The Dangers of Volunteering

     When I was a kid we had two choices, volunteer for a job or be assigned one.  It didn't take us to long to realize that if you were the first to volunteer you usually got your pick of jobs.  This mentality has kept on into my adult life.  I generally volunteer for everything, call me a kiss up, or a brown noser but really I am trying to get the good job and sticking you with the crappy one.  So this year when they started planning our second half safety certification and they asked for volunteers, naturally my hand went up.  Then I was appointed the lead of this team.  Hmmm, I thought, this isn't how this is supposed to go, but since I had already jumped in head first I figured I would go with it.   

     Then on our first call, we came up with some ideas of classes we would like to have and again were asked to volunteer to take one class on to research and again I spoke up first.  Surely I thought this would go better. I volunteered to build a box filled with dirt showing a ground go from one wire to another, this sounded much more interesting than researching standards.  So far so good, I build a dirt box and the other suckers get stuck researching standards,  jumper policies and the like. 

     We have our second call and everything is going great, we are paring down the classes and figuring out logistics and so on.  Then the boss man doesn't ask, he tells me that I will be teaching a class on metering and grounds to go along with the dirt box. What?!?! eeekkk.  Folks let me remind you that I have a little less than 2 years in this department, I am one of about 5 females and I am blonde and polish.  I will be teaching this class to the entire east region construction, not new guys but 30+ year guys who were probably working out here before I was born.  Oh yes, and did I forget to mention I have to create this class?!?! 

     I will have some help from managers, and I am sure to learn a lot from this experience, but to say I am a little nervous about this would be a gross understatement.  I tell this story just in case you have grown up in a household like mine, where volunteering to vacum was much better than being assigned toilet cleaning.  Sometimes volunteering doesn't work out quite the way you planned, be cautious in your hand raising. 
    

Dumpster Diving

      Yea I said it, dumpster diving.  Thanks to the track department, I spent my afternoon taking the trash that they put in the dumpster out.  Why in the world would you take trash OUT of a dumpster?  I know this is what your thinking so I will explain.  You see we (the signal department) has ordered a dumpster from a company that is for concrete ONLY.  My foreman gets very nasty phone calls from the lady at the dumpster place if she finds wood or regular trash in the concrete dumpster.  We had attempted to make this clear by hanging a sign, and speaking with the Roadmaster. Apparently, we needed to resort to a more obvious form of communication.

     Please note the big spray painted sign that says CONCRETE!  There is a matching one on the side.  Hopefully this will clearly convey what the contents of this dumpster should be, and prevent nasty phone calls from the dumpster lady and me climbing in any more dumpsters...blech

 

     We also got to see the Dominion Power guys in action today, and I have to say they are braver than I am.  Here is a picture of them. Please notice the lake that they are in.  To me electricity + water = bad idea, but they put on some really big gloves and had our service swapped in about 20 minutes.  Kudos to the Dominion guys!

 

 

 

And to follow up on a previous post, my horse is still sick, and we have a diagnosis.  She has Alopecia Areata, which is an auto immune disorder that attacks her skin cells.  Not good, she is on steroids for about 2 months, if she doesn't founder we will be looking at immune supplements and a lot of praying.  She also looks pretty gross, but she is starting her very own collection of blankets, and I think she has more than me right now. 

 

One more note, NEW DUCK DYNASTY TONIGHT!!

So What do you DO in the Hotel

     Since we had a pretty boring half, I thought I would talk a little about what we do in the time we have sitting in the hotels in the evenings.  We spend at least 16 nights a month in a hotel and recently we have been spending a bit more than that.  So other than racking up some serious hotel points, what do you do?
     Well, I go to school online, which does pass the time, but it is also fairly boring. The boys on my crew all have high end RC cars.  Every single member of the crew with the exception of me, has one.  Even the brand new guy we got last week!  His had been in the garage for a year, but he was happy to bring it out and play with everyone.  The reason I don't have one is simple economics, I already have one very expensive hobby in horses, I don't need another one.  They are pretty cool, and they get new bodies, and tires and motors etc. to make them faster or prettier (I should probably say bad ass looking, not prettier)
     The other thing we have decided to do is run in the Marine 1/2 marathon in May.  I did decide to participate in this one.  I am not sure what I was thinking when I said I would, probably "hey I will look good in a bikini this summer!" So we started our training last week. I may need to quit smoking for this one.  The marathon training schedules all assume that you can run for 30 minutes straight! So sadly I am in the marathon "pre-training" stage. This will be much harder mentally and physically, but also much cheaper.  I already own sneakers, there is a treadmill at the hotel, and entrance into the marathon is only 75 bucks.  I am still waiting to discover this "runners high",  I think all those runners are damned liars trying pretend that running is more fun than real sports like football or baseball. 
     I actually have off all week so I will be working on my science experiment and sitting around in my pjs.  I have some scrap cable in the truck and need to run to the hardware store for a good sheet of plywood and some screws, probably have to get out of my pjs for that one though.  (you know you are being lazy when you type this and think, well I could just throw my coveralls on over the pjs and no one would know!)  I also plan on going to the outdoor show in Fishersville, hubby and I never got a honeymoon (thank you railroad schedule) so we are thinking of taking a hunting trip in the fall. 

