It's Saturday And I Should Be Working...

I'm An Expert At Procrastination...


Dang It...

It's already 10:30 AM and I'm still sitting here in my underwear my PJ's doing anything and everything but what it is I'm supposed to be doing this morning.

Normally we do our grocery shopping early on Saturday morning, but today I slept in late after being up until 4 AM thrashing around in the shop and smoking the last couple of inches of yesterday afternoon's cigar on the front porch listening to the crickets chirp.

I'm having a hard time getting motivated because this current project has been laying around on the test bench for so long and I'm just generally tired of looking at it but somehow I'm going to have to muster a Herculean effort to wrap things up and get it all out the door in a cloud of dust on Monday...TWO WEEKS LATE.

Better to be late had have a product that works than be on time with something that at best makes a nice giant desk paper weight...you know?

Of course as is usual I have a multitude of distractions which are infinitely more interesting than the things in front of me which must be done...on time hopefully.

There's the new front porch decking design and installation...

Or the new Carport storage/utility closet design...

Or just sitting around on my deck watching the Turbo Pup give the world a good barking while contemplating my belly button...

You get my drift.

I'm so distracted and lazy that I can't even take the time to bitch about the stupid goings on in Washington DC...so I'll leave all of that stuff to you and your own devices.

Time to go do today's crossword puzzle, clip my toe nails, wash a little laundry, do some dishes...

anything but stagger around in my shop looking at electronics will do right now.

Oh...

And Y'all have a LOVELY Saturday...if you will...

I'm Cranky

Missing My Mid-Day Naps...


I have to tell you that this recent bout of working for a living stuff is contrary to my normal demeanor.

Seriously, I can't stop my mind from working long enough to lounge around and do nothing when I intend to any more it seems.

Being awake all of the daylight hours and half of the night is starting to take its toll, and I really have to have a final breakthrough in the next 24 hours and finish a couple of things or a nervous breakdown could result.

Don't make me go all "Jack Nicholson" and fly over to the "Cuckoo's nest" or else...

Travel Interruptus?

Best Laid Plans...


Dang it.

I've just had to cancel the second pleasure trip in the past month.

All the result of a combination of bad luck, bad planning, and now a relative heavy workload with deadlines slipping past like unset jello between my fingers.

So instead of Pittsburgh for three nights I'll be home here at the Turbo Pup Compound thrashing around on this current PLC panel--still hopefully going out the door today or tomorrow at latest, and now designing a major modification/rebuild of one of my previous panels at the owner's request.

And this latest re-design project has to be completed early to mid next week so the modifications can be completed and the new and improved machine sent back out the door before next Friday.

Thus being out of town tomorrow and next Monday is impossible, so...

Here I sit in front of the computer cancelling hotel reservations and watching the thunderstorms outside my office window.

Time to get back to work I guess...

I've Got An Employee Hired A Consultant

Capitulating To My Own Ignorance...


Sorry for not posting earlier, but I've got a meeting here again later this morning at the Turbo Pup Compound at my company's International Headquarters, and I've been up since 5 AM getting ready for the event.

Geez...two meetings in FIVE days....some sort of record I think.

I'm starting to act like I'm actually in business for real or something?

Any way, I've got a software consultant coming over--I've used the guy before back in January--to help me work out a couple of bugs in my PLC program and generally look things over before I put it all in a box tomorrow afternoon and kick it off the FedEX loading dock.

Wish me luck...If you will...

It's Obama's "Taxpayer Payback" Time?

We're Reaping The So-Called "Benefits" Of The Government Motors Bailout...


So I was feeling a little lethargic and lazy if not just plain guilty the past couple of weeks because I couldn't get excited enough to deliver a good rant here on the blog.

Not to worry, Ladies and Gentlemen, because when you read this Wall Street Journal (via the American Thinker) story about GM spending $715,000,000 on one of it's Mexican auto plants to produce a new engine and upgrade their production line you're probably gonna be pretty pissed off just like I am this morning:

U.S. automobile giant General Motors Co. said Tuesday it plans to invest close to $500 million in its Ramos Arizpe plant in northern Mexico to produce a new line of engines as well as a new vehicle...

