The Silence is Deafening

One of the advantages to working for a manufacturing company with like 90,000 employees is that we have staff patent attorneys. Apparently we don’t want to pay $166,000 a year for ones who are fresh out of college working for law firms to defend our intellectual property. I didn’t speak directly with one, but I spoke with an engineer I know who was contemplating becoming a patent attorney. He spoke with one who was fresh out of law school, just started at Opposite of Dog as a patent attorney. His starting wage, in 1999 was 80K. So, there’s another data point suggesting Rakhi is blowing smoke up our asses.

This must be how Barack Obama feels, having (almost certainly) defeated a woman who is out of touch with the reality of how numbers are handled on a practical basis, and who’s sense of entitlement makes her say whatever she can to win. (Maybe that was too far, but it’s so easy when you know what will set a person off.)

Anyway, back to the Gonzo Engineering, sort of. I’ll probably continue to make inappropriate remarks until the dead horse is fully beaten since it will be impossible for them not to check back and gnash their teeth.

I attended a celebration / thank you meeting at work. The D7E was shown to the public at Con-Expo this year a few months ago. It was kind of a big deal. It’s the first electric drive track-type tractor. With the Green focus nearly everyone has lately combined with the rising cost of fuel, it made a huge splash at the convention.

Why does this matter? I designed the cooling system, and air intake and exhaust system on it. The technical manager mentioned something about the fact that we are leaving a legacy by working on this machine.

It got me thinking about success (since we were talking about success and what defines it in our previous discussion), and what matters, if anything, about leaving a legacy.

In The Denial of Death, by Becker, he says that everyone has a little project they work on throughout their life in order to cheat death and leave something behind that will last. This can be their work, or their family, or some sort of conquest, or whatever. Something that will shine on after they are in the ground.

I’ve mentioned before that it doesn’t really matter what you do in life, eventually the sun will engulf the earth, and eventually all energy in the universe will be used up and it will just be this cold dark place.

It’s kind of depressing. So in a few trillion years will it really matter that I designed part of this cool dozer, not really. If you dwell on that you’ll just end up being a Nihilist though.

So what makes me successful and what’s my little legacy project.

I think number one, the big one, the most important measure of this man, is how many naked women I have tattooed on me. I’m at four! That’s eight breasts, and four vaginas. Although I’m not sure what’s going on downstairs on the mermaid. (Again, it’s just too easy.)

I’ve never really cared what I do for work. The only reason I took this job was it paid the most, and it wasn’t a company that made things that kill people (expect those bulldozers we sold to the United States government who then gave them to Israel, but I’m not a believer in guilt by association) or something stupid like garbage cans. I work to make money so I can do fun things outside of work, and now so that my kids have clothes and food.

I’m don’t think I’m going to discover anything or get a statue erected in my honor for humanitarian work or great leadership.

Although maybe when I magically have time or money I’ll be able to refine my tattoo machine.

I also think I’m passed my prime to play any better than Peoria Men’s B-league hockey, so no sports glory.

I certainly won’t have millions of dollars to pass on, unless I become a war profiteer and then have a guilty conscious and start a peace prize.

I suppose my piece of immortality and my legacy will be my two little dudes (the littlest of which is starting to get his weight up!), and any success or children they have and their success. My genes will continue on.


In the end, just like Huey P. Newton (Or what Spike Lee made Huey P. Newton say in a movie), I’m just trying to laugh at all the funny things that happen on the way to the grave.