August 31, 2011

Not too bad of a day today at work.  We were running mesquite briquettes all day, and other than a few messes, the only major thing that really happened today was filling the silos.  A friend of mine starts his first full shift tomorrow at the plant, so that's going to be fun.

Warrior Rapter: Legend of a Legend, Chapter 3

Warrior Rapter wheeled his barrow toward the northeastern town gate, trying to be cautious with the wound on his back. He knew how the guards of the town would react to him arriving, even if he had returned with wood supplies for years. The two he noticed at the gate this time were Jacoby Niles and Ricard Loles. He prepared himself for the worst.

“Yo, Jacoby, look who 'tis. The great beast of the forest. Yer early this month, creature.”

“I had some bandits attack me earlier today,” Warrior Rapter calmly replied, “I came early to get some stitching.”

“You hear that, Ricard? He was attacked by bandits! Tell me, beastie, was it the same bandits from the place by the tree?” Jacoby smugly replied.

“I waited for you guys by that willow tree for several hours, and you never showed,” Warrior Rapter said, a little riled.

“Oh, did ye now?” Ricard said, “Well, we waited by that there tree ye pointed at when ye were explaining it to us, and we never seen ye.” Ricard pointed the same direction Warrior Rapter had pointed to at the time.

“Although, I have to say, that is the oddest willow tree I e'er did see, looks just like a pine tree to me, but, you can call it what you want” Jacoby added, looking at the tree just outside the gate.

“That is a pine tree, you buffoons, where you not listening to me when I was explaining how to find the bandit camp?” Warrior Rapter's voice was heated.

“Not our fault a beast like ye can't give proper directions,” Ricard intoned.

Warrior Rapter sighed, “Can I just get through the gate to deliver the wood and get some stitching, please?”

“Let a beastie like you terrorize the town? I think he's forgotten himself again, Ricard, what do you think?”

“Aye, that he has. Let's remind him who he is to us.” The both pulled out their clubs and walked toward Warrior Rapter.

“I don't want any trouble,” Warrior Rapter said, backing away from the thugs.

“Well, ain't that a shame, because just being who ye are is trouble, beast!” Ricard replied before he rushed at Warrior Rapter. He clocked Warrior Rapter on the side of the head with his club, which knocked Warrior Rapter to the ground. The two closed in on him.

August 30, 2011

A bit of a hectic day today, several messes.  I can honestly say I probably dislike broken briquettes from the dryer about as much as I do smoker briquettes.  Everything went better towards the end of the shift though, other than my supervisor's wife had to go to the hospital because she hurt her back.  Hoping things are going well there.

August 29, 2011

Well, today was a rather interesting and yet confusing day.  We are on a new kind of white starch that, the best way I can describe it is..... salt.  I'm serious, it looks like I'm dumping fifty pound bags of salt.  Other than that, our things to do today were to fill up the blue and silver silos, then when the silver got close to empty, switch formulas so by the time it did go empty, the new formula should be coming out of the dryer so we can run it to silver.  It takes about two and a half hours for briquettes to get through the dryer, and the silver silo holds about eighteen feet of briquettes when it's full.  Here's the confusing part, we continued to run to silver, after we had filled it up, and were still running the formula we were running.  Kinda hard for Bagging to empty a silo we are still running to.

August 28, 2011

Played some more Unreal Championship 2 today, and looking forward to the laptop this weekend.  I remembered that when I got on Guild Wars for a little bit, this week is going to be my over-time payday on Friday.  It'll be about time too.  I'm thinking when I get it, going to catch up on the Gamer Thought episodes.  Also went through the "Find Friends" thing on facebook, added a few of the ones I knew.  Probably going to head to bed after I post this though.  I get the feeling it's going to be an interesting day tomorrow.

August 26 and 27, 2011

Completely sorry about missing the daily post yesterday, got caught up in unlocking things on Unreal Championship 2.  It came in the mail yesterday, so I was having fun last night.  Not much to say, yesterday at work we were down for maintenance so it was just cleaning, and today, just played some more games.

A Penny's Worth of Thoughts, Vol. 5

People don't tend to like things that are new.  We all are like that for something, simply because when we get used to a way of doing things, and a new way comes out, it takes us a moment to change over.  That moment lasts longer for some than others, and that sometimes causes us to have a moment of frustration.  But, something I think gets quite a bit of heat when something new comes out is entertainment media.

