Troubled Horizon

The rumour mill at my work has been rampant for the past few weeks as our union approaches contract negotiations with the company. The most serious of which are that major cuts are coming to staffing levels. This very well could include myself. It would mark the first time in our divisions history that major cuts to unionized workers would come in the form of layoffs and not attrition. I am almost certain that they are coming very soon. What this means for me in the short term is major uncertainty, stress, etc. In the long term it means change and if I approach this correctly I could turn this into opportunity. For the past five years I have led the life of a unionized mill worker and all the benefits and detriments that entails. I would like for that to continue so that I can make some lateral moves into departments that will provide me with greater opportunity. This is something I should have done two years ago. It is frustrating that I realized my mistake too late and very likely could be on the unemployment line because of it. But that is past now and I intend to learn from my hesitancy to make the move when I should have. There were legitimate reasons why I did not go to the Steam Plant in the past. 1. I liked where I was at and enjoyed my work on the machines and equiptment and 2. The Steam Plant sounded a tad dangerous at times. Not to mention the extra schooling at a time I was not very removed from years of college frustration. Today I am far enough away from my college years that I actually look forward to a bit of schooling and learning a new trade. I truly hope I get the opportunity to make amends.

It will be an interesting few weeks to say the least. Here is hoping for the best. Whatever happens we will make it through. It might be difficult at first but we will make it work.

There are family issues to deal with in the next few months as well as a serious illness has hit a member of my extended family. It will be a time to rally round those who need us most. Take care all. Don.

Old Movies

I was able to catch a silent movie that is on the Top 250 of all time at the IMDB site yesterday on TCM called Sunrise:A Song of Two Humans. I set out a goal of watching every movie on the list a few years back. I've watched over 150 of them. Of course the list is constantly changing especially at the bottom but most of the top 150 or so are pretty static. So, I was quite pleased to catch such a rare one on the TV. Anyway I missed the first 30 minutes and quite frankly I was not all that impressed with the movie at first. However doing some research I have found that alot of these old films are public domain and outside of copyright. So even these old films are widely found for free on the internet. Yeah, I'm way behind still on this stuff! So I was able to find this movie Sunrise which by the way won the first ever Oscar for Best Picture (for unique and artistic production )the regular Best Picture which went to Wings. In the end it was better than I had originally gathered and I really had missed the crux of the entire film. Where I had picked it up was probably the worst place to do so because it was a huge turning point in the plot. I have to admit I got sucked into it the second time around whereas the first time I was incredibly bored not knowing the whole plot line it had seemed silly where I had started from the first time around. This was the second silent morality tale I have seen recently and it was completely different from the first which was M director Fritz Langs sci-fi classic Metropolis.

In my search of Sunrise I also found several other great old silent films and others from way back that I have been wanting to see. Chaplin films, Keaton, Fritz Lang's M, Sunset Blvd among others. There is a plethora of incredible video online now. It really is the information age. A few months back I was able to find dozens of rare and vintage championship boxing matches dating back over a century including Jack Johnson. To find these old classic films is a real coup.