Brycon: A Summer In Review

Well I've been happily enrolled in college and attending classes at the University of Utah for over a month and a half now. I'm thoroughly enjoying my time and I love all my classes. Yet despite my "easy" life, I can't help but occasionally reflect on my days at Brycon. Although we complained every day about working, and I can't remember a good hour where I wasn't dozing off, I sometimes feel that maybe it was a good experience, ya know?

It had always been part of my plan to write a review/summary about our summer at Brycon, and wrap up our experiences whether they were good, bad, dreary, memorable, uninteresting, spectacular, or just plain crappy. Every day was another adventure, and I quickly found that keeping a daily journal of the goings-on at Micron--especially after a 10 hour work day--was a tedious and sometimes overwhelming commitment. Thankfully I was able to do it, day in and day out, even when I was way too tired and my mom constantly pestered me to go to bed. My buddies laughed when I told them I was blogging our adventures, and I couldn't blame them...it was pretty nerdy--but it was better than writing in a journal, and easier. Then when I finally persuaded Skye to finish off the very last week (which he did for a few of the days) and he read a few of the entries, he actually did express some gratitude toward my foresight in recording as much as I could possibly remember. We, all of us, had to admit that although we pretty much hated the job most of the time, we had way too many funny moments and good experiences to let them slip entirely into the back of our minds and become forgotten forever.
So I kept this record, and it was a good thing.


Brycon...what can I say about you? I won't forget you, that's for sure. When we applied for the job, we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. No, it wasn't a horribly overwhelming task we'd undertaken, but the enormity of our situation (6am work, 10 hours per day, etc.) was somewhat unnerving to begin with. The work was peculiar--one wouldn't consider it to be traditional construction, yet it was construction in every sense of the word. The days weren't exciting, like one expects a construction job to be, but monotonous. They were tiring, but then, nobody ever really woke up in the first place. Ron said to me once, during a conversation about work, "You never really wake up in there. You don't wake up until 4:30, when you get off work. There's just something about it inside that keeps you asleep." He was right. Someone jokingly asked me if they were pumping ether into the FAB when I told them you couldn't wake up, but it made me wonder.

I can't really say enough about how completely weird of a job it was. It was simply nothing like we'd imagined, nothing like we'd ever imagined, and I'm not sure how many jobs there are like it in the world. It was certainly a once-in-a-lifetime experience--or let's hope, at least. It was one of those jobs that you're glad you worked once, so you can say you did it--let's face it, it is pretty cool to tell someone that you built a clean room for manufacturing NAND Flash Technology that is used in iPods, cameras, phones, and lots of other useful gadgets...it just is--but it's also one of those jobs that every teenager needs to have at one point, if only to scare them into finishing high school and going to college.

We learned a lot about real work this summer that we probably wouldn't have learned otherwise. At first it surprised us that we were treated like adults. Up until then we weren't only minors, but we had never really been treated as equals, at least to the same degree as the guys down at Brycon treated us. I suppose it was true that we earned the same wages and did the same work, but it was just something new. It was nice to experience that finally, especially after high school.

We learned a lot about how a clean room worked, and was assembled. This was especially interesting to me, as I'm planning on majoring in Architecture, but it was also just really an idea that none of us had ever considered. There is an amazing amount of work that goes into these clean rooms that you wouldn't just think about.

Not only did we learn a lot of useful things, but we were able to meet people from all over the country. Working with them really opened our eyes to the variety of personalities there are in the world--it's true, we do live a sheltered life, and it's not as often that you get to work with a hungover mexican guy who spouts crazy lines like "Are you sure?" or "Vamanos vaya Wyoming!" Sure they weren't the best influence, and I've never heard so many f-ing f-words in my life before, but these men and women were good people. You sometimes don't expect to meet wonderful, warm-hearted individuals working construction, but every one of our coworkers had a soft spot, and every one was very polite. Most of them somehow knew we were LDS, and tried their best to tone down their language when we were around. Brad and I were especially thankful and surprised that they would willingly do such a thing without being asked or approached about it.

I guess our coworkers were the best part about working at Brycon. We'd ball it up with Ron and Thomas on Tuesdays. Sometimes Bryce would come, sometimes Ian would too. The whole premise seemed crazy to me at the time. After a 10 hour workday, let's all get back together and play some basketball for 2 or 3 more hours. Sure we'll be aching tomorrow, but quit being a baby! Other than basketball, we got invited to a few more events--namely Skye got invited--like Cowboy's birthday party. Skye was the only one who actually was invited and actually went, and nobody would have minded if the rest of us showed up, cause they loved us, but we just didn't. At the party Thomas kept offering Skye beers, not cause he wanted Skye to drink, but he thought it was pretty funny that Skye kept refusing it. He could offer all the beer he wanted to Skye and be certain that he wouldn't really have to share it in the end. It was actually the perfect situation for both parties. Neither had to do anything he didn't want to, yet all of the social protocol was observed.

Thomas was great, Cowboy was funny, Geneva and Elvina were entertaining in their own ways, Alfredo made me and Brad almost pee our pants, Luis and Arturo scared me to begin with cause they rode the lifts around and covered most of their faces in beard covers, Lawrence always looked out for us, and then there was Ron who topped them all and made our day, everyday. Don't forget us though, Quinn, Brad, Skye, Griffin, Jeff, Brady, and I all laughed it up in between work and kept each other going. In fact, I was just remembering the one time that Griffin made me laugh really hard. Brad and I were just getting into his car and pulling out of a parking stall at Kohlers, and Griffin was entering something into his phone in his car with the rest of the guys inside with him. Just before we started to move Griffin said, "Wait, Brad!" and Brad stopped, waiting to hear what Griffin so urgently needed to say. But instead of saying anything, Griffin quickly kicked it into reverse and backed out of the stall, swinging his car out behind us and before we knew it, he had shifted into drive and driven off. Brad and I just started laughing in unbelief that we'd fallen for such a silly thing, but there was absolutely no way we could possibly forsee it. In case you were wondering, that's what it was like everyday. Just fun.

From the great people to the funny jokes, from the awkward moments to the times we laughed so hard we forgot why we were laughing to begin with, from the time "Cowboy called and said he doesn't like your outfit" to the time Brad knocked out his tooth and got it put right back in, from the beginning to the end. Was it worth it? I say 'yes.' We complained but it was a good job. My final say on the matter is that it was definitely worth it, and in retrospect, I miss it sometimes.

We'll never forget you Brycon. How could we?

Day 34: ???

It was probably my best day at Brycon so far today. This is pretty surprising considering it was not particularly comical. I started out the morning in the all too familiar pass-through. We started another box of tile, and I told Cowboy to look outside. After viewing the vast expanses of pallets of tile lining the diminutive wall space, he told us, “no more tiles.” That left us with nothing but odd jobs and careful, precise – in other words, slow – cleaning of primary beams and carts. The day moved puzzlingly quickly, despite the lack of work.

At first break, I talked a lot with Thomas. What started out as mostly basketball talk from the game tonight before turned into some talk about college. I found out that Thomas dropped out of college because of some alcohol problems. He regrets not finishing college a lot, and said it was good that I was planning on sticking through four years or more. After break, I returned to the pass-through. We were given a box of probably 250 screws or so. Needless to say, we thought it prudent to carefully clean each one separately. This occupied most of the second block of work. Cowboy asked Josefina if there were any other words for cowboy in Spanish. Apparently, he was bored of us calling him “Vaquero.” She started spouting off synonyms of the word “cow,” I think. She said “Toro,” and I correctly guessed that meant “bull.” With impeccable timing, Gerard walked in. Josefina exclaimed, “Si, Toro!” and Gerard gave a really funny face that happened to remind me of a bull. That provided a nice chuckle. Gerrard came to lead us to a special sprung tent where we were going to have a pizza party. Yes!

We left for the pizza party at about 11:15 and didn’t get back until about 12:30. It was great. There was plenty of food, drinks, and time to sit down. A lot of people that I could have sworn didn’t work with us were there. One unlikely guest was George, a guy who works with Aerotek. I didn’t go talk to him, because he would just ask me if I had found anyone to replace my group of friends that got hired. After a long break, we went back to work.

I revisited the pass-through, but was quickly booted out by Alex. She needed my help in the other pass-through to push filters. I happily obliged; it didn’t feel like a betrayal because it was still a pass-through. But the truth is that things run quite differently in the west-side pass-through. Ron is a resident there, and that changes the entire atmosphere of the place. I guess they needed the filters quick, because Alex went berserker-general on us. She was ordering everyone around, including Gerard, who was working along side the rest of us. We moved an entire truckload of filters, (25 pallets or so) which I assume is quite an accomplishment due to the fact that Alex felt perfectly fine letting all of us leave several minutes early. The flurry was fun because it kept me occupied, I got to work with Gerard, (who is really fun and easy to talk to) and it all felt kind of sneaky because we were breaking nearly all the protocol rules in the book. If a protocol guy had seen us in the pass-through or taken a particle count, we would have been shutdown mighty quick. We remained unknown the entire afternoon, however, and I walked outside into the bright, shining sunlight – so blissful after long hours in the cold, barren clean room – and waited for my mom to pick me up. As I walked up to my white Toyota Previa, I managed to hear one of my favorite workers, Quincy AKA Chin-up guy, provide a perfect capstone to my day.

