I'm taking my toys and going home....

I'm moving this blog to Wordpress.

My new address is http://chadhohner.wordpress.com

See you there!!

I don't like saying goodbye...

There comes a time in everyone's life when we must say goodbye to someone we love.

Today, my Grandfather Paul passed away at the age of 88. I know that Grandpa had some health struggles the last couple of years and I'm relieved that he is no longer suffering.

This is what I love the most about Grandpa....he loved to laugh. I think he told the corny jokes all the time just so he could laugh with someone. He was always in the company of friends, whether they were lifelong or newly made.

Operation No Pop

It's 1am, and I'm sitting on my patio enjoying a beer after a night at work.

I've decided that I need to cut back on my soda intake. I drank five, yes 5, sodas at work tonight and it caused my alleged ADD to go berserk. Around 9:30, I couldn't focus on the two machines I was running, so I only really focused on the machine with the longer runtime, and ran the other machine when I was done deburring the parts from the first machine.

I'm going to take the next seven days and not drink any soda. Only water and milk. And beer, since beer is also natural. Hopefully, once the headaches are gone, I'll be more even keel throughout the day in terms of how I feel and energy level. Yes, I'm also giving up energy drinks.

I can tell I'm getting into a groove at work because my fingerprints are almost gone, my hands are calloused and I've got several small cuts on them from handling and deburring parts. I actually don't mind it; between the hardened hands and the sore back, I'm glad to be back working. Holly and I made progress on some debt we had acquired the least two years while I was under employed and it feels great to be making some headway.

Confidence

What you see on the left in the picture below is what happens when you do not properly clamp a casting into the fixture prior to machining.

I woke up crabby on Thursday. No real good reason, other than the 10 hours shifts we'd been pulling at work. I managed to shake some of the crabbiness off when I punched in at 3, but still felt "meh". I had emailed Holly before work about my day, and she emailed back saying that she appreciated how hard I was working.

When I punch it at work I look for one of two people who can tell me what I'm starting the night on: my supervisor Joe or Bill, the 1st shift mill setup man.

Bill had me running one of our newer mills, running the job you see above. In this operation, we mill the flat on the bottom and drill 4 holes. 

I was shown how to load the part and how to deburr it once it was done. About an hour or so in, I loaded a part wrong, just a bit angled and it took more metal off than it was supposed to. Scrap piece #1.

I mentally noted what I had done wrong, determined not to do it again. I *hate* making junk parts.

Another hour goes by, and after I hit the start button and turn to deburr a part, I hear the machine make a sound it shouldn't. I hit the stop button. Part of running a machine is listening to the sounds it makes, and the unholy sound of a part loaded wrong and a tool doing more than it's supposed to let the whole shop now something's wrong. I had loaded the part too high in the fixture, and the mill was trying to remove too much material. What you get is the part on the left in the picture above. Scrap piece #2.

Joe comes to check on me and the tool in the machine and deems all to be fine. He mentions that this happens and not to let it bother me, that it happens to everyone. I shake it and continue.

Another hour passes, and once again, the machine makes the unholy sound, and once again, I hit the stop button. I have now made Scrap piece #3. Now, my confidence in my ability to run this job is broken. It's simply a matter of making sure the part is properly loaded and I haven't been able to do that. Joe comes to check on me once again, and asks if I want to keep going and that if I scrap one more piece, he's going to have to put my on another job. I ask him if he wants to move me and he says it's up to me. I tell him that I want to finish the job. He nods and gently reminds me that I am out of screw ups on this job.

Now, I'm gun shy. I begin obsessing about clamping the part right, and watching the millhead make contact with the part before deburring the last part run. I run the rest of the order without issue, albeit very paranoid.

I head into the lunchroom to get a soda and grab one for Joe as well. I walked up to him to hand him the soda and thank him. He tells me that he can see that I take pride in my work, and that he knew I wanted to do the job well so he gave me the option of sticking with it or bailing out. Everyone has a shift like this, he says.

Both Holly and Joe were a boost to my confidence when I needed it and that made the difference in my night at work.

Thinking things through

So often I want to write, and yet nothing comes out. Consider this post a drain cleaner of sorts, to get things moving.

I'm enjoying my job. Second shift makes things interesting schedule wise; actually, it fills up my calendar Monday through Friday. I've decided to not work Saturdays, unless we are crazy busy and need to get the work out. It was too much to work five nights a week, and then give up 5 hours during the middle of my Saturday as well. Financially, we'll be ok; I made sure to run the numbers several times before I committed to that decision.

I've been able to some people who's face I had been missing lately: my friend John and his wife Jen at dinner Saturday night; the guys in my Men's group at church that meets Saturday mornings; my wife.

I'm finding that I've been something of a nomad for many years. I don't feel particularly connected to almost anyone in my high school class since I moved into town my freshman year. I have a few people I still keep in touch with, but by in large, it's the people I went to grade school and junior high that I feel closer to, and even then, I don't feel terribly close to many of them.

I find it ironic that as much of a social person as I am, I'm horrible at keeping in touch with people I consider friends. It's not really that hard to shoot off a quick email, Facebook message, text, carrier pigeon....whatever. I just don't do it for some reason. I have people I hold dear to my heart and I haven't tried to contact them.

Family's different. I'm generally in touch with my parents and my sister. With my Mom and sister, it's generally text tag or phone calls after a text that says "you busy?" With Dad, it's usually a phone call or text saying "hey, we're staying at your house, ok?" with many hands of Shanghai Rummy played.

I have my Drinking Right friends, but even that was a monthly "hey, how's it going" for most of them.

Do I simply gloss over people and assume friendship, or do I isolate and insulate myself without really intending to?

There was a time in my life, about 10 years ago, when we had a group of young adults at church, in a group call The Gathering. I seem to recall about 20 of us that generally hung out together outside of our Tuesday night meeting. Catching movies, grabbing coffee....just hanging out. I miss that time so much at times it aches.

of Tebow

Had a chance to watch a good chunk of the AFC Wild Card game from Denver. I had a couple of thoughts cross my mind:

1. Tim Tebow is human. I don't think this necessarily a big revelation, but people have lost their minds this year regarding Tebow. To be honest, I find his story inspiring, but as a quarteback, he's been asked to resuscitate a weak Denver offense. Denver's coaches have played to Tebow's strengths and, teamed with a solid defense, Denver started to win games.

2. The National Media is making a big deal about Tim Tebow. It's not that Tebow is some extraordinary quarterback, it's his faith in Christ and how up front he is about it. I think that Tebow is a solid athlete, but at this point in his career, he's no Aaron Rodgers or Tom Brady. I do think Tebow can improve in his throwing; he had to throw to beat Pittsburgh and he did just that. The Steeler's were stacking the line, daring Tebow to throw, and throw he did. However, is this had been Kyle Orton, who lost he job and roster spot to Tebow, or some other middling quarterback, the hype simply would not have been there.

3. The Tim Tebow coverage is polarizing.  Tim Tebow, from all appearances, is a model citizen motivated by his faith in Christ. It's not that there aren't other Christians that have ever played football (Kurt Warner and Troy Polamalu come to mind), it's something about Tebow that makes people either love him or hate him. It's not any scathing comments or coarse opinions; it's he's outright vocal proclamation about his faith in Jesus Christ. People either love Tebow for it, or want him to shut up about it.

Lastly, I don't know how far the Broncos will go in the playoffs. Their next opponent is the New England Patriots, who are very rarely caught off guard by an opponent. I hope the Tebow's effort, win or lose, is a solid enough effort so that after the game, people can sit back, take a breath and applaud his effort, not criticize his faith.