Grate

It’s been a few days over a year now since my mother and I published (with much assistance) in book form the first year of the original blog. The first pages of that book are still alive in real life inside my mind even from over five years ago. Recently, I had a dream in which my friend who passed away this last summer (the one I met in prison and lived with on the outside) was with me at my current place of employment, telling me he had a choice to make. He could go back to prison, or go back to working at the laminating factory we worked at together when we got out. To both of us, this was a true dilemma, and we never did get to a solution before an alarm went off in my head.

 For some unknown reason, I have been waking up well before 5am for a few weeks now. I’m not tired; in fact I feel quite refreshed, and most days I even stay up well past my old-man bedtime of 8:30. I’ve spent a few mornings at the gym before work—just me and the cotton balls. Some days I play with Roofus outside then bring him so he can piss and shit. And some days I lay still and contemplate my next move in life.

What should I do? Should I actively try something new, different, and challenging? Should I try to refinance the house? Should I try to break the land-speed record? Or, should I just enjoy what I have for a while? Doing or trying anything ever always costs money. My minivan isn’t very fast, and my credit probably isn’t yet back to a point of being able to lock in a good rate on a new mortgage. I’ll probably still try.

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. This year, Amanda and I are cooking the feast for our neighbors. (I will do the cooking, Amanda will probably drink wine.) They were kind enough to host our wedding, and they don’t have family around these here parts, so we decided to stay local on account of both of us having to work the day before and after the holiday and fix them a proper meal.

Tomorrow, I will deep fry a turkey in peanut oil, make amuse bouche with black garlic and Indigo Bunting—a delicious bleu from Deer Creek, and make a mashed potato dish with black garlic molasses and bacon. I will try desperately not to set their house on fire while frying the turkey. I will use common sense and if that doesn’t work, I will use a fire extinguisher.

I’m excited to host our first Thanksgiving (although technically not at home.) And I’m more grateful than ever for the people, things, and feelings I have in my life. 2019 has been without question the saddest and happiest year of my life. I married my best friend, lost my best homie dog, lost a great friend, a great aunt, and Amanda lost two grandparents. We got a new dog, lost a rabbit and a cat, and for Halloween, I put a wild-wacky-inflatable-arm-flailing-tube-man on our roof. All of our bills are paid, we have food in the cupboards, and the girls are doing amazingly well in their respective schools. I am so fucking grateful for my life I could just shit. I love this thing, and I want to keep it.

In order for me to keep what I have earned through my program of recovery, I have to give it all away. Of course I don’t mean the house, kids, and the wife. I mean the knowledge that got me all of these things. This I will continue to do through bringing meetings to jails and institutions whenever possible, and writing this blog which—for the most part—tells that story of a washed-up, unsuccessful drug dealer that turned his life around. At one point, I had my first day of sobriety. Somebody has that today, and is capable of doing amazing things. If you know that person, encourage them to become something, and to share their journey with others.

Tomorrow, be kind and loving. Be grateful and humble. Be thankful, and be generous.



Or, start your neighbor's house on fire.

Hazards

It feels foreign to me sitting in front of my laptop. I haven’t typed any words about my life in nearly a month. A lot of my energy has been taken up at work, especially in the past three weeks. I have taken on a special assignment, and it’s been the most difficult undertaking in any of my professional endeavors. I have written a HACCP  plan.

The Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point plan was established by Pillsbury for N.A.S.A. so that astronauts could bring food into outer space with them that wouldn’t make them sick. It is as technical as you might think anything developed by scientists would be, and I had to use all two years of my high school education and take a 16-hour online course to get it right. I hope I got it right. The application for the HACCP plan through the Minnesota Department of Health is 25 pages long, and this is all just for one process: ROP. Reduced oxygen packaging is a method used by many wholesale manufacturers of whole meats, and by some restaurants that have the ability to legally do so through the plan. It is essentially, no, literally, vacuum packaging meats that we process into steaks to increase their shelf-life. Some bacteria can grow in an anaerobic state, and we have to assure the health department that we have taken every necessary precaution to ensure the safety of the consumer.

Twenty-five pages is just the application. In addition to the application, I had to include a hazard analysis, a list of control points and critical points. I have to document my training and my subsequent training of others. I have to document the calibration of our thermometers, the temperatures of the meats, the places we store them, and the days we process. I had to install data loggers in the storage areas which continuously record temperatures and are uploaded on to my computer at work which I then print off and keep for a year. All of these documents must be kept for a year and always be available for inspection. I have to verify that the documents are correct.

I had to create something called a Process Flow Diagram. I don’t know how to make shapes with the Word program, but I learned. I even made arrows, almost all of which pointed in the correct directions. I explained in great detail every step of a piece of meat from the minute we receive it at the loading dock—including all of the potential hazards (biological, chemical, and physical)along the way—to the moment we remove it from the package for cooking.

I am not a scientist. I’m probably closest to a doctor, but Amanda doesn’t think that’s funny. I’m not a college graduate or even a high school graduate. I got my G.E.D. sometime in the 1900’s and I have yet to use the algebra I had to study to take the test. But I still took on a project that the Department of Health recommends you hire out to scientists, consultants, and people who have previously submitted plans of their own. My certificate tells me I am a HACCP Manager, but I am definitely a HACCP greenhorn. But I did it, and I’m incredibly proud of myself for doing something that looked impossible from the get-go. Today I submitted our application and all supporting documents and a check for $363, and I have to wait up to 30 days to hear from whether I did well enough to have the plan approved.

If the plan is a go from the MNDH, they will come to the club and I have to walk them through the entire process, and essentially show them that I know what I have written and can implement it. The health department always scares me a little. I’m always afraid that I don’t wash my hands for long enough when they watch us, or that I don’t pick my nose at the right time. But at every establishment I’ve ever worked, we always pass, and another day is done.

Life at home is going well. Tonight I have three girls over and there is more screaming and chaos than normal. Ella has a friend from school sleeping over and Emme needs constant attention. I’ll end this post by saying that I really miss writing, and I will try to find more time to do so in the near future. In the meantime, please address me as Mr. Dr. Scientist Maertz.

I say good day.