had a pretty good weekend with m'boy this time around. i've managed to get ahead of the curve on the work to be done around here (for the most part) and that always translates into more time to spend with the boy. we got more "hang time" than usual this weekend.
my boy's started doin' pushups like a man. don't know exactly what i did to get him into the whole idea, but he's figuring out he can use those big ol' beefy arms for more than just extensions to his video game controllers. nothing like watching him get jazzed on getting stronger. they teach the kids to do these crazy half-ass pushups in school instead of encouraging them to do the real thing. took a little coaxing but i seem to have convinced him of the benefit of pushing those muscles past the point of comfort. hope he sticks with it and develops some of the potential he's got so much of.
we completely unbolted the exhaust manifold of my truck today, trying to get a look at where the water leak is that's caused it to remain in the driveway for the last 4 months. i couldn't turn it over, so it's going to need the battery charged before i can move it anyway. i have the tabs for it sitting here on my desk; i'd love to get a chance to stick them on the plate and drive it around. nothing like $5000+ worth of hardware that runs fine but can't get used for risk of irreparable damage. it's still hard to believe i managed to drive that thing home without burning it up. had to make the trip in three goes, letting it cool down completely each time and refilling it with water that only lasted a couple miles. i kept shutting the engine off and coasting as much as possible; thankfully much of the trip (though by no means all) was downhill. realizing i would have to disconnect the exhaust manifold from the exhaust pipe before completely removing it, i decided it might be prudent to fill it up with water and try yet one more time (i've tried at least a dozen times already) to see exactly where the water was coming from. i was 90% sure it was coming from a fried core plug in the block- and it turns out i was right. it might not be necessary to remove the exhaust manifold to get at it, but it's on the underside of the block and it's going to require disconnecting a motor mount and jacking the engine off that mount to get at the core plug. never done that before; i'm sure it'll turn out to be a total pain in the ass. hopefully this will teach me not to neglect coolant in the future. last winter's freeze did that plug in.
that's all for now; i'm out of patience.
2004-05-16
2004-05-06
a new crop of pictures
here are some new pics for your viewing enjoyment:
this is a shot of some finish-fabricated signs, ready for paint. i'm building a bunch of the simple ones on the right- but this one was made by someone else. it looks just like one of mine though. it's laid down, but it's 8 feet tall (to give you an idea of scale).
i have no idea what this bush in my garden is
this is my rose tree....ok it's really just an overgrown bush that i can't seem to bring myself to cut down- wait till you see some pictures of the humongous roses it gets and you'll understand. it's just starting to bloom, but it'll keep on blooming over and over and over and over and over....
this is one of the first two roses to appear this year
i think this bush is a rhododendron- it's really overgrown and also gets beautiful flowers, but the flowers don't last long and they appear only once.
this is the mostly open bloom from the right rear of the previous picture- i really like this shot, and there's a fantastic 1280x1024 resolution image of it in my photo album that i made for computer wallpaper. the shrink really doesn't do this shot justice.
this is a what it looks like on a typical evening after work around here- after giving me my 15 minute welcome home Chowder generally winds down after a hard day of barking at the neighbors and everything else that comes near the fence, flies overhead, or makes a power tool noise.
as always, the full size pics are all in my album, plus 28 more, plus 2 short videos of the most rickety deathtrap tunnel ever driven by man (on Aurora Ave in downtown Seattle).
sleep calls and i'm listenin'- PEACE
this is a shot of some finish-fabricated signs, ready for paint. i'm building a bunch of the simple ones on the right- but this one was made by someone else. it looks just like one of mine though. it's laid down, but it's 8 feet tall (to give you an idea of scale).
i have no idea what this bush in my garden is
this is my rose tree....ok it's really just an overgrown bush that i can't seem to bring myself to cut down- wait till you see some pictures of the humongous roses it gets and you'll understand. it's just starting to bloom, but it'll keep on blooming over and over and over and over and over....
