Monthly Archives: August 2010

Wheels of Industry

So ask me how my day went…

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Was doing good, actually. 0700 on the road from Pensacola to the station in L.A. (Lower Alabama), an hour and a half drive.

Got there, went to the construction site and found a sea of mud, the de facto pavement of construction sites everywhere. I put on my rubber boots and started slogging around with my young engineer partner, taking pictures, poking around in things. We met some of the key players on the site, then retired back to an office trailer to talk with the folks who are going to be doing some on-site testing of our new gear.

That conversation was going swimmingly when my cellphone rang. I looked a the display and saw it was my boss, so I figured I’d answer it.

That’s when things went off the track. The same problem that had dragged me out of the house to a site 250 miles north? It was back, and would I please make myself available at the site at the soonest possible date to work out a solution.

The site was 250 miles from my home in southwest Louisiana. It was 380 miles away from the hotel in Pensacola, the hotel I’d have to drive EAST for an hour and a half to get to so I could retrieve my luggage, then turn around and drive diagonally across lower Alabama, Mississippi, and into northeast Louisiana.

So now I’m back in the hotel I was in at 0100 Sunday morning, and a 0630 I’ll be headed 45 minutes up the road to take some more readings and get really irate at the utility company that’s causing us these problems.

History

Today in History – August 31

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1535 – Pope Paul II deposed & excommunicated King Henry VIII over a question of annulment and divorce. Henry says “Feh! You want to run a church, run THAT church. I’m starting my own.” And the Church of England comes into being. Another memorable moment in history precipitated by the ongoing pursuit of the Great Bearded Clam.

1803 – Lewis and Clark start their expedition from Pittsburgh at 11 o clock in the morning. In 1803, that was pretty much the end of civilization. Many politicians in Washington still believe that.

1914 – German General von Kluck decides not to attack Paris. Denies Paris a chance to meet future clientele, goes down in history as the German general who DIDN’T go to Paris. Parisian restaurateurs have to destroy all the menus they’d had printed up in German.

1939 – Nazi Germany mounts a staged attack on Gleiwitz radio station, giving them an excuse to attack Poland the following day, starting World War II in Europe. Never let a crisis go to waste, and if you don’t have a convenient crisis, INVENT one.

1942 – In Ternopil, western Ukraine, at 4.30 am, German SS organize the first deportation of Jews from Ternopil ghetto to death camp in Belzec, about 5,000 Jews were deported to face death in Belzec. When the Germans captured Ternopil, about 18,000 Jews lived in the city. The horror of REAL Nazis is that 1939-1945 has dozens of sad dates like this where they loaded up entire populations and sent them off to death camps. This is what REAL Nazis did.

1954 – Hurricane Carol (1st major named storm) hits New England, 70 die. FEMA slow to react, Bush widely blamed.

1954 – US Census Bureau forms. In 2009, it is taken over by ACORN.

1971 – Dave Scott becomes 1st person to drive a car on Moon. That’d be AMERICAN astronaut Dave Scott… And an American car.

1997 – Diana, Princess of Wales and her companion Dodi Al-Fayed and driver Henri Paul died as a result of a car crash in Paris. Hey! It’s a big deal to a lot of women…

1998 – North Korea reportedly launches Kwangmyongsong, its first satellite. Widely assumed to be bullsh*t.

Humor

The Number of the Beast

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666 is the Number of the BEAST

670 – Approximate number of the Beast

DCLXVI – Roman numeral of the Beast

666.0000000 – Number of the High Precision Beast

665.9999954 – Number of the Pentium Beast

0.666 – Number of the Millibeast

/666 – Beast Common Denominator

666 x sq. rt (-1) – Imaginary number of the Beast

1010011010 – Binary of the Beast 6

1-666 – Area code of the Beast

00666 – Zip code of the Beast

1-900-666-0666 – Live Beasts! One-on-one pacts! Call Now! Only $6.66/minute.

$665.95 – Retail price of the Beast

$699.25 – Price of the Beast plus 5% state sales tax

$769.95 – Price of the Beast with all accessories and replacement soul. Two year add-on warranty $129.95 extra.

