit. Mike Hoffman here Sunday to help. Steve staying till Monday, then coming back Wednesday with Craig to finish, then coming back again Thursday afternoon for Kennywood

Good times:
- Kennywood with Betsy, Rachael and Steve-O! The *second* company picnic. First one got rained out. Though we still went and got free food. And did rides. And got a set of free tickets since the park closed early :-) Booyah!
- Fuel 'n' Fuddle: hit it up after Ritas and wandering around Pittsburgh Saturday night with the Allisons, etc. in tow.
- Pirate's game, Styx concert + fireworks, the Fuel 'n' Fuddle! Hoh hoh -- amaaazing! One of the shining highlights of the whole summer. The game was great - competitive, lots of action, and great people. Styx were great: kinda quiet, and not a lot of songs, but so seasoned and skilled that they rocked with winsome ease. Betsy got majorly into the concert, which was a lot of fun since I'm often the only super-vocal enjoyer of things. Fireworks dazzled us with their spectacle, and their volume! I truly liked Pittsburgh for the first real time. F'n'F capped off the night with great food and extended time to enjoy people.
- Recording "Sick as a Dog" with Stephen. He needs to move here!
- Steve Gole!

Work:
- No longer in the "new guy" phase
- Taking over raw materials from Jay
- Given responsibility for the batch house. Classic engineering: pursuing goals is like grasping oil with the hand. Hangs over you constantly. Easy to back burnerize, but critical to make efforts on, in order to demonstrate get-to-it-iveness, which is a key intangible in the work world.
- Brian--the only other process engineer--left. Leaving me, BT, unloaders, Bobby and Earl in the hot end office.
- Doing lots of unloading. Getting pretty good on the payloader.
- Finding myself at many classic work issues: stress, irritation, worried about getting noticed/getting credit, longer hours, poor communication. Augh! What am I becoming?
- Getting my jeans dirty most days. Yessss
- I am still a new guy, even if I'm past that phase. Now it takes more effort to get out and about, watch, ask, and learn. I know enough to make a comfortable rut for myself. *DUN DUN DUN*
- Boredom is now. no longer. an issue.

Home:
- New lappy. Frickin' iTunes still won't play videos. COMPUTERS!!! GAAGHH!! (Otherwise pretty spiffy, though)
- Dad doing house planning a ton (incl. right now)
- Stripey pants!!
- Not playing much consistently, but dinking around a bit. Recorded Dr.Pepper song, Sick as a Dog, and A Thousand Fair Admirers. Wrote the college song, which is probably my best song in many important ways, but haven't recorded it yet. Gotta do it justice. More chill with recording than perfectionistic. Getting better at guitar, and enjoying it. Electric >> acoustic. Drums = I suck, but Steve Gole plays my kinda stuff... WELL.

Church:
- Jeremy got College Night rolling for the year
- According to myself and a startlingly large number of independent commenters, I should be on electric as much as possible. Seems to add a lot to the sound. And I love it :-)
- Still benefitting from the Abe, Isaac and Jake sermons!
- Philippians series
- Fuse. Haven't been much recently.
- Ohiopyle camping trip! Tired as death Friday night, but Saturday made up for it. Hung out with Erin and Anna first half, then rode back. Absorbed a disproportionate number of injuries at Cuke Falls. Sober time up at the cross at J-ville.

Currently:
- Enamored with The Who. Literally can't get enough of "Let My Love Open the Door."
- About to order a slew of CD's, plus tri-tone gray All-Stars from amazon.com
- Bought some shows and movies on iTunes. Bug's Life is great!
- The lawn is spiffy from a good mow and a recent trim job
- On the upshot of another attempt at devotions and exercising. Iffy, but you just keep trying
- Baleveine Double Cask was fantabulous tonight, but in general not my style
- Daisy is still cute
- Chick-fil-A is still >>amazing<<
- Grovers back, but Daniel, Justin, Hezz, Rebekah Booher, Betsy and Rachael are all gone.
- How how how should I record "When You Were in Love?"
- Praying for grace to devote and exercise. I can only pray, and see what happens, and not let eyes stray to past history and mind decay to hopelessness.

Upcoming:
- Transition to Crystal Gray starting Saturday. Working Sunday, minus time for church. Yay, but boo, but overall yay
- Folks in for Brad Paisley concert this weekend
- Switchfoot/RelientK concert in November! Hoh hoh -- amaazing!
- Really want to be in Akron. Like it there. But I was hurtin' for the 'Burgh last weekend.
- I've been up way too late every night this weekend. Time to read some Biblio and end that trend. So much for exercising.

Arise, my soul, arise.
Shake off they guilty fears.
The bleeding sacrifice
On my behalf appears.
Before the throne my surety stands.
Before the throne my surety stands!
My name is written on His hands.

--Clear Ambassador

Inspired and Informed

Mom's comment on Kayte's blog showed me clearly why I have trouble keeping my blog posts short: "She always seems to have a very clear idea of what she wants to say."
SOMEHOW, her sharply-written account of one aspect of her monumental first day of teaching carries more punch than 5000 words of rambling that would capture and preserve the weight of the details.

Because I tend to go so long, I have many times wanted to write about what's been going on but balked at the amount of time it always takes up once I get going.

Also, MikeQ-style posts are good for capturing more disparate details, but keeping it snappy and winsome. Yay Mike!

Lemme ruminate 'n' percolate on what I want to say. I'll be back shortly...

--Clear Ambassador

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Tired tired tired

My last post was about sweat at work.
This is an analogous one about sleepiness at work.

