I Hate My ESD Shoes

Last week I ran over a parking meter downtown. I was pulling up curbside outside of Jennifer's work on D Street. My front tire hit the curb because I angled in too much and hadn't slowed down enough yet. The hit against the concrete startled me especially since I hadn't drank any coffee. I reacted too fast and I intended to slam on the brakes but I didn't move my foot over to the left far enough to clear the gas pedal. As I jammed my foot down I hit both the brake and the gas at the same time. The Cougar popped over the curb onto the sidewalk and the front end started rising upwards. I nailed a parking meter and bent the shit out of the pipe it was mounted on. About fifteen people on both sides of the street stopped what they were doing to stare at me completely fucking up.

Backing down off the sidewalk I parked the car properly in another spot just forward of the meter I clobbered and got out of the car to inspect the damage. Much to my amazement I couldn't find a single dent or scratch in the front end of the car. The Cougar is practically indestructable, it has taught me this time and time again. I've had about seven people run into me with their vehicles over the years and only one of those accidents did any real body damage. In that particular case all I had to do was use my tire iron against the fender well to clear the rear tire enough to drive home. Every other accident I got into the other driver had to have their car towed away after smashing into my beast.

Anyway, hitting the curb that hard probably wasn't the best thing for my front end alignment. A few people were still standing around watching me as I walked over to my victimized parking meter. The pipe was bent away from the street and into the path of passing pedestrians on the sidewalk. It looked pretty damn funny. Since there happened to be so many witnesses to my stupidity I did the right thing and called the police department from a payphone nearby and finked on myself. I told them I wiped out one of their meters and to come over and check it out. Had it been later in the day with no witnesses around I probably would have split the scene hit and run style. I'm dirtbag like that. Fifteen minutes later a nice blonde haired Police Technician lady showed up in one of those goofy little three wheeled carts that hateful meter maids drive and she took a report from me.

This embarrassing episode was made possible in part by my brand new ESD shoes. Bill and Dave's company buys us a pair of ESD shoes once a year, if we want them. I usually wear black wingtips to work every day but for some strange reason I decided to take them up on the free work shoes offer. I don't know what I was thinking. Our prime contractor for ESD shoes is Red Wing. I went to the Red Wing store with paperwork from our company that allowed me to pick out a pair of shoes up to a certain dollar amount, I think it was slightly over a hundred bucks. Browsing the different styles they had available on the salesfloor I decided none of them looked very sharp. I reluctantly took a pair of ESD shoes that were disguised as wingtips, but wingtips meant for clowns or mutants or something. The rubber soles were so thick that it reminded me of footwear a retard might have on when one leg is longer than the other one.

I wasn't used to driving the Cougar anymore. I was entirely used to driving dopey Ford Tauruses though. When you combine not driving your car for months, wearing new ESD shoes with wide, thick soles that you aren't used to at all and add a parking meter to the mix... bad things will happen. With my old wingtips I instinctively knew how far to move my foot right or left for gas or brake pedal. I didn't take into account the wider soles of these Red Wing retarded shoes when I jammed down on what I thought would be my brakes. Damn. Now I really hate these vile shoes and I'm going back to my old smelly wingtips. I'll keep these Red Wings until I figure out a suitable punishment for them. Throwing them in the fireplace would be too good for them. Perhaps I should put them to death under a band saw. I'll give it some thought as they must be made to pay for their crimes.

Hangin' Out With The Butcher

The Butcher is staying on the company dime at a lodge near our factory. He's got the same deal we had when we were in Spokane. Paid for rental car, fully furnished apartment with maid service, per diem per day, etc. The Butcher wanted to do some sight seeing in our county and he asked me if I'd drive him around the area for most of this past Saturday. I said sure thing. I liked the guy well enough even though I think he's a lousy technician since he manages to BBQ instruments and PC boards daily.

I drove over to the lodge he was staying at and was happy to chauffer him around all day in my '68 Cougar, but he insisted we take his rental car. He didn't seem to have any problem with my ride or anything. Instead I think he was trying to be overly polite and not burn up my gasoline or something. I shrugged and we took the rental car. He also insisted I drive which was kinda cool. I enjoy beating the shit out of rental cars. We headed out for the coastline, the wine country, and I took him to a few of the small towns in the area with dainty tourist trap establishments. The Butcher could pick up a few trinkets if he needed to burn a hole in his wallet. Everything was pleasant enough until we got back to his place after the roadtrip.

