Wasted Electrons

Jim over at Snooze Button Dreams has a post that will get your attention today; Good News, Bad News He and his lovely wife are buying a house. That's the good news. The bad news, he needs a new job.

He's in Atlanta I think and a computer programmer/network manager of some expertise if you could assist in finding him new work. 'Course he does use company time for blogging, which none of us would ever stoop to doing...

Nate 12:41 PM - [Link] |
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Heh heh heh! This should be fun. I just sent Possumdad Terry an email. It says this:

__ - - _-_ --- A _- ___ -__ A _-__ ___ --_ -_- A _-_- -_- --_ - -_-- A __ -_ _- -_ __- - -_- A --_ -__- --- _ -_ -- -_- --- A ---- -_ --- _- _ A -_- - -__- -_-- -_ _-_- - _-- A _-__ ___ --_ A A -__ -- _ ---- A --- ___ __ - A _-__ ___ --_ _- __- A _--- -_-- ___ _- _-- A -- _- _ - -_- _- A ---- -_ --- A ---- -

Suppose he will figure it out?

UPDATE: Possumdad's computer wasn't up to snuff to use all the features of the webpage and I went ahead and gave him the clear text. It says:

DEAR CHET HAVE YOU RETIRED? THERES BEEN NO MENTION OF YOU FOR SOME WEEKS. NOW YOUR CRUEL MANAGER UPSTAIRS HASNT REPLACED YOU WITH SOME YOUNG BLOND INTERN HAS HE?

Nate 9:41 AM - [Link] |
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10,000 BTUs of air chilling refrigeration are going on right now in my family room! And I am just now showered and sitting down for the first time since leaving work. The BSU had requested a room air conditioner in the family room a few weeks ago since it is the furthest room from the swamp cooler up on the roof. There hasn't been a pressing need because the weather has been mighty temperate for the past couple weeks. But it has warmed up this week, 85 on the way home today so I decided it was time to purchase and install an ac unit.

And she of course, agreed.

So off I went to Lowes this afternoon and I carried home a Whirlpool window unit. Its big enough that it should keep the temps under control for the entire basement. I also bought the heavy duty support brace and then headed home to do the "e-z" install.

Yeah, right... The instructions on both the ac unit and the brace were designed for folks with wood sash windows, not the steel framed, set in concrete windows that I have in my basement! Argh! It only took one extra trip to Home Depot and $10 for some heavy-duty concrete screws and the special drill bit to get the mount fastened to my window frame. And more than a little bit of cursing was applied to the task as well.

But I got it done and its running quite satisfactorily. I still need a quarter sheet of plywood to finish the job which I will get tomorrow and then everything will be tidy and secure.

The BSU likes the remote control feature!
Nate 10:20 PM - [Link] |
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Well that's interesting. Tonight on the Blog studio sign-in page there's a note from Wayne, the guy that runs the business here at Blog Studio. He was out of the country last week on paying business and there were multiple power outages wherever the BS home is. Wayne's apologetic and promising to get everything fixed up as soon as he's back on US time.

If my archives come back I will be very, very happy. Thanks for the update Wayne!
Nate 10:05 PM - [Link] |
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I found this tonight through Kevin Baker's Smallest Minority. You must read this if you work in any kind of office setting and I know both of you do work in offices. Don't skip the comments either, they're too funny! Sorry, You Forgot To Give Me A Lobotomy With My Nametag

"Er... nothing, really.... she said she's intimidated by you, because you talk about people and events that she knows nothing about, and she said it makes her feel stupid."

Me: "You're kidding, right?"

Intern: "We have to take it seriously, it's in the manual."

This has a liquids/monitor & keyboard interference alert!


Nate 10:10 PM - [Link] |
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Busy, busy day today. Who'd a thunk it anyway? I am down to just 4 aircraft that need to be modified for Night Vision capability and they of course are oddball jets that belong to the test community. Today I have just almost completely nailed down the funding to pay for their modifications. The funding gurus have their hands around it now and they assure me that everything will work out just fine. Right.