Last night added another notch to the "nights I stayed up way too late" pole. At least this one had a good reason: Steve H and I were recording a wild and crazy yet amazingly catchy song down in the basement, and then chilling in his car listening through a bunch of my recordings. I wouldn't do it differently, but again I'm left here, riding the wake of trying to live life to the fullest. This morning isn't bad - I'm jacked from a Mountain Dew (Game Fuel! New kind!!) and I have plenty to do. Other mornings "all vanish in the haze" - to borrow a phrase from Weezer.

I'm debating whether or not to caffeinate every morning.
Even when I get 8 hours of sleep, I'm just not very productive before noon.

Why IS it, that I can literally be struggling not to fall asleep while standing up, at 10 am, but be bright, wide, full awake at 2:30am, even when I know I'm running on too little sleep?
It makes trying to be a steady, normal worker very hard.

What is this that I am? Am I screwing everything up, and will I one day pay a terrible price? Am I just being me, and me doesn't fit with this whole "work" thing? Will I ever settle in to a consistent schedule? Could I ever possibly have devotions in the morning? Am I actually a good employee, and will I make it in the work world? Could I ever support myself/a family doing something freer than this? Could life hold something more beautiful and invigorating than this, or is this the call of a real man in the real world, and I need to suck it up?

To back up one step from these questions, which I honestly wonder about.. these are the questions of youth. Mom and Dad aren't asking these any more. I won't shun them or despise them, because soon enough I'll be set in my tracks, and this unbounded aspiration will have tempered.

It's already beginning to.

--Clear Ambassador

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

Sweat sweat sweat

So here's a slice of life at the glass plant . . .

Sitting in my office chair, catching up on a blog after helping with the waist cooler swap-out. The green jacket is off, the yellow sleeves are off, the heat hood is off, and still the drops keep rolling, rolling down. Head, back, arms.. it's like I jumped into a swimming pool.
I have to watch where I rest my elbows as I type this, 'cause my shirt'll soak any papers on my desk. In fact, I just moved the stria print-out, which is considerably.. eh.. softer, than when Steve dropped it off this morning. The knees of my green pants are soaked through, and goodness knows how saturated the jeans are underneath them.
But still, when you're standing in front of the big hole looking in at the pool of syrupy glass, you wish for more layers, as the heat marches through the fabric and smacks you.

Let's just say that work is the only place I've ever actually used Gatorade for its intended purpose.

--Clear Ambassador

Monday, July 16, 2007

999.8

Let us peer together into the mists of time past, shall we? Far back, at the dawn of the new age [i.e. January 2007], we see . . . Steph Schaefer talking to Justin and John about a crazy idea. An idea that would change the future. How 'bout the three of them buy tickets to see Dispatch play in New York City . . in July?! Sure, why not!

For those of you--like me at the time--who don't really know who "Dispatch" is, they are a chill, backbeat college band that was huge about 10 years ago, broke up, and has a highly devoted fan base. They played three nights at Madison Square Garden to raise money for Zimbabwe, and we bought 3 tickets to the Saturday show way back in January, right before they sold out. As the months rolled by I got a job, but we still figured we'd make it work. And we did! It turned July 13th - 15th into quite the weekend: Pgh to Stone Harbor (where Steph spends the summer with her Mom), to New York City, to Philly (to crash at the Harveys and hit church), and then back home. And yes, 999.8 was the odometer reading when I pulled into our driveway at the end of it all :-)

This trip was a lot of fun. It was amazing! It sticks in my mind as one of the funnest things I've done in a year or two. Memories of riding in the car, eating snacks, and listening to music (no subwoofer! :-( ) are prominent. Pretty much anytime we went anywhere, we stopped and got snacks, which was hellaciously unthrifty, but a lot of fun. Eastern PA and NJ still have Cherry Vanilla Dr.Pepper around, so I hit that up as often as possible, and didn't worry about the caffeine. We probably supported 4 Wawa employees with our patronage during the trip :-) [Wawa = Eastern Sheetz]

At some point in the weekend I realized, quite abruptly, that I was in the middle of a movie-like road trip -- a classic good times craziness expedition, here in the midst of my work-constricted life. I think it was on the road somewhere in New Jersey, to or from New York City, rolling down the sweet highway in the sweet car with sweet people.

I also realized Saturday, as I sat back in the booth across from Steph and relished my exquisite frozen Heath mocha, that God was answering our prayers for good times during the trip, even though we didn't have much time in any one place. He abundantly multiplied our time in Stone Harbor, making our 12 hours there feel like 2 days: Night beach walk, good amount of sleep, Wawa breakfast (where else?), seeing where Steph spends her days at Tee Time Mini Golf, lolling about on the deck, going back to Tee Time and walking around the cool shops of Stone Harbor, and just soaking in the eminent beachiness of the entire place.

God even richly blessed the concert, which honestly, I didn't really care about. Dispatch's music doesn't mean that much to me, and I find its genera slightly annoying for some reason. But we listened to a bunch on the way up, which was good preparation. Our seats were really really terrible (way up behind the stage with abominable sound quality and pot smokers in the row ahead of us), so we scooted out after a few songs and walked further down and around till we found some unused seats, and sorta hovered there, off the prowling security guards' radar. Nobody ever came back to those seats, so we had them the rest of the night. And they were sweet :-) Spread out before us was the living, lit-up bowl of Madison Square Garden - dipping down and stretching out, across and up. The stage was a little left of us, and the sound was beautiful - crisp highs, pronounced mids, and--even in that huge place--floor-shaking bass. Ahhh, it was a moment of heaven-anticipation. I even found a cheap, filling and NEW food thing to fill my raging stomach (Knish. Basically a big potato pancake.). Standing there, great sound, enjoying the songs, great view, perfect food.. it was amazing! And I even liked the music. Quite a bit. A live setting almost always brings out a more rockin', energetic quality in music, compared to when it's recorded in a studio. With that perspective, I've found most of Dispatch's stuff pretty enjoyable. Their (sloshed/drugged, but still dedicated) fans filled the place with their singing. Everyone seemed to know the words to every song!

