Back at work...

Yesterday was basically my "day off" I got home around 8.15am, ate breakfast, showered and went to sleep. I got up around 3.30pm, drank a Full Throttle and the preceded to mow the lawn. It was hot and I also had to rake the grass off our hill.

I have been in a very reflective mood over the past few days and thinking about old long gone friends that I used to have. I have moved around a lot and made friends around the country. Through the years, I have lost several long time friends.

One friend that I lost I met in High School when I was in 11th grade. He had some issues and left dropped out from his other school He came to our school from another one. As it turned out, we had many things of interest, mainly music and partying and had some common friends. As the years followed, he moved to College Station (A&M) and I went to Nacogdoches (SFA) for college. We stayed in touch and got together when we could on Christmas and Thanksgiving breaks and during the summers.

I moved back home and attended Lamar Institute of Technology and he moved to Galveston to attend UTMB. He got his PHD in Genetic Chemistry and I got a Tech degree for LIT. During this time we both got heavily into drugs and did so for many years going to Houston and visiting a friend and all forms a debauchery ensued for many years. A long a bout 2001, while he was living on the East Coast, I was in Austin, I got clean and sober which was a good thing! He and I continued to talk and chat, share music and stuff like that via the internet. As fate would have it, we ended up living on the East Coast as well and visited a few times. He had become a research scientist for a government agencies and became all mature...

He tried to enforce his morals on me and we had several arguments and did not speak for some time (we are not speaking at the present and have not for over 6 months) He wools call out of the blue, drunk or so it seamed, and want to send me gifts, Very strange behavior. And then want to act like my Dad and enforce his morals again. His behavior became very eradiate and strange while my life had become very "normal" with being married and hopping about the country with my fire and daughter. It appears that all we really ever had in common was drugs and that when that was taken away; there was really no fiber as it were to sustain a friendship. With his erratic behavior we are no longer on speaking terms. He, several months ago, wanted me to come up and visit him and go to his girlfriend’s house. I was very uncomfortable with this idea and did not.

To this day, I do not know how or where he is and I guess that is for the best. Some chapters in your life need to be closed and kept closed. This is one in my life. I now have other friends that I do much more meaningful things with like ride mountain bikes and go to movies with. Life is nice here in Midlothian if only for a fleeting moment...

Time will tell.



What is your opinion?

Work Stuff...

Well, it seams like the whole world is going crazy! People are leaving the job I work like rats on a sinking ship. I work on Nights 2 shift. Nights 1 shift, my old shift, is down to 1 tech, so I and my work partner have to rotate in and out of that shift to keep the coverage where it needs to be. So basically, I get 1 day off this week and that is tomorrow. I have worked since Sunday night and I will come back in on Thursday night and go till Sunday night.

I work a compressed work week and 12.5 hr shifts. My schedule is normally like this. 2 on 3 off. 3 on 2 off. But with shift coverage like it is, I am working more like 3 on 1 off 4 on 1 off. Great money, but it sucks because I like to have a life also.

The only thing that will make it all worthwhile is the fact that next week, I interview for Qimonda for a 300mm Automation position. It will be much better benifits and overall package as opposed to the contractor that I am working for now. We are subbed out to Murata via ColonialWebb and their benifits package suck and they offer no support and have offered no support during the last few months. SO it will be a BIG RELIEF if I get a job with Qimonda.

What really burns my ass up is when a company talks about "customer support" and "Integrity" but it is really a line of crap filled with smoke and mirrors to make you feel like they care, but when it really comes down to it, they worry about the bottom dollar and not the person. I have worked for many contractors and a few I have really liked and they meant what they said. But ColonialWebb talk a wonderful game and look good, but they have fallen down on the job where I work...

What is your opinion?

Brown Recluse Spider- a Must read

I am sure that most have seen or read this email, but with the warmer months ahead and people getting out and working in the yard, i thought that this would be a good reminder for everyone, so be careful!

The Dangerous Brown Recluse Spider is native to the United States from the southern Midwest south to the Gulf of Mexico The native range lies roughly south of a line from southeastern Nebraska through southern Iowa, Illinois, and Indiana to southwestern Ohio. In the southern states, it is native from central Texas to western Georgia. They are generally not found west of the Rocky Mountains

It's summertime & cleanup is going on. Be careful where you put your hands. They like dark spaces & woodpiles; and cool attic areas.

This guy was bitten by a Brown Recluse spider.

Day 3
The following illustrates the progression of a brown recluse spider bite.
The affected skin actually dies on his body and is called Necrosis

Day 5
Some of the pictures towards the end are pretty nasty.
This just shows the progression of what the bite can do to a body part.

Day 6
The Brown Recluse Spider is the most dangerous spider that we have here in the USA. The venom actually seals off the capillaries and produces a dry crusty wound.

Day 9
A person can die from it's bite. However, a small number of bites produce severe dermonecrotic lesions, and, sometimes, severe systemic symptoms, including organ damage. Rarely, the bite may also produce a systemic condition with occasional fatalities. Most fatalities are in children under 7 or those with a weaker than normal immune system.