Back to Work...kinda

     Well I haven't written a new blog post because miracle of miracles I had a few days off.  I did get the house cleaned, some homework done and read a few books.  I even got to spend time with my husband!  The farrier came to shoe the horses and when I showed up this is what I found on my horses side.  Bald horses are not a good thing, so I called the vet.

 

 

     The vet couldn't get out here until today so my week has been full of laps across Virginia.  On Monday, I left Covington, VA (west coast of VA) and went to Richmond, VA (east coast of VA). I did this so I could work on Tuesday.  Turns out my job for Tuesday was to take a broken grapple truck to Covington, soooo I drove to Covington, and then turned around and went back to Richmond.  When I got to Richmond, I hopped in my personal truck and drove back to Covington.  Then of course today, after the vet showed up I jumped back in my truck and drove back to Richmond.  I am a little tired of driving at this point. If it never occurred to you to check out the size of Virginia, its a pretty big state, and that drive takes 3 hrs, one way. 

 

     The vet is a little stumped as to why my horse is losing her hair and has swelling in her legs.  He put her on a fungicide, an antibiotic, an anti-inflammatory and some dermawipes to try and wash the balding areas.  I can't wait to get my vet bill.  He took some skin scrapings to try and find a root cause, so now we are waiting for something to grow in the petri dish. 

 

     As for railroading this week, we will be mostly working clean up of the old stuff we took down last week.  This entails taking old signals and cases to scrap and busting concrete with a hammer hoe (we really do get some great toys out here) .  After the concrete is busted up, we will need the broken grapple truck to pick it all up, so somewhere in the future is another lap across Virginia, but I may let someone else take that trip. 

 

     One other intersting note, I have a new science project.  At our first saftey certification of the year I volunteered to be on the committee for the second half safety certification.  We had our first conference call on Tuesday, so while the boys ate at Jack Masons Tavern, I sat on a conference call.  One of the classes that we came up with was a grounds class, and thats where my science project comes in.  I need to build a box of dirt, with 2 wires in it, to show how a ground can jump from one wire to another wire.  I am sure I will post some pictures when I am done with this one.  

I Survived!

     I survived the cut-in, and more importantly so did everyone else!  I am also still employed, which is always a good thing.  Let me explain a little bit more about my job for this cut in.  I am assigned a section of track, in this case about 3.5 miles, and anyone who wants to be on that track has to talk to me first.  Cool right, you are the God of your 3.5 miles. Well yea kinda, but after being God of 3.5 miles I sure don't want God's job.  Here is the thing, when I say anyone, I mean ANYONE, must talk to me first.  This includes, trains, trucks, persons, train masters, road masters etc. and my job is to keep all of those people from hurting each other. For example, I had 8 crews spread out in my territory that were working on the signal system, one truck on the track taking down old signals and and trains calling me and asking to come through, or into the yard etc.  My job is to get the people that will be in the way of that train out, be sure the truck won't be in the way and then bring the train through.  If I forget someone, there is a chance they could get squished, and if I forget a truck, there is an even better chance of a WhamO. 
     The moral of the story is take good notes and pay attention.  Knowing your territory also helps, which is why I got this job. When I was a conductor I worked out of this yard, so I was more familiar than most of my counterparts.  However, I have already told my boss, someone else can have the privilege for the next cut-in. 
    
