Snapchat lesson

I don't remember what all happened at work yesterday but I remember at one point, one of the quality guys came down and had asked me how to calibrate his coating thickness meter. We talked a bit and apparently I'm the only one there that knows how and I don't even use them with my work. I used them years ago. He wanted me to sit down with him and go through step by step by step on how to calibrate and use it. I thought for a second and suggested that I just type it up and email it to him. He went for it so while I was waiting for a load to come out so I could make the add, I grabbed a laptop, went out and typed it out within about 10 minutes and sent it away. Much easier that way.

Apparently I didn't spell check.

I didn't post yesterday because after work (and a small nap) my stepfather came over to finish working on Cheri's car. He finally got the last spark plug out by taking the car for a short drive so it would heat the engine and expand the metal around it. Great idea and it worked. He pulled in, shut it off and tried it again and it came right off. After he pulled it out, he started looking at it just to see if he could see what the issue was and he found one. They were the wrong spark plugs. The last time they were replaced we had to take them into a local garage because the spark plug basically blew up and the surrounding area of the spark plug had to be rebuilt a bit so you could screw a new one in. The ones he took out were probably between a 1/4 and a 1/2 inch longer so I'm amazed they didn't cause any more damage than what they did.

By the time he left, it was after 8 so I wasn't online long and when I was, I was doing other daily stuff.

I got up this morning to some 50 degree weather. It was nice that it was that warm but it was drizzling so it wasn't nice nice. It was supposed to be close to 60 today so I was hoping most if not all the snow would be gone by the time I got off work.

It was a pretty tame day at work. I did all the my usual, daily stuff and when it came to making my adds, all the tanks were up to where I didn't need to add so I had to find things to do. Which isn't usually to much of a problem. I switched over my Caustic and Nitric barrels because they were both empty. I also took some time to place a couple of orders for more chemicals so I managed my time alright.

Came home on this rainy afternoon with a cop following me for awhile. The bad part was that I was doing 50 in a 35 before I noticed he was on my tail. He ended up in the other lane so he wasn't trying to get me. I actually ended up passing him later, he was doing speed limit so I passed him going 5 over.

My daughter text me about wanting to go to the high school basketball game tonight and needing cash, which I hardly ever have. Here's our conversation.

That's Father of the Year material right there.

I ended up having cash so I was just harassing her but it was fun. What I really like is that she calls her biological mom by her first name. Bahaha.

When she got home I educated her on Snapchat. She uses it all the time, we even have a streak (if you know what that is) together. Basically, I took the below photo and screencapped it. Only I did it without it showing up that I screencapped it. She was shocked. I had the photo on my phone and on her account, it didn't even show that I looked at it. I did this to prove a point that just because it tells you when your stuff gets screencapped doesn't mean there aren't ways around it so be careful what you put out there.

Didn't do much else, just chilled and watched stuff off the DVR for the evening. Tomorrow is Friday and I'm not working this weekend so I'm looking forward to getting it over with so I can start it.

Job descriptions

They got ice cream in the break room now.

I was heading to work this morning, thinking, the roads should be good, they're pretty clear. Even though I knew they were saying we should have gotten freezing rain the night before. Everything was fine, then I was coming up to the stop light where I absolutely have to make my decision on taking main roads or back roads and the light turns red. I'm in the far right lane, there are 2 lanes and a left turn lane. I go to stop at the red light and my car starts sliding. Now the road I'm on is about as main as it gets, and I was sliding. I turned my left signal on and went all the way over to the turn lane. Better late than never, I guess.

I get to work and the first thing I do is check my pumps. I notice both are going. I only told the boss to turn the Caustic pump on since I wasn't there yesterday. He turned on the Nitric one as well which wouldn't have been a huge deal except the pump doesn't work right and by doesn't work right, I mean, you can't control how fast it pumps. It pumps faster than it should and since it ran all night, it completely drained the 55 gallon drum into the tank. Oops. So now that tank is a little high on chemicals. Oops.

