The Diary of an Average King

What We Are Dealing With Here Is...

2011-11-09T13:07:00.001-08:00

...a complete lack of work ethic. This is what I have to put up with on a daily basis at my place of employment.

The employee, who shall remain nameless, picked up the forklift from outside where Randy and I were welding. That's all fine and dandy, but did he return it when he was finished loading 1 pallet onto the customer's truck? Nope. As you can see, he didn't even manage to get the forklift all the way back into the door before running into the office to jump back on his dear ole work Internet.

I have no idea why he does this. Every time he uses the forklift (which is only when everyone else is totally busy and he's forced to) he leaves half hanging out of the door. Why??

It's such a pain in the ass to have to fire the forklift up and move it out of the way to close up in the evenings. I know it wouldn't kill his lazy ass to drive 20 more feet and park the equipment out of the way of doorways/walk-areas like everyone else.

But like with everything else with this guy, nothing's going to be done about it. Until our boss starts managing his employs, this guy is going to keep perusing the Internet on company time on the days he decides to show up to work. It's almost comical how this ridiculous behavior is tolerated on a daily basis. I'm willing to bet that 99% of the major corporations in this country would not tolerate such uselessness in the work place. I wish this place didn't either.

NCAA Football 12 Platinum Trophy

2011-10-22T21:02:00.000-07:00

Halloween Card 2011

2011-10-13T15:07:00.000-07:00

I received a Happy Halloween card form Grandmama Sheila today. It's the little things that bring a smile to my face :-)

Pumpkin Pickin'

2011-09-24T18:19:00.000-07:00

Since I was home today, I was able to help pick pumpkins. I had fun but I'm betting my back is going to be killing me before too long. Oh well, it was worth it.

Swapping Out the Xterra's Cabin Filter

2011-09-14T18:24:00.000-07:00

Ever since we bought the Xterra, starting it up lead to a brutal blast of nicotine filled air from the A/C vents. I'm not sure how Emily put up with it this long, the few times I've been in the car, I found it to be overwhelming. Of course the smell went away after a few seconds, but nonetheless it needed to be fixed. So I ordered a new cabin filter and installed it today. Fresh air here we come.

As you can see, the old one was quite nasty. I'd be willing to bet money that this was the first time this has ever been swapped out.

Funny Headline

2011-09-07T18:33:00.000-07:00

I took the work truck to Jiffy Lube to get the oil changed. While sitting in the waiting room, I was flipping through the News Sentinel and came across this headline in the opinion section. I found it to be quite humorous:

I have no idea what the article was about. I guess I probably should've read it so I'd have some sort of clue what the heck they were talking about. Oh well, taking a picture was much easier.

Montana @ Tennessee Vols Game

2011-09-03T18:46:00.000-07:00

The start of the 2011 NCAA football season has begun. The Tennessee Volunteers took on the Montana whoevers but not before a two hour rain delay. It hasn't rained in Knoxville for what seems like months, but 8 minutes before the scheduled kickoff the heavens decide to break free with a monsoon. I'm not a fan of being wet at all. I had a good time though. Tailgating was a blast as well.

Yep, that's a female mullet, still in its infancy stage.

Rain Rain

This is the last pic I took before getting soaked.

We Finally Finished Pouring Our Concrete Pad

2011-08-24T20:46:00.000-07:00

Well the project that started nearly 5 months ago has finally came to an end. We poured the last 3 yards today and completed what was supposed to be a fairly quick project.

We had to use a wood float that Randy constructed out of a 2"x4" and a 1"x6". It was very heavy and pretty much made a mess every time we extended it past five or six feet. But it was all we had, so we made do.

At any rate, it's finished. As a whole, it all looks very amateurish and I wouldn't want this type of work done at my home, but I heard a great saying from a truck driver today to describe my feelings about it now: "I don't care what it looks like, I can't see it from my house."

I'm glad to see it finished. As bad as I want to move on and find a better job (start a career, actually) I'd really like to see through these types of projects before I go. As bad as some of this tasks tick me off sometimes, they still are my favorite part of the job, even if they aren't part of the job description. Let's be real, the actual job description of my job is a bunch a crap I don't even like doing.

Finished Painting

2011-08-23T20:38:00.000-07:00

I finally got around to finishing up those electrical boxes I started working on last week. I actually got all the painting finished on it last Friday morning, but didn't get around to hanging the caution signs until this morning. I've got to admit that I'm really impressed with the Rustoleum Safety Yellow paint. It's real smooth and bright. It turned these crappy looking boxes into something that looks darn near new, and fairly professional.

