[robtcorl]

I think the size of the magnet is significantly different Bob!

Agreed, but we're supposed to avoid any magnets, metal detectors, etc.
I even had to shed my magnetic personality.

[Parallax]

Agreed, but we're supposed to avoid any magnets, metal detectors, etc.
I even had to shed my magnetic personality.

He'll be here all week, ladies and gentlemen.
Try the veal; and don't forget to tip your waiter.
Good night everybody.

[tim60]

Is that the dye that makes your exit get real hot?

Better than an infection that has led to bleeding, I expect.

[tim60]

Singapore. Where the weather is just what Rupert says is a problem in Texas. Just that in Texas there is more of it because that is what happens in Texas.

[Racer X 69]

It's Friday.

I'm getting up at 2am and reporting for work each day at 5:30am. At 6:15am I catch the ride with the nice physical therapist from an onsite PT office. We ride about 1.5 kilometers to the company fitness center, a state of the art gymnasium with basketball courts, indoor elevated track, weight rooms (complete with the narcissistic Arnold types posing in front of mirrors), rooms for those trendy exercise things where a bunch of people get all sweaty together, and every kind of exercise bike, treadmill, stair climber, rowing, climbing, skiing,, and a zillion other things I have no clue what they are for.

This is for a program called work hardening. An exercise program that gradually gets a person back into the kind of condition needed to perform safely and well in the factory environment. 3 hours a day for a couple weeks, then 4 for a week, 5, 6, then 7 hours a day for the last week.

I was never very athletic. I was tall and slim, played baseball in high school and Little League, but as an adult I get my exercise through hard work, hiking, skiing (snow), kayaking, bicycling, gardening and generally maintaining an active lifestyle. That kind of exercise is fun, so I have managed to stick with it for over 40 years.

Oh, and I am a second shift type.

Get up when I have rested about 6 to 7 hours, without that pesky alarm. Dislike those things.

Dislike them very much.

I'm also not too fond of commuting 52 kilometers at the wee hours of the morning so I can get there, find a place to park, and walk the klick and a half to the shop I report to. I have to budget at minimum an hour and a half to safely get to work on time. And I hope and pray one of the Parnelli Andretti DiMiglios racing to work late don't cause a pile up and make me late (attendance is a big deal there, and they have a no excuses policy).

When I work second shift, the same journey takes me 40 minutes, tops. Consistently. And fewer Indy 500 winner wannabes.

Anyway, I'm in this program, but it doesn't fill out the day, so I report to the dayshift counterpart of the crew I work on and help out some. I'm gettting a lot of walking in too, from the parking lot to shop in near the very center o f the building, then after shift start, walk almost back to the gate I walked in at earlier, get the ride to the workout, then (after riding back to the PT office walk back to the shop, go up and down as many as 4 flights of stairs in the tool, walks nearly every square foot of many of those floors (the tool covers an area larger than an American football field), then make the walk back out to the car at 2pm and make the reverse version of the morning races.

This also helps me get back into the swing of things, and become familiar with the changes the past 8 or 9 months have brought (I'm sure you all have seen the news, I'll leave it there).

Still, the change from nearly sedentary for such a long time, to going to bed at 7pm, getting up at 2am

And tonight is my 3rd Friday back at work.

Time for a well earned refreshment.

Beer.

[Racer X 69]

By the way, I'm down to 83 kilos.

Not for long, that beer is gonna change everything.

And tomorrow a longtime friend is having his annual barbecue.

Live band.

Horseshoes.

Fire in the firepit if they lift the burn ban and the Canadians stop shipping smoky air down here. I haven't seen the mountains for a week.

They look like this.




Good thing I have those pictures.

Dang Canuckians.

Couldn't hardly see the barn the other day.

*sigh*

I digress . . . . . .

Back to the fun.


Several grills going all day grilling up everything.

Many people bring side dishes.

And there will be beer.

So I better get the dust off of my recumbent exercise bike and spend a little time on it this weekend so I can start next week out at 82 kilos.

