Garth And The Zaca

For Kelleen.

Busted By The Tower

It was one of those late afternoons at No. 2 house where there was nothing to do and I was really bored. 2 house was out by the Bay, action was slow at any given time. Those guys were only to handle downed aircraft in the bay or on the runways. No emergencies at the terminal or the freeways leading up to the airport. That was No. 1 house’s job. Every few hours the backup generator for the airport- a world war II vintage diesel submarine engine mounted in concrete and housed in a curved roof metal building as long as a train car would start up and literally shake everything inside No. 2 house. I was going to be stuck there for another day or so. Wasn’t sure when Dad and I would leave. He never told me when his shift was done.

For some reason I thought it would be fun to grab DP, a golf driver, and a bucket of tennis balls. I’d run him for a while since there was nothing better to do. I set up the bucket of tennis balls and a beat up golf driver out in front of the secondary garage. Mobile 38 was behind me. It was one of the brand new Oshkosh fire fighting rigs with supercharged diesel engines. Dad told me it could go from 0 to 60mph in a few seconds from one of the taxiways, rush down a runway alongside a crippled jet airliner and overtake it even though it was hauling thousands of gallons of water and fire retardant. On previous visits Dad and I had taken it out along the perimeter roads to the end of the runways and watched jumbo jets come in a few dozen feet over the cab of the truck on landing runs while we ate ice cream. Dad pretty much had me convinced we could do whatever we wanted out there, whenever we wanted. It was true. We never got hassled by anyone as long as I was with him.

DP was an old golden retriever. I don’t remember the story of how the firemen found him or who brought him out to No. 2 house. What I do remember about that dog was when they got him he had a crushed back leg. So, they named him DP for ‘Disability Pay’ and they got him to a vet. By the time DP and I crossed paths at No. 2 house he was fixed up and wasn’t running on three legs anymore. DP was the official mascot of No. 2 house. Firemen love having a house dog. That’s a fact.

On this particular late afternoon bored out of my mind I didn’t give much thought to what I was about to do. Bored kid, bored dog, tennis balls and golf club. Seemed like a good time for all. A superior plan. I hauled DP out onto the firehouse driveway, grabbed a ball out of the bucket and dropped it to the ground. DP was ready to go. I swung as hard as I could with that golf club and the ball went flying. It arced up briefly over the roof of the secondary garage housing a couple of firetrucks then bounced off the pavement and lobbed into the weeds. DP tore off after it instantly, found the ball and came back. Rinse and repeat a few dozen times.

Everything was going so well until the yellow hater pickup trucks with a single blinky yellow light on the top of the truck cab showed up in a swarm upon me. Those guys were known as airport security and they were super pissed off when they got out of their trucks. I hit those tennis balls so hard they were lobbing out away from the firehouse. DP kept crossing over a major aircraft taxiway to fetch them and the tower was watching a dog running across that same taxiway. The tower couldn’t figure out what was going on so they called security units to investigate. When those guys showed up I was busted big time. The tower didn’t call off any landing jumbo jet flights but I guess they could have. Having a dog running around loose near runways at an international airport could have been a huge risk. It didn’t occur to me at all…

That’s the second time I got busted by the tower at SFO.

 

 

 

Midnight Squabble

By the time we got back to Jacinda’s meager one bedroom apartment it was nearly midnight. Devil T made a dash for the bathroom at the back of the place before anyone else had a chance to get to it. I don’t think I was through the front door yet when he disappeared. When he re-emerged from the hallway the Devil known as T staggered whiskey-style across her living room and slumped over on the carpet in front of the couch. I knew he was in bad shape, all the cheap booze he slugged down at The Graduate was hitting him hard. I was concerned he might puke in his sleep so I pushed him up off the floor and propped his back up against the foot of the couch. Then I grabbed one of Jacinda’s kitchen table chairs and set that next to him so he could not fall over. I lifted his arm and placed it on the chair hoping that would help keep him upright. On the seat I placed his bottle of Cutty Sark and a bottle of 7up.

While I was busy getting Devil T squared away Jacinda had moved in on the bathroom action. I heard her in there for a minute and then she started yelling that someone had pissed all over the bathroom floor. I wonder who could have done that. Jacinda was furious, I mean she really came unglued. Her kitchen and bathroom are spotless and I think she’s got some sort of OCD thing going on. Especially for anything with a chrome handle. Stuff has to be polished to a bright shine. Anyway when she got back to the two of us Jacinda yelled at Devil T about as loud as an angry five foot two crazy redhead woman could. I wasn’t going to get involved and to be honest I was damn tired. I bypassed the whole deal and walked back to Jacinda’s room and crashed on the bed.

Over the next ten minutes Jacinda railed on Devil T about the piss on the floor. In a drunken slurred sort of speaking tone he denied everything and took up the fight. I’m sure in his mind he was being accused of a crime he would never commit against anyone. No good would come of his defense argument to be sure and all I wanted to do was go to sleep.

The Graduate

Devil T and I made the four hour road trip over to Jacinda’s place today. We’ve got a ton of work to do. Tonight we were supposed to start packing up her apartment. Tomorrow morning I rent a moving truck and the three of us load up through the day. Devil T will have to drive my car while I drive the big truck with Jacinda and her little calico cat. Before all that mayhem begins I decided to take both of them out for dinner and a few drinks. Jacinda recommended we go to a Thai restaurant that she likes. So we grabbed some food there which was tasty, and then after dinner she asked if we could go over to a place called The Graduate. That was a mistake.

Right now the Devil T is slumped over drunk on Jacinda’s living room floor. I tried to prop him up against her couch and a kitchen chair. I did not do a very good job. Should keep him from choking on his own puke in his sleep though. He’s got a bottle of Cutty Sark and a one liter of 7up sitting right next to him on that chair- neither of which he touched before passing out. Jacinda is furious with him at the moment. One of her disorders I am beginning to see is obsessive/compulsiveness towards cleaning. She will spend an hour or more just polishing the chrome strips on her kitchen oven door. So when Devil T in his stupor pissed all over her bathroom floor Jacinda came unglued. They fought for a while about that and it’s already well past midnight. I got to get some sleep or I will be ruined tomorrow morning.