this is one of the first two roses to appear this year
i think this bush is a rhododendron- it's really overgrown and also gets beautiful flowers, but the flowers don't last long and they appear only once.
this is the mostly open bloom from the right rear of the previous picture- i really like this shot, and there's a fantastic 1280x1024 resolution image of it in my photo album that i made for computer wallpaper. the shrink really doesn't do this shot justice.
this is a what it looks like on a typical evening after work around here- after giving me my 15 minute welcome home Chowder generally winds down after a hard day of barking at the neighbors and everything else that comes near the fence, flies overhead, or makes a power tool noise.
as always, the full size pics are all in my album, plus 28 more, plus 2 short videos of the most rickety deathtrap tunnel ever driven by man (on Aurora Ave in downtown Seattle).
sleep calls and i'm listenin'- PEACE
2004-05-02
last night's featured REMemberance
Scene 1:
i was standing in a suburban residential neighborhood, not my own, looking up at the sky at twilight. a Pan Am passenger jet, its position about 10:00 (relative to mine) was diving toward the ground at an angle of about 45 degrees. i realized something was wrong and a crash was imminent. the plane leveled off at about 100 feet, very low, on a course approaching me, a course which would take it a couple hundred yards to my left, then immediately banked hard left (my right) and passed directly over my head. i could clearly read the Pan Am markings (now defunct airline company) on the tail of the plane as it approached. it thundered over me and shortly went back into a steep dive, with no roll, quickly impacting a grassy hillside and exploding in a huge black and orange fireball; i was certain nothing lived through that monumental explosion.
Scene 2:
i was being chased by aliens- i think they were after some people with me whom i was protecting. i seemed to be receiving assistance from an "experienced agent", though i was only aware of the voice of this unseen person in my head. i was equipped with advanced technology and i kept staying one jump ahead of the aliens....there was an encounter in an office building in which i somehow gave them the slip. while i remember very little of the details there, i distinctly remember staring down an elevator shaft through open doors, watching the top of the elevator descend below into the darkness.
at some point the person protecting the others changed from me (and my own first-person point of view) to Disney's Goofy (from a third-person point of view), without the hat, or the bumbling manner. he was intent upon driving them down a cartoon highway, being chased by unseen aliens in the air. when he realized they were spotted, he switched on a device which projected a holographic illusion over his cartoon vehicle- obscuring it with a picture of what the road would look like if it was empty, and effectively disappearing.
i was standing in a suburban residential neighborhood, not my own, looking up at the sky at twilight. a Pan Am passenger jet, its position about 10:00 (relative to mine) was diving toward the ground at an angle of about 45 degrees. i realized something was wrong and a crash was imminent. the plane leveled off at about 100 feet, very low, on a course approaching me, a course which would take it a couple hundred yards to my left, then immediately banked hard left (my right) and passed directly over my head. i could clearly read the Pan Am markings (now defunct airline company) on the tail of the plane as it approached. it thundered over me and shortly went back into a steep dive, with no roll, quickly impacting a grassy hillside and exploding in a huge black and orange fireball; i was certain nothing lived through that monumental explosion.
Scene 2:
i was being chased by aliens- i think they were after some people with me whom i was protecting. i seemed to be receiving assistance from an "experienced agent", though i was only aware of the voice of this unseen person in my head. i was equipped with advanced technology and i kept staying one jump ahead of the aliens....there was an encounter in an office building in which i somehow gave them the slip. while i remember very little of the details there, i distinctly remember staring down an elevator shaft through open doors, watching the top of the elevator descend below into the darkness.
at some point the person protecting the others changed from me (and my own first-person point of view) to Disney's Goofy (from a third-person point of view), without the hat, or the bumbling manner. he was intent upon driving them down a cartoon highway, being chased by unseen aliens in the air. when he realized they were spotted, he switched on a device which projected a holographic illusion over his cartoon vehicle- obscuring it with a picture of what the road would look like if it was empty, and effectively disappearing.