Osceola is a small local town here

I start my other duties and then the girl from quality shows up. She was with me some on last Thursday. They got her making up a complete list of all my duties and by complete list, I mean that she has to write down, step by step, with photos, everything I do. Some kind of intense job description. They've had to do this is with everybody's job and since mine was just created in September of last year, it has never been done.

From another guys snaps.

It's highly annoying to explain every little thing I do, stop so she can take pictures, and keep explaining. Not to mention, there is a ton of stuff that I don't necessarily do every day that I don't think about until it needs to be done. I'm hoping she's done tomorrow, she said she only has one more thing that she has to get.

That's actually a guy at work, who has Snapchat.

Not much happened the rest of the day, pretty chill, was a little slow. I made great time on the way home because I take Cr. 40 home and after 2 years of being closed, Cr. 38 is now open and everybody takes that road now which opens my road up to way less traffic.

It was actually foggy coming into town which is odd for the afternoon. It looked really foggy but as you got into it, it wasn't all that bad.

Got home, took a shower and headed out to pick up Samantha from art club. Came home for another hour or so then took the kids to therapy. While they were there, I grabbed Cheri and I supper, went home, ate, and went back to pick them up. I've been spending way to much time driving lately.

That's all I got for today. Nothing special but I did have a high snap day so I wanted to get a post out. Nothing else going on this week other than work so it may be a boring week here.

Court day

Woke up this morning and headed to court. It was pretty much the same thing since she got arrested almost a year ago. She has to pay no child support until she gets an answer from her disability claim. So basically same old shit. Another wasted vacation day. The judge says he can't make her pay if she has no income. Considering she has taken vacations, takes the kids to movies every weekend they are there, has taken small trips with the kids and stayed in hotels while there but she has no money. As of right now, I'm done going to the courtroom. The judge doesn't listen to anything I say anyways. It was continued into May sometime.

After court, we grabbed some breakfast, a bag of ice and headed home and have been chilling most of the day. We binged "the End of the F***ing World", it was only 8 1/2 hour episodes so we got through it quick. It wasn't great but it wasn't bad. It wasted some time since we've been staying caught up on the DVR lately. Then I started "Travelers" 2nd season. Took me about half an episode before I could remember what exactly the show was about. We're just now finishing up episode 6, we might be done for the night though, Cheri is looking awfully sleepy over there.

I didn't take and snaps today so sorry, no pictures. I go back to work tomorrow so we'll see what happens as far as pictures and as far as a post tomorrow.

Make up day

I know, I know. I was doing so well and them poof, I disappeared. Life got in the way or should I say, I didn't get around to it. I actually thought I wasn't going to do one today either since I ended up being away from home and when I was here for awhile, I was in the garage. Let's get started with Friday though.

I don't remember much at work, I don't usually a few days later which is one of the reasons I try to post on that day. Most of my life is spent at work, without it, I don't have much to say. I know I did take the shorter, more busier route because of the weather again but took the back roads home again. It didn't really feel much like a Friday. I think that was more because we didn't work Monday or Wednesday and we already knew we were working Saturday. It was so boring on Saturday that I didn't even post any snaps. Lucky for you.

After work, I got home, showered and grabbed my youngest son then headed to the therapist to pick up my youngest daughter. We went from there to her friends house to pick her up and then off to Milford to give them to their mother. Samantha actually went but I think that was mainly because the JackAss wasn't there and she took a friend. To be honest, I'm not sure she would have gone without her friend going. I met her and then filled up the gas tank and picked up some Long John Silvers to take home for supper.

Odd thing about Friday was that Google Timeline didn't record anywhere I went, didn't even show me at home just said they couldn't find anything.

Saturday I took the shorter (busier) route again just to be safe. We didn't get much snow Friday afternoon so I wasn't expecting bad roads to be horrible but it was really cold again, plus I figured it's Saturday at 5 am, traffic wouldn't be bad anyways and it wasn't.

