And I Awoke, and Faintly Bouncing Round the Room

I'm waiting for the release of Guitar Hero World Tour, and for whatever reason I'm also having a hell of a time typing.

I'm going to head to Walmart at about 11:30 so I can get my hot little hands on World Tour. Yeah, I'm a loser. I'm not going to get the drum set. I'm not that big of a loser.

I've been trying to think of how to pull these ideas I have floating in my head into a post. The big themes are The bizzaroness of existence, and how people change, becoming who they are, and how you can have an idealized version of what they should be from past experience.

I was walking through the center yard at work, all this heavy equipment around me, the sound of diesel engines and impacts, dirt on my jeans and boots, lugging two laptops in from testing. The only thing I like about fall is the cool air that fills your lungs in the morning. It's not bitter like in winter, just cold enough when you breathe in and breathe out you get the condensed water vapor.

The combination of everything, the air, the dirt, the pain in my shoulder, the sounds, the fact that I was being paid every day to do this testing. It just struck me as bizarre. It was like being a kid again crossing the Wisconsin River on the way to church and being struck by the fact that I exist, that anything exists.

Is this some religious epiphany for me? I don't think so.

This most likely doesn't make sense, but I find it weird that anything exists. Why should it? It's either a profound and deep statement, or just retarded. I can 't really make any more sense of it than that.

Next on my mind is how people you used to know are, and how they got there.

My sister's boyfriend in high school was cool as shit. He introduced me to Phish, took me rollerblading when I was just learning and just was awesome. I have these memories of him just being one of the coolest people I knew at the time. So I befriend him on facebook, and I find out he's a dirty Republican. (And I say that with love Steve.)

He makes all these comments on his status about personal responsibility, and staying the course, and blah, blah, blah, and his photo is some anti-Obama thing.

I understand how most people become who they are. They usually just reflect their parents and the towns they grew up in. So Wis Rapids is what it is and it wouldn't suprise me that it pumps out a high percentage of Republicans. Yeah, it's got working people with Unions, but it still is what it is.

How does one go from being a seamingly artistic hippy all around awesome guy to a Republican artist?

Is it the same way I went from King of the Dorks (or at least a high ranking Dork Official) to a heavily tattooed Liberal engineer? (Who is still a dork waiting to buy Guitar Hero at midnight on it's release date.)

I don't know. People change. Certain underlying personality traits might not, but everything else can and does.

I just hate it when new shit that comes to light about people you know tarnishes those old memories you have of them.

Picking dirt out of my teeth

One of my pipelayers is messed up, so I've been out in a dust bowl trying to work on it with 32° mornings and 60° afternoons.

Trick or Treating was fun with Carter.

You can see pictures of it here, and the post before that has some news.

It's alive. Always blows me away.

Short Man Syndrome and How to Operate a Pipelayer

My father taught me several key lessons in life, many of which I don’t recall.

Perhaps the most important, and the one that sticks out in my mind, was to be cautious when dealing with short men (men who have a small stature). I kind of recall this Dr. Zaius in Planet of the Apes, Beware Man speech he gave to me, but about short dudes.

The thing is, he was absolutely right. All my life, any short dude I have encountered has always been trying to prove something to me because they were short. They always kind of have this little (ha ha) chip on their shoulder. If they’re good at something, they wrap themselves around it and define themselves by it, and want to always tell you how much better they are at it than you.

I’ve known some cool short dudes as well, but I can count them on about two fingers.

Carter is pretty short right now on the growth chart, which means nothing really. My dad, and my wife’s dad are both average height, and I’m 6’2” so I’m not terribly concerned for him.

I’ve been working on a deregulated 587R pipelayer. It’s old school and billows black smoke when you pull the mechanical governor to full throttle. It doesn’t have any roll over protection on it, so if you tip over in it, you’re dead unless you can jump away from it in time.

To steer it there are two levers and two brakes in front of you. Clutches and Brakes. You pull in the clutch on the side whose track you want to slow down or stop and push the brake. The art and grace that is involved in turning a pipelayer like this comes in because you’ve got several tons of winch and counterweight over the right track which means you have lower traction the left side.

If you’re on concrete and make a right hand turn and don’t really know what you’re doing, it kind of sounds like the worse nails on chalk board sound you’ve ever heard in your life.

It’s a good way to piss everyone around you off who isn’t wearing earplugs. Got to learn somehow.

There Will Always Be Yesterday

This afternoon I went out to play on my D6T since I was waiting for a response as to whether or not I needed to test more.

As I carved into the side of a twelve-foot tall wall of dirt, I began to try and recall the dreams I’ve had the past two nights. I’ve known I was dreaming the past two nights, and can recall the dreams were emotionally intense, but I can’t remember the content.

My subconscious must be in turmoil, if dreams are the subconscious trying to communicate with the conscious self.

Or maybe it’s just random neurons firing in my brain while I sleep. People, places, and things I’ve been encountering the last two days in some happenstance order that seems to make sense. Some twisted story line that will never, and has never happened. Big things are happening, are going to happen, that are out of my control.

