I think winter is done, if it even started

I have seen two days where a few snow flakes were in the air. None survived the ground. Perfect winter. Perfect. No ice. No snow. Awesome. Almost made it through the season with no ailments, almost. They have been passing a bug back and forth at work all season long. I managed to get it last week, but am finally on the verge of feeling human again.
New machine at work is freaking awesome. Took a bit to get the menus down. It has a CAD feature built in so I can draw the components out, or import them. I can then turn them into 3D images. You can click on an object line and pick what you want to grind. Programming is a breeze. I love it. Best of all, it isn't twenty plus years old, so it doesn't alarm out and need attention all the time. It does require extra care as there are an infinite amount of ways to crash it, but the challenge is fun. New CEO isn't afraid to spend money. Hopefully this is just the beginning and we see more new equipment in the future. Keeps me updated as well should I decide I need to find employment elsewhere. Nice to be able to run the new controls. 
A couple more weeks until the gun auction. They have a Garrand sniper rifle setup on the block. An M1D complete. Also have a Rockola M1 carbine and a few other treasures. All at the beginning, so I don't have to sit through several hours of auction for the five items I want. Hopefully I won't come home empty handed. The other good thing about all the items up front is, I don't have to wait in a long line waiting for the firearm to get called in. Most people will wait until the end of the auction to check out. I hope to be home by ten in the morning, instead of afternoon.

Very rough school week

Had a condensed course on running the brand spanking new grinder last week. It is a brand new studer S33 CNC grinder with all the bells and whistles. She has an OD head and two ID heads on it. Costs about $600,000. And the silly people in management are letting me run it :)  It is a bit more complicated than the old G code machines we have currently. It is down right amazing what it can do. Eventually, I will be grinding threads and non rounds. Non rounds being anything not round. In the grocery aisles, margarine containers and such are all going square or rectangular shape. We make the molds that make those containers. We also rebuild those molds when they wear out. Those are examples of non rounds. It can also grind the threads that form the inside thread on the medicine bottles and caps we manufacture. It is going to get a lot more interesting than just round stuff.

It has a built in CAD/CAM set up as well. I can either draw the parts from prints, or, import them as dxf files and pick what I want to grind. It really is an incredible machine. A ton of menus and commands to learn. Hopefully get her set up and running on jobs tomorrow. It is fun trying to train people on the old grinders while learning the new one. And, trying to put together machines that got moved to make room for the new one. Very busy at work. I can't believe I actually got the weekend off with all the work going on. I am enjoying the 60 degree weather. GO Global Warming :) :) :)