Giggity

I'm not sure why this wasn't announced on Monday with the rest of the layoffs. I was reading elsewhere that we warned of posting a first quarter loss this year. That would suck.

I'm just going to keep on doing what I'm doing. I think what I'm working on represents 20% of the next emissions level credits we get through the EPA, so it needs to get done come loss or whatever, or the business is fucked.

I decided to go out and give the economy a goose this weekend and drop some g's on a 2008 Hyundai Entourage. It's a pretty sweet van. We got the DVD player and most of the cool extra shit you could get. No sunroof which kind of bums me out, but the deal was awesome. Since they were trying to get rid of the 2008's and this was the last one on my dealers lot and I've bought 2 vehicles from them already, they gave it to us for invoice and I got $4000 from the factory, and I got $1500 customer loyalty cash, and they gave us a decent amount on our Tucson. I ended up with only a bit higher monthly payment than I had with the Tucson.

I was testing out the wireless DVD headphones yesterday, and one pair's left ear didn't work so I have to have them get me a new one of those, other than that I'm digging it.

And for those of you who have been reading this blog for a while, yeah, I think you can comfortably have sex in it with the third row down.

Slipknot tomorrow. It's going to be crazy awesome.

No Slipknot video, because I saw Weezer live in Japan on Palladia and I can't get this song out of my head.

The Thin Red Line

I usually try and play it cool at work. I’m a jackass on the internet, I’m not a very good person in general, but I need to have some level of civility at work so that I can pay my mortgage since I’m not a massive mortgage lender and the government won’t bail me out if I can’t pay. I’m just fucked.

But still, shit tends to happen because I work around dudes who are willing to cross that professional line to get their point across. You may remember this incident from two years ago.

I’ve been at the sandbox for one year now. I’ve tried to keep people happy. There are a lot of different groups of people that all interact together in a precarious truce that could be broken at any moment.

I broke that truce last Friday. I went into the field, with a non-Union operator and took data right before a thunderstorm without telling the operations supervisor. Woops. As the storm was rolling in, I called the operations supervisor and asked him if I could stay out, since I was in a covered building.

He asked me what I was doing out there. I told him I was taking data with this demonstration operator.

Boom. He flipped his shit. What I didn’t know was the politics behind the sandbox operators not liking the demonstration operators. I got an earful of how what I was doing was wrong, and how I needed to get the shit back to base and set up a meeting between him and my direct supervisor. I was a bit pissed off. I don’t need to be berated on the phone. We’re all fucking professionals working for a Fortune 50 company. Lets act like it.

I set up the meeting and left at 2 in the afternoon. I had come in at 5:45 AM so I was done. It really kind of messed up my weekend thinking about how I was going to handle this, and what was going to be done as a result of it.

As I talked with some people this morning I felt a bit better. It didn’t seem like that big of a deal to most people.

We had our meeting at ten. The weekend allowed the supervisor to calm down a bit. I stated my position, he stated his, and we came to an agreement on the demonstration operator evaluating my dozer.

He was getting pressure from the Union, that’s why he was pissed. I was making an awkward situation for him. So now, to give Unions a bad name, I can run with the demonstration operator while a Union operator stands and watches. Nice.

Whatever though, I’ll play ball. I just want to develop a good dozer implement system.

When you kill a king, you don't stab him in the dark. You kill him where the entire court can watch him die.

That quote was in my mind while I was dreaming last night. When I woke up I was thinking about how Obama could finish off Clinton.

It would be cool if he had enough SD’s on Tuesday night to get over the 2118 and the whole thing would be done. I guess he would need 5 extra so Clinton doesn’t complain about Michigan. I was watching some of that Michigan and Florida rules committee debate on Saturday because you can’t do a whole lot keeping a baby comfortable. When the whole thing was decided there were these women who supported Clinton who were all pissed off and said they were going to vote for McCain.

Seriously? You’re a woman who wanted to see a woman become the president for the first time, but you’re going to vote for a man who wants to put Supreme Court justices on the bench who would overturn RVW. Yeah, that will show the “man” how sexist he was in treating Hillary and you’ll help get the right to choose what you do with your body taken away. Great statement to the world. Two enthusiastic thumbs up. Brilliant idea.

Fucking idiots.

