Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Huh? What?
If I seem to be having trouble hearing today, it's not just that I'm old. There is a reason. The story starts on Monday morning. I am at work, working on a piece of machinery that I am building. It is a specialized grinding machine, and it is my part of the job to design and install all of the control systems. The machine is very large and heavy, so it is sitting in the room where it will live, with some other similar machines. There are two guys that work in this room. Both are real characters, with lots of tattoos and piercings on various parts of their bodies. When I arrive in the room, one of the guys stops to show me the new surround sound set up he bought on clearance over the weekend for 15 bucks. He has installed the 5 speakers around the room, and says that this will be good, because he won't have to blast the radio so loudly, in order to hear it at the far end of the room. I consider this good news, as I am unable to fully appreciate their taste in music.

So far, so good. After an hour or so, the first guy leaves to work in the other building, and Guy #2 comes in. This guy is something else. He is about 5'5", skinny in a heroin-addict sort of way, moves fast, talks fast & loud and punctuates almost everything with "YEAH!, YEAH!, HUH, YEAH!!!! Within in minutes he pops a CD into the stereo and before I know it, AC/DC is playing at concert level in the room. Then as the music plays, Guy #2 is going full tilt, singing along, playing air guitar, drums and bass, as well as spinning around and thrusting an imaginary microphone into the air and yelling "GO ANGUS!!!! HOO-YEAH!!" And he does this all while still, inexplicably, getting his work done. And so it goes, for the remaining NINE HOURS of my workday. I got to work through that first CD twice, then greatest hits, then several live concert albums. At live concert volume levels. More AC/DC than I heard in years of mildly mis-spent youth. At least I now know that I can get dirty deeds done dirt cheap, that money talks, that Angus is back in black, and that if I'm about to rock, they'll salute me.

So today was a slightly smaller scale repeat of yesterday. More music, but at least AC/DC was done with. There were some slightly milder tunes that I recognized but do not know the names of, but before long the Pantera CD's come out. With the clear understanding that saying this will put me well into "olde phart" terratory, this music stinks. It's dumb. Noisey. And the singer sounds alot like a nine-year-old, trying his hardest to do a scary-voice. Goofy. That must be what happens to your voice when you are a "Cowboy from Hell." And this went on for hours more. Luckily for me, I was rescued from the room by a broken piece of equipment in another part of the plant.

So if I don't answer you when you speak, just speak up a bit. I am hoping the ringing is just temporary.
thus voiced The A, Mistah @ 8:46 PM
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