The parking lot was pretty bare as there were only a few departments working. I stayed pretty busy, since I wasn't going to be there on Monday so I had to make sure all the tanks would, chemically, last until then. So I added to a bunch of them to make sure they were on the high side so with a day of running without my monitoring, that they would last. It makes me sound a lot more important than I am but nobody else does the testing so if there is a problem, there's nobody there to diagnose it so I bump up the chemicals to make sure there isn't one.

Two of those guys up there took snaps of me and posted them on their accounts so I had to pay them back. I can't show either of those because one was a video and I don't think I can record another video, the other had a word on it that I never use so I'm not posting it.

After work, I went home via back roads again and once I was home, pretty much did nothing. Except take a couple of snaps of our oldest daughter's dog who was staying with us.

Those were on our bed before I hopped in the shower. Cheri was in the bedroom doing her hair when I got home so I hung with her before going in. Didn't really do anything but catch up on the DVR that night.

Today, I got up and had some cereal, which is a rarity because I don't really eat breakfast when I'm home. Our oldest called and wanted us to meet her halfway to Indy so she could get her dog back. We hopped in the wife's car had headed out. We were meeting her about an hour and fifteen minutes away just before Grissom Air Force base. We only got about half way there when all of the sudden the car went nuts. It was like it got kicked into neutral while we were driving then went back into gear. We hit the next exit, which luckily was right after this happened and stopped at a gas station and called my stepdad. After talking with him, we started to drive back home only took an older road instead of the highway so if something happened, something would be around.

We got up to the next town and talked to our daughter, told her what happened and she said she'd go home and get the dog later. So we keep driving. She calls again and asks if we'll stop and she'll meet us there so we do. We tell her where were at and her GPS says we were an hour away. She tells us never mind, she's not driving that far so we head back out. Next thing I know she's texting and saying she's coming to get him at the house so we keep going. Next she texts us and asks us to meet just off the bypass. We were already past that point so no. Then she wants us to go home and get in the other car and meet her there. Um, no. She was annoyed, I was annoyed. I was not looking forward to her showing up at the house because I knew I wasn't going to keep my mouth shut when she started running hers. I was basically going to tell her if she would have made up her mind at the first stop she could have saved 2 hours on her trip but when she showed up, she was fine and didn't really say anything. I was out in the garage with my stepdad looking at the car anyways so I didn't see her but for a couple of minutes. She gets upset pretty easily but she's also very good at forgive and forget and just moves on.

They always make fun of my car because it's old but you don't see it with it's hood up. We (he) diagnosed it with bad spark plugs. We went and bought more but he was fighting a couple of them. He got 2 replaced and 3 out. Still fighting to get 1 of them out and also get 1 of them back in. A few years ago that part had to be rebuilt so it goes in at an odd angle. I kept telling him that the car wasn't going anywhere for awhile so he could come back sometime during the week and finish and he finally took me up on the offer.

About 5, which is when my stepdad gave up, I headed out to pick up the kids. Pretty uneventful trip, kids seemed to be in a good mood which is always a plus. She hadn't fed them yet, big surprise, so we grabbed some Little Ceaser's and headed home. Trevor went to bed an hour earlier like he usually does when he comes home from her house because he stays up way to late and then ends up being tired for school on Monday.

You got this post because I decided to post here before I did other things that I try to do everyday so now I'm behind on that stuff. So was this post long enough to make up for the lack there of the last few days? You should get a post tomorrow as I have the day off because theEx is dragging me back to court because she's trying to lower her child support. That's first thing in the morning and being as my wife hates riding in my car, I'm pretty sure we'll be going to court and back.

Lots of Snow

6 posts in 4 days, including 4 days in a row, I must be dreaming. You could say I'm kicking ass in the resolution this year, even though it wasn't really a resolution.

When I left this morning, I pulled out onto the main road off our neighborhood and went to accelerate and my tires just spun because it was pure ice. So right then and there, I decided that I was going to take the main roads all the way to work. Normally I take back roads but for the first time, I deemed the roads unsafe and drove through town. The roads were much better that way and I realized it only took me about 5 minutes longer than usual so that worked out.