We’re heading back to the city I love on the 13th . Our friends from college are getting married at the Olbrich Botanical Gardens. I met Ehron while working part time as a Janitor at Meriter Hospital. We cleaned up the hospital together, and wasted time talking about music, video games, and philosophy. He didn’t go to school at the time. He was just working getting by, an interesting dude. He lived in the same building as my wife and I with his now fiancé.

I cleaned up his blood after he tried to kill himself. It wasn’t a halfhearted attempt either. He cut the long way. I visited him in the hospital, and let him know he had friends who cared about him. Like I’ve said before, when shit like that happens the world becomes crystal clear to you. I’m glad he’s alive. I’m glad he’s getting married.

I miss hanging out with Ehron.

As a semi-adult and full-blown adult, my friends have almost never been engineers or professionals. Professionals are dicks, as we’ve all seen, including myself.

Another chunk of wisdom my dad gave me, I think back in junior high, was that you shouldn’t treat people who do a job that may seem like bullshit any different than if they were doing your job. I believe it was in reference to the janitors at the junior high where he worked and I attended.

I’ve lived by that bit of wisdom. I probably have more respect for janitors, grocery store workers , butchers, and machinists than I do for doctors, lawyers, and engineers. I’ve done all of those “shit”, hard working, and lower education requirement jobs. They’ve been with some of the finest people I’ve ever met. Less bullshit, less tiptoeing around “sensitive” issues, less hubris and pretentious ass-hat-ery.

It’s a Good Time to be Paying Off Debt

Our economy is in a recession, or at least we’ll know we were in a recession in a few years. Stupid economics.

My company is actually growing, hiring, and making record profits. Why? We export 50% of our machines and engines to other places in the world. Unlike American cars, which no one but Americans want, we aren’t only affected by the US economy.

So I’ve got this good paying job, and banks are giving out great deals on credit since they’ve got people not paying and going into foreclosure and bankruptcy.

All of my unsubstantiated debt is riding on one of those zero percent for 12 months credit card deals. When that deal is over, it will all be paid off.

I also want to talk to all my Republican friends? out there who haven’t had their primary yet. Your man is already a mathematic certainty. If your primary is open, i.e. anyone can vote in it, I think you should go and vote for Obama. My reason is this: Do you really want to take the chance that Hillary will become president? You probably hate her more than I do. Go do it. You’ll feel better about your God fearing, gun loving, upper class tax breaking self.

What I’ve done

Holy shit it’s cold. It’s that cold where you get ice crystals forming in your beard. If you don’t understand that I guess you should man up and grow a beard. It’s also too cold for electronic data acquisition systems to recognize they have a thermocouple card in them. For the first time ever I went into work on the weekend. I was all set to get some data collected and the fucking EDAQ wouldn’t read my temperature channels. This happened once before, and I reset the EDAQ and it was OK. This time it didn’t work. So much for being a good little corporate monkey, also no one is going to be at the proving grounds on Sunday and Monday so I can’t do any work on those days.

I steam cleaned the carpets after my disappointing morning in the dirt. My arm was burning from being tattooed last night.

I think I’ll need one more session to finish my sleeve. It’s come together nicely. I got two big nautical stars, and a naked little mermaid (not to be confused with the movie, this one is old school Sailor Jerry), and some background fog and little stars.

I’m to the fourth venue on expert in GH3. I need to finish this Sonic Youth song and the encore song to move on. I’ve figured out what GH3 actually is. It’s really just a typing test put to rock and roll. Once you get really good at typing, you don’t even think about it, you just think of what you want done and you fingers do it. It’s the same thing with GH.

I was talking politics with my tattoo artist last night. This was prior to discussing the new artwork the shop had purchased of a stylized drawing of a woman getting her pussy licked by a dog. (very classy by the way, and it would be a free chest piece if I wanted. I decided to pass.) (I’m going to get some twisted people coming to this page via google now.) Anyway, we were talking about how, if Clinton ends up getting the Democratic nomination and winning the presidency, it will be at least 24 years of rule by a Clinton or a Bush. Our country is turning into a fucking monarchy. Go Barack. If he doesn’t get the nod, I may have to vote Republican as long as it’s not Mitt. Crazy Mormons.

B Vs. C hockey tomorrow. I’m excited.

My Testicles Defy Your Medical Logic

I’m looking for some insulated bib overalls for work so when it gets really fucking cold and I have to be out testing a cab-less pipelayerr I don’t freeze my nuts off. I naturally begin looking at Carhartt’s since that’s what every other hick at work has.

