Tag: covid

I Got Covid-19

It’s late October, on a brisk evening and I’m at home putting on a suit that I pieced together for a very affordable price. Nothing expensive or fancy, just clean and simple. Fossil watch is on, couple sprays of Davidoff Coolwater, and I’m out the door with some gifts in hand. Today was the day a good friend of mine I made from work was getting married. The drive took longer than I expected, but I was able to catch the bride to be (Paige), walking down the aisle with her father just moments after arriving. Her presence was glowing as it should be as they head into this beautiful barn. I then make my way in after standing near the barn door like I was an usher (which I have been before in another wedding). One vows and ceremony later, there they were, husband and wife. Followed by one of the most memorable father-daughter dances I’ve witness in the history of weddings, we celebrate the marriage of Paige and Tucker with the reception in good fashion.

The weekend has now passed and I’m back at work. Not a whole lot has changed except for one minor thing, I started getting a cough. It would come up only every so often but wasn’t like a normal cough I would have. However, we were required to wear masks at work and were receiving temperature checks when we arrived. With no signs of a fever, I just continued with work but with the thought in my head, “Let’s just see what happens.” A day or two goes by and that cough was still present and yet no fever. A colleague of mine mentioned that he smelled something burning in the room which my senses could not pick up. At that point I got worried, so I talked to my boss thinking I may have contracted Covid. During this time everyone believed that if you didn’t have a fever, it probably wasn’t Covid. Despite the fact I had several other symptoms like my chest feeling a bit tight as well. I decided at that point I would just go to urgent care just to make sure. And about 24 hours later, positive.

So now I’m at home quarantining myself for the next week and a half. At this point my symptoms were moderate coughing, tight chest with a slight difficulty breathing, loss of smell and taste, and I was having cold sweat at night. This would go on for the next few days and for the most part, I had trouble eating anything. By the time I would recover from Covid, I had lost about 10 lbs. With that and the lasagna I had that got me sick from earlier in the year, I probably shredded 25 lbs. and most of that was muscle mass. I wouldn’t gain some of that weight back until later in 2021. While I was quarantining though, there were some positives that came out of it. Now, I’ve mentioned this in one of my past posts that I wasn’t that close with my family, but it was a nice change of pace talking to my mom on the phone for a little bit every other day. It just shows me that she will always care for her children no matter the circumstances. And I know we’re not that type of family to express our feelings, but just know, mom, that I love and care for you and everyone else as well.

During my time off from work there was only so much I could do. So, I just made the most of what energy I had given to me during this duration. And with Covid still an uncertainty and no vaccine yet, I didn’t want to take any chances with cold medicine and anything else. Just let the body fight this off like any other cold naturally. For the most part I mainly relaxed, went on a little nostalgic movie binge from the 90s and early 00s, and played some Madden and The Sims 4. And for the first time ever, I watched The Masters being played in November and without any patrons. That and not having a Thanksgiving Day tradition with my family put things into perspective. This really was and is a part of our history now as an entire world. Having to slow down a bit, come together, and just looking at this as just another obstacle in life. The affects I had to deal with was that my sense of taste and smell changed from having this coronavirus. It was for the better. Since then, I’ve been eating better and now on my way to regaining what I lost from 2020… my muscle mass!

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A Pandemic Lockdown

It’s Monday and I’m back at work. My colleagues (most of them) were pleased to have me back. Back to the same witty, self-deprecating, sexual innuendo-esque me they deserve, but not the one they need (… Batman!). And as we’re all aware of Covid spreading more and more, and state governments going into a lockdown, we were still working (as per usual). Now, this is just my opinion but seems very likely, our department for the company felt like the only reason they didn’t go under. At least this branch that is. There was talk amongst my colleagues and I that the company was struggling to maintain a float. Could be why our scheduler kept giving our supplier numbers we could not produce even running 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Eventually, some of our products we made ended, thus leading us to working 5 days a week. But that wasn’t until later.

About 2 weeks since the state issued a mandatory lockdown to non-essential workers when we got to be ourselves, outside of what was going on with the world, I was relieved… because I already had plenty of toilet paper to last me about half the year. It’s a good thing I only have to supply for myself! Unfortunately though, I didn’t have much supply of food. So, I knew eventually I would have to head to the grocery store to stock up on that, sooner rather than later. 5 weeks. That’s how long I was off work. My sleep schedule within the first week changed instantly. I would go from sleeping around midnight to 8 in the morning, to anywhere when the sun came up to the early afternoon. I read that it’s not as healthy not to have a sleep schedule (plus my doctor told me that as well), but this is a pandemic we’re dealing with. So what now? To go from having no-days-off to all-the-time-in-the-world, what do I do?

