I Wanna Go To Miami

It's Not Just A Famous Jewish Whine...


I did that...just take off for Miami...on a whim once about this time in November about fifteen years ago...

I say that you're definitely getting old when you spend all of your time comparing or explaining what you're doing today with what you were doing more than five or ten years past on the calendar.

Unfortunately I'm in that situation this week as I look at the weather forecast for south Florida and find myself wishing I could just buy a couple of tickets and jump on an airplane and a few short hours later walk out into their airport parking lot into the 80 degree late fall dry heat and put my cares behind me.

Then I'd get a Taxi and wander over to South Beach District and find a little hotel with a room to stay in a few blocks from the beach, and I'd find a nearby Cuban restaurant and eat their ethnic food and watch the crazy things going on (like the bar fight I saw once that lasted for near a half hour...), then tonight after watching Georgia Tech pound Duke in College Football I'd stagger back home to the hotel and curl up in the bed and let my ever greying, ever balding head rest for five or six hours.

Things sure have changed since those days...some good...some bad...and I guess Miami is beyond my reach now but you can't blame an old Ramblin' Wreck for wishing...

Go YELLOW JACKETS!!!

Every Game's A Critical Game

If Your Life Is Football...


OK...I hate to admit that I've planned my past TWO Saturdays around the TV schedule, and this Saturday is no exception.

I can do anything I want today except between 12 Noon and about 4 PM, when Georgia Tech is being televised trying to extend their win streak to eight in a row in this season--bringing the total to ten wins against one loss with Georgia and the ACC championship game left to play later this month and in early December.

Of course as is usual in college football and particularly as I've seen in my 32 years following Georgia Tech...ANYTHING can happen today...but regardless I seem to have an all consuming urge to watch the proceedings because it's been nearly TWENTY years since the North Avenue Trade School had anything close to the kind of team they're fielding this year.

It's not often Tech's in the top 10 in the sport, and today they put their Number 7 ranking on the line and with the other match ups out there Tech could advance a notch or two if there happens to be an upset like Alabama getting beat by Mississippi State.

Now it's time to get back to programming I guess...

Back Home

And Busy As Heck...


So we're back home and now I'm up to my armpits in paperwork and boxes of "stuff" that arrived on my carport in my absence.

It's almost like Christmas morning except I'm five decades old and the "toys" are electronic hardware and technical publications and other nerdy do-dads.

I've been up since 2:30 AM sorting mail and stumbling around in the mire and mess which has ensued since depositing Missy the Turbo Pup and her Lockers and Sea Chests back in the living room.

The lawn guy has already been by with his leaf blower raising a dust storm in an effort to piss me off, and now I'm seriously leaning toward taking a shower and declaring an early happy hour before coming home and warming up some of my thawed out "Green Butt" White Chili and making a giant pone of cornbread.

Time to make some calls and chase the yard guy around with a check I guess.

Regards Y'all...

South Bound Again

Afternoon Journey...


Man...the past two days have been a whirlwind of mental activity here in Indianapolis.

The PLC (programmable logic controller) class was free, but in my opinion it was one of the best if not the best technical classes I've ever attended.

The people at Horner go out of their way to give you a good understanding of their products and their proprietary programming environment, and every one of the twenty plus people in attendance either already had their equipment in their plants or like me were building new products based on one of their controllers.

Everyone was on time every morning and sat there for eight hours (they fed us lunch also) and absorbed information like a room full of sponges.

My head is about to explode with ideas and I can't wait to get back home and get started building this first custom control panel and writing the software to control it before I forget something.

We have another session today that's scheduled to last until 2 PM, but I think I'll be able to slide out the door around lunch and be back on the banks of the Mighty Tennessee River at the Turbo Pup compound by Happy Hour.

Wish us a safe journey free of encounters with texting morons driving habits...if you will...

Have you Asked Your Doctor About "Dememetiaforyou"?

(Hexamexatexa-ibuprofin HCL)


Picture a TV ad scene with a middle aged couple walking barefoot on the beach.

Now Que the baritone announcer's voice:


"Feeling Stupid?

Feeling Sad?

Feeling Broke?

Feeling Bad?

Got Bunions?

Ingrown Toe nails?

Got an Attitude?

Or Just don't give a damn?

Then Dementiaforyou may be just for you...ask your doctor for a dose or two..

That's right folks...

Hang around until we all have the Democrat's "Universal Health care," and maybe your doctor will subscribe prescribe some for you.

Dementiaforyou--the all-in-one FDA approved chemical solution for all those little nagging problems in life...

After all...You're only half a person without it.***"

Now the disclaimer scrolls past in the final five seconds:

*** THE FINE PRINT
May cause hives; hernias; hemorrhoids; heat rash; hacking; hypertension; hepatitis; homosexuality; homophobia; sleepwalking; sleep talking; whooping cough; anal seepage; rectal bleeding; incontinence; excessive desires to gamble; being unusually happy; being unusually sad; becoming suicidal; erections lasting longer than 4 hours; no erection at all; sex change; being an angry insensitive blogger; unusual desires for sex involving weed eaters, chickens, kitchen appliances, shop tools, fruits, vegetables, and antique automobiles; death; stroke; strange food craveings; cancer; constipation; conniption fits and/or Shivering Shaking Screaming Heebie Jeebies.

Consult your physician if any or all of the above symptoms or conditions occur.




Heh...

The World According To Archie Bunker

I Agree Completely...









(that was broadcast over twenty years ago, and it's frightening how true it still is today...)

"She Slopped Her Dripper"

Hee Haw Greatest Hits


I remember watching this live back when it first ran on TV...