The Graduate is a giant building, probably an old airplane hangar. Inside it smells faintly of sour alcohol and college kid puke. All the local college brats go there for high school cafeteria style pizza, cheap beer, and well drinks. The walls are covered with large screen televisions blasting X-Games coverage and other mindless ESPN bullshit. Tonight was whiskey night, apparently. The Graduate had one dollar whiskey shots and a cheap whiskey sampler with far too many different shots in the menu. We started off with a couple rounds of beers. Devil T is tight on funds right now so he was keeping it to a low roar but as soon as one of the bartenders told him is was dollar whiskey night that changed right quick. Suddenly he was rich. I tried to get him to slow down. He did not listen to a word I said. Shit was getting out of control so I tried to get us back to Jacinda’s apartment. She disappeared.

While hunting around The Graduate for Jacinda, Devil T managed to squeeze in a few more rounds of whiskey until his wallet was tapped out. I had to get him away from the bar and ask for his help finding the crazy redhead. As I was looking around the crowd, Devil T whispered into my ear from behind my shoulder “Buy me the whiSssskey sSSsampler.” I caught some spittle in my ear as he hung on his drunken speech.

“No. Dude we have to find Jacinda and leave. It’s late and I need you in good shape tomorrow morning. Remember we have to get her moved and it’s going to be a tough day. You’re gonna be wrecked.”

Devil T silently walked over to my left side as I was scanning the room for any sign of Jacinda and he whispered into my other ear “You’re a dick.”

He was absolutely no help at all. As I walked around crowded tables towards the front lobby Jacinda suddenly showed up in front of me. I asked her where she went. She bummed a cigarette off somebody and was smoking out front in the parking lot. Great. I turned around to grab Devil T by his shirt collar to leave, and I discovered he too had disappeared. I was annoyed. He’s a lot easier to spot in a crowd though than a five foot two crazy goth girl. Devil T is over six feet tall and he had on a mangy hat. Sure enough I saw him back up at the bar trying to swindle someone into getting him a whiskey sampler.

Hauling them both outside to the car was difficult. By the time I shoved them in and left The Graduate in my rear view mirror Devil T was belligerent. He forgot how to roll down a window and decided when he saw a pretty girl walking down the street it would be okay to open his door to yell at her. All this while the car was rolling. He complained non-stop about not getting the whiskey sampler on the drive back to Jacinda’s. I ignored him. Jacinda did not however and thought she was helping by making the suggestion we stop at a corner market on the way back to get him a bottle of Cutty Sark. I said no, and then both of them started bitching at me about it. I was overruled. So, Devil T got his booze and he’s going to have a wicked hangover tomorrow morning. I’ll bet he will wish he was dead.

Advocate

Jacinda spent the past four days with me here at my house. Before making the day long round trip to bring her home I set her up with her own room at my place. She refused to use it. We slept together in my bedroom which was a little awkward at first. One thing I noticed about her the first day was in the morning Jacinda is actually coherent. After a good night’s sleep she seems quite normal. In the evening though she can really be loopy. I think it’s a combination of the medication she takes and plain fatigue.

While she was here for the weekend visit I tried to get her in contact with some old friends. I figured that might be fun for her. I also took her out to the coast for a day trip although the weather was not good. Jacinda acted like she was having a great time though which was the important thing. I suppose when you have been cooped up for years in the same one bedroom apartment with nowhere to go and nobody to interact with being outside just about anywhere is better than that. Regardless if it’s raining. An isolated living situation like hers must be a little bit like jail. It doesn’t matter what time of day you wake up because you will always be looking at the same four walls.

I’ve been giving this thing a lot of thought. I have spoken with friends and family. They have all told me what I am about to do is a bad move. Only one person has supported the idea with some reservation- Devil T. Everybody else thinks I’m entirely out of my mind. Maybe they’re right, but I am going to try this out. My plan is to move Jacinda here to my place. She can have the spare bedroom and I’ll make sure the amount of rent she pays is practically nothing. Should make her life a whole lot easier. As it is now the overwhelming amount of financial support she gets each month goes to her crummy one room apartment. She is virtually broke all the time. I will also act as her advocate with Social Security Administration, get her a better doctor, and some counseling. It’s a tall order to take care of but I think I can do it.

Samson is not too thrilled with this plan. He’s going to get a new room mate.

Mickey Rooney In Drag

Jacinda’s excuse for pulling a no-show on me was lame. Her story was that she took a bus to the next town over which was about twenty miles away from her apartment. She was visiting some friends, lost track of the time, and next thing you know she’s sleeping on the floor at someone’s house because it was too late for the bus. Jacinda claimed she tried to get home early the following morning to call me and explain but that somehow never happened either. When she got home and saw the note I left on her doorstep she told me she cried all day. I figure she was hanging out with dirtbags getting loaded on shit and passed out cold. It didn’t matter though as I’d never know what really happened anyway. I should have taken that as a sign to forget it and stay away from her but I just could not let it alone.

I made the four hour drive over to her place again a couple months later. We were still speaking over the phone almost every day after I got stood up. Jacinda assured me she would be there this time. Sure enough when I got to her apartment door and knocked I got a response. She was in there, but claimed she wasn’t ready and told me to come back in a while. Jacinda told me through the closed door she had to take a shower, do her hair, makeup, blah blah blah. She sounded a little weird, certainly nervous. She said she didn’t want me to see her the way she was. I had a pretty good idea in the back of my mind I was about to get jacked around again real hard. And I probably deserved it for being this dumb twice in a row. There wasn’t much to do in the meantime but wait until she squared herself away so I got back in the car and drove around town.

This place has a ton of burnouts and freaks in it. I swear I have not seen this many people in a town riding around the sidewalks on those electric scooter chair things. You know the ones five hundred pound monsters with stubby limbs use in the grocery store because they’re mutants and invalids. Their elephant sized legs won’t support the weight to walk any longer. My guess is most people here are on food stamps and meth. I stopped into a gas station to top off the tank and I watched the lady on the other side of the pump struggle for five minutes with the hose. She could not understand how to fill up a red single gallon tank. She had placed the tank down on the ground next to her truck and then proceeded to jab the hose in through the opening. But each time she pulled the trigger it just clicked and nothing came out. The woman pushed the gas tank around all over the ground as she stuffed the hose at it again and again. No gas though. I finished filling up my car and stayed on my side of the pump quietly watching her. It was fascinating to actually see someone so stupid in action.