School’s Out For Summer

As I’m doing my best to stay safe and quarantining myself at home, I take a trip down memory lane. Back to playing video games online with some of my friends. And instead of Socom like the high school days, it’s Call of Duty: Warzone. Probably the hottest selling game on the market, and they picked a perfect time to release it. My role in our team playing battle royale was “The Wildcard.” You’re not sure what to expect when we play together but one thing’s for sure, I’m normally the first one into the Gulag. One of our favorite spots to start out is at the prison… because it’s a lot easier to transfer me to the Gulag when I die. Here’s a little-known fact, we always tried to spray paint anyone that was in there with us. Makes it easier to spot them if they make it out (not that it matters now considering this game probably isn’t relevant anymore). I won’t forget the moment I won it for our team in a 2 on 1 situation. Everyone, including myself thought it was over. But lady luck was looking down on me that day. She was probably looking down on me doing other things, too (a celebratory wank followed by a good night’s sleep).

Away from Call of Duty, I was collecting unemployment and just started saving a ton of money. Being how we were in a lockdown and I had just recently moved into an apartment with my roommate, Joey. I thought the place could use a little sprucing up. This part of my life was called, “Amazon and chill.” For the next several months I would shop almost on a weekly basis from Amazon. Which by the way, a huge thank you to the Amazon team for continuing to be essential and deliver us products we don’t need. Our place was very welcoming, we had a rug and a neat coffee table along with a lot of other things. I would have friends over for a dinner party that summer and received high compliments on my place and hosting. I was very grateful for that (thank you HGTV for all the inspiration in the past decade!). Unfortunately, none of that lasted. Going into the place, I was expecting to stay at this apartment for at least a few years, but my plans changed again, so I ended up leaving and getting my own place. But that’s another story.

While I was still living with Joey, he brought me out to the shooting range for the first time in my life. Before this, I had never shot a gun before, not even paintball or a bb gun. The most I’ve ever done was playing with sticks that look like guns out in the woods when we would go camping. I’ll admit, that was still recent. It wasn’t just when I was a kid. But that’s life! There’s that kid in you that won’t ever burn out. So anyway, we’re at the range, and Joey is teaching me the basics and techniques of holding and firing a gun. I wasn’t exactly sure how I felt learning a new skill like this. Maybe because I was never into guns in the first place. Joey’s cousin brought a shotgun with him, and I tried that out… very interesting. That had quite the recoil/kickback. I remember not setting my feet correctly when I fired the shotgun, and it nearly sent me back to the womb… just kidding! I did almost fell down. That was pretty wild though. As of now, I’ll just stick to shooting guns in video games or sticks.

One Of Many Passions

The late 90s brought so much in its’ history alone. I had just learned about who Tiger Woods was. And after watching him golf for several years, my uncle introduced my brothers and I to it. It was one of the most frustrating, yet relaxing sports I ever played. Who knew hitting a tiny little ball hundreds of yards could bring joy to someone? I played this game for over 20 years with the exception of certain parts of my life where I hardly played. I loved the sport but as I got older, I noticed I wasn’t golfing as much as I used to or would like. A lot of my friends who I played with when we were younger found new passions or just did other things. On several occasions I would have some colleagues at the time to go with and it made me miss that feeling of why I used to golf as much as I did. Then with Covid, a couple of my nephews were bored staying home and playing video games, wanted to do something else. When the golf courses opened back up, it was something they wanted to get back into. They hardly played when they were younger, but this was something different than staying home and they wanted to get good at it. When they would ask me if I wanted to join them, I had forgotten myself that joy it brought me. I was very thankful for them for bringing that passion back in my life.

And an interesting experiment I had was golfing while I was in the clouds. That was quite something! So, what else did I do when I was high and in the clouds…?

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The Worst Week Of My Life

Before Covid expanded throughout the entire United States, I was on the verge of moving closer to my job. The commute of having to drive a longer distance was taking a toll on me. But it wasn’t just that, a lot of it had to do with the fact I was working 7 days a week with no expectations of a weekend, or even a day off. I figured if I had to work every day then I might as well live closer so I don’t have to rack up the mileage, and use up more fuel for my car. About a week before my lease ended, I had gotten a place with a roommate. One day he made lasagna (frozen, not from scratch) and offered me some as I was bringing in half of my stuff from the move. I took a portion of it before heading over to my brother’s place for his birthday. It wasn’t long after I had the lasagna that my stomach was aching quite a bit. At first, the pain was mild but then became much worst when I was getting ready for bed. This was even after I took something similar to Pepto-Bismol. I thought for sure the pain would go away but when it didn’t, this felt like it was going to be food poisoning… until it wasn’t.

