Monthly Archives: October 2005

General, Wheels of Industry

It’s that time of the month…

No, not what YOU’RE thinking…

It’s the end of the month, and we worked late, Chrissy and I, to get the billing in for some pretty decent projects we’ve done in the past month, all Rita-related. Three projects totalled more billing than we generally get in TWO months. Lots of money. Makes the boss happy, and we all want a happy boss.

Those who know me know that above all things I despise the needle in a haystack mentality associated with billing, so this was particularly painful just on that basis alone. Add to that the fact that we now have local access to the home office’s accounting and job tracking system, and now Chrissy can watch these things like a hawk. I keep telling myself that this is a good thing, but in the back of my mind I think I’m journeying into self-delusion.

Anyway, the high and low point of the night was finding that there was a $690 discrepancy between one view of a project and another. Finding that money was a two and a half hour Easter Egg hunt, and I had the rare privilege of being not only the one who FOUND it, but I was also the one who CREATED it, a sort of financial Frankenstein monster all on my own. I doubt that Chrissy will let this stay a secret…

Anyway, that’s been the evening…

Blogging, Current events - national, General, Weather

Another local blogger looks at Rita

Queen Grouch is the wife of one of my techs, John of John’s Egocentric World. She writes her take on the Rita experience.

The devastation cannot be described,although pictures can speak a thousand words and the national media has done the people of Southwest Louisiana and Southeast Texas wrong in my opinion for not showing the destruction that happened in “my backyard”. I for one am tired of hearing about KATRINA. Yes, Katrina destroyed much of New Orleans, but RITA destroyed just as much of the coast land of Southwest Louisiana. The only difference is that people from my region had the common sense to evacuate when they were told and the area officials saw to it that everyone that wanted to evacute was able. City officials began as early as the Tuesday before the storm evacuating all the Katrina evacuees that had been housed in shelters around the city. When a mandatory evacuation was called for on Thursday, busing was arranged and anyone unable to evacuate on their own due to car trouble, financial reasons, or any reason at all were transported to the Civic Center where they were then bused to shelters out of the path of Rita. These buses were up and running until Friday evening, a mere few hours before the storm made landfall along the coast of Cameron, Louisiana as a STRONG category 3 storm. Therefore, we were spared the horror stories of people drowning and having to chop their way out of their roofs when the water levels rose quickly. Also, there was noone left in the city, so search and rescue efforts were not needed, officials were able to re-enter the parish and begin the cleaning and rebuilding efforts almost immediately.

The differences between Katrina and Rita do not stop there. In case you didn’t know the area that Rita hit is inhabited by many people of Cajun descent. These people are the most resouceful people that I know (I’m part Cajun myself). I have done extensive research on these people and the trials and tribulations that they have faced throughout the years. Anyway, the people of Southwest Louisiana did not sit around and wait for the Feds to come in to lend a helping hand, many were in their neighborhoods within days after the storm, clearing paths to their homes and begining to rebuild what Rita had destroyed. There was not much complaining heard, just the sound of chainsaws ripping through the many fallen trees that fell due to the sheer force of Rita’s winds. We have become the city of blue tarps due all the damage done to roofs from the force of the winds and trees falling.

Go read the whole thing…

General, The Name Game

The Name Game XVI

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It’s Sunday again, and I’m sitting here reading the morning paper per the standard procedure. I see that we’ve got a crop of new little ones, all post-Rita. I scan past the “normal names, because there are plenty of indications that creativity wasn’t stifled in southwest Louisiana.

Okay, getting started under the “Why?” category?

Mr. & Mrs. Bruce D—– named their new son “Brycen”. Brycen? Where’d THAT come from? Sounds like a new pharmaceutical…

Mr. & Mrs. Gregory J—— have a new daughter, Danon. I thought that was yogurt. Maybe Mrs. J—— did , too…

Kayla T—– has a new son, Markaven. Da daddy name doan’ be listed…

Miss Kizza S—- and Mr. Jermaine G——- announce their new son, JaMyrin Jermaine.

Kayla R—– and Jerry C—- have a new daughter, Tyleigh Kaye. I assume that’s pronounced “Tie-lee”. Does anyone really care?

