999,999 : 1

This first week back at work kicked my butt! I have a knot in between my shoulders from all the repetitive motions of the cleaning of screens, hauling of screens, and all the other related things. Having a bit of variety is good. Not that I feel close to having a repetitive strain injury, just that this week has had a bunch of the same stuff going on, and prior to that I wasn't doing much of anything. So my body is adjusting to being in motion again.

I got a starter on sharpening squeegees. Wasn't so good at it though. It is tricky to get the speed right. Can't stop at all when doing it. Basically you are grinding off the bottom of the squeegee to make it really nice and smooth. Its a small grinder and you run the squeegee against it.

Brock came by with some printing stuff. I mixed up the new emulsion. He brought a clapper (you know, clap on clap off) BUUUUTTTTT it only takes two prongs, and the light and heater are three pronged plugs. NOOOOOOOO the exposure unit was going to be SO COOL. Oh well.

And I reclaimed the last of the screens! We sorted through the big job and pulled the ones that won't be used. And I also taped up a bunch of screens and listened to Guards! Guards! and started The Alchemist. The latter is narrated by Jeremy Irons, who sounds like a kitten wrapped in velvet.

Pa, I think I gave you Guards! Guards! I highly recommend it. There are a few pauses in the mp3s, I think that is just where they left pauses when splicing the tracks together or something. If the sound stops but the track is still going on, just wait. It's one of my favorite Discworld books thus far. Very good characters and humor.

Got out with plenty of daylight. Took a bath and read in the path. Need to get some bath salts or something. Baths are so boring when it is just hot water.

Watched Mr. Selfridge, well the first episode, it is a miniseries about the founder of Selfridge's, which stars Jeremy Piven who ALWAYS sounds to me like he is putting on a fake American accent. Anyway. Watched that, and Elementary. Now might stay up watching a Discworld adaptation on Netflix. I sleep in tomorrow! Yay!

And my birthday plans are coming together, which feels good.

bed bath and not so beyond

Oh woah, suddenly it is 1am. Got caught up chatting with people online. What would I do without instant messaging? Maybe be more social?

All the screens are clean! Only four are to be reclaimed. Well actually there are about 5 in the stack that need reclaiming, but those need to be looked at. Screens that didn't work for the job, but look similar to other screens that might be used again soon, as we might run some of the jobs again pretty soon so why burn them again?

Anyway. Did that. My back has a knot in it from all the doing of that.

Coated screens. Burned screens. Didn't tape the screens.

Took a bath when I got home. Read some more Patrick Melrose in the bath. I need some bath salts. Baths are fun but they'd be more fun if they smelled nice. I wonder if there is a Lush nearby...

Anyway, it is chilly and I have work, so goodnight!

UHH UHH UHHH UHHH UHHH oh Captain Crieff, never change!

Ahhh! There was a new episode of Cabin Pressure and it was so silly and good, hurray! That was a highlight to come home to.

We might run more of the big job, so even more screens were set aside from the reclaiming stack. I removed the tape from all the screens, and removed the ink from 20 (waterbased inks come off with water, so they are all ready for reclaiming, which is nice). But of the 29 screens to be reclaimed, only 18 actually had the emulsion removed. I think it was 29. It gets shifted so much! Anyway, it was a lot of tape removal. And it was a regular amount of reclaiming. But the cleaning of the ink gets repetitious, especially when it is a HUGE stack. Still have 20 to go. There are some more jobs to be burned. So much to do!

I also cleaned the pallets. But yeah, I mostly cleaned and listened to Guards! Guards!. I think I'll listen to another run of Discworld series books.

Tomorrow I have to do the fun task of washing my hair. Oh, and filling up my gas tank. I'm going to have to stick around in Santa Cruz for a while. These up over 17 trips add up fast. AHhh money. Ain't you fun? At least I get a lot of entertainment out of books.

no screens conquered today

Screens I cleaned today: 0. I had other stuff to do! I was acting as a second to the job that was run today, so when someone needed to step in to load/catch/remove some ink where it shouldn't be, that was me. I was in the main studio space cutting stickers and those half transparent things they stick on the window. I also coated the screens from yesterday.

Finished Horns, moved onto Guards! Guards! because I needed something a little light.

In the studio, the main open space has a table running along the back wall, the press in one area, and the long conveyor belt heater divides the press area from a slightly raised laminate floor area. The laminate area is where the manual press is, and where non messy jobs are done (like chopping stickers and weeding vinyl). The table against the wall is also a clean space, but is mostly used for stacking shirts for the jobs, laying out banners, and other space consuming jobs. It's also a bit high up for me, so I don't work at that area. There are some shelves that divide the press area from the garage area, where the garage doors can be opened to let in lots of fresh air, as well as accommodate vehicles for vinyl, and is the general boxes for jobs storage area. That is the main area, where generally everyone can communicate pretty freely. There is a wall on the vinyl side, and on the other side of the wall is the wash out booth (for washing out screens), the exposure room (a windowless room for storing emulsified unexposed screens, and the unit for exposing those screens, the cleaning tank for cleaning squeegees, and the bathroom. It isn't all blocked off in the back, but it is hard to be readily on call to step in if you are back there doing stuff.