$606.66 – Wal-Mart price of the Beast

$566.66 – Costco/Price Club price of the Beast

Phillips 666 – Gasoline of the Beast

Route 666 – Way of the Beast

666 F – Oven temperature for roast Beast

666k – Retirement plan of the Beast

666 mg – Recommended Minimum Daily Requirement of Beast

6.66 % – 5 year CD interest rate at First Beast of Hell National Bank, $666 -minimum deposit.

Lotus 6-6-6 – Spreadsheet of the Beast

Word 6.66 – Word Processor of the Beast

i66686 – CPU of the Beast

666i – BMW of the Beast

DSM-666 (revised) – Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the Beast

668 – Next-door neighbor of the Beast

– Number of the Blonde Beast uh… what was that number again?

(From an email from a really warped friend…)

Wheels of Industry

Hi, Florida!

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Out the door at 0630 this morning and onto I-10 heading east. Stopped in Crowley, Louisiana to top off my depleted gas tank and continued on down the road, all the way across the south end of Louisiana, taking I-12 at Baton Rouge to avoid New Orleans, and then into and across the tongues of Mississippi and Alabama and finally into Florida.

I did a lot of work in south Mississippi in the early 90’s. I’m amazed at the way the place has blossomed. Incidentally, this chunk of Mississippi too a direct hit from Hurricane Katrina (which the media thinks ONLY hit New Orleans) but since they couldn’t find crowds of dimmocrats who’d stop looting long enough to chant anti-Bush slogans, you’d never know it.

South Alabama took a hit from Katrina too. No coverage there, either.

I had supper this evening with one of my co-workers. It was kind of twisted: a Cajun and the son of Bangladeshi immigrants having supper in western Florida at a Vietnamese restaurant. The spring rolls and pho were great.

Blogging

Finally—

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So, in reference to the blog, here’s the deal: I thought I had the domain name on auto renew. I was wrong.

This was also the weekend that my provider was scheduled to do a server outage.

So naturally, when I did a panic question about he demise of my blog and they replied about the expired domain name, I knee-jerked an online payment and then waited. and waited. and waited. and sent emails. and made phone calls. Much of this took place on the six hour drive to my present location in Pensacola, Florida. and finally, we’re back.

Worst part? My email goes through the mail server attached to this domain name, so no domain, no email. ALL my email. Both “[email protected] AND my home provider based email which I routed through the mostlycajun.com mail server. I’m changing that.

At any rate, the blog is back. My hit counter looks like the town square in the middle of the black plague. But I’m back.

History

Today in History – August 30

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1146 – European leaders outlaw crossbow intending to ending war for all time. Except for longbows, lances, pikes, battle flails, etc., etc., ad infinitum.

1836 – The city of Houston is founded by Augustus Chapman Allen and John Kirby Allen. “Houston” was a lot snappier-sounding than “mosquito-ridden bayou”.

1862 – in the War of Northern Aggression, the Battle of 2nd Manassas, recorded by the North as the 2nd Battle of Bull Run ends as General Pope is defeated by General Lee.

1918 – Fanny Kaplan shoots and seriously injures Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin. This, along with the assassination of Bolshevik senior official Moisei Uritsky days earlier, prompts the decree for Red Terror.

“To overcome of our enemies we must have our own socialist militarism. We must carry along with us 90 million out of the 100 million of Soviet Russia’s population. As for the rest, we have nothing to say to them. They must be annihilated.”

“Do not look in the file of incriminating evidence to see whether or not the accused rose up against the Soviets with arms or words. Ask him instead to which class he belongs, what is his background, his education, his profession. These are the questions that will determine the fate of the accused. That is the meaning and essence of the Red Terror.

And that’s how a handful of radicals gain control of a nation.

1939 – Isoroku Yamamoto appointed supreme commander of Japanese fleet. A couple of years later, he attacks Pearl Harbor.

1956 – Lake Pontchartrain Causeway opens. Longest bridge in the world. Unfortunately, one end is in New Orleans, making it roughly equivalent to a concrete enema pipe…

1979 – President Jimmy “I never met a despot I didn’t like” Carter attacked by a rabbit on a canoe trip in Plains Ga. This says a lot about the quality of this man’s presidency…

Wheels of Industry

A New Direction

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For me, that is. the territory associated with my job normally encompasses Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee.