The bigger problem really is getting them scheduled into the hangar for the actual modifications. Since these jets each have individual modifications done to them its not as simple as simple substitutions of jets. The modification hangar's schedule must be ever so carefully aligned with the test jet's obligations and available dock space and mechanics to do the modifications. It is certainly a 5-ball juggling act and this portion of the job is still not finalized. But it will be soon. I think.

Onto other subjects, school starts again next week and this time I'm taking two classes! Algebra and Writing Strategies and Concepts. Algebra will be during lunchtime like my last class, the writing class is evenings, two nights per week. I had to write a placement essay today. My choice was to write a one page "final letter to my family" that would instill in them the values I wanted to leave them with. I titled it Don't Quit- and No Whining! I wonder what the instructor might think of that when they get around to reading it!

I also discovered today that much more of my previous AF coursework has been accepted and I am now listed as a sophomore with many more credits than were listed the last time I looked. That was a very pleasant surprise this afternoon.

Interestingly, I discovered through my referrer logs that my old archives are still hanging onto dear life on some server, somewhere because you can access them by going through a Google or Yahoo search. I can't access them through my archive search function but at least they are out there for somebody's reading enjoyment. Or something...

Anyway, time to go. Yesterday I ordered a replacement tail light lens for a 92 Chevy Cavalier- $155 including the governor's portion! That was just the lens BTW, not an entire housing. The BSU bumped into a perfectly good lens with the truck last week making into a busted lens and so I'm stuck making it right and replacing the busted parts. I would have gone junk yard hunting for this thing except that the dealer quoted me a price (incorrectly) of $56 and at that price it didn't pay to spend time hunting the yards. At $150+ it would have been better to find a used one but by then I was at the Chevy parts counter and the guy behind the counter was ready to get the part on the truck.

The Subie is just almost ready to get hauled off. I've got to get that coordinated this week too. Then I have to find a place to stash all the parts filling my trailer since I'm ready to use it for some flower bed building.

Geez, how long before this speed buzz dies off anyway?
Nate 3:43 PM - [Link] |
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AN ANNOUNCEMENT- Mom, avert your eyes.

Ok then. I'm not telling how I found this link but it discusses at length a subject that I've always been interested in. The Politics of Panties from FunctionalAmbivalent:

Panties are worming their way up the crack of our everyday lives. This is, I know, a terrible metaphor, but I go with my strengths. Women's underwear, once so top secret that it was hidden even from women themselves, is going public in a huge way. How public, you ask conveniently, propelling this amateurishly disjointed opening forward so that we can soon get to some jokes and smutty links? Very public. In fact, panties are going so public that they're becoming a threat to life as we know it.

and then there's this:

Somewhere in the early 1950s, scientists working on a secret government project discovered female orgasm. I'm not sure how it happened; maybe it was one of those civilian benefits of NASA research, like Tang. Anyway, this discovery changed completely how women viewed sex and, consequently, their own underwear. No longer was sex something to be avoided. Suddenly, sex was something to desire. In search of a way to get men's attention, women changed their whole approach to underwear. No longer did they see panties as clothing that simply contained what needed to be contained. Women recognized that the huge symbolic importance their underwear held for men -- something that had long annoyed women -- gave them power. By cleverly chosing different kinds of underwear, even if it came from France or Italy, they could manipulate and control men's minds. The object of this manipulation: To get men to pay more orgasm-related attention to women.

You might want to read it all. Or maybe not. It is Safe For Work though, no pictures or pop-ups.
Nate 9:14 PM - [Link] |
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Do you have any idea how difficult it is to remove an entire wiring harness from a modern automobile? Its not a job for the timid, I've learned that this weekend! It would be easy if you just wanted the wire for the sake of wire and you went nuts with the diagonal cutters. But if you're interested in saving the wires for reuse- its a big project. But I did it this weekend. The only wires left in the car are those that are in the doors. The only wires I cut were to the rear speakers and to the under-seat seatbelt warning connections. Everything else, (and that is a bunch of everything) was disconnected, tagged and carefully extricated.

