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Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Ever wonder how natural disasters may affect manufacturing?

First there were the blizzards in February that prevented workers from getting home in time for the most important holiday of the year - Chinese New Year - thus lowering worker moral and causing many to not return to their base factories. Labor forces had already been in a critically low state, this added to the stress.

Last month was the horrible earthquake in Sichuan; an area we were thinking of building a factory but hadn't started yet. It's excruciatingly painful to read the stories of school buildings crushed because they were built so badly. What kind of asshat builds a school without any metal support rods in the concrete in an earthquake zone??? The same jerk who has no concern for shipping lead paint to a toy factory. See most American's assumed - broadly - that Chinese factories didn't care about the kids in other countries - no it's simply an acrid lack of appreciation for life in certain corrupt individuals. I've seen how parents hold their babies in China, and cry in painful shock over the death of their children - with the same passion and intense love westerners do.

And now the flooding in Guangdong - China's factory floor. I've traveled this region many times and have trouble imagining it under water until I see the photos. We have a few factories affected - but fortunately not to the extent I was expecting. There are some damaged sound boxes, potentially a week delay on Christmas shipments, some damaged equipment and the laminated box maker for our Jack in a Coffin said the papers got damp but no loss of life which is the most important factor.


Poor Boo!

Early estimates put the damage in the 1.5 billion range. Expect this to impact product prices over the next year. If you thought oil was causing a leap in cost, wait until you see the cost impact of 3 major natural disasters in the worlds biggest manufacturing base.

Edited to add - this written around midnight, not knowing that 5 hours later I would be in labor!

Monday, June 16, 2008

Pain au chocolat

Not available in South Florida. I've been dreaming of Pain au chocolat recently and decided to make my own. Bought some mini croissants at Super Target and a bag of semi-sweet chocolate baking chips. Cut croissant in half, added handful of chocolate chips, popped into toaster oven for 4 minutes while eating slice of watermelon.

WOW!!!

It is the best thing I've eating in my entire life - must have really been craving this one!

Saturday, June 14, 2008

2nd 3pm Friday

I got this one right! Walked out the door at 3:15pm

Home by 3:30, got on the internet and read for 2 hours to get caught up on blogs and have second lunch. This may sound like a waste of a perfectly good Friday outside but allow me to remind you it's blistering hot outside and I prefer to wait until 5 to go to the pool.

So from 5:30 - 7:30 I lounged at the pool. Yeah for me!

Around 8:30 I left to get fast food from KFC consisting of Potato Wedges, Popcorn Chicken and a Biscuit along with a chocolate frosty from Wendy's.

Watched "Long Kiss Goodnight" with Genna Davis; I love that short blond hair cut she has in that movie.

Had a painful initial 2-3 hours of sleep with indigestion, guess fast fried food before bed is NOT wise.

1st 3pm Friday,

One week late, date of occasion June 6th

Well it's my first 3pm Friday of the year which I didn't get to attend due to impromptu Orlando trip that lasted from 7am - midnight. For sake of reminding self in the future of how to pack properly for one day trip with boss, allow me to outline the following:

7am - arrive to work at assigned time, boss 45 min. late b/c alarm didn't go off
7:45 - leave for Orlando
Insist on 2 stops on the way up to use bathroom - hey I'm clearly 8 months pregnant, they knew what they were getting into when they invited self
Eat snack of grapes on drive up, boss can't complain about eating in his car b/c I'm pregnant and they don't leave any crumbs!
11am - 12:30 - meeting with Disney
1-2 - eat lunch at sucky Moe's Southwest Grill
eat more grapes on way to meeting
2-5 - meeting with Universal
5-6 - stop at Starbucks for snack and coffee, this is when I knew boss had no intension of providing dinner, regardless of the fact that it's a 3 hour drive home.
6-8 - stop at downtown Universal to buy products, I grab banana and cheese croissant from lunch box and eat while the others are shopping.
8-midnight - drive home, halfway stop to get Burger King because boss is finally hungry, order strawberry milkshake for snack but it is so loaded with sugar and fake taste that throw away after 3 sips. Gross, hate Burger King.

Lesson - pack a lunch box, it's just easier then waiting for others to make sensible decisions about food.

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Food Diary

I suspect I now understand the reasoning behind pregnant women eating strange combinations of food - we need to eat everything in sight - regardless of how sensible it is together.

Case in point -
yesterday
breakfast - 3 large pancakes with strawberries
lunch - giant bowl of favorite tomato mac and cheese
4pm - I found a piece of cornbread in the fridge and ate with watermelon
7:45 - 9 Pizza Rolls, bowl of edamame, dinner of stir fry chicken with jalapeƱos and green peppers over rice, followed by a bowl of strawberry ice cream

today
breakfast - yogurt with strawberries and toast with peanut butter
12:30 lunch - leftover stir fry, ranch dorito's, watermelon
2pm - donut
4pm - banana with chocolate and vanilla ice cream
7pm - 5 bites of left over favorite tomato mac and cheese from Monday (hey - it was available)
7:15 - 2 large pancakes with strawberries
9:00 - 1/2 quesadilla with chicken, cheddar cheese, avocado & tomatoes (needed salsa), Black Cherry Jello and one mini chocolate dove bar.

