Life Of Brian

1993

Un mil nueve cien noventa y tres

  

I'm pretty sure that's not correct, but I don't feel like looking it up.  Think back to 1993.  Were you lucky enough to have an internet connection?  93 is the year the CERN made the web open and free.  The first internet browser for the general public was released, it was called Mosaic.  I know one thing.  I wasn't even aware of this little tidbit of knowledge until I just looked it up on you guessed it, the internet!  Nineteen Ninety-Three was my first summer of freedom.  Thankfully I had a good job, and with a good job came the ability to get into real debt.  Nothing like that first time you really get into debt knowing that you need to continuously work your boo tay off for the next five years.  Heck, If I would have achieved more than a 2.23 gpa, I prolly would've foreseen the likelihood I'd have to work for the rest of my life. At 18 though, no one is thinking about working for the rest of their lives.  Thank goodness for that too!  What a downer right. Ignorance is bliss. Who doesn't fall into that category anyway.  If not for personal loans and credit card debt, a large percentage of the population wouldn't make it.  kind of sad really.  Do we really live just to earn money?  That's a good one to bring up at the dinner table of people you've just met!  Deep conversations like that didn't exist for me in 93.  I was working, playing, paying, and living!  Still located across from WheelersGorge Campground, my house was really an awesome place to be.  The drive to work at iti inc in Ojai off of Bryant Street took me about twelve minutes.  In my awesome Nissan truck, I'd listen to my favorite tapes, including but not limited to Pearl Jam's "Ten", and R.E.M.  I did not have to pay my parents any rent, but I did have to pay my truck payment as well as my insurance.  Which, at my young age of 18 was pretty darn expensive.  I had plenty of money to pay for all my gas as well, iti was paying me fairly good money for that era.  Sarah and I had many a nice dinner out with my machine shop wages.  While I lived at home, a few of my close friends would rent their own apartments.  One of my friends would introduce me to cigars.  I did not form a habit of smoking cigars mind you, but he and I would enjoy one or two a year.  That would last until just recently.  Now I have a humidor and a small collection of the cancer sticks.  The number of cigars consumed each year is still less than ten.  Why am I telling you this you might be wondering?  Couldn't tell you, lol.  That's the fun part about this blog.  I really don't care whether what I'm writing down is entertaining or not.  It's just fun to remember things from the past.

The company I worked for, iti incorporated, was a machine shop in Ojai.  Located on Bryant Street, it was a quiet area.  I began working for them a summer prior.  I was just hired for the summer, to drill out metal machine castings.  This was fairly labor-intensive work.  Someone would have to get the forklift and bring the big castings outside and then tip them over so I could drill out the holes in the bottom for foot pegs to be inserted.  I would use a half inch drill bit and reem out an existing hole that was not big enough for the foot pads iti wanted to use on their machines.  It was usually hot outside, and I had to lean my entire body weight into the drill to achieve any progress drilling through that steel.  At four holes per casting, I'd only get three or four castings done in a day.  Sometimes the drill bit would become dull, and it would catch, or stall in the hole.  That was always fun.  If you weren't paying attention, and didn't let off of the trigger soon enough, this event could possibly break your wrist.  I must have done a good job, because summer of 93, I was hired back.  This time I'd be working for Dept. 600.  Dept. 600 manufactured diamond cutting blades among other things.  Companies in China and Japan would buy up the blades we made like candy.  They would use them to cut computer chip pucks.  The cuts had to be very precise and our synthetic diamond blades were very good at the task.  We were one of two companies I believe that knew how to make these blades.  There was an entire process that our department carried out.  first the blades had to be handmade and 'cooked'.  Then they were lapped down to many different thicknesses.  These tolerances were +/- .00005 on some of these blades!  It took many skilled employees to make the final product.  The blades were then placed on an arbor and put into a machine; a CNC machine made by iti as well (these were the castings I drilled out.)  These arbors would slice through a big puck of computer chip material at very precise measurements and produce computer chips.  Once we tested the arbors and found they were cutting within the purchasing companies' parameters, we'd ship them off to the customer.  I think our company sold each arbor for 8 to 10 thousand dollars.  The CNC machines that carried out the cutting of the computer chip pucks would sell for 60 grand and up, some upwards to $130,000.00.  This is in 1993 mind you. My job of fabrication was done in the metal bond lab.  We'd mix different metallic powders with different microns of synthetic diamond.  Then, we'd pour the powder into a graphite mold.  The powder had to be meticulously leveled out nice and even to make as flat a cutting disc as possible.  This saved the lappers time on the lapping machines.  Once leveled, we'd stick the entire graphite mold into an inductron press that cooked the molds up to 40,000 degrees.  They'd come out of this microwave of sorts glowing bright red.  Special gloves had to be used to remove the molds, then, the insides would be placed on a cooling table.  I found the process very interesting and never got bored fabricating blades.  In a day, I could produce one hundred to one hundred and fifty blades.  Do the math, this was very good money for the company.  We earned more than minimum wages, but the pay was a toss in a bucket compared to what the company made off of the product.  All of my co-workers were great people to work with.  I would rank iti as number two of my top three jobs ever worked.

