Loma Linda Drift

Disclaimer: If you are a Jasper County law officer, the following is not true. It is a figment of my creative imagination. Seriously, I drive a front wheel drive car, it's not possible to drift.

Yeah so I officially roasted the big curve outside here. I did it yesterday and some old guy shook his finger at me and then I did it today, but a little less awesome. I whipped it around and the tail got out from behind me a little bit, just enough to know it was out of line. A moving truck was coming, so I had to cut it short, but man it was a rush. I don't plan on doing it often, mainly because of the possibly legal percussions and due to the rapid heartbeat I experience. I've just been in a let's race mood lately. My clutch stuck some today and kinda scared me, but I think it's okay. Let's pray it is.

Work's been picking up. We've got some serious problems with a few processes and so myself and another engineer are isolating the problem and I think we have it by the horns. I'm still doing lots of drawings and my back hurts from sitting at the desk most of the day, but it's cool. I put in 10 hours yesterday and today, so the overtime money should be good. heheh.

Heard from V Sunday and wish we could've talked longer. I figure I might hear from her two more times before she gets back, boo. I'm dealing pretty well, though. I have been keeping myself busy browsing the web and I just starting reading the Bourne Supremacy. It's a slow read, but good so far.

I had something I wanted to post on here, but I've forgotten. Maybe it'll come back to me and I can post. Oh well. Have a great rest of the week!

Wow, that was fun

This weekend's been crazy. Friday I ran into town and deposited my first check, woo! I also got my car aligned, which makes those curves near the apartment extra fun. I ran to wally world and got some groceries and made myself some fajitas. Good stuff. Saturday was when the real fun started. I went for my daily run and decided to try a new trail. This trail took me all around the golf course, a whopping 5 miles or so, and took me about an hour and a half. I didn't run the whole way, but it still was quite a run. I went shirtless and the sun ate through my shoulders. Oh well, I'm tan now.

I stayed up late and watched blood diamond. Good movie, I've got to tell you. Really makes you think about what people will do for some rocks. It's cool that the guy in the movie who plays the mummy in the mummy returns actually speaks Afrikaans. Learn something new every day.

Vanessa called this morning. It was real nice to hear her voice, saying my name, it sounded so sweet...hehehe. But even though it was 7:30 when she called, I was glad to actually hear her. We only got about 10 minutes, but we covered a lot. Got off slightly on drinking and the conversation almost turned bad, but I suppose we'll deal with that later, if there's any dealing to do. I don't know why I don't like the idea of my girlfriend drinking. I don't think she'll cheat on me or anything, but I can't really tell you why it makes me uncomfortable. But anywho, I don't know how much drinking will be going on, but we'll deal with whatever when she gets back.

I'm looking forward to popping out some more CAD drawings this week. I've really got to get those to my boss for some revisions and such. Fun stuff!

Work week almost over...

So I experienced some funny stuff today. I went to Wednesday night church at this little church nearby. The average age is probably like 65 or something. I honestly only saw 4 people less than say 50 or so. They're really neat though. I like going to the church for some old reason; the music is poor, the preaching isn't anything special and there's no one within 20 years of me, but I like it still. So back to my funny stuff. The preacher asked me last night to say the dismissal prayer Sunday morning. I had planned on going to Joplin's church of Christ, but looks like I'm going here. Second, while I was driving back there were some kids out playing in a yard. Well two kids, probably 5 and 6 or so, were walking across the roof of a parked car. I don't know why, but it was really funny.

V emailed me yesterday. They had to make a slight change of plans due to the 20k or so people on strike in Johannesburg. She was having a great time and sounded like camping was fun. I can't wait to hear her voice, but who knows when that will be.

I'm in a weird mood today. I went to work and sat in on a meeting long enough to get a free lunch. I actually did learn alot and it was really interesting. I worked some on my main project, firing up an induction soldered, and worked more on some CAD drawings I've got to convert. I then came home and watched a movie about the trail of tears and now I'm watching a documentary about fathers. I like it because it reminds me of the movies I used to watch at governor's school. Ah...those were good ol' days.

I'm going to run some more. I have gone out every night this week and it's really peaceful just running along the roads here in loma linda, checking out the nice houses and stuff. I found a cool 1.75 mi route which goes through some woods and along the interstate. It's enjoyable. That and counting some calories has resulted in some decent, but slow, results.

