Stay in Detroit

Stay in Detroit

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On Sep 29, 2001, I met Becky at the Syda Yoga Satsang. She is an old friend that I had met working in the Children's House at the ashram in S. Fallsburg, NY. We got together on the 30th. Here is her house in Ann Arbor, MI. I did my laundry and we had lunch. Then we went for a walk in a local park. It was a lovely day with beautiful sunny weather and wonderful company.
Here is a picture of Becky in her house as we were visiting. On October 6, I went to Ann Arbor and parked across from the Center for their early morning activities on the 7th. I woke to frost on my car. I have plenty of blankets and was quite warm, but it sure made it hard to get up. I also learned that with air mattresses, you need to plan on over-inflating the mattress (so that it is a little firmer than you like) in anticipation of really cold weather as the air contracts and the mattress is soon too flat to do much good. At 6:15AM I tried to go in to use the restroom and do early meditation only to learn that the schedule had changed; the door was locked! What to do? (Hint: check out the trees and bushes on the right of the picture below).
Here is the parking lot across from the Syda Yoga Center in Ann Arbor where I spent the night. It turns out everything was delayed two to 2 1/2 hours so that we could all chant the Gurugita in a global audio broadcast from S. Fallsburg, NY with 150 centers around the world (a sort of prayer for the well being of the world). That was great! Then Gurumayi spoke for a bit and we all heard President Bush's declaration of war on terrorism. It was a very pleasant start to the day, and the frost and locked door at 6:15AM didn't phase me at all. I personally liked many things about Bush's speech, especially that we are opposing terrorism world wide and not the Afghan people or Muslims. I also liked that we are in for the long haul and not looking for a quick fix; terrorism is ingrained too deeply for quick fixes. However, the frost made it clear that I should be headed South soon. My departure date is the morning of October 14 headed to my cousin Vinson's in Indiana.
As I worked on different lines at HiTech and made friends and talked with the people there, I came to realize what a great blessing my assignment there had been; it was the perfect job for me with many nice people on an ideal assembly line (we work closely as a team rather than most lines where it is much more repetitive and little coordination between workers). It also provided an opportunity to move around and lots of good exercise. Perfect! I had been thinking that it might be nice to try other jobs, but decided to let fate decide what was best (as I had gotten the perfect job for me). Then HiTech started preparing to rebuild one of their lines and let all their temps go. So after four and half weeks, I was back to ETS for my last week. Here is Kathy, the evening person at ETS, reaching to get my check for the day out of the printer.
So, on Tuesday, October 9, 2001, I was back at ETS Staffing at 4:30AM to get a new assignment. First thing up was Lumbee, an auto parts liason. So, I was working for ETS under contract to Lumbee, under contract to Hutchinson, under contract to G.M.. We spend half an hour driving to a Ryder Logistics Warehouse in Pontiac, MI (they warehouse parts from different suppliers before sending them on to G.M. and are under contract to G.M.). G.M. had changed the clips on some window moldings are we were brought in to bend two extensions on each clip until they can change the die for the clips to bend them to start with. We have been working 10 to 11 hour days (starting at 5:30AM now) and get paid for the drive to and from Pontiac, MI. Today I worked on the parts already in the Orion G.M. plant. Very interesting. Tomorrow I should get some serious overtime (they pay $8 an hour versus HiTech which was minimum wage at $6.25).
Here is the entrance to the GM Orion Plant where they make Bonnevilles, Auroras, LeSabres, and Park Avenues. Apparently it is the only plant in the world that makes four different cars on one line. While there is much that is common for the cars, the body parts are all different which keeps the assembly guys on their toes. I worked here my last two days in Detroit inspecting the moldings for scratches before the assembly guy put them on the car. Not very exciting, but I was glad for the opportunity to see the line and work with the guys. The plant is really large, but it is hard to see the size from the outside (and they didn't allow pictures of the inside). As we left and were up a hill I got a brief view of just how big the plant was, and it is impressive.
Here is a dollar theater in Dearborn, MI that I saw a few movies at. In most places in NY these second run theaters have gone out of business, but this one seemed to be doing fine. My budget so far worked out to: 25% to charities (as I use libraries and public restrooms so much), 25% for food (works out to less than $5 a day), 33% for car expenses (gas and insurance doesn't come to nearly that, but I want to set aside money for repairs and such), and 17% for other stuff like renting my storage area in NY, membership at Bally's (to shower), pre-paid calling cards, and movies and such. We'll see if that continues elsewhere. There is no particular need for me to be self-sufficient (I have savings I could use), but it is a nice goal. I had already set aside savings for my child support payments, but other than that I seem to be breaking even.