Little did I know, the worst week of my life had just started. Before I could even fall asleep, I was lying in bed in agony. The pain in my stomach felt much worse than when I had my stomach ulcer. Lying there awake tossing and turning of discomfort, I was lucky to get 10-15 minutes of sleep every couple of hours I was awake. Little good news/bad news situation, I finally had some time off from work! Unfortunately, I felt like I was on the verge of dying. While I was awake throughout the day, the pain was only just mild. But I couldn’t really eat anything at all. And that’s how the rest of the week was for me. By the end of the second night, knowing this pain wasn’t going away anytime soon, I made a decision to go to Urgent Care. With no help at all from the physician, who recommended me go on a BRAT diet (banana, rice, applesauce, toast), I had accepted death. (Please clear my browser history ehhhhh!)

So, with just a few days left on my lease, I still had a few more items to pack up and some cleaning to do. Even though I was struggling to move around, it was on my agenda and had to be done. After another restless night it was time to go to the ER. I may have spent a few hours there waiting for test results and being put on morphine. The doctors couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me, even after an MRI, but prescribed me with some opioids for the pain. I just could not believe all of this came from frozen lasagna, which I have to add that it was sitting out in room temperature all night before I had some. One of the few things I could think of was that bacteria formed and wasn’t completely killed off after microwaving it. To this day, I still haven’t had any lasagna since. By the end of the week, I was finally starting to get better.

When I was able to move around again pre-lasagna, I had lost about 10-15 pounds in just a week. Most of that being muscle mass. It was difficult for me already just to gain weight, so having lost the amount I did, it set me back quite a bit. The year prior (2019) was my most proficient year ever when it came to gaining not just weight, but muscle mass. I was working out 5 to 6 days a week on average, and just kept pushing myself more and more every day. Looked great, felt good, and was motivated. I could have worked on eating healthier but I was just going for size. Eating quite a bit of fast food and a lot of protein shakes kept that ass jiggling for days. Later on, during the pandemic I would find out about myself that I did have a little bit of an eating disorder. Picky with food and not liking to eat leftovers. It seems like I had an acquired taste for something different every day. The worst part about this is I would end up throwing out more food than I would have liked. Being aware of some of my issues like this, is a relief. Because I know what the problem is, and I can work on it and see what I can do to improve on myself. This was one of the few things I became aware of during the lockdown.

A week after my stomach bug, I was ready to go back to work and get motivated again to workout… and then the lockdown happened. The timing was just impeccable…!

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How I Burnt The Thanksgiving Turkey

Life is full of surprises, and you never really know what’s going to happen next. All you can do is be prepared and learn from each and every situation. Whether it’s something on your end or not, mistakes help us grow and become a better person. Just like the mistake I made when I burnt the family turkey. And yes, it’s finally that time of year I share this story.

For Thanksgiving I had taken on the role for making the turkey for my family. I took this responsibility almost 10 years ago. Luckily for me, that’s all I had to worry about, nothing else. The role used to go to my brother-in-law before it became too much of a hassle for him considering he had other additional things to make. I volunteered to make the turkey because I knew my mom was allergic and the turkey cannot be cooked in the household. I wasn’t living at home anymore at this point so it made sense. Plus, I felt like it would be a good opportunity to take on something new. Now I’m not exactly sure how many times I made the turkey, but there was one year where I undercooked it. This had to have been my first or second attempt at it. At that moment I was still considered a beginner in the kitchen. However, I’d like to say nowadays I’m very skilled. It only takes time and practice to become good at anything, as long as you are willing to put in the effort.

In The Clouds

After a few opportunities at making the turkey, I was doing pretty well. At this point in my life, I was living with some of my friends I made back from grade school. For those of you who don’t know, the day before Thanksgiving is the biggest bar night of the year. I had gone out to that a few times, but this one particular year I decided to stay in. One of my roommates, Vincent, had a coworker that gave him this cookie edible. It was pretty small in size and if I remembered correctly, we never tried edibles before. So this was definitely going to be quite the experience. I’d like to say also that I hardly ever smoked marijuana prior to this event, so I had no tolerance for this at all. One of our buddies, Eddie, came over to partake in this activity with us. The plan we had was to try it and play Civilization V. We were pretty hooked on this game for a moment. So Vincent cut the cookie into about 8 small pie sized pieces and the 3 of us took one each. The cookie was very potent because when you would bite into it, you didn’t really taste the cookie at all. It was all Mary Jane! Then we started playing the game and after about half an hour in we didn’t feel anything. So second round of the cookie down the hatch and from there, it was alright, alright, alright!