If you're not from the south you may not laugh, but I remember the skit and many of the words to this day

The Cone Of Death Approaches

Governor Jindal Trys To Make Lingering Katrina "Victims" Get The Heck Out...


So I'm sitting here checking out the weather this morning and notice that my Mom and the Family Farm may be in the path of Hurricane Cousin Ida when she comes calling later this week.

But wait a minute, I also heard earlier where Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal had already declared a state of emergency in New Orleans for fear that Carl Rove and George Bush were sending another Hurricane after the poor and disenfranchised residents of the lower fifth ward and other areas of the city STILL FIRMLY SITUATED BELOW SEA LEVEL FOUR YEARS after Katrina swamped the place.

Any way, it looks like the storm is going to take an eastward turn and be further downgraded into a weak hurricane or a strong tropical storm as it comes inland somewhere between the Mississippi/Alabama line and Appalachacola, FL.

Me and members of my family have been there and done this drill dozens of times in the past 75 years and as I see it there's no reason to run to the grocery store and buy all of the bread and milk and peanut butter--but I'll leave the decision up to each individual.

We've never once in the middle of the aftermath of a half dozen strikes and near misses by the eyes of Hurricanes (Opal and Elloise come to mind) seen hide nor hair of FEMA at our houses and we're still alive and paying "our fair share" of taxes today.

If I were not going to be 450 miles north of ground zero I would gas up my car and probably make sure I had batteries for the radio and flashlights, but then again I did that every year in the spring when I lived within a mile of the Atlantic on the Georgia Coast and a hundred yards from the beach on the Gulf in Mexico Beach, FL.

I never ONCE had to sit around and wait for the GOVERNMENT to knock on my door and tell me to take steps to protect my life and property.

Did I mention that I still have a 1.5 KW generator packaged in the original shrink wrap box...left over from when we moved to St. Simons Island in 2003?

So I can just hear it now...after a quiet Atlantic/Gulf hurricane season, the wild eyed, sniveling, booger eating, eco-friendly tree hugging patchouli tie-died smelly former hippy tree huggers will announce, at a press conference with Owl Gore, that this mid-November Hurricane is yet additional PROOF of anthropological (i.e. man made for those of you that attended business admin classes at the University of Georgia) climate change.

Just watch...

They will...

Bet me...

OK...I'm shifting gears here now Boss...

What really got me started yelling this morning was when I started calculating the total amount of atmosphric Oxygen a valve I'm rebuilding sees in the process of handling 650 CFM of air, 24/7, 51 weeks a year at 40 bars of pressure (588 pounds per square inch.)

I had to look up a chart with the composition of air in order to run the calculations, and when I did I found this chart:

Check that crap out...BY WEIGHT...

Nitrogen 75.5%

Oxygen 23.2%

and the HATED Global warming Villain...Carbon Dioxide???

CO2 equals only...

Ready?

0.05% of our ENTIRE ATMOSPHERE

That's FIVE ONE HUNDRETHS OF ONE PERCENT...

Got that?

So IF I continue to smoke Cigars...

And IF I continue to drive my old Suburban getting 9 MPG

And IF I continue to burn my branches and leaves in my back yard in a big smoky pile

And IF I continue to use my charcoal grill

And IF I continue to just not give a crap in general about my "Carbon Footprint"...

And IF I continue to run my mouth at an accelerated rate...

Then...

after all of that stuff happens without government intervention.

AND THE LEVELS OF ATMOSPHERIC CARBON DIOXIDE DOUBLE OVER THE REST OF MY LIFE...

Carbon dioxide will still, on that horrible, yes even possibly cataclysmic day in the eyes of Owl Gore and the sniveling booger eating crowd et. al.

...

Only be...

0.10% of the total mass of our atmosphere.

Now in light of these statistics, DOES anybody else out there besides me wonder what all the noise is about?


Yea...I thought so...

Dammit...

The Turbo Pup's Back On The Road

And The Blog Silence Might Be Deafening...


About 9 AM this morning, after the local rush hour settles down, Missy the Turbo Pup and her entourage are blasting out of Knoxtown up I-75 toward a rendezvous with a 2-1/2 day technical training class in Indianapolis, Indiana.

This will be her...

Wait...how many states has the Turbo Pup visited since she was born in 2006?

Let's see...

Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Mississippi (she was born there), Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia ...

So now with the addition of Indiana Missy the Turbo Pup will have traveled to SIXTEEN STATES in her soon to be three year long life.

Not bad for a little 11 pound miniature long haired Dachshund, eh?

I keep talking about getting some of those state stickers like people put on the back of their motor homes and travel trailers and putting them on the outside of her travel crate.

She's been crate trained since she was 2 months old and weighed 2 pounds, but we never lock her up in the thing. She just uses it like a den or "safety deposit box" and wanders in and out on her own hiding left over pieces of rawhide chews and wads of napkin and old paper towel tubes we give her to play with.

Still, if we have the room (thus far only one exception last summer) the crate, her bed, her blankets, and a giant assortment of toys go along with her in the back of the old Chrysler 300 when she hits the road.

Half the back seat is generally enough room for her royalness and her "lockers and sea chests" as I call them.

I get one seat and space in half of two suitcases along with room for a few hanging clothes, and of course the gasoline bills.

The weather over our route both ways looks good so far, and it will be good to get to interact in person with some of my technical peers for a change since I've basically been a hermit working alone from my office since my employer closed down last December 19th.

Time now to clean up my desk and do some final packing, and maybe catch another hour or two of sleep before hitting the road.

Wish us a safe trip and protection from the driving/texting morons...if you will...