My first week at my new employment wrapped up early Saturday morning as the crew was kept until around 2:45 am on overtime to complete an order. Coupled with the overtime on Thursday night/Friday morning, the total came to about five hours. As the week went on I operated machinery that cut and formed the plastic fabrications in preparation for their construction into windows and patio doors, and another machine that heat sealed the finished product, cut away superfluous plastic residues, and cleaned up the final product in preparation for glass installation and shipment. The week went well although the warehouse was warm to hot at times and there was not always a fan to provide relief at every station I was at. The promise of nice paycheck makes it somewhat worth it in a big way.
=
I did experience a recurrence of my carpal-tunnel syndrome issues in both wrists and hands and I worked in some pain for a time on Friday before it abated, but Saturday was a difficult day as I spent the day home dealing with the pain and trying different solutions to provide a remedy, but with mixed results. The best approach was soaking my hands and wrists in a bucket of hot water with epsom salts. I also tried massage, pain relief pills, and Ben-Gay, all with limited or short term success. Sunday went better as things got better. I got myself a carpal-tunnel wrist bandage and that seemed to bring relief along with increase dosages of Tylenol. I hope this is an intermittent problem at worst as the pain is liking have electricity going up one's hands, wrists, lower arm, and elbow. When the problem is going full, I cannot clinch my hand into a fist at all and only can get about half-way to a fist without serious pain; the hand and wrist are noticeably swollen; and there is a noticeable loss in strength in the hand as I cannot pick up anything that has any weight to beyond several pounds. And it wakes one up frequently with intense pain as one tries to get some sleep.
=
I have had issues with carpal-tunnel syndrome going back to the 1980s when I was cutting pizzas with a big rocker blade knife; the problem continued into the 1990s in the same kind of work. When I worked at Anderson in 1997-99, my job included lifting heavy plastic totes filled with books and magazines that sometime weighed over 100 pounds. The syndrome was particularly harsh and painful and it was one of the considerations that compelled me to leave that employment despite my overall liking of the job otherwise. I will have to stay aware of the issues that may bring on the syndrome and its various levels of extremeness. Obviously I need to be very careful and conscious of activities that spur its presence, such as lifting heavy weights primarily with my arms and hands that do not require much help from the back and shoulders. I have even had smaller less intense versions of it keystroking on computers over the years and using a mouse. I hope its nothing to be really concerned about, but the fact that the syndrome made such a strong appearance in just my first week at my new employment is not something I am elated about. I will just have to take it day by day and see what happens.
=
Late Sunday afternoon I finally got out and did some errands. I started with an ice cream treat at Baskin-Robbins with a coupon for two scoops (Rocky Road and America's Birthday Cake) for the price of one, although I was disappointed coffee ice cream was not on the menu at this time. I read my Sunday papers before heading to Walmart for a grocery run. I then went to the post office to mail the electric bill and check my box. I got a birthday card from the ever thoughtful second younger sister KVS and her family that included some nice gift cards. After I got home I did a little organizing of the pile on my desk and listened to some music on the stereo before catching some television which included a movie I had never seen before, Deep Rising. I finally went to bed around 2:30am.
=
Anyway, this upcoming week is only a four day week with Friday, Independence Day, an off day and the start of a three-day weekend. The next one of these will not be until Monday 1 September, Labor Day. It is likely I will get some overtime in some of the next four days. If it is okay, I will probably go to Castle Rock Friday afternoon and spend the evening and Saturday with my brother and his family. Hopefully the weather will continue to be good and we can barbeque some goodies and enjoy some good company.
=
*****
This report is largely no surprise. As each generation emerges there is a new technology awaiting that they grasp and make a big part of their lives. In the last decade to fifteen years there has been an explosion of new technologies that more often than not primarily the younger generations embraced at the expense of older technologies. The internet, laptop computers, cellular telephones, the I-pod, and other exciting new products and services are just some of these technologies. Additionally, our society has markedly moved away from the lifestyle models that were dominant in prior decades such as the traditional 8-5 employment, holidays off, and weekends free of employment. In 2008 the US has moved strongly to a 24/7 workplace and culture, which is detrimental, among many other and more significant ways, to traditional television viewership creation and patterns of loyalty. The television programmers are vitally aware of this seachange occurring in viewership and are pulling out all the stops to try to bring in and keep younger viewers, which is the ultimately wanted clientele for advertisers and sponsors looking to sell and peddle products and services to demographics that lack brand loyalty, product biases, and wisdom and insight on what the medium is really all about. For the most part they are failing as the tidal wave of "reality shows" has largely failed. This trend of television being increasingly watched by largely an older viewership is likely to only strengthen and become a fixture for the most part. Networks, working under different rules than cable that control and limit their content, very well may be on the way out and could see their demise within two decades as the internet promises to be the video provider of information and entertainment for most in a growing fast paced way. Broadcasting is being replaced by narrowcasting, and the business model the networks have used for better than a half-century is in serious peril as corporations will likely migrate to this other media to expose their products and services to their desired demographic, leaving networks to become less significant and slowly die.
Posts