"We estimate that these technologies allow for a 9% improvement in fuel efficiency from current engines," Lieblein said, adding that the investment will directly create 390 jobs in Coahuila state, where Ramos Arizpe is located.

Another $215 million will go toward upgrading the factory's production lines to build a new vehicle for the domestic and international markets, she said, noting that the investment will be key to maintaining 400 jobs.

Assembly of the vehicle, which wasn't named, is set to begin in the last quarter of 2011. GM plans for it to "give long-term viability to this plant by gradually substituting some production volumes."

GM today is apparently as tone deaf as everyone and everything else touched by President Obama and the Obamamaniacs.

The country is going down the crapper for many Americans and Obama not only sends Lady Obama off to France to spend $75,000 a day in vacation dollars in one foreign country, but at the same time lets (or more likely demands) that General Motors send THREE QUARTERS OF A BILLION DOLLARS to Mexico to support manufacturing what we today laughingly call an "American Automobile"?

The good news is that there will be several thousand Mexicans making US dollars without having to walk or swim across our southern border I guess.

And here's another thing to think about which just occurred to me...

How much do you want to bet that the UAW (United Auto Workers) is, as I write this missive, in the process of organizing the workers in Mexico?

That is, if they haven't already got the plant workers paying Union dues.

Imagine the political outcome of Mexican Autoworkers paying dues that come to US Unions, which then turn around and make donations to the Rat Bastard Commie Socialist Democrats.

Yeah...that "Comprehensive Immigration Reform" effort in the Congress is a humanitarian effort and has nothing to do with money.

Dammit...

I'm Thinking About Going Here On Vacation

Budget Travel...

I'll check their prices and let you know in case anyone else is interested.

(Image shamelessly stolen from here )

Six Years Of Bitching In Public Blogging

I Hope It's Been As Much Fun For You As It Has For Me...


It's hard to believe that it was SIX YEARS ago this week I was sitting in a Holiday Inn Crown Plaza in Chicago writing my first couple of blog entries.

Up until a couple of days earlier in August 2004 I had never heard of Google's "Blogger" website which makes it possible for me to do what it is that I do here...

FOR FREE.

Free, that is, if you don't count my time...literally hundreds and hundreds of hours...OK THOUSANDS of hours to date.

Looking at my statistics page here in the Blogger software, this writing represents posting number 2861 on this blog, "What I'd Liked To Have Said", and there's an additional 110 recipes posted over at The Redneck Gourmet.

A pretty amazing body of writing I'd say coming from a guy that absolutely HATED English class in High School and College.

I know that I sometimes take liberties with my grammar and punctuation, and my spelling is less than perfect sometimes even with spellcheck, but still...

Other than a few days here and there when I didn't feel like writing or was just too busy, and a couple of month long stays in the hospital trying to die with blood clots in various parts of my body (and the three month time in the spring of 2007 when I thought I wanted to quit blogging), I've been pretty consistent in recording my attitude and thoughts here in a public forum for all of the world to view if they happen to stop by intentionally or by accident.

I don't write to get a high volume of internet traffic and I don't try to make money blogging, thus the reason you don't see any ads and pop-up banners here on my site.

I write for fun and to stay sane (if anyone could in any way describe me as being lucid) and I write knowing that when I'm long gone from this planet that some of the crap that ends up here will survive and possibly in one hundred years people will stop by and know some crazy guy (that would be me) once lived and breathed and wandered around in the world doing the stuff I've done and written the stuff I've said here.

And for me, that's all I've attempted to get out of this process.

And I hope I've brought a smile to a few peoples' faces and pissed a few people off that deserved it.

And as I said in my subtitle...I hope it's been as much fun for you as it has for me.

Oops

That's Gonna Leave A Scar...




Ouch...

(and thanks Rodge)