Sunday, January 20, 2008

Diversity at Work (Literally!)

I work for a South Korean company, at our facility in Covington. This past Friday, our Process/Quality team got together for a combination welcome/farewell lunch at RL's Off The Square in downtown Covington. As I was making our lunch-ending speech about our boss returning to Korea and our new engineer joining us from India (via Canada), it hit me that we probably had one of the most diverse groups that you could assemble at one table.
Our group included: Caucasian American male (me), African-American female, three Koreans, one Indian (down from Canada and in the USA for the first time), a Welshman, white male from Winnipeg Canada, African male (with stops in England and Jamaica), and my right-hand man Huy Phan from Vietnam.
Once I pointed this out, everyone had a good laugh (including the senior citizen, local church group at the next table!).
Needless to say, the conversation soon drifted to foods-around-the-world (a topic for another blog)!
If your boss says that you need some diversity training, join us for lunch one Friday!

Saturday, January 19, 2008

Disc Golf

My golf game is not very good, and I never could toss a frisbee very well, so it seemed logical that I would start playing DISC GOLF.
During my attempts at exercise over at McCurry Park over the summer, I noticed that they had installed the metal/chain stands for disc golf. Also noticed that more and more people were starting to play.
So for Christmas, Kellie gave me a starter set of discs (a driver, a fairway disc, and an approach/putter disc). I never realized it, but this has been a growing sport for several years now.
Before we even started to play the first time, I just had to go out and get more stuff. Play It Again Sports in F'ville has a good selection of discs and accessories. Each type of disc is designed for speed, loft, turn, and a few other aerodynamic parameters. A bag was purchased, along with a few spare discs (like golf balls, I was sure the discs would find their way into the creeks, trees, and snake-dens!).
Kellie and I played our first round last Sunday, and had a blast! Most of the holes at McCurry involve a lot of trees, so we had some funny ricochets and a lot of flying pine bark. Kellie plays a lot of frisbee at KSU, so she had an advantage over me. I was concentrating on tossing straight, so my drives were only going about 40 yards. (Most of the other groups were tossing discs about 70-80 yards, or more).
Had a funny episode on one fairway, where a young lady walking her dog picked up my errant disc and tossed it back to me (quite well, too!).
Anyway, we made it through about 13 holes before the wind through the trees (and a blister on my finger) ended our round.
We were going to play again this weekend, but the snow put an end to that!
There's also a 9-hole course in PTC, so we'll have to check it out one of these weekends.

Cheap Brew


I don't really drink beer anymore, but I did enjoy a Stella Artois (Belgian brew) a couple weeks ago.
Anyway, we got into a conversation at work last week, when I was covering a product test one night (the guys on graveyard shift will do anything to stay awake!). The topic was cheap beer (not necessarily bad beer, but ...).
I was raised about a mile from the old Pabst brewery in Newark NJ (the building along the Garden State Parkway, with the 'big bottle' on the roof; the plant was recently leveled) . A friend's uncle worked at the Pabst plant, so the fridge in the basement was always full of PBR. I'll leave the rest to your imagination. (Also had an uncle who worked at the A-B plant near Newark airport).
Any way, cheap beer. Several brands were mentioned, including Carling Black Label, Schaefer, Schmidt's (not Schlitz), Rolling Rock, Weideman's, Little Kings, Red-White&Blue (a cheap brand from PBR, believe it or not), Ballantine, Piel's, Colt 45 malt, Iron City (the worst!), and a few others. Stroh's seemed to be a popular brew with the locals, when I lived in Richmond. I could add any Bud brand, but I'd get into a few arguments, there. Everyone had a good laugh (and some bad memories).
I now like to sip a little wine now and then. Cabs, Merlot, Reisling, etc. Perhaps memories of cheap wines may be a topic for another blog! Or maybe not!

Bible Study

Question to ask at your next bible study session : "Did the Corinthians ever write back?"