May 12, 2006

• Routine: An Essay

  WEEKDAYS: The alarm clock is set for 4:15 am but I hardly ever hear it. My internal body clock usually wakes me between 3:30 am and 4:00 am. I awake quickly. Morning is my "best time" of the day. I make my bed and lie out my clothes for the day. It only takes roughly 15 minutes in the shower. I've worn a beard for years, so shaving doesn't last long. By 4:15 am, when the alarm should be ringing to awake me, I'm fully dressed, with my keys, pens, and newspaper change lying on the bed in readiment, and then I "retire" to my "media room" where I stretch out on my La-Z-Boy recliner with the lights off to snooze for a half hour or so.
  Sometimes I'll use the time before leaving for work to enter finances on my computer, and pay some bills, or create an image for my blog article, like I did this morning with the "wagon wheel in a rut" image on this one. I save the image to the blog, having already either written or thought about what I'm going to write, and then at 5:30 am I'm out the door and on the way to work.
  The 15 mile drive usually takes about a half hour, and I'm in the office at 6:00 am. I'm usually the second one in the office. John, our inside salesman, makes it in about a half hour before me. We both have sets of keys to the building.
  If I'm "caught up" with the previous day's business, I like to visit a few blogs, make a few comments, and if I have a blog article prepared, I will present it, or else I'll write it like I'm doing this moment. This is done with the Notepad program. Since I'm at work, after all, if something comes up, I can save the file and then reopen it when I have the time.
  By 7:00 am, the rest of the office starts filing in. Since the time clock is in the panel shop right outside the conference/testing room, which is next to my office, I hear everyone come in, and they always call "hi" to me as they pass the office. If it's busy, and I have unfinished business, I might be in the testing area testing panels, or finishing drawings and schematics at my computer.  Usually I like to use this time for blogging, however, when I can.
  At 7:30 am every workday, I take my walk. By now, there are about half of the 25 people who work here at the office. I walk three times around our business park at a fairly rapid clip. I don't jog because of my hip replacement, which sometimes causes my left leg to hurt. I actually walk faster than some of the joggers I pass. This exercise takes about 20-30 minutes. Then I really begin my workday. I don't take breaks, so I'm pretty much working nonstop from 8:00 am till lunch, at noon.
  I divide my "tasks" at work into three sections on my whiteboard. I quote over 75 percent of the product we sell, so there is a list of quotes to be accomplished on the right hand side of the board. I design all the panels for which we get orders, and the non repeatable and first time builds have to be documented with kit lists and schematics, wire lists, and dimensionals showing how the panel is to be built by the technicians. At any given time I have a long list of quotes and design pacakges, which we call MDF's or "master document folders". I create most of the documentation on my computer. I also act as another salesman and enter some orders as well. I have to "okay" all the panel orders for work orders when they come in, so the right parts are purchased prior to construction. Right now, I look at my board, and have 7 quotes "crossed off" or finished, with three pending. (Which will be finished by the end of the day.) There are 14 MDF's on the board. Two are completed, and there are 12 MDF's left to be completed. All sales orders have been entered for the week. Last month was a record month for quotes. I quoted 89 individual jobs or panels, and we received orders for about 10 of them so far. I can get orders for panels I quoted three years ago. This month I've quoted 22 jobs so far, and have received 5 orders. We're pretty busy. The most expensive panel inhouse is going to cost my customer $16,000.00. Yesterday, a customer from Ensenada, Mexico, picked up a panel on will call and paid cash. $4000.00 in $20.00 bills. Usually we invoice the customer and he pays by check.
  At noon I go to lunch, and I always leave the building. I read the L.A. Times while I'm eating my lunch, and I have a specific restaurant and meal for each day of the week. This is my only meal during the day, so it is large, with salad, entree, and sometimes dessert. When my favorite restaurant closed down last year, it took me a while to find replacements. When I enter a restaurant, I'm a "regular" so the waitresses usually know what to have waiting for me when I come in. Sometimes my raspberry iced tea and salad are on the table when I am seated. I only have an hour for lunch so this saves a lot of time waiting to order. "Are you having your usual?" is a question I hear almost every day around noonish.
  I'm back in my office between 1:00 pm and 1:30 pm. I'm on salary, and don't have to abide by any set schedule. At 3:00 pm, I'm done with my day of work, and say goodbye to receptionist, and get in my car to go home. Since I work early, I miss traffic going both to work and coming home.
  When I get home, I usually check to see what I've recorded on the Tivo or pop a DVD in the player. For an hour or two, I watch the program, and drink a couple of cold beers. (Or iced tea when I'm not drinking alcohol) I'm ready for a nap about two hours after coming home. Sometimes I might nap till 7:00 pm or 8:00 pm and then work on the computer, writing, blogging, or image or videomaking. If I worked a lot on the computer at work I won't do a lot at home. I used to read during this time but now the only reading I seem to do is on the internet. I don't "watch TV" like my roommate does. We both have separate rooms and he watches TV on my older bigscreen. I have a queue of DVD's and recorded material off the Tivo so that I only watch exactly what I want and pause the program when I wish to "nod off". If I nap, I pause the program, the lights are already out, and I nap in my La-Z-Boy. By 8:00 pm, I'm usually ready for bed.