She asked me for help. Knew that was coming. Her cheeks were heavily cratered like she had done a lot of meth in recent years, and her teeth looked badly ground down. A real blonde haired tomboy tweaker if I ever saw one. I just stood there staring at her for a moment and then I told her the reason why no gasoline was coming out of the spout. She had to hold the can in place and compress the spring around the nozzle before the trigger would activate. I felt like I was talking to an eight year old. Looking in my rearview mirror as I pulled away from the station the woman finally got the gist of it. Good for her.

Jacinda had asked for a few bottles of water when I first arrived at her apartment. I drove over to a grocery store and bought a half dozen. Helped kill some time. I managed to wander around town for about an hour. Bored, I cruised back to her apartment taking the long way. When I knocked on her door for the second time much to my amazement she opened up. Before me stood a small woman with bright red hair. I did not recognize her as the girl I used to know. This person sounded like Jacinda, but looked like the elderly actor Mickey Rooney. Mickey Rooney had sort of an aged, weathered appearance and was wearing a goth dress. His makeup was skillfully done by Tammy Faye Baker. Holy shit. Gone was the hot little redhead girl with a tight figure and a face like Marilyn Monroe that I remembered from thirteen years ago.

Safety Nazi Shutdown

It truly was only a matter of time before Miss Auschwitz returned to our instrument line hoping to implement the “Cone Of Silence.” I waited for a few days without a single sighting of her scraggly looking booty. Her evil plans must have been focused towards some other unlucky department or individual. I pity those poor fellow employees immensely. Whomever or wherever she was exerting her totalitarian will upon surely suffered. Miss Auschwitz style of authority is withering and her kooky misleading directives can drive a well-adjusted person right to the edge of sanity. She is without a doubt a legendary pain in the ass.

Today was the day I had been anticipating with a self-satisfied, twisted glee. You see the Bossman and I had planned to call Miss Auschwitz on her bullshit for the last time. We agreed to make this experience as unpleasant as possible for her with the desired outcome of deterring her from visiting the RF Sources lines. A final harsh beat down if you like, or a “Coming to Jesus” closed door meeting with management. Whichever happened first I did not care. Preferably she would get a dose of both. The first phase of the plan called for myself to confront Miss Auschwitz head on with the data provided by ASResearch. Our product line had the only digital HIPOT tester in the entire division. The Bossman reasoned that because our equipment had better capability for safety during a high voltage short to ground, her new weirdo safety policy would not apply to our group. Therefore she could shut the hell up, stop wasting our time and most importantly get the fuck out. If she chose to argue with me concerning the HIPOT tester data then the second phase of the plan was to take place. I would march her over to the Bossman’s office and he would harsh her from that point on. That was the agreement the Boss and I had discussed.

Early afternoon the wench walked into my area. As expected she came down on me with attitude, and an iron fist full of ergonomic mumbo jumbo. When she told me the instrument line would cease all production until her Cone of Silence shit heap was installed on the test racks I think I smiled. At that point I got her up to speed on the HIPOT equipment we had in the rack and showed her the data sheet with it’s safety specs highlighted in yellow. I asked her if the Cone of Silence could beat the microsecond power cutoff our ASResearch box was capable of. Miss Auschwitz did not appear to comprehend what that meant exactly, so she fell back on her combative skills. I then got up out of my chair and walked her to the Bossman’s office. When he saw the two of us he sighed and I turned around to split the scene.

Weekend Reunion

Four and a half hours worth of Saturday driving brought me to the little town Jacinda lives in. I left early in the morning hoping to dodge most if not all of the wine country sightseers that plague my county; it usually results in below the speed limit tourist traffic jams. My route out of town took me just North of Calistoga on back roads towards Clear Lake. Passing through the bottom end of Lake County I headed East out of the hills. It was a somber road trip, the sky was a soft gray overcast from horizon to horizon. There wasn’t a speck of blue to be seen anywhere. As I dropped down out of the Western foothills to central California flat land the trees gave way to endless farms growing everything from almonds to rice. I had the volume up on my car’s stereo and I cruised along single lane roads without seeing another soul for long periods of time. I wondered what Jacinda looked like after thirteen years, all I had was my memory of her when we were both in our early twenties.

Eventually I crossed over I-5 at Williams. Further East my planned route would take me over lonely farm roads named only with a number. Out there the land is a simple grid of interconnecting roads with no real designation of any kind, farmers hauling out their produce or bringing in supplies to the ranch are the only people one would run across. Time passed slowly as the miles came and went. I was looking for an intersection at highway 99 where I would turn North into Jacinda’s home town.

Arriving at her address I parked my car and killed the engine. I sat inside for a few minutes thinking of what to say when she opened her apartment door. She was expecting me, but I was ahead of schedule by a couple of hours. Realizing I was somewhat nervous and unsure of how things would unfold I sat in the car watching one of Jacinda’s neighbors. She was an old black woman dressed in light blue sweatpants and sweatshirt. The old woman walked about the single story rows of apartment buildings mumbling to herself as a lit cigarette barely hung from her lower lip. Her hair was jet black, cut into a page-boy that reminded me of numerous characters from a 1930’s swashbuckling adventure movie. Perhaps she was a Musketeer that escaped from an insane asylum. When I got out of my car and locked the door I decided to steer clear of the old woman and not invite any conversation. Her dialog with an invisible friend would hopefully keep her plenty busy until I was long gone anyway.

Walking between two rows of run-down first floor apartments I began scanning each door for Jacinda’s number. Figuring out the ascending order on Jacinda’s building I headed straight up until I stopped at her next door neighbor’s concrete steps. Piled high on the final step was a large mound of half-burned and visibly wet blankets. There was also a couple shattered glass candle holders with melted wax remains mixed in with all the broken glass. It appeared as if someone had almost burned down their apartment the night before and got very, very lucky that the whole building complex did not go up in a firestorm. I had to wonder if this whole place was filled with fuck ups and meth freaks.

