A block of ice fell on me!!! X_x

O_o
So, yeah. I'll get to the ice part in a bit. Gotta keep ya in suspense! ^_^

Today, early this morning, my dear, sweet Rinni talked to me yet again on our private Yahoo! channel.
Despite all of her problems and unique challenges, she chooses to just be herself and be as best as she can be, and assures me that in this world of ours there are still good people to look forward to meeting one day.
I hope she's doing good with her Security prospects, and gets her licence back very soon. Rinni is one of a very, VERY few people that I trust enough to read my private blogs. Her and I have talked about nearly everything, and as much as I learn about her from each conversation, I know that even if I chatted with her every day for the rest of my life, I would never come close to learning everything about her that makes her so special.
We're gonna have a day to talk with each other this up-coming Sunday, and I'm really looking forward to it. It's hard, having opposite time-zones and conflicting schedules, to maintain certain times to talk to each other. It's even harder to make and maintain online or distance relationships.
However, I have made a very good online friend, and I will continue to enjoy our friendship for as long as I can. She and I can e-mail, blog, or instant message each other whenever we want. It's just, we'll both have to wait several hours between replies, unless we instant message each other on one of our cross-over points, like when I'm about to go to bed, and she's just waking up for the day.

I should tell ya all what I did at work today.
I left home, very tired, and upset to leave a willing-to-chat Rinni behind. Still, I have a job to do, and only I can get certain thigns done.
Jamie and I went to work, so far the day was okay.
I got paired up with Owen today.

Owen, today, was hung-over from the night before, reeked of stale booze, and I'm pretty sure was doped up before coming in this morning. His eyes were half-closed, simple things like getting tasks done in sequence seemed hard for him to do. It's like, trying to re-explain to someone that already knows the procedure how and in what steps we're supposed to do our jobs.
Evaluate the task to be done, go get a work permit, get the tools, set-up for the job, do it, put shit away, sign off permits, and go on to the next job.
This morning, right off the bat, we had to go and move a fridge out of one of the buildings on our site. The Ammonia plant, where they refine and process ammonia (NH3), was getting prepared for a big Asbestos removal project in one of their sections. Happens to be a hallway that leads to their lunch-room and locker rooms. Our job today was to move a fridge and a microwave out of their lunch-room, and put it into an office somewhere.
Owen just couldn't move from step to step today. We had to get boxes, cardboard boxes, to put food into for transport. We can't haul around a full fridge of half-rotten food. He just stood there, a dazed and stupid look on his stoned face today, and it took him up to two minutes to begin moving again after he stopped to think about what we had to do next. Today I had to be the leader again, just like in the old days, when I alone had to drag scum and rejects along and baby-sit them all day at work.
Anyways, besides his laziness, being hung-over and stoned, and his normal stupidity, we did our tasks.
We emptied all the rotten food from the fridge into boxes. Please note that we can't toss out any of the obviously rotten stuff, because it all belongs to the crew that uses the fridge. Go figure!
I got him motivated enough to kinda help me, and we set up a temporary kitchen in this office for the crew to store food (and mold) at work. Very gross. Tupperware containers can still leak fluids folks, and believe me, it isn't pleasant. ^_^

After, Owen and I had to go repair a broken steam-line. Someone dumped a pile of snow into a ditch, where the old steam-line was laying, and the weight of the snow crushed the rubber hose, trapping the steam. Now, if it's cold out, and the steam can't flow, the steam will gather up at the end of the hose and start to freeze. The entire line was frozen. Without a work truck today (I can't use personal vehicles on the actual chemical plant) we walked back and forth across our plant and I carried huge rolls of steam-line to the job location. We got the boss to order us a bunch of steam-line fittings and a few new screw-drivers and stuff too, for the job.
I tied the new replacement steam-line into the steam source, hooked everything up, and turned on the steam at half-full power. The pressure in the line sure is a doozy! Hopefully it'll be enough to keep up with the ice growth that's happening right now. With the recent nice weather now turning cold again, there's a lot of water in our ditches, which is freezing up as I speak. If the culverts and drainage tunnels ice up, and the ice melts again, the water will have no where to go, and will flood onto the roads. We're hoping my quick repair/by-pass job will be enough to keep things flowing soon.