The Butcher invited me up to his room for a minute before I left because he said he had some stuff he wanted to "show me". The way he said it kinda made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. I wanted to leave, but for some reason I followed him to his floor. When we entered his room I cringed. All sorts of stuff was going through my mind. Was he a closet gay man who was gonna make a pass at me? Maybe his ski-masked militia pals were hiding behind the door so they could jump me for spilling the beans on their plans to overthrow the government. I didn't know what to expect. He brought me over to his black attache case, which was laying on the edge of his bed. I stayed a good six feet away from him ready to bolt out the front door if he suddenly got all loopy on me.

At work I saw him bring that case in every damn day but he never opened it. I had no idea what was inside. I assumed it was filled with slide rulers and board schematics. At least I hoped it was. The Butcher opened up his case while I watched. He handled it as if the contents of that little attache was a timebomb about to explode. As he opened the case The Butcher told me there was some things he wanted me to read right away, to get the stuff back to him quickly, and not to tell anyone about it. The inside was jam-packed with papers. He shoved a fat stack of stuff at me and with much relief I grabbed them and left for home. Whew. That was another UFO music moment courtesy of a Spokane resident.

Back at home I thumbed through all this crap The Butcher had been saving. I laughed my ass off as I perused the headlines of each page. All of this junk he was so carefully guarding turned out to be nothing more than crudely photocopied underground newspapers. In his collection there were fliers for anti-government conspiracy theories and intrigues like alien coverups, the JFK assassination, and pamphlets about how evil the FBI is. Those were just a few of the common themes. Others were about how the U.S. government was actively trying to take away the private ownership of firearms, and nutty stuff about concentration camps for civilians that were being built in the desert by the Army. Twenty minutes later I put the paranoid paperwork in a pile under a heavy book and decided to hold onto it for a couple of days. That way The Butcher would have the illusion I might have actually read this garbage. I plan to have as little as possible to do with him until he leaves for home. He's even more of a wingnut than I anticipated.

Rework

The techs on our production line keep log books of every instrument they repair. Information they record includes what the failure was, and what they did to fix it. After months of building up these records it sometimes becomes invaluable to them. For example, if a new technician comes on the line for training they can use the repair log book as a way to go over some of the most common problems. Other times a problem may not be seen for a long period of time and the guys might forget what the fix was. In the book they can look it up and find the repair. Saves them all some time and extra headaches. I thought it would be a good idea if I did the same thing in the assembly area. I started my own Repair/Rework notebook. During the past two months it's already turned out to be useful. I expect six months or a year out from now I should see some interesting trends on the most common assembly related problems. Or if the techs have an issue they can't figure out maybe some of this material will speed up the troubleshooting time. So far for November and December I did some pretty hectic repairs and reworks as some of these brand new units are turning out to be total dogs...

11/12 Replaced power mod motherboard in instrument 2450.
11/13 Replaced power mod motherboard and plug wiring harness. Replaced transformer in power supply. Cleaned up and resoldered +5v wires to all board mod motherboards. 2450.
11/13 Replaced 2 boards in phase mod due to missing component and short to ground. 1137.
11/14 Replaced motherboard in 2449.
11/14 Removed entire power supply assembly from 2450.
11/14 Removed card cage and replaced motherboard in 2452. Broken connector on A4A3 J6. Replaced the 361 board in 2452.
11/15 Replaced entire power supply in 2450. Power supply still fails test. This shit is starting to piss me off. Removed and replaced 310 motherboard (green mod) 2450.
11/15 Replaced 4Ghz oscillator on 361 board. J6 connector snapped off while torquing down. FUCK.
12/17 Replaced defective reverse power protector from a retrofitted instrument (serial number 65).
12/23 Gray wire from main wiring harness was trapped behind attenuator and shredded. Desoldered the whole god damned wiring harness and removed from front panel and motherboards. New wiring harness soldered in. 2460.
12/30 3 keys on reference casting were glued onto the A8A4 board in reverse order- and upsidedown (fucking dayshift nitwits). Replaced A8A4 board and glued on new keys. 2475.
12/30 Reverse power protector replaced on card cage. Re-installed attenuator. 4539.