So yeah, even the concert was a blast, let alone the glorious weekend surrounding it!

[ I did have a rather dark spell on the way in to New York. Let's just say.. we were using a GPS navigation thingey.. we had the wrong destination at first.. we crossed a $9 toll bridge three times.. and only paid once.. and I succumbed to anger, which is never a pretty thing, for myself or others. We did get in OK, though late, though the show started late so it was OK, and I have rarely been as happy to park a car as I was when we rolled between the lines in the parking garage and I pulled out the key. Oy. But despite the aggravating entrance, our little view of NYC was amazing, and I'd definitely like to see more of it. ]

Church Sunday was nice, and we enjoyed the sleep-innage possible with an 11:30 service (though we had to budget time for a Wawa stop, of course). Then it was lunch with a couple church folks (getting to know Philly people! Yay! Riding in a Celica convertible! YAAAAY!), good-bye to Steph, and hello to Longdrivehome. We did some shifts, did a little sleeping, and wound up rockin' the Mazda to old favorites as we rolled up 51 into the Pittsburgh area.

I think Nick stayed with us that night, but I hit bed pretty quick, 'cause I had to be at work at 6 the next morning to start . . .

TRANSITION!

[dun dun dun]

And that's another post :-)

Yay weekend!

--Clear Ambassador

P.S. Good times = Justin and me driving away from Sheetz and leaving Daniel and Nick there and turning off our cell phones and nto coming back for half an hour :-D

P.P.S. I forgot the tickets, so we had to back home. heheh.

P.P.P.S. That frozen Heath mocha was one of the best things I have ever eaten in my entire life. I can only hope someday to go back to Stone Harbor, back to Coffee Talk, and order another (and pray it's not a let-down :-P).

Thursday, July 05, 2007

Diary of a Czar

Who would have thought, three months ago when I fished around for a funny signature and ended up ending my email with "--The Czar", that it would become such a big deal. And as kids searched for a hidden 2-liter bottle of Dr.Pepper, or chugged odious water from 2-oz. Dixie Cups and ran around holding hands, Mr. Pierson began to refer to me as "The Bizarre Czar" :-) Hey, I'll take that moniker and wear it with pride.

Well, youth camp. Let's see . . .


Sheetz on the way in with Katie, Daniel and Nick.

Katie making custom Yickiepickie T-shirts, and thereby being amazing.

Czar sash!! Ahhhhhhh, me likey.

Frenetic beginning, 'till Greg C took charge of Capture the Flag/Frisbee and I was freed.

Czarship has its perks: private room, morning espresso, Autumnobile access, radio, and knowledge to answer questions.

Czarship has its lows: when there's nobody to make the fire with which marshmallows are to be roasted, it's your fault. And you don't get to hear much of the messages, even when you're leading worship.

3-4 cans per day.

Canker sore the size of Manhattan = pain that never leaves you nor forsakes you.

Leading worship = doable, especially with a room full of people who want to sing.

Leading worship practice = very hard and humbling.

Skit about me and Dr.Pepper. Made my month :-)

Watching the campers run around carrying out YCAmoeba, by brain child. Seemed to go well!

Amazing, extended ministry after Monday and Tuesday nights' sessions.

The hardest part of running YC is the announcments. Timing; what to say; who to say it; when to do seconds; etc.Thanks dragged on too long, and I pretty much didn't think at all about the end of camp, so it got pretty hectic again.

The Meadows for ice-cream with PChOP people.. staving off the end of YC :-)

Steve-O came home with us, which pretty much made that day and the next.

As Monday rolled by, I was amazed at the experience of having other people take on tasks that I assigned them, and doing them as well, and with as much care and concern, as I would (or more). It's hard to describe what it was like watching Greg take CTF/F and make it happen, or walking into my office and seeing Wes Taylor hunkered over, drawing multiple maps of the Amoeba game to give to each of his refs. The wonder of this feeling is somehow tied to the fact that I could never make someone do things that well. I found quite clearly that comments/instructions from myself can't create a sense of ownership in anybody. So to see someone caring and working and *feeling* their task - doing what I could never ask or force them to do - . . well, it was indescribable! [I think this feeling relates to that which arises when we see God's grace at work. Could never ask or demand...]

Ultimately, I remained profoundly unaffected by nearly everything that went on at Youth Camp, even as I cried while people shared, and played my heart out when I led worship. So I didn't come home with a glowing ember to cherish, but I think with an armful of logs to fuel faith down the road.

YC08? Barring the providentially unexpected, I'm in 100% baby! We'll see how the post-YC meetings go in August.

For all of you who were affected at Youth Camp, who saw God there, who felt the Holy Spirit in you and around you . . cherish that! Thank God for that! I am far more aware now than I ever was before that all our youth camp stuff, all the food, games, plans, bunks, buildings, bandanas.. they are all fundamentally different from God coming. I didn't send Him an email telling him to show up Monday and Tuesday nights at 7pm. All my plans and labors, though not meaningless, felt like popsicle sticks in my hands before the great weight of God that deigned to settle on those little buildings out in the rolling green of Clymer, PA.