My oldest sister was at Cal Poly.  I think she may have been completing her last year in 93.  Vicki, my other sister, was working.  I cannot remember what her job was at the time.  I do remember spending a lot of time by myself.   If I wasn't hanging out with Sarah, you would have found me hiking or fishing, on my days off.  Sarah would graduate in 94.  Thanks to my mom and dad, we have some videos of these years.  Some include Christmas, and Thanksgiving.  Others include the sheer boredom of living up the canyon.  I'm not complaining mind you, but there were some boring days living up there.  Little did I know, life was about to get ever busy in the next few years.

Around the Nation and Country, these were some of the issues in the headlines.  June of 93, the Unabomber struck sending an explosive device to a Yale Scientist named David Gelernter.  Bill Clinton would become our 42nd POTUS.  The infamous Al Gore was his Vice Pres.  January 5th, the state of Washington carried out the first legal hanging since 1965.  Seven million dollars was stolen from a Brinks armored car in Rochester, NY.  I have some knowledge of how Brinks operated their trucks in the late nineties.  We always wondered why Brinks trucks weren't hit more often as all three members would exit the truck to service a stop.  The company I worked for would do no such thing.  Even so, our trucks in other states would be robbed a couple of times.  More about that in a later Blog.  The seven-million-dollar Brinks heist was the 5th largest robbery in U.S. history.  Four men were accused, one of which was a former Rochester police officer.  All had ties to the Provisional Irish Republican Army.  IBM would announce a loss of just under five billion dollars the year prior, ranking as the largest single year corporate loss in United States history.  The United States Military would send forty Tomahawk cruise missiles into Bagdad striking factories linked to Iraq's illegal nuclear weapons program.  Iraq had stopped the UNSCOM from flying aircraft into their country and began military operations in the demilitarized zone.  The Tomahawk missiles quickly changed their minds and planes were once more allowed to fly in the Iraq zones.

At the box office, titles such as Jurassic Park, Falling Down, Gettysburg, Rudy, and What's Eating Gilbert Grape could be seen at your local movie theater.  Robin Williams would star in the comedy Mrs. Doubtfire.  T.V. shows included The X Files, Frasier, The Nanny, Boy Meets World, and Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman.  Of those, I loved watching Frasier.  

Hit songs for the year according to Billboard magazine included Whitney Houston's song "I Will Always Love You".  I believe Dolly Parton wrote this song.  Janet Jackson sang "That's the Way Love Goes".  One of my dad's favorites by Tag Team," Whoomp!" (There It Is).  UB40's "Can't Help Falling In Love".  Mariah Carey's " Dreamlover".  I was more of an alternative rock guy.  But I mostly listened to the local radio station which would have played most of these songs.  "Run Away Train" by Soul Asylum was one of my favorites.

The average price of a house sold in the United States in 93 was $147,000.00.  Southern California prices ranged from $99,777.00 and $237,221.00 in Santa Barbara County.  The Federal minimum wage was $4.25/hr.  Making $6.00 an hour at iti was very good money!  At $4.25 an hour you were bringing home $8,840.00 a year!!  That's assuming you worked five days a week, forty hours total.  The average cost of a car was around $16,000.00.  The Ford Taurus, Toyota Camry, and Honda Accord were some of the more famous and popular models.  We owned a Nissan Sentra, Mazda Miata, Ford LTD, and two Nissan P/U trucks. I think Sarah drove a Honda.  Cannot remember the model.

Another year on the books, a very important one at that with my completion of Highschool.  New freedoms would be acquired, also many new responsibilities as well.  Life was bliss for the most part.  As I mentioned earlier our family events kind of began to dwindle at this point in time.  My sister being up in SLO, my other sister working full time and doing things with her friends.  My mom and dad still working full time and then some to support each other in an ever-expensive world.  Car payments to be made.  Thoughts of the future beginning to take shape.  I remember thinking that my parents, in their mid to late forties were getting old!  I worried about the possibility of them passing away. lol.  Now, at the age of 49 I realize how absolutely silly that was.  Time began to start whizzing by, and it would only get worse.

"God creates dinosaurs, God kills dinosaurs, God creates man, man kills God, man brings back dinosaurs."

- Jurassic Park June 1993