Pretty boring day, had all kinds of problems with the line running again but I had stuff to do with the tanks so I was good. Plus I got to kill some time eating a donut and filling out an anonymous survey about the company.

I've decided that I just must be getting old because all the people I work with have a good time, joking around and such but I just don't think a lot of what they say is all that funny. I'm all for cutting up and goofing off but it just isn't my kind of humor. Don't get me wrong, I like everyone I work with and get along with them. I just find myself standing with the group with a big smile like I'm laughing but I'm not. It's really bad in the morning meeting but I think a lot of that is I'm just not awake yet. I work with a bunch of mid 20's employees but they are actually the ones I get along with for the most part.

They posted that we were working Saturday because of all the issues with the lines. No biggy, I have a vacation day for Monday already so I still get a 2 day weekend. I have to go back to court so the judge can continue to tell me that theEx doesn't have to pay support.

I got off, headed home (took the back roads) and picked up Samantha to run her to a friends house then back home for my shower. Just as I was getting out of the shower, my phone rings and it's my mom asking me to run to my grandma's house and measure her doorstep for a ramp because she'll be going home in a wheelchair, hopefully tomorrow. We got all that figured out and my uncle just happened to show up which worked out because he had a garage door opener and I was able to get her shovel out and do her sidewalk and driveway before I left. Now when I was out shoveling, it wasn't snowing and it was decent, except for being very cold.

I leave and start heading home, I get just up the road and all of the sudden, the snow is just coming down with big flakes (lake effect).

I posted that and once I turned off the North/South rode, it just stopped. Usually lake effect isn't that patchy, it tends to lighten up the further you get away from Lake Michigan but not patchy. It was just weird.

I got home and proceeded with our usual ritual of chilling in our recliners. Nothing exciting. As I was researching my driving for this post, I found out the main roads are actually about 5 miles shorter which would explain why it didn't take me much longer even though it's much slower and a lot more traffic. We'll see how bad the roads are tomorrow. It's still supposed to snow through tomorrow night, possibly 4-8 more inches but we all know how accurate the weather can be.

Work Free Wednesday

That pic was actually from yesterday, but I took it after I posted it.

Started off my morning at 4:45 this morning, got up and went to take a leak first. I noticed my phone flashing a message which is rare to wake up to so I looked at it and it was my boss saying that the line was still down so don't bother coming in until 10. Alrighty then, I set an alarm for 8:45 and crawled back in bed but just by getting up and going to the bathroom, I was awake a bit so I just laid there for an hour or so. I kept debating on whether I should just get up but I finally fell asleep. I thought my alarm woke me up but when I went to shut it off, it was actually a phone call from my boss. He started asking about the samples I send out and I told him I can take care of them when I get there. He said, did you not get my text? Apparently, he had text me and said not to come in because it wasn't going to be ready to go. So I answered his questions, hung up and laid there and watched my wife get up since my phone call woke her up. Oh, and I snuggled with Milo.

He looks thrilled. We got up and watched a few shows. I'm pretty sure Cheri was waiting for one of the kids to get up since she doesn't like to leave the dog alone but she won't admit to that.

We got up and got dressed to head over to the store to pick up a few things, mainly dog food because we gave him the last of his this morning. By then it was about lunch time so I had her hit the drive-thru at Arbys. Well, we tried to hit the drive thru but apparently a van broke down right in front of the speaker. So I had her run to Burger King instead.

We got home, unloaded the car and continued to sit around and get caught up on the DVR. We weren't to far behind since there hasn't been a lot on but we had a few shows.

It started snowing again. It's supposed to snow through Friday. Lake effect which means big fluffy flakes. Not looking forward to my drive to work tomorrow because with the new snow and the really low temperatures and the fact that I'm on the roads at 5 am, I'm expecting some ice.

My grandmother had a 2nd hip surgery today so my mom had contacted me about bringing over the wheelchair for her to use so Sam and I drove it over and stole a couple pops from the fridge. It's tradition, mom. That was about it for the day, nothing terribly exciting and it's almost 9 now so I'm not going to do much else. I'm hoping with the extra sleep I got this morning, that I still can go to sleep at a decent time tonight. We'll see.

