Living In Computer Hell

Where's My Really Big Hammer?


Have I mentioned that I live in a household with two adult humans, one tiny little long haired miniature Dachshund going by the alias of "Missy...the Turbo Pup", and...

FOUR COMPUTERS?

ok...six computers if you count the back up scraps laying around in various stages of construction, and EIGHT computers if you count the two PLC's (Programmable Logic Controllers) sitting in my shop right now.

Any way...

Only one of the machines is acting completely sane right now--Pat's corporate machine--on which I only handle the Internet and networking operations there of because her company does the security and VPN work remotely.

Then there is my old HP 17" laptop which has been relegated to the workshop and that's served me well over the past four or five years before I bought the "server PC" which currently occupies space in my office upstairs.

Since the "Server PC" has lost it's mind over the past couple of days and I've been wrestling with getting it converted backwards from Windows Vista to Windows XP Professional, a little Dell laptop that I rebuilt has served my needs in working a few feet from the sofa and my bedroom when I'm too lazy to walk down stairs to the shop.

So any way...with my menagerie of machines sitting around here I have more problems with computers farting and belching and barfing right now than any single human should have to put up with, and in my old age and chronological incompetence having lost the urge to stay on top of every single detail and development in the computer business (I let my subscriptions to Byte Magazine and PC World expire long ago) I'm not sure if I can weather the storm before me.

Right now I'm about ready to gather everything up, put it in a pile in my wheelbarrow, and haul it all outside to the compost heap.

I guess if it was easy everyone would be doing it, but managing a real network of computers designed to do something besides blog and goof around on Facebook and Twitter is a damn hard proposition from my perspective.

WhuaaaaaatttT?

"If Thy Right Hand Offend Thee..."


OK, Now I have Windows 2000 professional on a computer (formerly a Vista robot) that won't recognize the internal sound card to make beeping and burping sounds, and even more aggravating is that it doesn't have an Ethernet connection or any other network connections because it wants to go to the Internet to download the drivers but it needs the drivers to go to the Internet.

Or in layman's terms...

"now I can't get to the Internet without going to the Internet to get the stuff I need to go to the Internet."

Somebody better come collect my sharp knives...

...and it's a good thing I don't own a bridge or the Eiffel tower else I'd be considering jumping off of something right now.

Dangit...

"Out Damned Spot...Out I Say"

I Gave Myself A "Digital Enema?"


As my regular (and irregular) readers know by now, I've been suffering with the Cancer known as "Windows Vista" on what I laughingly call our "Server PC" since I let HP build us a custom machine in late 2007 and ship it down to our little Island on the Georgia Coast.

Giant hard drives and 22" monitors aside, the so-called Vista "operating system" delivered by Bill Gates et. al. at Microsoft, in my considered Redneck opinion...

TOTALLY SUCKS.

Not only does Vista TOTALLY SUCK, but it TOTALLY SUCKS harder than the gravitational forces of the largest black hole in the entire freaking universe/solar system/infinity.

All of that blithering aside, our so-called "server PC" finally coughed up a liver and a spleen and possibly a couple of kidneys yesterday afternoon and evening, and I ended up having to sit through doing a "restore your PC to Factory conditions" ritual complete with incense and sitting cross legged naked in the floor on the skins of a Bear and Cougar bowing down in front of a human skull with a burning candle sticking out of the top....

and when I got done with the process a week a couple of hours later I realized that AutoCAD and PhotoShop and my Microsoft Office Suite and my TV receiver card software and my Cannon Digital Camera software and EVERY F**KING THING I had installed since buying the computer was...

G O N E.

Fortunately I have an external back up copy of all of the data files, but it is a few weeks old because I was intending to move the 500 GB drive down to the laptop in the shop and never got around to it so Norton is a little behind on my archiving.

But any way...

As I set there looking at the then "restored" computer that was now dumb as a brick and asking to connect to the Internet with America On Line's free trial services, a little tiny light bulb lit up in my ever greying, ever balding head.

What began as a little trickle of thought rapidly surged to a torrent of emotion, verily a tidal wave of sparks and lightning bolts of mental electrical currents, as I had the liberating experience of realizing that I was now free to break the shackles, rend the bonds, and struggle free from the slimy mucous dripping grasp of the Microsoft Vista Home "Premium Edition" and crawl on my knees back to my beloved Windows XP Professional haven of safety and digital security.

I owned a legal copy of the Windows XP Professional 2002 edition which I had bought in my efforts to restore the little Dell laptop Pat's company abandoned in our posession when the hard drive failed back in 2006 (and on which I'm blogging right now beside the sick former Vista machine), and when I purchased a new hard drive I also bought an OEM copy of XP on E-Bay for something like $99 and I still had one legal install available.

So you know what I did?

I flushed Vista down the toilet without a second thought and within the next day or two, after a few dozen hours of work and a littany of curse words, I will hopefully have a squeeky clean Server PC running XP Professional, with AutoCAD and Photo Shop and my other programs all residing comfortably in a new and improved directory structure.

Companies producing crap like "Vista" which is so obviously flawed that they have to deliver the next generation of software and change the name (Windows 7) in hopes of keeping idiots from knowing it's the same thing slightly modified would be stoned to death in Iran/Iraq or Afghanistan, but here in the By-God United States of 'Merica their biggest fear is being called up before the Senate for a "hearing."

And on that note, I'm "hearing" my Server PC calling wanting me to push the "next" button and keep on installing software.

Regards Y'all...

Ebonics Translator Jobs?

Channeling Your Inner Negro...

This story is really too much by it's self, so I'll withhold any commentary and just let is stand here on its own.

Click on the link and see the news about the US Justice Department wanting to hire people to translate the language used in surveillance tapes:

http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/bizarre/justice-department-seeks-ebonics-experts


I first saw the story last night on Drudge and somehow avoided writing about it, but then my blog Buddy Rodger over at Curmudgeonly & Skeptical picked up the item and went a step further, finding this on-line "Ebonics Translator" which could save the government idiots a few taxpayer dollars in the process.

Type in some phrases and sit back and laugh at the results...





I like the conversion of the phrases "Where is my calculator?" and "I forget how the toilet flushes"


Heh...

Why I Didn't They Apparently Vote Democrat

Couldn't Have Said It Better Myself...


10. I voted Democrat because I believe oil companies' profits of 4% on a gallon of gas are obscene but the government taxing the same gallon of gas at 15% isn't.

9. I voted Democrat because I believe the government will do a better job of spending the money I earn than I would.

8. I voted Democrat because Freedom of speech is fine as long as nobody is offended by it.

7. I voted Democrat because I'm way too irresponsible to own a gun, and I know that my local police are all I need to protect me from murderers and thieves.

6. I voted Democrat because I believe that people who can't tell us if it will rain on Friday can tell us that the polar ice caps will melt away in ten years if I don't start driving a Prius.

5. I voted Democrat because I'm not concerned about the slaughter of millions of babies through abortion so long as we keep all death row inmates alive.

4. I voted Democrat because I think illegal aliens have a right to free health care, education, and Social Security benefits.