Still Throwing Out Stuff

2011-08-23T17:38:00.000-07:00

My method of cleaning can only be described as micro-organization since I'm only managing to clean out a minute area of my space every day or so. Tonight, while trying to clear out about a 6-inch section of a shelf on my desk I came across my parking pass from ETSU. Since I'm an 'online hoarder' and professional procrastinator, I decided to scan it and post it on my blog:

My First Truck Magazine

2011-08-20T15:56:00.000-07:00

September 1999; Volume 25, Number 9

It doesn't seem like it was all that long ago when I was hardcore interested in everything trucks, more specifically mini-trucks. It overtook my love of baseball as the taste of turning 16 and being able to drive filled my every thought.

I'm not sure what planted the seed, but at some point during the summer of 1999, I decided I wanted a truck magazine. Easy enough. My Grandmomma took me to the Humboldt Walmart one afternoon and I took to the magazine rack.

I studied every automotive book the retailer offered. It seemed like there were so many to choose from, so I had to be sure to make the right choice. Lowrider and Mini-Truckin' were immediately snubbed since I knew my Mom wouldn't approve of the 'half-naked' hot chick on the cover. There were several mags for classic trucks and a boat load for Mustangs, Camaros, sportscars, etc., but I knew I wanted a truck and not an old one. Then I came across this issue of Truckin'. It was awesome, it had a large selection of truck editorials, several how-to sections, and loads of ads (which were important to me back then, since I needed to learn prices). And the best part of all? It was the same price as the rest of the magazines, yet it was thick!! (300 pages to be exact).

That settled it. The September 1999 issue of Truckin' would be my first truck magazine. I started reading on the ride home, I read it when we got to the house, and I re-read it everyday. I probably had the magazine memorized and it had me hooked on trucks.

I bought every issue of Truckin' from that point forward, and eventually subscribed to it. My affection for trucks lead to a vast collection of truck magazines. When I moved away from home in '06, I had years of literature. I eventually got all of them moved to Knoxville over several trips.

But by 2008, the truck bug had faded. Any spare money I had rarely went to my ride and the magazines weren't being read any longer. Eventually my subscriptions ran out and I never picked up another truck magazine from the store. I hated moving all those magazines from one apartment to another, lease-after-lease, so I started recycling them.

Since Truckin' was the heaviest, they were the first to go. I trashed them all except for the one I have pictured above, since it was my first. Then I got rid of the rest of them, all but my Street Trucks magazines (I actually had the first issue all the way up to like 5 years deep) which had become my new favorite. The Street Truck mags had made their way to my work so the rest of the guys could look them over (and I could get them out of the house).

A few months ago, I opened up a cabinet at work where I had stuck all those Street Trucks and decided it was time for them to go, so in the recycle bin they went. They were all gone but one, my first Truckin'. Well today, the time has come. I've been cleaning out my home desk and trying to continue my trek to organization and I came across it. I gently flipped through the pages, reliving all the memories from staring at all those articles for hours, before tossing it into the recycle box.

Then I grabbed it back out so I could scan it and add it to my blog. I'm sure eventually I'll be perusing my old posts and come across that picture and it will bring back the same memories as it would if it was just sitting on a shelf collecting dust for the same amount of time. Now it's one less thing to move.

In the recycle box she goes, this time for good.

Finally Beat Modern Warfare 2 Campaign

2011-08-20T00:42:00.000-07:00

I hadn't really competitively played Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 in a while, but I figured I'd pick it up tonight and take a stab at finding all the intel located throughout the campaign. I have beaten the campaign twice already, once on recruit and once more on veteran (the things I do to gain trophies lol), so I was vaguely familar with the levels. What I wasn't familiar with was the locations of the 45 pieces of intel. I checked out IGN.com to help me out.

They have a walkthrough that illustrates where each one was at and it helped tremendously. I started off with 11 pieces of intel, and managed to find the remaining 34 in about 3-4 hours (on recruit). Wrapping up the campaign unlocked 2 trophies that dealt with the intel, and I went ahead and knocked out another trophy that required killing 20 enemies while driving (This is more easily achieved on the 'End Game' level, I only had to play through the level twice to accomplish this.)

Now all I lack is to wrap up the Spec Ops missions, which I'm willing to bet are going to be a pain in the @ss to do. Once I beat those though, it will unlock my (presumably) second platinum trophy.

NOTE: You can keep up with my PS3 trophies via the trophy card I have installed below this post at the bottom of my blog.