2004-04-24
granite falls fishway
for years now i've been driving my boy to and from his mother's place outside of Granite Falls, WA, over a bridge that passes over the south fork of the Stillaguamish River. there's a fish ladder for salmon down on the river below (some 80-100 feet below the bridge deck) and i've always meant to go down and check it out. i happened to have my camera with me today, and it was nice out so it seemed like a nice day for it.
this is a shot looking basically W-SW from the bridge deck:
this shot is from the bank of the river, looking upriver:
here's a fern growing out of a crack in one of the innumerable huge granite boulders:
here's one looking downriver:
all the full size pics, and three short video clips, are in my online photo album. looking at the pictures it's easy to see how Granite Falls got its name. enjoy :)
this is a shot looking basically W-SW from the bridge deck:
this shot is from the bank of the river, looking upriver:
here's a fern growing out of a crack in one of the innumerable huge granite boulders:
here's one looking downriver:
all the full size pics, and three short video clips, are in my online photo album. looking at the pictures it's easy to see how Granite Falls got its name. enjoy :)
the lowdown on my new employment
well, here's the lowdown on my new job:
it's a pretty long commute but at a time of day when i generally miss most of the traffic. i'm spending about 1.5 - 1.75 hrs/day driving to and from work. driving to pick up Loren from his mother's is extra. the hours keep me from picking Loren up from school (he's less than thrilled) but allow me some time in the evenings with him on the days he's here, so not an unworkable trade- as long as his mother remains able to pick him up from school on the days i'm supposed to (probably a safe bet for the short term, anyway).
they hired me at $14/hr, and they promised me a review in 90 days, with a raise of $1 if my performance was good. it's a fair starting wage but not as good as i hoped- typical. i was hired to do install work for signage, but they had no install work on the table when they started me, so they started out giving me projects around the shop. after a few small things which took very little time, the first real job they gave me (something which took longer than an hour to do) was to apply vinyl graphics for a temporary sign for the new Seattle Public Library. i did an ok job on it, not as well as i'd hoped but good enough to deliver to the customer. everyone was very impressed even though i didn't think it met my standards. i'm not completely suprised by the quality of the finished product considering i haven't done this work in three years, but the management, owners, sales staff, project managers, and designers all came to me individually and told me i was doing a great job and how nice it was to have someone come on board with some skills. they've recently cleaned house; they fired a lot of people recently, and gutted the management. sounds like they really wanted to start over. the head installer told me the company was wide open at the moment and that new people with skills could "write their own ticket".
i was really set on doing install work because you build up hours doing electrical work and it translates to wages, and being out of the shop is generally less pressure than working while management beats you over the head with endless delivery deadlines and ever-changing priorities- business as usual in the sign game. but the managers saw my fabrication skills and called me in to discuss doing work in the shop. the head manager asked me what my goals were here, and i told him "to be honest, i'm primarily motivated by money". i told him i was focused on doing install work because i want a journeyman electrician's card and the wages that commands. he told me what he'd like to see me do was work out of the shop, and cross-train their light-fabrication department in some of the heavier fabrication skills like wiring and welding; basically show these guys what i know. in the meantime, he'd focus on sending me out on the electrical install work so my hours could get built up. he asked me to handle a prototype project which could lead to "a couple hundred thousand dollars" worth of work. i told him "like i said, i was really focused on install work, and that's my main goal, but i'll do what needs to be done." he told me if i handled this project well enough, i could easily be looking at $2-3/hr more money in six months, with rapid increases to a maximum of about $20/hr within a couple years.
so i built the prototype, which is a small sign that's at eye level, and has to be completely perfect. it was a pretty complicated little build for something small, and right at the end i made the one mistake that ruined the whole thing- drilling mounting holes in the wrong place (dumb dumb dumb!) and had to start over. when i redid the whole thing from scratch (which blew the total hours for the job way out of line and makes me look really bad) i screwed up the very same mounting holes (drilled them out too large due to misreading the design drawing- also very DUMB)- but this time the error is fixable. so it's finished, we'll see what happens with it.