3. I voted Democrat because I believe that business should not be allowed to make profits for themselves. They need to break even and give the rest away to the government for redistribution as the democrats see fit.

2. I voted Democrat because I believe liberal judges need to rewrite the Constitution every few days to suit some fringe kooks who would never get their agendas past the voters.

1. I voted Democrat because my head is so firmly planted up my ass that it is unlikely that I'll ever have another point of view.


Thanks Rodge

My Attention Deficit Disorder

Like I Don't Already Have Enough To Do...


So we were sitting around at dinner a couple of weeks ago and my neighbor told me that they wanted to add a sun room addition on the back of their house.

Then one thing lead to another and I got my tape measure out and fired up AutoCAD and the next thing you know he's going down to the Knox County building permit office later this morning with SEVEN SHEETS of drawings including these two elevations I produced...





I love doing Architecture almost as much I enjoy Injuneering, but now it's time to get back to some paying work I guess...

Y'all have a LOVELY Monday...

Cats

Good Intentions...Gone Bad...






(Thanks for the link Rodge)

Trash Talking On Sunday Morning

Read My Lips...


I've pretty much had it up to here, Ladies and Gentlemen (pointing to the top of my ever greying, ever balding head), with BS news stories about " waist waste recycling."

For instance...consider this news story about the idiots in government up in Cleveland, Ohio putting in "high tech" trash cans.

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- It would be a stretch to say that Big Brother will hang out in Clevelanders' trash cans, but the city plans to sort through curbside trash to make sure residents are recycling -- and fine them $100 if they don't.

The move is part of a high-tech collection system the city will roll out next year with new trash and recycling carts embedded with radio frequency identification chips and bar codes.

The chips will allow city workers to monitor how often residents roll carts to the curb for collection. If a chip show a recyclable cart hasn't been brought to the curb in weeks, a trash supervisor will sort through the trash for recyclables.

Yeah, I can't wait to turn in my two weeks notice to quit my job as a professional Prison Guard, Tollbooth Fee Collector, or Interstate Rest Area Toilet Maintenance Technician and apply for the position of "Trash Supervisor" in Cleveland so I can spend my days sorting around in batches of used feminine hygiene products intermixed with poopie baby diapers and banana peels looking for un-recycled plastic water bottles and diet soda cans.

Boys and Girls, shit stories like this (excuse the pun) are a PERFECT example of not only the stupidity of government "officials", but also the inability of the so-called professionals in the lamestream media to do an accurate, serious, analytical analysis (heavy on the anal) of any given story.

Therefore the task of breaking this story down to understandable terms is left up to I (as in Me and Myself), your lovely and talented Internet Blogger, to tell you how much sense this whole program makes and how the government of Cleveland ill-advisedly spends their hard earned taxpayer's money in their quest to appear to be a "Green City."

First let's look at the cost of the "high tech" garbage cans they call "carts."

Doing the math, $2,500,000.00 for 25,000 carts equals $100 per cart.

OK? So good so far.

Next, they say that the city pays $30 per ton to put trash in the landfill, where they "earn" $26 per ton for "recyclables" they collect and deposit somewhere.

They also say that the 15,000 "smart carts" last year saved 5,800 tons of material from going to the landfill.

That's 0.387 tons of recyclables per household every 12 months, yielding a savings of $10.05 per cart PER YEAR ($21.65 per year if you include the total avoided landfill costs.)

And nowhere does anyone mention the administrative costs of of managing and operating the tracking and enforcement arm of the system on a day to day basis.

I guarandamntee you that there will be at least 30 Government employees making an average of $50,000 per year involved in issuing "tickets" and "citations" and running around digging through fetid piles of used Tampons and empty beer cans...

so you have to include the $1,500,000 per year administrative costs to the program and...

Anyone else see where I'm going here?

This system is NEVER, ever, EVER going to yield a realistic return on the investment.

And by adding 25,000 new "smart carts" to the system each year it will take them until 2015 to get everybody into the program, and if Herbie Curbies "Smart Carts" follow the path of abuse that local grocer shopping carts have to live through the replacement of lost and stolen carts will further drive the program's value into the basement.

But Owl Gore and all of his sniveling, booger eating, tree hugging, tie died, patchoouli stinking, eco-friendly, Mother earth loving, Global Warming fearing commie socialistic progressive democrats will smile and nod knowingly because we're all just a little bit better off than we were yesterday as a result of the City of Clevelands good faith efforts at "going Green."

Now you will have to excuse me while I go dunk my head in a cooler full of ice water before it explodes....

Wrandom Wramblings And Curmudgeonly Cogitations...

Getting My Part-Time Bitchin' Career Out Of Moth Balls...


So I see where the President and "First Lady" are heading off on another vacation to Martha's Vineyard.

Ten days this time.

You know what?

I don't really care if Obamarama, the professional community organizer come Prezbo, is on vacation, because when he's on vacation he can't screw anything up (as long as he keeps his stupid yap closed and locks Biden in a closet in the White House for the duration), and since the US Congress is also on vacation that means that my wallet is safe for another few weeks before the idiocy and spending of other peoples' money resumes.

You know what else?

I'd be willing to let the president and the whole damn congress fly off somewhere on Air Force One and in a fleet of Gulfstreams to parts unknown and not come back until January 2nd, 2011.

I figure that would save the taxpayers two or three TRILLION DOLLARS in the process and I wouldn't have to watch the news and wipe the spittle off my chin and computer screen as a result of listening to that silly hippy bitch Nasty Pelosi talk about the "progressive" topic du jour.

On the local injuneering front, I'm in the process of firing a couple of vendors as a result of their ineptitude this week, basically costing me five days waiting on them to do nothing but delay my progress.

How can you talk on the telephone for an hour on Monday with a "Customer Support" person, fill out a "Material Return Authorization" form, and then find out on Thursday afternoon that they have done ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to follow up on their offer to replace the defective sensors I have in my shop?

It all defies logic, and I'm stuck dead in the water until I receive new sensors because the ones I have don't work for some reason.

I'm ready to just go buy a big bottle of Vodka, a couple of cans of Pineapple, Orange, and Cranberry juice, some Ice, and an Intravenous bottle with a large bore IV needle and go on vacation my self...

Without leaving the farm Turbo Pup Compound.

Is it just ME???

1970's Saturday Night Live Clip

Blast From My Past To YOU...


Everyone over the age of about 45 probably remembers seeing this clip of Jane Curtain and Dan Aykroyd live when it first aired in about 1976...




(and while you're at it, when you have the time...check out Dan's new "Crystal Head" Vodka bottle design...)





My local package store has several in stock...I just haven't ponyed up $50 for a half liter of clear liquor yet.


Heh...

Someone Crushed My Toilet Paper...

Middle Aged Consumer "Quality Control" Issues


OK...dangit...somebody has apparently been squeezing my Charmin Scott TP.