--Clear Ambassador/Czar

I want to remember the skits, so here they are:
- Blue Barf: "THE Infomercial" - predominantly featuring Minus 1, starring Akash Negi :-D
- Peeps: "Dancing with the Peeps" - featuring the Czar on guitar. Cowboy country, Picnic Table Polka, Spaced-Out robot hip-hop, and Blue Barf Ballet.
- Picnic Table - I forget the title. It was a rollicking, random ride of scattered, semi-indecipherable yet entertaining Biblical references and trippy vignettes. Killing the fatted calf was a highlight
- Cowboys - "Cowboy Memories" - sittin' round a campfire, recalling vignettes. Let us not forget the mooing cows or meeting the Man in Black.
- Flaming Cheetos - "Wheel of Fortune" - Took the cake for 2007. Human spinner, hand-made letters to be flipped over, and people doing the voices for other people. Good times.
- Spaced Out - "Dr.Pepper Obsession" - Nick Schuch = me (beardtee, Czar sash and radio, can of Dr.P), Mike P = psychiatrist. Rest of team = vignettes. Shannon as our Mom back in the homeschooling days (She's gone! We can eat ice-cream and drink Dr.Pepper!). Steve Shuch shaved the top of his head to play the old John B, hobbling on a cane and still clutching the can. Ahhh, amazing!

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Like a spider, I spin my threads

206.

Threads, that is.

Email threads in my youth camp inbox.

Probably like 500 messages or something, total.

It's funny - that's pretty much what "working on something" amounts to these days: sending emails and making phone calls. Sometimes I sit down and think and write out lists or ideas, but for the most part it's just communicating to or from people on the lappy or the celly.

Teams are almost set. Worship teams are pending a couple approvals. Skit, games, campfire, contingency plans, Sunday night activity, meal plan, snack trailer are all in the hands of my yickiepickies*, requiring only my occasional input/decision/approval. Sermons and seminars are in Mike P's domain. Worship setlists are one of the biggest pending issues, as well as head referee assignments and a couple other helper positions. Probably the biggest single thing remaining is designing and making the booklets. Then there's the team leader meeting this Saturday with my (as yet undetermined) admin input, and the prayer and pizza tomorrow with my as-yet-unguided prayer leadership. Several annoying outliers keep nagging me, but I try to write those down in an appropriate place for future reference as soon as possible.

So let the emails and grace flow like rain :-)

--Clear Ambassador (aka The Czar)


*Youth Camp Planning Coordinator = YCPC = yickiepickie
They are Mike Quinlisk and Katie Calano (YCPCKC. Lucky!)

Saturday, June 09, 2007

Life is Good

I could hardly be happier right now without being just directly drenched by the Holy Spirit's love.
Sitting here.. sunny and cool outside... iPod on shuffle pumping through the house speakers.. a virgin Pure Boss at my side, Cheez-Its, youth camp stuff rolling along...

Is this happiness apart from God Himself? Or is it a legitimate enjoyment of Him? I think it's the second.. though I'm not sure how much of this kind of happiness lasts when things get harder. But for now, right now, life is really really good.

[I'm at the Hoffmans in Akron. I'll go see the big annual dance show this evening. For now I'm sitting in the main area at the table working on the lappy. Nobody's around, the dogs are sleeping peacefully, the sunny trampoline awaits my next break-for-mental-health, usefulness exudes from my work on Youth Camp matters, Cheddar Jack Cheez-Its ooze flavor from their crispy goodness, Dr.Pepper and Live Wire Mountain Dew combine in a marraige of matchless flavor in the Chick-Fil-A cup (one of the best pop cups ever made, btw), and the music. Oh the music! Even from down in the den, Mr. Hoffman's subwoofer kicks; and all-library shuffle... it makes all music new. Leadbelly? Frank Zappa? Random Beck song I never gave a sneeze about before? U2 songs as old as my love for music? Every one is a jewel of delight. Can it be ok to be on top of the world like this? I don't know, but I think it's right to look up. Every good gift and every perfect gift comes down from above, from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning. Thank You, Lord, for this drop of Your kindness. May I remember it and love You when I don't feel as directly _happy_.]

--Clear Ambassador

Tuesday, June 05, 2007

2 left, you're graylining!!

Yesterday was an interesting day at work. So I will write about it.

Scotty J took a vac day, and Pad B's getting out pretty far ('cause we're running like 60's yields so the cullet silo's filling up and we're having to dump to pad), so Jay was out in the payloader all day putting a third level on the pad, which left me to haul cullet when the cold end bins red-lighted.
Which means that the dude who would normally do that was gone, and the other dude who would then do it was occupied because we're making sucky glass--more that we can melt back into the process--and our sucky-glass storage area is getting overfull and thus needs to be reorganized. So I got to drive the dump truck around for an hour or two, which was a welcome activity.

