Safety First

Posted by John

Yesterday I was forced to attend a 6-hour safety training course for work in order to make a site visit tp a large factory in Alabama that requires everyone in their facilities to attend this training course. After 6-hours of training I can tell you I don’t feel any safer. Quite the opposite in fact; I’m fucking scared of everything now.

The training consisted of a 4-hour long video intermixed with 2-hours of instructor-led training. I’m not kidding, the video was 4 hours long. It was like the Schindler’s List of safety videos and equally depressing.

Worse than that, there was only one other guy in the entire class with me, who I’ll call “Bubba” because that name alone gives you the perfect mental image of just exactly what this guy was all about. Actually, you know what? I’m going to just go ahead and describe Bubba in excruciating detail so you can get a better idea of precisely what I went through. Bubba was a good ol’ southern boy with the friendliest demeanor you could ever possibly encounter; friendly to a fault. The first thing I heard him say was, “I stopped at Hardee’s this morning to get breakfast so I could take my blood pressure medicine, then I forgot to take the medicine.” Recognizing irony was not one of Bubba’s strong suits. Dressed in overalls that I can only assume were custom tailored by the finest Italian seamstress to precisely fit Bubba’s spry, 260-lb frame, he and I stood about the same height and shared a nearly identical stature if not for the additional 100-pounds he was carrying in his beer belly that looked strangely like he was in his 36^th trimester on the verge of giving birth to a 9-year-old child. At this point you must be wondering how it is I would know that Bubba weighed 260-pounds. Well, he told me. “Why would you ask his weight?” you’re wondering. I didn’t. In fact, Bubba told me lots of things I didn’t ask about. In fact, he told me goddamn near his entire life story, none of which I asked about. I feel bad even making fun of him though because he truly was just an unbelievably nice guy and he truly has just had a tough draw in life. The truth is, the world really does need people like Bubba; people who are willing to work hard at any job they can do, and do any job they can. Alas, empathy isn’t funny.

Bubba currently operates heavy machinery for a local coal mining company, prior to which he was a tow motor instructor, a crane operator on a barge, a coal miner, and about 16 other jobs. Bubba didn’t need to sit through the safety training primarily because he’d already lived through the safety training. He and the instructor, who has been doing this shit for 37 years, just went back and forth trading personal anecdotes about some friend of theirs who was either maimed or killed for not observing the exact rules of safety we were learning about.

“Years ago, my good buddy Mike decided not to wear his hot suit while filling his tanker truck when the valve broke off spewing 350 degree molten plastic all over his body.”

Holy shit, are you serious??? That is the worst thing I’ve ever heard.

“One time Steve, who was the plant supervisor where I was working, pointed towards a high voltage wire when the electricity arced from the wire over 10 feet to Steve’s hand. Blew him right out of his shoes.”

Oh my god, that’s fucking horrible!

“To this day Steve walks with a limp and his vision is all messed up,” as he demonstrated how Steve walks with a limp, which I can only describe as a pigeon missing half of one of its legs, ambling down the sidewalk.

I can’t take any more of this shit¹.

“I knew a guy who went into a large machine press to clean it but forgot to properly lock it out. Someone came along, turned the press on, flattened him like a pancake.”

What??? That actually happened? Oh man, that is now the worst thing I have ever heard. If he was in there cleaning the press then got crushed, who is the poor sonofabitch who then had to go into the press to clean that up? Oh, this is just horrible.

“Just a couple years ago two brothers I knew were running a window cleaning business when one day their harness broke and they both fell 5 stories to the ground. One of the brothers landed on a fence and was cut right in half. Amazingly the other brother survived but suffered some debilitating injuries. I know one thing’s for sure – If I was that guy I’d be thanking God every day that I was still alive...”

Ahh, fuck, that is horrendous. That is just horrendous. No. No, you would not be thanking God; you’d be cursing him. You’d curse him every day. Like, “Dear God, why did you split my brother in half and leave me all fucked up? Why would you not just split me in half too? Was this because of the time I crushed that guy in the machine press? Seriously I told you that was an accident. I apologized like six times for it. What else do you want?”

If the stories weren’t bad enough he’d show these absolutely horrifying pictures of terrible injuries sustained on the job.

“This is what an acid burn looks like…”

Oh. Oh that is so disgusting. That looks like a slice of cheese pizza. I ate that for dinner last night.

“This is what happens when a fire extinguisher falls 30’ and lands on your foot…”

What? That’s a foot??? That looks like – Wait, why was the fire extinguisher 30’ in the air? You were just talking about having the proper footwear on site but I don’t care if you’re Ironman, if a fire extinguisher is 30’ in the air for no reason then falls on you, you’re going to get crushed. I don’t need safety training for that.