I've had it up to here (pointing to the top of my ever greying, ever balding head) with coming home from CVS or Eckerds or Big Lots with my monthly load of four big bails of toilet paper on sale for half price, only to find when I open the package and mount said toilet paper on the little "roller thingie" (conveniently located where I have to stand up to reach it behind my left shoulder...

when I pull on my toilet paper roll--mounted so the paper comes off OVER rather than UNDER--(because only Democrats and Georgia/LSU graduates mount toilet paper any other way...)

When I pull on my toilet paper in order to dispense it for use...

it wobbles and bangs and goes "ker-thunka-ka-thunka" or even locks up thereby only giving me a single sheet sufficient to wipe the spit from my mouth or a tear from my eye...

...because that little cardboard tube on the inside of the roll has been crushed nearly flat due to mishandling or outright vandalism.

Thus I have two solutions to this problem this afternoon ladies and gentlemen.

The first would be a steel or aluminum or possibly carbon fiber tube designed to slide inside the aforementioned crushed cardboard tube in the toilet paper roll, thereby yielding a smooth and satisfying delivery of this restroom necessity.

Heck, If I had my way I'd mount the whole thing on super lubricated ball bearings and one single tug would result in the entire roll spinning off of the roller into the floor if you weren't paying attention.

Then the second idea is this...




A roll of toilet paper designed to last at least a month which is so inherently strong that during shipment or storage on store shelves it could not possibly be damaged so as to perform in a manner in my home while not delivering any "ker-thunka-ka-thunka" type sounds.

I know many people out there are as excited as I am with these new developments, and I'll let you know as soon as possible when one or both products are available on Amazon.com.






Heh...

"Those Voices Don't Speak For The Rest Of Us..."

Where Are Men (And Women) Like President Reagan When We Need Them?





It's frightening how words spoken almost fifty years ago ring so true when listening to the "Enlightened" Progressive Democrats blitherings today.

I Want One...

Mercedes SLS Gull Wing






Unfortunately I'm a couple of dollars short of the $200,000 price tag...but still...

Hummingbirds

Nature's Little Wonders...


I have to admit that until we moved down to St. Simons Island in 2003 I didn't know much about Hummingbirds other than they were out there in exotic locations like the Bahamas and Jamaica...because I had actually seen them down there.

Then on a whim while wandering around the local Ace Hardware I bought our first "Hummingbird feeder" and within a few weeks my eyes were opened to an entire new world occupied by these little amazing flying bundles of feathers and energy.

Today we maintain two feeders--one on the front porch and one in the back yard outside the kitchen window--and we enjoy the hilarious antics of the Ruby Throated hummers and an occasional few other species from about April to October each year.

That said, take a look at this short video clip of a new film shown on PBS about Hummers:



There are infinite websites now on the Internet giving information on the different birds indigenous to North America, and I've actually caught and held in my bare hand an errant bird which got trapped in my Mom's garage a few years ago.

If you've never had a hummingbird feeder you are missing a real treat.

We constantly laugh at their antics as the rival clans of birds put on aerial shows featuring daily "dog-fights" over dominance of our feeders, and we probably use as much sugar feeding our little clan of birds as we use cooking for humans in our kitchen.

Simple things...you know?

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)

I Brined My Butt

Now I Need Help Rubbing And Roasting It...Anyone Interested?


OK...Not Really.

I've actually already brined it and rubbed it and now it's laying out on the grill over a pan of water cooking in indirect heat.

MY (Boston) BUTT...that is...

If you want to know how to brine and rub YOUR BUTT...go over HERE to my other blog--"The Redneck Gourmet" and see how many times I can write the word "Butt" in a single recipe.

Time to go check on my Butt now I guess...


Heh

Another "Working" Weekend

The Fruits Of Procrastination And Poor Planning...


Sorry for not posting yesterday, but I had a building full of people here for part of the day at the Turbopup Compound a.k.a. my company's International Headquarters.

And as a result I was up at 4 AM finishing presentation materials and sprucing things up---putting away the Turbo Pup toys and cleaning out the kitchen sink (because you can see it from the dining room conference room table.

The good news is that my ideas were well received, and with any luck after a little polishing I'll have a portable version of my new prototype panel in the hands of my sales partner company by the end of this month.

In the mean time I have three more pneumatic valves to get out the door this week and of course the never ending PLC project is wrapping up and going into a cardboard box before we head out on the road to spend a long weekend in the Pittsburgh, PA area for a wedding celebration.

I walked outside just now and found the weather to be refreshingly cooler this morning, and looking at the NOAA weather website it looks like we have a real nice pool weekend coming up so Pat and Missy the Turbo Pup will have something to do while I have my head stuck in the shop and in front of the computer screen.

I hope Y'all have a LOVELY (and productive if need be) weekend also...

Too Tired To Complain (Much)

Mental Funk Continues...


It's a rare event when I can't figure out how to do something.

OK...

Open heart surgery, building a manned spacecraft...

I don't do much of that kind of stuff these days, but still.

I've got a few little bitty details to work out still on the latest PLC panel and just like every engineering project, it seems that the last 5% of any given project takes 95% of the time and effort to complete.

That rule is certainly true in my basement these days.

There's plenty of crap going on out there in the news and in the world that makes my ever greying, ever balding head spin (at near orbital rotational velocity), but in an effort to stay focused I've declined to comment.

Let's face it, ladies and gentlemen. We live in a society of people today many of which have lost track of what it means to be an American.

At least an American in the sense of the America I grew up in in the 1960's and 1970's.

If President Kennedy were alive today and he made a speech challenging America to build a spacecraft from scratch and fly to the moon by the end of the decade, you know what?

I don't believe that we could do it.

Again.

Not because we lack the academic acumen to do the work, but because we lack the resolve and political climate to accomplish the task again.

And that's sad.

Very SAD.

Eat My Dust

YOUR Government Has Lost It's Mind...


Crap like this just makes me crazy.

Did you know that the Imperial Federal Government of the United By-God States of 'Merica, via the Environmental Protection Agency, is considering regulating "Farm Dust" ?


OKLAHOMA CITY -- The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is considering a crackdown on farm dust, so senators have signed a letter addressing their concerns on the possible regulations.

The letter dated July 23 to the EPA states, "If approved, would establish the most stringent and unparalleled regulation of dust in our nation's history." It further states, "We respect efforts for a clean and healthy environment, but not at the expense of common sense. These identified levels will be extremely burdensome for farmers and livestock producers to attain. Whether its livestock kicking up dust, soybeans being combined on a dry day in the fall, or driving a car down the gravel road, dust is a naturally occurring event."

It's not like that these idiots that can't run a letter delivery system and make a profit (US Postal Service)don't have plenty of important things to worry about.

Things that matter like Radon Gas in your basement or the Ozone Hole or leaking oil wells in the Gulf of Mexico, but these stupid wild eyed suckers are spending time out running around looking for NEW STUFF to regulate.

But Farm Dust?

FARM DUST?

I guess they can add that to the list of crap the sniveling, booger eating, tie died, patchouli stinking hippies have to protest and worry about along with cows belching and farting and odors coming from chicken shit stored on chicken farms.