Pouring Some More Concrete

2011-08-19T22:59:00.000-07:00

We poured about 1.5 yards of concrete this afternoon. It's probably the last we'll pour for a while since Randy had to take the professional float home. We've got about 3-4 more yard to pour to finish this project up. We're already around 5 months deep into this project, I wish we didn't drag stuff out this far.

Always Sunny Season 7 Family Photo

2011-08-18T15:39:00.000-07:00

I woke up this morning with a headache before work, then upon arriving at work it only got worse. The longer I was at work, the more I hated my job and the less I wanted to be there. Then I got a text from Chris to check my email, which I immediately did. Here's what he forwarded me:

It's the promo photo for It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Season 7. This pic damn near cured my headache and is now the wallpaper on my iPhone!

Finally Poured Some More Mud

2011-08-17T23:12:00.000-07:00

Finally, Steve got on the ball and got us some more concrete to pour. All it took was for Randy to say that he was going to take the float home this weekend. Five months after starting this project, we're still not done. There's no telling how long it will be before this gets finished, if it ever does.

Slinging Yellow Paint

2011-08-17T23:06:00.000-07:00

The combination of being bored at work and trying to burn a few calories led me to break out a brush and a bucket of safety yellow paint. My original mental game plan was to work on the stairs leading up to the scale house since it's never been finished. But after I got out there, I didn't want to tackle it, so I worked on the next closest eyesore--this old electrical box that hasn't been painted in what appeared to be decades.

Two hours deep and I didn't get far at all. Between using a 2-inch brush (all I could find) and getting interrupted by work-related phone calls and customers needing loads, progress wasn't really an option. I really wanted to get one full coat over her before calling it a day, but 5:00 rolled around all to quick, and this was as far as I got.

I did slather quite a bit on the tops of the boxes since they had never been painted before. I don't know why I was shocked when I saw the top had never been painted, I should be used to everything being half-assed by now. At least it's done right now. Hopefully tomorrow I'll get her finished up.

The Loudest Noise I've Ever Heard

2011-08-08T13:14:00.000-07:00

At work today, I was out in the scale house loading a customer. As I was sitting in my chair watching the scales, I heard the loudest bang I've ever heard before in my life. Not only was it loud, but it shook the entire scale house. I jumped out of my chair and looked outside, something that loud had to mean something fell off the silos. After taking a look around, I didn't notice anything out of place and everything seemed to be functioning just fine.

I then noticed Steve and Randy (Ray wasn't here today, of course) walking down the loading ramp to check out the noise. They were looking at the side parking lot, and I had noticed earlier that a flat bed had pulled in with a large dumpster loaded on it, so I just figured they had slid it off the back and that was the cause of the bang.

I finished up loading the customer and headed back to the office, nearly forgetting the noise. Randy then told me the tire on the Kamatsu front end loader had exploded on the other side of the warehouse. I went to see for myself and sure enough, there was a big gash in the side of the tire. You could still see the dust in the air from the explosion.

About 30 or so minutes before the tire had blown, I had seriously considered taking the push mower to that side of the fence to knock down the tall grass. The only thing that stopped me was that the gate was locked and I wasn't motivated enough to ask what the combination of it was. I'm glad I didn't now, for 2 reasons.

First, with my crappy luck, I probably would've been standing right in front of it when it happened. It either would have scared me to death, or killed me with the force of it exploding. Secondly, if I hadn't been standing in the way, there's a chance someone may have blamed me for it, assuming that I had hit it or the mower had thrown a rock at it or something of the like causing it to pop. I'd just assume avoid that predicament. Especially since I found out the replacement cost of that tire was $4,200. I sure don't want someone accusing me of breaking it and trying to get me to pay that kind of money.

Kamatsu WA450

Graduation Card from Mom and Dad

2011-08-06T09:06:00.001-07:00

Graduation Card from Uncle Richard and Aunt Marilyn

2011-08-05T17:21:00.000-07:00

Graduation from Grandma Gloria

2011-08-05T17:13:00.001-07:00

Birthday Card from Grandmama Gloria

2011-08-05T16:54:00.001-07:00

Birthday Card from Tim & Diana

2011-08-05T16:47:00.000-07:00

Birthday Card from Uncle James and Aunt Martha

2011-08-05T16:41:00.001-07:00

Birthday Card from Uncle Richard & Aunt Marilyn

2011-08-05T16:36:00.000-07:00

Birthday Card from Matthew

2011-08-05T16:29:00.001-07:00