May is the month for crazy and growing up...

It has been absolutely one of the nuttiest months for me especially since my last post. We are in a month long outage at work and when you are on the "front lines" like I am now as a supervisor outage takes on a whole new meaning. Before I was just coordinating two or three jobs and one contractor for a couple weeks. Now I am working with every contractor working in the department, my guys( aka the crew), maintenance needs on the equipment that is down and also the equipment that is running. It was crazy but also exciting at the same time. The fact that the outage is over this week will be a blessing on everyone because it was so long but it also means we completed it successfully. In past outages we had multiple supervisor coverage but this time I was the lone man in charge. I know that sounds crazy, me in charge, but we did it. OUTAGE COMPLETE... and in the immortal words of Johnny Drama as Torvald, VICTORY! And as of now I am down to 1.5 night shifts 2 afternoons and one day shift before the big switch.

My wife is joining my age club next week. As of Monday she will officially be in her "late-twenties". It's not easy moving into a new partition of life the good news is she has a long weekend off to prepare herself for the slide to 30. Not that there is anything wrong with 30 it's just the first big "0" age after college and though nothing happens at 30 specifically it is a turning point. A turning point that has become more evident as we found a house we weren't looking for. We kind of fell into a house in old Cloverdale, well we haven't fallen in yet just I guess found it and are pursuing it despite the fact that less than two weeks ago I had not yet even started to think about moving. It is 4 bedroom 3 bath and as soon as I mentioned it at work all the guys started ragging me about how you can't have 4 bedrooms in a house without starting a family. Wow, that is heavy but also so very true and while my wife and I aren't planning that right now the "turning point" I talked about earlier really makes me think.

This summer has just started and already the movies have been awesome. We to see T4:Salvation this weekend and loved it. It was also the 4th weekend in a row my group of friends and I had been to the movies which I know is a post-college record. Graded below

May 1 - X-Men Origins: Wolverine (Rating B)
May 8 - Star Trek (A+)
May 15 - Angels & Demons (A+)
May 22 - T4: Salvation (A)


And there are still so many great ones left too

May 29 - Up
June 5 - The Hangover
June 19 -Year One
June 26 - Transformers:Revenge of the Fallen
July 17 - Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince
July 31 - Funny People
August 7 - G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra


Of course there are others coming out too but these are the ones that have the most promise of being good. If I missed any let me know. With Netflix I was surprised how many books I got through in this month but there were all very good.

The Last Dickens - Mathew Pearl (5 out of 5) The latest historical fiction mystery from Pearl based on the true fact that Charles Dickens died with only half his last book written. The story is about the search for the last half of the book. It covers Dickens' last American book tour and a alot of great background information and actually characters from that time. Another great weaving of history and fiction.

On the Road - Jack Kerouac (4 out of 5) A biographical look at the late 1940s "Beat" generation. Jack, who calls himself Sal Paradise, travels cross country listening to jazz, hitch-hiking, drugging and leaving women in his wake. But is more than that, it is a look at a forgotten age of trust, generosity and lasting friendships. He wrote the whole book on a 120 foot scroll of paper that is still around. It is regarded as the "Bible of the beat generation".

Blink - Malcolm Gladwell (6 out of 5) The second book by Gladwell was absolutely amazing. I would recommend this book for anyone in business or sales. It is a study in what our brain does subconsciously which he calls "thin-slicing". I could do a whole blog just about this book so I won't go to deep but it looks at preconceptions we have about people and things that are developed throughout our lives. What is called the "Warren G. Harding Error" about how a man that just looks presidential because of his height and demeanor can actually be elected president despite being completely inept at politics.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larsson (5 out of 5) A best seller worldwide from Sweden. It is a great mystery/thriller about a journalist who gets ousted from his magazine after getting charged with libel. He is enlisted by an ex-CEO of an international company to find a murderer. The twist is that the murder happened 30+ years ago and it was his niece who he was grooming to take over the company. Her body was never found so it has haunted him for all these years. It flowed amazingly and I liked the subtle differences in writing style such as using proper names for books and things like saying "he picked up his iBook" instead of "he picked up his computer" which is the norm.