I swear to God People, if you go out in November and vote to put most of our elected idiots back in office (or worse yet you don't vote at all) you deserve to get a ticket for driving down a dirt road kicking up a dust trail in the process.

I have to go now because my head hurts just thinking about this idocy.

Dead In The Water

Paralyzed With Indecision...


Dang it...I can't seem to get crap anything useful accomplished the past few days.

OK, I've got some paper work done and put together some pricing on a new product I'm developing, but tangible, paying, work production has been limited.

And I'm going to get my tail in a crack shortly if I don't get this PLC panel out the door this week, but my head just isn't into the process right now for some reason.

Every thing's installed and working...sort of...but the fine tuning process is tedious and I still have to finish up the users' manual and working on stuff like this solo just further complicates things.

Owning the business, I can pretty much do whatever I want to do without having to deal with a "committee"...it's just figuring out what exactly to do that's the problem sometimes.

For instance, I suggest that you don't do anything like this...



That's hilarious, and I think I'll go do some laundry now...

I'm Your Huckleberry...Part Deaux

The Latest "Cone Of Death" Approaches...




...And the sniveling tie died patchouli stinking booger eaters rejoice...


I TOLD YOU SO...


(and you're welcome)

Let The Cape Verde Hurricane Season Begin...

My Head Already Hurts




So it's August 1st, and the "Cape Verde" part of the 2010 Hurricane season will be getting into full swing in the next couple of weeks.

Look forward to the Atlantic Trade winds, as they have for the past zillion years, delivering the waves of moisture which come off of the African Continent across the Atlantic and with some miraculous combination of upper level highs and low pressure systems we here in the Southeastern US and the Central American region will get to enjoy the results of the atmosphere redistributing the heat and moisture in the process.

And the sniveling tree hugging booger eater global warming fanatics will sit around in their tie died shirts stinking of Patchouli and chanting "Death to Bush and Cheney" and the talking weather heads will tell you that we're all doomed and in the mean time I'm here to tell you...

It's AUGUST people...

On and near the US Gulf Coast...

And the wind is going to blow and the rain is going to fall just like it has pretty much every F**king year for the last million years since the Good Lord created the planet.

So get over it...

...Dammit...

"Come To The USA"

Leave It To Ray Stevens To Say It...




Heh...

I'm Your Huckleberry

Rambling Commentary On World Events


Oh...where to start this morning?

I'm sort of wild eyed and a little grumpy because I'm going to work through the weekend getting things done I couldn't or didn't manage to do last week, so...

Should I write about the hilarious antics of the Niggras Negros Blacks African Americans members of the Congressional Black Caucus up in DC getting their sorry race baiting demagogue butts into ethics hearings?

Waters and Rangel should have been tossed out on their stupid black rear ends 20 years ago but because of their color no one was willing to call them on their illegal deeds without risking being called "racist".

As the old saying goes..."give an idiot enough rope and they will eventually hang themselves with it"...

Or maybe I'll write about General Motors...aka "Government Motors" getting all the Obamamaniacs astir with the introduction of a $41,000 electric car--the "Volt"--with the interior room to accommodate four midgets and a capability of going 40 MILES before having to fire up the gasoline engine and burn only premium gasoline for the next 300 plus miles.

And then of course since it's summer and it hasn't rained in LA since February, it's big news that most of southern California has burst into flame and is chasing people out of their homes and businesses while the idiot reporters in the newspapers and on the TV act like it's never ever happened before.

Or maybe I'll predict that in the next two weeks that 2 or 3 decent sized tropical events will occur in the Caribbean/Gulf of Mexico and every single person working at ABC/CBS/NBC/CNN/MSNBC and the ASSociated press will lose their minds and proclaim doom and gloom and death and destruction because of the Bush Tax Cuts causing Global Warming...and the storms will disproportionately affect minorities and women.

But then again, I'm busy and don't have time to tell you what I really think.

Y'all have a LOVELY Saturday.

Blogging For Blogging's Sake

Words Tumbling Out Onto The Keyboard...


I've got so much stuff going on around here these days I've missed my mid morning nap three of the past four days.

Today looks like it will be day five based on what I see looking at my "to-do" list.

I managed to get four more pneumatic valves out the door yesterday bringing this week's total to eight, and I have three more "master rebuilds" to do next week once the piston shafts come back from the chrome shop and are re-ground to tolerance.

And of course the new PLC panel is still snorting and banging around in the shop waiting on the final software revisions and...

you get my drift...

So I'm going to go now and finish reading the news and getting ready for another eight or ten hour day of beating my head against a computer screen.

Regards Y'all...

Ummmmmmmm...

Errrrrrrrrrr....


Sorry Ladies and Gentlemens, but I'm REAL busy.

Blog more later.

(If anyone knows about Photovoltaic Cells give me a ring.)

Eighty Eight Thousand...Eight Hundred And Eighty Eight Hits

Thanks For Reading


Click on the image for photographic evidence...

An International Dispute In My Basement?

15 Hour Days = No Blogging


Sorry for missing a day of blogging yesterday, but I have a good excuse involving "professional obligations." (and the people that know me in real life are laughing their rear ends off right now when I include "professional" in the same sentence with reference to myself.)

Any way, for some reason I went out in June and sold this touch screen PLC based sensor system which has to measure the temperature of a product on a production line moving past at a rate of as fast as 22,000 units per hour.

Yes, you heard me right ...TWENTY TWO THOUSAND PER HOUR.

Doing the math for those of you that went to FSU and UGA, that's a little over 6 times per SECOND that something comes flying past my two non-contact infrared temperature sensors. (Non contact IR Sensors are expensive...and that's all you need to know if you're not an injuneer.)

I'm using "non-contact" type sensors because obviously you can't actually touch something moving that fast to determine it's temperature because either you or it would get hurt in the process.

Got it?

Then to complicate things further, the customer's existing process is smart and can throttle it's speed downward by about 50% if things start backing up in packaging or somewhere else on the line, and this makes it hard to tell where the bad product my temperature sensors have detected is located afterward because my system is supposed to "kick" the offending product off the line before it gets mixed in with all of the other good product.

You might think that's a hard standard, but believe me it's even HARDER than you think at these speeds...particularly since you can't just guess how fast it's moving.

You have to KNOW...

Exactly.

Then, as my title suggests, I'm having trouble getting all of the sensors to get along because they're from different manufacturers.

But hey...all three are all built in Germany, and I thought that by default that they'd all speak the same language and all I needed was a good translator so that I could understand what they were saying and things would be good.

But NooooooOOOOOOO...

I'm not sure what it is...maybe the guys that designed my proximity sensors are fans of a different Rugby or Soccer team from the ones designing my IR sensors or something.

And my PLC was made here in the good old United By-God States of 'Merica (by non-union employees...I've been to the factory) and everyone knows how most Germans feel about Americans.

And with the switches and warning lights made in China and Taiwan and some of the other stuff made in Costa Rica, it almost seems like that for the past month I've had a regular United Nations Security Council sub-committee meeting going on in my shop inside a 16" x 20" x 8" steel box.

And apparently up until now, everybody gets to vote but ME.