Last job for the day. Climb a cooling tower and steam away/chip away ice.
This cooling tower is fairly tall, and has bus-sized chunks of ice dangling from it.
Well, Owen and I chipped away at the ice that was on top of the cat-walks on top of the tower. Still, huge bus-sized chunks were dangling from underneath the tower frame and girders, threatening to fall onto a little pump-shack located right underneath the tower.
Me, I went down, and climbed on top of this little shack. I took a pick-axe, and started chopping off little bar-fridge-sized chunks of ice. Chop, chop, chop, all afternoon. I removed a LOT of ice to be truthful.
Near the end of the day, I whacked one large piece the wrong way, and it slid down this car-sized tower/pillar of ice, smoking me right in my chest. The piece of ice was a good 500 pounds, I kid you not. It was a LARGE chunk.
I'm very lucky. It didn't knock me over or off the little shack, but it almost struck my face, something that, unlike my chest, wouldn't be able to take a blow like that. It slid into me, I went 'OOF!', and it slid/bounced down off of me, onto the ground below. It hit my right-hand ring finger as it fell, and my hand went numb from the strike. I called it quits after that, gathered up my tools, signed off my permits, and told Owen we'd finish it up tomorrow. Owen again wasn't much help today, and I ended up doing nearly all of the work myself.

One guy at work, some temp guy, got canned yesterday. He's the guy, the new dip-shit, who's been stealing my spot in the lunch room. I've had to move him many times now, and explain to him that us 'established core crew members' have all earned our spots, and that a temporary worker like him should be lucky to even be allowed to share our lunch room with us. I've smashed his lunch bag around, moved it to a table besides mine, even argued with him about it before. This guy is completely rock-stupid. He doesn't listen to the boss, he doesn't listen to the other crew mates, and he's ignorant to boot. The boss finally got tired of all the complaints against him, and his stupidity, so he fired him. Good riddance. Only 'I' may sit with Jamie, at 'our' table! ^_^

I got called down to our South Gate Security today. An 'anonymous tipster' tipped off the fact that at work I carry a knife.
I do, in fact, carry a blade at work. It's required.
Now, the only guy who EVER questioned my knife, and if I could have it, is dipshit, the one I just mentioned about. I told him twice, yes, in our safety handbook, chocked FULL of Sherritt Rules, that it is indeed permissable for me to carry a knife. Work related knives ARE allowed on site.
So, I went to security and talked with Hope, the late-20's woman who works there. What a sweety.
I walked in, whipped it out, talked and discussed the issue with her. She was hesitant about it, so she called her superior from the back. He came out from his office, took one look, and laughed. Insulators are allowed to carry butcher knives from home, that's what they use to cut their insulation pieces with. Pat, the guy who laughed, asked me what I use it for. I use my knife to cut open sand and salt bags, cut rope, steamline, tarps, etc.. He told Hope that it was okay for me to keep my blade.
They did not once even mention anything at all about a big no-no I did today. I haven't shaved my beard or anything in over three days. It's a rule that we're s'posed to be shaved, 'cuz if we need to, we have to be able to put on a gas mask and have a perfect seal on our face. Facial hair prevents that. Nope, not one word out of them. Once again Demon Dave gets away with murder.

No, my chest does not hurt. My finger is fine now, and I'm all cleaned up after sweating and working hard at work all day long.
I'm just tired, so very very tired...

Oh yeah, 'Happy Birthday Shawn' was just here, just to say hello and stuff. Him and Tony (My half-brother, almost 18) were chatting about Warcraft. Pfft, stupid game... ^_^

Luvs ya all. I'll update again soon. Just wanted to talk about work, is all.