But I have stripped this car right down, I doubt if the auto recyclers will even take it since I've removed so much from it. I've got a utility trailer full of pieces that I must decide if I can make any use of them or if I should EBay them or just scrap them. Its gonna take some sorting... Still got to get the steering column and the windshield wiper motor and arms out, then its off to the scrap pile for this car.

What else? Went to see Shrek II Saturday night with the BSU and the boy and his girl. Very good fun. Lots of laughs. Mostly not aimed at the small child audience though I suppose they are expected to like it just because its animated. The urchin that sat behind us didn't think much of it because he fussed and cried and carried on and did his best to interrupt our enjoyment of the movie. The obvious pokes at Disney were great fun and we all compared favorite jokes and sight gags over dinner at Village Inn afterwards.

Sheetrock. This weekend I reintroduced myself to sheetrock. What fun! There's been a hole in my house, just between where the kitchen and dining room join and where a small closet used to be. The BSU removed the closet during one of her manic periods a couple years ago in an attempt to open up the area between the kitchen and the living room. Her efforsts left me with a 52X32" hole in my ceiling with the insulation dangling down and an opening into the space where the chimney passes through the house. I've ignored this wide open, ugly gaping hole for a couple years now even though I bought the sheetrock last fall sometime. And this weekend I determined to get the holes closed up and get on with this job.

Which I did. The holes are now closed up and the initial bit of mud has been slathered on. So far I'm pleased with my results but there's a long way to go before all the sanding and taping and mudding are completed and I try to add texture to the ceiling to hide the patch. Hiding the patch will no doubt be the hardest part of the job. But at least my dining room no longer looks like it received a 500 pound bomb through the roof.

In between all this excitement I still managed to get laundry done and read most of a book that I picked up at the Thrift Store last week.
Nate 1:31 PM - [Link] |
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I know why there is work that men travel to each weekday, its to have a place to rest after the weekend. Especially long weekends like the one just past. In hindsite, we should have gone camping as the weather guessers got it mostly wrong, as usual. We chickened out as the weather was forecast to be very bad; cold, rainy and snowy at higher elevations. As it turned out, Friday afternoon would have been a bad time to be camping but the rest of the weekend was dry and unseasonably cool but camping would not have been out of the question.

So we stayed home. Noah & I ran off to the shooting range for a couple hours Saturday morning. I had 2 borrowed Llama 45 1911 replicas to test shoot in consideration of purchase and I rented a 3rd one at the range. It was a dandy ultra-compact Kimber. We put 150 rounds through the three guns and when it was all gone we switched to our own .22 Beretta Neos and the Ruger 10/22 through which we deployed a couple hundred more rounds down range.

Son Noah is a dandy marksman BTW and seems like a natural with any gun he has had the chance to shoot. He's safe, aware of the rules and a very accurate shooter. He makes me quite proud even if its embarrasing that he is better than me. His first 7 rounds through the 45 made a dandy pattern, dead center in the silouette target that we hung. This was his first time with a centerfire caliber handgun and he was not afraid of it and not afraid to grab 'hold and make it shoot accurately. I need to find a way to encourage him to shoot more, though seemingly if I'm willing to pay, he's willing to be there for the noisy, fun part.


Nate 12:43 PM - [Link] |
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In case you are wondering, this really is a comment from my mom. I guess she's figured out that I'm better about updating this than calling home. So ya'll watch the name-calling in here 'cause my mom might just be pokin around without telling that she's here.
Nate 8:06 AM - [Link] |
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Hey, check this out. I'd like some feedback. Better, or not better than this page? Currently I'm ambivilent about both pages but I'm willing to switch (back) to Blogger since they seem to be much better in the support department. The upgraded Blogger Plus is not available right now, apparently and I can't find another option for removing the advertisement at the top.

Does anybody know how that advert can be removed?
Nate 8:00 AM - [Link] |
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