Man! I totally missed the Cheat's Cheatday! Now I know I am way too busy.
http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail107.html
OK, I went a little too far this time, but I'm not quite sure that I did. So I'll throw this out to a larger audience for guidance.
When questioned about my decision to get married by a rather liberal female friend, I tried to pull her leg a little and answered her with this --
Well, ______, I thought about this for a while and I even did a cost-benefit analysis. Yeah, seriously! See, _______, I thought that I have a lot of needs, but if I were to pay for a therapist, a maid, a surrogate mother, a daycare that could parent -- not just babysit, an investment strategist, an accountant to help with taxes, a whore, and more... I'd probably be broke within a year. So, I was thinking that a wife was a pretty good idea.
Well, I got slammed at UPS last night. I didn't really notice it at first, but then my supervisor kept suggesting that I hop out of the feeder to get some of the irregs (packages that are 70+lbs or really large and irregularly shaped) up off the floor in front of my feeder.
Anyway, I had about twice the irregs that I normally get and on top of that I had a few hundred packages more than normal. So, tonight I hit 1501... meaning I loaded 1,501 packages (actually more, because sometimes a package won't scan.)
This makes me really happy, because I am the first one in the group that was hired when I was to hit 1500. Also, it means I am 3/4 of the way to doing 2000 in a night, which would be sweet because I get a cool T-shirt and bragging rights. Gotta love bragging!
For those of you who don't know, I am getting married on May 5th -- in like nineteen days. Since the wedding is getting closer and closer I have been corresponding with a number of old friends from High School and that Fort Myers life in general. All of them are congratulatory, but many of them also come to me with all sorts of questions about my decision to get married. They almost always ask with the perspective that the decision might be hasty or wrong in some way.
This has actually been good for me because it immediately puts me on something of a defensive without causing me be defensive. I get to talk to these people from my past about my many thoughts and philosophies about marriage, dating, money, college, career, parenting, etc.
In the past week a girl (who I had wanted to date at many points in my past) asked me a question along these same lines, and scores of reasons for the marriage came to mind. I had so much to say about why I am marrying Joy, and why I am doing it now as opposed to later that I was really overwhelmed. I am still sorting out some of my thoughts on the subject tonight even. I had apologetics ranging from simple, curt and potentially funny statements to deep insightful thougts (not necessarily mine) into our generation's attitudes and choices about dating and marriage.
Tonight I was thinking about all of this again when I should be preparing for a Bible Study tomorrow or writing a paper or two. Then it hit me... I was still coming up with personally satisfying reasons for marrying Joy, and I came up with a short list of one to three word responses that were really aggressive and impressive at the same time. Then I managed to actually sell myself on this all over again. I realized that I am so unbelievably lucky. I looked at my situation from the perspective of someone who had known me since Middle School merged with someone who had known me throughout college, and I realized that I am in an awesome situation.
Basically, I am about to marry someone who adores and respects me with a depth that makes others uncomfortable. You should be sold there, but it gets better.
This girl is gorgeous to the level of private fantasy -- It's like God read my mind during the masturbatory fantasies I had throughout my Middle and early High School years and then one-upped me... because He could. Again, this alone would sell most on the prospect of marriage, no? It gets better.
The girl is just smart... by any measure, but to throw it in your face let me say that she'll likely graduate with High Honors from UF in just 3 years and 5 weeks. Her IQ is ridiculous to boot, but that is just icing when you consider how disciplined and hard working she always is. None of those things would matter all that much, but when you realize that she is able to work a crowd at will and/or charm her way into the heart of just about any authority-figure... it just makes the whole package unreal. OK, enough, everyone is sold now! Sorry, I know this is painful, but there's more. It just gets better...
All of these things are nice, of course, but they'd mean nothing if the girl in question just up and left you one day... cheating on you with some other guy. This is where Joy really rocks. She is intensely loyal. Of course, she comes with a stubborn streak too, but that be tolerated with her fierce loyalty in tow.
Finally, when this really just shouldn't get any better; it does again. This girl believes in so many of the same things that I believe in. She fears, respects, and loves God. She wants many of the same things I want from life, and ultimately wants to live her life in a spiritual and religious way.
After thinking up all of these awesome things to tell the next hapless person to ask me about my choice for marriage, I realized that I was way too lucky of a guy. It made me really happy that I wasn't all that lucky early on with the women, and that I had lived the life that led me to this point.
So, ask me, "Am I sure this is right?" Yeah, pretty sure. "Why are you doing this so soon?" Soon? I thought I had waited too long! and... what do you think?
I love you, Joy.
Thanks for the last five years, and all the promise that we have in store for "us."
This came up again tonight at UPS, so I thought I'd go ahead and type up the gist of my thoughts here, because I've felt this way for so long.
I wear gloves and will soon be wearing earplugs when I work at UPS. Not everyone does this, in fact, most people do not wear any precautionary paraphernalia. So, people wonder why I am bothering to do it.
Here are my thoughts behind doing so...
Most of the people in my family have managed to live until they were between 80 and 100 years old. In fact, my dad is now 73 and he hasn't retired (though he is financially able to do so) and he still works out three times a week (excluding the holidays) at Gold's Gym. (He likes to kid around about how smart he was to get a lifetime membership there a decade or two ago.)
Since everyone in my family lasts so long I got to see and meet a lot of really old people when I was growing up. A lot of them were in pretty bad shape. Some of them were in pretty great shape though, and were completely independant and fully functional until their 100s. A few of these people (including my paternal grandfather) even caught polio and survived it when they were children.
Now, this got me thinking... I am probably going to end up living that long too. Perhaps I'll do something stupid and it all sooner, but barring those freak scenarios I'll probably live through cancer, heart attacks, freak epidemics... whatever. It seems to run in my family.