It looks like I’d have to drop $90 retail or like $60 on ebay. I had kind of resigned my self to this fact until I found this other brand called Toughguard which is around $40.

I couldn’t really understand this, but I then realized that Carhartt clothing is made in the United States by unionized labor. Toughguard is most likely made by a six year old in Indo-China.

I’m never one to deny a child’s right to work, so I’m going to go with the Toughguard.

Carter was being incredible and super cute this weekend.

We’ve got this little plush monkey, and he was carrying it around and calling it George (a’ la’ Curious George which we read to him). He then would take it and lay it down on the floor and say George sleep. Then he looked around his toy box saying pillow over and over until he found a little beanbag. He put it under the monkey’s head and said George pillow sleep. Then he grabbed this piece of silk and covered him up and said George sleep. In two months he’ll be two.

I don’t work for Initech or Intertrode or any other lame ass company that tried to combine an adjective and technology; I work at Opposite of Dog.

I was going to put together a cool post based on that sentence, but I’m pretty tired right now and I’m going to go home.

Sorry to leave you hanging like that kids.

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.

Listening to Pink Floyd and taking corporate training

I learned last night that it isn’t the smartest thing to give a 15-month-old fried chicken. Not even the skin of fried chicken, the actual meat part. My poor little guy was shitting like crazy all night, and just had a hell of a time sleeping, too much grease in his system.

I shaved my head yesterday, because I was hot, and my hair was annoying me.

I’ve done this at least 2 or 3 times before. Yet most people at Opposite of Dog think it’s this crazy, outrageous thing that is happening for the first time.

It’s really no surprise to me. And that, Steve, is why I can never show my tattoos. They think it’s wild and crazy when a guy shows up with a shaved head.

I’d love to show up with a Mohawk, but the wife thinks that wouldn’t be such a good idea either.

I think I could make a Mohawk look professional.

So the more I think about he bullshit that happened to me regarding my “performance” at work more than a year ago, the more it pissed me off.

The two golden boys who were saying I was doing a shit job and were getting high ratings have since moved on to new jobs.

In this world we are not judged on our real performance, we are judged on the perception of our value.

I was working on the intake and exhaust system; they were working on the cooling system, which I then inherited.

As I’ve been working on the cooling system, we’ve found out all kinds of things are fucked up in it. Bad assumptions were made, data was incorrect, shit just didn’t add up. I’m fixing it. They got high ratings and I almost didn’t get a raise.

We finally got the test results back on my exhaust system. My muffler passed with flying colors. It’s one of the first ever to be on a bulldozer and pass after the first design iteration. Solid as a fucking rock, not even close to failure.

My brain child.

My design.

The crazy tattooed motherfucker who hates Corporate America can design like a kid out in the rain, while Johnny ass kissers who puts on the air of actually doing a good job, actually output garbage which I then fix.

Do you have an eye infection or are you just happy to see me?

I’ve been absent as of late from my blogging duties because I’ve been sick since Sunday.

Carter has a blocked tear duct so his left eye is prone to infection. He’s kind of had a cold sort of congested thing, so we took him to the Pediatrician last week and got him on antibiotics and eye drops. Well I caught what the worm baby was carrying both in my eyes and my upper respiratory track. I woke up Sunday morning and my eyes were a bright red shade and had yellow gunk all over the eyelashes and my throat was on fire.

My wife also had similar symptoms so we all took a family trip to Prompt Care to get some drugs.

Now it’s a few days later and I feel a bit better. No crusty eyes, throat feels better, still snotty.

In other news, I got rid of my truck. What did I trade it in for you ask? A 2006 Hyundai Tucson.



Now you’re mad, because you know how I feel about foreign automakers and foreign engineering.

You’re a fucking hypocrite lawryde!

I’m never reading your blog again!

Now calm down. I said I would never buy a Japanese automakers truck, and I stand by that. When it comes to a compact SUV, I’m willing to buy Korean. I just couldn’t justify driving a truck that got 15 miles to the gallon when I really don’t use it enough to haul or tow things. If I really need to haul some shit, I’ll just rent the Menards truck for $19.95 for 75 minutes, which I’ll have already made up by getting 22 miles per gallon with my Hyundai with gas at $3.00 a gallon. I also just can’t argue with a 10 year 100,000 mile warranty on the power train and a 36 month 60,000 mile warranty on everything else?