Later in the day there was a garbled page for all hot end personnel to high tail it to the tin bath. We were getting a narrow shot, which means a sudden decrease in the amount of molten glass flowing out onto the liquid tin. That's bad because you have these shafts sticking in to the tin bath with toothed wheels on the end that spin on the glass and pull it out to the right width and thickness as it floats on the tin. If you get a narrow shot, the glass can suck inside of those wheels, and if you lose one of them (they're called "top rolls"), that's baaad news. So everybody rushes over, throws on a headset, and runs to a machine (another name for "top rolls," which are actually technically called attenuators) to manually crank it in if needs be. I'd never been on a machine before, but there was no time for that. So I got on number 2 left, and held my face at the burning hot window, staring in at the the glowing tin and the glowing glass and the little turning glowing wheel. Sure enough, the glass started to suck in, and I started to lose it on the wheel (which is called graylining, 'cause the edge of the glass lifts up and the shadow under it looks gray). Everybody on the radio was freaking out, and I was cranking like a madman, but apparently you have to push in and then crank for it to engage, so it wasn't moving! Tom ran over and ripped it in barely in time, and once things settled down everybody talked about it and how freaked-out they were. I was very very glad I didn't lose the ribbon, even though I had a legitimate "excuse." Making an honest mistake and getting saved is way better than bombshelling the process and having a "good excuse."
And though it was hairy, I love those times when there's a real need and I'm helping with it. It's the best way to learn, and there's this amazing feeling of empowerment and.. I dunno what, that comes from being thrown in the "front lines" and having to do the right thing and having it matter. I can only faintly imagine what being in a war would be like, and how that would draw you together with your comrades and make you feel like a man. I'm happy with dump trucks and top rolls for now :-)

I got Chick-fil-A for lunch that day, which was good, and contributed to the interestingness of the day. I also enjoyed hanging out in the tin bath, looking at the furnace, and reporting on the furnace, all carried out with a degree of knowing-what-I-was-doingness. Which is the best.


I made a good dinner tonight, so I'll write about that too:

I sauteed some onions and garlic in olive oil, wilted some kale down into it, and cooked it soft, steaming it part of the time with balsamic vinegar. Ate a bunch of that, plus I've got a bunch left for tomorrow.
I've become convicted of the place and utility of whole grains in my diet, so I baked two pre-made Pepperidge Farm rolls from the freezer, which were very good.
Lastly, I heated up a Dr.Pepper-basted hamburger patty from last night and fried up an egg to complete the meal.
Ahhh, skillets and really really sharp knives are wonderful!

I ate whilst being buffeted by John Piper. I downloaded all the NA sermons today, printed out song sheets for most of the new songs they did, bought the "Doing Things Right in Matters of the Heart" book, and bought a CD of hymns done by various Passion artists. Not quite my usual musical preference, but the resonation of those old and magnificent words in my soul is better than anything, and modern rock sounds can add a legitimate force and swell to those words and melodies.

I am changing being changed.

I hardly listen to music anymore,
I hardly do Facebook,
I haven't been to Akron in almost 2 months;
I haven't watched a movie in who knows how long;
I wake up at 6am on Saturday on my own (but still go back to sleep, don't worry :-) ).

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.

When you're filled, you feel blessed.

When you're sitting there gnawed by hunger and dying of thirst, you're still blessed... but you actually feel like you're about to die, which isn't such a pleasant state to be in.

Such is the nature of a valley. No pain, no gain.
Real pain? Real pain? Sitting there hurting because things are wrong and they hurt??

Real gain.

Hate that deal?
No wonder! You were made for Heaven, not this place.

But God's hands are all around you. They're even holding the wrongness that causes your valley. He died for it all, and the great gaping depth of that payment lets you sit in a cocoon of favor and right standing that you'll grow more aware of as you make your way through this life. It pads you all around; it covers every angle; it hedges every path, past present and future. You'll grow to love that cocoon more and more as the years wash over you, and run to it quicker and quicker when the ground gives way to another valley.

So run to it now, with whatever you've got, and believe this:

As far as the East is from the West, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.

--Clear Ambassador

] Psalm 103:12 [

Sunday, May 20, 2007

Some Days in May

Here are some pics from my camera phone, taken during a spurt of wanting to document life.


The first robin to hatch in the nest right outside our door.
Poor Mom robin!
Every time we walk out the front door she goes flying frantically out of the bush :-/
Guess she'll get pretty rip wing muscles...
Daisy laying on Dad's lap while he played a game of Mississippi Marbles (aka Greedy) with Grandma while she was here.
She came up April 27th and left May 16th.
Lots of puzzles, games and ice-cream at Handel's.
She appreciates and enjoys food in a way I deeply respect, especially for a person her age. She is a model of choosing to be content and happy in life.
Mom opening her Mother's Day present from me. Yes, after basically missing last year's M Day and birthday, I put together this lovely box for her. Empty box :-)
BUT, inside was a sign saying "To be filled with produce from Stan's," and a card with a picture of an empty stomach promising to fill it with lunch at the Strip District. We used to go there back in the golden days (i.e. this spring), so it was fun to go again, though it was a Saturday morning, not a Monday like before.
Tonight, around 9 of the clock (i.e. o'clock). Grandma Kari and Grandpa Ken are here for a few days, and this is a typical evening position: watching a baseball game, with the dogs laying around and Grandpa and Daniel talking back and forth about sports things I have no capacity for remembering or regurgitating. They both have amazing minds for remembering details.



Care Group!!
I thought Dad and Dave looked pretty funny there, in an unwitting way :-)
It was a good care group. Dad wrapped up a lively discussion with some of the best words of summary, application, exhortation and love that I've ever heard from him. Good job, Dad!
A general shot of care group. It was Sanda's last meeting, and she shared some of what God's been revealing (and revolutionizing) in her through the back injury she's been dealing with. It was cool to hear how God's truth touched ground in her fine academic mind. I was really encouraged, as well, to see how she's grown since coming here - from being rather shy to joking and laughing and just radiating the joy of Christ.
Mr. Pierson's desk.
Where I worked on Youth Camp stuff all evening.
Lucky Charms.
Left over from Fuse Fun Night.
Which was a long time ago.
Glommy marshmallows = not so hot, but I'll still pick them out and eat 'em.