I just spent about 22 hours over the past two days trying to "sprint to the finish line" on this project and late yesterday I think I had my final breakthrough on getting everyone to agree to work together and not pass any resolutions against the US and more specifically, anyone living here at the Turbo Pup Compound.

In the interest of diversity the Council demanded I get some woman's involvement into the process, so Pat looked at everything and was impressed and said it looked "cool".

And little Missy the Turbo Pup's a girl puppy, so I'm gonna hold her up to the front of the cabinet today and let her put a good puppy "snoogh" right in the middle of the touch screen.

Unfortunately I was unable to comply with the racial diversity part of their request because I don't know any African Americans here in Knoxtown with PLC programming skills.

I told them that the Chief plant electrician at my customer's facility is a very competent Black guy so the Chinese talked the Germans into letting me off the hook on that one.

So now, Ladies and Gentlemen, having explained where I've been for the past 48 hours, I'm going to collapse back into a coma for another two or three hours before getting back downstairs to make sure one group of parts hasn't started another war with the other groups.

Regards Y'all...

"Above Average" Hurricane Season?

Sniveling Global Warming Weenies Weep In Their Tofu...


I want to remind everyone that after eight weeks on the Hurricane calendar we've only had TWO named storms this season.

And here's the current forcast map:



Probably going to be an exciting August and September based on the law of averages, but still...

I Need An "Electronics Exorcist"

My Shop Is Haunted...


So I cooked bar-B-que ribs and fresh corn on the cob and new potatoes for dinner last night after basking on the deck like a lizard for most of the afternoon.

Smoked my last cigar and sweated on the newspaper did most of the crossword in the process, and I vaguely recall some Vodka in the form of "Seabreezes" crossing my lips once or twice...OK...maybe four or five times.

Then I collapsed into bed before dark but then by 3 AM I was half awake and puzzling over the final details of this stupid PLC programming exercise I'm going through.

I finally gave up sleeping any longer and stumbled down into the basement and by 5AM I had managed to go backwards to about where I was last Thursday.

For some reason the Laptop computer and the PLC got together and decided to barf up every time I tried to download my revised code saying there were errors in instructions I hadn't changed in over a week.

So I had to go back to Wednesday's version of the program and then reconstruct all of the code and screen edits I had done, and now at 8 AM I'm back to slightly ahead of where I started at 3 AM.

If you're not a programmer you can just think I'm sloppy or crazy, but the people out there that live working on the inner thought processes of all of the machines which we take for granted today know that many if not most are like spoiled "mentally challenged" children.

They don't know how to do anything and they spend most of their time unable to understand else just plain ignoring instructions on how to do whatever it is you're trying to get them to do.

I spend half my time ready to throw everything out in the yard and the other half celebrating some small victory which many times is only short lived.

Any way...my brain is fried for the time being...

...so I think it's time to go out while the temperature is still under 100 degrees and fire up the weed eater and wake up the neighbors early on a Sunday morning.

Regards Y'all...

Ashes To Ashes...Dust To Dust...

You Drink Good Beer Vodka...Your Pipes Won't Rust...


It's "Pool Time" this afternoon here at the Turbo Pup Compound.

It's too dang hot to do anything else except possibly sit inside in the AC, but I've been up since 3 AM working, then made a run to Staples and WalMart, dumped a bunch of cardboard and newspapers off at the recycling center, and cooked brunch.

All before 11:30 AM.

On a Saturday.

I pretty much treat every day on the calendar like it's Saturday AND a work day and then just get whatever I can done along the way.

The only difference between a real Saturday and a work day is that I can't find anyone to talk to on the telephone because all of the 9 to 5 working stiffs are at home hiding from the telephone and business concerns.

I can't and don't operate like that for some un-Godly reason.

It started out intentional but now it's so ingraned into my soul and spirit that I can't do things any other way.

I have an owner's/operations manual to finish writing and some programming tidbits to finish up and there's still a stack of pneumatic valves to finish up, but right now I want to go smoke the last cigar I have in the Humidor and read today's paper while baking on the deck.

Y'all have a LOVELY weekend...

I'm Half Way Making A Living...

Or Is it Making Half A Living?


Well Ladies and Gentlemen, I'm pleased to report that things have settled down a little this week finally here at the Turbo Pup Compound on the Banks of the Mighty Tennessee River.

We have the calendar schedule for the next couple of months pretty much worked out as of today, and between me pounding on the new PLC panel trying to teach it how to read three expensive non-contact sensors and time spent throwing pneumatic valve parts into a solvent bath I have a nice reasonable work load for most of the next week or so.

But then just when I get my Karma straightened out I have to wander into the dining room and sit at the table and screw around with tax forms for the State of Tennessee and the Imperial Federal Government of the United By-God States of 'Merica.

That's right, I have to close the books on the second quarter of 2010 and make sure I don't do anything wrong or fail to file some piece of paper which would cause the bureaucrats to come after me and my wallet.

It's a total bitch having to waste perfectly good time where I could be sleeping or goofing around doing nothing--or better yet making money--screwing around with government paperwork.

And you just wait until 2012 when one of the new hidden provisions of the "Obamacare" health care legislation kicks in and business start having to provide a 1099 Form to every single supplier that they spend over $600 in a calendar year.

I was just doing the math here and right now I'd have to write no less than a dozen forms and my company is only nine months old and we have no real employees (we have me and my partner as slaves) and we haven't billed $100K yet this year.

It's really unfortunate that we've gotten to the point where the stupid shitheads in the government treat most of the population as "subjects" and the higher earners as "income sources" these days.

People fall into two broad categories and generally vote "D" or "R" accordingly.

Either you are on the dole getting welfare and/or food stamps and/or WIC and/or Medicade and "earned income" credits--spending your life having kids you can't afford while living a lifestyle you can't support, else you're a member of the EVIL rich class of citizens who's job it is, according to the politicians and "social wellfare experts" to work their ass off and then send 30% to 39% of their largess to the government to fund their idiocy and vote buying "social programs."

For some strange reason--it's either genetic or just simple insanity--I keep aspiring to earn the sort of income which will put me in the government gun sights as a member of the "EVIL RICH."

I'd go have my head examined to see why I suffer from this affliction but I'd probably just break the Cat Scanner or MRI and then they'd send me a bill for that also.

So I just stay home and thrash around and write here on this blog...

Uncle Virgil's Protege

Driving A Firebird Rather Than A Camaro....


Here's some video of a friend/former college roomate's son doing the weekend drag racing thing over in North Carolina.



I did burnouts in front of the church at his parent's wedding in my firethorn red 1977 Camaro way back in 1981.

They say I wore off on him in some sort of demented way in the process....

Go figure?

I'm Over Run With Vegetables

"Garden Takes Over Knoxville Man's Property..."


I have to admit that, while I grew up visiting my Grandfather's farm every summer back in the 1960's and early 1970's, that doesn't make me a farmer any more that having attended a bunch of Atlanta Braves games makes me a professional Baseball Player.

I present this season's garden as evidence of my inability.

