KateO's Happenings

I am now officially a working woman! I started my job about 3 weeks ago at Frito Lay in Jonesboro, AR. I'm working until August 1st on projects in the Potato Chip (PC) line. The three things I'm working on are breakages, salt and oil accumulations, and seasoning accumulations.

Since I've been there, I've met lots of people, got a general idea of what every department at Frito Lay does, and have completed breakage mapping of Lay's, Ruffles, and Tostitos Scoops. Breakage mapping is where you measure the breakage at various points in the production line in order to find where most breakage occurs so that problems can be resolved. It's actually very boring and monotonous - 20 samples at each location, and then you weigh the whole sample, pick out the whole chips and weigh them, then pick out the partial chips and weigh them, and lastly weigh the scrap. Luckily, that part is done and we got some kind of cool results to work off of.

The people there are really nice. The higher managers actually know the workers on the line, ask about their families, give them positive feedback, etc. They are all very friendly.

As for working there after I graduate (which is one of the main reasons I'm at the internship), I haven't completely decided. I like the Frito-Lay company a lot. They treat employees very well, have a good atmosphere, etc. However, I'd have to work weekends on occasion, and many of the managers / office people I've talked to have 50-60 hour weeks on average. Manufacturing seems very interesting and rewarding. I think it's because you're actually making something and you can see the results of it very easily...

Also, if you all would like to send me mail, I now have a P.O. Box:

P.O. Box 1218
State University, AR 72467

Yay! We made it!

Garrett and I made the trip down to Jonesboro, AR today with all of my stuff. I'm already completely unpacked, and completely stocked with groceries. (Pictures can be seen on my photobucket site under "Jonesboro AR". My apartment is very nice, fully equipped kitchen, nice living room, two bedrooms, two bathrooms, and no roommate :)
I already miss Garrett a bunch!! I know we're going to make it and we're going to put a lot of time and effort into making the relationship work, but it's hard not knowing when I'm going to see him again. I know we'll see each other in August (I have 3 weeks between when I finish work and when I start the fall semester), and hopefully we'll see each other before that, but I have no idea.

In other news:

Erin and Robert's wedding went very very well! I loved it! It was very different than normal weddings for several reasons:
1. It was not in a stuffy church
2. It was renaissance-themed!
3. Everyone loved being there and wanted to stay for hours to enjoy themselves
4. There was no alcohol / open bar
5. There were two preachers, which was cool
6. There was no dead time, there was always something neat going on, like torch-juggling
7. You could sit on blankets, sit on lawn chairs, or stand - your preference
8. It was just cool, and non-traditional
Pictures are also on my photo-bucket site under "Robert and Erin Szalapski"

Garrett and I found some kittens the other week, and Garrett still has them...he's been trying to find them homes all week without success. He plans on taking them to the St. James shelter on Tuesday, which is a no-kill shelter. It was kinda sad saying good-bye to them today. They're awesome cats. Pictures are also up on the photobucket site under "Baby Kittens".

I'm a little bored right now, and I have a whole day off tomorrow. I have no idea what I'm gonna do, but I am kind of glad I'm already moved in so I'm a little more settled for Tuesday when I start work.

Everything's back up and running, probably has been for a few days and I just now realized it. Also, new format - like it?

I'm now home in Kentucky for a few days. Finals and final projects and final papers are all done! Yay! While I'm home I've gotten maintainance done on my car, will have a dentist appointment tomorrow, and will be getting some new clothes for work! Other than that, I'm very very free the next few days, which is probably going to be very boring, seeing that none of my friends are available at all...

Brief schedule outline of my next few weeks:

Sun 5/18 - Fri 5/23: In Lexington
Fri 5/23: Leave Lexington for Rolla
Sat 5/24: Help Garrett with his yardsale, and go to Erin and Robert's wedding!
Sat 5/24 or Sun 5/25: Get stuff in car and move into Jonesboro, AR apartment
Tue 5/27 at 7am: First day of work at Frito-Lay
Sat 6/7: Return to Rolla to go to Kayla and Andrew's wedding, and move house stuff to the new apartment! Then, return to Jonesboro.
...
Fri 8/1: Last day of work!