Quote of the Day:

“It’s sunshine boys; we made it!”
-Quincy

Ron’s Trash Talk of the Day:

(After I told him I was going to try to get my dad to come play basketball on Tuesday)

“Good! I need to light him up.”
-Ron

Day 33: Stringer Smuggling

Today was just another day at the pass-through. The girl that used to be a yellow-hat, Jennifer, was promptly switched to gasketing. That, along with the fact that she is married, ruined Josefina’s previous guess that she and I would start going out. Not to worry, because today we were given yet another tyro named Alicia. She speaks Spanish AND English, so she could be very useful in the future. We put in tile and lined the entire south wall until we literally couldn’t fit any more pallets. But Jason said he wanted lots of tile, so that’s what he’s going to get.

We had our multi-company safety meeting this morning, always a great opportunity to take a nap or have a light breakfast. I opted for food and was rewarded when the head safety guy explained some bizarre injuries and had a great one-liner that would probably make Mr. Birrell shudder – see quote of the day. I still think it would be more advantageous for IMFT to have the safety people and the superintendents attend the meeting, but I won’t complain because meetings provide an interesting diversion to the work week.

It’s time for the Josefina moment of the day. We were having several people wipe down stringers, and someone suggested that I take the stringers that Josefina had cleaned and transfer them to the same cart. I knew this was a bad or at least fruitless idea, but finally consented. In broken Spanish, I asked if we should move the stringers to the cart. She shook her head and spouted off Spanish until I left her alone. However the other person (sorry, I’m not trying to be enigmatic, I just can’t remember her name) would not give up. Christian suggested that I just take them. The wheels started turning in my head – that doesn’t happen to often – and I decided to use the immature route and promptly shouted “Mira!” and pointed. As Josefina quizzically turned to where my finger was pointing I tried to slink away with some of her stringers. I was caught red-handed, before I could safely smuggle the stringers away. After this incident, the trust that had grown between us was broken. She refused to talk or even look at me. However, my irresistible charm soon caused her to forget the incident and things were back to normal.

Sometimes I wonder if anyone realizes the irony when I try and translate what Jesus is saying to Christian. Anyone catching the irony? Anyone? Well, I can’t wait for yet another day working with the pass-through crew.

Quote of the Day:

"I think Captain John Smith used that rope to tie off the Mayflower in 1462”

-Head Safety Guy

Day 32: The Lone Survivor

There’s a new sheriff in town, and his name is Skye Larsen. Due to the fact that Grant is a Dick (read post on Day 4 if you’re alarmed by my seemingly garish language) and Brad is a…Brad, I am now the lone survivor at Brycon Inc. It is now my solemn duty to inform the reader on the goings-on in the clean room. The pass-through is the most underrated part of the clean room. While Grant er…Richard’s attempts at explaining the relevance of the pass-through have been noble, they sadly do not make the cut. Basically, without the pass-through there would be no FAB. There would be no materials to work with. There would be no designated trilingual areas. Basically, life at Brycon would be at a standstill. With that mild rant out of the way, I feel like you will better understand the undeniable, indubitable, irrefutable importance of my job.

Today, we really didn’t do anything at the pass-through. Our seeming significance was even further hindered by the fact that the main item we shipped into the clean room, perf tiles, continued to stack up against the side of the wall – unused. The day was not all at a loss, however.

First we’ll start with Josefina. Doubtless, the reader has heard of this incredible persona. However, words – or should I say, palabras – will never fully describe this strong-willed, Spanish-speaking lady. With that in mind, here is my paragraph on Josefina, Day 32. The funniest part of Josefina is her ability to surprise me at any given time on any given day. The Josefina moment of the day (which probably should have been included with “quote of the day” and “trash talk of the day”) occurred thusly. I was minding my own business, stacking tile after tile, and I hear the following europop-style repetition of Josephina, “rapido…..rapido…..rapido.” I turn around and Josephina is doing a little jig. I would elaborate, but I can neither express my thoughts on this matter, nor find a need to do so. She has become even stranger – and more hilarious – with the addition of Jesus (pronounced Hay-Seuss, in case you were wondering). They now talk to each other in rapid Spanish and will occasionally mention me and start laughing. I’m glad I obviously bring a lot of joy to their lives.

So much to talk about. Hmmm. Well, to cover up the somewhat important and boring things that happened, I was yet again left alone and consequently in charge of the pass-through, which is both stimulating and challenging. Jesus was the only one outside the pass-through, and something needed to be sent to the cut shop, so I told Jesus to come follow me (sorry, couldn’t resist). It turned out that the cut shop had disappeared – later I found out it was moved – and my shame was intensified because I couldn’t even explain to the unilingual old man that the cut shop had simply evanesced without anyone telling me anything about it. Oh, and the rest of the day we moved tile.

The final event of the laborious day will require a little background. There is another company at IMFT who wear yellow hard hats. Even more curious then their flowery helmet choice is their job (all they seem to do is sweep the floor and take out apparently random trash bags) and the conflux of fairly hot chicas that work for them. Brady was the first of us to note their existence, but their impact in the building is now unquestionable. Every man’s head turns at least a little as they walk by. Anyways, in a strange twist of events, it seems that one of the yellow hats has turned traitor and joined Brycon. Not only that, she works in the pass-through. Thus it was my grave responsibility to show her around and talk to her about Brycon. After a long conversation about how to wipe things finished I turned around to find Josefina and Jesus giggling…AGAIN. She hinted that she had figured out who the girlfriend I had been talking about earlier was. She assumes much, and assumes wrongly.

Anyway, this has been a long post, so I apologize but hope you have been entertained and, much more importantly, informed on the proceedings at Brycon. I can’t wait for Tuesday!!!


Quote of the Day:

(in a hushed voice) “Skye, watch out, Jesus is watching you.”
-Thomas

Day 31: The Last Day!

Today was our last day at Brycon. Brad and I were ecstatic about it. In fact, the only thing better than it being our last day was that Skye told us we could leave whenever we wanted. Brad was like "WHAT?! YES!" and I was too.

We woke up extra early to go to Betos and have a last day fling. Each of us bought 2 breakfast burritos for ourselves, and then we bought one for Alfredo too, cause we promised we would. I woke up at 4am randomely, and since I knew if I went back to sleep at all I would be dead tired, I stayed awake and got ready to go. Brad and I drove down to Betos and after eating one burrito, I wasn't even full. That was the first time ever, and it was weird.

I found out today, while I was walking in to work with Ron, that he knows a guy in my ward, named Howard Reiner. It was pretty crazy, cause apparently he's Ron's best friend, and they used to go and do public speaking and stuff. I thought it was pretty cool.

We decided to leave at 2pm today, after working for 8 hours. We figured since it was overtime, that was fine. We told Lawrence and he was like whatever. During the Pre-Task Plan they were having such a bad conversation, that Brad and I went to get earplugs. We needed them anyway, cause we punched holes in the ceiling all day. Daniel was working with us too.

There were no more offset blocks for the ceiling, and all the grid layouts were crooked and needed to be offset. That's not an unusual thing, since the I-beams aren't always exactly in the right place, but since there were no more offset blocks, we could only punch the holes. We usually install the blocks too, but we couldn't.

After lunch, Lawrence told us he wanted us to put the centered blocks on, even though they would be an entire inch off and really screw stuff up. There was nothing we could do, so we basically stuck them on, but left them loose, so they could change them up once they got the new offset blocks in.

Skye was supposed to show up to work today, but never did. We thought that he had just decided not to go, but apparently he woke up with a sore throat and was pretty sick. He decided it wasn't worth it, so he stayed home.

Brad and I sang his new Italian Hot Babe song, and we started to write verses and decided that we would combine a bunch of different styles and basically cover everything from choral sections to a rap section in our song. Probably some guitar-wailing too. It will be a dominant song, and we're gonna record it at our apartment soon. It was pretty funny and kept us entertained pretty much all day.

Basically our last day at work was a lot of fun. We left at 2pm, after saying our goodbyes to Lawrence, Luis, Alfredo, Arturo, Felipe and Daniel. They're all great guys, and Brad and I were really glad we met them and got to work with them for at least this little while.


Quote of the Day:

"Crap, I forgot to wear my pants today!!"
-Brad


Ron's Trash Talk of the Day:

"People will be like, 'Do you know Brad Findeis?' and I'll be like 'Oh yeah, I play ball with him...just laid him up last week.'"
-Ron

Day 30: "I Want An Italian Hot Babe!"

I want an Italian hot babe,
I don't want an Italian not babe,
I want an Italian hot babe,
and I want one now!
-Brad

Brad made up a song about Skye's incredibly, insanely, good-looking Italian step-cousin today. He sang it a lot during lunch and when we were walking out after work. Gina happened to be in front of us, and after he finished she turned around and was like "...okay......" It was pretty funny.

Today went by extremely quickly, I thought. I worked with Jaime, wiz nutting and caulking all day. We worked on the newer section of grids that we'd hung yesterday. That took us until just after lunch. It took us a lot longer than Lawrence really wanted, but there wasn't much we could do. It's pretty tedious work. For the first shift, before the 9am break, Jaime basically pushed me around and I wiz nutted all alone. It kinda bugged me, but I didn't say anything. By the time I got back into the FAB after the break, Jaime was up on the scaffold, wiz nutting. I joined him and we switched jobs from the way we started out in the morning. I was putting the bolts in and then he'd put the nuts on, while I tightened them and he took off down the ladder and then pushed me along when I was ready. Well, that didn't last long, since after about 4 times, he just stayed down there. This time I did the nuts and took off down the ladder to push the scaffold. That was nice cause I knew I was actually going to go back up and help. I did get really tired after doing it well over 50 times throughout the day though.