10.28.1996

I weasled my way back onto swingshift and I come in late enough every afternoon so I don't have to see our dayshift folks anymore. It also means I get an instant 10% pay increase just for working the later hours. Yeah! I can't even begin to describe how nice it is to come into work and not have to listen to their inane conversations and watch them do nothing all day every day. I hate them all for the most part.

Swingshift is my haven. I arrive at my bench and lay my tools out. I spend a few minutes going over how many units we've got to knock out on the daily schedule and take a look at how much materials and supplies I've got in the area. Then I get started. As I work on one project I'm constantly thinking two or three steps ahead in the process to come up with a plan for the night. I can get the most accomplished this way. Next thing I know eight hours or more have passed and it seems like the entire shift passed in ten minutes. There's no interruptions from idiot employees, no distractions from useless outsiders like Ergo Assesors or ESD police. I don't get rounded up and herded into stupid meetings two or three times a day. Most of all, I love the quiet. After four or five in the afternoon all the dayshift nitwits are long gone and I can just concentrate on my job. Things are good now. This was long overdue and much needed.

At home, Jennifer doesn't feel loved. How do I know this? It's simple. Women who don't feel loved surround themselves with little creatures like cats and fish and things. Since I got home she's picked up two Siamese cats and pestered me into setting up my old thirty gallon hexagon fish tank. She already had a ten gallon fish tank set up with a few goldfish in it. She's also been yapping about wanting hermit crabs. I feel like I'm living in a zoo with a deranged bag lady. One third of the useable floorspace in her bedroom is occupied by stuffed animals. In a small two drawer cabinet she has a box that's taboo for me to touch. Inside the box is a collection of what Jennifer calls "nice ones". It's filled with pristine crisp new one dollar bills she selects from the cash registers at the coffee shop. I guess she likes sniffing them or something. I dunno.

Unpacking At The Site

We were told to begin unpacking all our equipment as soon as we got back to the home division. There was mass confusion at first. Not all of the materials had arrived yet, and some of us, myself included, weren't even sure what part of the factory we were given to settle into. Turned out we were to be located on the second story of the main building right where the PC board production center used to be. I was going to be working in almost the exact same floorspace I did just a few years before. The PC group had been decimated by management in the two or so years since I quit Bill and Dave's.

All of the rumors floating around back then turned out to be true. Bill and Dave's outsourced the entire PC business to a Chinese company and the bulk of our employees lost their jobs or were shuffled off to our Micro department. Those who couldn't find a new job internally by a certain deadline would be given severance. Those who were temporary workers were given a one-way escorted trip through the lobby and shown the door. It was odd to find myself working in the same building on the same floor in almost the exact spot again. No trace of the PC operation was left, even the solder wave machine and it's own little building was completely removed.

A large piece of poster paper was laid out on a table with a bunch of drawings and hand written notes plastered all over it. This was the floorplan we were to follow when rolling out and setting up all the test racks and workbenches. Everything had a Bekins tag with a number on it and the floorplan had all the corresponding numbers laid out. Bekins offloaded our stuff from their trucks and rolled it through the plant to our area. We had to do the rest. The Drunk wasn't around as usual so I expected all her kiss asses would evaporate as well and not assist in the unpacking. To my surprise I was wrong. Much more help was available from my loser coworkers and everything went fairly smooth.

Getting the test racks in place and powered up was our top priority. They had to be warmed up for a minimum of 24 hours before we could even think about testing any production boxes on them. That's the rule. Anytime test racks are powered down no matter what the reason a 24 hour warm up has to take place before they can be used again. No exceptions. Before we left the Spokane division we had done our best to keep production going and get as many boxes as we could ready for test. There was so much to do now that we were home.

A handful of the Spokane employees have come down with us. They will be here for one month just to make sure no serious unforseen problems creep up on us and to also finish training our people. On our line we got Tomcat, The Butcher, Don, and Sharon. I screwed Chuck out of his trip down here by telling The Drunk I didn't need any further training from him. She was cool with that and Chuck's hopes for a free trip to California were dashed. He hated me even more after that day. I was laughing on the inside about it.

