Adventures in Air Sampling

This week I've been at a facility in Paducah taking air samples...attaching personal air pumps to employees for wear while working an 8 hour shift and then sending the samples (which are captured on cassettes, in tubes, and in other forms of media)to a lab so they may be analyzed and the findings given to me to interpret so that I can make recommendations to the plant managers on what must be done so that the employees are not overexposed to chemical and physical (because I took noise samples too) hazards. Leave Murray around 5:15 am and return a little less than 12 hours later. I won't bore you with the intricacies of the process, so here are the random highlights of the past few days:

Wednesday: Day One

- Discovered the Little Castle in Lone Oak and their yummy hamburgers. Hamburger + 3 Cups of Coffee = Breakfast of Champions!

- Realized an uncomfortable aspect of air sampling: attaching the pumps to the workers. The best place to put the pumps are on the waistbands of pants because there they are held in place most securely. However, this involves me having to go up to strange men and basically play with their pants. Thank goodness I've become proficient at being able to clip on the air pumps with one hand in one quick movement.

- Amazed at how much waiting is involved in the whole process. Rekindled my love affair with crossword puzzles.

Followed by coming home, kicking off my steel toed boots and staring at the damage they'd done to my feet, followed by Los Portales with Nichole and a scary drugstore encounter with the on-speed and covered in warpaint CVS cashier. "MAY I HELP YOU?!?!?" The answer is "GAAAAAH!"


Tuesday: Day Two

- Heard Kenny Rogers' "What Condition My Condition Was in" (LEBOWSKI!!!) on the way to work and decided the day was going to rock.

- Got a breakfast burrito from McDonalds and drove over my first curb of the day.

- Ran to the CVS in Lone Oak during lunch hour to get book of crossword puzzles and made the impulse buy of a stick of deodorant because I smelled so darned bad from sitting in a hot and humid office and walking around the facility. Sat in the safetymobile (company truck) and applied under shirt with the a/c hitting me full blast. Drove over my second, third, and fourth curbs of the day. Had Wendy's for lunch...I drove over the curbs (and a sidewalk) there too.

Wednesday: Day Three

- Cinnamon raisin biscuit from Hardees followed by wrong turn and somehow ending up on the way to the airport. Saw some nice houses though.

- Wandered around KMart over lunch because I wanted some gum and bandaids...I've been rocking out to the Don Henley tape I found in the console of the safetymobile Tuesday afternoon. Feeling the need for some new tunes and figuring I'd be taking a few more trips in the safetymobile this summer, I raided the cassette tape bin and emerged with some Creedence and Three Dog Night.

- Finished the day by driving over one last curb with the safetymobile after filling it with gasoline.

So, in conclusion...I dig air sampling, the safetymobile doesn't make tight turns (and likes the curb) and I'm really, really tired. Tomorrow I drive home to Illinois and return to Murray on Sunday afternoon. Projected mileage from Monday to (this coming) Monday: ~800 miles.