  WEEKENDS:  I still awake at about 3:30 am to 4:00 am on Saturday mornings, and I spend the mornings on both Sat. and Sunday blogging or working on the computer and my website. Sometimes I spend three or four hours reading and commenting on blogs. Prior to blogging, I was involved with quite a few Yahoo Poetry and Friendship groups. I call this time "doing my correspondence". I go out to breakfast or "brunch" early on weekends, and sometimes take in a movie at our local AMC. Since the prices rose so high a couple of years ago, I don't go out to movies much. I can watch a DVD which I rent from the Netflix service instead of going out.
  Now that Liz is healing, I am going to visit her on Sunday mornings, and this weekend we plan to see the movie "Posiedon".
  Sometimes weekends can be weird, since I might rise real early, and then wish to nap at 2: 00 or 3:00 pm. I might nap for a couple of hours, watch a few hours of  movies, or work on the puter, and then nap again, all the way through the night. By Monday morning at 3:30 am I'm up again, ready to go to work.

  I put an image of a wheel in a rut above. I don't really think I'm in a "rut", but sometimes I do feel the routine seems just too similar. Gas prices are really high right now, and I'm still struggling with my finances, so I don't travel much on weekends, but in the past, I did break up the week's seeming monotony by going on "excursions". Liz and I went on quite a few of these in 2005. She's been laid up with her broken leg, and I've been broke, so I haven't been going on too many excursions this year. Part of why I have a large credit card debt was a lot of travelling I did in the past 10 years. I'd think nothing of spending a few days in Vegas and charging it all on a credit card. Now I'm paying for those good times. Sometimes it seems like I'm in a rut, but sometimes I feel like I'm living the Life of Riley.

  I read a comment from a regular reader the other day thanking me for visiting their site since they knew I was so "busy". Frankly, I always hate being called "busy". I don't use that as an excuse at any time. Our CEO at work likes to tell me I'm too busy to do something, but I never tell anyone any such thing. I practice time management principles, and I like to think I get around to everything I need to do. I'm at a point in my life where I pretty much drive my own train. I read a lot of blogs where the writers apologize repeatedly for not commenting or visiting as much as they feel they should. I always try to console them and tell them that they don't need to think they "have to" visit or comment on my site. I like people to visit when they can take the time. And when I visit in return, I usually take the time to read quite a few posts I might have missed, and respond to each one. Sometimes this is in one "letter" and sometimes this is on individual entries. It's been quite busy at work, and when I get home I'm sometimes too pooped to get  back on the computer. I'm not blogging as regularly either, and those articles I do post usually announce something on which I'm working.

  Speaking of work, I spent too much time writing this article, and I didn't get over to say hi to a lot of my readers. So hopefully, I'll be doing some reading when I get home, and dropping comments around the blogosphere.

  No matter how one looks at it, life is a series of routines, and we all try to keep up, and to be happy while we're doing so. Right now, I'd like to take this opportunity to apologize to the many regular readers who might be wondering if I'm "too busy" to visit. You might remember that I always say that a blog is just a website after all, and the pages stay there in cyberspace, ready for me to view them at my liesure. That way I won't feel rushed, won't feel bad, and won't ever feel as if the wagon wheels of life are stuck in a rut during the routine.

  • 8:34 am
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