work, unexpected

Just when I no longer expected it: I have a part time gig, web 2.0 marketing, PR (the web presence thing), primarily via blogging and social media. for Harbor Homes, LLC, the parent company, located in Georgia. Although the emphasis is disaster relief not oil patch, the nature of the company's products and my responsibilities resonate to past experiences, validating the adage that no knowledge or experience is ever lost or a waste. The opportunity to reuse either can return when least expected.

Originally mobile manufacturers, Harbor Homes™ includes three sub-companies or divisions: PermaShelter, Intrepid Structures and OutLast Emergency Products. The divisions have distinct identities but are interrelated. PermaShelter™, the "relief arm," includes PermaShelter SA, the Haiti

Intrepid Structures™ division covers  all manner of temporary and mobile structures, camps, work site offices, schoolhouses, medical clinics, kiosks, houseboats (aka quarterboats: my father was crew chief of a Union Oil quarterboat on the Intracoastal Canal), dormitories, kitchens and more, plus auxiliary supplies such as water treatment and septic systems. 

OutLast™ accessorizes: the division and brand features industrial, commercial, and logistic support products that are, in a manner of speaking, "disaster relief accessories" ~ tarpaulins, shovels, plastic sheeting, rope, blankets, tents, floor mats, mattresses, stoves, cook kits, buckets, jerry cans, water collection cisterns, nails, screws, hammers and other tools, plywood, lumber, mosquito nets, machetes, brooms, corrugated metal roofing, and much more. 

This sounds a lot like the kind of outfitting and stocking I am familiar with from working at Herman J. Schellstede &Associates, Inc, especially  writing reports for T&M billing (creative writing) for off-shore inspections and later in my capacity of materials manager. I was Queen of the Inventory and knew where the machinists hid spare tools, where welders hid spare pipe, plate and angle iron.

How do I not think of the nostos passage in TS Eliot's Four Quartets, about arriving where we started and knowing it again for the first time? 4th Quarter, Little Gidding:

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.