Sunday, June 08, 2008

Heartburn

Never had heartburn before 20 weeks of pregnancy. Husband has history of heartburn and I'd feel bad when he ate late and seemed enormously uncomfortable and only attributed it to that nasty stomach acid that creeps up occasionally. Apparently true heartburn is much worse. It's a quite nasty little distraction that works into one's subconscience while dreadfully tired and nags until one provides Pepto Bismol.

Earlier, around 12:30 I had the nagging feeling I was not falling asleep and we had run out of Pepto Bismol so I poked husband until he woke to mumble stage and asked if Tums worked the same. I explained my symtems and got him to verbalize yes; he rolled over and appeared possibly ready to get up and save me, waiting, waiting, not so lucky so I launch myself out of bed to search for Tums and instead find another bottom of Pepto Bismol - yeah, back to sleep in 5 minutes.

At 2am I wake for regularly scheduled bathroom break #2 and realize heart burn is gone, praise PB!

At 4am I wake for RSBB #3 and as I wrestle myself back between the pile of pillows, feel the acid burn. Throat feels like it has a jalapeƱo stuck in it. Time for another PB. This time convince self to get up, eat Strawberry ice cream and obviously write a short blog. Swallow pill wrong, choke, get more ice cream. Buy sheets on Overstock.com, play 3 games of Spider Solitare while dog runs back and forth 14 times to check on husbands status. Going back to bed now.

Saturday, June 07, 2008

4pm Friday's changed to 3pm Friday's!!!!

100% thrilled with self for reminding bosses and somehow managing to catch them on a good week! 4pm Friday's were discussed mid-week with entire staff and boss decided to switch to 3pm Friday's but we all had to promise to attend a once a month off site staff brainstorming session. I only have 5 Friday's left before maternity leave so I'm happy for what I can get!

Wednesday, June 04, 2008

1st visit to babies Pediatrician

Yesterday Husband picked me up from work to go visit our babies Pediatrician. Sure it's a routine visit for all you mom's out there but it was a unique experience for me. I grew up in a church that didn't believe in doctor's so I've never had a Pediatrician and really had no idea what to expect.

We were running late because I was in a heated discussion with Boss about Universal Studios and ended up leaving 20 minutes late but the nice people at the Ped. office still agreed to see us.

I missed lunch and was so frantic to reduce the lateness of our arrival that I didn't even bother to take a snack.

On the way to the appointment my baby started kicking - she does that when Husband's around. By the time we arrived to the Ped's office she was in full swing mode and as we sat down, Husband leaned over to poke her as she kicked and it hit me - we are a family! I almost started crying but due to the circumstances thought it might be alarming to the children, parents and doctors milling about. Honestly it's the first time it hit me, we are a family! I'm getting so anxious and excited to meet this little girl.

Monday, June 02, 2008

I went to work in a bad mood today

Nothing happened to put me in a bad mood prior to work, it's just Monday and I was cranky about leaving my nest which I had not left for the entire weekend. Seriously I didn't leave at all, not even to get snacks or entertainment. Not even when the pool got dreadfully full with 12 kids and unhappy neighbors screaming at each other over who left the pool door propped open - I stayed in the pool and kept reading until I had to pee so bad I was forced to leave. Not even when next door neighbor got disgruntled with the gettho state of our condo and started bitching at his wife that nothing was being done and when she asked to drop it and have a nice evening he turned on her - it got a bit ugly - I stayed on my porch and kept reading. Nothing got in the way of my zen mindset and single minded attempt to fix up babies room and then forget the pain in my back through pooh, reading and ignoring my loud obnoxious neighbors. Nothing until I went to work and could no longer block out annoying distractions.

Work forces me to deal directly with clients who regardless of deadlines & ship dates continue to want more changes, factories who suddenly decide they no longer wish to take orders from August 1st but give no reason for why, offices who dispatch a very important collection of samples TO THE WRONG FREAKING ADDRESS and nearly send me into pre-labor with panic, boss who holds extremely long meetings that are supposed to be 1/2 hour long and cause self to stay until 7:30pm in order to finish work!!!

At least husband had favorite dinner waiting with chocolate cake for dessert.

Sunday, June 01, 2008

Setting up babies room

Everything must be moved out of the spare bedroom and a new location found. It's like moving - but with a different deadline in mind.

Items found:
- ledger from 2002, full tank of gas cost $15.51, now cost $45.81 for SAME TRUCK!
- bag of cards intended for mother's day, father's day, etc can now be moved to proper stationary drawer.
- box of slippers husband bought for my 2006 birthday in the wrong size (he swore he returned them for the bigger size and when they didn't arrive, we assumed they were lost in the mail)

The list goes on and on.

I now have a giant pile of things in the room for donation and I'm trying to build a give away pile that is bigger then the baby shower gifts sitting next to the front door.