in the meantime i was given another project to weld up, 5 interior signs for a Boeing complex here. they're about 30" x 3" x 96". it's one of those projects where someone else started it and now i get to finish it; and in the process they've wanted me to keep two other new guys as busy as possible on this or other projects in the works. nothing like trying to pay attention to what you're doing in a shop you don't know where anything's at, while showing two other guys how to do what you need them to do. kinda stressful. anyway, the parts someone else made for that project caused problems and i've had to change the plans somewhat to compensate. it's alot easier to take a project from start to finish than to fix other people's mistakes along the way. everybody makes mistakes; it's nice when you only have to deal with your own- no one else to blame that way!
they've also given me another project, a little decorative metal finishing for another sign; no one else wanted to touch it but i think i can do it so i'm going to give it a go. and they've given me another project (dropped it on my Friday 45 minutes before quitting time) that's got to be done Monday morning by 10:00. unfortunately it looks like the work will take longer than that and the only help i've been given is another guy who's never done this type of work before....it's been a long long time since i've done it either. they told me to come in early Monday if i needed to, which i have no problem doing- except that i remembered after i left Friday that i don't have a key to get in the place before anyone else. grrrrrrrr. and, of course, this is another project that must be absolutely perfect. it's a plastic glueing job for a marquee of a new club. it's a dicey job even for experienced people; one drop of water-thin glue in the wrong place ruins a very expensive piece of material- and i have to build two of the things. nothing like giving the new guy the hardest projects under the tightest deadlines right off the bat! welcome back to the sign game.
the place pays for health insurance for the employee; if i want to put Loren on the insurance that comes out of my pocket. they offer 1 week of vacation after the one year, two weeks after (two or three?) years and three weeks after 7 years. haven't heard anything about sick time or paid holidays. they have profit sharing and an IRA thing set up. i'm hearing that bonuses can be in the neighborhood of $2,000-3,000 when the place is making money. and i heard there's a ton of musicians there that all bring music equipment in and have a jam session during their Christmas party.
ok- now y'all know as much as i do- and prob'ly much more than you wanted, if you bothered reading this far.
i'm outta here to make the traditional pancakes/scrambled eggs/sausage brunch for my favorite young man, and try to eek some fun outta this beautiful sunny day before that young man heads back to his mother's for the remainder of the weekend.
PEACE all
lowell
it's a pretty long commute but at a time of day when i generally miss most of the traffic. i'm spending about 1.5 - 1.75 hrs/day driving to and from work. driving to pick up Loren from his mother's is extra. the hours keep me from picking Loren up from school (he's less than thrilled) but allow me some time in the evenings with him on the days he's here, so not an unworkable trade- as long as his mother remains able to pick him up from school on the days i'm supposed to (probably a safe bet for the short term, anyway).
they hired me at $14/hr, and they promised me a review in 90 days, with a raise of $1 if my performance was good. it's a fair starting wage but not as good as i hoped- typical. i was hired to do install work for signage, but they had no install work on the table when they started me, so they started out giving me projects around the shop. after a few small things which took very little time, the first real job they gave me (something which took longer than an hour to do) was to apply vinyl graphics for a temporary sign for the new Seattle Public Library. i did an ok job on it, not as well as i'd hoped but good enough to deliver to the customer. everyone was very impressed even though i didn't think it met my standards. i'm not completely suprised by the quality of the finished product considering i haven't done this work in three years, but the management, owners, sales staff, project managers, and designers all came to me individually and told me i was doing a great job and how nice it was to have someone come on board with some skills. they've recently cleaned house; they fired a lot of people recently, and gutted the management. sounds like they really wanted to start over. the head installer told me the company was wide open at the moment and that new people with skills could "write their own ticket".
