Last Vestiges of Summer

The Leaves Are Falling And It's WARM...


So I'm sitting here in the wee hours of the morning, pounding away on the computer keys getting some paperwork done in between fits of reading the news and shuffling files in my office--the newly declared International Headquarters of Plastics Engineering Technologies...situated on the lovely banks of the Mighty Tennessee River (IHPETSOLBMTR for short.)

Then I just noticed that it's Seventy Three Degrees Fahrenheit at 3:10 AM.

My front porch is beckoning...cigar and my partially read copy of Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged" in hand.

See y'all later...

My Life's Kicking My Butt

Who's Idea Was This Anyway???


OK

I've got two new exterior doors that still need staining and finishing. One still needs the holes and slots cut for the knobs and hinges and dead bolt.

I've got two sets of closet bi fold doors that need painting.

I've got two fluorescent lights to finish wiring and hang in the basement.

I've got a load of 1x4 and 1x2 trim lumber to install in the new and improved workshop and International World Headquarters for my new company...

(drum roll please...)

Plastics Engineering Technologies, Inc.

We got our first order for a PLC control panel last Friday and I've been pulling what little hair I have left out trying to get all the components on order.

And in the mean time I have near a half acre of yard that really needs some TLC and general fall maintenance and since today is the last 70 degree day in sight and it's supposed to rain for most of the next week...

you'll have to excuse me if the blogging continues to be sporadic at best.

Regards Y'all

First New Manned Rocket In 30 Years?

Obama Has File On Desk Under Afghanistan Troop Plans...


While the media was busy writing about "The Balloon Boy" and the President's basketball skills and FOX News obvious Right Wing bias, I've been paying attention to NASA's being busy readying the first test flight of a new generation of space vehicles designed to place men in orbit after the Space Shuttles retire...eventually evolving into having the capability to put Homo Sapiens back on the moon sometime in the year 3000 or something.

Take a look at the Ares I-X rocket on the pad in the background with the Space Shuttle in the foreground...

(From http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/091026-nasa-ares-1x-shuttle-snapshots.html)

While I'm happy that NASA has finally been allowed to address the replacement of the aging shuttle fleet, it also disgusts me that it's going to take longer to get a new spacecraft developed and get back to the Moon than it did in the 1960's.

How can it take a few rooms full of men wielding calculators with more computational power than the original Apollo Command Module's computer LONGER than it did a bunch of nerds with slide rules and pocket protectors to design a new moon rocket?

Have we fallen that far intellectually?

Or is the problem more insidious and basic?

Besides the obvious POLITICAL over/undertones, could it be that we as Americans--American Engineers--aren't cut from the same cloth as our predecessors of 40 years ago?

Do we not have the design and conceptual skills, are our colleges not teaching the fundamentals and leading us to prosper mentally and advance science at the same rate seen in the second half of the 20th century?

Or is it just that EVERYTHING is so damned %$#@ up and mucked up and glued together with the slimy funk of cultural and social decay...weighted down with the dumbing down of the American people in general...and held back by artificial demands for considerations of false self esteem...bankrupt under the burden of government mandates and funding of social "entitlement" programs which divert perfectly good money to the clamoring masses with baggy assed pants singing the lyrics of the latest rap/hip-hop song from memory while at the same time being unable to quote the pythagarean theorem.

Naaaaa...it's probably just bad luck or a result of the war on Terror/Al Quaeda and possibly the effects of global warming I guess...


That will be all...for now...

Dammit...

Only The G O V E R N M E N T...

Would Make A Company Write Something Like This


So there I was, happily minding my own business when I found these words written in a "Green" bid solicitation this evening:

"While performing the duties of this job, the employee is frequently required to stand; walk; sit; and use hands to finger, handle, or feel. The employee is occasionally required to reach with hands and arms and talk or hear. The employee must occasionally lift and/or move up to 10 pounds. Specific vision abilities required by this job include close vision, distance vision, and ability to adjust focus."


But wait a minute...here I was thinking that "finger[ing], handling, and feeling" had pretty much been outlawed as being against the law in every state but San Francisco and Holland?

Any way, after I wiped the spit off my flat screen 22" HP monitor I ended up writing about it here on the blog tonight.

I've already wasted thirty minutes on the concept pacing around the room and pulling at what little hair I have on my head...

It's really a wonder I ever get anything done because I come across stupid crap like this all the time, but then I remember that my dear Mother told me the old "not saying anything nice...say nothing at all thing" adage but if I actually followed that...

I'd never say anyting at all.

Then I probably could get a G O V E R N M E N T J-O-B because everyone would think I was deaf and dumb "physically challenged" because all I would ever do is grunt and puff my cheeks up in an attempt to add extra volume to my head in order to keep it from EXPLODING.

Now where's my giant tub of ice water and my snorkel???

My Thought For The Day

Mispelling Leads To Deep Philisophical Insight...


"The only thing between having a hose and a house is u."



(If you have to ask you probably blame the government for being homeless.)



heh...