As per the usual, all the photos (and hopefully the videos show up) are from my Snapchat and I also post to my Instagram and Facebook stories as well.

   

     jccsst1022                                        jlaws13          

2017 Stats

Well, it's the beginning of the year so it's time to look back at 2017. If your new here, I keep track of a few things and some websites keep track as well. Let get to it.

If you've been around, you know I keep track of where I eat. While the top 2 places haven't changed, some of the other's have. First off, the bottom of the list.

• 1 time - Applebees, Bob Evans, Cappy's, Cracker Barrel, Fuji Japanese, the Golden Egg, Happy Cooker, Mancino's, Nelson's, Puerta Vallerta, Qdoba, Red Lobster, Sonic, Steak N Shake, Subway, TGI Friday's

You'll notice a lot of those places are sit down restaurants, the wife and I don't do those very often. We much prefer to eat at home so if we're out and we eat, we hit a drive-thru and take it home. My brother and I hit Applebees on the way home from Michigan games and I went to 1 this year. Bob Evans, Fuji Japanese and Puerta Vallerta we ate at when we were out of town. Nelson's I have at a local festival every year. Red Lobster we only do when they have their unlimited shrimp and my mom took me to TGI Friday's.

• 2 times - 7-eleven, Buffalo Wild Wings, Fazoli's, Hacienda, Martin's Deli, Penguin Point, Rise 'n Roll, Wings ect.

Yes, 7-eleven is a gas station but their hot dogs are extremely good. Martin's Deli is the deli at the local grocery store but they have the best fried chicken, ever. Rise 'n Roll is an Amish donut shop, we call the donuts Amish crack.

• 3 times - Chik-Fil-A, Rally's, Smith's Food Mart

We love Chik-Fil-A and Rally's but neither are "right around the corner" and there are only 1 or 2 around so if we're not nearby, we don't get it. Smith's Food Mart is another gas station but I love their pizza puff's.

• 4 times - 5-guys, Dairy Queen, Dunkin Donuts, Flippin' Cow, Pizza Hut

Love 5-guys but the only one is at the mall and the traffic there sucks. Dunkin Donuts are all from people bringing it in at work. Love the Flippin' Cow to but it's not cheap, the best burger's around. Pizza Hut is our go to delivery pizza place when we're to broke to afford the good stuff.

• 5 times - Little Ceasers, Long John Silvers

Little Ceaser's is our go to cheap pizza if we're out and heading home. We like Long John Silver's but it's not cheap so we generally only go there when it's the wife and I.

• 7 times - Arby's

It's right on the corner next to Walgreens and Martin's supermarket so we tend to hit it after those places.

• 9 times - Burger King

This is my go to fast food burger place. I like the rodeo king. Had one today as a matter of fact. Burger King was in the top 5 for 3 of the 5 years I've done this.

Now to the top 10. Oddly enough, I think every year I've done this (since 2013) my top 5 were also the only ones in double digits. I checked, in 2014 I had 6 in double digits but it's still odd.

5th place

• 10 times - Wendy's

This is also a go to fast food for burgers but again, it's not as close as others. The reason it's higher is because I was able to get there and back from work in half an hour. It's the first time it was in the top 5 and it will probably drop back down next year because I no longer work at that plant.

4th place

• 17 times - Bruno's

Bruno's wasn't even in the top 10 the first few years but since we've moved into our house, it has been our go to pizza place that delivers to the house. It's a little more expensive, but it's worth it. We've lived here 2 years and it's been in the top 5 ever since.

3rd place

• 19 times - Jimmy John's

What's funny with Jimmy John's is we had never eaten there until 2015, then we had it twice, because our daughter worked there. Then didn't eat there at all in 2016. What happened in 2017? They opened up one closer to us. They don't deliver to us because we are just out of range but we do love it.

