All Wound Up

Today at work, we had a new client and we were on a new machine.  Well, new for me.  It's actually probably one of the oldest machines at our facility.  For THIS machine, you take something like plastic or thin metal foil that's rolled up on a cardboard tube and load it on one end.  Then it unwinds and goes through the machine and winds back up on a different cardboard tube at the other end.  I would have taken pictures but I think you're beginning to get the idea.  Today we were running brown plastic through the machine.  We sent it through at several test speeds, the final speed being 0.1 meter per minute.  If you don't know how long a meter is, think about the length of 100 million football fields, each the size and temperature of the sun.  It's hot, isn't it?  So our testing took a really really long time, and during that time there was nothing to do but once in a while shine flashlights at the plastic and say something like "oh, I see little bubbles" or "is it supposed to look like this?"  Then when each round of testing was done, the client would cut a small sample o plastic (which looked the same at the end as it did at the beginning) and hold it up to the light and point randomly at it saying "see?" to my coworkers, and they would comment on it like "ah yes" and "ohhhh."

I spent a couple of hours at work today cutting copper foil off of rolls.  The rolls look something like this picture, but not much really.  Well, at least not the ones I'm cutting copper off of.  It's the same copper foil, but the one's were cutting away are the spent test rolls and/or rolls that didn't go well.  So we just slice away at it with box cutters and peel it away layer by layer until we get to the cardboard core in the center.  Whoever finishes peeling away layers last has to eat all the copper.  Just kidding!  But that does sound like a fun Japanese game show!

My foot hurts from my long long walk yesterday.  It was a little sore yesterday, but today it hurts like it's bruised on the bottom, right on the tender part, just north of my heel.  I didn't know if there was anything like Icy Hot or Ben Gay around this part of the world, so I went to the drug store and bought a bottle of red wine.  Now it's raining and dark, and I wish it were a little warmer so I could sit with the windows/sliding doors open and enjoy the sound of it.  Unfortunately I don't think my company would appreciate the gas/electric bills if I ran the heater on high while I enjoyed the rainsounds.

I guess that's all I've got for today.  Stay tuned for tomorrow though; I took a shortcut home from the drugstore tonight and found a great neighborhood to take some photos in.  Definitely a "fishing village" sort of neighborhood, with all sorts of mangy stray cats, and two-way streets that are no way near wide enough for two cars and have telephone poles randomly sticking up like crazy teeth in the driving lanes.  Hopefully its still light enough to take photos when I get home from work; otherwise, I've gotten you all excited for what will have to wait until the weekend.