I heard a few more employees are going to join our group now that we're back. I'm concerned about that. With the low performance and high amount of drama and personality problems I've encountered so far I'm thinking any more new people we get are going to be pure junk.

10.9.1996

I've been back home now for almost two weeks. I think I have a brand new appreciation for living here in California. Some people experience a new found appreciation for the United States after they come home from an overseas trip to other countries. They realize how lucky they have been to live here. I feel lucky to live here now too but I didn't need the expense or the hassle of visiting a third world country to arrive at this conclusion. All I needed was three and a half months of living in Spokane, Washington. That city might as well be a third world country. Lying face down in a muddy ditch along the side of highway 99 is better than living in Spokane Washington. Trust me on that one.

My trip home was a hassle, mainly thanks to the stupidity of Jennifer. The last night I was in Spokane I couldn't sleep. As daylight began to seep through my apartment windows I got up, dressed myself, and put all my belongings in the car. My flight wasn't until mid-afternoon but I could not wait to get the hell out of there, so I drove to the airport and turned in the car to Hertz. I checked in my luggage and went to the gate my flight was to leave from. It was eight in the morning. I was going to sit there for many hours fighting boredom but that was better than spending one more god damned minute anywhere in the city of Spokane. I bought a couple of magazines, a cup of coffee, and a muffin. Then I settled into the airport for the day.

Twenty minutes later I reached the middle of the first magazine that I had purchased. An airline attendant came up to me and asked if I'd like to get on a flight leaving for San Francisco now. There were a number of open seats on the flight and they had room for me if I'd like to go home early. Fuck yes! I took them up on the offer and hot-footed it across the terminal and down the gangway into the plane. Awesome. I jumped into an open seat on the plane that was on the window side of the fuselage instead of the aisle. I hated flying, but being able to look out the window was a small psychological comfort. If we were to crash into the ground I'd at least be able to see it coming. As I got myself squared away I looked out the window and saw a tiny tractor with a guy on it haul a bunch of empty trailers out to the plane. Right behind him in the first trailer I recognized my luggage. He slammed it onto a conveyor belt that led into the plane out of my view from the window. I really was headed home.

The flight into SFO was quick and uneventful. After I got my suitcases I wandered around the terminal thinking of how to reach Jennifer to let her know I was home hours earlier than I should have been. I went to a payphone and called her pager number. Over the next couple of hours I called her pager and tried to leave some sort of a message to let her know I was back already. All I could leave was a phone number. How would she know it was me? I began to get frustrated as more time passed. Continuing to wander around SFO I decided to hit one of the white courtesy telephones and call the firehouse. Maybe Dad was working. They have two firehouses out on the runways, one on the bay side, and one close to the terminal. Growing up I spent alot of time at both of those firehouses hanging out with the guys. All of the firemen were super cool. Dad should have been at 2 house, but when I called they said he wasn't scheduled to work for the next couple of days. Shit. I could have hung out there all damn afternoon if only he had been working.

I spotted Jennifer sitting in a lounge near the gate my afternoon flight was scheduled to arrive at. I was happy to see her. I asked if she had received any of my pages and she told me that she had turned the pager off. I kinda lost my temper when she said that. Ever since Jennifer got a pager she's had the stupid thing turned off like 90 percent of the time. It's been useless, really. I should have known she would have it turned off. Like an idiot I blew my stack at her and asked why the fuck she had a pager if she was always going to walk around with it turned off. Two women who were passing by as I was berating Jennifer looked at me like I was a total asshole. I didn't care. The rest of the day was blown. I had hoped it would be a happy reunion between Jennifer and I, instead it was a disaster. We went to Sausalito so I could buy her lunch at a restaurant that looked out over the bay. As we sat and ate neither one of us said anything to the other. It was extremely uncomfortable and boring. I became even more frustrated.

