Day 1 at Stuckeys (9/17/2015)

Marilyn and Julie had an appointment this morning, and Ken is doing some contract work for the company he retired from, so Joe and I had a free morning.  We had made contact last night with Michael Williams, who lives in the area, and he called us back to make arrangements to get together on Saturday, and he invited us to stop by his work today and get a tour of the shop  -- T.R.U. Ball Archery -- they make, among other things, sights and triggers for the bow and arrow industry.  We hadn't seen Michael for 10 years, so it was really great to get to visit with him and see what he's doing since he retired from the Marine Corp.  And he looks amazingly like his Dad, so that was sort of special.

Fiber Optics

Assembly Parts for Releases for Bows

Part of a Bow Sight

Optic Sight

Michael is funny.  When he was telling us about hunting, we asked if his kids hunt too.  He said, yes, he was "breeding killers."  All three of his kids have gotten their own deer, I know his youngest, Gavin, has at least one turkey.  His other funny story was about interviewing for this job.  They had advertised an opening for an assembly line worker (I think), and when he began the interview, his interviewer told him they had a better job in mind for him.  They were wanting to replace the floor supervisor (I don't think I got that title right) because the one they had wasn't tough enough, wanted to be everybody's friend, and as a result, their quality and productivity was suffering.  Michael listened for a while, then said, "so you want me to bust some skulls."  The interviewer sort of hesitated, but then said yes.  Later, after they hired him, the son of the interviewer (boss) said, "he knows he can't put his hands on anyone, right."  So I think Michael got their attention.

He gave us a tour of his facility, introduced us as his "second mom and dad" to his co-workers, and he even gave us company hats and t-shirts.  We get to meet his family on Saturday.

 Next on our agenda was the Verizon store, and I finally got a new phone to replace the one that we ran over in the car.  Joe has been researching phones for weeks now, so we finally made the decision -- a new LG G4.  I'm sure it will do much more than I am capable of understanding, but we were able to salvage my contacts from my old phone by going through my Google account.  I guess they were "in the cloud."  But I lost my Notes (I had a lot of them from this trip) and my Pictures, which I had downloaded a couple months ago, but lost the picture of my big fish!  Fortunately, I have some on the camera, but I kinda liked bringing up that fish from time to time, and showing it to Joe.

By the time we got back to Marilyn's house, it was really too late to begin a sightseeing tour, so Marilyn and I spent the next 3-4 hours working on the Butler Family Tree.  She was the one who originally put the Tree together, on the typewriter, in 1968, and I'm unclear how it ever became my baby, but she has been collecting information as she visits Family, so she had a lot of notes that we added to the master list.  She still has a tote to go through before we are really finished, but it was fun working on it together.

We finished the evening by going out for pizza.  And a night tour of downtown Lynchburg. 
 

We hope to do a little sightseeing on Friday, and maybe finish our work on the Family Tree if Marilyn did her homework last night (going through that tote).  The weather here has been perfect, 60s at night, 80s during the day.