2nd place

• 28 times - Taco Bell

We do love the bell, this is the 5th year out of the 5 years I've been doing this that they have been in 2nd place. This is our favorite fast food place, it's where we go when we don't know what we want. Oddly enough, it loses out every year to one of my least favorite fast food places.

1st place

• 32 times - McDonald's

The only time I go to McDonald's is for breakfast or when they have the McRib. Other than those occasions, I'm not a fan of theirs. They always end up on top though. It's been the top place the last 5 years. The last couple of months, I haven't had it very often and Taco Bell slowly crept up so I'm guessing McDonald's will lose their top spot next year.

As you should know, since there is a link to the right, that I use Goodreads to keep track of the books I'm reading. I take the challenge every year to read an x number amount of books. I didn't meet my goal this year but that's partly because I switched positions at work and have less break time then I used to and I only read on my breaks.

I had pledged to read 50 books which was 5 more than the previous year but like I said, I switched jobs and have less break time, therefore, less reading time. I can't decide what I want to make my challenge this year.

There's the 31 books I read last year and here is the chart comparing to previous years.

I started using Goodreads full time in 2012 but not at the beginning of the year so that is an inaccurate number.

In previous years, DVD's were listed here but last year, I didn't watch any all year. With streaming being more of an option now a days, we just don't rent them. Not to mention, we don't even have a player hooked up to our TV anymore.

I watched 6 movies in the Theaters this year. 6 movies is the most in all the years I've kept track of this (4 years). 6, and I never got around to seeing Justice League, Thor or the new Star Wars which I would have paid to see.

I watched 11 movies on TV. By on TV, I mean either it was broadcasted or on Xfinity On Demand.

I watched 22 movies by streaming. Those would be through Netflix or online.

Sports watched. Either on TV or live.

• Football (14 games) - If I had to guess, I'd say 13 games were Michigan games and the Super Bowl. I don't watch any pro anymore except the Super Bowl and to be honest, I watch it from the commercials.
• Basketball (32 games) - Most of these are Michigan games as well but it's split between the woman's and the men's team as I watch both when they are on TV.
• Baseball (56 games) - Most of these are White Sox games. Probably the all-star game as well and possibly a couple of Michigan games as they don't broadcast them very often.

Sports participated in.

• Softball (2 games) - I got 2 games in before I had to retire because I'm to fat and old.

You know I keep my step stats because of the walking posts on here.

I walked a total of 2,512,306 steps which equals out to 1,178.8 miles. I had 59 days where I walked over 10,000 steps and 1 day where I walked over 15,000 steps.

I drove a total of 8.634.9 miles this year. Those are all miles I logged behind the wheel of any car. Mine, my wife's, my mom's and my brothers. I can't think of any other's that I drove but there may be some. To bad I couldn't keep track of forklift mileage, I would have had a bunch there as well.

I kept track of my beverage consumption this past year as well. I honestly thought there would be a lot more listed but apparently I don't vary to often.

• Mellow Yellow (1) - My daughter slips this past me thinking it was a Mountain Dew.
• Iced Tea (2) - I believe I was given 2 cans of tea at work one day, that's where they came from.
• Root Beer (4) - Most of this was from the drive-in. We got a bunch of it for our daughter's graduation party.
• Sweet Tea (36) - Most if not all of this is from McDonald's.
• Gatorade/Powerade (99) - I tend to drink one of these after work on hot days and occasionally when I'm thirsty but not in the mood for water.
• Coca-Cola (159) - I get this at most restaurants because nobody carries Pepsi. I also keep cans in the house and a lot of times, have one with my supper.
• Orange Juice (226) - I like a cup of OJ in the morning but I generally only drink it on work days.
• Mountain Dew (293) - This is my favorite soft drink but I try to limit how much since I used to drink way to much of it.
• Water (339) - I try to only drink water at home and work but I'm not a fan of drinking water with food, which is when I drink pop. I should drink a lot more than I do.

That's all I got for you this year. I've only added one thing else that I'm keeping track of next year but technically, it's for another blog.