Friday, October 02, 2009

First Day as an Engineer!

The first day went off without a hitch and went pretty smoothly. I'm really enjoying being an engineer! Actually, it was the first night, or early morning as I'm now working the Midnight to 8 AM shift and after being on days and evening shifts for so many years here it's a little hard getting back into the night shift swing of things. I'm pictured here above, at around 3 AM this morning during a lull in switching moves, seated quite nicely in my new office, a EMD SW 800 switching engine.
Another new thing is my buddy Bill (Pictured above, AKA The Rambling Hillbilly, some of you might read his blog also) from West Virginia and the Athens Volunteer Fire Department finally took my advice and moved his happy ass here and is now working with me as the Midnight Switchman on my crew... Those paychecks aren't hard to take, are they Bill?
My happy crew, Jay, my conductor and Bill again... Sweaty and dirty... Funny, in my new job I don't get dirty anymore... It's kind of a novelty to me now that I'm not covered in sweaty filth when I got home this morning!

And here I sit... Photo taken just mere moments ago... I'm going to be taking one of these self portraits every day throughout the entire sugar crop and I have plans on those that I'll reveal later... It's pretty funny if not entirely original...

Like I said, I'm trying to get my body-clock reset and it'll take a few days with the help of some melatonin so my postings will be erratic... Also I've got a ton of emails from dear friends I've still yet to respond and I feel bad for that, to but for now my bed is calling out it's Siren Song to me, so I'm off to the Land Of Nod...

Copyright 2009 Thomas J Wolfenden


10 comments:

The Ramblin Hillbilly said...

A unique bunch to be sure.

FreeThinker said...

Congratulations - I heard the exams went vey well!!

I wish you all of the best with the new occupation!

honkeie said...

Very cool! My youngest son is now in love with Thomas the Train, anytime he sees a train he about freaks out lol.

Exzanian said...

Following your dream...

Exzanian said...

That first pic really caught my eye, reminds me of my Dad about 25 years ago, he was a fitter and turner, I used to go to his work often, he was always surrounded by these big milling and boring machines (always painted grey or green) He knew how to work metal...Also loved Locos

tsduff said...

You finally made it! CONGRATS Tom - I'm so happy for you. And, you get to work with your friend too? Well, some people really have it good LOL!
Cheers to you on your new adventures!

Anonymous said...

You and the locomotive are a good match. Enjoy.

Anonymous said...

Hey Tom,
I'm really happy for you. You've worked hard and deserve your success!

Becky said...

Awesome! Glad to see you so happy with the job! I wish you could send some of that enthusiasm my way!

tsduff said...

Yay.