Friday, September 26, 2008

dog surgery

the mill is in it's annual outage 5-6 days originally planned, but IP decided to try and push a price increase (for transportation costs - I suspect) and added 3-4 more days to the outage for just our mill .... so that's not a real good thing. i am scheduled back to work on Monday. Hopefully that is all that is going on. Still lots of talk of the “rationalization” suggestion by the big German bank … but at this point (it appears) to be merely talk. The job in shipping is slowly making a little sense, but I’ve got a long way to go before I really understand and even further before I am “signed off” and considered qualified.

but the biggest news around here is Nancy's dog. Nance noticed her limping about a month ago, and so took her in for x-rays. they noticed a crack in her upper leg bone and we decided to have it fixed. seems as if it was a lot more than just a crack, the top of the bone was crumbling, along with some muscle damage. They had to take off the top of the bone. it could have been caused by a puppy injury, or maybe someone had kicked her before we got her (more what we think). Anyway, she also has hip dysplacia ... not common for her breed. So all in all, it was something that would have had to be addressed anyway. So for the time being, Cocoa is limping around on three legs, but doing well. A long rehab, but things should be normal or close to it, once that is finished.

Today’s poem is from 10:97


DAILY GRINDS

so, what did you really expect from life ...

frost on the pumpkin,
starlings drunk on the odors.
the witch beside you retains a sorcery
you never fully understand:
she is beautiful when you need her the least,
damned bitch when you are weak.

stained glass ornament reflects the wrong colors.
you really don't care if the semblance is changed
if you could only figure out
how to put the fragments back together.

the dirt on your hands is testament
you have earned your dollars well,
& as you wash your hands, the dollars dissipate.

wind rests on the fingers of trees,
while fog mumbles of visions squandered.
rivers turn a cold shoulder.
blue heron merely waits for supper
beside the muddy waters
while the open wings of the red tail hawk -
is a sure sign of desperation.
empty talons, like the fingers of lost love,
ache to caress something soft & warm.

Thursday, September 11, 2008

is it a promise if it's not kept?

This poem is from 6:93

The training in shipping continues. I feel dumb as a stump, having trouble grasping some of the ever changing combinations of roll sizes that can go into different sized trucks or railcars. Guess it’ll come, but even as my co-workers say I’m doing fine, I feel as if it’s going to be a long, difficult transition. As far as the work, it is easier on my sore body parts, so I will continue to work at it, during my 45-90 trial period. At the end of that time period, I will know if they will let me continue in the department, or if I want out … or ....

On other news, IP has already started closing facilities it acquired in the Weyco deal, even though they indicated at the time of the buy-out that there was ‘very little” redundancy that needed to be addressed in the two systems. One mill in Valiant, OK (60 employees affected) is closing by the end of Nov. and one testing site in Oregon (5 employees affected) is closing by the end of Oct. There is talk by a German bank (one of the major lenders of the money for IP to buy Weyco containerboard) that one of the two mills in Oregon (Albany or Springfield, where I work) might need to be closed as well. At this point, it’s speculation and nothing being said up front, but the fact that the talk is there and is pretty specific is rather unsettling to say the least.

So, as usual - the turmoil continues and certainty is as vague as truth in a presidential election!



FATMAN KNOWS GOD


1 fatman knows god is bogus
2 has theorems to prove it
3 in calories & idle time
4 carbohydrates shout at withered bones
5 of another closet dream
6 fatman knows
7 displays his disgust