in the elapsed time between March 2, '07 (when i dropped the blog ball) and the present, i've both been on vacation and worked a lot. vacation was fun. work...not so much.
summer is here and business is booming. everyone's working a ton, and my boss seems to be balking at the OT i'm putting in. most of the people there have a lot more OT than i do; i imagine my wages are somewhat comparable to most of the other guys', but i'm starting to get the impression my boss has the impression i'm spending too much time on things he didn't intend me to spend this much time on....which is another way of wondering if he thinks i'm not getting enough done...? i feel like i'm working pretty hard, and staying plenty busy. i move pretty quickly most of the time. i feel like i'm doing a pretty good job, overall, though i have been late a couple times. it's not unusual for me to feel some anxiety over things that are naturally stressful (like working a lot of hours, always flying by the seat of my pants putting out fires, commuting a lot, trying not to make mistakes when i'm thinking about a lot of things...or forgetting something). overall my job's pretty stressful, and i think i have less authority with the long-timers there than my boss thinks i do (or should? or will exert?), so i'm also trying to work hard enough, to be organized enough, to get on top of everything enough, to get credibility with them.
work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work work
i have work on the brain. that's not too surprising since i got home just a little while ago. i guess it's just buggin' me that my boss has actually told me to go home the last couple days in a row- even though everyone's working more hours than me. i bet he didn't expect this position would run into OT, or as much OT during the summer, as it has so far. but he seems to be happy with me, overall, so...i'll just keep working hard and keep my fingers crossed. the last job i had which lasted for a long time (working in Newcastle at Precis Architectural) didn't pay very well, but it was a pretty good place to work. this is a decent job, working with pretty good people; the worst thing about it is the commute (long and expensive). if i'm not at the top of my potential wage scale, i could stick around a while. some paid vacation would be nice- and good benefits are a plus. i guess you can only show up, play your best game, and hope that you make the cut. i suppose that's the extent of my confidence in my ability to hold a job long term.
i suppose that's enough for now. there's actually a lot more to talk about, but maybe i'll be able to catch up on some of that in future posts...considering i've done all the writing about work that i can stomach. PEACE
2007-08-07
ok, ok- i give, already
i cannot use my normal tools to post posts anymore, ever since blogger got swallowed by google. that truly sucks. i hate having to run my post through their form in internet explorer. i used to click very few buttons to post. surely there must be a better way. i may have to switch blog hosting services. i've always wanted to check out Movable Type. i wonder if Macromedia makes a 3rd party blog-posting app that interfaces with any (free) major site? UltraDev pretty much rocks....posting blog posts thru internet explorer via web-based posting tool via external site logon is unnecessarily unwieldy.
so, plenty of stuff has happened since i posted last time, including the composition of the backdated, belatedly-posted previous post (May 10, 2007) which i will now re-create from a saved file, from a time when i was still too stubborn to log on to blogger to post....which, incidentally, is even more hassle than logging on, etc.
so, plenty of stuff has happened since i posted last time, including the composition of the backdated, belatedly-posted previous post (May 10, 2007) which i will now re-create from a saved file, from a time when i was still too stubborn to log on to blogger to post....which, incidentally, is even more hassle than logging on, etc.
2007-05-10
absolute total utter neglect
argh. i bet if you looked back through the archives, you'd find this isn't the only time i've neglected the site.
no, i've not abandoned it. i hereby proclaim to all members of The Readership, those of all sets, subsets, classifications and unique instances, that you may, at will, sleep soundly and easily once more. i remain a light, howsoever exceedingly, infinitessimally, imperceptibly small, in the great dark void.
with pulsating waves of warmth radiating from the geometric center of my being, i once more push back the inky cold. this experience, simultaneously affirming, exhilirating and futile, will, as all experiences do, tint the colors on my palette of future courses of action.
"Ah, but ultimately," you say, with proper humility before futility, "the darkness will win." to which i answer: a correct, if bleak, assessment; but therein lies the beauty of the thing.
my brush is steady, my eye is sharp, my stroke is true. my palette is not yet bare. the darkness is patient, it will wait.
no, i've not abandoned it. i hereby proclaim to all members of The Readership, those of all sets, subsets, classifications and unique instances, that you may, at will, sleep soundly and easily once more. i remain a light, howsoever exceedingly, infinitessimally, imperceptibly small, in the great dark void.
with pulsating waves of warmth radiating from the geometric center of my being, i once more push back the inky cold. this experience, simultaneously affirming, exhilirating and futile, will, as all experiences do, tint the colors on my palette of future courses of action.