Knocking on Jacinda’s front door I backed away and waited. There was no answer. A calico cat sat in the window peering at me silently with light blue eyes. I waited a moment and then knocked again a little more loudly. Still there was no redhead at the door. Was she asleep? Maybe she was in the shower. Maybe someone kidnapped her and tossed her body into the Feather river? I had no idea. I did get there early after all so I decided to drive around town and see what there was to see. Kill some time and then come back later. As I walked back towards the parking lot and my car the old black woman was meandering about near the street mumbling to herself in a loud tone of voice and smoking a fresh cigarette.

Nearby I found a few blocks of gold rush era buildings that housed antique stores, a thrift shop, and a book store. Most of the frontier town buildings appeared to be vacant of any businesses. I spent some time browsing in the shop windows as a slight cold breeze kicked up. The day was much colder than I would have expected, I was not wearing a warm enough coat so the chill was becoming uncomfortable. I stepped inside one of the few antique shops to warm up for a few minutes and see what they had for sale. Walking through congested aisle ways I didn’t see anything interesting or worth having. The vast majority of this store’s wares were junk if anything else. And severely overpriced at that. I speculated how long they would be able to survive before going out of business.

As I headed back towards the door I spotted a small collection of glass telephone pole insulators. Laughing to myself I remembered that was my vote for one of the all-time dumbest things to collect. On swing shift at work someone came up with the bright idea to hold a contest for the most useless hobby. Each of us had to make a vote before the end of that night’s shift. During my lunch break I did some generic web searches for things that people liked to collect, and I stumbled across people who were into glass insulators. Some folks were so obsessed with this particular hobby that they had amassed a large photo collection of each year and manufacturer of the damned things. Other people created web sites posting insulator “sightings” on top of old crumbling wooden poles in the middle of the desert. It seemed so pointless and retarded that I made it my choice for that evening’s contest. I could not remember if I won the contest that night or not.

There was a single, battered pay phone on the edge of a nearby parking lot. I pumped a couple of quarters into it and dialed Jacinda’s number. Her answering machine kicked in. Guess she really wasn’t home. She knew I was making the effort to drive all the way over here to see her. We planned the visit last week. Over the phone she sounded excited about the weekend reunion and told me she couldn’t wait to hang out. So what the hell happened? Evidently I had a lot more time on my hands with nothing to do. Getting back in the car I drove around Jacinda’s town with no destination in mind. I passed the time driving around neighborhoods getting lost and seeing if I could find my way back again. I had a greasy lunch at an old run down restaurant called The Cornucopia that back in the Seventies was most likely a Denny’s. My guts weren’t taking kindly to the sandwich and fries I ate. Later on I would experience an unpleasant brown cornucopia atop a toilet thanks to their bad cooking.

Afternoon hours drifted by slowly like the low hanging gray clouds above my head. I was bored out of my fucking mind. Concern for Jacinda faded as I became angry with myself for making the effort to drive all the way out here. I could have been doing anything else with my time off from work. I felt like a chump. There was no one to blame for that except myself of course. Driving back to Jacinda’s place for one last try I knocked on the door and got no response. I wrote a quick note to her and placed it under a rock on her apartment steps. I wanted Jacinda to know for certain I showed up as planned. She really screwed this up by pulling a no-show performance. Then I started the four plus hours drive homeward, with luck I could get home before dark. I felt entirely stupid and somewhat depressed.

Charged With Assault

Jacinda and I spoke yesterday. Curiosity was eating away at me something fierce. Would she voluntarily tell me why she suddenly went missing, or was the latest phone call just going to go over small talk? I chose to lay low and take the small talk path and wait to hear what had happened. Much to my surprise she brought up her disappearing act all on her own.

A female neighbor in her apartment complex saw Jacinda peeking into her windows as she walked by to her apartment. She explained to me that this particular neighbor is on a corner of one of the buildings across from where Jacinda’s place is so she has to walk by the neighbor’s each time she goes to the laundry room or the manager’s office. The two of them have a poor neighbor relationship- this isn’t the first time both girls have fought. Anyway this woman didn’t take kindly to Jacinda peering in at her so she came outside to confront her. The two women started shouting insults at each other, Jacinda was enraged. Like an angry eleven year old girl she decided to ratchet things up a few notches by kicking this female neighbor as hard as she could in the shins. This of course resulted in the police being called for an assault.

Sounds like the district attorney is going forward with the assault charge against Jacinda and a court date is to be set for the near future. I think Jacinda is somewhat frightened about the situation but there is nothing she can do about it now. It’s too late. She is going to have to sit tight and wait to hear from the D.A. then figure out what to do next. The more I talk to Jacinda about her living situation there in that small town I realize how isolated and miserable she must be. She’s got few if any friends, next to nothing as far as income, and the apartment complex seems entirely depressing. Her family is in the vicinity but I am unsure how often they are able to check in on her.

Badly needed social services are pretty much non-existent in Jacinda’s area. She has told me a few times that when she has gone to local government resources for help of one kind or another the response she gets from people sitting behind a counter or desk is that it’s all used up. There is nothing left she can take advantage of. When I asked why, she mentioned that state workers tell her they are broke. Budgets are strained so thin and most of the state resources she is eligible for have been consumed by illegal aliens from Mexico. So she is turned away at the front desk and told to go home.

I realize Jacinda’s town is a backwater. It’s a tiny place in the middle of nowhere surrounded by agriculture as far as the eye can see. The nearest place of any real size is twenty miles away. Since she can’t drive and public transportation is scarce it complicates her isolation. Maybe if she was living back in the Bay Area she would have more opportunities, support from friends still here that remember her, and a much larger pool of social services to utilize. I have a spare room in my house. It’s small, but I could easily rent that out to her which would be a fraction of what she has to spend on rent at her apartment. I am thinking of inviting her down here to stay. It’s risky, I have not talked to Samson about this at all. Not yet anyway. What I should do first is take a trip out to see her and spend some time with Jacinda on a weekend at her place. I’ll ask her that question next time we talk.

Caged Redhead

I haven’t heard from Jacinda in a while again. Weeks went by without a single phone call. So I suspected something bad happened once more. Figuring she may have had another run-in with the law I did some snooping online. Many sheriff departments and local police agencies are posting daily logs of crimes and arrests, I easily found both sites for the town Jacinda lives in. Sure enough on the county sheriff’s site I read about an incident that took place at her apartment complex. Names weren’t released but from the sound of it I could easily picture Jacinda being the cause of a ruckus.