It's not that I'm not getting fruit and vegetables out of the dirt as a result of my efforts...

It's that the garden has literally taken over my back yard, and the areas where the garden isn't growing I've let the weeds get out of control so the whole thing looks like some sort of scene out of a Star Trek movie.

You know, the one where Mr. Spock dies and Kirk launches his body and this "Genesis Device" down to a barren planet and the planet grows into a lush rain forest and Mr. Spock comes back to life in the process.

I wish Mr. Spock (or Dr. Spock or Old McDonald) would show up here with a Weed Eater and a Hoe and help me get things under control.

I harvested a dozen tomatoes yesterday and a couple of cucumbers, so now I have about four dozen tomatoes laying around and a couple of dozen cucumbers waiting to be processed.

I eat tomatoes on cereal and peanut butter sandwiches these days to get rid of them and I've got funky jars of vinegar and spices I keep slicing cucumbers into to make quick pickles and I still can't keep up with the process.

My neighbors lock their doors and pull their curtains when they see me coming with a Kroger bag bulging with stuff.

All of this from about ten tomato plants and two cucumber vines.

And now my Japanese Eggplant and Squash are starting to come in and I'm actually afraid to walk out in the back yard because instead of just sitting around smoking a cigar and reading the paper I have to WORK when I get out there.

I was going to run the weed eater yesterday and try to knock some stuff down around the plants and a rain storm snuck up on me and it sprinkled on and off for most of the afternoon and by then it was too wet to work outside.

The Herb garden is also rocking and rolling and my Pumpkin and Watermelon vines are crawling all over the place and my pitiful little bell and sweet pepper plants are even starting to have near edible stuff on them and...

...you get my drift.

There's worse things to happen I guess than to have more stuff than you can freeze and eat...all from an ameteur farmer.

(Oh, by the way, the PLC panel is alive now and absorbing electricity and new software but still belching and farting a little yet, so it's time to go back to work I guess.)

My Brain Is Fried

Killing Me Softly...


So as my regular lurkers readers know, I've got this project going on in my basement laboratory which is kicking my butt right now.

It's not that it's so difficult building a single PLC panel, it's that I'm having to build the panel in a manner such that I can reproduce it again--EXACTLY-- in a couple of months.

Instead of just throwing a power supply and a surge suppression system and an uninterruptable battery back up system into a box with a touch screen PLC and a bunch or wires and DIN rail and terminal strips, I'm trying to in the process develop a whole new product line around the design making room for future options and as yet unknown variations.

I'm basically thinking six months to a year down the road on the calendar and the expandability and future uses are more work than the metal box of wire I'm spending twelve to fourteen hours a day looking at on my workbench.

A lot of people that are not an engineers think that we're all like "The Professor" on the TV show "Gilligan's Island" and that we know everything about anything by the time we finish four years (or in my case ten years full and part time) of college.

Not so.

I seem to forget that fact myself sometimes when I go out and write a proposal and then manage to get a purchase order for some monstrosity a customer wants to buy.

Thus yet again this morning I'm too mentally tired and lazy to write much of anything beyond what you see here.

Time for a nap I guess before getting up and doing it all over again I guess...

What Kind Of Conservative Are You?

I Knew It All Along...

My Conservative Identity:

You are an Anti-government Gunslinger, also known as a libertarian conservative or Tea Partier. You believe in smaller government, states’ rights, gun rights, and that, as Reagan once said, "The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’"

Take the quiz at
About.com Political Humor

Go here and take the test yourself...

Heh...

The Silence Of The Lambs Is Deafening

Got To Do The Work When The Work Needs Do'in...

Sorry I didn't write anything yesterday, but I have bad news, Ladies and Gentlemen...

We've had to cancel our long planned visit to lower Alabama next week because of so-called "professional" obligations.

Pat has to go to Chicago for the "kick off meeting" with a new medical client and I'm up to my ears in PLC Panel details and pneumatic valves, thus getting the Turbo Pup and her Lockers and Sea Chests loaded up and into the car around the revised schedule just isn't going to work out.

Dang it...

I can spend weeks on the calendar with little if nothing to do, and darn it if things won't come wandering in the door and screw everything up at the last minute.

This late summer delay is a perfect example.

Almost everyone else I know has taken a week vacation already, but me and Pat and the Turbo Pup have stayed home since Memorial Day.

Now we have planned and wanted to go south in the late summer, but now having to earn a living and the professional obligations associated therewith takes precedence over pleasure and family obligations for the time being.

Oh well...

Up To My Ears In Work

And I'm Leaving Town Soon...So I Have Real "Deadlines"?


I'm sitting here this morning looking at another shipment of eight fancy pneumatic valves which are in desperate need of rebuilding.

They arrived unexpectedly Saturday morning.

It's a good news/bad news sort of thing because now, in addition to trying to finish up the current PLC project before heading down to Lower Alabama for 10 days or so now I have to get the valves torn down, cleaned up, and rebuilt and back out the door in the process before Friday.

It's sad not having anything in the way of paying work to do, but I wish that my paying work would spread itself out a little such that I don't have to go from sitting around picking my nose and smoking cigars on the deck beside the Turbo Pup Pool to working my butt off and causing what's left of the hair on the top the back and sides of my ever greying, ever balding head from falling out in the process.

I see that the Sunday newspaper's here, so in my normal devil may care manner I'm going to go fire up a cigar and take a first look at the NY Times' crossword.

Regard's Y'all...

3 AM Cigar On The Sidewalk Front Porch Anyone?

Bring Your Pen And Crossword Puzzle And Meet Me There...


I'm just worn out from Injuneering most of the week and feeling so lazy this morning there should be some sort of a law against it, but I don't feel like going to the bed or sofa to nap right now.

I have a little wine buzz and a virgin crossword puzzle from today's newspaper which I never got to and there are at least another three or four cigars in my Humidor left over so...

I'm going out front to listen to some James Taylor music on the portable CD player and find a way to employ a cigar and crossword in a semi-useful fashion.

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

(Oh...and I hope Y'all have a LOVELY Saturday...)

While Not Playing Watching The British Open...

I'm Just Driving My Boat And Being Lazy...




Heh...

Congressional "Hearings"

I Think That These Idiots Mostly Have a Bad Case of "Hearing AIDS"


I've been meaning to mention this for a while now but by the time I wandered from the TV to the Fridge to refresh my drink and made it back to the computer keyboard I had forgotten half the things that I wanted to complain about...

and this morning I remembered it finally because Matt Drudge over at Drudge Report had a link to this story about the current Congressional Freak Show going on with the elected idiots calling the owners of private businesses--in this case Airlines--to Washington DC in order to question them about their pricing practices.


Let me say "THIS" about "THAT"...

("THAT" Being Congress having the audacity to once again try to tell managers and stockholders how to run their businesses)

I've spent a buttload of money and time flying on commercial aircraft since about 1978 right after they "deregulated" the US airlines.

When I started flying almost everyone took a bath and dressed up in a suit and tie before they came to the airport and every flight over the length of about 15 minutes included a three course meal and two martinis.