Since then things around the house have been a drag. Jennifer isn't really happy to have me back. She's mopey and distant all the time. I noticed someone was throwing lit cigarette butts onto the hood of my '68 Cougar for what must have been months because so many of them had collected near the windshield wipers. I suspected it was Jennifer who had tossed them all on there. Some of the butts had smoldered into piles of dried flowers that fell from the tree branches above the car. Lucky the Cougar hadn't caught on fire. I had asked Jennifer to drive my car at least once a week so it didn't screw up the battery or cause some engine trouble due to sitting unused for so long. Obviously she hadn't driven it at all, or made very little attempt to after I left for Spokane. In the trunk of her '68 Cougar I found a box with a bunch of letters I had written to her. None of them had been opened. When I questioned her about what I found in her car she started to cry. I never got a honest explanation from her. She lied to me and said she had read all those letters but the envelopes must have somehow 'self sealed' again after being in her trunk for so long. Yeah, right.

9.27.1996

Time is passing so slowly. I wish I was home. I'm going to have a difficult time sleeping tonight.

Everything at work is packed. I got stuck doing it all by myself this afternoon for our area. Most of our line's employees left work early again yesterday. Then I found out today The Drunk allowed the majority of them to fly home a day or two before they were scheduled to leave. So none of them were there to help out today. Fuckers. That left myself and a skeleton crew of people behind to make sure three separate product groups got packed up proper and onto the Bekins tractor trailers lined up in the parking lot. I was so god damned angry my loser of a boss let all her precious kiss asses hit the road already. Those bastards should have been here like the rest of us helping to get this shit ready to go. I want to punch her.

For four hours I sat around doing virtually nothing on the shop floor. I was there just in case any of the Bekins guys ran into trouble or had any questions while they were loading up their trucks with our equipment and materials. I literally sat there for hours while dozens of Bekins movers grabbed stuff and hauled it away. I don't think any of them asked me a single question the whole time. I was annoyed with J2 and Rick. They're two of our laziest technicians and both of them were supposed to help out, but both of them snuck out of the building leaving me behind to handle it all. Much later in the day a nice woman named Stephanie came along and cut me loose from my duties. She sympathetically told me she would take care of things for the rest of the day.

As soon as I left the factory I came back here to clean the apartment and pack up all my shit except for the clothes on my back, the suit I will wear tomorrow, and my pajamas. I've only got two suitcases, one shoulder bag, and my Sony Playstation buried in some paper grocery bags. I don't want anybody at the airport to see it just in case someone gets the idea to swipe it. I still have to empty a few items from the refrigerator. I'm leaving behind a half eaten box of cereal and some other random foodstuffs. Fuck it. I want out of here as soon as possible and the maids can deal with the stuff I'm abandoning in here when they eventually come in to tidy everything up.

I will never do this sort of thing for an employer again in the future. I don't care what the incentives might be to work away from home for an extended period of time. I completely underestimated how tough it would be to leave Jennifer and everything else familiar to me behind. I don't think I'd be able to handle this much isolation ever again. The lonliness I felt while living here was terrible. I'm looking forward to getting back home and becoming un-sober with Senor 23, and Dave. It will be good to see some of my pals back at TDS this coming Monday. I really do miss working with many of the people there. Bill and Dave's employees are garbage for the most part and it has made me appreciate the friendships I made with people at TDS more than I ever did when I was working there.

I drove down Sprague Avenue for the last time this afternoon on my way back to the apartment from Thaddeus T. Thudpucker's. I ate my usual there, fried chicken with loads of mashed potatoes, green beans, a biscuit, and a tall glass of Alaskan amber ale. As I headed back to the apartment I looked for the whores lurking in their usual stretch of town as I always did, but there weren't any. That was strange. They really amused me each time I drove past them because I never have seen a more in-your-face group of prostitutes anywhere else. It surprised me how many of them there were, and the fact that none of them seemed to be concerned or afraid of the police in this city. They were interesting to watch as I drove up and down Sprague Avenue this past three months, but I won't miss them. I won't miss anything about Spokane. It is an unimpressive city.

9.25.1996

Today at work we had scheduled a special training session for packaging all our gear and equipment for the trip back to California. Everyone on our line was supposed to attend the demonstration. Almost no one showed up. They all left early for the day even though they knew about the meeting. Our main contractor for doing these kinds of moves between divisions is Bekins. The Bekins guys expect everything on the shop floor to be ready to go into their trucks when they get here. We have to secure all the equipment in wooden carts with heavy shrink wrap and pack up all our tooling and supplies. The worst part of the whole deal is breaking down our techincal and engineering workbenches for transport. I'm not looking forward to this part of the move because we have to remove overhead booms on each bench and then secure them to the tabletop somehow.