After we got the first section wiz nutted, we had to caulk. Since I know how to caulk better than Jaime, I was the one to stayed on top and did it. That took much longer than it usually does, because the wires that run through the grid and out the ends, usually slow us down but we can just get through them by pushing a little harder with the caulking gun. Now they're all connected in the clamps by Wasatch Electric. So now every time I got to the wires, I had to pull them down out of the cracks and caulk up to them and then start on the other side caulking again. It slowed me down an incredible amount for such a simple difference. By the end of it, I got better and faster at caulking around them, but it still took a good extra 30 to 60 minutes.

After lunch, Jaime and I finished with the first section that Lawrence asked us to do, and moved over to the new grids that he was hanging today. They're much shorter and took a lot less time to wiz nut. We finished about 14 of them in a few hours. We finished just in time for clean up, so we never got to caulk them. I expect that Lawrence will have us do that tomorrow.

Tomorrow's going to be my first Saturday working, and my first 6-day week. Today was my first 5th day in a work week at Brycon. There have been so many holidays or sick days or vacation days that I usually take a day off during the week and I never wanted to go in on Saturday. I am going tomorrow, so I can finish strong and get a huge paycheck for my last time. Tomorrow's our last day--mine and Brad's. Skye's staying until next Friday...poor soul. I hope he has fun, cause I can't stand to work there anymore. I'm glad I'm quitting. It's fun, but it's too early every day. It's killing me.

Anyway, I'm totally excited for tomorrow to be our last day, and I'm totally excited for Betos. Brad and I are going to Betos early tomorrow, before work, and getting breakfast burritos. We're getting one for Alfredo too. He's excited, I think. At first he said no, but then Brad showed him how big they were and he was like "Holy s***!" So he decided he wanted one instead.

Here's to our last day!


Quote of the Day:

Brad: "Lawrence I gotta go to the Dentist's today at 1:30."
Lawrence: "The Dentist's?!"
Brad: "It's just a two-week check up, so it'll be in and out....VRUMP VRUMP (making hand actions)
Lawrence: "VRUMP VRUMP?"

(Everyone laughs at Brad's dumb noise)

Alfredo: "VRUMP VRUMP!"
Arturo: "VRUMP VRUMP!"
Luis: "VRUMP VRUMP!"

Lawrence: "What's VRUMP VRUMP?"
Alfredo: "You're speaking to Magneto..."


Thomas' Trash Talk of the Day:

"I need to lose 15 or 20 pounds and then I'd be amazing. I'd be like MJ, stretching out like this. (Acts like he's dunking the ball) And then I'll reach down and hold Brad's face down and then smack it a little bit, and then dunk it!"
-Thomas

Day 29: For Grid's Sake

Today moved so slowly today that I thought I would die. Lawrence asked us to move grids around and position them in spots where they would eventually be hung in the ceiling. There was a section in the newer area, where some of the grids on the outer edge by where the RTF edge ended. We placed about 8 over there for Lawrence to hang after he finished punching holes in the newest area of the RTF.

That took us until the first break, and we quickly left to eat. I was really hungry and tired. None of us could stay awake--not even Daniel, who usually is full of energy and ready to make us work quickly. He didn't really push us this morning, so it felt like the three of us just wandered around. Brad and I were so tired.


After we moved the grids over, we needed to add hardware, so Brad and I did that pretty quickly, and passed the time by laughing about the funny things that Fernando says. One time Lawrence was telling Derek, Brad, and Fernando about how hard it was for him when his father died a few years ago. Suddenly Fernando said to Lawrence, "That's okay, Lawrence, we like you anyway." Brad and Derek just laughed because it was so random--as if they wouldn't like Lawrence cause his dad died. Another time we were talking about something the Chinese do, and Brad said, "Yeah, the Chinese are whacked." Fernando said, "But they love you anyway." Same thing...we just started to laugh. Brad and I spent a while mimicking the way Fernando says things--he has a nasaly voice that's just really funny. He's a great guy though.

We also spent time laughing about Daniel, who really talks to me and Brad like we're idiots sometimes. It's just funny how he thinks he knows the best way to do anything. So Brad and I would keep being like, "Hey, you know what I've found works best for this?" whenever one of us was doing some sort of task. It was pretty funny, even when we did it to Daniel...he never really caught on to it.

So during the second shift we just kept moving grids. We focused on moving the grids that were in the way of the Wasatch Electric guys, who were pulling up tiles from the floor and installing wires and components underneath the RTF. That took a while and obviously the time flew...not.

At lunch I tried to enjoy myself as much as possible with relaxing. Brad and I debated about politics for a while. It was fun. We take different stands on issues and I never knew the way he felt about a lot of world matters. I dunno, it's hard for me to accept what other people say, when it feels so wrong to me. I like to listen, but a part of me--the part that is like my dad--wants to just shut them out cause I know they're wrong and I don't need to listen to them. The fact that Brad's my friend and that his counter arguments make more sense than other peoples is good. It makes me consider things from a different point of view.

After lunch we moved more grid...hooray. We moved the smaller grids that weighed a lot less...hooray. They were the ones that fit between the existing grid ceiling and the walls at the northern(?) end of the FAB. We're getting close to finishing areas of the ceiling for good. That's pretty cool, since we've been working on it for about a month, and there's no end in sight, despite how much work we've gotten done.

We basically spent the rest of the day moving grids. We probably moved grids over 50 times today. Probably well over 50...

The three of us were trying to get Cowboy to say "basically" today, since Quinn loved it so much, and we'd always say it like Cowboy. I've never heard it before, so for the last three hours of the day we'd be asking him questions like "What's the basic protocol for ordering grids from the grids outside?" or "Basically, how does this basically work...like the basics?" He never ever said basically. I finally got fed up with it and asked him to say basically, and I had to explain why. But it was so worth it! Hahahaha. He was really self-conscious about it after that, and we kept joking around about it with him all the rest of the day. He was basic-cally so embarassed. He was a good sport about it though and after that we couldn't stop saying "basi-cally."

Today was basic-cally alright....bas-ically.


Quote of the Day:

Cowboy: "So Brad says you've got a fantasy."
Grant: "A what?"
Cowboy: "A fantasy...you know, a tape fantasy. You've got to tape everything."
Grant: "Oh...well yeah."

Day 28: Garth Batty...

I started the day working with Luis on the hole-punching crew. We used the mag-drill to create the holes on a bunch of the I-beams. Then we installed the blocks. Fernando kept us from getting started, delaying us a good half hour because he walks so slow and couldn't find a power source for us to plug the drill into. Luis was getting pretty frusterated with him, but we just laughed about how slow he was being. We installed blocks for about an hour, until Luis saw Arturo down below with nothing to do. Luis asked me if I wanted to go down, so Luis could go up and help cause he "looked bored."

I took Arturo's place down below the scaffold and was going to help Fernando push the scaffold (cause he needed help). But instead of doing that, Lawrence walked up and asked me to help Geneva do the floor layouts. When I got over to help her, she showed me the measuring tape and pen and I went to work without her, cause she was talking to Alfredo and Felipe.

Then it was 9am break...finally. Break went by really quickly and I went back to work. After the break, while I was doing more floor layouts, I caught a glimpse of Brad in a "bunny" suit. I smiled cause he looked like he was enjoying himself. He was basically moving around the scaffoling inside the Level 4 area, so the workers inside could install the vents. He spent half the day doing that.

After I finished the layouts, Lawrence took me over to Jayson to see if he needed help on the floor crew. I was just thinking the other day that it might be fun to work on the floor crew, just for one day, to see what it was like. I enjoyed it for a while, as I started out merely screwing all the peices together that hold the actual floor tiles. But after a while, my back started to hurt--then my arms hurt. It's pretty tough bending over and then straightening up every few seconds, over and over again, for hours on end. I did that until lunch break, and met up with Brad and Skye

Skye was working at the pass-thru, like always. He told us that Josefina--who only knows like, 4 english words--has started to use the word, "no." Brad and I laughed. Apparently now she just says "no" all the time. Skye will ask her to do something--or rather make hand signals to her for what he wants her to do--and she'll say, "no" and walk away. Skye just gets a kick out of it. The few phrases she knows are, "please," "thank you," and "no." To get Skye's attention, she'll say "please." Like the time she tried to tell him it was break time and he heard her saying "please...please.....please." He turned around to see a cell phone in his face. She motioned to the time, and he got the idea. It was pretty funny. We like hearing about his adventures with Josefina.

After lunch, I switched off screwing the floor peices together, caulking, assembling the floor peices to be screwed together, and carrying materials. I ended up getting really hot and sweaty. Not to mention that I was like, 99.9% parched. At about 3:30 I went to the restroom and got a drink to refresh myself. Part of what was making me tired was a newer worker named Garth Batty. Garth Batty reminds me of Daniel, in that he suggests ways to make things go faster--namely things that he would normally have to do by himself. He has me help him take things out of buckets and put them on the floor. Most of the things we're not in a super-big rush to have, so it's basically pointless to make me help, when I should be caulking or assembling the floor frame...things that need to be done quickly for the rest of the crew to keep working smoothly. He also talks really fast and runs his words together, so you have to say "what?" about 4 times, and you feel like an idiot. He also says random things that you can't really respond to, so it gets really annoying to have him around. He was driving me crazy in a matter of an hour or so. I finished off the day, doing the same stuff, but I was so tired that I could barely walk by cleanup. I helped Jayson move the leading edge barricades and the day ended--but not until I heard the f-word from Pedro a lot of times (in fact, that's the only word I could distinguish from his conversation with Jayson), and he farted right next to us. Good old Pedro--looks like Saddam.

