Monday

Wow, I had the most amazing day at work yesterday, on a Monday to boot which made it even more surreal. I have been working tons of hours (70 plus per week the past few) on this new program we were sourced on a few weeks ago, juggling many things at once constantly, total pressure to get everything done very fast to launch this new project into production in five months (we usually get 1 to 1.5 years). I like the pressure, am used to it, but this has been unbelievably stressful so to have a day like this is a true blessing.

I cannot remember having this good of a day ever (at work at least). By the end of the day, I was looking over my shoulder waiting for a meteorite to fall on my head or something... lol, but the day ended on all good things and I made it home safe. I was extra careful driving home as I couldn't help but think, all this good happening, be mindful of the really bad thing around the corner to out to "get me" even things up.

It started out mid morning getting an email from a poetry mag editor telling me she had accepted two of my poems for publication in their Fall 2008 magazine. Smiles!

A few minutes later, I was emailed by a customer that the vehicle build scheduled for next week in Louisiana has been postponed. This is on one of my other programs, not the "get it done now" one and I was told by our management that I must attend this build. I would have been away from home for at least 3 days and kid#2's birthday is next Tuesday so I would have been out of town that day. He was upset about that so now all is good and I will be here for his big day. We are celebrating his party on the weekend anyway, but I of course want to make his actual birthday a special day for him too.

A while later, I went in the back lab and fabricated a set of test parts of a new tube connection that came in last week. It's the last test that I need to get done for another one of my programs that starts production in June so it was really good to accomplish that as it was stressing me out. I love getting things completed!

Then I got a note from a GM guy at the Lake Orion plant saying he could give us the 5final assmbly parts I needed to take to our big design review meeting that actually happened today at GM Tech Center. We needed these because I was forced to give away the one and only set I had to one of our suppliers to help them design the machines for us. So I was really stuck not having parts for the design review with the customer.

Finally, near the end of day three more good things happened on my ball buster program. I had only three components left with problems that haven't been released and kicked off yet. One was a supplier issue that I was attempting to work through without adding cost to the project and the other two were issues where the customer design in CAD didn't match the actual parts being made. Anyway, I have been working for the last 10 days or so trying to solve these issues and get these items launched and within about a half hour of each other, the magic answers came on all three and it worked out in the best way possible. I signed off all three prints and released them this morning, wooowhooo!! All 58 new components and nine final assemblies designed, drawn up, all the approvals gotten, and released for production in 20 days.

What a Monday it was!!! When I got home, I was so happy, I took the kids out to dinner at Chili's and of course treated myself to a couple Sam Adams lagers. Yum!

Smiles!

Charlevoix

Your Fruit Rooted In Blues (The White Stripes)

Wooo!
Even strawberries get it. I want you to get with it…
… they just happen to know exactly what to do,
so why don't you?
..................................Jack White - Instict Blues
..................................The White Stripes


We both know, you and I
will walk together again,
our touch, a slippery glide
along that path outside in,
heart skin singe and friction electric
take us down,
coming to rest breathless
on the ground.
Your wet box, framed
in the finest wood,
you put out each spring
to capture my beams of sunlight,
this timber tender,
the precision of polish and shine,
grain immaculate,
such is the risen road we follow.

With just a moist kiss of rain,
the berries grow,
your throbbing fruit,
a juice stain of desire.
Slash of human scar,
a blood let day of awakening
soon an invite for crawling things
to join in the feast.
Fiber of time has settled fiercely
on the root of your bones,
we rain and rain, as the insects chew
beneath the surface,
penetration during a flood
of mirrored reflection,
claim of fractured stem,
retreat of vine, hairy fingers
of memory grasp you.

Your words are planted in my mouth,
a dirty little jug of soil,
saliva saturated sun shines through
enough to grow teeth,
a bite of syllable distraction,
the twisting of tongue
into a grammatical recoil
of vernacular restitution.
So when you go, you go,
been here before. You squeeze
on the two headed worm
just to watch it pull back,
both ends simply compress
and meet in the middle.
This road to nowhere
shall never get us home.

Change

Dollar store
bargains
used to be
five and dime.

Sun Halo

This photo doesn't do it justice, but there was a halo rainbow around the sun on Monday afternoon.

Mice Verses Man (poem)

The mice are fat and happy at peace
with the furry little creatures mice are,
in terms of mouse dreams at least.

Mice chew and mice are happy.
Mice swallow and mice get fat.
No human stomps on them;

mice remain fat and happy.
One day, mice may sleep underneath
a homeless man's cardboard box bed,

take a few tongue-licks of liquor
from inside his discarded jug cap,
carry away a sprig of end crust

broken off a soup kitchen sandwich.
The next day, mice may mouse through a gap
under the sink, of a suburban ranch style house,

find and chew through a corn flake box,
empty, except the half-bowl-full
left in the bottom by a child. The flakes

are stale, yet mice chew and mice swallow.
Mice mouse along the baseboard unseen,
by man, but the next cupboard is bare,

and the next. The mice stay fat and happy,
even on stale corn flake rations.
The child, asleep in her bed upstairs,

dreams that mommy and daddy
will not fight about money tomorrow
and a fine supper of salad, steak, and potatoes

will be served at the table at 6:00 P.M.,
the whole family there, happy as a mouse
just like she has seen on television.

BASV

Love