Miss Krystyl Jernigan announces her baby girl, Makana. Where’d THAT come from. You get to ask the question twice, since no daddy’s name is given…

And Miss Tiffany A—– and her beloved Jamie G—– present their daughter, little Jaya Monae.

Next we have the “let’s spell it differently so eveybody will know OUR little rug rat is SPECIAL!” bunch. Leading off, we got two to compare:

Kendra B——– and Cecil F—— Named their daughter MacKenzie. Okay. That’s a last name, a Scot last name, and ain’t neither one of these folks Scottish. And they threw in the upper-case K.

Compare little Miss MacKenzie with the new child of Mr. & Mrs. Cody H—–, who hung their baby girl with “Makensi”. Based on my wild presumption that “MacKenzie” and “Makensi” are both to be pronounced identically, I think my sensibility meter just pegged…

Miss Wendy L—– and Marrico W—– have a new son, Jaason. Either they’re subtly creative, or the hospital needs to get that “A” key unstuck again…

Joshua and Kimberly R——- have a new daughter, Kasidee Revae. Awwwww. double “E”‘s! That’s sooooo CUTE! Hold my coffee while I barf. Thank you. Next!

Frank and Katie L—– named their new daughter Dawsyn Klaire. Apparently neither one of them can spell, or neither one of them have any sense. Maybe both…

Freddie and Shelley G—— have a new son, Dreyk Storm. This is a definite asset if he’s destined for a career as a male stripper.

And lastly, we have a couple of “let’s throw a few extraneous punctuation marks around to prove we actually DID show up at school” names:

Miss Shamika R—- has a new son whom she tagged Dy’len, thus offering the possibility that “creative” names are hereditary.

Miss Nekema L—– also has a new son, Ke’ven, and bolsters the above supposition.

That’s it. I’ve had enough.

Domestic Bliss, General

House

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I went out to the house today and took some pictures, just in case I might need them to prove a point in future negotiations. I guess I ought to share one with you good folks, so here it is.

Just a burned out shell...

That’s looking in through my north door, through my den and into the kitchen. The master bath and spare bedroom are in the far back. Not much left there at all.

In front of the house I had a little brick flower bed. A week after the fire, I noticed that green things were poking up. There, at the edge of the ashes, there’s new life. Here’s a little taro plant bravely pushing up past a burnt piece of lumber.

Life will find a way...

I guess that should be a sign, huh?

Domestic Bliss, General

Glorious Saturday

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Beautiful day! We do get some down here that aren’t blisteringly hot or laden with wind-blown trees. Today I woke to fifty degrees and blue skies, and I do believe that I will grab son and camera and hit the roads for a bit to get my mind off the current situation.

Coffee, General

Coffee’s Up!

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After the recent disaster, I found myself relegated to the ranks of commercial coffee drinkers yet again.

You have to know that Louisiana is one coffee-drinking state. New (ugh!) Orleans is famous for its chicory blended dark roast coffee a la Cafe Du Monde, and the rest of southern Louisiana is the land of dark roasted, strong coffee. We even have an official (by act of the state legislature, when they weren’t robbing us blind) state coffee, Community Dark Roast.

It was Community Dark Roast that I brewed during most of the past few weeks. Good stuff, especially brewed strong and fresh, but I sure did miss the really good stuff.

To that end, I finally got a new coffee roaster (FreshRoast 8 ) and a new grinder (Rancilio Rocky) and some green coffee, Kona from Smith Farms, and Papua-New Guinea Kimel from Sweet Maria’s. That means that I am finally back to good coffee.

As I sit here this morning, I am sipping the second twelve-ounce mug of freshly brewed, roasted yesterday, PNG. And it’s a fit way to start the day…

Blogging, General

Silly meme-age

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(as posted on Gut Rumbles by CalTechGirl)

Well, if this is gonna be a real meme…..