Week one is over

Vanessa loaded the plane for South Africa today. I didn't think it'd be too tough, but it was harder than I thought. So she's on her way now. We had a great weekend. Friday we went to Lokomotion, after cooking some awesome sweet-n-sour chicken. She cheated and beat me in putt putt, but I OWNED her in karting. I didn't realize how awesome the track at Lokomotion is. Geez you can get some serious drifting there. Saturday we ate lunch with her family, which is always a crazy time. Her sister is so attention craving and wild. It's really funny to see how her family deals with each other and especially her sister. Today, at 4:30am the apartment woke up and everyone was busy getting ready. Anywho, Vanessa's headed to Africa now. I'm a little jealous, honestly, but I can't wait to hear her stories when she gets back.

Work last week was crazy. I didn't get a computer until Friday and one of my main goals this summer is to transfer a ton of ICI drawings into CAD drawings. So I finally got my computer on Friday and started work and within an hour, th electricity went out. I lost everything I did on my drawing. Now that I have a computer, I should be able to move along pretty quickly. I've got over 230 drawings to convert to CAD, so I'll be super busy. I'm looking forward to getting paid for all these early days, I've spent quite a bit so far.

My uncle died last Monday night. His funeral is this Monday in LR and I can't go. I feel kinda bad, but there's no way I could miss work for the first full week. Rest in peace uncle Tony.

Day two down...

Well I finished day two today. It was slow, but I found some stuff to do. I'll start with my day yesterday. I got there and first thing they told me was that I wasn't supposed to be there until Wednesday. So I got a cool desk right in the middle of the office. I had no cubicle, no computer and a ton of other people's junk on my desk. I went straight into an intern meeting about the two projects. I'm in charge of working out a new process for this induction solderer. It's going to be cool and I'm finding out more and more about it everyday. I overheard this super cool engineer guy talking about it and he found out some more information about the project for me. He's super cool and just graduated from college a few months ago, he's in his 50s or so I'd guess.
So on with my first day, I then had a safety meeting with Joe at 9. He forgot about it, so we went to him. He was really fun and we got to visit the super high, 8 people allowed at a time, cars can only be parked 100ft or more away, explosives mixing area. It was sweet, although nothing more special than seeing like concrete being mixed. We then did some other things which I'm not at liberty to discuss, but basically we got rid of some scrap stuff.

Anywho today was a lot of the same. I spent much more time on the production floor today, which was really fun. Everyone was super friendly and would talk to me about anything. So I did some research about the solderer and tried to find out a little about the problems and such with it. Well Ian is cooking dinner tonight and I'm going to help, so I'll finish this later.

Dinner was pizza and a salad. Good stuff. I think I've become much less picky since I got of college age. I still don't like a lot of stuff, but I'll eat it if I need to. I really don't have much else to talk about. A very old friend of mine from elementary had his sister contact me on facebook earlier and that made my day. I look for him on there all the time. It's cool he found me, finally.

I'm finally settled into my place in Missouri. It's not as nice as I thought it was going to be, but it's okay. My roommate, Ian, is an ME and seems interested in cars, so I think things will go good. I've got a drug test tomorrow and hopefully I can start work on Tuesday.

I feel like driving at an insane speed and hitting some curves. V sent me a Mercedes she designed and I must say she's got some good tastes, albeit expensive ones. http://www.mbusa.com/models/features/specs/overview.do?modelCode=SLR&class=06_SLR
But back to me driving fast, I changed some suspension parts on the front and now my alignment is off. I fixed the toe out problem by adding a bit of toe in, but now it's toe in and straight ahead isn't straight on the steering wheel. Oh well. It drives great and there's some AWESOME curves close to the apartment. I'm looking forward to hitting those when I get it all aligned again.

A new job?

I GOT A JOB!!! I'll be working for Eaglepicher technologies in their explosive devices plant. I'll basically be working as the utility engineer, basically just doing odds and ends work. Pay is good and the housing is amazing. I live in condo on the country club. Yeah, here I come golf course. I am super excited and hope I learn some good stuff and get lots done. Plus making money is always nicer than just spending it. But yeah, I start work on Wednesday or maybe Tuesday, it depends on when I get drug tested and such.

Well I'm in Fayetteville for the weekend, just hanging out before Vanessa goes to S. Africa. I'm still jealous of her trip and her new camera, but plans are in the making for me to go to Hawaii or possibly somewhere in the Carribean for Christmas vacation. We'll have to see, though.

In other interests, I put some new parts on the front suspension of my car and the toe was way out of whack. I could barely hold the wheel straight and it was shaking like crazy. I finally fixed it and went the opposite way, so now it'll run an awesome high speed straight line but steering is off (straight is actually about 10 degrees left of straight up and down on the steering wheel). It's running great though and I look forward to getting a few parts for it over the summer.