The crime was an assault on another woman living at the complex, starting with an argument or altercation of some sort. Jacinda had mentioned there was a female neighbor there that she’d had problems with recently. Her complaints about this woman all seemed petty to me. Jacinda felt like this girl was always staring at her when she walked by. I guess that makes her angry.

I called the county jail to find out if I could confirm Jacinda was indeed behind bars again. When I got someone on the phone at the jailhouse the woman I spoke with was reluctant to give out any information at first. Probably standard procedure for privacy rights or something. But, when I raised my concerns about Jacinda potentially being missing and having to perhaps make some more calls to the cops to find out where she was the person on the other end of the phone was a little more forthcoming. Also I decided to fib slightly by saying I was Jacinda’s advocate. Whatever that meant. The police woman then confirmed that Jacinda was in the lockup for an assault. She would not give out any other details. Fair enough. At least now I knew for certain where she was.

Surprising, no. Depressing, yes. I decided not to say anything to Jacinda about this the next time we spoke over the phone. Hopefully when I asked where she was for the past couple of weeks Jacinda would be honest with me by telling the truth. If not, well that certainly would make things more interesting.

Fifty Caliber E-mail

ASResearch got back to me with a detailed answer on my HIPOT question. It was better than I could have hoped for…

I appreciate you emailing me this question. If your unit is equipped with GFI your shut down times are has follows:

450 Micro amps trip point to earth

Shut down is < 1 milli seconds (.001 seconds)

Hopefully this answers your question.

Rene

Why yes my HIPOT tester is equipped with Ground Fault Interrupter (GFI). So what does this mean? Basically if you placed your tongue on the unit while it was being fried with two thousand volts DC and it shorted to ground the power shut down is so fast you probably would not feel a slight tingle. During a worst-case scenario electrical failure this equipment is totally safe.

Miss Auschwitz will of course be enraged when she discovers the RF Sources department disregards her Cone Of Silence safety initiative. Earlier this week I took an opportunity to brief the Bossman on this idiotic situation. As expected when I mentioned Miss Auschwitz invaded our instrument line again he was immediately disgusted. He approved of my plan to get rid of her post haste. So, when I forwarded the ASResearch email response to the Bossman I received the following reply:

Ya gotta love the ammo. Hopefully we won’t have to use it, but if we do I’ll pretend it’s a mother fucking 50 caliber automatic.

Hipot Wars

To defeat Miss Auschwitz this time around I decided to do some hipot homework before I bother to involve the Bossman. He likes Miss Auschwitz about as much as getting a bullet in the forehead, I know he will back me up with regard to banishing her from our instrument line. However if I can figure out a way to eliminate the problem she wants to solve on my own without his help this situation will probably disappear much faster. I can use him as a last resort like calling in an artillery strike.

I took a walk around a few other departments this morning to look at how other instrument lines are providing hipot testing. I wanted to see what kind of set up they are using. Turns out all of them have identical vintage equipment. Their MI/EI test stations include ancient, bulky hipot gear. Those old units appear to be from the 1970s, with heavy mechanical switches and bone white background black needle gauges. Archaic stuff. I guess I have the only modern hipot tester in the division, an ASResearch 7550DT. It’s a digital unit complete with a nice bright green readout display, a set of large backlit red and green pass/fail indicators and it’s fully software programmable. Dr. Fist bought it a couple of years ago for a special Engineering project he was working on. I inherited it from him. The hipot test I conduct with this box floods each instrument with two thousand volts of juice for over a minute.

Engineers around here like to go dumpster diving for interesting items when nobody is looking. Dr. Fist is no exception to that. One evening while he was doing some garbage shopping in the site recycling center he spotted his ASResearch hipot tester in a trash bin. From the way he described it, he was angry someone had thrown it out. His project completed, he moved on to another department. Someone else must have tossed his gear. Funny thing was it didn’t break. Nobody had a need for it so into the trash it went. Typical, this company is wasteful on a scale I have not seen anywhere else. Anyway Dr. Fist salvaged his hipot tester, had it re-calibrated at the manufacturer and shipped back in. He gave it to our area shortly afterward.

Since I have a special piece of hipot gear none of the other instrument lines use I thought it might be a good idea to write an email to ASResearch and ask about the safety specs on their unit. If it has some super fast safety shut down during a high voltage failure maybe I could sidestep Miss Auschwitz and her silly Cone Of Silence. With that in mind I located the ASResearch website and wrote the following email to their customer service group:

I have been using one of your 7550DT units for some time and misplaced the operator’s manual. A question came up about the unit’s safety features and I wasn’t able to answer the question through online resources. In the event a direct short to ground occurs during Hipot testing with this unit, how quickly does the 7550DT detect the fault and shut off the power? I know it’s almost instant but I’d like to know if the power shutoff time is actually specified. Thanks in advance for your time.

The Cone Of Silence

Work took a turn for the dumb again today. I was back in MI/EI running boxes through final verification tests, no major issues and things were pretty smooth. I got bamboozled by Miss Auschwitz while I was finishing up some shipping documents. Stupid bitch totally took me by surprise- a sneak attack. My sincere hope was that she would not attempt to fuck with me again especially after the epic beat down she got from management over the ergo lift incident. Probably seeking some petty revenge, she made it a point to barge into my area babbling about something she called “The Cone Of Silence.” I had no idea what the fool was getting at until she started focusing in on my HIPOT gear. Slowly I got the gist of what she was trying to do.

Part of the final testing at MI/EI includes a safety test with a HIPOT instrument. HIPOT is a nickname for High Potential. Basically what you do is hook up a piece of gear and you flood it for a specified period of time with high voltage supplied by the HIPOT instrument. It’s a special piece of test gear with only one function- voltage output. During the high voltage portion of the test the box you’re flooding with juice should not develop a short to ground. What this means is, if a device did have a short to ground and you made contact with it by touching the frame you could receive a hateful load of voltage. Shock the shit out of you. In some cases it might be enough to kill you outright. So, if the HIPOT test passes there is no short to ground and that’s what we want. If the HIPOT test fails and the gear trips killing the power then you have a big problem. Something in the box shorted out. The dangerous part of the whole test is if you as the test operator happened to be touching the box while the shit fails there is a chance you could get fried.