Just around then they had already "de-regulated" the airlines and under the auspices of President Jimmuh "smile when you say that" Carter it proceeded to become a strange new uncharted world in the airline industry.

Since then, just like riding on a NY Subway or a MARTA train in Atlanta or Amtrak or a Greyhound bus cross country, the lower fares offered by the airlines have resulted in the average business traveler being subjected to a large slice of humanity which many times should be sequestered living in a Circus Freak Show rather than flying along at 33,000 feet complaining because they had to pay extra to bring their Trampoline, Bong, Trombone and a box of rotting Organic Vegetables on board to stow in the overhead compartments for free.

And don't even get me started writing about having to sit beside a sweaty "super sized" man in a Addis Tank Top that oozes and overflows over my armrest and into the isle.

Here's the bottom line.

Jet aircraft cost money, and have limited range and capacity based on the weight and contents contained therein.

Further, flying said weight and contents and loading and unloading same costs airlines money in the form of fuel costs and wear and tear on the airframe.

It's just that simple.

Thus, in my considered Redneck opinion I don't mind walking up to the check in counter (fully clothed) with my laptop bag and boarding a plane for $xxx.xx while the person beside me hanging over the armrests smoking the bong, playing the Trombone, and jumping on the carry on Trampoline pays $50 or $100 extra for the service provided.

Likewise, when I board an airliner with a week worth of clothes and scuba gear in checked baggage and a case of duty free Jamaican Rum and a decorated Coconut in my carry on bag I don't consider it unreasonable to be charged extra for my presence between the upright seat backs and tray tables (I've done something similar to that a couple of times years ago.)

Everyone should just shut up and get over their government inspired beliefs that they now have a right to cheap air travel just like free healthcare and all of the other crap the Imperial Federal Government of the By-God United States of 'Merica wants to promise today.

The airlines are a business, and they have the right to fail or succeed based on the decisions of their management and their stockholders...

not the whims of some bald headed elected Congressional asshole listening to the whining of people that have the option of walking or riding a horse or driving or riding Greyhound or Amtrak to get to where ever it is they are going...

or how about them just staying home smoking their bong and jumping on their Trampoline and letting me enjoy my cheap flight.

Is it just Me?

Takin' The Morning Off Again Today...

I'm Playing In Watching The British Open


Here's a look at what I'd probably look like if I played golf...







Heh...

Life Is...

What You Make Of It I guess...


I'm sorry to say that I'm a bit short on words this morning.

Nothing really that serious by many people's standards or medical or anything like that, but I was slammed with a professional setback yesterday that has me once again having to re-evaluate my future.

AGAIN...

I'm getting too old for this stuff in a way, but then after owning four different corporations with two different business partners over the past 20 years I should know by now that no matter what...

Anything is possible.

Just like piloting an airplane solo (which I have) or sailing a ship solo offshore out of sight of land (which I have), when you start getting all comfortable and cozy and think you have things under control and you know what you're doing...WHAM...

Storm clouds pop up on the horizon and you have to make critical choices.

Turn back to port?

Try to go around the storm?

Or just maintain your course and heading and sail right through the rain and wind and waves and hail.

Right now I have the throttle wide open and I'm holding my course because I've come too far to turn back or change direction right now.

I just didn't have this situation on the radar until the past week and it's turned out to be a bumpy ride.

I'll get through it...wish me luck...if you will, and I'll be back here later with some more ranting and raving when I have the time.

New Underwear

Boxers Or Briefs?


So I was sitting here this morning looking at my "middle aged to-do" list.

By "middle aged" I don't mean anything like a "bucket list" where you write down the stuff you do before you die.

MY PERSONAL "middle aged to-do" list...something of my own creation every week or so...includes things like this (and I'm not making this up):

#1 Shave/Trim Beard

#2 Build 4 valves

#3 Pool Filter Parts

#4 Cut Tree off of Roof

#5 Underwear

#6 Cologne

#7 Black Ink Cartridge

There was some other personal and professional (or un-professional depending on your point of view) stuff on there I'm omitting this morning for the purposes of clarity and brevity and because I don't want anyone thinking "eewwwwwwww" but still...

Seriously...

I have deodorant, so don't be too afraid but I am out of Cologne right now and have been for several weeks.

Comes from being old and in a relationship I guess.

And I have underwear and some most of the time it's clean but right now ladies and gentlemen, if I were ever to be in an automobile accident or just have a stroke and drop down half dead in public, my MOTHER would be thinking she hadn't raised her son right due to the number of holes and the amount of elastic showing around the waistband ( or on underwear is it wasteband? ) on many of the pairs.

Wait a minute...changing the subject "briefly" (excuse the pun), but why is it a "pair" of underwear when if you are a man it's a single item?

I can see where a women might wear a "pair" of underwear (if she wore any at all) and that would be panties and a bra, but with men it's different, and I haven't gotten large enough yet in my ever growing girth to need or want to wear a bra and even if they start making "men's bras" I'll just go in for my first Tummy Tuck and get the discount breast reduction surgery option while I'm at it.

Got it? OK...back to my original train wreck of thought...so I'm out of Cologne and getting close to being short of inventory in the underwear department, but you know what else?

I absolutely hate going to the mall.

Further, I hate shopping for clothes in general. I don't even look at clothing sites on the Internet unless I have to.

I wish Home Depot and Lowe's sold more clothes (I bought a set of overalls from Home Depot.) so I could pick up potted plants and fertilizer and sixteen penny nails and a three pack of size 38 briefs in Home Depot Orange color and just be done with it.

And that brings up another thing...Is it against the law in Tennessee to have an integral "nail pouch" on underwear....wait no...we won't go there...never mind...

That was the only dang thing I really liked about being in the military was that if you would take care of them and wash and iron or send out to the dry cleaners the Navy would FIX YOU UP with some spiffy sets of clothes.

For FREE.

Underwear included.

And that White Dress Uniform like Richard Gere wore in "Officer and A Gentleman" would get most men ten dates in about five seconds from women they had never ever seen before in their entire lives.

Unfortunately I was such a skinny young dork at the time that my dorkdom more than offset the "chick magnet" factor of the Dress Whites but still...

So back to our story...I'm sitting here this morning procrastinating and avoiding going down into the shop where I should be working right now instead of blogging by making out my newest "middle aged to-do list" and trying to catch up, and dang it if cologne and underwear aren't still on this list just like the were when I wrote the last to-do list on June 16th.

Imagine that?

But you'll be happy to know that I did build the valves and I've shaved several times since then, and my printer will print things using black ink now.

Oh...and the tree is long gone off the roof.

But I swear to God that these day's if I don't write things down I've forgotten more stuff than many people ever knew, and I don't know what I know and that I know it unless I write it down.

If someone came to my house and stole my list(s) I'd probably be found a few weeks later, lost, and wandering somewhere in north Alabama looking for Boxer Shorts and some Old Spice.

Can anyone help me?

I hope this rant gives you a chuckle, and y'all have a LOVELY day now...if you will...(I got to go work on a PLC panel)

"Walkin' In Memphis"

New Karaoke Aspirations...