“This guy shot a nail from a nailgun into his face…”

Okay, now I’m paying attention because that looks exactly like my nailgun. Wow, I was not expecting this to get so personal.

After the training I had to take a test to prove I had been paying attention. The first question was, “If you are injured on the job, who should you tell? A) Your spouse; B) Your buddy; C) Your supervisor; D) Dick Cheney”

Are you fucking serious? I just sat through six hours listening to the script for Rob Zombie’s next shock horror movie that will give me nightmares for the next 4 months and I could have passed this test without even trying? This is complete bullshit!

Suffice it to say I passed and suffice it to say I had nightmares last night about horrible freak accidents and right now I’m wearing a full hot suit, respirator, hard hat, steel-toed boots and leather welding gloves. I don’t like going through life being afraid of everything. This must be what’s it’s like to be a Republican.

 

1.       I can only assume someone working at the plant the day the electricity jumped from the wire to Steve’s outstretched hand got the idea and went on to develop the electrically charge evil samurai master, Lightening, in Big Trouble in Little China, starring Kurt Douglas, unfortunately at Steve’s expense.

Draino

Posted by John

My boss is perhaps the most well-intentioned man I've ever met and I respect that more than I could possibly say. However it also means he is the most well-intentioned traitorous bastard I've ever met. Just today he informed me, after the fact, that he had nominated me to an executive position on the board of the local chapter of plumbing engineers. I'm not making this up. As you can imagine this is the worst news I've heard since Blair was voted off in the original Real World/Road Rules Challenge: Battle of the Sexes.

I haven’t been on the executive board of anything since I was treasurer of the Students Against Drunk Driving organization in high school, which only had an operating budget of $125/year that mostly went towards funding the spring kegger, or since I was Pledge Educator of the fraternity where I was author of several now famous and infamous memos describing the legal merits of, and in turn the benefits to the safety and security of the fraternity for hazing new pledges, or “first year detainees” as we liked to call them.

The elections are next week and I have every bad intention of throwing the damn thing so I don't win. However I know exactly what's going to happen: I'm going to find out the guy running against me is a socialist-hating, right wing nut job running on a platform to tighten the immigration laws against illegal bathroom attendants while lobbying for more freedom to carry concealed weapons in public restrooms and proposing legislation that would threaten the endangered urinal cakes into extinction and I just know my liberal elitism will get the best of me and I'll feel obligated to run a hardnosed yet transparent campaign of hope and reform to provide solar powered flush sensors in every bathroom, free healthcare and education for Roto Rooter employees, and create a cap and trade program for flatulence.

Shit, I don't even know what the position actually is or any of the responsibilities. All I know is, as an executive I would be expected to contribute an article to the quarterly plumbing engineering newsletter which, as I understand, needs to be topical and relevant to current affairs in the plumbing engineer’s world. I'm not making this up. Does this not sound like the worst idea ever, for both me and the entire organization? What do they expect me to write about? My inability to renovate my own bathroom?

Just in case I actually do have to try to win some votes at next week’s elections I think I'm going to prepare some sort of an article in advance. It's still rough but let me know what you think:

Fellow Plumbing Engineers,

As many of you are aware, the International Plumbing Code Counsel has recently announced plans to enforce stricter requirements for sampling and testing of wastewater from all new commercial building projects. While this has many far-reaching implications, the most immediate need is that all Plumbing Engineers must start designing and specifying the appropriate fittings to allow for the collection of the samples that will be tested.

The most effective place to locate such a fitting is just outside the building on the main drain line. While many fittings can be used for this purpose, the most prevalent fittings are the common sampling tees (Figure 1).

Sampling tees are so named for their resemblance to the letter, but are more commonly referred to as test tees.

While it's possible to have only one test tee that will function just fine, ideally you will get the most optimal performance out of installing two test tees. Additionally it’s not uncommon to have one test tee that’s slightly larger than the other and/or one installed a tad bit lower than the other; it’s perfectly natural and acceptable.

It's also extremely important to note that for your safety you should check your test tees regularly for abnormalities and while test tees commonly function properly over the course of a long life, it's recommended you have a professional inspect your test tees annually after the first 50 years of service. In this way you can remain ahead of the curve for early detection and treatment in the event any problems do arise.

If you have any questions about or simply care to talk with someone about your test tee problems, please feel free to contact Andrew Thompson III¹ in our office, any time, day or night. He’d be more than happy to assist you.