All in all, it was an exhausting day. I'm still tired from it. Working on the floor crew was fun, but I hope that I have other work to do with Lawrence for the rest of my working week. I don't think I can take another day of Garth Batty...


Quote of the Day:

(Daniel's assembling the floor tiles and pounding on the side of the tile--apparently that's bad...)

Jayson: "Hey, Daniel, check this out. Do you know all the secrets to assembling the floor?"
Daniel: "...Most of them..."

Day 27: Hooray Thomas!

Thomas was at work today...randomely. We walked in and I saw him over standing by Ron. I looked at Skye, who also saw him and we both were like "Thomas is back!" It was pretty cool to see him. I guess he went back to Arizona to work for a butcher or something, but Geneva said that it wasn't what he had expected or something, and even they were surprised to see him back.

We gowned up for the morning "Stretch & Flex" because that's where we meet in the mornings now, and as soon as we were done, we all headed back outside for the weekly Safety meeting. Steve changed ours to Tuesdays so it wasn't so crowded for us. We got there about 6:15 and sat around until 7am. It was nice, and Brad, Skye and I just sat there and talked. The Safety meeting wasn't long enough, despite the forty-five minute break beforehand.

This morning I was in charge of filling out the Pre-Task Plan, cause Alfredo wanted me to do it. That kinda sucked and my hand was hurting halfway through it. I worked doing the same stuff as I was yesterday, handing the punch to Alfredo and Felipe. Fernando was infinitely better today, as he asked me to sit down every time he moved the scaffold, and was much more responsive. I think he was just zoned out yesterday. Good thing he was more awake today.

Brad worked with Derek and Jeff today, while Daniel was translating for a new worker who only spoke spanish. He didn't show up until right before lunch started. Without him, they wiz nutted another part of the grid. Later on, he tried to catch up on the caulking, cause the plan was to convert a large portion of the clean room to Level 4 tomorrow. He didn't get done, so we'll see what happens tomorrow.

For a short time, Fernando and I were in one of the pass-thru's cleaning some square washers, and talking with Alex. Fernando was asking her about her family back home in Arizona, and he wondered the cost of living in Tucson, cause he's looking into moving there soon.

Work was pretty quick today, with the Safety meeting and everything starting a few hours later. We got a lot of holes drilled and more areas of grid reinforced in the blocks. Alfredo's measuring tape broke today, and I'm not sure who did it, but they blamed Geneva for it. I heard Luis' name though. Alfredo started to swear and wanted to kill Luis, from what I heard. It was pretty funny to watch. Then some other guy stepped on Lawrence's lucky measuring tape. He was pretty ticked off about that.

We played basketball with Ron and Thomas today. It was so fast-paced and we had 13 people. It was a lot of fun. I'm just glad that Thomas is back. He dominated....


Quote of the Day:

Gina: "I take a shower in the morning to wake myself up. That's how I get awake."
Brad: "By the time I wake up, there's no time, and while I'm brushing my teeth, I splash some water on my pits."
Calvin: "Well, on my way to work, I pull out my baby wipes and just clean myself while I drive!"

Day 26: La Mariposa

Daniel called Brad gay today...but in spanish, so Brad wouldn't catch it. He said it to Jaime, and I caught it as I walked up. Basically the only word I heard as I walked up was "mariposa," which means butterfly; but when applied to a guy, means he's gay. We all laughed about it and Brad looked confused and just about freaked out. "Guys! What did he say?! Grant!" It was pretty funny.

I was kinda annoyed with Daniel today though. This morning Lawrence said to get a three man crew and get on wiz nutting. Daniel said okay, and then picked his crew. "Richard and Derek.........no.......Brad and Derek!" Brad high fived me and took off. I was like, "Dang it." It kinda bugged me, cause not only is Daniel keen to patronize me, but he's overwhemingly talkative and insists that his way is the only correct (and quickest) method to do anything. I try to be nice and just do what he says, and then be over-gracious about him being such a great mentor. It's worked alright so far, but it's taken a lot of self-control not to talk back to him. I'm afraid that in life confrontaion just leads to horrible consequences later on. I therefore try to remain polite, despite any horrible manners anyone I happen to associate with might have.

I ended up working with Felipe most all day long, punching holes. He worked on one of the Axxessor lifts (similar to the Genie lifts I have described in the past). I stood on the scaffolding, handing him the tools and peices he needed to punch the holes. The I-beams were too high up for the scaffolding to reach, so that's why he needed to use the Axxessor. About halfway through the day Alfredo joined us on another Axxessor, and we all worked on the hole-punching, which went faster with two on the lifts.

Lawrence informed us this morning that Alfredo and a few others got wasted last night and didn't want to come in to work today. They got home this morning at 1am and were still kinda drunk while at work this morning. You could smell the alcohol on Alfredo's breath, and I think I heard Gerard talking to him about it, but it was more joking than anything else; or so it seemed to me. It's sad to see that...people shouldn't do that to themselves. But there's little you can do if they don't want to stop.

Fernando almost killed me a few times today, while I was on the scaffold. One time I was standing up, not grasping any of the sidebars, but actually using both of my hands to lift the extremely heavy hole punch to hand to Felipe. Suddenly the scaffold started to move closer to Felipe (even though it was already close enough) and I almost lost my balance. Luckily Felipe yelled at him soon enough that I didn't fall completely over, and was able to catch myself. Another time, Alfredo was calling for some bolts, and I climbed up on the scaffold to grab them and then shimmied my way between the bars and the grids. I got between them and sat on the table taped to the corner of the scaffold. As soon as I turned around to toss the bolts to Alfredo, the scaffold started to move. Having only about a foot of clearance between the grids and the top of the table, I quickly sprung myself out of the death-trap--luckily the scaffold was moving in the direction I needed it to move so I could escape. It wouldn't have been so scary if Fernando would actually listen the first time I yell to him to stop--even the first three times. But he's practically deaf when it comes to taking orders from the scaffold crew. That can be dangerous, as is now obvious.

Another time, the air compressor that was strapped to the table, and too tall to fit underneath the grids. We suddenly were moving underneath the grids and I looked over to see the compressor being violently slid along the table, strapped down, and ready to do some major damage if I didn't stop it moving quick. I yelled three or four times to get Geneva and Fernando to stop, but finally Alfredo yelled and they stopped. Wonder why? It really got on my nerves. There were a bunch of close calls with me today, and it's because Fernando does not communicate. He doesn't ever listen closely to orders, and he never tells the guys on top when he's moving the scaffold. I could have been seriously injured today. Thank goodness I wasn't. Holy crap...

At lunch I heard the record for most f-words I've ever had the pleasure of listening to in one five-minute period. Some lady was talking about some guy who harassed her or something--I don't really want to go into detail--but she seriously used the f-word in the place of every possible adjective. Anywhere in her sentences an adjective should go, I heard "f***ing!" And it wasn't just any normal adjective space...she'd insert them anywhere she pleased. ...And it was all grammatically correct!

So today was kinda boring. I got 11 hours of sleep and was still dozing off during the first shift. During the second break I sang Taking Back Sunday songs and Brand New songs to keep myself awake. It worked pretty well and I wasn't tired after that. The only entertaining thing today really, was when Fernando was standing on the floor, minding his own business and Alfredo kept dropping peices of plaster (the plaster they use to coat the I-beams) on his head and he couldn't figure out what it was. Everytime Fernando almost killed me or something, Alfredo would look at me and roll his eyes, hinting his opinion that Fernando was a complete moron.

Hmm....wow.


Quote of the Day:

"Fruit-Salad-Guy is my hero and I think he's homeless...doesn't it look like he's homeless?"
-Skye

Day 25: Ninjas or Pirates?

Note: I had to publish this today, even though I'm writing about Friday (yesterday).

Ninjas or Pirates? That's been the question plaguing us all day. I say Pirates, but Brad says Ninjas. It's a simple question at first, but upon further investigation, reveals a deeper and more meaningful dilemma. Which ones are more dominate? Sure Ninjas can throw stars and stealthily assassinate anybody they really want, but Pirates have their own ships and engage in swashbuckling adventures. Sure Pirates have treasure and eye-patches, but Ninjas can get super pissed and supposedly they're pretty good at wailing on guitars (thanks to www.realultimatepower.net). There are a plethora of arguments, and I swear we've heard them all day. Brad and I asked just about everyone at Brycon during work today. We're not quite sure if this question will ever be answered...

I actually didn't work all day. I had a doctor appointment this morning at 8:30 to see if my constant stomach aches were caused by an ulcer. Turns out they are, lucky for me... Anyway, I didn't get in to work until noonish. IM Flash Technologies was hosting a free lunch for all the contractors working in the facility. Goodwood catering provided the food, which was superb. A nice meal to make me feel better after getting the bad news.

I have to stay off soda and caffeine and crap like that or it won't ever heal. My mom thinks it's going to be hard and I'll have headaches all the time for the next few weeks and stuff. So far I've been going 3 or 4 days and I've been fine. The hardest part is finding someting else to drink when I'm thirsty. There's nothing at my house except sprite and water, which sucks. I haven't had a problem really. I drink all kinds of juices and water and stuff and there's really no problem. This should be easier than my mom says, but we'll see.

After lunch I worked with Brad and Derek, pushing the scaffold around, and wiz nutting. At lunch is when I popped the question, cause I was thinking about a cool-sounding RPG online game I discovered the other night, called Pirates of the Burning Sea. So I asked Brad what he thought about Ninjas vs. Pirates, since that's a funny debate going on with everyone. I didn't ever actually get to explain why I asked the question until a few hours later.