About an hour after we took the edibles, everything just became a blur. I could not function properly. I’m pretty certain I blacked out a little bit too. All I know was Vincent and I took the last 2 pieces. Now that I am remembering it correctly, we skipped the tripping out faze and went to blackout mode. That was for me at least. Eddie, who should have just crashed on the couch ended up driving home. I later found myself in the bathroom having to pee. As I was going… I couldn’t stop. The flow was constant for what felt like 2 minutes which is an eternity in the peeing aspect of things. All I know was that I no longer wanted to go and made the decision to pull up my pants. Did not care if I was still peeing or not. Just hoping for the best! After that, I was rinsing my face with water then just staring at myself in the mirror. They say nobody who has ever used marijuana had died from it(that’s what I heard at least). I thought that was about to change that night.

Long story short… we didn’t have turkey that year. I was still in the clouds the next day. Never knew you could be high for longer than a day. I eventually made it to my mom’s later that night. Half the family had already left to go black Friday shopping and I’m over here struggling to eat anything. It was like a hangover. I only told my sister about what had happened, and I’m sure she let everyone else know why there was no turkey for Thanksgiving.

Extra Crispy

Let’s go back a few years from now. I was living with Ross and his wife at the time. Ross and I were at Lowe’s looking around for something when we came across a deep fryer they had setup for anyone that wanted to deep fry their turkey. Thoughts started racing and next thing we knew, that was the plan for Thanksgiving. This was new to both of us so it would be interesting to see how it goes. Now Ross to me was like my mentor in the kitchen. A lot of what I learned was from him. Thanksgiving morning arrived and we did all the necessary steps on how to deep fry a turkey without it exploding like people have done. On this day, it was cold and windy, so we had to set up a barrier to cover the flames from the wind. Because he was there with me, the turkey turned out great. A beautiful golden brown, juicy and just ever so delicious. Mission accomplished!

Fast forward a year from that, I was on my own again. I loved how the turkey turned out from deep frying it, I wanted to do that again. This time I was at my brother’s place. He and his wife left to do a little shopping I think, leaving me alone to do my thing. I got everything set up, and the day was much nicer than the year before. What could go wrong…? Apparently a lot. I wanted to add something new to the mix, so I tried a recipe that called for brining. Keeps the turkey nice and moist and full of flavor. As I dropped the turkey in the pot, I was having issues with getting the temperature right. It was below where it needed to be, so I kept raising the temperature. But unfortunately when it got up to temp, it kept going up. By this time I had dropped the needle to bring the temp down but it’s hot oil, temperature takes a while to come back down. I was so confused. I felt like Joe Dirt at the oil rig job he did. Eventually the temp went to where I wanted it to but the damage was done. Did not think once to take the turkey out of the fryer to let the oil cool down before placing it back in. And yes, I did noticed the turkey getting much darker than normal but I thought to myself, “Maybe it’s just darker in the oil.”

After pulling the turkey out, it was burnt to a crisp. There was so much going through my mind… before I just decided to head to my mom’s. Boy was that a treat when I arrived with the turkey. Everyone had themselves a good laugh and continued poking fun at me. All I could do was just sit there and endure the fact it happened. There was a plus side to this though. With the brine, and through the dried extra crispy outside, the turkey was still very good.

Be Thankful

Despite undercooking or burning a turkey, the fact of the matter is that it’s Thanksgiving. To be around loved ones and also be thankful for a happy and healthy life. Just last year with Covid being a factor, we canceled our Thanksgiving because I had gotten Covid several weeks before. But we just had to be safe so that was the decision to make.

I feel like here I can be more myself. Letting out some of my inner thoughts and sharing what I’ve gone through and what I’m currently going through. But nonetheless, being able to express my feelings. As a kid growing up I’ve always had a difficult time expressing my emotions with anyone. So if you were to ask me what I’m thankful for, outside of family and friends, it would be this. To start my own blog and use it like I would my personal journal. I get to share my stories with the World!(Universe maybe) Not having to keep things bottled up. And they say writing is very therapeutic. Thanks for taking the time to read this. Have a safe and joyful Turkey Day!

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My Job Experiences

I couldn’t tell you how many different jobs I’ve worked at. But if I had to guess, it’s somewhere around 25-30. If it sounds like a lot, that’s because it probably is. Most of my life I have found many passions and interests in things that took little effort to building a skill to a lot of it. When I would do something that I enjoy, it typically only lasts so long before I end up losing interest in it and wanting to find something new to try. Why that is, I don’t know. That’s just who I am. Same with me playing video games. Most games with a storyline that I would play, I’ll end up stopping midway through the story. The game itself is good. It’s almost as if I don’t want to see something good come to an end? Not sure if I can say the same with my 25+ jobs though.