Regards 

 

PS - Stay tuned for next quarter’s article in which I personally test and review a new product on the market that uses a small fiber optic camera that can snake its way through the backside of the building sanitary sewer for a comprehensive inspection to detect clogs and leaks, called The Drainoscopy.

 

1. This little anecdote would be approximately 50 times funnier if you recognized this as the name of the new kid at work, but as it is maybe you can at least get a mild chuckle out of the joke in retrospect anyway. 

Waterworld

Posted by John

If you had asked me a month ago what my favorite element was, I would have said water, hands down. Actually, that's not quite true; I would have said the 5^th Element, Milla Jovovich, from the movie The 5^th Element because she was smoking hot in that film. Although, as many times as I’ve seen the movie I still don’t exactly understand how it is that she’s the 5^th element. You have earth, air, fire, water, and a smoking hot actress. Doesn't make sense. Even more confusing is how an actor like Gary Oldman can play a whacked out, evil, space crusader with a metal toupe in The 5^th Element after playing a whacked out, evil terrorist in Air Force One, after playing a whacked out, evil, corrupt cop in The Professional then somehow comes out and kicks ass as the embodiment of moral goodness as Commissioner Gordon in Batman Begins and Dark Knight. That defies the laws of chemistry. Further adding to the confusion is how Bruce Willis has managed to remain a relevant actor by playing the exact same character in every film he’s ever been in. Washed up cop/soldier/badass living a life of depressed solitude after his wife divorced him/children will no longer speak to him, somehow stumbles into a catastrophic situation in which he must become a one man badass killing machine in order to save the girl/city/country/world/universe. Even more confusing yet is how he can play the same character over and over and some times the movies are unbelievably badass and sometimes they are just horrendously shitty.

Die Hard – Awesome; Hudson Hawk – Terrible; The Last Boy Scout – Awesome; Striking Distance – Terrible; 12 Monkeys – Awesome (if by “awesome” I mean “pretty fuckered up"); Color of Night – Terrible soft porn; Pulp Fiction – Awesome; Har’ts War – Terrible (Colin Farrell – dreamy); Armageddon – Awesome make out movie in 1998, Terrible in every other respect; The Sixth Sense – Awesome dead people; Unbreakable – Terrible super heroes; Bandits – At first I thought it was awesome, now I realize it was terrible; Hostage – Terrible; Sin City – Awesome; Live Free or Die Hard – Terrible movie, awesome action, terrible ending, the Mac kid was awesome.

Anyway, back to water. Aside from some futuristic, smoking hot actress, it's my favorite. Air is great; I really like earth; I loves me some fire (as a burgeoning pyro in my younger years I’m lucky to still have my eyebrows today); but water is really where it’s been for me for quite some time. I love to drink water, take a shower in it, go to the beach next to it, add some sugar along with some percentage of my daily nutrients to make some delicious Vitamin Water; the list goes on.

Unfortunately me and water have had some issues of late. In fact, we’re downright sparing right now. A veritable clash of the titans; a tete-a-tete; mono y hydro; you name it. 

It started a few weeks ago with the whole bathroom Old Faithful deluge that I’ve already written about. As you recall from that incident there were a lot of things that went wrong that day but the entire event was precipitated by my inability to open, and more importantly, close the shut-off valve in the meter box out by the street. In the aftermath of that whole ordeal I went to Home Depot in search of some sort of device that would make it easier to open and close that valve. After scouring the plumbing aisle I came across exactly what I was looking for – a Meter Valve Lever, which looked like a long metal bar with a lever handle on one end and fork on the other designed specifically to fit over the valve stem. As soon as I saw it though, I thought to myself, “Son. Of. A. Bitch!” The thing was, I had seen something that looked just exactly like it before... Hanging in my garage. I just never knew that’s what it was.

I immediately went home, retrieved the stupid meter valve lever that came with my house, went out to the street, and shut that valve off just to see as easy as shooting snot across ice. I could just hear the water running through that valve, laughing at my ignorance. I was so furious.

Regardless, I had to forge on with the bathroom remodel.

Two weekends ago I was tearing up the old tile floor. The old, pink tile floor to be exact. I can't believe some douche rocket was so whipped back in the 50's when the house was built that he even let his wife make it a pink bathroom. In fact, I can't believe that 5 whipped douche rockets have lived in this house since then and didn't have the moxie to tear that goddamn pink tile out. Not until I came along in my infinite manliness and said, "I will stand for this no longer! I am putting an end to this bullshit pink madness! From this day forth this will be a man's bathroom with a urinal, beer signs, a mini fridge, and a flat screen tv¹!"