"Ah, but ultimately," you say, with proper humility before futility, "the darkness will win." to which i answer: a correct, if bleak, assessment; but therein lies the beauty of the thing.
my brush is steady, my eye is sharp, my stroke is true. my palette is not yet bare. the darkness is patient, it will wait.
2007-03-02
i'm absolutely certain i did some stupid things, but
(i just thought that was a khoul sentence. that's all.)
it snowed nearly a foot at my house yesterday. freak weather. i've never seen it snow in western Washington this many times in one winter, and every time it snowed there was more snow than usual, and it came down harder, and piled up quicker. temperature fluctuations for any given 4-7 day period are wider than i remember seeing, and it's been much colder overall than normal. we got our quasi-annual windstorm later in the winter (accompanied by the largest power outage i've ever seen here), and yesterday's snowfall, coming at the end of February, occurred unusually late in the season.
quite strange driving to work this morning- traffic was light, and the roads within a few miles of here were very slippery still, but once on the freeway it was basically bare and dry all the way to Seattle, where i spent a fairly chilly but mostly sunny day. sure enough, driving back within a few miles of my house put me right back in the thick of it.
however, it's plenty warm in here (it should be with the fairly higher-than-normal electric bill i just paid), and i'm fairly comfortable, all things considered. i have a little strong, black coffee; i have Chowder sleeping under my chair. it's quiet. i can hear the power supply fan from Loren's computer over my right shoulder, and from my own computer below my desk i hear the power supply fan and a slight high-pitched whine from the hard drive.
another work week nearly finished. Loren won't come until Saturday, since he's attending a friend's birthday party Saturday afternoon. i'm determined my time not be cut short over another birthday party. not that i begrudge Loren the opportunity, far from it, just that i see no reason not to arrange things so that Loren gets his party and i still get to spend a little time with him this week. we spend altogether too little time together as it is. some might disagree, but be that as it may, i doubt many- if any- dispassionate, objective bystanders would.
i've been a little tired, so i kinda scaled back my work hours a little this week. i should only barely get into OT tomorrow. i've accomplished a lot so far, with a little help from the people around me, but there's still a long way to go to get the shop up to speed. i'm trying to accomplish what i can in the time i have.
the way i interpret my work priorities, my primary responsibility is keeping track of the gear sent out to shows or lent to the production lighting dept. (in which category i would include keeping the shop organized in general), followed by (in order) making sure it's either staged (time permitting) or ready to be staged by the time a show sets, offloading trucks as quickly as possible, transferring gear to Tacoma or Portland from Seattle and vice-versa, maintaining the vehicles, washing gear as necessary, and running people around to job sites when necessary.
on my lunch break today i ran into my old boss Todd, the former production manager who, before being fired himself, hired me to fabricate at Trade-Marx sign, back in the day. he valued my contribution(s) there, and quickly promoted me to lead the light fabrication dept. after his termination things went rapidly downhill there. i liked the type of assignments i was given (for the most part) and i certainly improved the quality, consistency, and timeliness of both the work i did myself and the projects other guys were working on, but i never actually liked working for that company.
the owner, Don, is one of those guys who one moment wants to act like an obliviously (annoyingly!) condescending buddy, and the next becomes a fully red-faced, screaming twit. he's the kind of guy you'd like to like if he didn't spend so much time being a jerk and a bully. i honestly think he had no trust in the good intentions of those who worked for him, nor an appreciation of their skills (which, in my mind, requires a comparable level of competency in those skills). however, he wasn't responsible for my departure- that would be one Mr. Bart Haynes, a prick on an entirely deeper level. Haynes is a man with a profoundly ugly personality, almost pitifully arrogant, and often completely incapable of basic civility. as you might imagine, i have no respect for someone embodying those qualities. in one such circumstance i was forced to leave the room to avoid losing my temper with the man, and- rather than allowing some time to pass, allowing the situation calm, or attempting to resolve the disagreement in a more positive manner, he chose to chase me down, grab me by the coat, spin me bodily around, and start shaking me like an abusive parent might a child. i believe my exact words at that point were, "take your fucking hands off me or you're a dead man," at which point he laughed and gave me one more little shake before releasing my coat. it was like middle school all over again. i was actually extremely happy with the degree of restraint i showed, since i refrained from acting on the nearly overwhelming urge to punch him right in his smug face- and he (with authority i'm sure was more assumed than specified) fired me. i told him, "you can't fire me, i fucking quit." as fate would have it, there were no witnesses. so be it. then, since i seem to be (re?)telling this story in detail, i told him he was lucky i'm able to control my temper. i don't remember the next words out of his mouth, but they were derogatory, and i told him, "that's right, Bart, just keep digging your hole." i think he realized the precarious position he'd put himself in by physically assaulting me, and he followed me around the shop making more insulting comments for the next 20 minutes while i tried to gather my tools and things. i think he was trying to make me angry enough i'd actually lose my temper and take a swing at him, hopefully in front of some witnesses. well, he got no satisfaction there. i shook some hands with my co-workers, and generally took my time leaving. he tried to get my supervisor to have me sign a termination paper stating i'd verbally abused and physically threatened him. you can guess my reaction: no chance.