So, I put people into my mindset when they ask me questions like these. I say, "If you knew that you were almost definately going to live to be somewhere between 80 and 100 no matter what you did (aside from exposing yourself to immediate mortal dangers) how would you act?"
Now, some people think, 'I'd party more than I already do!' or 'I certainly wouldn't wear safety gear.' The are missing the point though. I just said you'd survive. I didn't say that you or I would survive with all our senses, wits, abilities or even body parts. When I mention this part people recall on their own the vast differences that they've seen between people of the same age once they push 60.
I then tell them, "Basically, I don't want to be one of these old, frail, limp dick guys that has a non-functioning body for any number of years before I die. I can't control how long I live, but I know that I can do a lot to keep myself living well for as many of those years as possible."
The way I see it... if I am destined to live to be 80 I want to be as fully functioning and healthy as possible, otherwise being 80 is really going to suck. Also, I know 80, 90, and 100-year-olds who function as well, if not better, than people in their 30s and 40s. I choose to be that guy... even if it means I have to wear earplugs around loud noises, work out regularly, and keep everything else in good repair. :)
To anyone that has seen the end of Dogma this will probably ring a bell pretty quickly...
I just signed out of hotmail, and the headlines at msn.com were about Jean Paul II and Schiavo passing away. That instantly reminded me of Kevin Smith's take on euthanasia from his movie, Dogma. I laughed. I am wondering if anyone else out there finds this somewhat amusing or at least interesting.
To start this story I am going to jump back to earlier in the week and then to the end of the night on Thursday.
I had hit 161pph (packages scanned and loaded per hour) at some point during week three. For the first few days of this week I was hovering in the upper 150s, but then I dropped on Wednesday and Thursday. I think this is because there were more unloader/sorter pairs working and thus the rate of packages was higher. This slowed me down, because if you don't keep up with the rate the packages come to you then you get a jam. When you have a jam, you need to stop what you are doing and go and fix the jam. This means at least three to five few packages loaded in that hour for every jam.
So, Thursday night my supervisor, Nick, decides to have a second "talk" with me. He gets out my little preseniority workbook and shows me that my speed has been going down. He commends me for not having any misloads, (my streak has actually been going long enough that I will be mentioned in the newsletter now, and no misloads makes UPSers really happy.) but he then got back into being serious. He said that the speed was unacceptable, that most people do better, and a bunch of other stuff. Finally, he said that he wanted me to jump up to the next bracket Friday and hit at least 275pph.
Oh wait, he also said that he wouldn't really have a space for me on his PD (The area that he supervises) if I didn't get up above 300pph by Day 30. (This makes sense, because by Day 30 I am supposed to be able to hold my own, which means that I do my job without causing other people to stop doing thier jobs to come and bail me out. Furthermore, my load averages 1200 packages a night so I'd need to hit around 300pph to handle that on the heavier nights.)
OK, so now I'm back to Friday. I take Nick seriously even though he is typically just a goof-off kind of guy. I decide I'll eat a banana and drink an Amp before work to get me more pumped than I had been lately. Also, I got to sleep in because there were no classes. So, I get to work, I'm pumped. I am holding my own for the first hour... running completely clean. Then, the supervisor directly above Nick, Louis, comes and tells me to get out of the feeder.
I'm confused by this, but I am hyper so I just hop on out. (Louis is a really, really nice guy, but he is also the boss. Something that you wouldn't notice except for the way he is dressed because he is just so chill and nice -- probably how I'll be if/when I run something) Anyway, he tells me that I need to go do the Gainesville load. I have never done any load except Brooksville, and I occasionally helped Carlos in Leesburg, but I would always use his load chart there. So, I tell Louis this in three words and then ask him for a load chart. He hands me one, and off I go...
Now, when I walk into the Gainesville feeder I see Santiago (his last name) in there loading and he is going fast. (By the way, Santiago is the fastest loader in our section and one of the fastest in the building) So, I am a little puzzled and I immediately ask Santiago how Gainesville compared to Brooksville. He tells me that it is easier, but there will be more packages. "How is it easier?" Oh, well, anything with a 326_ _ ZIP code is loaded, and then there are just a few other ZIPs that go too.
Fine, I start loading, but before I even get to that I laugh to myself, because I see what Nate has been complaining about for all this time. IF Nate unloaded feeders coming from Orlando (which is pretty likely, because they'd come from either Orlando, Jacksonville, or maybe another facility in Georgia) then I could see why he complained so much. The feeder was a mess. The walls Santiago builds were definately going to fall when the unloader comes. Santiago was fast, and his poor load quality probably had something to do with it.
This just made me laugh to myself again and again. I was also thinking about how shocked the guys in Gainesville were going to on Monday morning when they saw the truck loaded by the book for a change.
Anyway, I ran the whole night in Gainesville completely clean. No jams or packages piled up too far. Oh, btw, Jams aren't possible at Gainesville because it is at the end of the line and the chute is short. So, I kicked butt. When I was done for the night I had to load over 20 irregs (Irregular packages... usually over 70lbs) into the feeder, but I had help.
So, when we went to get pizza, Nick checked my scanny thing and it said that I had done close to 1,000 packages. Nick did some math and he said that I hit somewhere around 290pph, so he was happy, and I got the odd slice of pizza!
Yea! UPS is fun!
Well, I made it through April Fool's Day only being tricked by Google. I thought that I was going to be tricked at UPS, because our supervisor said that he bought us all pizza to eat after work, but that turned out to be true. It was really good for not being Papa John's. In fact, I had two slices of the sausage pizza and liked it, which is impressive because I am normally not too into sausage on my pizza.