I wanna go home

[skyrocketocelot]

Well... I was hoping for a quiet Sunday evening. Wanted to watch "The Sixth Sense" while it was still light, drink a couple of glasses of wine, chow some Chinese food, think about where I want to be in 10 years, hold a pity party celebrating my SO leaving for MCO for door pulls today (and won't be back for 9 days), and hit the hay early...

HA!

I'm currently sitting at my desk, watching an instrument read gas levels and praying that it won't top out and make me go change out some stuff that will take me hours and hours to change out. In the dark. By myself.



Guess I could still hold the pity party... is it just me or do things always seem less hopeful and more doubtful at night?




Aw shucks. I sound really down. Thanks for letting me vent, ladies. It was a really long week last week, it'll be a really long week this week... but hopefully it'll get better. At least I can learn about how to deal with this whole pilot-signifigant-other thing while I'm here! Wish me luck!

[skyrocketocelot]

Ok. I checked out my post, thought about it and decided the previous one was quite depressing, even to me. So perhaps counting good things will help. If just to give me something to do.

Here goes:

1. I'm getting paid quite nicely to drive up, tinker with equipment, sit here, and drive home (and you better believe I'm charging them for my 1.5 hour commute!!).

2. I got a voice mail from Connor ("Good night, sleep tight, don't let the bedbugs bite")!

3. I get to troll the 'net for ideas on how to beat this distance thing (example: daily phone call... good. Thirty-two daily phone calls... bad).

4. I get free water (the bottles make great crackly noises too).

5. I can play with my new air horn (Where are those earplugs...??).

6. I can launch paperclips with a spoon at my wall clock (*whap whap*... Go... *clunk clunk clunk*... faster!!...*thunk bang crash*).

7. I can play my music as loud as I want to (especially if I want to drown out the guys drilling out slag pots next door).




Well, I feel a bit better. My instruments are reading ok. I might clear myself to go home pretty soon. I just hope I don't get called out at 2am.

[Kristie]

isn't it great how you can sometimes, kinda, "fix yourself" as you go? i do the same thing... if i'm having a really bad day, i'll write myself a "dear kristie" letter and read it after i'm done letting it all out...then i'll ask myself "ok kristie, what's the solution here" and find myself a few alternatives to bring me out of it.

honestly, i think i live with depression on a daily basis but i've sorta figured out how to get me out of it when i know it's going sour...kwim? writing to myself is one of those ways...kinda like i just wrote about the whole HS reunion, well, now i feel better just because i let it out and even if the whole world does know my deeper problems, i don't really care because it's helping me get thru what i need to get thru.

i think nighttime i hard simply because it's dark...

you know what's fun....rubber band fights between you and the wall!!!! if you have no one else to try and aim at, the wall does pretty good, just make sure your trajectory aim isn't right back atya!

[Kristie]

3. I get to troll the 'net for ideas on how to beat this distance thing (example: daily phone call... good. Thirty-two daily phone calls... bad).

text and picture message!! worked GREAT for us


ummmmm..what are slag pots? I used to do landfill liner testing (late at night) after all the office peeps had gone home, so i can relate to what it's like when it's too quiet in an office, too dark and creepy!!

[skyrocketocelot]

Slag pots... um. Well, perhaps a bit of background would be in order I work at a copper smelter and it takes copper concentrate (ground up ore and such), melts it down, skims off all the impurities, and casts it into anodes (big 7-900 lb plates). Slag is a term for the skimmed off impurities. A slag pot is where those impurities go - a slag hauler takes the pot and dumps out the molten slag onto a slag pile. Pretty amazing process, especially if you're a pyro!

But yeah - I bet landfill liner checking was kinda creepy - they have to do that here but I think they do it during the day. My office building is old and it creaks sometimes, though it's been pretty quiet tonight.

Depression... yeah. I'm definitly going through that too. Have had it for awhile but am just now figuring out how to not let it drag me down so badly for so long... I just have to take things one day at a time and realize that life is not about perfection. And I love the idea of a "Kristie letter" - I'll have to try it, if you don't mind the infringment Journaling is such a great thing... whoever thought of it was a genius. I try to take my journal with me, but I'm digging this flyblog.com thing for here at work. And I like that folks on this site feel free to write whatever they're feeling, no matter if it's joyous or depressed or somewhere in between. And that other people care enough to respond, if just with a heartfelt "Amen, sista" comment. I've already found so much comfort in reading about what other girls are going through and have gone through.

[skyrocketocelot]

And on that note, I think I'll clear myself for heading home-age. Have a great night! Thanks for the thoughts

[Kristie]

Slag is a term for the skimmed off impurities. A slag pot is where those impurities go - a slag hauler takes the pot and dumps out the molten slag onto a slag pile. Pretty amazing process, especially if you're a pyro!

funny... that whole definition just reminds me of wastewater sludge and how it is also skimmed and put into containment areas! hahaha

so what happens to the slag pile? i take it, it's not recyclable or biodegradeable...do they use it for anything or does it just get dumped landfill style (doesn't sound like it'd be a hazmat type of thing)?

[skyrocketocelot]

yep, we've got wastewater containment too!

Slag is inert so we just dump it. Eventually we cover it over - we're doing reclaimation work right now, in fact. I think they also use some of it as railroad track bed. I wish we could find more ways to recycle it - it's gotta be useful for something!

[Kristie]

surprisingly tho, a lot of waste isn't. I could see them using it as track bedding, makes sense.

How did you get into that type of business?

[skyrocketocelot]

I'm back - my cams were going bananas.

I have a degree in evironmental sci but with a rangeland management concentration. This is the first job that I've been able to even partly use my degree