Manufacturing

Since graduating high school, I left my part-time job to switch to a completely different field. Something that would change my life for over the next decade. I got myself into the world of being a blue-collar worker. Knowing what I know now, there’s a lot of physical stress that the body goes through. Like one of my last jobs I had, having to do the same things over and over repetitively caused soreness on my back and shoulder blade area. That’s mostly the whole concept of factory work. It’s very repetitive. So within this decade or so, I ended up jumping around one job after another with maybe one or two non-manufacturing jobs in between there, until I hit my mid 20s. At that point, when you realize you have more responsibilities, rent and bills to pay for, you start to change your mindset to settling down. Which now writing this down as I go, is so disappointing.

I Chose To Settle

With all these extra responsibilities, I knew I could no longer continue switching from job to job. Especially working a temp position making about only $9 an hour. I had to make a decision and of all the decisions I made, I chose one of the hottest environments to settle at. This company that I worked for that I spent 8 years at did not have any sort of air conditioning on the floor. Only in the offices. The department I worked at, the machineries temperature got upwards of 500 degrees Fahrenheit. So basically with that, my areas average temperature felt like 100-110 degrees with hardly any ventilation, and a couple small industrial fans blowing hot air on us. There were countless times I sprayed my face with the water bottles we used to clean the machines at the end of our shift.

It wasn’t all bad though, I got to work with a very good crew. My boss saw something great in me, so she pretty much let me lead my own team knowing she didn’t have to micro manage us or worry. We crushed it! Beating out the other 2 shifts easily. The morale within our team was high, everyone that I know of got along great and just about every Friday mornings after work we would head to the bowling alley for drinks and bowling. It was really something special… but that moment only lasted so long. Not long later, people started quitting or transferring to different departments and nothing was the same. Eventually I left also to try my hand on something new.

About 5 years into my job and trying something different, I was on the brink of quitting my job. The department I was in wasn’t so great and half the people I worked with were somewhat sleazy. Although, some of the women I worked with enjoyed my company. Always nice to leave them laughing and smiling by just being me. But I’m the type of person that does let the few negatives outweigh the many positives. People I tell ya. They suck sometimes. How difficult it is to be short and skinny like myself and get picked on in ways that most people wouldn’t see. The haters are so subtle about it… sorry, just needed to get that off my chest.

Electronics/Engineering

So I’m about to quit but there was a new position for a new department opening up. An electronics assembly line. Where we had to wear these ESD smocks and shoes or shoe covers so we don’t emit any electricity on any circuit boards we worked with or are near. Little did I know, this position that I got was going to be both great and terrible. Again, for the most part, the people were great, my boss was great. I got to work with the engineers and understand how circuit boards come together. During training, the soldering part was pretty wild. I enjoyed that part the most. I made some friends and actually started eating healthier too!

Once we got settled in after about a year, things got worst. We were scheduled to produce numbers that were unobtainable even running 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. We ended up working mandatory 7 days for the foreseeable future. Which ended up lasting about 2 years or so minus most holidays, call-ins and vacations. Vacations on the other hand were mostly stripped away from me. Considering I had the 2nd lowest seniority of the team I worked with, I had almost no time to use my vacation leaving me having to work almost every weekend. I was drained, exhausted and burnt out. At this point, I hardly saw any of my friends or family, leaving me with no energy to do anything once I did finished work. I was about done. And I did so much too from what my boss had asked from me. More than what my typical job duties were. Only time we had a break was when Covid hit. It was such a needed time off. 5 weeks to be exact.

To Sum It Up

I left my job about a year after the shutdown due to Covid. Between that time, I had learned so much about myself and my surroundings. From what I would say, I got to do a little soul searching. It led me to wanting to do something different, away from factory life. I know there’s so much more out there and that I never got to experience the possibility of what I could be great at. So now that’s where I am. Back to exploring life and other jobs because currently, there are job opportunities almost everywhere right now. Doesn’t seem like anyone wants to work or maybe they have found something themselves to live a much happier and healthier life. I do have faith that someday soon I will find what it is that I’m looking for. The question is… what is it?

From my many coworkers and bosses, they really did all range from bad to great. I got to experience from both a white collar and blue collar’s perspective of what a business is like. Definitely got to talk to and get close to the many managers of my most recent job. It’s made me think… maybe I start my own business?! Only time will tell. And if I have the will-power, of course!

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