August 25, 2011

This was a rather dull day actually.  We filled up the silos we were suppose to run to about 7:30.  That's about the most interesting thing today.  Oh well, gave me more time to think about tomorrows Penny's Worth.  I have a feeling this one is going to end up being more opinion oriented than the others have been, but, I hope that like the others, it makes you think and has a point.

August 24, 2011

Today hasn't been too bad of a day back at work.  We're on white starch, but we were trying out some new kind of crop coal.  The wet shaker overflowed a bit too, but overall a good day, although I have a new injury. While I was trying to clean off the scraper we use for the wet shaker with a little hand scraper, it slipped and cut my finger.  It kind of feels and looks like a paper cut now, except not quite as painful as a paper cut.

Warrior Rapter: Legend of a Legend, Chapter 2

The Velociraptor woke with the hint of sunlight coming through his bedroom window. He put on his brown shirt, belted on his dagger, and grabbed his ax before he headed outside to the barrow. He picked up a handle with one hand and started to walk his way back to the downed tree. He hoped today would be the last day for gathering the wood from that particular tree, as his memory told him there wasn't much left, especially after the week's worth of rot.

As he neared the tree, he took note of singing birds he could hear. Blue jays and Cardinals he thought some of them sounded like. He paused, trying to recall the last time he had seen or heard either bird in the forest. He came to the conclusion that he either couldn't remember or never had. He sniffed the air, trying to catch a scent he hoped he would not find. Unfortunately, he did find it. The stench of bandits.

August 23, 2011

Well, I enjoyed my time off today.  Pretty much have everything unlocked on Mario Party 8 now, and mom has beat the Lego Pirates of the Caribbean story.  Going to back on the 2-10 tomorrow, plus going to post the next chapter of Warrior Rapter: Legend of a Legend, so keep an eye out for it.  I'm going to head to bed for the night.

August 21 and 22, 2011

I'm going to hold off on the Gamer Thoughts episodes until I get the new laptop.  I got to thinking about it, and probably would be better that way.

So, the past couple of nights at work were fun.  After doing everything I needed to do, I was mainly on fire watch and patrolling the plant.  Through patrolling, I found out one thing.  I'm not an animal wrangler, that's for dang sure.

See, while I was patrolling, I seen two different little critters inside the plant on two different nights.  First was a little white kitten I happened to see in the warehouse, the other was a frog that kind of surprised me in manufacturing.  The kitten I seen leaving the plant with a couple of other cats later that night, but, I never seen the frog again.  Other than that, wasn't really that bad at the plant.  The thing that got to me the most was the lack of something to do for much of the twelve hours.

A Penny's Worth of Thoughts, Vol. 4

Something I think people sometimes obsess over is normalcy and perfection.  Let me start off by saying that neither one of them exist, they are simply a perception, not an actuality.  Consider this: take a person who seeks perfection, someone who gets nervous when their grade in school drops below 95. I'm sure some of you guys know someone like that.  What we see as perfection, to them, is normal, because it is a habit of theirs.  Now take someone who wants to be normal.  They seek so much to change themselves to fit in with others.  In their minds, the normal people they want to be seem perfect.

August 19 and 20, 2011

So, I got caught up in a Mario Party game yesterday, by the time I finished, had to head to work.  So what I'm going to do while I'm on the twelve hour shift is do a double post + any of the events of those days both today and Monday after I get home, if I don't fall straight to sleep on Monday.  So, update on things: Walmart was out of stock on the laptop I was looking at, which means another probably low quality Gamer Thoughts video with a glitch Monday.  Also, going to be heading back to work on my usual shift next Wednesday because my dentist appointment had to be canceled.  Ah well, things will work out.  I'll post Penny's Worth next.

August 18, 2011

So, we're back on yellow starch.  Yippee.  Press overflowed, so, had a bit of a mess.  Also had a bit of an accident when the forklift was dieing on me.  As if the thing wasn't jumpy enough.  Went to grab a starch pallet on the third level, ended up grabbing a bag on the second and pulled a couple off.  Yea, wasn't a good day for me with the forklift.  What a day, huh?

