American Crackhead

Are you an American Idol watcher? Why is Paula Abdul on crack?

Today was administrative assistant day

And this is a funny story. These are the flowers I received for Adminstrative Assistant Day today. You might be thinking to yourself, "Self, Jenn isn't an administrative assistant, she's an HR Representative." Well, you'd be right.

Our mill manager is in his 60s and Brazillian. Today he had a luncheon to celebrate AA Day. The honorees? All the women in the mill, including myself and the mill accountant. He proceeded to give a lengthy speech in front of of the senior management staff about how the ladies in the mill enable them to get their jobs done on time and keep them organized.

I realize of course, that his heart was in the right place. I also had a hard time today deciding if I was going to be offended. Haven't decided yet if I'm going to be. What do you think, am I reading too much into an innocent gesture?

Lasanga = Loneliness?

I just returned from a business trip to Atlanta yesterday and Monday. The meeting, while still an exercise in frustration, was more productive than most. On Sunday, I made a lasagna, thinking that there would be enough left over for Ryan to eat lunch/dinner while I was away. It was then that I realized that I often make him a lasagna when I'm leaving for travel. I think he's going to start associating lasagna with loneliness, which is just too sad for words.

Nose whacked ... the update

I have it on good authority that yesterday I did not, in fact, whack my nose on my chair. Instead my nose whacked itself on my desk. The evil chair has been banned to the storage closet and I have a new, less tippy (although still potentially a nose wacker) chair.

I also have a pretty impressive new bruise on my hip the size of my fist. Seriously, I never knew work was such a hazardous place.

Stupid ways to hurt myself

I have now gotten hurt in two of the most ridiculous ways possible in the past 5 days. On Easter Sunday, Dad and Laurel's cat, Sophie was investigating a heating vent. She got her paw stuck in the vent, freaked out and streaked across the room, vent intact, and whacked me in the ankle as she ran by, thereby dislodging the vent, scratching the floor, and leaving an impressive welt on my leg.

This, however, has nothing on my adventure at work today. My office is being moved from the back of the building to the front, near our new learning center. My old office has carpet, my new one has highly polished tile. You might be thinking I tripped and fell ... it was nothing that graceful. My computer's hard drive got loose in the move and one of the guys in the office was helping me fix it. I sat in my chair and leaned to get something (what, I can't remember) when my chair slipped out from under me and came down on top of me, nailing my nose with the hard, plastic arm. I don't actually remember what happened, but this is what the obversers later told me. Here's what I remember ... "Oh crap ... ow ow ow ow ow." As I was lying on the floor holding my now very painful nose, I remember thinking about how in self-defense you are supposed to push attacker's noses into their brains and what a stupid way this was to die. Luckily, all I ended up with was a swollen nose and wounded pride. We called one of the mill's first responders and they wrote an "incident report." Now I'll be the topic of discussion at the next staff meeting. I'm just hoping I don't end up with bloodshot eye(s) tomorrow.

Dirty Jobs

Dirty Jobs on the Discovery Channel is my new favorite show. I think you have to have a slightly warped worldview to truly enjoy it, but I laugh until it hurts every time I see it. I would put the schedule up, but I can't seem to keep track of when the show is on. Luckily for me, I have TiVo to do that for me.

Some of the dirty jobs profiled are waste treatment center maintenance guy, mushroom farmer, dairy farmer, compost maker and my personal favorite, turkey farmer. The show (understandably) deals with a lot of poo and pee, and the host's comments are priceless. One of the funniest things I've heard this year was from a mushroom farmer episode ... and I paraphrase "So you want me to climb on top of that pile of poo and carry this bag of pee to put on the top?" Yeppers. Apparently on a turkey farm, approximately 10 turkeys die per day. To find them, you walk into the crowd and wait until one doesn't move. Chances are, that's the dead one. Then they compost the dead turkeys with their poo until they become liquid turkey. Hmm, sounds a little grotesque when I describe it, but trust me, it was hysterical!

If you have a lot of time to monitor the discovery channel or a TiVo, I highly recommend this show.

Tower of cars

Here is a tower of mercedes in Kehl, Germany. Khouray mentioned a smart car dealer with a similar set up. I couldn't see the point (except maybe the coolness factor) since they didn't seem to have a real estate problem.

My brain hurts

It's been one of those weeks where I ran from one meeting to another to an interview to another meeting. I don't realize how tiring it is to think until I have a week like this one. Boss is out of town visiting Mouseland, so I've also been interviewing people for a few open positions at the mill. I'm enjoying the increasing responsibility, but I'm wiped. Luckily, tomorrow is all day training, which ironically, means I don't have to think so hard.

Ha!

Strousbourg

This was the cathedral in Strousbourg, France. It's beautiful. A lot of the glasswork and sculture reminded me of Notre Dame. This cathedral took 600 years to build, from 1100 to the end of the 1700s. I can't imagine starting something that I knew my great great grandchildren wouldn't live to see. I have to think they didn't believe it would take so long to build.

French Cars

Are really small. These were everywhere over there. Of course, gas was also 1.13 Euro per liter. That's about $5.50 per gallon, boys and girls. I'd drive one too!