Skye probably worked in the pass-thru all day, but I never asked really what he did. I can usually assume he'll just work in the pass-thru. That's kinda his place.

It was Griffin's last day and it being so, he never showed up. Makes sense, I mean, Quinn didn't show up on his last day. I kinda don't want to either, but Brad and I will probably go, since we don't want to let Lawrence down like that. I kinda wish Griffin would have come though. Oh well.

So that was basically what we did and there's not much more to say, since I was only there half the day.

I just have two words though....Kiera Knightley


Quote of the Day:

Brad: "Lawrence, Ninjas or Pirates?"
Lawrence: "Pirates. They have guns and can be far away and kill the Ninjas."
Brad: "Why? Ninjas are so much faster than Pirates. What if one comes up behind the Pirate and cuts his throat?"
Lawrence: "Pirates come back to life all the time. There's probably tons of dead Pirates all over the place."

Day 24: Badges?! We Don't Need No Stinking Badges!

My stomach felt better today; that's good. I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow at 8:30am to figure out what's wrong. So I'm going in to work later on, around lunchtime to finish of the day. ...So yeah, looking forward to that...

I lost my badge this morning, and was a little late to clock in. I never found the badge, unfortunately, and now it's really starting to bug me. I'm not sure how I'm supposed to find it, or even where it would be. I probably dropped it on my way home yesterday and I'll never see it again. Woe is me! ...So I got a temporary ID and felt pretty dumb about it all day.

I walked by something that made me laugh today. There was an area probably 20 feet by 30 feet taped off with Danger tape, that had signs posted reading, "Do Not Enter, Level 4 Protocol." It just happened to be in the middle of the FAB, completely surrounded by the Level 3 area. To me, it didn't look much different than anywhere else in the clean room--definitely not any cleaner. But they were installing vents in the ceiling grids or something, so that being Level 4 work, I guess it made sense to label it Level 4. I just imagined those areas being separated from everything else, so as to create a cleaner environment, but there isn't much of a difference now.

Speaking of Level 4, there's a new gowning room on the opposite side of the FAB, where we can all gown up in the full "bunny" suits pretty soon. It's cool cause there are large heavy strips of plastic that hang down and overlap, and you have to push them out of the way to get through the doors. Brad and I just walk right through them though, without even moving them out of the way first. Brad does it cause he's Magneto, and I do it cause it's like the Terminator. We're nerds, but what can I say? Work gets boring sometimes...if you don't pretend you're Magneto, you start to lose your mind...

I worked all day with Daniel and Derek, wiz nutting. When I was spotting, I was falling asleep on my feet, but when I was actually wiz nutting, I had like, no energy and felt like crap. That was until the first break though. After the break I felt better and more awake. I had no problem with staying awake while I was working or spotting, and it went by much smoother.

Brad worked with Alfredo all day, punching holes in the complete opposite end of the FAB. I couldn't even really hear the hole-punch, that's how far away they were. He worked with Fernando and Geneva, who pushed him around while he and Alfredo punched holes. We're getting pretty close to having all the grids we've hung levelled, wiz nutted, and caulked, and we're hanging more grid soon too. Although we have an incredible amount of grid in the ceiling, Lawrence claims that we still have 2/3 of the grid still to hang. That just sounds crazy to me, since I swear that there isn't that much more room left to expand into. Now we have a nice square clean room, but we've still got areas surrounding the whole FAB that will eventually be moved into and turned into the clean room as well as the portions we already have.

I'm not quite sure what Skye and Griffin did today. I never work with them any longer, so I never have much of an idea of their activities on a day to day basis. They usually both work at the pass-thrus, but occasionally are in the clean room, and they've been split up to work at different pass-thrus before. I'm sad, though, since tomorrow's Griffin's last day. I'm sad to see him go, cause we've gotten to be better friends while working at Brycon. I never really knew him that well during high school, even though we were on a friendly basis. I'm definitely glad he decided to join us at work though.

Brad brought his iPod today to watch Nacho Libre during the breaks, and he and Griffin watched it while they ate. I was jealous, and kinda disappointed, since Brad said he brought it for me to watch during break, and I never actually got to see it. Oh well, no biggie.

After we finished the wiz nuts at about 2pm, Derek and I pushed Daniel around while he speed-caulked. That's what I like to call it. Instead of wheeling him to a spot and he caulks it, then we move him again, we just keep wheeling him, he stays in one spot on the scaffolding and it's one continuous line of caulking. It moves a lot faster, despite quick pauses to get past the wires and grid intersections.

So about halfway through the third shift, Lawrence gave me and Brad walkie-talkies. I asked him what for and he just shrugged his shoulders and chuckled, saying, "I dunno...communication?" I was like, duh... Anyway, Brad's walkie-talkie was in the mode where it just stays on all the time, so I could hear his conversations with Fernando and Geneva while they were putting hardware together all the way accross the FAB. It was fun to watch them and hear their conversation from so far away. It was kinda weird to watch, but it kept me entertained for a while. Then I went and fixed it, and talked to Brad about stuff, including how we needed to clean off the scaffolding we used yesterday, cause we ran out of time during cleanup yesterday.

Pedro farted today in the gowning room and Jayson raced out, gasping for air, closely followed by Pedro, who obviously didn't want to be in the company of his own bodily gases. Everyone's noses were curling and they had disgusted looks on their faces. Sometimes I'm grateful that I've got a cold...couldn't smell a thing. Another time I saw Pedro lying, spread-eagle, on the tile floor, next to the weird circle laser thingy. He's a crazy guy...a little messed up in the head, methinks.

So I was minding my own business and Lawrence asked me to come over and take a look at something Brad and I did yesterday. Apparently, we had accidentally installed a block on the I-beam exactly one foot to the left of where it was supposed to be. At first I admit that I thought it was Fernando's fault, because he was the one who set the laser, and we drill the holes where he puts the laser. That just didn't make sense though...why would he set the laser in some random spot? Anyway, I remembered a time when I thought Brad was drilling in the wrong spot, but the dot that I thought was the one he'd made just turned out to be a spot of dirt. So I figured that he had messed up the dots and drilled it a little further down than he was supposed to. It was weird. Neither he, nor I, quite understood what happened. Lawrence chuckled and said it was just something funny to laugh about later. I hoped that the extra dots wouldn't ruin the integrity of the beam, but he assured me that the I-beams would look like swiss cheese by the end of the project, with all the holes they needed to drill for all the components and stuff. Unusually enough, it didn't reassure me as it should have. There's just something about holy steel that doesn't comfort me.

Anyway, work was surprisingly pleasant today, despite my self-diagnosed 5am depression. I get up in the morning and feel like I'm going to die of waking up so early. I doubt that I can even function, let alone work for the next 10 hours. It really sucks, but work is never as bad as it seems when I wake up--which is good...


Quote of the Day:

Grant: "Lawrence, Alfredo almost ruined everything, but I stopped him and saved the day!"
Lawrence: "It happens..."

Day 23: A Nice Pile-drive to the Ceiling, or A Nice Punch to the Ceiling!

Today I felt sick to my stomach again. I think that ulcer is getting better...I mean, worse. Better in the way of ulcers, in that it's maturing, which isn't good. Worse in that it's bad for me, cause it hurts all the time. I am constantly shoving Tums down my throat...which I can't imagine is very good either. The whole situation is one giant mess.

Bugger....


Anyway, seeing as there are only four of us working together at Brycon these days, there seems to be less and less to write about. In a nutshell, Griffin and Skye worked pass-thru for a while, until Skye got pulled to work with Ron. Brad and I worked together on the scaffolding, punching holes in the ceiling (I-beams) all day long.

This morning, Skye and I were a minute late (6:06am) and he was annoyed to be late for a second day in a row. Things aren't looking good for little old me if I make him late again. In short, I'll make this short, so I can get to bed earlier tonight.

There wasn't much word from Griffin or Skye as to the goings-on in their areas, so there's not anything to say about them, except what has already been said--that Skye was pulled to work with Ron at a different pass-thru.

Brad and I were put on the hole-punching crew, to finish off some areas on the perimeter of the raised tile floor (RTF). Fernando and Geneva pushed us around the whole day, and despite our somewhat slow work--this being Brad's first day on the hole-punching crew, and it being my first day without someone else who did the majority of the actual punching--Fernando made the day move so much slower, and we didn't get a large number of the blocks installed. We tried to get Fernando's attention time after time and he was zoned out. He would just stand there while Brad and I were like, "Fernando.........Fernando..........Fernando!" It was amusing until it got to be a hindrance on our progress. Once we finally got him moving us, we'd reach the spot where we needed to stop and we'd do the same exact thing to get him to quit pushing us: "Stop...Stop....Stop....Stop! STOP!" Again...funny for a while.

I was proud of us, when the layout of the markings called for an offsetted hole on the block, and we installed one correctly (after offsetting the holes we punched by an inch to compensate for the difference in the measurements). Lawrence walked up and showed some concern about us offsetting, as if we didn't know what we were doing--which didn't help, as we weren't completely sure we had done it correctly--and when Fernando double checked it with the laser, and it lined up perfect, I couldn't help but smile. Brad and I aren't dumb...hello.

We told Lawrence that we were quitting next Friday, and he said he understood, since he's been telling us almost every day, to get an education. The problem, however, is now he'll be short two men, and he needs to get more and train them to be as dominant as Brad and I have become. Apparently he talked to Steve and requested two more guys to add to the crew A.S.A.P. This concerned me somewhat, as rumor holds that he once got so angry at one employee who turned in his 5-day notice for a resignation, he fired them on the spot. Not something I'd consider good, even though I don't know how much longer I can stand this...