August 17, 2011

Wasn't too bad of a day at work today, the mix was a bit wet, so the main issues were the press and the wet shaker.  Apparently some of the loads of char we have been getting have been pretty wet.  Also had a plus of filling up the blue silo.  Speaking of which, guess while I'm on it, should explain about the silos we fill up at the plant.  There are three of them: blue, silver, and big.  I'm not kidding, those are our identifiers for them.  Blue is the smallest of the three, and the big, to me, almost looks like one of the silos you'd see at a grain farm.  Anyway, wasn't too bad of a day today.

Today, I also got to thinking about a couple of things to do on the blog, some of which I'd like readers opinions on.  For starters, to help make the daily posts a little interesting, I had an idea of a "Song of the Day" at the end of each post, where I post a song that has been going through my head at work that day, if I can find it on youtube.  An example being the one below, an OverClocked Remix song: Skies of Arcadia 'Dungeon Cave (Buried Alive Mix)'.  OCR songs generally have the game they came from within the title.  Also got to thinking about having pages on the site for finding the Penny's Worth/Gamer Thoughts faster than looking through the archive, and one for fanart for the story, just in case any of you guys have any.  Not going to lie, I'm good at writing, not so good at drawing.  I'm also thinking about, if we do the live broadcast for the Gamer Thoughts, whether or not to implement the feed of the chat, means I could probably just as easy read the message of interest aloud.  I don't know, just some thing I got to thinking about.  Leave a comment with your opinions on any of it.  Now, for the Song of the Day example:

Warrior Rapter: Legend of a Legend, Chapter 1

The sun's glow upon the leaves of the forest mixed well with the cool autumn breeze flowing between the trees. The colors were a vibrant mixture of reds, greens, oranges, and yellows among the branches of the tall brown oaks, and even the shades seemed to provide their own palette of colors to the mix. A lone worker within the shade was chopping away wood from a tree he had downed near a week past.

He was a Velociraptor, unlike the humans that lived around the forest, his dark green scales and the long jagged black stripe down his back gave a sense of camouflage, but it was counteracted by the brown of his cloth shirt and the leather strap on his waist that held his dagger. He swung the woodsman's ax, splitting the wood it had hit into two halves. He put the two halves onto a pile of his other gatherings for the day, and as he gazed up at the sun between the leaves, decided to head home with is workload. He shouldered his ax, picked up a handle of the barrow, and wheeled it on to his forest home.

When he pulled his collection next to the side of his house, he looked over the clearing on that side, some of which he had cleared himself, and smirked. He had much of the clearing for practicing combat, using combat dummies he made out of some of the extra wood he harvested. He also had a large boulder with a flat top that he would lay on to bask in the sun. He looked back up at the sun through the oval shape sky above the clearing, and decided against basking at the time. He unloaded the barrow, placing the wood neatly piled next to his house. He put the ax leaning against the pile with the blade up off the ground to help prevent rust and bug juices. He went inside to grab his wooden practice sword and practiced his attacks, defenses, and stances until his scaly skin glistened with sweat. He looked back up the sun and decided to use the rest of the time before it hid behind the trees to bask before heading into the house to sleep for the night.

August 16, 2011

Today was a pretty good day.  No major messes, nothing that really broke down, although one of the outside belts tripped a couple of times.  The mix was a little wet sometimes, but nothing major.  It's good to be back on white starch, though.  Lot less sticky at work.  Also, my posts for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday are going to be earlier than usual.  Jesse Blundell, the overnight rotating shift guy, is going to be going to a family reunion, and I'm going to be substituting for him.  The time is going to make up for the time I'm going to lose next week, due to me having surgery on some problematic wisdom teeth on Tuesday.  Should be fun working 7 p.m. to 7 a.m.  Anyway, other than that, not much new today, other than I think I have an idea for these week's Penny's Worth, but that's for Friday.

August 15, 2011

So today we had a lot of issues at work.  The oscillator belt motor burned out, hammer mill got jammed up, and we ran smokers, which means there were quite a few messes on the ground.  Smokers are essentially a briquette where all we run is lime, sawdust, starch, and, today, borax.  The good thing is, before the shift was over, we were back on regular briquettes, so tomorrow should be better.

