Happy Thanksgiving 2010

Hello our dear friends

Yesterday we had Thanksgiving dinner with about 65 fellow “Amazonians” and fellow campers here at Indian Ridge. Other campgrounds in the area were not so fortunate as we have a large building that will hold everyone. Everyone pitched in $2.00 for the turkey and ham and than brought a dish to pass. We made 5 lbs of potatoes.

As is usual here, there was lots of apple pie (liquid kind) being passed around. Our host Rocky is a very wonderful person, as is his wife, and he makes the apple pie and sells it to guests.

You can also buy the clear liquid that comes out of the hills, by the gallon, or quart.

It contains one quart apple juice, one quart apple cider cooked for a while with some cinnamon sticks. When it is ready to put in the mason jars about 25 percent of the “clear liquid” is added. It really does taste like apple pie.

Here are a few pictures of the spread:

 

Our dear friend Jim Chappy’s birthday was yesterday as well, once every seven years it falls on Thanksgiving day.

He helped by carving the turkeys (3).

The turkeys were deep fried and were done to perfection

  and as a birthday present Rocky gave Jim a pint of apple pie

Now where else could you go, but the Kentucky hills and have the bathrooms done in galvanized corrugated metal and pressure treated 2x4’s….even an old fashioned urinal….boy do I miss those!!!! No mess on the floor from guys who think “it” is a lot longer than “it” actually is.

We hope that your thanksgiving was wonderful and you ate too much and felt miserable, like we did….hummmmm…maybe it was the apple pie that made us feel that way

You know we love you.

Jim and Linda

Foggy Morning on the ridge

We are staying at Indian Ridge campground, and it really is on a ridge. We moved to a different site about a week ago and have a great view of the valley below out of our back window. On this side of the ridge it is a straight drop of about 300 foot down to the river and the valley.

I took these pictures this morning of the fog.

Hope you have a great day today

Remember to thank a vet…..today is Veteran’s day….you are free because we cared

love ya

Jim

A four letter word

WORK

We started work last Tuesday. We are both working 11am to 4pm  Monday-Friday. We are working in quality control and we count the items in the bins to verify that they are correct. The days go fast, but there is a lot of bending, stooping, walking, and for vertically impaired people stepping up on a stool or step stool to reach higher areas.

The plant is enormous….850,000 square foot on the main floor. That is approx. 17 football fields. It is about 50 foot high and some areas have four levels of storage. There are over 17 miles, yes miles, of powered conveyors. There are millions of things here….if you can imagine it, it is probably here. Including some porno stuff. I came across my first one the other day….male porn stars nude calendar, ….moved on real quick!!!

In the next two weeks they will be bringing in about 2000 additional workers for the “peak”, which starts on Thanksgiving.

There are about 450 work campers here, and apparently Amazon loves us….because we have: good work ethic, are reliable, do not steal, show up every day. People from the temp agencies do not have those qualities.

We started 2 weeks later than we thought, but are working 5 hours more each week, so it should work out in the end.  It pays $9.90 per hour, plus free camping and electric, plus a $250 each bonus if we stay till the end, plus we will get $50 each for two friends that we recommended if they also stay till the end. The end is Dec. 23rd and we will stay here until the 25th and have Christmas with our friends here.

Everyone is tired at the end of the day, especially those that are working the 10 hour normal shift. Linda and I are both tired and Linda has has some sore back problems. For me, my hamstring muscles are sore because of the way I have to get into the lower bins, which are on the floor. The highest bins are about 75 inches up. The basic shelving is about 4 foot wide and 7 foot tall, divided into 7 rows high and several rows wide. There can be up to about 75 bins in a row and up to about 150 rows in one section and go up 4 stories high.

Material comes in on trucks and the skids are broken down and boxes put on conveyors where they go to the “receivers”, who open the boxes and scan each item in the box. They put the parts on carts and “stowers” take the carts and using their scanner put the parts in the bins. Stowers walk several miles a day. “Pickers use their scanner to get parts from the bins and put them in bins that go onto the conveyors to go to shipping. Pickers walk 11-15 miles a day and more. Shippers put the parts in boxes, but the labels on and put them on another conveyor where they go to the “sorters” who take the boxes off the conveyors and put them in area appropriate boxes that go to whatever shipper the customer specified…UPS, USPS, or other.

The computer system must be huge, as everyone in the building has a scanner that is used to show the current location of any item and there are hundreds of workers now.

See ya

Jim

Corvette museum, Makers Mark and other stuff

Last week we went to the Corvette museum with Jim and Bobbie, about an 80 mile one way trip. Great museum, if you like Corvette’s,….me I am a Mustang guy. But lots of really great cars to look at and the displays were very well done. We did enjoy the museum and went out to “Ryan’s buffet” afterwards, and than a liquor store…..Taylor county is a dry county, so you have to get booze when you can.

You know what…….after writing all this, I remembered that I had already told you about the corvette museum….duh

So anyway, here is the rest of the story

Makers Mark is one of several distillery’s of Bourbon whiskey in this area….we went there because they give out free samples….I really felt like a traitor, because those of you who know me know I am a Jack Daniels lover…..but it was a great tour and the drive over Kentucky’s back roads was very nice. Lots of old farms and falling down barns and hills and twisty turney roads. this is where they dip the bottles

this is a “mash” vat, holding about 11000 gallons of Mash, which is where the water, yeast barley malt and other stuff come together.

this is the great water that all good whiskey’s need

  and these are pictures of one of the barrel storage warehouses….there are a lot of them(around 27 I think) and the whiskey ages in these charred barrels for about three years…..very similar to all of the other distilleries.

Afterwards we did a tasting, and when Bobbie decides to do another post, you will see Linda’s reaction to the tasting……amateur!!!!!

 

 

Saturday they held the Halloween party here…..Why could the witch not get pregnant????? her husband had a hollow wennie……har, har, har…..that joke is older than me.

I bet you have never been to a party where they have an auction and auction off Moons…e   (that last work is shine, but I do not want the revenues to know that) '.

Several batches of “apple pie” ,blueberry pie, and blackberry pie, and actually one gallon of the stuff. Has a great taste.

Lots of good costumes.

this is the apple pie going down very smooth…..even Linda liked it.

That almost brings you up to date, I will tell the Amazon story in another post

You know that we love you, even when you do not write to us…….but we would love you more if you would write……

Jim and Linda