Most of the California employees were hung over from last night's company paid for cruise on lake Coeur d' Alene. I heard a few stories from the Spokane guys today that our California folks overdid it on the drinking. Don told me they "got stupid". Don doesn't know they were already extremely stupid, alcohol just makes it more obvious. Slobbering Mouth Kid triumphantly told me how some of our people threw up in various places on the boat as the evening wore on. I hate him. Once again I'm glad I chose not to go along to the company party. These people are total junk.

9.23.1996

I'm depressed. When I got home today I called Jennifer to see how she's doing. As she picked up the phone and I said hello, her tone of voice was like "Oh, it's you. Leave me alone". She is always like that. Jennifer never asks me how I am, how the day went, or what I'm up to. Obviously she has a lack of interest in me. The only time I got a cool phone call from her was right after I sent that dozen roses. Now she's back to normal. I suspect the reason why she is with me is because she doesn't have anyone better. Wouldn't surprise me if she's been working on that while I have been away from home though.

The Butcher was asking me some personal questions at work the other day. He wanted to know if I was married. I told him that I wasn't. He muttered, "You're a smart man". I thought about that all evening after work. Am I smart for not marrying Jennifer? Am I smart for not being married to any woman? I don't know. It's all too confusing most of the time and I am unsure of what to do about it. I am tired of all the let downs and frustrations with her though. I need some peace in my life for a change.

Since Jennifer seemed so thrilled to hear my voice I said, "You call me if you want to talk to me then". I'm willing to bet money she won't bother before I leave for the airport this Saturday morning. Earlier this afternoon I was looking at new suits. I was thinking it would be nice if the first thing Jennifer saw when I got off the plane back home was me in a new suit looking sharp. Now I don't think I'm going to bother with it. I'm fucking two states away, I call to see how she is because I genuinely care about her and the only answers I get out of her are short and filled with contempt in her voice. I ask her how her day has been. The reply is "Fine". How's your work going? "Fine". How are you feeling? "Fine". Do you miss me? "Yes". That's how every single one of our phone conversations have been the past three months. It's like I'm speaking with an android. This shit pisses me off.

Six Days Left

Here I am sitting in the livingroom of my Spokane apartment longing to be back home. I only have six more days to go here, but I'm afraid these six last days are going to pass by very slowly. This morning I woke up around four and faded in and out of sleep until seven. I drempt of Jennifer and I making love. When I couldn't sleep anymore I continued to have visions of the two of us locked together passionately touching and kissing. I wished she was in bed next to me. Six more days.

My aunt Linda has been really cool to me the whole time I've been up here. She's been writing me cards to say hello and see how things have been going for me. She has neat handwriting. I've been writing to both my aunt and uncle in response which has given me a good way to get alot of stuff off my mind and kill some downtime. I've had far too much downtime during the past few months. I think the first month I was here in Spokane I wrote them more often. I wrote to everyone back home more often for that matter. I've been constantly e-mailing all my friends back at TDS that are still stuck there. I don't e-mail Mom much anymore as I end up on the phone with her instead.

I spoke with Dave and Jerrie yesterday about TDS woes. They told me a four-star general is coming out to inspect the WAM situation. I guess WAM is doing so poorly in the field since the prototype stage of production that he's coming out to the site to see for himself what the hangups are. It's no wonder to me. TDS has invested very little money in improving the test equipment since the proto stage. Prototype test equipment doesn't cut it when you get into initial production because it generally wasn't engineered for high volumes of throughput. Stuff consequently wears out immediately and you have to keep rigging things in order to get anything out the door. It's a shoddy way of operating no matter how you look at it. Jerrie told me the situation with the tri-axial vibration machine in the environmental lab is so bad now that they can only test three units at a time. That's fucked up. That test is supposed to handle dozens of completed units in each run.

