Sunday, May 08, 2011

Billy's Status...

I realized I've been quite neglectful in keeping my siblings and family up to date on my job status. I'll start using the blog now :-) Although now it's under construction and I have to dodge through all these piles of bricks and lumber and crap.

I completed my certification training in Pittsburgh and flew home on March 26th. That ended a good month and a half certification period up there. I did quite well in the certification process and learned a lot. Since then I've been in a "mentoring" program where I'm sent to job sites as a trainee, working with experienced techs. I'll be doing this until they feel I'm ready to be on my own.

I'm currently on my second visit to the Upper Peninsula area of Michigan, in Quinnesec and Iron Mountain. People up here call themselves "Yoopers" and they have that funny accent you hear in that movie "Fargo". This is my second time up here working at a paper plant run by Verso Paper. My only other trip besides these two was one in Maxwell, CA, which is about 100 miles North of Bobby and Nikki. There I worked at a Natural Gas compressing station owned by PG&E. Unfortunately I couldn't make the time to go down and visit with Bobby and family, but there will be other trips.

It looks like the week of 5/9-5/15 I may be in Beaumont, TX (75 miles east of Houston), the following week sent to Detroit for a couple of weeks, and then a trip to Saginaw, MI for a week. I'm not sure why they keep sending me to Michigan. Hmmmm...

I've had a lot of down time at home as well since being certified, and have been able to complete a LOT of projects. So things are going well and we're getting ready to host a cubic butt-ton of Jones family members in July. whoo hooo

Lot of loving memories of Mom today, on Mother's Day.