in any case, i was the 29th (by all counts) employee to be fired or quit as of the time i was terminated, followed soon after by my supervisor Donna, who was 'promoted' into her role after my old boss Todd was fired. i've never seen turnover like that in any company i've worked for. madness reigned (reigns?) at Trade-Marx Sign & Display Co., and i think this is directly reflected in the quality of the work the company turned out. i saw, and all too often was forced to fix, project after project that had what could easily have been the killing stroke laid down on it by a varying combination of sloppy fabrication and lack of adequate or accurate planning. sometimes those projects were truly beyond help, and in some of those cases, rather than admit their error to the client and fix the problems, they almost inevitably chose to wordlessly deliver substandard product on time. over and over projects were wrong, installed, then uninstalled and brought back for additional work, and sometimes that became a repeating cycle of failure. certainly, in some cases there may have been no alternative but to deliver on time, but i believe the choice, between doing that and delivering what the customer is paying for in as timely a manner as humanly possible, is best left to an informed client.
in the interest of fairness, i'm attempting to restrict my comments to my personal experiences there, which occured over a period of about half a year, ending about 2 years ago. i would have to say that a majority of the product they put out the door during my term of employment was flawed to some degree. it's rather ironic that the owner's projection of his company's commitment to quality could be so diametrically opposed to the manner in which it operated. dysfunctional is the word that most comes to mind, a company with a systemic problem that flowed from the top down, exhibited frequently by cascades of mistakes brought about in large part by a remarkable lack of effective communication, occuring in an often manic environment pervaded with personal tension. most of the product delivered by the 2 other sign companies i've worked for was consistently higher quality. Trade-Marx was one of the most inneffectively managed companies i've ever had the displeasure to work for- and that's a shame, considering i had high hopes for my prospects there when i started.
having said all that, i did form some friendly relationships with my co-workers there, so the experience wasn't a complete loss.
i think i've written most of what i wrote in the preceding paragraphs as catharsis, but also in the hope that someone casually interested in either working for or purchasing work from Trade-Marx sign, and happens to bump into this information online (which i grant is quite unlikely) might have a little better insight into the history of the place. i encourage such a person to take my (true!) comments to heart in their decision-making.
enough about old jobs. and new ones, for that matter. and enough for one post, already...since i've managed to spend considerably more time on the latter subject than i wanted to anyway. PEACE
it snowed nearly a foot at my house yesterday. freak weather. i've never seen it snow in western Washington this many times in one winter, and every time it snowed there was more snow than usual, and it came down harder, and piled up quicker. temperature fluctuations for any given 4-7 day period are wider than i remember seeing, and it's been much colder overall than normal. we got our quasi-annual windstorm later in the winter (accompanied by the largest power outage i've ever seen here), and yesterday's snowfall, coming at the end of February, occurred unusually late in the season.
quite strange driving to work this morning- traffic was light, and the roads within a few miles of here were very slippery still, but once on the freeway it was basically bare and dry all the way to Seattle, where i spent a fairly chilly but mostly sunny day. sure enough, driving back within a few miles of my house put me right back in the thick of it.
however, it's plenty warm in here (it should be with the fairly higher-than-normal electric bill i just paid), and i'm fairly comfortable, all things considered. i have a little strong, black coffee; i have Chowder sleeping under my chair. it's quiet. i can hear the power supply fan from Loren's computer over my right shoulder, and from my own computer below my desk i hear the power supply fan and a slight high-pitched whine from the hard drive.
