Poking Out from Behind the Curtain

"Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain! The Great and Powerful Oz has spoken!" -- The wizard

I've come to a place. It's a place I'm not entirely comfortable with, but then I never am comfortable. So I suppose that's irrelevant.

I've come to the place where the Wraith Surfer is no longer needed. You see, I watched the World Wide Web grow from its infancy, and saw the stories on TV about how people were hunted down and stalked based on information they gave away on the Internet. And I was intimidated. I still am. So when I ventured out into the Web myself for social reasons, I did so under a guise. I didn't want spammers taking my e-mail address, so I used an anonymous webmail account for anything I thought might cause spam to be generated. And it was! I get a TON of spam at that account. That much was a great idea!

But then I began to find my friends online. And I tried to come out to play, but they didn't recognize me behind the space suit of the Wraith Surfer. Today (sniff) I was taken to task by a friend for "hiding". I was hiding, but only from the strangers! Well, the disguise was too good, and even my friends were leery.

So today, the suit comes off. The steps I already took on YouTube to lose the Wraith persona not come to my other accounts. I'm going to be "dan'l" again. Ok, so it's still a persona, but it's the one I wear at home. Deal with it.

Time to put Major Matt Mason away, and find a decent portrait of my own self to put up. It isn't there yet, but keep an eye out for it. I'll find something.

Props to Bonnie for poking me. :-)

Now, where did I leave the keys to that balloon?

-dan'l

Exhaustion Bites

Who said the weekend was a relaxing time? I often look forward to the rest that comes with a normal work week, after the stress of a weekend. Maybe God rested on the seventh day, but do we? I think NOT!

To be fair, this weekend was NOT your usual fare.

We did an event for the Band Boosters (in support of my daughter, who is in the band) this weekend. On Friday night, we set up tables, unloaded factory equipment, and folded boxes in preparation for Saturday's Pie Factory. The Pies were already pre-sold, and we knew we needed to make 1551 Apple Pies. That meant folding 1551 cardboard boxes to put them in, and counting 1551 pie tins. It meant mixing up gallons of flour, sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg (Boy, did it smell good!) All this had to be completed Friday night.

On Saturday, we arrived at 7am at the school, got the coffee pot going, and waited for the Apples to arrive. At 7:30 we unloaded 136 bushel of apples, stacking them near the apple peeler/corer. We suited up into aprons and hairnets, and the day's work began. There were about 45 on the line. The first two placed apples on the peeler/corer, which automatically peeled and cored the apples, dumping them into a bin. The bins were passed on to a team that trimmed the remaining peel and core parts off. Then off to the slicer, producing nice, even apple slices, and sending them up a conveyor belt. At the top, someone trimmed away any more unsightly parts, and the apples were ready for the pie.

Over at the dough station, ladies mixed dough for crust. Another team weighed the dough, stuffing it into a die plate. Pressing down on the handle the dough was cut into many parts, evenly sized. Some went to the "top crust" station to be floured and shaped, while the rest were placed into the bottom of a metal pie tin. Two heated presses were used to squish the dough ball into a flat bottom crust. Perfect every time.

The bottom crust moved on to the filling station, where a spoonful of flour/sugar/cinnomon/nutmeg mixture from the previous night was added. On top of that, a pile of apple slices, and another scoop of flour/sugar/cinnamon/nutmeg.

Meanwhile, back at the top crust station, dough balls were fed into a press, making elongated oval patties. These were run through another press/roller sideways to form a perfectly round top crust of the perfect thickness, which was quickly draped over the waiting pile of apples in the pie tin. From here, another person tucked the apples neatly under the top crust, making a healthy pile in the center. The pie then went on to the crimping station, where workers took out their aggressions slamming the crimper die down onto the pie. This sealed the top crust to the bottom and trimmed away the excess dough. A quick spin to clean the crumbs off, and the finished pie was slipped into a bag, sealed with tape and boxed for delivery.

I had the honor of walking the finished pies to the Order Pickup station, where sellers collected all the pies they'd sold, to deliver them to customers.

Whew! We were done making pies by 12:45 pm, but then we had to clean up, return tables we'd borrowed, and dispose of the apple peels and cores on a nearby farm.

We'd have been done by 2pm, but my sister-in-law locked her keys in the car, and I had to drive her all the way home to get a spare set. We got back to the house at about 7pm, just in time for my son's birthday party.

Cake, ice cream, and a slice of apple pie, and I was sugared up pretty well. I was too tired to post my video on YouTube, though. Maybe Sunday?

On Sunday, I went to church early. My quintet was singing, which is always stressful, but it went ok. When the family didn't show up, I ran home to find that my daughter was worried about her present for my son. It was the same thing that he got from Grandma and Grandpa the night before. Oops! Off to the store for a quick switch, then back to church for second service. Now I was crashing from the morning's stress, and I think I slept through the sermon! After church, we rushed off to Chuck-E-Cheese for a couple hours of Birthday fun with 5 boys. Play games, eat pizza, dance with the mouse. Then home to video games and LEGOS.

I skipped choir practice to manage the boys, and we returned them to Moms and Dads at evening service at the church. After evening service, I had a meeting, and arrived home at 9 for Supper.

Too tired to post my video of the pie job, I went to bed.

Which led to Monday morning. I got up and got the kids on the bus, but then I was not feeling well. I laid down to rest for a minute and woke up at noon. Total CRASH!

Yeah, so the weekend was the most exhausting time I remember in a while, and I look forward to getting back to the usual day-to-day work schedule.

This all hit home for me, though, when I think back on it, because a friend and neighbor had a heart attack last night. He's doing well today, but it makes me think. How much can I keep going on 4-6 hours of sleep a night, and pushing all the time?

The videos will get done, and I'll do my best, but not at the expense of taking care of myself first. We need our rest to be at the top of our game.

Be well. Thanks for stopping by.