I have two pipelines. One goes north, the other east. On the eastbound pipe, I stop at the Louisiana-Mississippi line.

Until now. Tomorrow I leave the house eastbound to look at the installations of electrical equipment as we upgrade the capacity of the pipe going to Florida. MY first goal is Alabama, north of Mobile, but one of my co-workers is staying in Pensacola so that’s where I’m staying Monday and Tuesday.

It’s been a long time since I’ve been in that part of the country. I’m looking forward to the trip, except I will miss my cats and my sweetie. But the work! Oh, it might be work to some, but to me it’s just a hobby with a paycheck.

Blogging

?Blog?

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I don’t know what happened to the blog over the last day. I left the house last night around 8 PM and when I got back at noon today I pulled it up and it looked like it had disappeared. I sent a message to my server provider to see if they had any clue, then tried logging back into my blog and it seems to be working right now, but I am at a loss as to what actually happened.

UPDATE: I thought I’d set up the domain name for automatic renewal. I find that such was not the case. It has been renewed.

UPDATE UPDATE: Should be back to normal now.

The Name Game

The Name Game #249

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Running late after 500 mile round trip starting at 8 PM last night to take care of a problem up on the pipeline.

So finally I’m home. The server seems to be having some problems, too. Lovely.

Name Game? Thirty-three new births between July 23 and August 21. Eleven to unmarried parents and three new mommies didn’t see fit to name a baby daddy.

Won’t categorize. Here we go!

Dominic M. & Amy H. present a new son with a manly name, little Hunter Roy.

Cody B. & Megan C. either name their new son after a German cabbage or just can’t stomach the idea of one of those, you know, like, common spellings, so their son is now Kohl Phillip.

Charles L. & Machaela (!) J. show their appreciation of the letter “Y” by putting a couple of them in the names of their new little girl, Skylar Jaidyn.

Casey & Shawna M. get into country music and strippers when they tag their son with Waylon Blaze.

Akia B. does a triple, three “J’s” AND punctuation with her new son, little J’Vontae Jaren Jamari.

Nathaniel W. & Britney B. get all over their son’s name, giving us Alexavier Daijon. “Daijon”? As in half Japanese radish, half French mustard?

Lance & Anna G. give their son one of those manly single-syllable names, presenting us with Chase Joseph.

Charles & Jerilynn M. save a couple of letters by naming their son Jaxon Andrew.

John & Delaskian (!) S. contrive a name for their new son, little Jaedon Terrell.

And that’s a good stopping point.

History

Today in History – August 29

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1793 – Slaves in French colony of Saint Domingue (Haiti) freed. The French Revolution comes to Haiti, decapitates the ruling French, and Haiti goes on to become a green jewel in the paradise of the Caribbean. Right?

1831 – Michael Faraday discovers electromagnetic induction. It’s powerful and mysterious and provides me with a neat career…

1885 – Gottlieb Daimler patents the world’s first motorcycle.

1914 – Arizonian is first vessel to arrive in SF via Panama Canal instead of that months-long journey down and around the tip of South America.

1949 – Soviet atomic bomb project: The Soviet Union tests its first atomic bomb, known as First Lightning or Joe 1, at Semipalatinsk, Kazakhstan. On the same day in 1953, they pop their first hydrogen bomb.

1982 – 38 degrees F – lowest temperature ever recorded in Cleveland in August. Some of that ‘global warming’.

1991 – Supreme Soviet suspends all activities of the Soviet Communist Party. 2008 – Putin says he don’t need no stinkin’ party to be the dictator… Barack Obama says “Why didn’t **I** think of that?”

2005 – Hurricane Katrina devastates much of the U.S. Gulf Coast from Louisiana to the Florida Panhandle, killing more than 1,836 and causing over $115 billion in damage. What? It hit MORE than those poor people in New Orleans? Where’s mah FEMA check?

Domestic Bliss

Saturday Morning Domesticity

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After my morning cup of coffee I started a batch of laundry and then woke up son to get him down the path of things we needed to accomplish today, job one for him being to get a haircut.