Brad and I had a delightful time working up on the scaffolding, and I was never really tired. Usually I'll be dozing off or something absurd like that, but today was nice cause I stayed awake completely.

We had Level 4/5 Protocol Training today at 2pm, in the orientation room. This was to review the protocol for the clean room again, and teach us how to gown up in the full "bunny" suits. It was pretty exciting, and the guy who spoke to us, when he put his hood on, looked like a middle-eastern woman, hiding his face. I had to wake Griffin up and show him, it was that amusing. We're excited to gown up in the "bunny" suits, but we're not exactly sure if we'll be able to before we quit. I asked Lawrence if he'd let us once before we left, and he laughed and asked us if we wanted to bring a camera too. He was joking of course, seeing as we'd get fired on the spot, and probably in some legal trouble.

Anyway, today was pretty fun. It went by pretty smoothly, and we enjoyed it a lot. I'm somewhat excited for tomorrow, however, waking up at 5am is not my favorite.


Quote of the Day:

Brad: "If Fernando were a dinosaur--"
Grant: "--He'd be extinct..."

Day 22: Final Four

Today found me suddenly loathing my job. I could feel myself going insane with helplessness. I don't quite understand why I felt so strongly against going to work today, but I was really close to turning in a resignation today. It could be my constant stomach ache, possibly caused by an ulcer. It could be that I have to wake up at 5am every day and I never spend my nights anywhere but home. It could be that I work for 10 hours a day, falling asleep on my feet, literally. It could be many different things, but I think it's just time for me to quit.

Brad was planning on working until the 16th, while Skye was planning on working til the 18th or 19th. Griffin planned on turning in his resignation today, hopefully setting his last day as Friday. I was planning on working until the 12th. After Steve harped on Brad somewhat indirectly, my poor friend decided he was through with Brycon. Steve was apparently infuriated by Brad's injury, despite the pure accident-ness of it. Brad felt awful after the morning pep-talk, and there was little I could do to help him feel better. I didn't really know what to say. What was there to say? He wanted to quit as soon as possible. If it weren't for the 5-day warning Brycon asks for, he would have been gone by tomorrow. I actually managed to talk him into quitting next Friday. That means he'd turn his resignation in on Monday. I decided to do the same; Skye, on the other hand, remains intent on working until the last Friday before school starts, which would be the 18th. Griffin left at lunch today for a doctor's appointment or something. I don't know if he ever turned in a resignation, but I doubt he forgot.

I worked with Felipe all day, on a scissor-lift. We were punching holes in an area of the FAB that was not covered with the raised floor tiles. That means that it cannot be reached by the scaffolds; thus the need for a scissor-lift. It was my first time in one, and I thought it was pretty cool. Brad was excited for me, and I felt bad that I got to go on the scissor-lift, while he had to stay on the floor and work with Alfredo. Not that there's anything wrong with Alfredo, or the floor. It's just sometimes not exciting to do the same thing over and over. I didn't enjoy myself much on the scissor-lift though, as I kept literally falling asleep on my feet. It was horrible; my eyes would not stay open and I kept like, opening them to find Felipe asking for something or handing something to me. I wondered if he noticed I was asleep.

Brad worked with Alfredo most of the day, until he had nothing else to do and sent Brad over to work with Pedro. Brad said Pedro's got the dirtiest mouth he's ever heard. I felt bad for Brad all day long. Everyone that saw him was suddenly interested in seeing his tooth, which had miraculously been put back into his head. He was smiling all day, but not cause he was happy. Pedro actually asked him to smile and he wouldn't; then Alfredo told him to smile and he did, then asked "Would you like me to sign your tooth, Pedro?" Brad got really sick of showing his tooth off, but there wasn't much he could do. They even mentioned him in the weekly safety meeting at 7am today. "There was one craft that knocked his tooth out and chipped the one next to it." A tumultuous murmer arose in the large crowd of workers assembled in the break room. "What an idiot!" Brad said.

Skye worked with Griffin and Cowboy at the pass-thru for a while, until there was really nothing to do there. Then Cowboy sent them inside to help with the new section of the fab, recently opened. Now we've got a square, and there's a large Level 4 gowning room being assembled opposite the Level 3, across the FAB. Tomorrow we're supposed to attend a Protocal meeting to be briefed for Level 4 activity. Although I know I'll fall asleep during the meeting, it's still exciting, because I know it means less work! Hooray less work!

I was talking to Fernando today and he randomely said, "Richard, you're a good man!" and went to shake my hand. I took it and we shook, as I said "Thank you, Fernando." The next thing I know, the water cup in my hand spilled. We shook hands too hard, I guess. Fernando laughed and apologized. He was really interested in what I was doing for college. I told him I was going to the University of Utah, and he was very jealous. He said, "I like two sports teams: University of Utah, and whoever is playing BYU." It made me laugh. He told me that he'd been kicked out of BYU after having a beard in the computer lab. Completely ludacris, I think. Sometimes BYU's stupid rules just piss me off. They take it too far with just about everything. Anyway, back to work...

Basically, nothing really happened today. The day seemed to pass pretty quickly, yet slowly. It was pretty uneventful, and it makes me want to quit so much. I hope next Friday comes soon...


Quote of the Day:

Grant: "Brady's got the best name for things, like "Rice Rice, Brady" or "Hasta la vista, Brady..."
Skye: "Basically anything with 'baby' in it..."

Day 21: Magic Teeth

Usually you show up for your last day of work, right? Usually....

Quinn didn't. In the morning he was nowhere to be found. In the afternoon he was nowhere to be found. Not even when the checks came at lunch, did he show his face. I was kinda disappointed that he didn't come to work. It was pretty laid back today too...I mean, as laid back as it could get with all the Arizona employees ducking out at lunchtime to drive home for the weekend. We probably lost half our crew during lunch.

The whole morning Alfredo, Luis, Arturo, Geneva, and I hung measuring tape and leveled the new section of the FAB that we had just hung grids on. My neck already was hurting, but I had to spend the first 6 hours of my day looking up at the stupid ceiling. Alfredo tried to teach Geneva the commands in spanish, for what he was saying (un-octavo, etc.), but she ended up just saying "un-ocho" and we all laughed about it. Then Alfredo said "Yes Sir Dawg," and we all laughed about it.

At lunch, Brad and I ate alone, as Griffin and Skye were at lunch with Alex's crew. They had a pizza party. Now every Friday different crews will switch off with pizza parties; Brycon's paying! I'm excited for ours....at least, I hope it comes before we quit. That would suck.

After lunch, Gerard pooled the remaining contractors and we worked on wiz nutting and drilling holes in the I-beams for the rest of the day. I worked with Jaime up on the scaffold, doing wiz nuts, while Brad and Daniel drilled the holes. Geneva, Derek, and a few other people pushed us around and the afternoon went really slow.

Until suddenly Jaime noticed everyone congregating around Brad and Daniel's scaffold. Jaime said, "Is your friend alright?" and I saw from between the grids, Brad walking away, accompanied by a couple people. He was shaking his hand, so I assumed that he had probably cut himself or something. Not a big problem... Ron walked up to the scaffold we were on and said "Your buddy just knocked his teeth out."

"Yeah right, Ron. No really, what happened?" I said. He replied, "No really, he knocked one of his teeth out."

Wow........that can't be. But it was true. He was rushed to the dentist, but not before putting the tooth in milk to save it, and enduring a drug screening to prove he wasn't high. What had happened was, Brad was using a wrench to tighted one of the bolts on the hardware for the ceiling. On the very last tug he gave on the nut, to ensure it was tight, his wrench slipped and slammed straight into his left canine tooth. He fell backwards and his tooth luckily landed on the scaffolding next to him. He looked at it and thought, "Is that my tooth? Yeah, that's my tooth.....crap!" When he went in to fill out the accident report, they asked him not to use any of the words he used during the accident, while filling it out. Brad thought to himself, "What words? Crap?" Gerard actually used them all for Brad. He was in shock that Brad wasn't crying or screaming out in pain. Brad didn't feel a thing. Gerard (who usually has a really clean mouth) was like, "Holy S***! I can't believe you aren't crying. That would hurt so F****** bad! I'd be screaming so bad...." He obviously swore more than that, but I needn't go on.

Interestingly enough, the entire tooth, roots and all had popped right out of his head. The really creepy thing was that it wasn't scratched, chipped or broken in any way, and Brad really never felt a thing. It didn't really hurt at all. In fact, he was humming and singing to himself on the way down to the nurse's office. The nurse thought it was his escort that was sick, cause Brad looked so lively until he smiled. They were able to save the tooth and stick it back in. It's there to this day, losing color as it slowly dies (the dentist said it would probably die and we'd just paint it to look better). The dentist said to Brad, in between numerous comments on his beautifully straight teeth, "I've never seen anything like this before, and I've been a dentist for a while. I can't believe it came out all in one peice! No chips or scratches or anything. You said your prayers this morning, didn't you?"

"Yes, sir, I did" Brad replied, frankly.

Brad tells the story better than I do, and the best part is that his tooth is perfectly fine, while he has this totally awesome story to tell. He was fine afterward, happy and ready to go on our double date we had planned for this evening (which was great). Too bad Quinn never showed up to see the magic tooth.


Quote of the Day:

*Ping!* (sound of Jaime's hard hat hitting the steel sprinkler line)

"Woah...good thing I was wearing my hard hat!"
-Jaime

Day 20: Goodbye To Another

Brady got terminated today.