American Snapshot
According to the book, a majority of Americans:

• Eats peanut butter at least once a week (Nope. But I do get on a peanut butter kick from time to time…)
• Prefers smooth peanut butter over chunky (Nope. The chunkier, the better…)
• Can name all Three Stooges (well, all 5 if you count Curly Joe and Shemp) (There are ONLY THREE STOOGES: Moe, Larry and Curley. The others are “posers” who never could really make the grade…)
• Lives within a 20-minute drive of a Wal-Mart (Hate shopping there though. The place is full of Wal-martians…)
• Eats at McDonald’s at least once a year (McDonald’s for breakfast. I like McMuffins. I HATE their burgers…)
• Takes a shower for approximately 10.4 minutes a day (Probably a lot longer. I like a cold shower in the summertime…)
• Never sings in the shower
• Lives in a house, not an apartment or condominium (Well, I did live in a house, up until the recent unpleasant events…)
• Has a home valued between $100,000 and $300,000 (Yeah, if you count the insurance payoff…)
• Has fired a gun (Oh, yeah! From air rifles all the way to 105mm tank guns. It’s an incredible rush to sling twenty-six pounds of steel toward a target a mile away and see it hit…)
• Is between 5 feet and 6 feet tall (Nope! 6’2″)
• Weighs 135 to 205 pounds (Nope! A bit over 260)
• Is between the ages of 18 and 53 (Nope! Double nickles! 55!)
• Believes gambling is an acceptable entertainment option (Many Cajun familie enjoyed card games like poker – penny-ante, and bourre’, for no other reason than to sit around the table with friends and family and laugh and talk. I do also enjoy playing video poker and a few other games from time to time…)
• Grew up within 50 miles of current home (Yep! My family has deep roots in this area…)

BOLDS indicate the ones that apply. (Yeah, I changed that a bit because it’s easier to do bold than strike-thru…)

General

Finally Friday…

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I’m not usually the guy who just prays for Friday, but I certainly glad to see it today. There have been a multitude of stresses in my life of late.

Work has been a pain, not the technical side, but rather the administrative and support side. One of the offshoots of the recent hurricane is that the unique Chrissy, the lady who’s run an office for me for the last ten years, through two different companies, now has connection to the company’s computer system for setting up projects and entering information for billing purposes. The recent work with the hurricane recovery has resulted in a lot of projects which do not follow the usually simple protocols of charging for labor and materials. As a result, there are a lot of headaches wherein I have to help make heads and tails of some of those issues. Additionally, we are slowly shifting equipment back to our home office and to the companies we rented from, and oft-times that involves making myself available after hours or on weekends to take advantage of people shuttling back and forth between jobs in the eastern edge of the territory and our home office. The responsibility for being available at odd hours is mine.

I’ve been having kid problems, too. Teen-aged daughter problems, to be exact, and it is a very painful thing for me because I love my daughter to pieces, but she’s being VERY difficult for her mother and me to handle.

Both those problems are exacerbated by the fact that I am still without a home of my own. Sunday a crew is going to begin remediation of my old homesite, and I’m waiting on insurance money to come in so I can get started on a replacement.

As you might imagine, any home-building contractor int he area has a very full platter right now, so getting a new home built is going to be quite a leap. Concurrent with that, the rental market is a total wash, too. A few major appartment complexes suffered enough damage that dozens upon dozens of units are unliveable, and the tenants were gently evicted until such time that the apartments are repaired. Between people with uninhabitable homes and people evicted from uninhabitable apartments, there just isn’t much to find for ME to live in.

After the homesite is cleared of the burnt remains of my former home, I will be able to take advantage of a travel trailer offered to me for temporary lodging, and that will help a bit. At least I will be able to get away from the office and have a bit of privacy…

Current events - national, General, Politics

Rosa Parks

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I noted the passing of Rosa Parks a few days back. Mrs. Parks was an unlikely heroine who became a focal point for a great movement in American history. I grew up in the era in which Rosa Parks gained her fame. I saw things as a Southern child that are totally alien and unfathomable today: segregated society down to even small things like water fountains and doctor’s waiting rooms.

The transition from that society to today was not without pain, anguish, anger and misunderstanding, and it’s a transition that is till not complete.

But I passed over to Curmudgeonly & Skeptical and saw this cartoon and it was so telling that I felt it worth stealing:

Rosa and the thugs

That’s the astounding thing to me: Black people came out of segregation at a great price, a price paid by Mizz Rosa and many others who defied authority at great risk of personal loss, and the generation today takes that gift and squanders it on the caricatures in that cartoon.

