First Post and Adventures in a Winter Wonderland

So once again I have decided that I need an outlet to convey my perceptions about the realities unfolding around me.  Sometimes this reality is pretty and wonderful, other times quite the opposite.  I never know what to expect.  There are good days and there are bad days, I hope to capture and document a balanced selections of all days.

I do not feel the need to formally introduce myself since I will likely have a relatively small viewing audience; that is if I end up having an audience at all.  However, if by some chance you do not know me personally let me know in the comments.  I will either reply or make a more detailed post on the subject.

Now that I have the obligatory first post bit out of the way I will begin.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...wait, no that is not it at all.  In fact this week had very few good times, and the bad times kind of out weighed the good by a few leaps and bounds.  So I will start at the beginning (of the week that is).  

I was quite ecstatic last week when I got a call from my temp company saying they had found me work. It was a definite celebration to have an incoming job.  Not only was it to be at least a full weeks work there was pretty much guaranteed overtime.  Let me tell you, I really could have used some overtime.  You see what I just did there… I used the term "could have", meaning that that didn't turn out so well.  

The short term job was for a major shipping and delivery company, who will remain nameless.  This company had the temporary help slinging packages and storing them in semi-truck trailers.  The packages' average weight was around 65-75 pounds each, which would not have been bad on its own, but the boxes were not uniform sizes and most were oversized.  Think mini-refrigerator, like for a college dorm room; those get to be difficult to deal with.  Now take the odd and varying sized boxes and multiply by a couple thousand and you will have the amount of packages we were expected to handle.  

Oh and for those who might be unaware, New Orleans gets hot in the summer time...just in case you didn't know.   And the humidity, well the humidity is like walking through the clouds some days.

So back to the boxes of doom (and that really was the case).  I managed to make it through day one fairly unscathed.  Day two, not so good.  I drank water constantly and monitored for signs of dehydration, all good there.  However the stress of working myself to the limit of my abilities in the horrendous heat, up to 120 degree fahrenheit in the back of the storage trailers, pushed me into a pretty serious case of heat exhaustion.  It was to the point that I was dizzy, disoriented and vomiting.  It was not very pleasant and quite scary.  Needless to say I was cut from that job and was not able to return.  

So much for my chance at a paycheck, or so I thought.   The next day my temp agency called to see if I was feeling any better.  "Oh how nice of them," I thought.  I told them that I was still a little funky feeling, but ok.  The temp rep responded, "Oh, by the way we have a job for you tomorrow if you're interested."  

Wow, more work already.  I still felt like crud, but I needed the money.  So I accepted and almost regret taking it now ---this is where the winter wonderland part comes in.  The lady at the temp agency apologized for almost killing me in the heat, so now she wants me to go work on industrial freezer cases.  I think, "cool fixing a broken freezer it will probably be indoors with air conditioning" …hooray, right?  WRONG.  Turns out it is a building sized freezer (yes freezer…as in -10 degrees fahrenheit) and we had to repair warehouse racks inside of this place.  It was so cold it was actually snowing inside of this place from the moisture that crept in from the entry/exit door.  Fun times for the whole day of sub-zero awesomeness.

Now a quick moment for the only not bad news of the week. Once I had thawed out from the local trip to the ice hell of Destrehan LA, I had the chance to spend the afternoon with a truly awesome chick for her birthday.  We got out and hit the French Quarter, found a nice little spot on Decatur to eat a quiet dinner together and enjoy each others company for a while.

Hey, the week may just get better.  It is Friday night and I am going fishing in the morning.  Not to count I will be making the easy money on Monday.  I have another TV Pilot I have scored a role in, but more on my minor stardom in another post.

Until next time, be good or be good at it and bye for now...