[MarkJerling]

I'm also not too fond of commuting 52 kilometers at the wee hours of the morning so I can get there, find a place to park, and walk the klick and a half to the shop I report to.

Perfect distance for a nice bicycle ride. Just sayin'!

[tim60]

Well Racer, about to get on a 777-300ER for Heathrow. It has the old style wings with no bent up bit at the end. Not even little tip things at the end of the wing.

[Racer X 69]

Perfect distance for a nice bicycle ride. Just sayin'!

It would take about 4 hours.

Each way.

The first part, from my house to the county road would be OK. Private, gravel, a modest elevation gain. The county road is not a safe place for bicycles. Narrow, no shoulder, deep ditches, no lights (winter riding would be mostly in the dark), some elevation drop until crossing the river I live along (upstream about 6 klicks), then steep uphill. Not a place to ride a bicycle. Even in the daytime it is dangerous.


Then the bypass road around the nearby town is next, a nice, relatively level road, wide shoulders. Then a state highway, turn on another, then a US highway spur, wide shoulders (mostly, there are are a couple short stretches with no shoulder, and the limit is 88kph (people run 96, and I've sen some boneheads run 110 ~ 120). Oh, and since there are several rock quarries in the area there are plenty of empty and loaded dump trucks hauling butt. Spooky on a bicycle. The last section, the US highway spur, loses about 110 meters in elevation over 3 klicks. Steep. Fun going in, but rough coming home.

Where the US highway spur meet the US highway there is a trestle. No shoulders. No sidewalk. No room for bikes. Speed limit? 96kph. Actual traffic speed? 110 ~ 120. Cars, and trucks.

There is a road across the tidal islands the trestle spans, but it is dark and unlit, and in the winter can often be flooded. At the West end the trestle meets with Interstate 5, and from there to the factory is about 15 klicks. Can't ride bicycles on the interstate, so I would have to thread my way through Everett and pop in at the backside of the plant. Lots of elevation changes, mostly uphill, and at the factory I would be about 92 meters higher than I was at my house.

Plus, they won't let me ride the bike inside the factory. Even though they have industrial trikes everywhere. I would need a special pass, and would be required to walk it anytime inside the building.

Too much bother.

I'll take my mountain bike up the forest service roads nearby for fun and enjoy the exercise. There is a nearby road, that goes through a tree farm to the top of a hill, topping out around 310 meters. And many more near that.


And I'll drive the car or the pickup to work in air conditioned comfort.

[robtcorl]

By the way, I'm down to 83 kilos.

Dang Canuckians.

If you're back to being an American now, please stop using those crazy measurements.

[JimJohnson]

If you're back to being an American now, please stop using those crazy measurements.

What? You use the same measurement system all the time - look at any lens you own.

[robtcorl]

What? You use the same measurement system all the time - look at any lens you own.

Nope, I Sharpied out all of those Mickey Mouse measurement markings.

[JimJohnson]

You must go through a lot of Sharpies.

Hear Ye! Hear Ye! - over in the Latest Acquisitions thread, they have adopted a new SMU (standard measuring unit) - Girl Scout Thin Mint cookies (top to bottom, not diameter). The posters in that thread use this SMU with the same reverence as posters in this thread speak about bacon. No wonder the Canikon user groups are so much bigger - they are a serious hard working lot without the sense of humor we Pentaxians have.

[Racer X 69]

If you're back to being an American now, please stop using those crazy measurements.

Oh I'm still a Canuckian, just living among the ex-pats.

Those boys up in Canuckistan should give up smoking the trees and go back to the BC bud, eh? At least the smoke isn't as objectionable.

[Racer X 69]

You must go through a lot of Sharpies.

Hear Ye! Hear Ye! - over in the Latest Acquisitions thread, they have adopted a new SMU (standard measuring unit) - Girl Scout Thin Mint cookies (top to bottom, not diameter). The posters in that thread use this SMU with the same reverence as posters in this thread speak about bacon. No wonder the Canikon user groups are so much bigger - they are a serious hard working lot without the sense of humor we Pentaxians have.

All this talk about cookies has me craving sugary snacks.