August 14, 2011 + Gamer Thoughts

I'm combining both the video and the daily post today, simply means other than technical difficulties, nothing much really happened today.

So, long story short, the laptop I have at the moment apparently hates recording videos.  I try to record Guild Wars, it lags about two minutes in.  I start to record the video that I used today, the fan kicks on about eight and a half minutes in and the computer lags, causing an interesting distortion effect and a shorter video than I planned for.  But, you know, what the heck.  Probably wasn't going to get it perfect the first time anyway, and at least now, I can honestly say, every other video should go better than the first one did.  This coming Saturday, planning on getting a new laptop, which is much needed means this one is a five year old from Walmart computer.  If I have a little extra, might look at the webcams too, because the quality of the video with the Logitech I have isn't the best anyway.

Anyway, here's the video, and for anyone who's curious, that Umbreon completely stalled me.

August 13, 2011

It was good to see my uncle this morning and visit with family.  Helped a little on a front deck that my grandpa is building on my great grandpa's house.  I missed a few screws... but I swear they looked straight with the beam when I was putting them in.  My aunt and uncle from Oklahoma came up too, with one of my cousins.  Apparently he has glasses now.  I told him, "You know, you're suppose to move your eyes when your playing games right?"  Not that I can say much, myself, but I figured I'd give him a little bit of a hard time.  Also showed him a few tricks of mine in the Battle Factory on his Pokemon Platinum he brought.

August 12, 2011

Well, today was another yellow starch day at work.  Highlights of the day were that some shaft on one of the gears outside snapped apparently, seen four more Black Widows on one pallet of starch, and the power was going off around 9:30 I'll say.

I filled out a safety sheet about the widows, because that's a safety hazard for the people filling the starch hopper if they don't know to keep an eye out for them.

My uncle is in town too, going to be visiting with him tomorrow.

That's pretty much it for today.

A Penny's Worth of Thoughts, Vol. 3

Heroes.  When people hear the term, some think of fictional icons.  Spider-man. Hulk. Wolverine. Thor.  Maybe someone thinks of the hero of their favorite book or movie.  War veterans are also on peoples mind when it comes to heroes I'm sure.  But what about the everyday heroes that are around us?  Some of you probably started thinking firemen, policemen, or the EMT's in the ambulance, am I right?  While, yes, those people are heroes, it doesn't have to take a death defying or life saving feat to be a hero.

August 11, 2011

So yea, I decided to just put the date for the daily blog posts instead of counting the days.  Figure it'll be easier to keep track of that way, means my daily posts will probably be at the end of the day like they have been.

Now, I figure some of my readers, like most of the people I know in real life, are probably curious about what I do at the charcoal plant.  They want to know what my typical day is like at work.  Well, this is how my typical day goes:

The End of Day 1

So it's the end of day one for the blog.  Work today was about the usual, working at the charcoal plant.  About the only highlight there is I think I seen a Black Widow on the cardboard of one of the starch palettes after I had already put it in the dumpster.  That made me a little more wary of the starch bags for the night.

So yea, started blog and seen widow, some highlights for today, eh?

Anyway, means I'm rather new to this, maybe I should properly introduce myself to those of you who don't know me.  My name is Jesse Crocker, but my usual screen names online are Warrior Rapter or JakDragon, depending on whether or not Warrior Rapter is already taken or can't be used on the site.  I'll be twenty years old in September, and as some of you may have seen with my earlier posts for today, I can be a bit of an oddball when it comes to some things.  Not exactly sure what all you guys want to know, but, I know my blogging profile probably doesn't have too much.  I work at a charcoal plant, like I mentioned earlier, and it's pretty routine most of the time.  Something I've found out for working, both when I used to have a paper route and here at the plant, it helps me to keep my mind off my work once I have my routine down.  Just makes the days not seem as long.  Besides, these days, a job is a job, so really can't complain.

I hope you guys enjoy the blog, and please feel free to comment on any of the posts.

A Penny's Worth of Thoughts, Vol. 2

I am an observer. Always have been, probably always will be, but what can I say, when your growing up getting picked on, it's helpful to have a source of entertainment. I may not be much on what some people call "common sense", but I truly believe you can learn quite a bit about other people by watching them.