Day 10
As you can see the skin has continued to die from the bite. The damaged tissue will become gangrenous and eventually slough away. The initial bite frequently cannot be felt and there may be no pain, but over time the wound may grow to as large as 10 inches (25 cm) in extreme cases.

We all should know what the spider looks like. People will be digging around, doing yard work, spring cleaning, and sometimes in their attics. Please be careful. Spider bites are dangerous and can have permanent and highly negative consequences. They like the darkness and tend to live in storage sheds or attics or other areas that might not be frequented by people or light. If you have a need to be in your attic, go up there and turn on a light and leave it on for about 30 minutes before you go in to do any work.

What is your opinion?

Memorial Day...

Well, i got off work this morning at 7.15am and hurried home to meet my friend Mark to go and do a quick ride.  We went to Pocahontas Park and did the Red Trial.  It is a good trial as it has many log piles and several sets of Half Pipes to go in and out of. We got there around 8:15ish and we had a tight schedule as he had to be home to get food started for the cook out this afternoon and i had to get home to sleep!   So basically we did 4 miles in about 30 minutes!!  Not bad for a 7.5 minute mile!! 

 

I got home a slept till 3.00pm and went to his house with my wife and daughter and several other friends and we had a good time eating and talking and visiting on the deck. I am glad that it was earlier as we are having some thunder storms this evening.  Good timing for the party.  I am going riding on Wednesday morning with mike and perhaps Jeff. I have to get my exercise in because of all the hours that i am working.  

I hope that all have a good rest of the evening...
--
RMSTringer
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Naturally occurring asbestos ...

Naturally occurring asbestos has been mapped in approximately 11 square miles of Fairfax County, which includes a part of Fairfax City. Asbestos bearing rock is interspersed in the Green Stone Rock Formations that underlie the surface soils in the Orange Soils Group. Surface exposure of these rock formations are not usually seen.

Here is a pic link to show the exposed substance. http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/hd/asb/images/test005.jpg

Large amounts of tremolite asbestos have also been found in Virginia as well as 18 other states, including a large number of eastern states – with a recognizable band of asbestos running from Alabama to Vermont.

Natural deposits of asbestos can cause considerable problems, especially for homeowners who have unknowingly built their domiciles on ground laden with the material. California is thought to be the state which is most affected. EPA officials found natural asbestos deposits in 50 out of 58 California counties. One of the areas in which asbestos is most prevalent is in the county of El Dorado, where homeowners have literally walked away from million dollar homes due to the presence of large amounts of tremolite asbestos found in the soil.

I saw an article about this on Slashdot and i got interested as i live in Virginia. This interested me as we all know that you need to stay away from asbestos becauses it causes Lung Cancer, malignant mesothelioma to be exact. So how can a home builder decided to use land that has natural asbestos in it and sell houses on that land? One post said that they should make a park out of the land where it will never be exposed to the public. Really? A park, I would not want my kid playing in a park that was built over such a spot. Test conducted by the EPA determined that everyday activity, such as gardening or baseball games, kicked up an inordinate amount of asbestos.“Results show that everyday outdoor work and play in these areas create a personal storm of asbestos-tainted dust”

I am glad that i live in Midlothian...

What is your opinion?

Recovery Posts...

It has been a while since I posted about Recovery and the reason is that i just have not felt like doing it.  May 15 was 4 years Clean and sober for me!  It has been a long tiem since i had a drink or drug and u am the better for it. So i have just been very reflective about a lot of things in my life and i have also had  lots of things going on such as job status and work at home.  So, that si the reason that i have not posted about it for a while...

--
RMSTringer
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Part 6 - Step 11 of my Recovery...

11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.

This is a very key step in the action part. We all get so busy in your daily lives that we forget to pray about what is going on and if that is what is needed to be what is going on with us. I guess what I am trying to say is that what we are doing; is that what God wants us to be doing. You can get into the whole preordained life or random life thing here-DONT!

In order for this to work, you have to ask God what he needs/wants us to do. I have a problem doing this like most addicts because I want what I want to go on and not what He wants me to do. I try to take back the control in my life and when I do that it most of the time messes up or backfires on me. This is very hard for me to do, but when I do this, it is amazing! When I get out of self and I help other people like I am supposed to it helps me. That is a simple concept, helping you helps me and that is how God wants it. Trying to stay in conscious contact with God is the hard part. We get so busy in our daily grind that we forget to ask is this what I am supposed to do and is it even what you need me to do?

If we just quiet our little voice that we all have and try to listen to God in a meditative moment, we will get the answer. It might not be what we want to hear and often times it is not, but it is what we are supposed to do if you follow the Step to the exact letter. In the Big Book, it says that "Half Steps availed us nothing" which means that we have to do it all or not. DO not halfass make an attempt because it will not work. I try to pray about big things and ask that His will be done; I need to do this in all situations, but I fall short.

If we pray for His power and knowledge to help us in our lives, we are doing Step 11 to the fullest. Do not think that it can be done all the time and completely from the beginning, Rome was not built in a day and it took time for you to get this way. SO try to do as is requested but don’t be too hard on yourself if you do not get it right and you don’t get the answers that you were looking for. They will come when your will come inline with God's Will...


God Bless and have a good Memorial Day.

What is your opinion?