Happiness is . . .
:-)
Except this was at Arby's, not Taco Bell >:-(
While we're on the subject of food...
I knew there were lots of kinds of olives, just like there are many types of coffee, but somehow it just isn't real till you see a spread like this.
This was at Stamooli's, at the Strip.
Way cool place.
I got lots of odd stuff like Ouzo hard candy and half a candied citron.



The menu board at Fortunes, a sweet coffee place in the Strip District.
I got Mom a fruit smoothie, and I had an iced cappuccino (very very good).
They carry a marvelously-large selection of "Oral Fixation" mints. Mimosa, Jasmine, Green Tea . . . what joy it brings to this mint collector's heart!
Pirates Game!
Grandpa took Daniel, Dad and me to the ball game after church today.
I think Daniel knew I was taking the pic, and responded accordingly, but Grandpa was just kinda sitting there :-P

Want some popcorn?

Dad and his middle progeny.
Gotta love his expression :-)
Sorta like, "What on earth is this I have raised?"




Saturday, May 19, 2007

So . . I make glass


Aight, here's some o' the digs on work:
First off, Guardian is a good company, and the people I work with in the plant are almost all happy and well-adjusted :-) There's a lot of joking and laughing and friendliness (and yes, bad language, but that's part of the real world). I'm getting my narrow white-collar world shaken up a bit, which is good. There are a lot of people who come home from work sweaty, tired and incredibly dirty, and they make our country run.

As you can see here, the plant is basically a big long warehouse, whose fundamental dimensions are obscured by multitudinous add-ons. The float line goes down the length - from the furnace hoppers dropping batch into the furnace (bottom left) to the cold end guys packing glass and the fork trucks zipping filled racks off to banding, end caps and storage (top rightish). There isn't overhead stuff, so you don't have to wear hard hats, which is really nice. Everybody walks around with steel toed shoes and safety glasses. If you're around anything hot, you wear your mint green jacket (which most people wear around all the time anyway). If you're doing true hot work, you wear a kevlar hood. If you're around breaking glass or loud stuff, you wear earplugs. If you go under the furnace, you wear a hard hat. If you're a slitter or a packer down at the cold end, you wear these big honkin' yellow bibs to protect you from breaking glass, and if the plates you're cutting are taller than your neck, you wear a full face mask. I pretty much walk around all day in steel toes, jeans, my green jacket, safety glasses, and hot work gloves sticking out of my back pocket.

The float glass line consists of a very large furnace, which you can see in this picture. This is the back left cornerish of it. The glowing spot is the edge of the actual furnace, and the gray squarish thing on the left is the intake/exhaust duct. It's hard to see the actual walls of the furnace under all the beams and pipes and cooling ducts and such, but when you find it, it's all white silica bricks, which are about the only thing that will stand the heat (2800 degrees) for the life of the furnace (~7 years). You're usually well-removed from the hot stuff, but you can open ports and look in the furnace, and there are a couple openings into the furnace and the "refiner" - which is a big swimming pool of melted glass. You can look in briefly, while holding a piece of dark glass in front of your eyes, but the heat gets to you. I've never been around such a volume of intense heat before. It's like when you open a hot oven and get blasted with air that makes your ears and forehead tingle...or when you're by one of those campfires that's so hot you sorta hold your hand up in front of your face after awhile. Just more intense.

It's a bit of a rush - walking on the catwalk over the ports on the firing side and feeling the metal of your belt buckle burning at the edge of your jeans. Or wondering if the tips of your ears could actually get burned by the heat of the air as you try to stand and listen like it's no big deal while Bobby explains the batch logs returning with the convective flows from the spring zone. Most people at the hot end have had some (or many) intense experiences with heat, and I'm sure I'll end up with a few of my own. For now, burning some hair at the front of my head is the craziest thing that's happened :-P

My job. As young Russ asked emphatically in The Kid, "But what do I DOOO?"
Well, basically, Guardian pays me to help the process run well/better. Operators, working 12-hour shifts, take care of the hour-by-hour maintenance, monitoring and documentation. They also take care of immediate upsets like batch hitting the wall or the ribbon swinging in the tin bath. The process engineers work a little more long term, thinking like "OK, why do we keep having adhesion chip issues? Where could they be coming from?" Or "How can we vary the batch compositions to speed up our transition to this darker color of glass?" The days are filled with a lot of walking around, hanging around control rooms, talking to people, watching screens, and a bit of desk work. In my three weeks, the process has been running quite stably, so there hasn't been much action. But when stuff hits the fan, things get pretty exciting :-/

Right now, to accomplish that ultimate goal, I am working as hard as I can to learn the basics. Trying to follow people around or track them down to show me stuff, asking every question I can come up with, taking copious notes when I get back to my desk, and trying to eschew laziness and "input myself" as much as possible in what's going on. What I've come to realize is that the process is, with little or no exaggeration, as dynamic, complicated and indecipherable as a human being. People who have worked with it for 30 years learn new things every day. In a way, no one really knows what's going on. Chemical plants are built, and the next 50 years are spent trying to figure out how they work and keep them from breaking down :-)
So yeah, it's a formidible challenge; but folks are looking out for me and planning out my training. It's great when I learn stuff, and even better when I can actually DO things. Last week I learned the raw material end of the process, and this week I was up in the payloader (i.e. front-end loader) hauling rail cars around and driving the dump truck back and forth with 8 tons of cullet (busted glass) in the back. I love it when I can get my jacket dirty. That's a good day of work :-)
Here's a good basic shot of the hot end office, where my desk is. This is looking directly left of the direction I sit. Jay, BT and Brian sit at the three desks in a line there, and Earl--my boss--has his office inside where that big window is. It's a nice little area. There's a central sound system in the whole plant, and when somebody isn't paging somebody, they play the XM radio. Thank You SO MUCH, Lord, for no radio commercials! I seriously think it would mess me up to have radio ads in my head all day every day. You can adjust the volume of the speakers in each office/area, too, which is cool. "Outside" my office, which is still inside the overall warehouseish thing, there's the float line going down, and then lots of little sub-buildings and areas like the QC lab, maintenance shop, store room, more offices, and lots and lots of stacked glass. Overall, it is quite a nice place - pretty clean, well kept, and not full of nasty chemicals or hazardous wastes (which made my co-op plant sort of a pain).