Basically, I think I should maybe look into purchasing a gasoline rewards card for my next couple of week's purchases :)

Apparently this blog as been completely white for the past couple days...hopefully things are fixed now?

This week was fairly productive, mainly because I had a lot to do!

Monday, I had a presentation in Technical Writing (we got a 94%!).

Then, I worked on my work plan that was due Tuesday. I found out that we had had some kind of miscommunication with our champion we're working with in Potosi. We had gotten feedback to focus more on the renovations of the museums, she wanted us to focus more on exhibit ideas, and now she's a little frustrated with us...so we met with our teacher to figure out what to do, he talked to the mayor of Potosi, and all we needed to do to make the mayor happy was add a "future plans" section to the report and vaguely go over some ideas we had gone over. That was a good relief since we don't have the time to do what she's wanting right now! I found out this morning that we got an A on our report, so that's good to hear!

Wednesday, my marketing class went to the Walmart Distribution Center since we're talking about logistics. We got to meet with one of the upper-ups in management there, who gave random tips or logistics information throughout our time there. We also got a full tour of the whole place, which was a little neat. One of my housemates, Laurin, works there so it was neat to put an image to when she's told me about work and whatnot.

I got an external hard drive this week! For those who don't know what that is, it's a storage device outside of the computer (kind of like a flash drive) that can hold a lot of information and memory. Mine holds 80 G, which is exactly how much my laptop holds! I got it for a really good price, $55. Oh, and I can change colors of the outside casing from gray, white, or orange. Here's a link to exactly what it is and where I bought it: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822150006

I also got a desk this week! Since my current house is furnished and my apartment for next year is not, I'm getting some furniture. It's a really nice desk, made of glass and a black frame. The girl I bought it from got it from Staples fairly recently for $150, and sold it to me for $75, so I think I got a good deal!

I also got my hair cut, redyed (the brown was fading some), and highlighted! It looks really nice, and I like it a lot! You can definitely tell that it's highlighted, but it looks somewhat natural.

Lastly, I worked on a term paper that was due today! It ended up being 12 pages long single-spaced. I got it done barely on time, but it's definitely of a quality that I'm happy turning in, and I'm extremely relieved to be done with it!!

I took pictures of my desk, hair, and new cat condo that Garrett built. They've all been uploaded to my pictures site (see links to your right). They're in the "House" folder.

The semester is getting closer and closer to ending, which means that my semester long projects (that my teachers told us about at the beginning of the semester, but we didn't have enough knowledge to complete until right about now) are all due in the upcoming weeks! Here's what all I'm working on in my classes, organized by due date:

Class: Project Management
Due Date: Last Tuesday (draft), this Tuesday (final)
# of Group Members in Group: 2
Description: Work plan for modernizing a store from the mining days in Potosi, MO into a mining museum. We divided the work into 3 stages - 1st less than $10,000 to get it open to the public year-round by adding heating and a/c and things like that, 2nd less than $15,000 to finish remodeling and add a gift shop, and 3rd to add interactive exhibits that make the museum a child-friendly attraction.

Class: Materials Selection in Mechanical Design
Due Date: This Tuesday
# of Group Members: Just me!
Description: Term paper on the materials and process selection for manufacturing solar thermal roof panels.

Class: Technical Writing
Due Date: This Monday (presentation), end of the semester (final recommendations report)
# of Group Members in Group: 3
Description: Recommendation report based on research through surveys, interviews, etc for a downtown Rolla rehabilitation project. From what we've gathered, it seems like they need a marketing strategy plan for downtown businesses to help integrate the downtown more with campus, advertise more efficiently with the public, and get something physical together, like a map, to give tourists passing through.