I guess we got out the door and on the road around ten. I needed to run by an ATM to get some cash, and after poking the machine a bit I handed him a twenty for his haircut and then we headed across town towards the barber shop.

On the route is a “fitness center” run by the local hospital. Two firetrucks were parked outside.

“Maybe somebody overheated a treadmill”, says I.

“Reminds me of a joke”, says son.

“What joke?”

“What word begins with “F” and ends with “U-C-K” and means something exciting?” –pause—“FIretruck!” He grins.

“Son,” says I, “I heard that one in the fifth grade. I think it’s chiseled on the frieze at the Parthenon.” It’s neat having a son who knows what the Parthenon is.

“I know it’s old.”

“Julius Caesar probably stood around telling that one when he was in junior high.”

“He wasn’t Greek. He was Roman.” Neat having a son who knows that Julius Caesar is Roman.

“Yeah, but it was probably an old joke when HE was around.”

“I want to be a bard.” This is the start of random discussion of career opportunities. “I don’t know how you become a bard.”

I say, “You’re learning to play the guitar. You get a little better, you can be a minstrel.”

He: “I want to tell stories.”

Me: “Minstrels told stories in song.”

He: “Yeah.”

Me: “Yeah, if you start getting good and let people know you’re now a minstrel, people will call you to come play a while at their parties. They’ll say “Now we have Corey coming over for his minstrel period.””

“Daaaaaad!”

Humor, Wisdom

More Weekend Wisdom

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From an email that floated around the office yesterday:

  • Laugh at your problems, everybody else does.
  • Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity.
  • It’s not the fall that kills you; it’s the sudden stop at the end.
  • We have too much gun control. What we need is idiot control.
  • My opinions may have changed, but not the fact that I am right.
  • Money can’t buy happiness, but it sure makes misery easier to live with.
  • When in doubt, mumble.
  • Worrying works! 90% of the things I worry about never happen.
  • A little boy asked his father, “Daddy, how much does it cost to get married?” Father replied, “I don’t know son, I’m still paying.”
  • Women may not hit harder, but they hit lower. Ugly too.
  • My psychiatrist told me I was crazy and I said I want a second opinion. He said okay, you’re ugly, too.
  • I should’ve known it wasn’t going to work out between my ex-wife and me. After all, I’m a Cancer and she’s a bitch.
  • There’s a fine line between cuddling and holding someone down so they can’t get away.
  • I used to be indecisive. Now I’m not sure.
  • I don’t trust anything that bleeds for five days and doesn’t die.
  • You’re never too old to learn something stupid.
  • You are such a good friend that if we were on a sinking ship together and there was only one life jacket… I’d miss you heaps and think of you often.
  • To be sure of hitting the target, shoot first and call whatever you hit the target.
  • A TV can insult your intelligence, but nothing rubs it in like a computer.
  • If at first you don’t succeed, skydiving is not for you!
  • Hallmark Card: “I’m so miserable without you, it’s almost like you’re still here.”
  • If you are supposed to learn from your mistakes, why do some people have more than one child?
  • Whoever coined the phrase “Quiet as a mouse” has never stepped on one.
History

Today in History – August 28

1565 – Oldest city in the US, St Augustine Florida, established. Immediately overrun by snowbirds…

1830 – The Tom Thumb presages the first railway service in the United States.

1837 – Pharmacists John Lea & William Perrins manufacture Worcester Sauce. Life is good!

1898 – Caleb Bradham renames his carbonated soft drink “Pepsi-Cola“.

1962 – 22 inches (55.9 cm) rainfall at Hackberry, Louisiana (state record). Hackberry is about fifteen miles south of me.

1963 – Martin Luther King Jr’s “I have a dream speech” at Lincoln Memorial in front of a crowd of 200,000. Poor, poor deluded man. Who’s gonna believe that “they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character” nonsense?

1981 – The National Centers for Disease Control announce a high incidence of Pneumocystis and Kaposi’s sarcoma in gay men. Soon, these will be recognized as symptoms of an immune disorder, which will be called AIDS. At that point the spread can be prevented by sitting on your butt and keeping your mouth shut…