     In other exciting news, I am typing this from my very own living room! Which to me is pretty exciting.  It needs to be cleaned, but I can handle that.  My husband was good enough to keep most of the dishes clean and all of my pets are still alive so I will assume everyone got fed as needed.  Maybe I am easy to please but just doing those few things keeps me pretty happy.   This is a picture of me and my dogs laying in front of the fireplace.  It is one of our favorite pastimes

   
     I also go back to school this week.  I take classes online through Liberty University, mostly compliments of CSX.  I am a business major with a minor in project management.  This semester I am taking Theology 104 (Intro to Christian Thought) and Accounting 212 (Principles of Accounting 2).  Some people may ask why a business major is taking Theology, and the simple answer is, its required.  This is Liberty University and they are very big on teaching Christian thought as well as the normal college classes.  This is my last religious required class and I hope to find it interesting.  I am a Christian, which does help, but I never thought myself as a "bible beater" or a "fundamentalist".  I simply believe the word of God as truth.  There were two other required religious courses, Bible 101, which I liked, and Apologetics 101, which I wasn't a huge fan of.  Bible 101 taught the history of the Bible which I found very interesting.  Apologetics taught how to argue christian thought, which I found misaligned with the word of God.  He said tell people about it, don't argue or beat them over the head with it. 

   So dear readers, that is what has been happening here.  I am hoping for a nice break from work before getting back at it on Tuesday.  The farrier will be here tomorrow, I am hoping to actually ride a horse that I own this weekend and get some of that house cleaning done that I mentioned earlier.  If I am really lucky I might get a massage to!  Hope everyone has a great weekend.

Homesick and Cosmo

    First I must apologize for my delay in writing a new post, the internet at the hotel has not been very friendly. 

    So now that we have got that out of the way its time to cover the topic at hand, I am starting to get homesick.  I haven't been home since January 13th, I should finally get to go home around the 6th of Feb.  This job always has a lot of travel and  most times I don't mind it at all, sometimes I like getting to go new places and see new things.  Right now though, I miss my puppies, ponies, husband, bed, satellite TV etc.  God only knows how many episodes of Project Runway and Top Chef I have missed.

    I don't really talk much about being a girl around a bunch of guys because on most days it isn't an issue, and today it still wasn't, but this mix can produce some pretty interesting learning experiences.  For instance, yesterday I bought a Cosmopolitan magazine.  It had the normal Cosmo type stuff on the cover and I left it in the truck. Today as we were waiting for track time, the guys picked it up and started reading it.  Listening to the guys read it and smell the perfume samples was pretty priceless.  There were things like "wow, I am getting my girlfriend/wife this magazine, I like that idea!"  and "ewww that smells like 70's old lady".  I think they will become just as hooked on Cosmo as I am, now if they could just get me to run out and buy a $300 RC car we might be even!

    This week at work has been pretty busy, we put in a switch, did a lot of wiring changes, pissed off a dispatcher (twice, sorry KLH) and are just about ready for the cut in on Monday. The big wigs will start coming in this weekend and we will all have to mind our P's and Q's.  My job at this cut-in will be to keep everyone safe while they are working on the tracks for about 3.5 miles of track.  Trains will have to talk to me before they come into those 3.5 miles.  I have run these type of things before, but never with such an audience, so I am a little nervous.  I will report back on how I actually did and hopefully everyone will live through it and I will still have a job when we are done.

    I am sorry to say I didn't get to many pictures this week, but my foreman took a couple and I did change my profile picture.  Here are a few pictures of me operating our boom truck to get the switch that we replaced into position.

 

 

Very Cold and Flu Season

     Back to the grind out here and not a moment to soon!  We have a big cut in coming up in the beginning of February so we are still busy working on buttoning up the odds and ends that need doing.  Of course the more we look the more odds and ends we find.  So our list continues to grow, and I don't think I will be seeing home for a few more weeks yet.

     So besides having an ever growing to do list, we all managed to come back from safety certification with some degree of the flu.  Six sick people working together can get a  little ugly.  We may have been a little tired and irritable, and if I never here another bowel movement description it will be to soon.  Although that probably won't happen, bowel movements seem to be a once a week topic of conversation.  Weekly I can handle, 3 times a day, is a bit much for me.  Thankfully we all seem to be doing better now.

     Another thing worth note is the FREEZING cold weather.  Here is a picture of me working on a switch today.  I swear I am under there somewhere.  I had on under armor, jeans, long sleeved shirt, sweatshirt, coveralls, jacket, insulated hood thing and wool socks.  I was OK, but I felt a little like the kid from a Christmas Story.  If someone or something had chased me, I would have waddled away as fast as I could, but most old men in wheelchairs would have been able to catch me. 

We also got to see the geometry car yesterday.  I grabbed a quick picture of the cars and put them below. It is a pretty crappy picture, but the best I could do this week.  I have also noticed a lot of "vintage" Amtrak engines coming through, so any rail fans that are interested in getting pictures of some older Amtrak engines they are running through Richmond this week.