We were walking in through the badging station for IMFT, when his beeped. He was pulled aside and we told him we'd keep going and see him at the "Stretch & Flex." The "Stretch & Flex" came and went, but no Brady. Griffin showed up (after waking up a little late) and said he saw Brady at the badging station and waited for him for a minute, but then felt he should probably hurry and get up to the FAB.

Brad and I got split up to work on different parts of the ceiling crew. Brad and Jaime worked on the scaffolding, screwing the grids together with the wiz nuts. Daniel followed them in a separate scaffold, caulking. It worked pretty quickly that way, and we got a large portion of the FAB caulked and wiz nutted by the end of the day. I, on the other hand, worked with Geneva, hanging measuring tape from the grids, so Alfredo could site them with a eye-level thing, and then Arturo and Luis adjusted the grid height. We leveled the grids that way. We spent all morning, until lunch doing that, and I thought my neck was going to break. Hanging the measuring tape was pretty cool though. We pulled it out til the tape read about 130 inches and we carefully hung it by the tip on the edge of the grids. The tricky part was getting it to grab onto the grid without slipping and falling on us. The most frusterating thing was when the tape would buckle and tip over. That much tape is hard to balance without it buckling. Arturo, Luis, and Alfredo all were speaking spanish, and Alfredo was giving commands like "tres-cuartos" or "cinco-octavos" and every time one was level he would say "a esta" (i think...that's what it sounded like, but I couldn't tell if he was saying 'a esta' or 'ya esta'). Then I would pull a tape down and move it to the next grid. Geneva can't speak spanish (she's Native American), so I would let her know when to pull down the tape and move it. Lawrence knew that I took spanish in high school and could pretty well understand them, and Alfredo asked if I spoke after a particularly long conversation that included a lot of whooping and laughing between him and Arturo. I told him a little but it's hard to understand cause they spoke so fast.

Quinn worked at the pass-thru, moving gaskets into the FAB for Alex's crew. They're finally moving at a pretty fast pace and keeping up with the ceiling crew. Griffin, I believe, worked either on gaskets, or at one of the pass-thrus. It's more probable that Alex grabbed him and put him to work in the gaskets than a pass-thru. I saw him occasionally walk by as I was moving skates or hanging measuring tape.

During the 9am break, we were still wondering where Brady was and I unfortunately couldn't get the phone in the break room to work, so we were left wondering what had happened to him. We began to speculate that he'd been fired, but more jokingly than anything else. Brady fired? Could someone really do that? We weren't sure what was going on, but it certainly bugged us. Skye was feeling sickly, flu-ish, if you will; and he opted to ask to leave and go home. We didn't see him again, so we figured he either was granted sick leave or was asked to leave for good...we hoped it was the former, since we were sick of losing friends at work.

We did the same thing in between 9am and 12pm, hanging measuring tape, caulking, and wiz nutting. It was relatvely boring, but I couldn't complain, since the time passed pretty quickly. At lunch I nuked two peices of Dimitri's pizza and was in heaven, because it's so good. Oh, and I also called Brady and found out for sure that he was terminated. In his halting and seemingly unbelieving words, "I...don't....work there anymore." Then we both cut out and I hung up. I broke the news to Griffin, Brad, and Quinn, who just sat there dumbfounded, but then we all started to laugh. It was funny, although unfortunate that he was let go. It just seemed unusual that he was suddenly gone, without a warning. We were still in shock by the end of the day. Quinn just kept laughing at lunch, saying, "Brady got fired." We started to joke about it, and thought it was pretty funny.

After lunch, Lawrence had us move grids and he, along with Arturo, Luis, and Alfredo, hung them in the ceiling. I believe we got about 8 or 9 hung before the end of the day. Geneva and I moved them all over and then just hung around by the scaffolding, moving Brad and Jaime, and Daniel when they needed to be rolled along to the next area. It was a pretty boring afternoon and we thought the day would never end.

We decided to say hello to Brady at Maggie Moo's tonight, but we never ended up going. Geneva and Elvira went, I think; and perhaps Ron went too, since we told him to. I didn't wake up from my nap until 8:15 and I never got a call from Brad or Quinn or anyone.

Brad and I ducked into the bathroom on our way out today, and Lawrence, Arturo, and Luis did too. Lawrence walks up to the stall next to mine and says "RIGHTEOUS!" and he unzips. Brad and I just busted up laughing. These guys are so funny! While we were at the clock-out station, Brad was standing in front of Lawrence and Luis, when they suddenly busted out laughing. Brad turned around and said, "What was it?" Lawrence said, "Well, I probably should be saying this cause it's mean, but Julie is so ugly that her mom doesn't even want her!" They all just started laughing again and Brad said, "It's so mean, but it's so true!"

Well, I guess something good came from today...now Brad (or Griffin) doesn't have to wake up as early to get Brady in the morning. Here's to looking on the bright side.

Two down.....five more to go......


Quote of the Day:

"Gosh, no matter how much you jiggle, the last drop always gets on your pants!"
-Brad


Ron's Trash Talk of the Day:

Quinn: "It was freezing in the clean room this morning!"
Ron: "It was not you big baby!"

Day 19: Yes Sir Dawg

I worked on the ceiling crew again today, but this time I was with the guys punching holes. We use this air-compressor attachment that clamps down on the I-beam and slowly pushes a hole in the steel until it finally pops through. It makes a really loud sound, so the crew working on punching the holes has to wear earplugs. Most of the crews that work adjacent and around end up wearing some earplugs or just covering their ears before it punches the hole.

I started out working with Brad, moving scaffolding around for a while, but then Alfredo moved me to the hole-punching crew. He and Brad worked with the mag-drill doing some of the holes that the punch can't reach. The mag-drill takes forever, cause instead of punching a hole in a few seconds, it actually has to hang there and drill through a half-inch of steel. So they spent the entire morning until lunch doing one row of holes and hanging the blocks of iron. In the time it took them to drill those, we had 4 or 5 rows done.

I mostly pushed scaffolding, but during the second shift, I actually worked with Felipe, punching the holes. That kept me awake a little better than standing around waiting to push the scaffold. I punched holes the second half of the third shift also, and those two hours went by a lot faster than the two right after lunch.

Alfredo always says, "Yes Sir Dawg," really fast, instead of only saying "yes" or "yes sir." It's pretty funny, and I get a laugh out of it every time. He's a weird guy. Brad says he makes him laugh a ton, just with all the weird looks he gives Brad.

Occasionally I'd see Skye and Josefina walking back and forth, transporting materials or talking to each other in broken english and hand-signals. Josefina really only speaks spanish, although she's learning english, having to work around us all day. Skye worked pass-thru all day, as well as Quinn.

I found out this morning that yesterday we got another "Safety" personnel. Now we've got "Safety Joe" and "Safety Shelley." Thank goodness for "Safety Joe," who basically walks around and looks at stuff all day. It's a good thing we've got "Safety Shelley" around to help, in case Joe doesn't quite cut it.

Brad told me today that while he was leaving yesterday, he was almost Magneto. It's his dream to be Magneto, haha. They were moving these giant metal box-room things into place and one was on a forklift, but Brad didn't know it, and he started to pretend to move it with his Magneto powers. Then they moved exactly where he commanded them, and he was freaking out until he realized it was a forklift. Good ole Brad.

Ron was trash-talking us all day, after he played basketball last night. He's excited because we decided to play once a week with him. We were talking with him, and realized that both he and Skye's dad went to Cottonwood High School at the same time. When Skye told Ron that his dad was Bryce Larsen, the starting running back, Ron got this weird look and sat there for a minute, as if lost in thought. Then he said, "I know him! Bryce Larsen....I know him." Then Skye told him that he ran track and stuff and Ron was like, "Yeah, we were good friends!" Skye had to leave after that, but a few minutes later, Skye's dad came walking across the grass to see Ron after about 20 years. "Is that Rone Atine?" he said, happily. They laughed and started talking. Quinn and I had to go, but it was cool to find out that Ron and Skye's dad knew each other.

Anyway, today went pretty slow and it was pretty uneventful, other than when Brad and I picked a section of the FAB and figured the number of holes in the tiles in the whole area. Turns out that there were 1,789,952....


Quote of the Day:

"I want 'Safety Joe' and 'Safety Shelley' to get married and make 'Safety babies.'"
-Brad


Ron's Trash-Talk of the Day:

"Yeah, better play inside cause it's gonna be raining...........raining three's!"
-Ron

Day 18: Goodbye To Thomas

Today was Thomas' last day. Thomas is the large and beloved native american coworker that we have come to love through his amazing garbage-shooting skills. You could usually see him scoring a freakin' sweet shot from like 30 feet away. He's leaving after today, or something. I'm not sure why.

I actually wasn't at work today, cause I was feeling ill again. I'm not quite sure what's up with that either, but when I woke up at noon, I was feeling much better.

Skye told me that since it was Thomas' last day, Ron approached them after work, as they were clocking out, and asked them if they were going to ball with him and Ron tonight. They couldn't pass up a chance to play with Ron and Thomas, so they all agreed to show up at Cedar Ridge Elementary at 7pm and play. Ron was trash-talking them at the clock-out station, saying, "I don't want you to show up tomorrow and be like 'Oh, sorry we didn't show. We weren't feeling too well.'" Skye said it was pretty funny.

Here we go to play with Ron and Thomas...


Ron's Trash-Talk of the Day:

"You better show up. I don't want you to come to work tomorrow and be like, 'Oh, sorry we didn't make it...we were sick.'"
-Ron

Day 17: Not Rafting...

