No, not tomorrow evening, Thursday evening. I keep thinking the 13th.

I will be picking up Carrie Thursday evening. I can’t wait! Yep Thursday evening. We will be picking her up from the airport around 11:50pm and then on home. I am taking Friday off so we have the first three days together. Much easier for her to get used to.

I talked to Daryl on Friday and it seems like he may not take me to the airport to pickup up Carrie. It seems this condition he has has taken a toll on him. He may set us up with Marshal or if he can’t do that he said he may have to stay in bed all day in order to take me to the airport.

He sounds good but he may not feel up to things anymore and who knows this also may have mentally taken it’s toll. That could have even worse ramifications when you think about it. If mentally he starts to decline that could take the body with him.

Time for some prayers.

You heard that correct. Carrie will be arriving in nine days.

I’m not sure why but I keep thinking Carrie will be here on the 13th of September but the actual date is the 15th of September. I think I kept thinking the 13th is because she will be leaving on the 13th of December to go home. That makes it 10 days. That tenth day will almost be the 11th day because she will be arriving around midnight of the 15th. On the plus side, I get to have the 16th through the 18th off.

This is going to be a good test to see if we can live together for a long period of time. I’m pretty sure it will be great but it is a necessary test. The last test was for five weeks and everything went wonderfully. No problems or issues. I think what will be telling is if she can be away from her family for that long.

In any case I am looking forward to her being here so badly. Now it is time to start getting ready. Clean different areas each day so by the time she it here all will be ready. I can easily to small things during the week each day and a big portion will be taken care of this weekend. Mainly things like cleaning the tubs and toilets.

I can’t wait for my wife to get here.

Get ready for Carries arrival. I want everything to be perfect for her when she gets here.

I started this weekend on the kitchen, laundry room, guest room, main bathroom and deck. That may sound like a lot but each one by themselves did not take too much time. The longest one was the guest room. Picking up all the little items I had dumped out of bags and boxes looking for packed items. The deck just needed a little sweeping, taking down cob webs and cleaning up the barbeque, barbeque table top and bar top. Just a bit of ‘making things look nice’.

What will take the most time will be the dinning room. I need to get the pictures on the walls. Getting them up won’t be that much trouble but figuring out what picture will go where will be the tough part.

The kitchen will also be a pain in the ass. Cleaning won’t be that much trouble but keeping it clean will be. I will just need to clean up after each and every spill as it happens.

Daryl was trying to tell me he wasn’t going to drive me to work anymore but after a bit of talking I think we wanted a break but when Joe is ready for a break Daryl will be ready to take over. I asked about taking me down to Tallahassee to pick up Carrie and he was very stern in saying that he will be taking me down to pick her up.

Here is the list I have been making to get things ready.

• Kitchen
• Kitchen Floors (Swiffer)
• Entryway Floor (Swiffer)
• Laundry Room
• Dining Room
• Guest Room
• Hall Closet
• Main Bathroom
• Master Bed Room
• Master Bed Room Closet
• Master Bathroom

I’ll also have to stock up on some snacks and soda before she gets here.

September 13th she will be on her way for three months!

I had a great birthday. Did not have tons of phone calls, only posts on LinkedIn and Facebook. Chris sent a meal from King Claw Juicy Seafood & Bar. She had the King Claw Boil sent. It was great! Very messy to eat but great. I think next time I have something ordered from there I’ll get an item that does not have crab legs or substitute them. Crab legs are good but the flavor is not worth the trouble to eat. The shrimp, eggs potato’s and sausage were out of this world. I slept very good that night.

Only thing, no calls from Rick, Tyra or Dad. Three of the people that ALWAYS call on my birthday.

I also received all of my vitamin supplements as well. The Super Beet gummies are good stuff. I noticed the next day that taking my vitamins again really boosts my energy in the morning. I never really paid all that much attention to it but it sure does.

As a birthday present I ordered a new laptop computer. It is refurbished but has 32gb of ram a 512gb NVME SSD and I can add my 2tb SATA SSD that has been sitting on my coffee table for the last 6 months or so collecting dust. It will be a very good work horse for quite some time. I did that to replace a computer that I will be giving to Carrie when she gets here which as the title says is now less than a month away. Btw, the computer only cost me $421.00, dirt cheap for what I am getting.