I designed the Sears Tower; I make two grand an hour

I had a productive Monday morning. I got all the testing done I needed to. I thought it would take most of the week, but everything went well and we got it done. On Friday I learned how to put a 47,000-pound bulldozer up on stands. They don’t exactly make jacks of that size. Basically you put wood blocks under the tracks and back up on them. Then you slide stands under the back, lift the front end up with the blade, and then put stands under the front. The tracks are completely off the ground, and you can do steering tests. I have an awesome job. Of all the boring shit I could be doing as a mechanical engineer, I get to put bulldozers up on stands and brake stall the tracks.

Tonight I’m turning in my hockey roster for winter league. I’m happy with the team I put together. It should be a fun season. I don’t expect to win every game, but it’ll be fun.

I played Rat last night with a bunch of really good players. It was a lot of fun. I was blasted when I got home. There were like 30 guys there so I didn’t get all that many shifts over the hour and a half, but I was working hard skating up to their level.

We’re going to make a trip to Madison on Saturday. There isn’t a home football game so we’ll be able to enjoy the downtown campus area on a nice Fall day. We need to make trips back to Madison every so often so we don’t start to think that Peoria is actually a good town to live in. I’m looking forward to eating some good Thai food. It should be a fun day trip.

Dicking Around Reaches a Strange New Level

I’ve sat in a produce cooler drinking soda and eating exotic fruit.

I’ve ground up expensive steaks and priced them at $0.25 a pound for food to eat on break which would then last over an hour.

I’ve listened to Harry Potter and listened to DVD’s all day long at my Pro/E Station

But this is the most bizarre waste of time at work I’ve ever experienced. Right now I’m sitting on top of a hill in an open cab pipelayer listening to MP3’s. It’s about 65 degrees and sunny. All I need is a cold drink and it would be perfect.

Really I’m just waiting for a machinist to get my part done so I can run my test.

I’m on the outskirts of the WiFi network, but I can still access the internet.
I should be analyzing data or writing a report or something, but it’s the Friday before a holiday weekend. What so many people fail to realize is that work will always be waiting there for you. That attitude won’t take me to the top, and won’t make me a millionaire, but most millionaires are jackasses anyway.

Two posts in one day-When's the last time that happened

I've got this other funny story, maybe not funny, but strange.

I am a test engineer, but we aren't allowed to actually run the machines for the tests. (I still get to play on them frequently) If you have real data to take though you need to have an Operator do it. Just like if you need something wrenched on, you get a Mechanic to do it. Union rules.

Most (all) of the Operators are grizzled old dudes.

So I need to do some slot dozing (digging a blade wide trench and creating a pile of dirt at the end) with a D8.

I grab a grizzled Operator, and we head out to the dozer pile where I've moved the machine to and have it all calibrated just right.

I explain what I need, and walk over to the machine with him from the truck. I figure he's going to do a machine walk around for safety and whatnot. He heads to the front of the blade and I kind of follow. He mentions something about the cutting edge being dull with his back to me.

All of a sudden he's taking a leak.

I make a 180 and head around like I'm checking something out.

Now I've got nothing against a dude taking a piss in front of another dude, but give me some heads up. Say, "Man I shouldn't have drank all that coffee this morning." Or, since he was old "Shit my prostate if flaring up again I need to squeeze a few drops out."

This also is the year 2007 and women also work at our facility. I wouldn't be whipping my Bishop out unless I was damn sure that no ladies who could get me fired were around. I don't even like tightening my belt if I'm not in the bathroom because I think people might think something funny.

He finished up, and we started testing. Midway through the test, while I was uploading some data, I saw him get out of the machine and take a leak again.

He was all cool when we were talking. He didn't think anything of it. I should feel good though that he felt comfortable enough to do that in front of me. I think that's a sign of trust. (in some cultures)

Steve Calls Out Lawryde

Well, Steve called me out, so I thought I’d write something.

I’m going through a bit of a creative dry spell. I like my work now, so I can’t bitch about that. I’m not really in a writing mood, and nothing particularly interesting has been happening.

I’m listening to Harry Potter right now; I already know how it ends. My wife read it in 8 hours. I enjoy listening to the books while I drive and work. I imagine its kind of like listening to old time radio programs since the dude who reads them does voices and adds appropriate inflection.

I got my operators license at work. That means I get to drive Track Type Tractors and Pipe Layers when I get the chance. It kind of gives me an appreciation for what this company actually does. When I was designing, I was so disconnected from the product. Now I can go and fire up a D11 and take it for a spin. If you never have before, it’s kind of like driving a small house that can push 80 of cubic yards of dirt.

Turns out I’m pretty bad with money. I’m just too weak, and there are so many things I want.

Carter is learning a bunch of new words, and it’s good that he’s being super cute, because he’s got a few annoying habits, like hitting and spitting out water.