Daily Archives: 9/16/2004

General, Humor

Noah and the Ark – 2004

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It is the year 2004 and Noah lives in the United States. The Lord speaks to Noah and says: “In one year I am going to make it rain and cover the whole earth with water until all is destroyed. But I want you to save the righteous people and two of every kind of living thing on the earth. Therefore, I am commanding you to build an Ark.” In a flash of lightning, God delivered the specifications for an Ark.

Fearful and trembling, Noah took the plans and agreed to build the Ark. “Remember,” said the Lord, “You must complete the Ark and bring everything aboard in one year.”

Exactly one year later, a fierce storm cloud covered the earth and all the seas of the earth went into a tumult. The Lord saw Noah sitting in his front yard weeping.

“Noah.” He shouted, “Where is the Ark?”

“Lord please forgive me!” cried Noah. “I did my best but there were big problems. First, I had to get a permit for construction and your plans did not comply with the codes. I had to hire an engineering firm and redraw the plans.

“Then I got into a fight with OSHA over whether or not the Ark needed a fire sprinkler system and floatation devices.

‘Then my neighbor objected, claiming I was violating zoning ordinances by building the Ark in my front yard, so I had to get a variance from the city planning commission.

“I had problems getting enough wood for the Ark, because there was a ban on cutting trees to protect the Spotted Owl. I finally convinced the U.S.Forest Service that I needed the wood to save the owls. However, the Fish and Wildlife Service won’t let me catch any owls. So, no owls.

“The carpenters formed a union and went out on strike. I had to negotiate a settlement with the National Labor Relations Board. Now I have 16 carpenters on the Ark, but still no owls.

“When I started rounding up the other animals, I got sued by an animal rights group. They objected to me only taking two of each kind aboard.

“Just when I got the suit dismissed, the EPA notified me that I could not complete the Ark without filing an environmental impact statement on your proposed flood. They didn’t take very kindly to the idea that they had no jurisdiction over the conduct of the Creator of the universe.

“Then the Army Corps of Engineer demanded a map of the proposed new flood plain. I sent them a globe.

“Right now, I am trying to resolve a complaint filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that I am practicing discrimination by not taking godless, unbelieving people aboard!

“The IRS has seized all my assets, claiming that I’m building the Ark in preparation to flee the country to avoid paying taxes.

“I just got a notice from the State that I owe some kind of user tax and failed to register the Ark as a recreational water craft.

“Finally the ACLU got the courts to issue an injunction against further construction of the Ark, saying that since God is flooding the earth, it is a religious event and therefore unconstitutional.

“I really don’t think I can finish the Ark for another 5 or 6 years!”, Noah wailed.

The sky began to clear, the sun began to shine and the seas began to calm. A rainbow arched across the sky. Noah looked up hopefully.

“You mean you are not going to destroy the earth, Lord?”

“No,” said the Lord sadly. “The government already has.”

(E-mailed to me by my little sister)

General, Local politics

Bad laws – an example

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Recently the Louisiana legislature departed from their normal activity of impressing us with their pettiness and stupidity by passing a law requiring bicycle helmets to be worn by children. It is a LAW in this state that any child under the age of twelve is required to wear a helmet while riding a bicycle on a public roadway, public bicycle path, or other public right-of-way.

These “legislators” are sniffing glue, because even smoking dope can’t produce this level of stupidity. Helmets are hot, especially in Louisiana in August when temperatures are in the upper nineties with high humidity. And kids are disobeying the LAW. Since parents are responsible for the acts of minor children, parents are breaking the law. And it is a horrible law, passed by the “if it saves just one child” bunch of nanny-staters.

When I turn down my street in the evening after work, I see three or four kids on bikes, ignoring a stupid law. And we have a deputy sheriff living on this street. He’s actually passing up what could be series of career-enhancing arrests of scoff-laws by apprehending this gang of criminals.

General, Wheels of Industry

How I spent my Hurricane Ivan Day…

Simple. Working. Ivan was three hundred or so miles to the east of my corner of Louisiana. I woke up today to clear skies and light winds from the northwest. Seriously, I hadn’t planned on any unusual weather after I saw the last weather report before I dozed off last night.

So I got up and went to work. Everybody else was there. Chrissy, the lady who runs my office, said that traffic was more or less normal on her drive in to work. However, when I got off work this afternoon, traffic was heavy heading east as all those people headed back to east Louisiana and Mississippi. Our local motels did booming business with 100% occupancy. And a couple of public buildings were opened up as shelters for those who couldn’t get hotel space. I heard that 700 spent the night at the civic center in Lake Charles.

Since the client I’m currently working with depends on shipping for his product, they’re in a position where all they have is the inventory on hand, because with Ivan out there, you can imagine that ships have been avoiding the Gulf. It’ll take a few days for ships waiting outside the Gulf to make their way in.

So my day was spent mostly (mostly…) working with the drawings for an upgrade in the protecive equipment for a 20 megawatt gas turbine generator. This thing was state of the art late 70’s, and in the last few years it’s gotten a new state of the art controller for the gas turbine, a new exciter to control how the generator produced electricity, and now my little chunk, the protective system.

This is not quite brain surgery, but close. The patient is comatose, not dead. Engineers ahve done as much as they can to make sure that I have all the information to do the installation, but, as they say, “errors were made” and today was partly devoted to finding (me) errors and working out corrective actions (me and the engineer).

The fun part is that I will have all the wiring ALMOST in place for the main event, Monday, when we cut loose the old system and tie in the new one, a process known as a “cutover.” And I have three days to do the cutover, including disconnecting the old stuff (and leaving it in place – a fall back option, just in case), hooking in the new stuff, making sure eveything is right by squirting various combinations of voltage and current in the appropriate places, and operating various pieces of equipment to make sure they do what they’re supposed to do. This is the “function check”.

The final test is the test run, where we crank up the generator and make sure that the new protective relay sees exactly what’s going on with the generator it’s watching. I’m thinking this will happen Wednesday… We’ll bring the comatose generator back to life…

And while I dearly love the challenges associated with my job, the best part is sitting down when a piece like this is over and the client is happy…