Tomorrow is my one year anniversary here at Whitcraft in Thomasville, GA. It has been bumpy but I’m not going to complain all that much. I have had a job for the last year that has paid me well. I will say I took advantage of some of the perks at first but we are all working together now. Things at Whitcraft are still seriously screwed up in the change department and nothing will fix that until the change process is changed.

Yep, Wednesday is my birthday. In the middle of the week and that sucks. No three day weekend for me this year. I usually take my birthday off but working here I have decided to NOT let everyone know it is my birthday and just celebrate Wednesday evening with Carrie.

Last week I had an epiphany. There are times when I wake up and am open to the evil one, in other words Satan entering my head. I think it is always there waiting for the invitation to come out and cause some serious harm. To me, anyone I love or my life situation just because he can. This happened last week when I stayed home Monday through Wednesday with COVID. I was sick to my stomach all day Monday through Tuesday afternoon and did not feel better until I realized exactly what had happened and let Satan into my head and take over. When that was realized is when I started feeling better, get my bible reading over with which made feel really good and then headed to work Thursday morning. It ended up being a fantastic week. Including the following weekend.

Most interns last day was Friday, July 29th. The last to leave will be Daniel Bolden. All have been very smart with some at the beginning really trying to steal the spot light from other. It was interesting to watch the dynamics between all of them. The most interesting thing to watch from an experienced Manufacturing Engineer’s perspective is how they each go about solving problems or attacking a task they were given.

Some would dive in with both feet and figure out their own way to accomplish the task assigned after some training if it was required. Actually all would just in with both feet and sink or swim with none of them actually sinking they all did well in their own ways. There was one that would go to the nth degree in his tasks and at times make things much more complicated than they needed to me. This one was also the most intellectual of all of them. All except one was trying to impress Hans every step of the way and was good but only because Hans likes to have his ego stroked. He needs to believe you respect him and not because he is a person deserving respect but because he a manager requiring respect. Two different things, one being a good outlook on yourself and the latter not so good.

The intern I was working with the most was it a completely different category and was not really trying to impress anybody. He was here to learn and that he did and did well. He actually working Manufacturing Engineering tasks and conquered the paperwork battle very well. He sent me his resume last Friday to look through and give him some advise. I think he will be applying for a position here when he graduates.

A large number of people at work have been coming down with COVID-19. One of our engineers was out for almost 2 months total time with it. Another ~10 in the factory, management and quality engineering. All of which I was exposed to prior to them being out for a week. Last week Daryl was away for a little vacation and I was taken to work and picked up by Joseph. Monday he wasn’t feeling well and by Tuesday he was COVID-19 positive. He still took me to work and home every day. Thursday I was not feeling well at all with cold sweats slight headache and couldn’t eat our free lunch. When I got home I took a test and was negative. I took it again Friday morning before work and was still negative. I’m starting to think that when I was very sick January of 2020 after getting home from Seattle I had COVID-19 then. After that plus getting the two shots, the second of which really knocked me down I think gave me the antibodies needed. With that being said, being sick with it January of 2020 gave me the immunity with the vaccine in March and April of 2021 were actually two booster shots.

One can only hope.

Yep, haven’t missed a Monday this year. With my posting methods I don’t expect to miss a single Monday.

The other streak I want to keep going is not having to call out sick since the 7th of April. As of today that will be three and a half months. Any days I plan on taking off will not count and must be requested at least one week in advance, preferably two weeks.

When the interns first arrived and I had to work with them I was a little upset. They took up time that I did not have to train etc.. After the summer with them it is time for them to leave and a couple of them have actually been very good. One of them worked with me and the others worked for other people but did interact with me once in a while. We had one that will not be mentioned by name that went out of his way it seemed to try and steal the thunder from others. Sucking up to management etc..

One of them was here because we interviewed him at the job fair at Florida State, had him come as an intern then interviewed again. Offered him a job and he left early for Lockheed at a NASA facility. Funny thing here is I know he had all that planned because working at a NASA facility would require security clearances which take time. He more than likely had all that lined up before I started here as an intern but used the extra time after school to make some money and get some working experience. Good for him, he was one of the good ones.

Looks like Prosley, the Intern working for me wants to apply for a job here after he graduates. I think he would be a good fit and this would be an excellent first job out of college.