I work with many great people, some of whom are great and white, and some of whom are great and black. I have no doubt that if I were transported back in time fifty years, those great and capable black people would have been relegated to menial positions in almost every case. That was the way it was then. It’s not that way now. We as a country are richer for this, and I have to take time to reflect on Rosa Parks for the gift of her bravery. But one has to wonder what she thought of the way that her gift is dragged in the dirt by much of contemporary culture, promulgated by Blacks and fed upon by exploitive whites.

General, Gun Stuff

New Jeff Cooper Commentary is up!

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Volume 13, No. 10 of Jeff Cooper’s Commentaries is up.

Col. Jeff Cooper, USMC (Ret.) is one of the giants of the classic American male. His writings should be part of every man’s education, talking about honor and duty, things that seem to receive short shrift in today’s literature. This offering contains the following quote:

Just what a young man is good for at age 21 is a good question, but more depends upon his family than his school. This, of course, is assuming that he has a family. In today’s culture there seems to be less and less of that. Before a young man leaves home, there are certain things he should know and certain skills at which he should be adept.

General

I oughtta write something…

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No, my mind isn’t drawing a blank. A blank is a nice, empty, open space waiting to be filled with information.

My problem is that my mind is full, a veritable bucket of sludge, snippets, pieces, ends, odds, one of a kind random sparks of coherent thought that just don’t seem to come together.

Event: I finalized the deal for a contractor to erase my house. His crew is planning to start some time this weekend. I guess I might go rummage through the rubble just one more time, but soon that episode will no longer exist except as a set of memories.

Other event: Working on my favorite job today, changing up controls on a decent-sized generator, twenty or so megawatts. Changing up controls means that I get to compare a set of drawings that probably started off just a little bit wrong twenty years ago with the stuff that’s actually in the cabinets, then make a determination as to how to accomplish the changes that the client wishes to have made. Accordingly, my day has consisted of sit, read a drawing until a question pops up, get up, go look in the cabinet, wiggle a wire or two if necessary, then go back to my table and make a sketch of the actual condition. I did this for six hours, and finally got to the point that I could actually start doing the physical work involved.

I’m bringing in younger help for this. Much of the needed changes involve re-wiring some components that are mounted at floor level deep inside a cabinet a bit smaller than a little closet. I could probably do it myself, but I’d rather let a younger, more flexible man do it instead. While he’s working on this project, I get an opportunity to give him a little exposure to the world of electrical power and control.

On another front, I miss having my own place. Now I know sometimes home didn’t seem like much, but I miss having my own place to ease of into, my little refuge, my quiet place. Nothing short of my own little place offers that, no matter how nice and friendly people might be where I try to stay for a few days. That’s just not MY place. A place I can call my own IS important. I think that it’s a combination of several factors: privacy, familiarity, ownership…

For anybody who might wonder, southwest Lousiana is getting more and more normal in many ways. The storm brought some changes. One that causes me awe is that we lost entire blocks of trees, big oaks and pines. Places that have been delightfully rich, dark forest now has huge holes where the sky hits soil that hasn’t seen sunlight for untold years. Some owners have chosen, rather than sit in a lot with a few unsightly snaggle-toothed trees remaining, to instead just clear the whole thing off.

I still overhear snatches of conversation from people who are talking about getting repairs underway to damaged homes, and moving back in, finally, after a month of living who-knows-where.

Many people are back at work, at least in the sectors I work around, the industries, where pay tends to be pretty decent. I assume there are a lot of people still NOT at work, though, especially in the lower-tier jobs, because just about every restaurant and supermarket is posting “help wanted” signs. I can only render a guess as to why the people who USED to fill those positions haven’t gone back. Who knows. Maybe that FEMA money gave them a new outlook on life. $2000 in FEMA cash is more than two month’s take-home pay for a lot of folks at the low end of the scale, and somebody with a poor sense of planning might just wnat to lay around until that money runs out before going back to bussing tables or sweeping floors.

I have sympathy for the folks in southern Florida. I figured that last year was Florida’s turn, and this year was ours, but Wilma kind of snuck in there at the tail end of the season and gave Florida a whack just to remind us that the peninsula is the REAL hurrican magnet. I’m hoping that we’ve finally finished the hurricane season this year. Frankly, I’m getting a bit sick of it…

I wonder how a Cajun restaurant would work in Idaho…