The kitties are a year old today

Or so. They were born the first week of April last year. I hope they're full grown, because feeding them is getting really expensive. Here they're playing with their birthday mice. Dad, you'd be horrified if you saw under our couch or stove on any given day. Nothing but mouse skin carnage. Strangely ... we never find the tails ....

Happy Birthday!

To my husband! We're the same age for 7 months again. Yes, that is two slices of carrot cake with swirly candles. I'm a bad wife. He got a cool new air compressor. The work bench downstairs is starting to look like a real man bench.

It's Spring!

And I have flowers! Well, and some dead stuff in the background. Planting these tulips and daffodils last fall was torture. We have very bad dirt. It all paid off about a week ago when the very first hot pink bud opened. Like the stone border? I walked like an 80 year old for two days after we put it in. What happens to us when we become home owners?

I'm a bad blogger

But in all fairness, I was in Germany for most of my non-blogging time. I finally downloaded my pictures and will get some posted here. The trip was pretty good. We stayed in Kehl, Germany and spent most evenings in Strousbourg. I got to practice some French. Funny thing about these two countries: people literally live 20 km away and French people speak no German and German people speak no French. They're both more likely to speak English. Once explanation I heard was that the two peoples started fighting each other 200 years ago and have been ever since.

We went to a French castle and to Zurich, Switzerland. The castle was unbelievable. Zurich was big, dirty, and exhibited a disturbing fondness for strip clubs.

This week went disturbingly quickly. I'm glad it's the weekend.

Leaving on a jet plane

Tomorrow is the big trip to Germany. We have to be to the airport around 7 pm tomorrow for the redeye to Paris. From Paris to Strousburg, France. Kehl, Germany is right across the border from Strousburg, so we'll drive from there. From all that I'm hearing, Kehl is pretty westernized. It has the GAP, McDonalds and an 8 tiered car dealership. Strousburg on the other hand, is supposed to have some really interesting (and old) churches and fun little shops and markets.

The trip should be a little more relaxed than Brazil was. We're staying in one place the entire week, and the evenings will be ours to do with as we choose, rather than being forced into 4 hour dinners every night. I imagine we'll spend most of our free time in Strousburg. We also have a "free" day on Saturday and I hear that the Black Forest in Germany is pretty interesting.

I'm excited to be going, although I'll really miss Ryan. If only he'd fit in my suitcase. So far, working for Gerdau has added two new countries to my traveling and many new cities. Cool. It's nice to see the world on your company's dime!

Ha ha, I'm winning!

This just in ... I'm whooping Ryan in the NCAA BB Tournament Bracket. Not that I'm entered in any kind of illegal office pool or anything.

Having a heat wave

Today it was 75 degrees outside. Love love love that it's almost spring time. Of course there's supposed to be another snow storm the first week of April. There are several things that bother me about this. First, who has a snow storm in April? Second, how can the pathological liars known as meteorologists possible know what the weather is next week, let alone 3 weeks from now? Are .... you .... kidding me? Donne moi une .... break.

In other news, I'm catching a cold. I'm really freaking tired of getting random illnesses this week. My company nurse and our admin assistant have started taking bets on what I'm bringing home from Germany. Yeah, I'm a side bet. Meh.

An honorary Canadian

So I made it back from Toronto with no ill effect. Our training was actually very good ... actual training, not just talking about issues. I also really enjoyed being in Canada.

The Toronto airport is huge, and when I got in on Wednesday I literally walked for 15 minutes before getting to the customs agent. Then I had another 10 minute walk to the rental car place. After getting off a flight, it felt really good to walk, but it made me realize how coddled US travelers are. Aside from O'Hare, most US airports are more compact or if there is any walk they have a train to get you there.

Getting used to driving in kilometers was a kick. It makes you feel like you're really getting somewhere! Most of the highways around Toronto were 100 km/h, but like all big cities, no one was going slower than 110 km/h.

I also got a lesson in Canadian temperatures while I was there. Our trip was about 10 Canadians and 3 people from the US. The first afternoon of the training we were discussing the temperature. I'm not bad at converting C to F in my brain, so I actually knew how cold it was. Anyhow, we were discussing the temperature and I said that my car said it was negative 5 C ... and oh how my Canadian counterparts laughed. It's minus 5, they told me. As I listened to radio stations for the next two days, I realized that indeed, no one says negative 5. Another of my US colleagues said the same thing about 5 hours later ... so at least I felt better about that.

It also seems that Canadians are far more concerned about environmental issues than most in the US. As we toured the mill, our tour guide mentioned several environmental issues that they were working on. About 50% of the energy they use is provided by methane from a landfill a mile from the plant. Cool huh? They said that have about 20 years of methane left.

I really enjoyed my trip and my colleagues made me an honorary Canadian (they were going to give me a hat, but alas I had to leave and come back to NJ). All in all, I liked Toronto better than NJ. Of course, they all wanted to come to NJ so they could visit New York City. I guess you always want what you don't have.

Toronto ... in the winter

As if winter wasn't cold enough in New Jersey, I'm heading to Toronto, Ontario tomorrow, eh. This little trip is cleverly disguised as training. What that really means of course is we'll spend the day talking around issues and not having any questions answered.

On the bright side, I get to see some of my colleagues from Canada and spend time in a city I've not been in before.