Miss Auschwitz informed me that per the ergonomics department new safety regulations all test stations that provide HIPOT must now be clearly marked with warning signs, and a goofy safety shield has to be installed all around the test rack. Special ESD mats also have to be present. She referred to this new unseen safety shield bullshit as “The Cone Of Silence.” I have no idea where she came up with that stupidity. From her description of what the Cone Of Silence is, it’s a new mechanism that has clear plexiglass shields and stands about six to seven feet tall. As she was ranting about the details I knew the whole initiative was going to be a colossal waste of time. I let Miss Auschwitz talk herself out without paying much attention to her inane chatter. Before she was done though, she noted that since I did not have the HIPOT warning signs, a special ESD mat, and a new Cone Of Silence retard shield that I could no longer perform any more HIPOT testing until I got them.

Fuck that noise. She is not going to shut down the line over this horseshit. No way. I have month end shipments to make or else. Factory Peasant vs. Miss Auschwitz round three is about to begin….

Crazy Redhead At The Circle K

I have said it before in the past and I’ll say it again now. Nothing ever works out the way I figured it would. Jacinda magically reappeared after a couple of weeks with no contact. Just about every scenario a person might think of ran through my mind as far as what happened to her. Some situations were far fetched, but of the likely things that may cause a person to drop off the face of the earth I didn’t consider one possibility at all. Instead I focused on wondering if Jacinda had gone on a multi-week drug binge, skipped town with her ex, moved back to Oregon with someone else entirely, got herself committed to a mental hospital. Or maybe it was so much more simple. The reason she wasn’t returning my calls was she came to the conclusion that it’s too weird to be in contact with somebody you used to date thirteen years ago. Turns out I was wrong on all options.

Jacinda returned my calls and didn’t bring up what had happened to her at first. The conversation was normal enough like nothing had happened. She wanted to know how I was and what I had been up to. She asked about my work. I answered all her questions while at the same time I was growing more and more curious with Jacinda’s disappearing act. She didn’t offer any explanation so I decided to risk asking directly what the hell went wrong. The other end of the phone got quiet for a moment and then she replied “I was in jail.”

Didn’t see that one coming.

According to Jacinda she was out around town with a girlfriend partying goth-style. The two of them wandered into a quick mart like a Circle K. I forget which chain store she said it was. While the girls were in the store they got into a verbal tussle with the clerk behind the counter. I don’t know what provoked the argument and Jacinda probably isn’t telling me the whole story anyway. So I listened as she told me her side of things. Jacinda gave the cashier endless amounts of shit so he called the cops. And when the cops arrived Jacinda started in on them, too. Apparently the police officers didn’t dig it so they arrested her and drove her off to the county jail. I guess nobody showed up to bail her out.

When I got off the phone with Jacinda I was skeptical about her explanation. I hopped on my computer and did some research. I looked up the county Jacinda’s town is in and found the Sheriff’s website. Then I started doing a search for recent arrest records and jail bookings. Sure enough, I ran across some info that backs up Jacinda’s account of where she has been lately. Heh. Seems she is telling me the truth. So the next question I have to ask myself again is what the hell am I getting myself into here?

Radio Silence

Haven’t heard from Jacinda in over a week.

Every night after work we’ve had long phone conversations. That’s been the routine for a while now. Jacinda doesn’t have much going on from day to day so we talk about old times together, mutual friends, bands each of us likes and dislikes. Sometimes she complains about the neighbors in her apartment complex. Many of them sound like total freaks the way she describes them. Jacinda can’t stand her apartment manager, apparently. Last time we spoke I brought up the possibility of driving to see Jacinda soon, which she seemed happy about. Going there for a visit would mark the first time in more than thirteen years since we last saw each other. I estimate it will take me about four hours to reach her town from here. Not a bad drive if I leave early enough in the morning. It may turn out to be a fun adventure.

Since that conversation I haven’t heard from her at all. I have to admit I am a little concerned. Trying to avoid the perception of becoming a pest I have not left more than a few messages on Jacinda’s answering machine. Calling repeatedly is probably going to piss her off, especially if she’s okay but just doesn’t want to be bothered for a time. I can’t help but wonder if something bad has happened to her though. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary during our conversation on that final call before everything went radio silent. I know she has relatives near where she lives. I assume if Jacinda did really need help her family would be there and step in to save the day. Maybe I will try to call them in a couple more days If I don’t hear back from her. I can probably find a listing for them online.

I threw one of those Indian necklaces into a box with some more compilation CDs for Jacinda shortly before she stopped returning my calls. Can’t help it, but I realize that might have been too much too soon. Perhaps she thought it creepy and weird. Guess I’ll have to wait and see what she does next.

Indian Wedding Jewelry Care Package

I drove over to Berkeley this weekend. Since Autumn and I are no longer together there is really no reason for me to be there anymore. It’s almost like a no-man’s land over the border that you don’t dare visit because memories will surface that you would rather not think about. Over the past few years I spent so much time in Berkeley with Autumn going to shops and restaurants there probably isn’t a single street that would not trigger a moment from the past. I’d rather try to forget. Something compelled me to make the afternoon trip though. It was going to be a quick dash to one location and then turn around to bounce out.

Through the mail I sent Jacinda some music CDs. She seemed to like them, and we’ve been in more regular contact since then. She doesn’t write or put anything in the mail. I send stuff, she calls and we talk. I’m cool with that. From the sound of things she really is bored and doesn’t have a whole lot to look forward to each day. So I been thinking it might be fun to send her some of those elaborate Indian wedding necklaces I used to buy for Autumn. Each one is different, with deep colors and bright gold or silver metal bits holding all the cut glass together. Honestly when I see a woman wearing one of them it does make me kinda squirmy. Especially the necklaces that plunge from a girl’s neck line down to the cleavage. I can’t help but let my eyes be dragged downward by the jewelry…

Taking the freeway exit I drove a couple blocks up University and parked the car around the corner from a shop Autumn and I used to frequent. As I shoved the door open and walked inside I was greeted by the owner. I don’t know her name, but the woman is always there. Dressed in a colorful sari and with her graying hair pulled back tightly she recognized me with a big smile and asked how Autumn was. I frowned, quietly told her we weren’t together anymore and mentioned something about being angry over the whole situation. The old Indian woman seemed very surprised at the news and changed the subject. It was an awkward moment. Leaving me alone I wandered away from the front counter to browse the latest arrivals on racks around the shop floor. I stared at expensive traditional wedding jewelry secured behind back lit glass display cases for a few minutes. Nobody else was in the store and neither one of us spoke as I walked around looking.