i was really set on doing install work because you build up hours doing electrical work and it translates to wages, and being out of the shop is generally less pressure than working while management beats you over the head with endless delivery deadlines and ever-changing priorities- business as usual in the sign game. but the managers saw my fabrication skills and called me in to discuss doing work in the shop. the head manager asked me what my goals were here, and i told him "to be honest, i'm primarily motivated by money". i told him i was focused on doing install work because i want a journeyman electrician's card and the wages that commands. he told me what he'd like to see me do was work out of the shop, and cross-train their light-fabrication department in some of the heavier fabrication skills like wiring and welding; basically show these guys what i know. in the meantime, he'd focus on sending me out on the electrical install work so my hours could get built up. he asked me to handle a prototype project which could lead to "a couple hundred thousand dollars" worth of work. i told him "like i said, i was really focused on install work, and that's my main goal, but i'll do what needs to be done." he told me if i handled this project well enough, i could easily be looking at $2-3/hr more money in six months, with rapid increases to a maximum of about $20/hr within a couple years.
so i built the prototype, which is a small sign that's at eye level, and has to be completely perfect. it was a pretty complicated little build for something small, and right at the end i made the one mistake that ruined the whole thing- drilling mounting holes in the wrong place (dumb dumb dumb!) and had to start over. when i redid the whole thing from scratch (which blew the total hours for the job way out of line and makes me look really bad) i screwed up the very same mounting holes (drilled them out too large due to misreading the design drawing- also very DUMB)- but this time the error is fixable. so it's finished, we'll see what happens with it.
in the meantime i was given another project to weld up, 5 interior signs for a Boeing complex here. they're about 30" x 3" x 96". it's one of those projects where someone else started it and now i get to finish it; and in the process they've wanted me to keep two other new guys as busy as possible on this or other projects in the works. nothing like trying to pay attention to what you're doing in a shop you don't know where anything's at, while showing two other guys how to do what you need them to do. kinda stressful. anyway, the parts someone else made for that project caused problems and i've had to change the plans somewhat to compensate. it's alot easier to take a project from start to finish than to fix other people's mistakes along the way. everybody makes mistakes; it's nice when you only have to deal with your own- no one else to blame that way!
they've also given me another project, a little decorative metal finishing for another sign; no one else wanted to touch it but i think i can do it so i'm going to give it a go. and they've given me another project (dropped it on my Friday 45 minutes before quitting time) that's got to be done Monday morning by 10:00. unfortunately it looks like the work will take longer than that and the only help i've been given is another guy who's never done this type of work before....it's been a long long time since i've done it either. they told me to come in early Monday if i needed to, which i have no problem doing- except that i remembered after i left Friday that i don't have a key to get in the place before anyone else. grrrrrrrr. and, of course, this is another project that must be absolutely perfect. it's a plastic glueing job for a marquee of a new club. it's a dicey job even for experienced people; one drop of water-thin glue in the wrong place ruins a very expensive piece of material- and i have to build two of the things. nothing like giving the new guy the hardest projects under the tightest deadlines right off the bat! welcome back to the sign game.
the place pays for health insurance for the employee; if i want to put Loren on the insurance that comes out of my pocket. they offer 1 week of vacation after the one year, two weeks after (two or three?) years and three weeks after 7 years. haven't heard anything about sick time or paid holidays. they have profit sharing and an IRA thing set up. i'm hearing that bonuses can be in the neighborhood of $2,000-3,000 when the place is making money. and i heard there's a ton of musicians there that all bring music equipment in and have a jam session during their Christmas party.
ok- now y'all know as much as i do- and prob'ly much more than you wanted, if you bothered reading this far.
i'm outta here to make the traditional pancakes/scrambled eggs/sausage brunch for my favorite young man, and try to eek some fun outta this beautiful sunny day before that young man heads back to his mother's for the remainder of the weekend.
PEACE all
lowell
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