YEAH I'm a year two!! And I didn't even keep you completely up to date! :( I totally blame my boyfriend. He has kept me tied to the bed for the past four months (aside from work) and he..... hmmmm well I won't go THERE! Jokes! Needless to say, I've had a busy few months and I am now ready to get back into keeping a record of my progress through this thing we call a career! :)
My time at the Queensway Carleton Hospital has come to an end. I was there right up until X-mas, then after the New Year I was sent back to the shop. I am now still in the shop, but don't mind because it's FRICKEN COLD out there! I got some welding done right up to X-mas, but am back on forming, insulating and assembling duct work in shop.
The pic is of a couple of offsets I fused together (tig welding).
In an attempt to speed up the process and figure out what works best for everyone, we have been adding on to our job in the shop, whilst lessening the job on site. It doesn't necessarily make on site work easier, it just let's them do what they have to do with a bit less to worry about. Over the past week and a half we made a crazy amount of duct for a site. We then made the sleeves that go into the floor for all this duct. Now I am putting fire dampers into the sleeves and then attaching them to the corresponding piece of duct. This way we now have a piece of a riser done and ready to slide into the ground. All that needs doing is to have the pieces that fill in the space between this duct and the sleeve above. A riser being duct that goes vertically up the length of a building to branch out to all the duct on each floor. This is the first time we've taken these extra steps, so we shall see how valuable they will turn out to be for those on site. Usually we make the duct and ship it out... that for the most part is what we do.
I was thinking back in the fall that it would be cool to make something with my new found welding skills. I thought about it for a month or so and had come up with the idea of making a bed frame. After some thought on the idea however I realized a few things. First of all my welding is not what it hopefully will be down the road. I have yet to make any "bubblegum" welds, but that is not to say I don't have a lot to learn in other areas. Also the metal I wanted for the job is out of my league in price. I hadn't realized how expensive metal can be!! So the bed is on hold until further notice...
This year I thought would be the year I bought a car. I'm starting to realize however that it may not turn out that way. I am making more than I made last year by 10% which is a NICE raise, but I am still about a year away from keeping up with the various payments required to own a car. Maybe a few months down the road I'll be able to alter that thought, but for now I'm going to have to dream about wheels... I am however helping my boyfriend look for a car. He got in a bit of a scuffuffle on the Queensway with a tractor trailer and his Suzuki lost the battle. Thankfully it was just between the two vehicles and he came away 100%. :D Searching for a car is quite the task I am finding. You have to be able to judge the car AND the salesman!
I got my letter to attend my basic training in March. No I'm not heading off to the armed forces. This is the first two month full time session of classes we have to take. There are three sessions, giving us a total of six months of full time in class education throughout the five years. In my hopes to buy a car I had thought maybe I'd wait until my second year to take basic. Also it would mean I'd be doing basic, intermediate and advanced in my 3rd, 4th and 5th years, keeping the info fresh each time so that when I go to write my test I'll have most of it right there (we hope... I'm not sprind chick anymore...). Then again there is always the worry that each year we delay, we may end up having to travel to Oakville, ON to attend. Hmmmmmmmm decisions decisions!!
I'll let you know what I've decided....