Class: Marketing
Due Date: Sometime before finals week, still signing up for times
# of Group Members in Group: 4
Description: Marketing strategy report and presentation for a local business owner who has bus tours that take trips to Branson, MO, some casinos, etc. They're looking to expand their business, add more customers, and improve their website.

Class: Financial Management
Due Date: Week before finals week
# of Group Members in Group: 4
Description: Financial comparison between two similar companies. The overall goal is to decide which of the two is smarter to invest in. There's lots of ratios, research, history, etc that we have to get together. Also has a presentation and a report.

In addition, I'm playing violin for a wedding this Saturday for a girl I know at church (very exciting!).

Long story short, if I seem a little busy, I probably am. It also means that I might have my brain overloaded on occasion and don't mind talking/chatting/hanging out at all! I'll try to blog plenty, but if I don't, you can check out Garrett's blog to see what else is going on :)

One small piece of good news - I passed my NIC position off to my replacement for next year, since she was bored! Also, thank you mom for the cookies!! They're wonderful :)

Since I last blogged, school has been extremely hectic since last week was midterm. In a five-day span, I had something in every single class due including a book report, project management white paper, technical writing paper, several tests and take home tests, and, of course, regularly scheduled homework. Luckily, I survived alright and apparently did alright on everything.

Also, at my house we got a new cat named Annie about 4 weeks ago. Jenna's mom's boyfriend was allergic to her, so Jenna has her now. She's a decently nice cat, but is a little moody and has never been around other cats before. She's also an orange tabby, but darker than Miles and has less white than Miles. She's about 2 years old, so she's still fairly playful. Unfortunately, I was at a conference when she first came, so Miles was at Garrett's house. He had a horrible surprise when he got back! Then, they fought over territory several times for the first 3 weeks or so, and Miles was afraid of her so he would hide in his pet carrier all day, barely eat, barely use the litter box, etc. It was really really pathetic. We tried closing him just in my room, putting them together to try to work out differences, etc. Then, about a week ago, a friend of mine named Chelsea took Annie for the weekend in hopes that Miles could reclaim the house. He reclaimed the whole downstairs but was still scared to go upstairs (where her food, water, etc was). When she came back, we let her have the upstairs, closed the door at the bottom of the stairs, and let Miles have the downstairs. So far, it's worked really really well. They both are fairly content with their areas. She gets free every once in a while, but nothing too big. I think we're eventually going to let them share the house (open the door) maybe after Spring Break or something like that to see how that works.

This weekend was our St. Pats break - we got Thursday and Friday off of school. Since I'm not into drinking at all, I just looked at it as a 4-day weekend! Garrett and I went hiking (with the cats), went on a long walk since it was beautiful outside, went shopping around Rolla, watched some movies, played some computer games, and went to the St. Pats parade this morning. It's been really relaxing and a really good time!

Also, a lesser-known holiday is that one month after Valentine's Day is kind of the boy's version of valentine's day with steak, etc. So I made steak for the first time, just to fix Garrett a nice dinner, and it was surprisingly delicious! I was really proud of myself! :) I just marinaded it in some worcester sauce, soy sauce, a little vinegar, and some seasonings and it turned out really well!

Up next, we have one week of classes, which is advising week, and then Spring Break for a week. For Spring Break, we're planning on going to North Carolina:
Friday - Drive to Lexington and spend the night
Saturday - Leave Lexington and go to Raleigh-Durham area, and spend the night with my friend Elizabeth
Sunday - hang out in Raleigh and with Elizabeth, spend that night with her
Monday - go around to businesses in Raleigh, job hunt, etc and spend the night with Matt in Goldsboro
Tuesday - hang out with Matt a little, then drive to the beach and spend the night at the beach (we've reserved a beach condo for a couple nights)
Wednesday - beach!
Thursday - leave the beach and go to Charlotte, look at businesses, do random stuff in Charlotte
Friday - do a little more in Charlotte, leave noonish to go to Lexington and spend the night in Lexington on the way back
Saturday - go back to Rolla, MO