It didn’t take long. I found a nice emerald green necklace, and two others that I suspected Jacinda might like. After selecting them the old woman brought them to the counter, carefully wrapped them all up and gave me the bill. I paid and left just about as fast as I could. Driving home I thought about when I might ship Jacinda the first one and wondered if she would be happy, or if the gesture would somehow backfire in a way I might seriously regret.

Conversation With A Black Belt

So I survived my first compulsory Six Sigma brainwashing session this afternoon. The material we covered was bone dry, boring as hell. We were being indoctrinated in the ways of the Six Sigma White Belt by a tall slender man with bright blonde hair. Our teacher reminded me of a full grown successful Nazi eugenics experiment due to his master race appearance. I’ve never seen the guy on campus here before. My guess is he’s one of those cubicle dwelling drones from Building 2 upper, or maybe he’s buried somewhere in the bowels of Building 1. Whatever he does here the man has now apparently been trained extensively in Six Sigma by outside consultants. He’s supposed to be one of those experts in the methodology- a Six Sigma Black Belt. As he was running through power point slides and scribbling on a dry erase board while walking around the edge of our conference table I half expected him to kung fu chop me at the back of my neck with no warning. Maybe it had something to do with my apparent lack of interest during the two hour class. I don’t know for certain.

We covered far too much material over an inadequate amount of time. With all the bar charts and diagrams I felt like this was overkill, a solution to a problem we didn’t really have. Nobody seemed to have a better idea of Six Sigma or a direction on how to employ it in their daily tasks. I could see it in their faces. Waiting patiently for my fellow zombies to leave I sat in my chair thinking about asking one question of this Black Belt uber man. He didn’t notice I was still there. He immediately began collecting training materials strewn about the room and straightening his papers in a case as soon as the course was closed. When he realized a straggler was loitering I mumbled something about wanting to yap for a minute about Six Sigma on the down low. From his reaction it was obvious mister Black Belt thought it odd, but he didn’t tell me to get lost. I hung out.

When I felt like the flock was herding itself down a hallway and it was safe to speak candidly I began to rant.

“Okay so since you’re the expert on Six Sigma I wanted to ask a question. If you’ve been here for a while you know we have the Business Metrics program which is a long standing part of Bill and Dave’s workplace culture. It’s quite comprehensive. Now we’ve got Six Sigma being rushed in here like it’s the greatest thing ever, and I find myself dismissing it as little more than an elaborate repackaging of common sense data collection tools that are already widely accepted in business and industry. The six standard deviation junk doesn’t do much for me. Parts per million factoring on an instrument line I only ship thirty or so units a month from is kinda dumb. What I want to know is, is Six Sigma in your opinion the Emperor’s New Clothes? I mean, you’ve got the Black Belt now so what do you think?”

Mister Black Belt stopped cleaning up the conference room and sat down across the table from me. He kind of looked around to make sure no one was within ear shot and he said while nodding, “Yes. It’s just a repackaging job. They spent a lot of money putting five or six of us through a crash course in Six Sigma. For the most part everything we already do here is covered in Six Sigma. It’s redundant.”

I was surprised by his honesty. I did not expect that kind of reaction from him actually. Since I had nothing better to do I anticipated our Six Sigma Sensei to debate me on the subject for a while. With any luck I might make him angry which would be entertaining, until he used his lethal Six Sigma factoring skills to kill me. Instead I think I may have discovered another wise employee who saw through the corporate bullshit but was keeping his head down in an effort to not get himself laid off.

“Will Six Sigma change anything here?”

“Probably not,” He said.

That’s exactly what I was thinking.

Jacinda Jukebox

I’m in regular contact with Jacinda, we usually talk in the evenings a couple times a week. She sounds bored most of the time and keeps complaining about the sorry radio stations in her local area. Since she doesn’t have a CD collection or anything to listen to besides shitty college stations from Chico I decided to put together a care package of discs to listen to. The best way to do it up I figured was get one of those car CD binders that hold thirty or so discs. They’re small enough to fit in a glove box so that would make it easy to box up and ship via mail. I bought one and got a bulk pack of a hundred blanks. Then it was time for the difficult part. What to put on them? And what order should the tracks be in?

Making compilation collections of music can be tough. You’ve got to think about what the person you’re making the compilations for likes and dislikes; plus sneak a few favorites of your own in that won’t be too disruptive to the overall theme. Jacinda and I both had similar tastes in music which would make things somewhat less of a pain to put together. We had some common interests like punk, gothic/death rock, and industrial music. I chose to start with the gothic stuff, making discs with Christian Death, Bauhaus, Malign, The Sisters of Mercy, 69 Eyes, Chrome, Android Lust, and a bunch of others. On the Industrial side I made up discs of Front Line Assembly, GGFH, Skinny Puppy, 16 Volt, Diatribe, Godflesh, Sleep Chamber, and more. Included in the audio care package was a notebook. I hand-wrote in all the song titles and numbered each CD with a corresponding page so she would be able to quickly look up whatever it was she would play on her stereo.

Where I really got into time consuming compilation projects was with the punk stuff. It’s challenging to think of the best two dozen or so tunes from a band like the Dead Kennedys and put it into a cohesive collection. But, I had plenty to work with and lots of time on my hands so each night after work I picked a punk band and put together one anthology of each group’s work. Even though it was tedious I did have some fun listening to some stuff I haven’t heard in years. I raided my Misfits collection, The Cramps, TSOL, Agent Orange, Sonic Youth, Big Black, D.I., etc.

Nearly two weeks later the whole project was nearing a total of 32 CDs. There were a number of one-offs I added like Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Pixies, and Cocteau Twins. Standards like them never seem to become tired and boring. In a way I was trying a shotgun effect hoping to throw in enough material that there had to be a good enough chance Jacinda would be into it.