Quinn and I showed up to work today to see only Brad and Skye among the Brycon employees. I guess Jeff had a doctor's appointment for his back condition...same as Friday, I found out from Skye. Quinn had already informed me on the way to work, that Brady and Griffin had gone river rafting with Lacie Jones. Something I was invited to a few weeks ago, but I graciously turned down due to work. Ironic.

I was pretty tired today, and kept catching myself lagging, but for the most part, I had enough energy. Brad and I got split up after he finally came back. I was kinda ticked about that. I was so excited to work with him, especially after he was kinda hyper in the morning during the Pre-Task Plan. I was like "I'm so glad you're back. I'm so excited to work." ...Not. I worked with Jaime again, but this time I was caulking the ceiling...craning backwards and kneeling with my neck thrown back all the way. I spent the better half of ten hours like that today, and it was so tiring.

Brad, on the other hand, also worked on the ceiling, but actually installed the cast iron hardware peices that are bolted between the I-Beams and the ceiling grids. They're very heavy, as you can tell, being cast iron (actually I only assume they're cast iron because they're so incredibly heavy). He worked with Alfredo, whom he called Fettucini during break and lunch. I got a kick out of that one. He told me that he got to hear Alfredo swear twice, despite his resolution to not swear around us. It's kinda nice that everyone's trying to hold their tongues for our sakes, even though we haven't even asked them. Anyway, Alfredo dropped his marker and Brad was like "Oh, here it comes." Alfredo let out a curt, "Mother ******!" That amused Brad, who couldn't help from laughing after he returned the marker, and had a chance to hide his face. "It's a good thing you guys are here, cause if it weren't for you, I'd already have cussed out Fernando," Alfredo said to Brad at one point during the day. We're glad because Fernando is a great guy, but he's just a little mentally challenged. He's always eager to help, even if it means his hard hat slipping backwards off his head. You can usually find him hunched over, with his arms slung behind his back, trying to balance the hard hat on his back, while simultaneously trying to get a firm grasp on it to return it to his head. Most of us will turn and chuckle for a second, before helping him out. He's just a funny guy.

I saw Skye and Quinn working at the pass-thru occasionally, while searching for Lawrence, who spent most of the first half of the day outside the clean room. At one point, though, he came in to tell me to rewrite the Pre-Task Plan because Jaime, who'd written it, had scrawled it such that it was illegible. I'm not quite sure Jaime is quite literate by normal human standards. He's a great guy...in fact, everyone at Brycon is exceptionally nice and willing to look out for you, but Jaime probably shouldn't be put in charge of such tasks as writing something...that's all.

The safety meeting made us all more tired than we were before, and the first break wasn't long enough. We were discussing the weather for the 24th of July celebration, which Skye claimed to be rainy...something that didn't raise our spirits. But then again, they were already down, due to the fact that we don't have work off on Monday or Tuesday for that.

The lunch break seemed to come quickly for me...but we did like, nothing. Jaime and I were so vastly incompetent when it came to caulking upside down and fastening the wiz nuts to the grids, that it was sad. We got like, 20 minutes worth of work done in a few hours. Daniel got fed up with our stupidity at the end of the second shift and came up to clean our equipment and prep us for the third shift.

During lunch we talked about, among other things, how sick I felt. Skye suggested going home, but I didn't feel like doing anything...not even moving to get up, to get home. Quinn said he was tired and was going to take a nap. "I'm going to take a nap in a box, and I'll have Skye put the lid on the box, so when Steve walks up, then all he'll see is a box," he said. We all had a good laugh about that, but something about that plan made me wish it were even possible to do. I'm thinking of campaigning for a nap-time between 2:00 and 2:30pm--everyone would love me.

The last shift went buy pretty quickly, especially the second half. Daniel showed us his amazing secrets, and although I felt completely incompetent and like a full-blown oaf as he explained it, it was okay, cause I was when it came to caulking the ceiling, etc. Once he took us through the routine a few times, we flew. We got 5 times the work done that we had before, during the second 3-hour shift. It felt nice to do something productive, and although I occasionally found myself about to tip over due to exhaustion or nausea, I managed to stick it out the whole time. Before we knew it, Daniel was at the bottom of our scaffold, telling us to hurry cause it was 4:14.

I was excited to end the day, and get home. It was long, and for some reason I was miserable all day. I still fell that way even...it's really annoying. Hopefully Brad will keep me company tomorrow, but the outlook isn't bright.


Quote of the Day:

"The Native-Americans said that it would rain on Monday, during the 24th of July, and they're never wrong."
-Skye

Day 16: The Lonesome Twosome

Skye and Brady went to work on Saturday all by themselves. As Skye describes it, they're more laid back and nobody cares if anything gets done. They're basically aware, since Saturday's are optional, that you're there because you want to be, and are less strict.

I'm jealous of not having to work hard one day, but then again, not working at all is nice too! I'm sure Skye and Brady just worked pass-thru; Brady on the outside and Skye on the inside. Just like always.

Day 15: The Last Men Standing

Quinn and Griffin went to Melissa Christiansen's cabin today...random. So they were gone. Brad's still in Flaming Gorge, so he was gone. And Jeff randomely never showed up. The word was that his Heritage Tour friends out in the boonies wanted to play with him. Instead of waiting until work was over and going up tonight, he just decided to take the day off...without letting us know--or so we think. We never actually got a hold of him, so we still don't know where he is or was.

So it was Brady, Skye and me at work today. I got to spend the whole first shift until the 9am break by myself, trying to install hardware on the grids. With Brad we can usually get a whole grid (three sets of hardware on each grid) done in about 3 or 4 minutes. We fly down the row and get them done incredibly fast when we work together. It's really hard to do with only one person and required both hands and usually at least one knee, or sometimes two, depending on your level of retardedness. I was really close to using two today. Assembling the hardware is a lengthy process (if you do enough to cover a whole day's work), and it's usually split up into 4 or 5 different times, in between installation and other projects. This morning, working by myself, I only got 6 hardware peices installed on grids (making up only two whole grids) and then assembled an additional 8 corner hardware peices. That took me from about 7am to 9am. Embarassing is the word that comes to mind.

Skye told me to "quit my biotching"--"biotch" being the term Brady suggested, after Skye used the word "witching" and the both of us were like "what the heck are you talking about?!"--cause I wouldn't stop complaining about how tired I was and how I kept dozing off in the middle of working, and how I've been doing a crappy job on a two-person task all by myself. I deserved it, but I was miserable. Skye, on the other hand, had been flexing his spanish skills for Josefina, who moved here from Mexico and only speaks spanish. He explained that she was about to pass something through into the clean room, and he wanted to check it or something and said quite determinedly, "¡Espera!" Josefina looked shocked and began to blurt out spanish, under the impression that Skye actually spoke and had been holding out on her forever. Skye quickly corrected her with a look like "no, that's the only word I know besides 'hola', and 'adios.'"

Brady was raving about his dominant job outside the clean room, supplying the workers inside with materials to clean and distribute for constructing the different areas. He bragged about how he was able to keep five workers busy cleaning the supplies he brought them. Huzzah for Brady.

But seriously folks, my job is getting to be mind-numbing and I am dying for Brad to come back! I hope monday comes soon, but not too soon, cause I want to enjoy my weekend.

Nearing the end of the second shift, and all throughout the third shift after lunch, Daniel Ellis kept me company. A return missionary who served in Mexico, he can speak spanish very well and we conversed about it, and the ideas behind becoming fluent, for a while. The two of us spent the time assembling hardware, installing hardware and helping Lawrence with hoisting the grids and spotting the grid fitters while they attached them to the ceiling. One of the most amusing things about working with the ceiling crew is my close proximity with Ron. He's one of the coolest guys I know. Most of the entertainment comes from his happy-go-lucky attitude and funny disposition. For example, I'll be working on installing some hardware components on a grid and he'll walk up behind me and start saying "Richard.......Richard.......Richard" in a high voice. I dunno why he really does this, but I think it's hilarious. He's great at making my day run smoother.

Skye left after lunch to go to the Rocky Mountain Review. Some basketball Jazz thing. I dunno what it is really, and I don't really care to know much. I just know that he left us, and by the end of the day, Brady and I were the only two to actually make it through the day. We gave each other stones for that.

At one point during the day, Daniel was trying to explain to Arturo and Luis that the particular grid that we were about to raise would buckle and twist because of the gap it had to fit around a support pillar. He was arguing with them in spanish, trying to get them to see exactly what he meant, and they were taking two separate stances and arguments to further their ideas. I concentrated really hard on understanding what they were arguing about and I must have looked pretty dumb, because suddenly, in the middle of the conversation, Luis smiled and looked at me. He basically said something referencing the blank look on my face, they all turned, and started to laugh together. I hadn't really followed the sudden turn in attention and thought I was expected to say something about the grid, but missed it cause it was in spanish. Dang! I was so close to taking the Steven Shelley approach and just shrugging my shoulders with a large cheesy grin, and saying "¡AMIGO!" I didn't, and finally talked to Daniel afterward to figure out exactly what was so funny.

Despite it being the longest shift, I enjoy the post-lunch working time because I'm finally awake and can work the best. We also get the most work done after lunch for some reason, and I always have something to do, which helps the time go by faster. This morning I kept falling asleep, with no one to talk to or anything, and I was going crazy by the beginning of the second shift, but luckily Daniel came to the rescue.

Although there was like, nobody at work today, we still managed to have a good time, and the best part was that I got another paycheck. Woo hoo!


Quote of the Day:

"My bladder is about to, like, explode! And at my age, that's not a very good thing."
-Lawrence