another work week nearly finished. Loren won't come until Saturday, since he's attending a friend's birthday party Saturday afternoon. i'm determined my time not be cut short over another birthday party. not that i begrudge Loren the opportunity, far from it, just that i see no reason not to arrange things so that Loren gets his party and i still get to spend a little time with him this week. we spend altogether too little time together as it is. some might disagree, but be that as it may, i doubt many- if any- dispassionate, objective bystanders would.
i've been a little tired, so i kinda scaled back my work hours a little this week. i should only barely get into OT tomorrow. i've accomplished a lot so far, with a little help from the people around me, but there's still a long way to go to get the shop up to speed. i'm trying to accomplish what i can in the time i have.
the way i interpret my work priorities, my primary responsibility is keeping track of the gear sent out to shows or lent to the production lighting dept. (in which category i would include keeping the shop organized in general), followed by (in order) making sure it's either staged (time permitting) or ready to be staged by the time a show sets, offloading trucks as quickly as possible, transferring gear to Tacoma or Portland from Seattle and vice-versa, maintaining the vehicles, washing gear as necessary, and running people around to job sites when necessary.
on my lunch break today i ran into my old boss Todd, the former production manager who, before being fired himself, hired me to fabricate at Trade-Marx sign, back in the day. he valued my contribution(s) there, and quickly promoted me to lead the light fabrication dept. after his termination things went rapidly downhill there. i liked the type of assignments i was given (for the most part) and i certainly improved the quality, consistency, and timeliness of both the work i did myself and the projects other guys were working on, but i never actually liked working for that company.
the owner, Don, is one of those guys who one moment wants to act like an obliviously (annoyingly!) condescending buddy, and the next becomes a fully red-faced, screaming twit. he's the kind of guy you'd like to like if he didn't spend so much time being a jerk and a bully. i honestly think he had no trust in the good intentions of those who worked for him, nor an appreciation of their skills (which, in my mind, requires a comparable level of competency in those skills). however, he wasn't responsible for my departure- that would be one Mr. Bart Haynes, a prick on an entirely deeper level. Haynes is a man with a profoundly ugly personality, almost pitifully arrogant, and often completely incapable of basic civility. as you might imagine, i have no respect for someone embodying those qualities. in one such circumstance i was forced to leave the room to avoid losing my temper with the man, and- rather than allowing some time to pass, allowing the situation calm, or attempting to resolve the disagreement in a more positive manner, he chose to chase me down, grab me by the coat, spin me bodily around, and start shaking me like an abusive parent might a child. i believe my exact words at that point were, "take your fucking hands off me or you're a dead man," at which point he laughed and gave me one more little shake before releasing my coat. it was like middle school all over again. i was actually extremely happy with the degree of restraint i showed, since i refrained from acting on the nearly overwhelming urge to punch him right in his smug face- and he (with authority i'm sure was more assumed than specified) fired me. i told him, "you can't fire me, i fucking quit." as fate would have it, there were no witnesses. so be it. then, since i seem to be (re?)telling this story in detail, i told him he was lucky i'm able to control my temper. i don't remember the next words out of his mouth, but they were derogatory, and i told him, "that's right, Bart, just keep digging your hole." i think he realized the precarious position he'd put himself in by physically assaulting me, and he followed me around the shop making more insulting comments for the next 20 minutes while i tried to gather my tools and things. i think he was trying to make me angry enough i'd actually lose my temper and take a swing at him, hopefully in front of some witnesses. well, he got no satisfaction there. i shook some hands with my co-workers, and generally took my time leaving. he tried to get my supervisor to have me sign a termination paper stating i'd verbally abused and physically threatened him. you can guess my reaction: no chance.
in any case, i was the 29th (by all counts) employee to be fired or quit as of the time i was terminated, followed soon after by my supervisor Donna, who was 'promoted' into her role after my old boss Todd was fired. i've never seen turnover like that in any company i've worked for. madness reigned (reigns?) at Trade-Marx Sign & Display Co., and i think this is directly reflected in the quality of the work the company turned out. i saw, and all too often was forced to fix, project after project that had what could easily have been the killing stroke laid down on it by a varying combination of sloppy fabrication and lack of adequate or accurate planning. sometimes those projects were truly beyond help, and in some of those cases, rather than admit their error to the client and fix the problems, they almost inevitably chose to wordlessly deliver substandard product on time. over and over projects were wrong, installed, then uninstalled and brought back for additional work, and sometimes that became a repeating cycle of failure. certainly, in some cases there may have been no alternative but to deliver on time, but i believe the choice, between doing that and delivering what the customer is paying for in as timely a manner as humanly possible, is best left to an informed client.