The last few weeks have been absolutely fantastic. I have been getting things done that need to be done. Very close to getting the model Justin wants me to work on complete. That has taken quite a bit of time because I had never worked with Siemens NX before and had to learn for myself both the modeling aspect, drawing creation and the assembly of components. It was a long hard bit of work but well worth it. Should allow me opportunities at other locations in the future.

Yes I have been here almost a year now. I won’t jinx it but my one year anniversary will be in one month. Yes it is true that Hans did have a conversation with me concerning my attendance but I think there were some misunderstandings there. But he did say some things that were not true like telling me it was not acceptable to tell him I would not be there with a text. This would be 100% BS because everyone else does it. He also stated I was out and did not call in a couple weeks before that which is complete bull crap. I have never not called in when I was not going to be there. I have to stop talking about that conversation because all it does is piss me off.

Karma… Hans called in sick the Tuesday after the fourth of July weekend and then again the following Monday and he told me it was hard for him to believe I was sick the day after weekends. Karma is a bitch. Edit: When Hans did come in he all of sudden like has about 12 stiches above he right eye. Sick Hans? I think not but I’m not going to ask.

With all that said. After my two years is up the likelihood that I will stay much longer is just about zero. By that time I will have been missing Carrie so much that the thought of not being with her will be too much for me to handle. By that time I should have started to get familiar with CNC machining and probably liking it but I’m not sure that will be enough to keep me here.

COVID-19 seems to be on the rise again. People here at work for the last couple of weeks have been dropping like flies or moths around a bug zapper.

There were a couple people on the floor that tested positive but came back to work after only a couple of days which I thought was a little strange.

Three weeks ago one of our engineering was out Wednesday, Thursday and Friday and all of the next week. The following week he was in but then the next week he was out again. He came back last Monday but was told to leave because he still had a temperature. He also sounded like crap. He had a mask on but that really doesn’t matter when you are coughing like he was. I hope he did not spread too much around.

The week before last Daniel Oaks tested positive and was out for the remainder of the week and Monday as well. The rules are, if you test positive (you don’t need to show proof) you must stay home for five days and the five days start the day after you tested positive. After that you can come back to work as long as you are not presenting any symptoms or fever and not using medication to prevent from showing symptoms.

I purchased a thermometer for checking my temperature if I happen to fall to this persistent bug. I know when Carrie was sick a few weeks ago she was miserable for at least four days.

Why the title? We were given an extra day for the 4th of July holiday. Yes, we had a four day weekend last week. It was great!

We had the 20th of June off for Juneteenth. The next week was a four day week, nice, then had a two day weekend followed by another four day week because we had the first of July off, very nice. Then we had a four day weekend with the first and fourth of July off, even nicer and followed that up with a four day week. All in all, very sweet middle of the year here in Thomasville.

In Tulsa the fireworks started about the first with a few going off and by the fourth it was almost a war zone. Depending on the weather but usually a lot of fireworks were going off. They usually stopped by the evening of the fifth. Here in Thomasville there were hardly any going off before the fourth. I might have heard four of five pops go off. On the fourth the city put on a show right behind my apartment and it was freaking loud! The end of the show was the loudest fireworks I have heard going off in a long time. It started about 9:20pm when it was dark and ended about 45 minutes later. I might go watch it next year. I could walk there is less than 10 minutes five if I could cut through the green belt but there is a fence there.

All in all a great fourth of July weekend.

Oh, did I mention that Carrie and I announced our engagement? Yep on the 2nd of July we announced it to the world. We got one heck of a response.

Dad went in the hospital on Saturday the 9th. Chris sent a message out to Me, Diane and Tyra that said “Left dad at hospital, they did a scan didn’t have results yet but said he’d probably be spending the night so I am on my way home. Hospital said they’d call me with an update.” That is the exact message and said nothing about why he went to the hospital.

Between then and now, Monday morning there wasn’t any new information other than his tests were coming back negative. He called me Sunday evening and sounded good but tired and said he would probably be going home tomorrow (Monday, today)

Aunt Marion and her partner apparently had a fall the morning of June 29th and she is not doing well. They have both been in the hospital since then. She can’t take much water except by spoon or sponge and does not want to eat or do therapy. They have moved her to an assisted care facility including hospice her late stages of Alzheimer’s is making her confused with all new faces around. Jack her partner is also not doing well.

As I didn’t know this information regarding Marion, most of the posts about her and Jack are paraphrases from Kris on Facebook. As of today Kris’s posts said Marion doesn’t seem to remember Jack.