Quite honestly, I couldn't ask for a better job. The people really seem great, across the board, week after week, the location is 20 minutes from home with almost no traffic, every day is different, and I am expected to advance in my career, not just stay in this job forever. I've had a few tastes of doing real work - meaningful things that someone else couldn't do at the moment - and it's invigorating. I'm grateful to have people looking out for me and thinking about my training and learning program. I'm praying and working to do the best job I can and really help Guardian make more, better glass, and God has allowed me to be content and happy with the unchanging 8-hours-a-day schedule and early bed and rising times.

There's a LOT more I could write. I have to keep fighting back details about the process and plant that I'm so impressed with myself for knowing (yes, pride, it's everywhere, even in a know-nothing 3-week-old process engineer trainee). If anybody wants to know how glass is made, or what this common substance is actually like, let me know! :-) I hope to write a post in awhile about glass, and probably another one about "The operator and the engineer", and how you can succeed in life. Yes indeed :-P
Even though it was a hard transition, being in a real job in this field is pretty cool sometimes. Again, I couldn't ask for a better job, and God is wondrously good to have brought me here. May He use the money earned, the career begun, and the eight hours spent every weekday, to His glory and eternal purposes.
--Clear (actually, slightly bluish green from the iron oxide in the glass, which absorbs solar radiation so your car doesn't heat up as much in the sun) Ambassador

Thursday, May 17, 2007

Two Things That Were Remarkable

Indeed, three that were noteworthy.

1) Wednesday. Daniel left at ~8:30pm to hang out with Justin and Heather at Denny's. I stayed home, worked out, and went to bed around 11.

2) I sat in the dining room with Mike and Carla Pierson while Andrew pulled out of the driveway with Caleb and Mitchell. First time they had both watched one of their children drive away. [i.e. Andrew got his drivers license today :-) ] I also loved how Mitch and Caleb were immediately like "Oooh, can I come??" when it was determined that Andrew would take the car over to Gramps and Grams. Being around younger kids is enlivening.

3) I sat up in a massive front-end loader and pulled around two rail cars at work today. Probably well over 300 tons total weight.

This is it. I'm already woefully late for the fourth night in a row this week, and I'm paying the price of deadness at work, so I can't give an update on work on life. THIS is work and life :-)

God is good.

--Clear Ambassador

Sunday, May 06, 2007

Deeper than I can convey, not as much as I wish I could say

I think the best way for me to represent the past week is to describe where I'm at right now.

A big day is over. I spent all of Sunday in Bethel Park with Daniel and Nick--an old and oddly good friend. A warm glow remains in my memory from church - eating up Joel's sermon on Abraham (God initiates, we respond, and HE is faithful, not us), playing electric guitar for worship, and really catching up with several great folks outside of my usual social rounds. I got to hang out at the Piersons - something I've been wanting to do all week - and that always leaves you feeling great. They're a special and joyful household :-) We even got to see Spiderman III, after the PLP (Post Lunch Party) chillin' in a parking lot rocking tunes and drinking peach tea.

9:07 found me driving home in my car after dropping Daniel off for his ride back to Grove City and depositing Nick at home. There in the car the familiar feeling of the past week surfaced again. The friends, the fun, the light and glow of fellowship were over. There I was, rolling down the road with nothing but my heavy heart tugging away inside my ribcage. Ahead of me what I see is a strangled 30 minutes until 10 o'clock, after which every minute doing anything is a punishment beating me with future tiredness and irredeemable missed duty. I see driving back down the already-familiar road to the plant and having another day slip beneath my feet, the prime hours passing in a selfless and rigid drain. I see another day just like that afterwards, and another one after that, and another one after that.

Part of me could try to take you further down this path.. try to wake up the mood that tore me apart for days last week. Saddened my heart more than I've ever been before. But the fact is, when I woke up Thursday morning, those wounds were healed. The bleeding battle for God, for joy in Jesus, was fundamentally over . . at least for now. While the facts of what has passed, what is gone, and what lies ahead are all the same, the unshakable grief and sorrow was broken, by the ineffable mercy of God on a beaten-down soul. So while I felt that familiar feeling tug at me as I left the day behind and faced the week ahead, beneath it was and is a quiet peace and general hope of joy, filling out those days as they stretch ahead in my mind's eye. I found God in the valley and here in the clearer ground, and that is not a trivial thing. It's not something that can't meet me as I sit alone in my car with basically everything good behind me and everything hard and undesirable ahead of me. That's the story of this week. The hardest valley I can ever remember, and GOD shining through that, real and enlivening in the days I've been given.