in the interest of fairness, i'm attempting to restrict my comments to my personal experiences there, which occured over a period of about half a year, ending about 2 years ago. i would have to say that a majority of the product they put out the door during my term of employment was flawed to some degree. it's rather ironic that the owner's projection of his company's commitment to quality could be so diametrically opposed to the manner in which it operated. dysfunctional is the word that most comes to mind, a company with a systemic problem that flowed from the top down, exhibited frequently by cascades of mistakes brought about in large part by a remarkable lack of effective communication, occuring in an often manic environment pervaded with personal tension. most of the product delivered by the 2 other sign companies i've worked for was consistently higher quality. Trade-Marx was one of the most inneffectively managed companies i've ever had the displeasure to work for- and that's a shame, considering i had high hopes for my prospects there when i started.
having said all that, i did form some friendly relationships with my co-workers there, so the experience wasn't a complete loss.
i think i've written most of what i wrote in the preceding paragraphs as catharsis, but also in the hope that someone casually interested in either working for or purchasing work from Trade-Marx sign, and happens to bump into this information online (which i grant is quite unlikely) might have a little better insight into the history of the place. i encourage such a person to take my (true!) comments to heart in their decision-making.
enough about old jobs. and new ones, for that matter. and enough for one post, already...since i've managed to spend considerably more time on the latter subject than i wanted to anyway. PEACE
2007-02-20
always too busy
to post here, or to get X amount of other things accomplished that i've still yet to accomplish. my dad likes to say, "life's what happens while you make other plans." ...i think i've got that right, and even if the wording's not exactly right...i think it is....hate to misquote m'dad....the meaning's on the money.
today i was 15 minutes late for work, my 10th tardiness of the 38 days i've worked so far this year. the luster on my attendance record is definitely lacking. incidentally, i've started early 10 times as well. each of those account for about 26.315789473684210526315789473684% of the time. which means i'm on time or early 73.684210526315789473684210526316% of the time. i've been early a total of 450 minutes, late a total of 277, for a net early start of 173 minutes, which, by mathematical average, works out to being approximately four and half minutes early each day.
the prior paragraph clearly delineates a convoluted reasoning necessary to float the data onto the ether with a subtle positive spin. while there may, in fact, be others, they exist in an area of the universe beyond the scope of this post, somewhere vaguely outside the boundaries of the author's motivation.
i hit a hat trick playing darts on my board the other night. missed the bull with two of the next three darts. actually, i left the hat trick in the bull, and threw the other three steel tip darts, followed by the remaining 6 soft tips. looking at all 12 stuck in the board, it was obvious that the proximity of my throws to the bull varied in direct proportion with the amount of time elapsed following the third hat-trick dart's impact.
make a big dent every day it's possible. that's just a little advice i threw in there for ya. no charge.
AC power is better than DC power for transmission over long distances. alternating current requires smaller wires at high voltages and can be stepped down with transformers. lack of transformers in DC distribution systems would require, for smaller voltages of electricity used in common residential appliances, widespread local establishment of small generation substations.
Nikola Tesla ripped up his contract for royalties due from Westinghouse, in order to release the company from financial liability threatening its solvency, and to ensure his dream of a ubiquitous three phase alternating current distribution system came to be. the man died penniless so that the world might benefit.
and he supposedly created a charged particle weapon in the period of the 1930s and '40s. an interesting device, that could theoretically render electric (and presumably electronic) equipment inoperable and kill men (or any living creatures) in wide swaths, by the thousands.
if this weapon doesn't exist, it should. the ultimate defensive weapon against an invasion force. too bad the tendency of early 21st century combatants is toward covert / guerilla tactics and random acts of suicidal violence. maybe they can make a portable one.
flittering across the surface of randomity, chaostically.
french fries aren't as good as hash browns, which proves that the post-cut shape of the potatoes matters in the interaction with the hot oil.
mcdonald's cheeseburgers are really not very good. the spongy buns are part of the problem. bratwurst is good partially because the bun is tougher. a killer hamburger needs a bun with some gravitas.
