Tuesday, October 31, 2006

My Opinion






John Kerry is an ASS!!!






Edit: 28MAY08 - Thought I'd better add why...


Just in case the video disappears some day, the quote is;

"You know, education, if you make the most of it, if you study hard and you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, uh, you, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq.”

Just incase you forgot my opinion....




John Kerry is an ASS!!!





Procrastination 101

I still haven’t finished the water heater… It’s not leaking, why should I ‘fix” it more?

There are so many things around my house that I need to do. Some just finish, others need starting. Drywall the garage, clean up the basement, but away the deck furniture, cut the grass one last time, winterize the RV, fix a leak in the RV, sell the RV…

“We Are What We Are Because Of Where We Were When” – This was the title of a psychology class I took in college. It is almost scary how true it is. I believe a lot of ones habits and traits are built from childhood and young teen experiences. Then re-enforced as one ages by the paths we choose. And we choose these paths because they are comfortable. Thus cementing the traits we have learned.

I took a Static Motion class in college where the Prof required all of the home work to be turned in at the final, you didn’t have to come to class, there were no quizzes, only a final and home work, all due on the same (last) day.

What in ones past leans them toward procrastination as a personality trait?

PS: Any one want to by and RV??

Saturday, October 28, 2006

Plumbing - The Joys of Home Ownership

I hate messing with plumbing issues in my house. The only thing I hate worse than fixing plumbing issues is paying someone else $75 an hour to do it. (guess that makes me a tight wad)

In the past, among other things, I tried fixing a leaky bath tub faucet. Everything went ok at first. (I think I "worked” on this faucet 6 times in the 10 years we lived in that house) I took the faucet apart. Found the faulty seal. Put it back together.

Now it's unavoidable when I "fix" something that I have to get a new tool or another part. Never mind that I have a tool box in the garage that is about 6 feet tall and full of everything you can imagine… for some reason, I’m always missing something. (I think that fact is more frustrating for my wife than it is for me)

So, like I said, I finally put everything back together and tada. It worked. Almost. Kinda. It was ok when I checked it. But the next morning when my wife took a shower it was leaking worse than before (awe $h!t). So, I try again. Did I mention that this was a tiled bath/shower… so this time the tile starts coming off. A lot of it. It seems to all be loose. Every time I take one off the next one rattles and basically falls off too. By the time I’m done, I’ve removed 80% of the tile, removed the entire faucet assembly, cut the pipe that runs up the wall to the shower head, replaced two 4 foot sections of wall stud that had rotted from years of leakage AND cut a hole in the wall in the laundry room so I can get to the back of the whole mess. This only took about 2 weeks, at which time the whole family was restricted to baths only (yuck).

I tell you all of that to tell you this; my hot water heater started leaking last week. (great, now what else is going to fall apart when I touch the water heater). It looks rather straight forward (that’s the way all of my BIG projects start). The high pressure valve is leaking, it just screws into place. No big deal. But there is a pipe soldered to it that prevents it from unscrewing. Great, now what. Un solder the pipe, ok heat it up (which seems to take forever), it breaks loose. But not before two labels on the hot water heater melt and a rubber gasket melts and catches fire. (gawd I hope the smoke detectors don’t go off). The paint on the water heater is scorched brown now too. (it adds character…) It’s all back together and working (gas is back on, water is hot, nothing is leaking) except for the long pipe. I have to (you guessed it) go get another part… Tomorrow is Sunday, I hope the hardware stores are open.

Friday, October 27, 2006

Linkage

Mrs. Goldbloom - Thanks for the link.

Now to come up with something folks want to read...

8 Days and Counting

I’ve been blogging for 8 days now.
I’ve posted 6 times (not counting this one)
43 hits (seeded by 1,234, I can’t stand starting at 0)
77 page views

Doesn’t seem bad to me.

Guess I'm here to stay.

DNR

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

From My Weekend

Found this on the Internet today. This is what I did this weekend. It was about 37° F, 60 mph head winds and 20-30mph cross winds. But, I’d do it all again to welcome home a single Hero. Little lone a whole Company!!

PS: I’m in the pictures…

Honoring the 738th

The city of Monticello welcomed home members of the 738th Area Support Medical Company, which recently completed a yearlong deployment in Iraq , with a parade and ceremony Sunday.

Photo Galleries
http://www.jconline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/tngallery?Avis=BY&Dato=20061023&Kategori=NEWS&Lopenr=610220801&Ref=PH

Monday, October 23, 2006

You Want it When??!!??

What is it with sales scum asking for things a couple hours before they need it?? I forget deadlines more than most people, but when it’s crunch time, I always tell the person I’m dumping on that I dropped the ball and need their help. Does anybody really believe that a customer needs something in 2 hours, when all of our other projects take 6 – 18 months…? Do sales dweebs really think engineers believe that the customer is demanding an answer in 2 hours???

If you’re in sales, we don’t. Not for a minute. We believe you forgot, dropped that ball, didn’t write yourself a note, drank too much on the golf course, whatever. I’ll bet this is 90% of the reason for the hostilities between most sales departments and engineering departments.

So, at about 4:00, I get an e-mail from this “dweeb”, needing an answer by 5:00. OK, look like about 6 hours of work (which, in a technical position means 2 days. I am always interrupted by questions on “can we do this…”, “What happens if we…?”, which can almost fill an 8 hour day researching and discussing). I whipped something out just now, 6 hours of work in less than 2 hours. What a dumb a$$. I’ve gone back and looked at it… Jeesh, type-o’s, things not aligned right, what a freak’n mess. Shouldn’t have done it…

We technical folks also seem to me a bit anal about our work.

I hate being that rushed.

Any body else?

Friday, October 20, 2006

God Bless Our Solders

Prayers are needed for LCPL Joshua Ryan Bleill. See his sisters blog about him here --> http://joshbleill.blogspot.com/

In her 1500 hrs 20OCT06 post she relays another neat “The world through a childs eyes" story.

Kid Genius

So last week some time me and ACR (the youngest son) were at the “toxic smell” place for a quick dinner and I overheard a tri-cycle motor next to us discussing a sign on the windows. It went something like this.

Kid: Mom, that sign is wrong.
Mom: What sign honey?
Kid: On the window, I know what the meal between dinner and breakfast is…
Mom: What is it?
Genius Kid: It’s 2 not 4, it’s lunch.

OMG!!! The kid is right!!! This absolutely incredible clear thought was 1000% correct. We, like the lemurs we are, follow the lead of commercials and never give it a second thought. Sometime seeing the world through the eyes of a child is amazing.

I was too wrapped up in my own amazement to hear how the mom handled this. Hopefully it was with encouragement. ‘Out of the Box’ thought like this is very hard to find in today’s world.

Thursday, October 19, 2006

The Dazd Update Network

I spoke to Dazd last night. Well, we texted (that’s weird, what is the past tense of texting someone…?). Last night was our class with the rambling scramble brain and I had to tell him how much fun he was missing.

Anyway, he says he is fine, just fighting a little writers block right now. Maybe the last stint went into the wrong place…

Respect - DNR

Is this thing on…..

Is anybody out there???