If you have about five minutes listen to Marc Cohn Sing one of my favorites...



I'm working on the song a few steps lower in key...and I'm gonna sing it in public one day but it's a tough one.

It Rained On My Garden

...And I'm One Happy Camper As A Result....


Just in case I haven't mentioned it here on the blog in detail, I come from a proud yet mixed heritage. A combination of rural southern dirt farmers, with a healthy dose of Appalachian coal miner thrown in for good measure.

For some reason I, personally, developed a bit of a useless, ne'er do well, gypsy, pirate beach-bum spirit along the way but by and large I can't blame my ancestors for my own lethargy.

My Mother's father, "Pa" Rushing, ended up owning a farm which encompassed a little over 350 acres by the end of WWII and on that farm--besides all of the stuff "Old McDonald" raised i.e. chickens and cows and hogs et.al.-- he also managed to feed himself and his wife and five children and make a small living in the process.

Four of the five children are still alive today with the youngest in his early 70's.

On the other hand, "PawPaw" Rogers was a coal miner from his early teens. First in Eastern Kentucky, and then later in Central West Virginia and finally at the end of his career in South Eastern Ohio. PawPaw raised three boys digging and managing the digging of coal...him being Virgil Sr. and my father being Virgil Jr. and I Virgil III, and regretably only one brother remains today with the loss of my father and one uncle.

(And I, thinking that I had perfected the product line in my youthful wisdom, broke the mold and elected to not reproduce...thus there is no Virgil number IV or V or XI or MCMXII)

...but I digress

I was standing in my kitchen this morning looking at a pile of Tomatoes and Squash and Cucumbers I had grown in my little garden when out of the blue it occurred to me that the commonality which connects each side of my family was and is our self sufficiency and making a living in a fundamental manner.

Pa Rushing took seeds and dirt and water and made fruit and vegetables and meat...enough to feed his family at each year with enough left over to at least buy the next season's seed.

Pawpaw Rogers went out and worked in almost every part of the process of digging Coal out of the ground (he was the Electrical Superintendent of the Mine when he retired) so it could be said again that his living and prosperity was attained from the EARTH...or at least the dirt within a few miles of the surface thereof.

And I think that revelation could explain somewhat what's wrong with much of American society today...white, black, yellow, red, and heavily tattooed and pierced...We've lost our connection with the earth.

The sniveling, booger eating, patchouli stinking tree huggers want to protect it (the earth), but they forget in the process that we're all going to end up taking something from it in the process of living if we all want to survive.

Things like...

Oil

Coal

Or how about the basic nutrients required to grow crops and livestock (and they don't want us making Fertilizer because they consider it poison)

And when our lives are over with...in biblical terms...we will die and return in a "ashes to ashes, dust to dust" manner to the earth (and the area within five square miles around where my ashes are spread will probably be declared off limits and an EPA superfund site.)

And the thing this morning which has in my considered Redneck opinion been taken by the liberal elites and professional do-gooders and the politicians from most of the innocent an less enlightened citizens--with the "Urbanization of America"--and which by default also from our society...

is the basic, spiritual, fundamental connection with our planet which gives you life and an inner peace...a peace which is missing from so many peoples lives today.

Seriously, I've had more fun planting and harvesting and eating the fruits of my garden this year than I could ever have had spending thousands and thousands of dollars on some "All inclusive" vacation or whatever. A new car has never ever made me feel the way I feel when I wander out each moring in my flip flops and turn the leaves of the Squash and Cucumber plants over and find something to eat.

And you just wait until I start showing pictures of my Watermellons.

Anyway..this morning I feel like I just might be a little bit better of a man today as a result, and I suggest that everybody that's not feeling right go out in play in the dirt if they need a cure.

Time will tell I guess...

I'm Tired Of People Hitting "Home Runs" At My Expense

Liberal Philanthropic Government Bullshit


I just saw Geraldo "Giant Stinky Mustache" Rivera saying on FOX News that the government was going to pay Jacee Dugard a giant compensation settlement of $20,000,000 because the "officials" botched the investigation of her imprisonment/disappearance at the hands of a idiot pervert sexual predator.

I'm sorry, and I feel sorry for everyone who has something like this happen, and people killed in the 9/11 World Trade Center bombing and now the Gulf Oil spill disaster, but this shit drives me crazy.

If I lose my job because of government ineptitude/market conditions because I'm selling saddles and buggy whips when everyone starts driving cars...I don't feel that I want or need to get a check.

If I have my head beat in in a Pizza Hut in 1979 the government doesn't have to come running to me with a cash settlement even though the City of Atlanta's inept police department can't do much of anything but prosecute murders after the fact and write parking and speeding tickets and arrest people for DUI after having consumed three glasses of wine.

If someone breaks into my home or car or trailer in college I don't go with my hand out expecting the government to hand me compensation for the event.

You do realize that the GOVERNMENT has NO MONEY?

They print it, but they don't own any of it until they take it away from someone and give it to someone else.

In other words, the only money the government has it steals from other people and distributes as it sees fit and based on popular opinion.

And one person killed or maimed is sad but unprofitable, but getting involved in a mass terrorist attack or assaulted by a pervert can apparently today be a very profitable profession.

Thus if you die in a car accident in 2001 you get no check consisting of taxpayer money, but if you have the misfortune of dieing when some wild eyed terrorists flings a commercial airliner into a building and you inhale a little smoke or if you manage to DIE your family hits the JACKPOT?

And then there was the double disaster of Katrina where people are still living on the government dole five years later and now this year if you are a fisherman or crabber or have a hotel or other business supported by tourism on the gulf coast you can run crying to the government and demand a payment...and BP's money isn't the only money being spent in the "compensation programs."

No way no how EVER can there not be taxpayer money involved in the administration of the oil spill "reparations."

People who live in Nevada and never saw a fishing boat in their life except on TV or the Movies will be cashing checks and going to gambling parlors and whorehouses using some of your and my money because the government in it's infinite Imperialistic wisdom doesn't have the ability to make toothpicks let alone distribute $20 billion without screwing up 30% of the process.

Using my money.

And now if you happen to be kidnapped by a known sexual predator and held hostage in the state of California...a state that is already widely known to already be BANKRUPT...you can reach a settlement where the inept government that is in the business of stealing hard working peoples' money and wasting it doing a crap job of law enforcement and worrying about the trans-fats in McDonald's Cheeseburgers and French Fries, win a prize and get $20,000,000 at taxpayer expense...

Not G O V E R N M E N T expense...DAMMIT.

Again I feel sorry for the girl, but TWENTY MILLION?

I guarandamntee you the girl wouldn't have probably earned $50K a year for the past ten years and now instead of $500K before taxes she gets TWENTY MILLION DOLLARS OF OTHER PEOPLES MONEY?

What a program...

Is there a list somewhere where I can sign up to be assaulted with a non lethal crime and then set and snivel and blubber my way into your wallet to the tune of thirty or forty times more than my life would be worth otherwise?

I'm old enought now to actually consider taking that option if it were available.

Is it just me?