listened to SRV & Double Trouble's Live at El Macambo a few times this weekend. Stevie Ray was the best. also listened to one of Tori Amos's records.....the name escapes me at the moment. that's interesting stuff, too....she's got a great voice, and i like her piano lines, and she writes interesting lyrics. but Stevie....Stevie could throw down.
i have a taillight out on my truck. think it's just a bulb. maybe i'll get to looking at it tomorrow...but prob'ly not. more likely to get to it this weekend. reasonably likely it'll take me longer than that, if my track record of proper maintenance effort remains undisturbed. i'm really very good at doing the bare minimum necessary to keep a vehicle on the road.
however, it's a sad fact that even the most meticulously maintained vehicles won't last forever, and this truck is no exception. at some point it's going to finally give up the ghost, and then i'll either find myself in the position of being able to acquire a nicer, newer vehicle, or forced to purchase some similarly dilapidated hulk of rust and mildew with which to negotiate the asphalt gauntlet.
it's occured to me that i could literally drive to Bellingham every day, and work straight 8 hour days, and still be gone less time in a typical work day. right now the minimum amount of time i'm out of my house in a typical 8 hr workday is about 12 hrs. an average of three hours per day driving 74 miles round trip, for an average speed of exactly 24 2/3 mph. on the freeway.
but what the hell is there to do in Bellingham? i could get to Arlington or Marysville a lot easier, though. Hwy 9 northbound in the morning would be an interesting commute. or Monroe, with a Hwy 2 eastbound. just trying to go south from here at all, let alone all the way into the SoDo district in Seattle, is a fairly monumental pain in the ass.
i watched the movie Resident Evil the other night. not bad, for what it was. Milla Jovovich is easy on the eyes. not a particularly impressive movie. i liked her better in Ultraviolet. i liked Resident Evil enough to watch the sequel though, prob'ly. i was curious about those movies in the same sort of way i'm interested in seeing Pitch Black and The Chronicles of Riddick. i watched Brad Pitt's Troy the other day, too- then again a few days later with Loren, since i knew he'd appreciate it. easily the better of the two movies, by the way- though certainly not LOTR-grade....that seems a fitting bar to set for the future. i hear Ghost Rider is tearing up the box office; been planning on seeing that one for a long time. looks like time to take Loren to the movies this weekend.
saw Jim Carrey on David Letterman last night, caught a clip of his new movie 23. didn't look the same as the impression i got from the preview i saw a few moments later when i flipped the channel. that can't be a coincidence- that Carrey's Letterman segment would end, and at that exact moment there'd be a preview for the very movie he was promoting on an adjacent (or very near) channel. some advertising person earned their money there....why buy the 'blatant' ad on the same station when the segment ends- you just reached that audience anyway....and anyone who was interested enough in Carrey or the movie to sit through the segment before changing channels might get sucked in at just the right moment. surely that's not coincidental.
ok that's got to be enough jangsplankin' tribibulation.
this has been a test of the post system. in the event this was a real post, you may have gleaned something from it. i now return you to a location somewhere in the vicinity of your original point of departure, with sincerely delivered, cloyingly heartfelt, practically genuine apologies.
today i was 15 minutes late for work, my 10th tardiness of the 38 days i've worked so far this year. the luster on my attendance record is definitely lacking. incidentally, i've started early 10 times as well. each of those account for about 26.315789473684210526315789473684% of the time. which means i'm on time or early 73.684210526315789473684210526316% of the time. i've been early a total of 450 minutes, late a total of 277, for a net early start of 173 minutes, which, by mathematical average, works out to being approximately four and half minutes early each day.
the prior paragraph clearly delineates a convoluted reasoning necessary to float the data onto the ether with a subtle positive spin. while there may, in fact, be others, they exist in an area of the universe beyond the scope of this post, somewhere vaguely outside the boundaries of the author's motivation.
i hit a hat trick playing darts on my board the other night. missed the bull with two of the next three darts. actually, i left the hat trick in the bull, and threw the other three steel tip darts, followed by the remaining 6 soft tips. looking at all 12 stuck in the board, it was obvious that the proximity of my throws to the bull varied in direct proportion with the amount of time elapsed following the third hat-trick dart's impact.
make a big dent every day it's possible. that's just a little advice i threw in there for ya. no charge.
