Friday, January 05, 2007

Artic Cat

Friday=Payday=Good Day. Got up at 2:45, worked 10 hours (5:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.), driving in in some of the worst fog/drizzle ever. Kathy did not show up and it took Doug a while to get the day's work untangled. We ran a few odds-and-ends to start, and did a little loafing, but it was almost 6:30 before we started a good run on EZY319T098. All I had to do was drill and pop the right sides, but these backs annoy me because, oh, for so many little reasons. For one thing, you have to use SSPQ42's (steel rivets) on the headpans, and that requires digging out one of the old popguns, because our new ones can't pull the steel rivets...And the old popgun I used doesn't collect the rivet-stems, so you have to do that by hand. And then, on the three top rivets, the metal doesn't lie flat, but you can't clamp it, so you just have to push with all your might to get the metal and rivets to lie flat, and that wears you out pretty quick. Then, the middle section (uses AD43BS's) has a starter hole on the last rivet, but it doesn't match up with the diaphram, so I have to drill and pop the other holes first, then go back...And I DESPISE backtracking! On top of all that, the bottom three holes can't all be drilled at one time, either, because the diaphram moves and the holes don't line up...BLAH! It's not HARD, it's just time-consuming. At least Butch had the same problems as I, so he never really had to stand around and wait for me. But Doug and Jeff, who supply me (who supplies Butch), could have stacked me up 100 backs deep if they had wanted to--thank goodness they only stacked me up 8 or so at a time--HA!

Happily, we finished that Shipset shortly before lunch, then we got to do sub-work for VOZ the rest of the day. This meant we got to SIT DOWN--Yeah! And, we did quite a bit of talking, too.

I already said that Kathy (our Lead-Lady) was absent, but so was Jennifer. In fact, this was the 2nd day this 4-day work-week that Jennifer was absent, but for the life of me, I don't know what other day she missed! She came in late (at 7:00) one day, too, so that's already 18 hours out of her bank (they can't take 10 hours out in one day; only 8).

After work, I met Jeff & Brenda at the HAPPY CAMPER in Lindsay and they followed me to the farm. The sun was JUST burning through the low clouds/fog when we got to the farm (about 3:50 p.m.), and it was chilly. And it was SUPPOSED to be a sunny, warm day (about 70 degrees)--HA! Melvin showed them the 2001 Artic Cat and they ended up loading the 4-wheeler and taking it home. Andrew was working on a 4-wheeler that he plans to sell. When I asked him why he wasn't at work (at the Garden Center), he said he was sick-Heh! I drank some beer with the boys, then went in and visited with dad a bit, before heading home and eating leftover spaghetti for supper.