I was still sad to see the truck go. I did like it, but GM kind of pissed me off. This winter I found out it had Piston Slap. This is due to the engineers incorrectly designing the pistons and cylinder liners so that when it’s below 50°F there is enough of a gap so that the piston slams against the side of the cylinder until it heats up. This makes your gasoline engine sound like a diesel for about 60 seconds when you start it cold. GM says it doesn’t do any long-term damage, and won’t fix it. That’s bullshit. They just don’t want to pay the warranty dollars.

Now I’m looking to get rid of my Saturn L200 and get me a 1985 Mercedes-Benz 300D Turbo Diesel. Get into some 1980’s luxury with the super reliability of the Benz Diesel. That’ll be a while though.

Hell hath no fury like a blue collar worker.

So I had an interesting experience at work today. Something I designed started to leak. This is always a bad thing, especially when it’s messy when it starts leaking. So I basically made a mess where someone else works, and they got pissed off. Another guy called me up and told me to come on over to the plant since politically it would be the right thing to do. I agreed, even though I knew that my part was already leaking because I had checked it out last Thursday.

So I roll on over and walk over to where the leak is. I see the guy who called me and he’s next to this grizzled old guy with fire in his eyes. I knew that much like gorillas in the wild, I needed to assert my dominance over this guy otherwise he’d eat me for lunch. I give him a good iron gripped handshake while other guy does the introductions, and he shakes back hard. I knew it was coming, but I didn’t realize what level it would be on.

“Where did you get your engineering degree?” He says
“Was it a mail order?”

Now in the jungle at that point he had just stood up and banged his fists on his grizzled chest and showed his teeth.



At that point in the jungle, I would have jumped on top of him and started beating the crap out of him, attempting to claim alpha male status.

Being that we weren’t in the jungle, and I would have gotten fired for that, I shrugged it off.

“Is there only one leak?” I say

“One leak that is going out to a customer” He says (Everything had a negative shot in it)

“But there’s only one?” I say

“Yes”

I inspect what I’ve already looked at on Thursday. Not much had changed, big red puddle, red all over, and it originates with my design.

Big gorilla continues:

“This is a crappy design, and I can’t believe you’d put your name on this and let this get out to a customer”

“The supplier pressure and heat tested it for us, and it was OK”

“Lots of things are pressure and heat tested and fail”

“I know, but we have to do our best. I’ll get on the phone with the supplier (As soon as you stop brow beating me about it), and we’ll get it straightened out. I don’t want garbage going to the customer either”

He went on growling about this and that. I don’t recall exactly what was said. Then all of a sudden he just left.

The incident really didn’t bother me. I guess I’d be pissed too if all that red shit was all over where I was working, but, like I said, we aren’t in the jungle.

Apparently the guy I was with thought it was bullshit how big grizzled treated me as well. I was chillin’ at my desk listenin’ to some music and he came up and told me it was wrong how ape man treated me, and he was going to take care of it. (He’s higher up than me and has been around about 20 more years than me). I play it cool and say it was no big deal. It wasn’t right, but I can at least understand where gorilla man is coming from.

So I guess he’s going to get a stern talking too. So now I’m not only a bad designer in his mind, but I’m also a rat, and he knows my name.

Hopefully I don’t end up where Jimmy Hoffa is after the Union takes care of me.

What is America?

How can we define what the United States of America is?

What words would we use to describe it?

Freedom
Opportunity
Diversity
Innovation
Democracy
Liberty
Hardworking
Goodwill to all People


Actually that’s all bullshit.

Here’s a picture I took, which sums up what the United States of America is all about.



Here we have a Japanese designed truck with an American flag sticker on it, which is faded so it’s almost unrecognizable in color.

I would guess this person bought their American flag sticker some time after 9/11 when patriotism was at a zenith in this country.

Now the manufacturer of that flag wanted to make as much money as fast as possible and take advantage of people’s need to feel patriotic. So they used the cheapest ink and material to make it, most likely in China or Taiwan.

Then to top it off, it’s on a Japanese truck. What the fuck do the Japanese know about making trucks? I thought we were the rugged cowboy’s of the world. Oh wait, they can build their cars and trucks so that they last longer, and since most American’s are too fucking cheap they aren’t willing to buy an American made and designed car or truck to continue to ACTUALLY support their country.

America is, was, and always will be about one thing: Money. Liberty and Justice for all is a snappy catch phrase, but in the end, it’s all about the Benjamin’s.