AC power is better than DC power for transmission over long distances. alternating current requires smaller wires at high voltages and can be stepped down with transformers. lack of transformers in DC distribution systems would require, for smaller voltages of electricity used in common residential appliances, widespread local establishment of small generation substations.
Nikola Tesla ripped up his contract for royalties due from Westinghouse, in order to release the company from financial liability threatening its solvency, and to ensure his dream of a ubiquitous three phase alternating current distribution system came to be. the man died penniless so that the world might benefit.
and he supposedly created a charged particle weapon in the period of the 1930s and '40s. an interesting device, that could theoretically render electric (and presumably electronic) equipment inoperable and kill men (or any living creatures) in wide swaths, by the thousands.
if this weapon doesn't exist, it should. the ultimate defensive weapon against an invasion force. too bad the tendency of early 21st century combatants is toward covert / guerilla tactics and random acts of suicidal violence. maybe they can make a portable one.
flittering across the surface of randomity, chaostically.
french fries aren't as good as hash browns, which proves that the post-cut shape of the potatoes matters in the interaction with the hot oil.
mcdonald's cheeseburgers are really not very good. the spongy buns are part of the problem. bratwurst is good partially because the bun is tougher. a killer hamburger needs a bun with some gravitas.
listened to SRV & Double Trouble's Live at El Macambo a few times this weekend. Stevie Ray was the best. also listened to one of Tori Amos's records.....the name escapes me at the moment. that's interesting stuff, too....she's got a great voice, and i like her piano lines, and she writes interesting lyrics. but Stevie....Stevie could throw down.
i have a taillight out on my truck. think it's just a bulb. maybe i'll get to looking at it tomorrow...but prob'ly not. more likely to get to it this weekend. reasonably likely it'll take me longer than that, if my track record of proper maintenance effort remains undisturbed. i'm really very good at doing the bare minimum necessary to keep a vehicle on the road.
however, it's a sad fact that even the most meticulously maintained vehicles won't last forever, and this truck is no exception. at some point it's going to finally give up the ghost, and then i'll either find myself in the position of being able to acquire a nicer, newer vehicle, or forced to purchase some similarly dilapidated hulk of rust and mildew with which to negotiate the asphalt gauntlet.
it's occured to me that i could literally drive to Bellingham every day, and work straight 8 hour days, and still be gone less time in a typical work day. right now the minimum amount of time i'm out of my house in a typical 8 hr workday is about 12 hrs. an average of three hours per day driving 74 miles round trip, for an average speed of exactly 24 2/3 mph. on the freeway.
but what the hell is there to do in Bellingham? i could get to Arlington or Marysville a lot easier, though. Hwy 9 northbound in the morning would be an interesting commute. or Monroe, with a Hwy 2 eastbound. just trying to go south from here at all, let alone all the way into the SoDo district in Seattle, is a fairly monumental pain in the ass.
i watched the movie Resident Evil the other night. not bad, for what it was. Milla Jovovich is easy on the eyes. not a particularly impressive movie. i liked her better in Ultraviolet. i liked Resident Evil enough to watch the sequel though, prob'ly. i was curious about those movies in the same sort of way i'm interested in seeing Pitch Black and The Chronicles of Riddick. i watched Brad Pitt's Troy the other day, too- then again a few days later with Loren, since i knew he'd appreciate it. easily the better of the two movies, by the way- though certainly not LOTR-grade....that seems a fitting bar to set for the future. i hear Ghost Rider is tearing up the box office; been planning on seeing that one for a long time. looks like time to take Loren to the movies this weekend.
saw Jim Carrey on David Letterman last night, caught a clip of his new movie 23. didn't look the same as the impression i got from the preview i saw a few moments later when i flipped the channel. that can't be a coincidence- that Carrey's Letterman segment would end, and at that exact moment there'd be a preview for the very movie he was promoting on an adjacent (or very near) channel. some advertising person earned their money there....why buy the 'blatant' ad on the same station when the segment ends- you just reached that audience anyway....and anyone who was interested enough in Carrey or the movie to sit through the segment before changing channels might get sucked in at just the right moment. surely that's not coincidental.
ok that's got to be enough jangsplankin' tribibulation.
this has been a test of the post system. in the event this was a real post, you may have gleaned something from it. i now return you to a location somewhere in the vicinity of your original point of departure, with sincerely delivered, cloyingly heartfelt, practically genuine apologies.
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