Instant Credit

Part of working on this transfer deal is each one of us was issued a corporate credit card. Didn't matter if you had bad credit or no credit at all. You got a corporate card given to you which Bill and Dave's company apparently guarantees to pay off even if you screw it up really bad. Management required all of us to have the card so we could be reimbursed for certain expenses during the trip and time working away from home. It's easily tracked by the company's bean counters this way. I've never really had any credit before, and what little credit I did have up to that point wasn't good. Just out of high school my Dad co-signed on a electronics department store credit card for me and I messed it up. Not seriously or anything mind you, it was only a couple hundred bucks. Nevertheless I was irresponsible and Dad freaked out to a ridiculous degree about it like his credit would forever be ruined. I heard over and over again about how he'd never be able to buy another car or a house or some shit all because of me. Oh, the drama. I'll never forget that.

So I get this corporate card shoved into my face and I'm thinking this is pretty cool. I just got instant credit. I called up the credit company and I asked for more details about what I could and could not do with this sucker. Dollar signs were in my eyes. The temptation to spend recklessly was great and the card was starting to burn a hole into my wallet. When I made the call to the credit company they were extra nice and answered all of my questions. They told me I could use the card for whatever I wanted, didn't matter if it was company related or not. The only snag was that at the end of each month the entire balance of the card had to be paid off, no exceptions. This was a dangerous catch that I was glad to be aware of. No one at Bill and Dave's told me about that when I got the credit card. Knowing that whatever balance I ran up on the card had to be taken care of when the bill arrived would hopefully keep me honest.

One of the guys used the corporate card to charge up $4,000 worth of stereo equipment the first weekend he was here. I wonder if he knew that balance had to be paid off almost immediately. This could get interesting. I wonder how many of them will go bankrupt or get fired for abusing the card.

Pawn Shops

Spokane is filled to the brim with pawn shops. The only other city I've seen with this many pawn shops in it has got to be Reno, Nevada. I enjoy rummaging through these places looking at what people have ditched in an effort to generate a little extra dough in hard times. On one hand it's kind of exciting when you're browsing around the glass cases and racks of stuff, but on the other hand it's depressing when you realize most of the items for sale are there because someone couldn't pay their rent or get something to eat. In a way I think you can gauge how economically depressed a city is by how many pawn shops they have. Man there's tons of them here.

I've never owned a gun before or even really seriously considered buying one. Most of the pawn shops in Spokane have healthy sized gun collections. Lots of handguns are on display in glass cases. Some shops have quite a few rifles behind their counters as well. I've been drooling over a variety of pistols but I have no idea what they are for the most part. I really like the way those World War II German Lugers look. I've seen a couple of them for sale. I am content for now to look at them behind the glass and wonder what it's like to shoot them. I bet it's fun. At one pawn shop I asked the guy behind the counter what was needed to purchase a weapon in Washington. He said I needed to have a Washington state ID or driver's license. For a moment I thought I would maybe go to the DMV here and say I just relocated into the area and get a Washington driver's license but then I thought again and decided I was too lazy to do it. I didn't need to be spending the money on guns anyway.

There's a pretty cool military surplus store I've been going to every couple of weeks. I think they get large amounts of good stuff thanks to the close proximity of Fairchild AFB. This store seems to have a bunch of neat equipment and bits of military gear in excellent to near mint shape. I can spend too much of my time wandering around poking at stuff and checking everything out. I'm particularly interested in their collection of live ammunition. In one of their counter cases they have a decent stockpile of tracer rounds. Each round is overpriced though so I'd never bother to buy any of them. It would be a total rip off. Some of the rounds are green tipped or bright red tipped so they must be either bright green or red. Those look really cool when you're shooting them off at night.

Slobbering Mouth Kid was bragging about a 9mm semi auto pistol he bought illegally up here a couple of weeks ago. Someone here sold him this handgun under the table for too much money. I laughed at him. I wouldn't be surprised if the gun is hot. Anyway the dimwit has been telling everyone about it at work and has been showing it off to anybody who wants to check it out. He showed it to me even though I didn't ask to see it. I really wasn't interested and I thought he was a total fool for telling everyone about it. I mean, if it is stolen or something that's a great way to advertise who has it and maybe get busted. The guy doesn't have any brains in that stupid looking head of his.