There is hardly an un-utilized space in the studio, which I like. Though I still don't know where everything is.

Anyway. Now six more screens are to be added to the stack. So..55-20 tape removed + 6 with tape - 6 tape removed but the ink uncleaned as they might be run again and are low priority for cleaning versus all the other screens which need to be reclaimed soon - 14 reclaimed and emulsified = 41 screens to have the tape removed and 47 in total to have the ink cleaned, but not all will be reclaimed.

But I'm over thinking it.

My social security card came! Hurray. Now I just need to study my California Drivers Law booklet and book an appointment for an exam! Bummer they are only open on the weekday, which means I'll have to show up before work. Which means getting up earlier! Waaah. Oh well. If I get done before I have to show up for work, maybe I'll treat myself to doughnuts or something.

And my car rego expires February, so I need to get on that post haste.

Justified and Death in Paradise both had their season openers tonight. Wheee! I did my laundry. Exciting Tuesday indeed. Yup yup.

alphabetically unambidextrous

At the start of work, there were 55 screens to have the tape removed, ink cleaned, and potentially reclaimed. Some of the screens we are setting aside in case we run the jobs again in the near future. So that makes it a bit easier. I got the tape off 20 screens, and of those 20, 14 were reclaimed. So I can coat those tomorrow, and then reclaim another batch. There is only room for 24/25 screens in the drying rack, so I can't go hog wild with cleaning. Plus it all takes time, and daylight runs out fast.

Also at work I burned and double coated a couple screens for a discharge job. And cleaned the squeegees and floodbars. Lots of cleaning.

Almost done with Horns, which I'm not so enthusiastic about, audiobook wise. Might go for something narrated by Jeremy Irons next, or another Discworld book. I keep my 16GB chip on reserve in my sunglasses case (which I use as a sort of change/lipbalm bag). So if I ever need more audiobooks than what I have on my player, they are all right there. And 16GB is A LOT of audiobooks.

A pretty good day at work. Though my legs were hurting. But that was to be expected, considering I've been on my bum for two and a half weeks.

All my paragraphs in this blog entry start with the letter A.

Almost interesting, that is.

django vu

Last day of vacation. Back to work! Hurray!

Slept in. My last day to sleep in...till Saturday of course, haha. Unless I am needed for some weekend shfits? Though I remember the last time I came back to work after a break, it took a while to rev up to the big jobs. For a while it should just be cleaning and stuff. We'll see how that prediction goes.

Anyway. Finally did my grocery shopping. Bread, jam, peanuts and peanut butter, apples, bananas, and other things. Hurray food!

Later on in the day, I went up to San Jose and Steve and I went out for sushi at Fuji Sushi. It was pretty good, though a bit heavy on the tempura flakes. Still, who doesn't like sushi? Afterwards, we ended up meeting up with his friends Adam and Jen and saw Django Unchained. Because I guess nowadays whenever I eat sushi, I have to watch Django Unchained? Anyway, I enjoyed it much more the second time around. I think once I've gotten a hold of the pacing, it allows space to enjoy the individual scenes. It still feels very long.

It was a nice night. A nice note to end the holidays on.

Now to curl up in bed with a damn good book. Bring on 2013 & my jorb!

all hands on hands

It has been a rainy day in Santa Cruz. Hopefully it doesn't rain when I'm working, because I need to be outside to reclaim the screens, and if it is raining, well I'll get every kind of wet. But that is a few days away.

Some people looking for volunteers came to the door, so I gave them my number and said I am available on the weekends. It seems like a good cause, helping small business people and whatnot, and volunteering seems a good way to get out and meet people and help out and stuff.

I made a necklace today. The bead store is going out of business (oh nooo, but there is Let It Bead on Pacific (or Front...err the other street), so all was 50% off. But despite the deals, I just got what I needed. Didn't want to go crazy on beads and not use them. I used this charm that Morgaine made, and accompanied it with red square beads and blue circular beads. It's my little birthday prezzie to myself. I quite dig it. I like being able to just make what interests me, jewelry wise. I should get my other ear pierced, so I can make myself some earrings!

It was misting when I left to walk to the bead store, and heavier misting when I was getting back, and had gone into raining in the last couple blocks. But it wasn't that cold, and it was rather nice to walk in the rain. A man offered me his umbrella, but I declined.

It rained. I stayed out of the rain. At Last, the third book I ordered from Amazon with my gift card, arrived. WHooo! Now to just read Some Hope and Mother's Milk and then read At Last and then I'm done with the Patrick Melrose cycle! Good books. Great sense of words. I simply must read more. Sure I listen to oodles of audiobooks, but it isn't quite the same.