Sorry if this is uselessly abstract or out of left field or something. It's a greatly-constrained chip off the tip of an iceberg that's kinda pretty big in my life.. sort of like the first time this whole "Christianity" thing has actually worked. We'll see how it keeps shaking out as the days roll by, incessantly demanding application and facing me with the choice of going hard for God's will or slipping back into my ways. There's a lot I'm not writing out, but maybe this gives you the idea that last week was pretty non-normal.

As I rode in the car, I walked out again the now-well-trodden path of dealing with the bleakness tugging at my heart. You never know what the right way will be to deal with your heart honestly before God.. a lot of times it's open prayer, kneeling down and letting God in and talking out where you're at. Sometimes it's taking your shirt off, mowing the lawn and pounding Good Charlotte through your head. Sometimes it's having a beer and talking with Dad till midnight. Tonight it was listening to the anthem of this season of my life.

You ever have a song that really hits you for awhile? Something where the words and the music come together almost too well to believe, and it just hits you, right where you're at, singing out what you could never write out so clearly yourself? Well, the ironic thing is, for the past two weeks, that song has been my own song :-) I put on my electric guitar song first ('cause the iPod was at that song anyway), and then I switched over to "Don't Doubt" and cranked up the sound system till it cut and pounded through my whole body. The words spoke to me with perfect encouragement, reproof and hope: "Don't doubt! Trust in what you know He says. Step out. Step out on His promises! He'll meet you. Look at all the lives around! Just trust Him; trust Him with your life." The bridge quaked with the pent-up energy that you can't even quite express.. that comes from living through God meeting you and suspecting, deep down, that He has great, real goodness for you that blows away what you've already seen if you push through and choose that right road. And when it breaks and comes crashing into the chorus... it's like the living, breathing excitement of hope - everything that's happened and will happen.. something you could never write or say without breaking. How could these words, that I wrote myself, reach out and speak to me so perfectly, like the closest counselor hitting me with just what I need to hear? It just makes me smile and wonder :-) I do need to mix more highs and lows into that song, though. It's punchy, but I had to crank the treble, on the FM transceiver, which you never do, and I upped the bass with the sub at full, which will usually leave your eyes bugging out of your head. But yeah, if you want to hear the call of my life and feel the excitement and challenge and tension of what God's been doing, just listen to that song. And go buy a subwoofer for your car, because I tell you in all seriousness, you have not heard a song until you've let its sound actually push your body around with it.

I think I'll stop writing. Crap, it's 11:15. Arrr man, that kills me! [exclamation point of fist-pounding, not excitement or lightness] Alas.

Look at me! I'm not miserable! I'm listening to Copeland, and it's right and good before God. I don't care about anything other than following God and getting His joy. I don't care about anything but that! I don't even know what to say *about* God that's effective enough. Just, look at me, and look at Him! Listen to my song and look at Him. Look at Him!

I can't believe all the things that You've done
Oh glorious things that Your plans have become
I saw you right there in front of my eyes
I can't believe all the things that You've done

--Clear Ambassador

Thursday, May 03, 2007

List of things to buy with first paycheck:

  • New (working) electric shaver
  • Air filter for Pepsi Blue
  • Two pairs of jeans that can be trashed
  • Set of 50 foam inserts for my good earphones
  • Flickr pro account
  • A new left ankle (I wish!)

Monday, April 30, 2007

First Day of Work

Most of me wants to just hit the sack since I'm in desparate need of sleep, but I really want to at least jot a few things down for those of you who were praying and asking how my first day went.

Thank you for praying! Though I only got 7 hours sleep total over the previous 2 nights, I was remarkably not deathly tired throughout the day. I was glad, though, that I already knew about confined space entry and ISO-9001, 'cause I definitely wasn't too sharp during those videos :-)

This week isn't my job yet. I get 3 half-days with Jake the HR guy, going over a thumb-thick stack of papers and forms and several videos, and then I spend the rest of the week taking half days with each of 7 different areas (like Hot End, Cold End, Lab, etc.), learning stuff and meeting people. Next week is when I'll be turned over to Earl, my direct manager, and the real job-specific training and learning will start. Rumor has it I'll be trained to drive the massive front-end loader out back :-)

I went through the day with another guy, also named John, who just got hired into the maintenance department. He was an amiable and pleasant guy, and I was grateful many times to be going through everything with him. We spent basically the whole day in a small conference room sitting around a table going over forms or watching videos or talking with Jake. We went to the update meeting at 9 o'clock, we took a long break for lunch with several folks from the plant, and we walked around on a mini tour in the afternoon, but otherwise we were workin' away on the orientation/training checklist.

I think I'll save a well-crafted and entertaining picture of the plant for another day. If you want to know what this day was like for me, just picture me sitting in a comfortable office chair in a nice conference room with great big windows letting in the sunshiny world.. sitting back or leaning forward, listening, signing forms, checking off training items, and occasionally laughing with the guys. Not a bad day by any means, but also not anything like what my real work will be.

Also, just to sorta throw this out there, God is amazing. I've been pretty "washed up" at various times over the past few days as great change loomed before me and I looked back at what would never be the same again. I always have a hard time with change, even when it's from a good thing to a good thing. But somehow, somehow God met me at the point of nostalgia and terrible sadness over the season that is now past. I don't even know exactly how, but I went from being broken up about about what was over to being broken up about Jesus. It occured as I read John 14 - 21, and I think that it's there, in the Word, that we meet Jesus Himself and are comforted and engaged and cheered in Him, and not just His blessings.

No way can that paragraph mean to you anything close to what it meant to me, but that's ok :-) It's good stuff.

I will get 7 hours of sleep tonight. Not ~too~ bad.. *doubtful grimace*

--Clear Ambassador