Sometimes, though, even for someone who's observed others for years, you can still run into things that just make you ask "Why?" Why do people think they have to have bulging muscles, a thought that often crosses my mind. People often seem to see "strength" as a physical attribute, something you can lift weights in order to improve. Not too many seem to think about other strengths, least not where I live. Endurance is one that I can think of off the top of my head.

Usually, when I got picked on, it's because someone took one look at me and pretty much thought they could break me like a twig. I think what few of them realized is just how much my body could take. I've walked a paper route after an ice storm because there were some power lines on the road and I didn't trust riding a bicycle on the ice. I've lost part of a toe due to a lawnmower without hardly feeling any pain..... least until time to change the dressing on the stitches after the fact. When I was little, I used to love jumping off of things: tree branches, swings while I was swinging, even down stairs. All that is before the bumps, bruises, and cuts of just everyday life and bullying. So the thought has always puzzled me, why do people think they need to have bulging muscles for strength?

The most I can think of as an answer is that it's just an association people have. "If you want to be strong, you have to have muscles this big" or something like that. If you are reading this and happen to be one of those people that want to have big muscles, sorry, but, there's other ways to be strong. You can be strong charismatically, have strong leadership abilities, a good endurance, even just be really clever at figuring things out. And if you are someone who has picked on someone before because of their lack of muscles, I'd ask you to stop. You might be surprised what us little guys are capable of.

Just a penny's worth of thoughts, for anyone who wants to read them.

A Penny's Worth of Thoughts, Vol. 1

For many years, people have asked me why I like to just watch people, and my response has always been, "You'd be surprised what you learn just watching and listening."  Through observation, you learn that it's not uncommon for things to seem different than what they are, even things that are right in front of us, yet there can be similarities, and to a silent observer, these can be kind of puzzling.  Two friends playing a game against each other can seem to be the worst of enemies at each others throats, two people who are just having trouble understanding each other can seem like two people in a heated argument, each trying to prove their own point.

I had a similar experience today at work between my supervisor and one of the loader drivers, both people I know like to joke with each other.  I don't know exactly what went on, but while I was sweeping by one of the conveyor belts, I heard what sound like my supervisor yelling, and not too happily.  I looked up to see him walking to get a sample off another conveyor, and to me, things pointed to him being upset:  His pace was a little faster, shoulders seemed a little rigid, and his hands in his gloves seemed clenched.  I then look at the loader driver, heading up to the press controls not too far behind, and I see him laughing.  I didn't know if it was another joke with them or if something might have been said that my supervisor didn't like.

I stepped carefully around him for a few minutes, just to be safe.  After my fifteen minute break not too long after, it seemed nothing was different, which, although I didn't ask to see what had happened, lead me to believe either it was another joke, or whatever was said wasn't very major.

I mention this because it raised a thought in my mind: If someone were to see or hear something between you and one of your friends, whatever it is, how might they misinterpret it?  Sure, to some, this may seem trivial, and everyone has certain ways of acting or joking around friends, but, to an outsider looking in, could it seem different than what it is? 

Just a penny's worth of thoughts for anyone who wants to read it.

The start of the Blog

Well.... Hardest part is here, I'm going to kick off this blog.  Here's the plan, means I find it sometimes helps to have a plan at the start, even if something changes later on:

Wednesdays - Posting a chapter a week of a story I'm writing called Warrior Rapter: Legend of a Legend for you guys to read.  No, the "Rapter" part isn't misspelled, that's how I put the name, both for the story and when I use it as a screen name.

Fridays - Penny's Worth of Thoughts.  Essentially, like my notes on my facebook, going to type about observations I have, and my thoughts on it.  The title is suppose to be a twist of how, when people see you thinking, something they might ask is, "Penny for your thoughts?"

Sundays - Gamer Thoughts.  If someone has a better title, feel free, it's just an idea for now, but what it is, using youtube and the video add-on on the blog, going to post a video of playing a game while commentating on things like I would in Penny's Worth.  Might also have co-commentators sometimes, if people want.

Everyday - Posts about anything new that day, whether at work, at home, or on games.  Probably going to be mostly on games, means not much else happens most of the time XD.

First thing I'm going to do though is repost my Penny's Worth notes here, so today is going to be a multi-post day.  Hope you guys enjoy the blog.