What Did You Do Today?

Just wondering what every one does during the day and evening? Work? Play? Fish? Camping? Gardening? Smoking? You get the idea........ I work up early to put the venison jerky in the dehydrator and took the fiancé to work and then when I got home I made breakfast. I fixed the bath sink and took a nap. Then I sat around having a few beers waiting for the jerky to get done. Tried to read a book but that's not for me. Oh yea, I cut the lawn b4 the rain. I better save sum stuff 4 2maro. Just wondering what you guys do during the day and evening. Let's here it.

Yesterday's job was 3 sizeable pine trees and a couple smallish but tall spruce in a very tight space. Customer had said numerous times how fussy she was. She was s covering the hostas and vinca with sheets when we got there, and some of them were directly under the trees.....One of the first things I bought when I started my own business was 32 ground mats. $6k...Ground was rock hard and very uneven already but fine. I upcharged for the time it took to place and remove all 32 mats  over the turf.. Also upcharged for the number of times she described herself as "very fussy".

Job was originally scheduled for Tuesday but I had a minor truck problem. A bolt that held a tensioner pully for the serpentine belt sheared off. Better to get a new bracket than drill out and tap the original hole. That bracket is no longer made, found a decent used one in new London on Monday...

Customer was upset about the change in plans. Borderline rude about it.

So I was nervous about the whole thing. It doesn't help when the customer sets up a lawn chair and watches the entire day either...Forgot my lunch (fruit, fruit and more fruit) and didn't hydrate until early afternoon when it looked like everything would go well.  Weighed myself when I took a shower last night: I "lost" 5+ lbs. That's with having drank about a gallon of fluids in the afternoon.

So how to fix that? Double cheeseburger, onion rings and large choco shake at Kopps last night. Half'a big box of Little Debbie donut stix for a bedtime snack. The donut stix themselves were about 1400 calories.

I was in bed by 10pm but I feel like I went out, got really drunk and got into a fight last night....and lost.

Customer was very happy. No hostas or vinca were damaged. Turf looked untouched. Got paid for the hassle though, and I paid my guys for an extra hour or so even though they REALLY slowed down the last couple hours of the job.

You're likely right SM. Sounds like I was lucky enough to see the full, brick complex waay back when. It was something to behold! If what I'm reading is correct, demolition to much of it was around 97', shortly after I had been there. I know they still make product.

It was actually a week-long trip to "Trees For Tomorrow" camp in Eagle River. One full day was dedicated to that mill and it stuck with me. Almost as much as us guys sneaking out to meet the girls in the woods. Lol Innocent fun in the 7th grade. 

Sifted dirt pile left over from driveway expansion/asphalt paving.  Sorted large gravel, small gravel and left over dirt for wife's flower garden.  Good upper body workout.  Took a nap. Watched WI Air Guard fighters flying making designs in the sky while BBQing.

Wednesday night is my favorite as I get in my 31 mile group bicycle ride. Big loop around town, a couple rest stops and ending doing 3 miles on a golf course cart path at 9:30 PM. 

The usual routine I do everyday. Got out of bed ,had a cup of coffee turned the  T.V. on  to check the B.S. morning news and staying home  all day. What a boring life!!

Mosinee- if you can't spell it, you can smell it!

Suspendedmusky, 

We still get the smell in the air in Beloit from Beloit Boxboard mill recycle mill in the summer. When Sunoco was running in Rockton we would go past on Sunday and drop off papers for recycling on the way to church. My daughters would always complain. I always told them that was the smell of
money being made. 😎

Good to see ya out with ur Buddies gettin some fresh air and having a few laughs like you used Too! Best thing for you or any of us! 

Last day of fishing on Fox Lake with my buddies, fishing was kind of slow but we managed to get a bunched the last day. Good to hang out with my buddies for a while from Milwaukee and Fox Lake and like I said before first time I got out in a boat in 2 years, it felt good!

Work, then afterwards yardwork, charging boat batteries, and this evening spent some time patching musky lures that have sustained battle damage already this year. I missed a good one last night. 

357,
I would have to believe that smell you encountered was from the sulphite pulp mill Rhinelander used to operate in the past, which no longer does.  There are/were several paper/pulp mills that I never got tired of the "odor"....the mills that produced mechanical pulp (PGW-pressurized groundwood, or TMP-thermomechanical pulp) for magazine paper.  Mills like Consolidated Paper's Niagara, Whiting, or Biron Mills.  That sweet aroma of spruce mechanical pulp never got old.

Very interesting! I'll never know how they pulled it off with safety issues and all, but in the 7th grade, they bussed us up to Rhinelander for a field trip. The size and magnitude of it all back then was jaw dropping to say the least! Hat's off!!

I have to believe that smell just becomes second nature...

Ditto FH - 30 years total - paper making & also did time in converting as an M .          🦌
 
it takes a large team to keep those machines ​well . 

Yep FH, you and I have conversed for hours on the paper industry.  You, my friend, are one of the special ones, a talented individual who built many of the paper making gems the state of WI was blessed to have been operating.  You do know the "ins and outs" for sure and kept those machines humming by your precision, down to the tens of thousandths of an inch.    

Wishin' I was fishin'

SuspendedMusky,

As you already know, I worked in the paper industry for 35 years and know quite a bit about the "in's,& out's" of what makes these machines run for as long,& hard as they do.

I know what you do, as we've talked about it. That's impressive to say the least.

On that note, the only thing I miss after being a retired Millwright for the last 5-1/2 years is most of the people I've met,& worked with over the years. Definitely not the work.
 Times have/are a changing,& not for the good.  Enjoy your retirement when that happens,& remember. I'm only a phone call away,...🎣🎣🎣😉

arthur,
I'm sure I worked with you directly/indirectly on several of the large capital projects I was responsible for.  Some of the sharpest industry personnel I got to know were Beloit Corp people. I've been to the Beloit/Paperchine facility several times.  One of my first job offers from college was from Beloit Corp.

Regarding paper machines, most do not know that as a general manufacturing apparatus, the "paper machine" is the largest contiguous machine in the world used to manufacture a product.  In addition, most do not know that daily (without a web break) some of the paper machines that operated in WI could manufacture a continuous web of paper 20+ ft wide, that would stretch from central WI to Jacksonville, Florida (every day)....4000 fpm x 1440 min/day x 1 mile/5280 ft = 1091 miles of paper/day.  That's a lot of paper!