Day 4: Brad Joins the Crew, and Grant Realizes His Mistake

Today was, at best, enlightening. Not in the academic and fully-uplifting manner I have come to associate the word with during our frequent intellectual discussions in AP Literature this year, but enlightening in the sense that I now understand the meaning of "an honest day's work."

I knew it'd be hard...I just didn't know it'd be that long. Ten hours, yeah, I knew it was ten hours; but I assumed that if I was busy doing stuff, the time in-between breaks would pass seemingly quickly. Nope. And it didn't help that I had periodic bouts of complete bodily shutdowns, where my mind wandered and seemed to leave my body altogether--then I'd be awakened by someone saying, "Hey, Rich, would you lift that please?" sounding kinda annoyed that it had taken three times asking to get me to respond. I only hope that I'll be able to eat a better breakfast and possibly get some caffeine into my body's circulatory system earlier.

I couldn't help wishing I was in Brad's shoes, no matter how bored and tired I knew he was. Although an hour early to Orientation, he was able to sit in a chair until like 10:30am, and then tour the facility and eat lunch all before 12:30pm, when he met up with us at our second daily "Stretch & Flex." He got an easy, though mind-numbing, morning, while I stood (because Steve doesn't like us to sit, even for the shortest time) and carried giant pieces of plywood and large steel grates to cover big holes in the ground, until lunch.

Lunch was good, but the fact that my lunchbox was a complete joke compared to everyone else's lunchboxes, which were like cooler's and stuff that could hold like three of my-sized meals. So I went and bought a bigger one today at Wal-mart, so I wouldn't fell emasculated anymore...at least in that sense.

Basically, after lunch, Brad and I headed over to Protocal Training, so we could work in the clean room that we're constructing. We'll just be wiping stuff down, you know, keeping stuff clean for the clean room...to be more clean. That was boring and I kept dozing off...so did Brad. So now we're "certified" to work in the clean room, though I don't really remember anything from the presentation. Eh, you learn more stuff onsite than in a classroom anyway.

After that, we headed over and spent a while wiping stuff down for the clean room, outside the clean room, cause the lady who certified us didn't have the authorization stickers, so we weren't really officially allowed, and we still aren't yet. After that, we went and caulked for like fifty years...or maybe just like, an hour and a half, but it was so dang long. We caulked those fallback grates that we had previously installed that morning.

Once we were finally done, and had cleaned up, we headed home and after Brad and I showered, we met at Panda Express to talk and eat a hearty dinner. Oh man...bliss. I was so full. Brad was exhausted, and I was like, "You're exhausted??? You sat in a chair for like 6 hours!" And then he said, "Well, I was in sleep mode those 6 hours, and then I had to try to wake up and it didn't work...and that caulking was crazy." So I took his word for it.

Hmm....I'm definitely ready for bed. Yep. Until tomorrow.


Quote of the Day:

Brady: "Grant, you're a Dick."

::Grant hangs up on Brady without saying goodbye::

Brad: "Woah there..."
Brady: "His first name's Richard...so he's Dick."
Brad: "Oh yeah."