Has it been that long?

Well I certainly haven't intended to let this go this long without posting something. Really I had thoughts I wanted to share but something always got in the way. Much of which was a lack of creativity to put those thoughts into words.

First there was the idea of global warming. Instead of spouting off figures that someone else has already spouted off, I though how about a individual view of how the environment has changed over ones lifetime. Like when I was a kid we had snow in the winter, for much of the winter too. Quality snow that you could ski on. If you were lucky Memorial day weekend would be warm enough to go camping. Typical summer forecast was cloudy with frequent rain showers. Those times the sun was out you could expect about 75°F and maybe even over 80°F. That was hot for here in south central Alaska. August come in and it was as if the switch controlling the seasons was changed to rain. August always seemed to have at least 15 days of rain, or more. Snow starts to appear on the mountains bordering Anchorage, termination dust as its called since it signifies the termination of summer. Labor Day weekend was usually the last weekend most people went camping, temps started to drop off after that. September generally brought the first snow fall of the upcoming winter, I recall many times in school the silence of school work was broken with "its snowing!". Usually we had snow on the ground by last week of September, first week of October. The snow was wet, heavy and perfect for snowball fights.

These years the winters aren't as bad, defiantly as long as before but the snow seems to be lacking. Evaporation of the snow over winter seems accelerated as well. This spring was the coldest on record, but oddly it felt like the spring of the past. Last few years we were getting 50°F days in April and into the 60's by May. 80°F summer days became the normal temp, my house would get so hot that we could no longer keep tropical fish alive, their tank water would get too hot and they would die. Fish it seems don't take well to changes in temp. Rain wasn't a normal event, until August. Even then the number of days of rain was less on average, probably down to 10. September was warm enough for the first part you could still feel comfortable camping, need a jacket but it was OK still. October would be cold, wet and no snow. If it did snow it wouldn't stay since the next 40°F day would melt what little snow fell. Lately it seems if you have snow before Thanksgiving then its early. That first real snowfall that stays on the ground is usually the first week of December.

Comparing the two time periods I have to say the temperatures haven't changed all that much, sure they went up but not a great deal. But the amount of rainfall and snowfall is very much different. There just seems to be less of it overall.

Now then another thought I had; I heard that the war in Iraq, going on to its 4Th year (now longer than the US involvement in WW2) has a price tag of $500 billion so far. Two things I wonder about that. 1, to come up with that amount of money, and have tax cuts as well, where did the money come from? What programs and budgets were cut to provide this money. Why wasn't that money available for other programs prior to this war? Is the loss of that money going to cost us more in the long run?

2, Can you imagine taking that money and providing it as a grant, not a loan, to any US Citizen that is capable and willing to go to college? Like all grants put in a performance clause so that if you don't go to an accredited college you don't get the money. Don't show up for classes, don't pass enough of them, no money. On a global scale we are facing competition with countries based on labor. China has a huge labor force that work cheap, 64 cents an hour. India also has a large labor force. Why should we compete over jobs when the foreign labor rate is so much less? Why not raise the bar on our employable base of the population? More engineers, doctors, scientist, etc.

Well just some thought... Till next time.

Return of Merill

While the original video was pulled it didn't stop people from grabbing it while it was up and editing it. Now in the style of James Brown it's the Merill Howard Kalin Show.

Bugatti Veyron at top speed
Uploaded by Flabber

Well I hope you had a chance to watch the Merill Howard Kalin show, it was pulled today from You Tube while I was showing off part 2. Which was too bad since I was going to try and pull some audio off them.

Meanwhile I have a Judge Judy segment for your enjoyment. Ebay scammer gets her due rewards.



Now as most of you know I live in Alaska. You know the stereotype vision of Alaska, a barren frozen wasteland with blowing snow and the northern lights shining overhead. OK it's not really like that, in fact the eastern US has picked up more snow than we have all winter. But what is true is that our winters are longer here. For instance this week we are dipping into the -10°F range at night with a high of maybe 20°F during the day. In another month we should have considerably warmer temps. What bothers me is all the chain stores, Walmart, Fred Meyer's, Sear's, ect. have nationally moved into their spring line up of clothing. Well my kid lost a glove at school last week so I popped into the store to see if I can get another pair. Nope. But if he needed a swimsuit then no problem. It's beyond me how these marketing geniuses can ignore the reality of the local climate. Walmart may bring it to you for less but you're stuck with what they bring you.

Now another 1950's PSA for you.




Good girls don't park.

Well well. I am really getting behind here. I plead not guilty by reason of distraction. First off there is the work thing that was really pissing me off there. I cycles so right now I'm not so pissed off at work. But a new week approaches so who's to know what comes. Second with the failure of my hard drive and the affect that has had on my computer, simple things like finding missing links and updating, ect, ect has take some of the enjoyment I get out of writing. Even my emails suffer and believe me its a two edged sword when it comes to loosing track of my emails. Friday alone I got 244 emails, of which maybe 4 were trivial in nature, like the Daily Dilbert cartoon, my isp warning me about a virus in my mail, a couple of computer tech newsletters. And Friday was a bit less than normal, end of the week and people trying to get as much done before hitting the computer. As for my computer problems well the HD failed again and it is now off to warranty land. I'm sure it'll be a month before I get it back. Still pisses me off that a drive that I've had less than 6 months has given up like that. But that's the nature of mass production in toady's economy.