White Belt Bullshit

Six Sigma training works on a silly colored belt system like a martial art. It’s statistical analysis Karate. Take a bow facing your opponent, a software generated scatter chart and do the parts per million factoring. Roundhouse flying foot Karate kick to the head! Allegedly, basic Six Sigma training when completed results in an employee having a White Belt status. Wow. Can you tell how interested in Six Sigma I am? White Belt training will comprise of self-paced web modules that must be finished by a deadline set by corporate. The few people who have been assigned to act as internal trainers overseeing the project will be referred to as Black Belts. These folks are supposedly going to be the Six Sigma experts throughout the division. I’ve heard their Black Belt training with outside consultants is going to cost Bill and Dave’s $20,000 per person. Ouch. That seems really steep to me. Between the White and Black Belts there are a bunch of specialized training modules that would result in a different color of belt. It remains to be decided if we will be messing around with any of that junk.

With self-paced web module training employees here generally cut corners to get it over with as quickly as possible. Cheat sheets containing all the correct answers for each module usually surface, and then are circulated rapidly from department to department. Part of the issue is there are so few of us left working here that we are sinking. We are drowning fast with the workload. The water level is about ten feet above our heads and rarely can we swim up to the surface for a breath of air. I have mentioned it before, for those of us who have survived a dozen rounds of layoffs we are doing the work of multiple people. Not just our own forty hour a week assignments anymore. That’s why so many of us are burned out and uninterested in this place. Six Sigma is just going to have to take a back seat to all our other daily priorities. We gotta make those month-end shipments or Super Geek doesn’t get his glorious Shareholder Value.

The Beard sent everyone an email detailing how this Six Sigma thing is going to go down. Here’s what he provided:

To all WBU Manufacturing employees,

In WBU Manufacturing the Six Sigma White Belt team members must complete Basic Curriculum Quality Training and White Belt Training so they can provide project specific process and cross-functional support. Under the guidance of Black Belts, they will gather and analyze data as well as help sustain the gains created by the Six Sigma project. White Belts will work on projects as needed, by providing expertise on areas where they are directly or indirectly involved in the processes. On larger projects, White Belts may be asked to dedicate themselves full time to the project.

Within the company interweb you will find the Basic Curriculum Quality Training Course. The goal is to have 100% of WBU Manufacturing employees take these classes. Instructions on how to launch these classes will be available during the week of February 12th, the Kick Off week for Six Sigma’s White Belt Training.

The White Belt Curriculum will be made available as soon as the Six Sigma White Belt classes are complete. The goal is to have 40% of WBU Manufacturing employees take these classes. The following is a complete list of all the required classes for White Belt.

Required courses for a White Belt are: (classes with a Blue * are the Basic Curriculum Quality Training classes you will find on the web)

Introduction to Quality Series:
· Quality@Bill and Dave’s – Know Your Role*
· Introduction to Quality Tools*
· Introduction to Process Improvement*
Quality Tool Series:
· Pareto Chart *
· Cause-and-Effect Diagram*
· Process Flow Diagram*
· Time Series Chart*
· Histogram *
· Scattergram*
· Control Chart*
Root Cause Analysis Series
· Introduction to Root Cause Analysis*

In addition to the Basic Curriculum Quality Training you will need to take the following classes to meet the White Belt requirements:

· Basic Root Cause Analysis
· Corrective Action
Six Sigma Courses
· Overview of Six Sigma (yet to be released)
· Six Sigma Methodologies and Tools (yet to be released)

Thank you,
The Beard
Basic Skills and Quality Training Coordinator
WBU Manufacturing Center

Scanning over The Beard’s training matrix I realized there is very little new to us with Six Sigma besides the Six Sigma overview sections. Everything else appears to cover what we already have in our Business Metrics program. We currently perform in-depth root cause analysis when we discover serious problems with product platforms and we always have a Continuous Process Improvement policy. None of this is new, as I mentioned we’ve had all of this in effect at the company for decades. The only notable change in the past five years or so is nobody is paying attention to that data collection anymore. That’s why we are in so much trouble. With Six Sigma I think someone is trying to reinvent the wheel. Maybe at another company where they don’t already have some sort of statistical analysis program or a form of quality data collection Six Sigma would be a better match. Here, it will be entirely redundant to what we already have in place. I really don’t understand the point in bringing Six Sigma to life here at Bill and Dave’s.

Weeehooo. I’m gonna get me a White Belt.

Champion Of Six Sigma

I am now convinced the company is not at all serious about Six Sigma. If this is such a groundbreaking, important initiative key to our future success I would have expected management to assign a hot shot leader. Instead they announced Six Sigma training would be organized and lead by none other than The Beard. He’s been lingering here for a while as an “Individual Contributor.” They took away his supervisory role so he has nobody reporting to him anymore. He’s part of the good old boy network of managers in this division. While hardworking veteran employees are thrown out guys like The Beard are allowed to linger on until retirement. His pals have protected him from layoffs by granting him Individual Contributor status and assigning him projects nobody else would want. Most of those projects are like unwanted leftovers in your refrigerator. They don’t affect anything which is probably a safe bet he won’t be able to screw up royally. Let’s face facts. Anybody here worth a shit has better things to be doing with their limited time.

His previous assignment was some sort of vague training position. I heard The Beard routinely fell asleep during his meetings and training sessions. For example, he was supposed to be video taping technical training on Network Analyzers but he was too stupid to figure out how to transfer the video to software for burning onto discs. So his retarded solution was to present new technicians with power point slides instead. You can’t train green techs on circuit theory and PC board test that way. It’s not practical or useful. Before that he was directly involved in some goofy Malaysian initiative. The Beard made appointments in each department on each instrument line to observe how people did their job functions and then note ways to improve the process. I forget what that dumb program was called, but when it was my turn to show The Beard our button up process before shipment off the line he fell asleep in his chair. I was about two seconds away from slapping him across his knees with an instrument side-strap handle and asking him if he understood what I was explaining. One of his peers saved him though, he gave The Beard a nudge that startled him back into consciousness as I was reaching for a strap handle to hit him with that was on the edge of my work bench.

We used to call leaders of screwy corporate-backed programs “Champions.” Totally corny. Those were the unlucky employees assigned to lead whatever new industry trend crap being foisted upon us. I guess The Beard is now our Six Sigma Champion. I know he’s going to doom the whole deal somehow before it’s over with. But that’s cool with me. Six Sigma will fade away far sooner than it would in anyone else’s capable hands.