At any rate, I was tearing out the ancient, bullshit pink tile when I noticed the subfloor near the corner of the tub was a tad bit squishy. I decided to investigate further and pulled one of the planks up to find it was completely rotted out from decades of water damage. In fact, an entire 2'x2' section of the sub floor was entirely rotten. I removed all of it only to find to my horror that an entire section of the 2"x10" wood truss running right under the bathroom was completely rotted as well. I just stood there in disbelief, starring through a gaping hole into the crawl space below my house at a rotten beam that could collapse at any minute thinking, "Damn you H2O! DAMN YOU!"

My only option was to take another 2x10 and splice it around the rotted beam to give it support². So there I was, under the house in the crawl space again, with the wife standing in the bathroom trying to feed me a massive 2x10 beam through a hole in the floor so we could shore up our house and prevent it from caving in³. In these stressful situations when things aren't going my way I tend to get angry, and when I get angry I get obscene and I get aggressive.

Me: "Wife! Push the beam in here! Come on!!!"

Wife: "It won't go any further, it's stuck!"

Me: "Goddamit wife! Get on your horse and force this beam in here. Come on! Goddamit, come on!!!"

It turns out the beam was in fact stuck because as the wife was pushing on one end with all her might and I was under the house beating it relentlessly with a  mallet I felt this tickle on the back of my head. At first I thought it was a cricket, but then I turned my head and realized when water was spraying into my eyeball that the beam was stuck on a water pipe, right up until the pipe gave way under the onslaught of our brutal muscular force.

So there I was, under the house, with a rotted beam and a busted pipe spraying water in my face. Damn you H2O! DAMN YOU!!!

After an emergency run to Home Depot to get the requisite plumbing supplies, I was back under the house patching it all back together. At one point as I was precariously wedged in there, trying to force the new joints together, I felt a drop of water hit my cheek then run down across my lower lip. Uncertain where it came from, I looked up to see my head was directly beneath the rusty old shower drain which started to leak incessantly, dripping water across my face, eyes, nose and mouth. I just about threw up as I thought about all the disgusting dirty water, hair, mildew, and, dear God, cat shit that gets washed down that drain. Oh man, it was so gross. At least I don't pee in the shower any more.

Suffice it to say the water pipe, shower drain, and floor beam have all been repaired but thus far water has been kicking my ass. I'll have my revenge though. I'll have my revenge.

 

1. It's worth noting that the urinal, signs, fridge, and tv were all vetoed. I may still get the cup holder next to the TP dispenser though.

2. It's worth noting that I didn't consult any qualified individuals, such as a structural engineer, to find out if it was my only option. Instead I looked at my watch and made an impulse decision about what I could reasonably accomplish before the sun set that night.

3. It's worth noting this is probably a pretty extreme exaggeration of the actual risk.

--

Even if this movie ends up being terrible, this is still the funniest preview I've ever seen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRMLR2vkytw&feature=related

I Love This Game 3

Posted by John

I have to really apologize that this story has been so long and drawn out; I’ve had a lot going on. I also have to apologize that this really isn’t the greatest story ever told. I wish I hadn’t said that. I wish I’d described it as something like, “A really decent story,” or “A pretty good story you should like just fine.”

At any rate, I just need to finish it now.

When we last left off it was Friday. The Sonics had just won Game 6 the night before and forced the epic Game 7 that I was longing for, which also forced the epic showdown with my girlfriend that earlier in the week I thought would be funny but in that moment realized was going to be absolute hell.

That afternoon I went to her house like I did every day after school, except that time I honestly was going with every intention of presenting her with a compromise. You see, the thing was the critical game 7 was to start at 3 PM the next day. That meant I could watch the game in its entirety if only we would change our pre-prom dinner plans – we could eat at a local restaurant in town and still make it to prom on time rather than drive an hour out of town to go to the Red Lobster in Akron. It was, in my opinion, a perfectly legitimate compromise.

Unfortunately when I arrived at her house I didn’t find someone interested in a compromise. Instead, I found my girlfriend positively hysterical with tears pouring down her swollen and red cheeks.

“Holy shit,” I thought, “I did not anticipate this.” Really I should have anticipated it though. What course of action did I leave her with other than to devolve into an unintelligible mess of sobs and tears? I went to her house armed with the best ammunition I knew – a logical compromise. She was waiting for me armed with the best defense she knew – hysteria.