Through my work I see some unique and interesting ways that a major manufacture will change a design or material in a part to cut cost of either the part or the expense of making that part. For instance stamped steel is cheaper to manufacture than a forged steel part. Plastic is far cheaper than any metal. Sometimes these cost cutting ideas are genuinely brilliant and other times they are time bombs waiting to explode, hopefully after the manufactures warranty has expired. And this idea is not just an automotive idea, its world wide and nothing new.

Well enough of reality. You got to love cable access and what it brings.












Enjoy and for the sake of you and yours, don't cook like him!

Well I never said I would be prompt and daily

Seems the blog isn't' being kept up to date as I originally hoped for. I blame life for such things. There's the daily job that can really suck the energy out of you, then the nightly chores upon returning home. It does seem as though work has played a big part in it, although the happenings there can be blog worthy.

For instance I have this 57 year old guy that I work with that lacks the confidence in himself to do his job so he's always asking me to check this or that. I call it avoiding responsibility for ones actions. Yet he likes to call me and the other guy little names like "Gravy" or "Gravy train", trying to insinuate that our jobs are easy and the money just flows in. Normally I let shit like that roll off but he's about to learn that it takes 2 cups of coffee for me to fully wake up and not to call me that first thing in the morning. I'll start throwing shit at him. But things like that and some management decisions have shown me that I'm the only employee that assumes more risk on the work I do than anyone else working there. I rebuild transmissions. If 1 thing is out of place, sticky, or malfunctions, its on me to fix it, at least labor wise. Well it sucks to find that the faulty item is not something I was able to know before hand only to find out that I'm screwed for the lost time. For instance back in November I overhauled this 2002 Mercury Mountaineer. It was a first for me as I've never seen this model of transmission before (BTW there are well over 3000 different models and sub models of transmissions), and while I knew where to look for the worn case I could not detect anything abnormal.

Well somethings you just have to believe they are bad and fix it and I should have. But... a month later the truck is back with a slipping problem. We have to order a tool and bushing set to repair the case so the service manager told the vehicle owner to go ahead and drive it and we'll call you when the tool comes in. A month after that the truck is in with a complaint of it won't move. The bad part has snowballed into attempted arson of the inside of this transmission. Only then was I approached to be asked how do we order this tool? Umm off the paper I gave you a month ago. So end result is I spent about 2 days of labor, while I was covered up with paying work, lost to repair more damage than was necessary. Then payday comes about and I get told what amounts to a slap in the face. "you didn't get paid on that mountaineer, I know it wasn't your fault. We'll make it up to you next payday". Yeah right.

So you may think well find another job. And maybe that could be the future, but right now I fell trapped between demands of providing for my family and avoiding getting screwed at work. I'll own up to my mistakes when I make them, and usually they are clear and apparent real quick. So I see perhaps a talk is in order, with a better understanding on where my responsibility ends.

OK I'm cutting it off here before it gets me pissed all over again. It's bad enough I have to feel that way at work.

What a pain

The other night I was on the computer and all of a sudden the screen locked up and the sound looped. Having been around a while with computers I know its either faulty software or a hardware glitch. This time we opt for the hardware. Damn it. Seems now that I can't boot up into Windows Pro XP, there is an apparently missing critical file. Luckily I have a dual boot set up so I can still use the computer and salvage my files. Some things that would be very very difficult (i.e. impossible) to replace is my email. I just moved the Outlook data file that holds all of my sent/received email and contacts. 2.2 GB file. Yeah I kept a few files. You see I'm on a technical network that has over 1000 members where we talk about new things, help each other with the problem at hand and warn each other of possible scams or traps. Then there is the 'bs' group where we joke, talk about non technical things, and basically have become a rather close group, sharing in each others pain and joys. Certainly more of the former than the later lately

So far in the past 6 months we've had one friend nearly die from a liver complication and ended up getting a transplant. Another friend loose their mother, one lost a father, a son in law, one was diagnosed with a disease that will one day leave him with limited movement and speech, and another his life from bone cancer. We've been short on good news for '06. But that's life sometimes, there's good and bad and there's nothing fair about it. Fairness is a concept invented by people in a vain attempt to resolve disputes between kids, hopefully before they start. What life brings us is balance. Its about change and how those changes balance out. My group of friends share a great deal with each other, I sometimes do but yet I felt I've placed that burden on them once before and I've not 'earned' that right to do so again. About 4 years ago we nearly lost our youngest child to HIB, a strain of influenza that caused pneumonia, which caused fluid buildup around his heart and nearly killed him. We spent 2 weeks in the hospital, riding an emotional roller coaster of pain and relief. One day I'll talk about that story, but not this day. What Lanae and I ended up doing as a form of stress relief was to turn to this group of friends on the Internet and pour all our emotions into our letters to the group. Just talking was so much help and seeing their heartfelt responses did as well. It really means a lot when you can see that someone understands what you're going through.

And sometimes that's what I'll do here, hopefully never anything traumatic as a sick child or lost family member. I know its very possible, after all life is not fair. But we can hope for the best.

Well my backups are about finished so I'm going to cut this off here and go fight windows.