To Host a Party

This blog post is going to give you an insight on my party, and with it you will see the ups and downs of hosting a party.

This weekend was the start of Oktoberfest. As many of you know Oktoberfest is a huge deal for La Crosse. This being the first Oktoberfest where I am old enough to enjoy all of its festivities; I decided to host a party. I ordered two kegs of beer, Miller Light and Miller Genuine Draft. In case you don’t know how much beer is in two kegs, let me give you an insight, one barrel is 1984 fluid oz. which makes for nearly 4000 fluid oz. (330 cans) of beer. We started the party early; the kegs were tapped at 5:55pm.

Many old friends and family members had shown up by nine o-clock which was great fun. I enjoy playing beer pong, normally I do very well at it but for some reason I did not win any games at the party. I lost ten games! I enjoy hosting a party because when I see people having a good time and I am the one who brought them together and created the enjoyable environment, it makes me feel great. This is the up side of a party, hanging with friends and family and enjoying the company. The down side is here; when you have so many people together someone is bound to start some trouble. This sort of trouble was a basic social “no-no” which caused one of my friends to get hurt badly. In retaliation I kicked these “troublemakers” out of my apartment. The term “kicked” can be used in many different ways, it can be simply telling the troublemakers to leave, or for example, it can be someone physically throwing the troublemakers out. This time the term kicked entails the host throwing the troublemakers out, chasing them down the street, biffing the concrete and then chasing the car like a dog with rabies. If you have ever found yourself in that situation, they you are probably as stupid as I am. For some reason after that incident people cleared out quite a bit. Because most people had cleared out of the party I decided to go downtown with my Brother in-law Jason. Shortly after getting downtown I received a call from my girlfriend asking to come back, so I did. When I got back to my apartment I saw that four to five people that I did not know had shown up. After a confrontation I kicked them out, this time in the manner of simply telling them to leave.

The morning after is a time of clean-up and recovery. But something did not seem right, I was missing some stuff. I had been robbed. During the hour I was gone the four people that showed up had taken nearly twelve hundred dollars worth of my things. This was a new feeling for me; I now understand how someone could commit a horrible “passion” crime. Maybe that sort of anger is a “guy thing” maybe not but either way, I think that was the last party I will ever host.

Life Changing Decisions

Every day we make decisions that could potentially change our lives; many people know this phenomenon as the butterfly effect. The butterfly effect can be explained as the idea that a small change (the flap of a butterfly’s wing) can potentially cause a large outcome (a tsunami in Japan). In the same way, small decisions we make in life could change the outcome, for better or for worse. Decisions like that are made so often that we cannot control them and the outcome is unpredictable. But that is not the type of decision I am going to be talking about in this post. The type I am talking about is the kinds of decision were you know it will change your life.

In the movie “The Matrix” released in 1999, Morpheus gives the main character Neo two pills, a red one and a blue one, one could change his life forever and the other will keep him in his current familiar setting. This is a classic example of decisions we face throughout our lives. It would seem as if we had two paths, one could change us forever or put us way out of our comfort zone, and the other to “keep on keeping on”, to not change and stay with what feels safe. I feel like I am coming up on one of those decisions in my life. After I have completed my college education in May I have many options, one of them is quite intriguing. KBR services had contacted me a while ago asking me if I was interested in doing contracted electromechanical work for them. The pay was unheard of, extremely high and tax free, but there is always a catch. KBR offered me a one year contract to work as an Electromechanical Technician in the war zone known as Iraq. Many thoughts are going through my head about this;

Financially-
I will never have the chance to make this lump sum of money every again and it would give me a great advantage in life. While I am there I will have zero expenses and will be earning nearly six times the income and it is all tax free.

Socially-
My current social life would come to a screeching halt. Not seeing friends and family for one year would probably be more difficult than I can imagine. Currently I am involved in a serious relationship that I do not think would disappear, but it would be damaged.

Physically-
I would be working twelve hour days for three weeks strait. I am sure the harsh environment and long hours will take its toll on my body. If the money I make is put to use properly it could save me a lot of work when I am older and my body is more fragile. Being in a war zone has its own health issues, for example, you could get blown up (not recommended by most doctors).

For the fourth week i am not working i can travle for free, go to places somewhat nearby like Germany, Italy, Greece and Egypt. There are many other things to take into account but those are the key ones. I have time to think about it but not much. I will keep everyone updated on my blog. It would be nice to see what others thought about the idea and if they had any interesting questions or comments.

We're making it fresh, fresh is the best!

When telling someone I work as a mechanic at a bakery, I am often asked, " why does a bakery need a mechanic?" . I will give you a play-by-play of my daily activities once i get you familiar with what exactly it is we make at the bakery.

-The Place-

I work for Kwik Trip Inc., you know it, I am a co-worker. Kwik Trip is a chain of convenience stores located in the Midwest. There are more than 350 Kwik Trip stores, also Kwik Trip is a multi-billion dollar company who made more money than Sears last year, I bet you did'nt know that. Every day each Kwik Trip store receives a fresh goods delivery. The delivery contains things like milk, water, ice, and baked goods such as bread, brat buns, coney buns, and doughnuts. To Supply over 350 stores with baked goods daily you need a large operation that runs 24/7. All of Kwik Trip's baked goods come from the Kwik Trip Bakery located in La Crosse WI, and that is where I work.

-The Crew-

I start my shift at 7pm, which makes for a long night. After changing into a rather fashionable mechanic uniform,
I meet the rest of my crew in the maintenance shop. My "crew" consists of me, Jordan a graduate of the Industrial maintenance program at Western, and Iordan a Bulgarian immigrant who recently became a US citizen. Shortly after touching base with the previous crew we get to work. The three of us are a great team, Jordan and I bring great energy to the crew and Iordan brings years of experience and great humor.

-The Job-

The Kwik Trip Bakery has tens of millions of dollars worth of equipment, we " the crew" fix it when it is broken and prevent it from breaking. The first thing to be done is a "round" as we call it, it consists of a walk around the production floor to make sure all equipment is running and all the supervisors are happy. Once we have completed our round the daily chores must be done, greasing mixers, checking sensors and things along those lines. Assuming nothing has broken down on the production floor, we would start our preventive maintenance or "PM", this includes breaking down, cleaning and inspecting a said piece of equipment. PM can take between one and five hours depending on the equipment. The hardest part about of my job is when production equipment breaks down. When equipment is down, product is either being ruined or not made, either way the supervisors are not pleased. At times there can be great pressure to get equipment running again.

-The Characters-

As we all know, there are certain people in this world that can only be described as characters. The reason we call people characters is because it seems like they where pulled right out of some wacky movie. As is it with most people, there are many characters where I work. Characters are what keep the days interesting. Mad Dog is a production worker who likes to bark when he is happy, enjoyable to be around but can be really cooky at times. Crowman is a sanitation worker who can be termed as the biggest "hill billy" ever. Brother Karl is a mechanic on another shift who is constantly making odd sounds and laughs at anything and everything. B-Rad works with Brother Karl and wants to be the hero, B-Rad fixes things as fast as possible and makes it seem like the problem was much larger than it was. I am in no way complaining about these characters, without them the job would be dull and humorless.

All in all it is a good job, it is a stepping stone to greater things. For now I will continue to make sure the automated system at the kwik Trip Bakery is alwaise running smooth. Maybe after this post people wont ask me why a bakery needs a mechanic....
but i doubt it.

First Post!

Hello, I am Paul Smith, this is my first time posting on Blogger. I hope someone out there can find interest or humor in my articles. Enjoy my postings, and thanks for reading!