I set out to calm and comfort her the best I could. “Do you want some Kleenex or some tea or some shit? Maybe like some chamomile or something?”

Making very little progress I decided to try to explain my compromised plan between her sobs. “Listen, it’s the perfect plan; We just change dinner around and we can watch the game and still make it to prom on time. It’s that easy…”

Unfortunately she wasn’t interested in a compromise.

“It’s my senior prom *cry* *cry* *cry*! I’ve been dreaming about this day since I was a little girl *cry* *cry* *cry*!”

“Well,” I countered, “I understand, but I’ve been dreaming about this game since I was a little boy…”

In retrospect that was perhaps the worst possible thing I could have said. The crying display she put on up until that point was nothing compared to the deluge she unleashed after it. It was at that moment that I realized a few other things: 1) I was not going to get out of there with a compromise; 2) If I decided not to go to prom I was going to regret it; 3) If I went to prom I was going to regret it; 4) I was going to break up with that girl sooner than sooner.

I’m sorry to say I walked out of her house that afternoon with my tail between my legs. I’d caved to the crying and agreed to record the game, go to dinner, go to prom, and watch the game later. At the time I thought I was doing the right thing.

The next day came around and I put everyone on notice: No television, no radio, no contact with anyone who would have watched a television or listened to a radio. That afternoon I put my tuxedo on with spite, posed for the requisite pre-prom pictures with spite, drove to Red Lobster with spite, had a tasty seafood platter with spite, and finally arrived at prom with spite.

I still distinctly remember walking into the high school for the prom. Every head in the entire place turned to look at us. Every girl in the place was thinking, “Oh my god, he’s so sweet! He skipped the game for the prom…” While every guy was like, “Oh man, the Sonics must have won the game and he still made it to prom. He is the man. He. Is. The. Man!”

Every single person we passed was like, “What happened in the game? Did they win? Did they win?”

“I don’t know,” I said, “I recorded it; I haven’t seen it yet.”

“You haven’t seen it yet???” They’d ask, astonished, “That is insane. You are the man!” It was insane but I certainly didn’t feel like the man; I felt more like a beaten and abused dog.

Then the unthinkable happened. After several dozen people asked me about the game, my girlfriend actually turned to me and said, I kid you not, “Wow, if I had known it would be this big of a deal I would have just let you watch the game…”

I shit you not. I. Shit. You. Not.

I just stopped dead in my tracks, looked back at her, and acknowledged several other thoughts that dawned on me in that moment: 1). I would never, ever in my life, ever compromise my principles again, even in the face of hysterical crying; 2). I was going to ruin her prom; 3). I was going to break up with that girl that night.

I can say now that I have made good on the first promise every day of my life since that day; I made good on the second promise that night; It took me a few extra months but I eventually made good on the third promise.

I spent the entire prom seated in the corner with my buddy, hating ever second of my life, just waiting until the moment when I could get the hell out of there to see my Sonics beat the Rockets in that Game 7 and salvage some sort of joy from the entire ordeal.

At some point late in the night I somehow grew a conscience and decided I needed to at least dance with my girlfriend for one song, so I ventured out onto the gymnasium floor to find her. In the process I bumped into a guy who I was going to describe as a friend but figured would more accurately be described as a raging douchebag I happened to know.

“Hey,” he said, “Sorry about your team…”

“I’m sorry?” I said, in complete shock as if I’d just been shot in the stomach.

“Sorry about the Sonics,” he said, “It was a good game though...”

I would have preferred to have been shot in the stomach. After everything I’d been through that week I managed to make it to within an hour of sitting down to see the game, only to have some ass-lick turd rocket ruin the outcome for me. I was devastated.

The rest of the details of the story are inconsequential. Suffice it to say I managed to ruin prom, which provided me little solace for what I’d been through, and then I managed to ruin that girl’s entire summer before she went off to college, a fact I’m not necessarily proud of but quite honestly she should have seen coming.

--

This is one of the first stories I ever told Sara when we started dating. My intention was not to illustrate that I was an insensitive prick who holds meaningless sporting events in higher esteem than other legitimately important events. I simply needed to plant the seed early in our relationship so she wouldn’t be disappointed later in life to find out I’m an insensitive prick when I missed the birth of our first son in order to watch the Liverpool Futbol Club play in and win the Champions League Finals or something. I know what you’re thinking, “That’s a horrible thing to say.” Relax. My son, Steven Fernando Xabi Horst, will understand that I wasn’t there for his birth when he’s an international soccer sensation at the age of 16 because he’ll know if he’s not he won’t actually be my son because that’s what it means to have principles.