So I get in Kenosha a bit early, and got a couple of hours of sleep (I was too jazzed while I was driving to do my usual sleep at the rest stops type thing). Got to the plant, and we began discussing the scope of work.
Um, hm. I may be here for like 3 or 4 extra days. I definitely don’t mind – extra time on site means a lot of extra pay. 4 to 5 days (there’s already an extra day beyond the contract amount planned) of extra out of town pay is nothing to sneeze at.Â
In the old days at Creek, I don’t know how many times a project has been extended. The difference was when a project got extended when I worked for someone else, I just groaned and went on – I didn’t get more money for it, it was the same pay if I was in town or out of town. Now? Dollar signs appear in my eyes. It’s more bills paid off!
The second surprise is I’m going to be having Thanksgiving dinner after all. Dominic, the mill manager (who I’ve known since he was the 2nd in command of the mill back in 1995), invited me to have Turkey Day with his family. Turkey, Ham, and all that good stuff. Well, shit – free food, I’m not gonna pass that up! 😉
Unluckly, I’m not completely prepared for my trip to be extended – not enough cash, and not all the stuff on the tasks I wanted to get done. The cash probably won’t be a problem – I can fall back on my contengency. Thanks Dad 🙂
The tasks – well, some of the stuff I wanted to get done after I got back are at the house. FrankenMac was on my list of to-dos (combining Heather’s old 12″ powerbook with my old 17″ powerbook), but all the parts are setting at home (oddly enough, since I’m on site, I have all my tools to do it with me :-) Oh well, guess that’s gonna have to wait an extra week, no biggie – her Mac had been declared dead for quite some time now, so it’s not like she’s gonna miss it for another week 🙂
OMG!!!! Between Kansas City and Des Moines has been a hell of construction for like a year and a half now. Tammy also ends up driving that route, and we both curse about it alot. It’s not like 2 miles of construction or anything. Spots that are like 15 miles at a strech of one lane road, and there’s always multiple bridges being fixed, etc. Well, no more! They finally finished the repaving projects and the bridge repairs!Â
So it went much faster… for a while. Then half way between Kansas City and Des Moines, the fog set in. UG. How I got to Kenosha that much early I have no idea.
When I rescued Tammy some months back and we hit the road together, it’s the same strech of road as I take to get to Kenosha. So I get little flashbacks from it – funny shit we did. I pulled into a Quik Trip on the far side of Kansas City, and started grinning like mad. Last time I was there, I was pumping gas, and Tammy decided to clean the windshield for me.
She climbed up on the hood to do it on her knees, bend over the windsheld. With tight pants and a low cut top. That girl can put on a show, holy crap. I get a kick out of it – I enjoyed the show for a bit, and then looked around. The number of guys who had gone slack jawed was hellarious! I should have taken at least one friggin’ picture from that moment though!
I enjoy runs like this – sometimes I’m not sure what I’m going to be facing. Originally, the plan was to come down here and do 4 different tasks. When I found out I was going on Thursday / Friday, they threw a new and completely different task in the middle of it. Hrm. No way I can pre-plan for this one, I don’t know the hardware.
Time to wing it 🙂
Before the end of today arrived, I had redone two separate IP address spaces so they would mesh, built a new router from scratch (seriously – old hardware laying around, so I put it to good use and replaced the Linksys router that wasn’t going to handle the Portforwarding and portblocking ruleset I needed to create), merged the two networks, threw a third network online with it (though I had already planned the network address space for it months ago), and set up to move them from a completely isolated network setup to an Internet connected setup.
I love crap like that. I really do. Less boring than most of the stuff I work on, and more gratifying quite often.
Have a good thanksgiving up there Davis!