At the end of December, I bought a new 47" HDTV and I was jazzed that I was going to be able to watch the Super Bowl with a huge screen and surround sound...Up until about 5 days ago when it dawned on me I'm working days that weekend.
I get to sit in my crappy office with a 13" POS TV with lousy speakers having to scoot in and out to deal with the facility.
I have been living the life of a monk for a number of months. I've (kinda) kept up with my bills...damn, when you get to my age, months roll by in what seems like days. I go to work and go home. Grocery shopping every couple of weeks. That's about it.
Over the months, I was able to save up a pretty good chunk of cash sitting in my checking account...so I decided to splurge on myself.
I bought a big screen TV (before Kalifornia could make them illegal), a blue ray player, plus some blue ray discs to play on them.
I decided that I needed new clothes, so I bought 3 pairs of pants, 6 new shirts, lotsa socks and underwear, pajamas, a belt, and new hat.
And a couple of other fun things.
Tonight I stopped on the way home from work to put gas in my truck...no problem. Walked into the mart to get a carton of cigs, and my card was declined...BIG PROBLEM!!! Didn't have enough cash (remember cash?) to buy a carton, so I blew it off. Went across the street to my liquor store to pick up some beers, declined again. I did have enough cash for the beer, but now I was a bit miffed. I knew I had more than enough in the bank, so the paranoids start to set in...the IRS is after me for something...someone has gotten my card number and...wait a minute...I've gone from normal spending of about $1K per month (mortgage not included) to spending close to 2.5K in about a week and a half...wonder if that could be the problem.
Went online when I got home, and confirmed that there was ample cash in my account, so I called the "Help line" and I have to admit, they were helpful! Inside of 10 minutes, my card was unblocked, so life can return to normal tomorrow...even though I'll have to get up 15 minutes earlier to buy cigs on the way into work in the morning.
I tried to help pull us out of this Depression, well, no good deed goes unpunished.
I mentioned a couple of posts ago that I was heading to Texas for Rottfest 2010. I'm psyched for the trip and getting to meet the LC's that are going to be there...but (and why does there always have to be a but?) After I got my plane tickets, made arrangements for boarding my dogs and got the cash out of the bank needed for beer...er..for expenses, the "Check Engine" light comes on in my pick-up?
I swear my family seems to have a curse on it sometimes. When things are going smooth and you think you can relax and enjoy yourself for a bit....WHACK!!! something bad pops up at the last second.
Ah well. I'm not going to let it ruin the trip. The truck will be in the same shape when I get back. It'll just set back getting that HDTV I've been looking at for the last 6 months off a few more, and I'll have to keep using the semi-crappy battery eating Kodak camera for a while instead of that bitchen Nikon SLR I wanted to get for this trip.
If my truck is the biggest problem I have right now, I guess my life isn't really all that bad.
I just turned 56 yesterday. I don't want to go back to the 50's. I don't really remember much about it except having fun playing those now forbidden games of dodge ball, tag, musical chairs at school, and entertaining ourselves with playing war, and throwing dirt clod at each other.
I don't what to go back to the '60's either. Fun times. The Beatles showed up along with all those entertaining hippies, but by the end of the decade I was seeing the cracks between what the "Free Love" generation idealized and what happens in the real world.
The '70's, still mostly a fun time for me. I really, really fell in love for the first time...I actually got engaged, but we grew apart (bummer), but I started working regular jobs (in hospitals), making money and being able to support myself. Made a lot of dumb decisions that taught me about how life works. All the years of my Dad telling me that applying myself would reap benefits started to sink in, although America had hit a low. The Carter years of "don't hope for better because we're past our prime".
The '80's, I hit my prime I had a job that I liked, met a good woman and got married, bought a house, had what turned out to be a great kid, and the country rebounded under Reagan.
'90's...My life was stable, but things stared to change. Job that I liked, but my good woman started to phase herself out of the picture. The owner of my company, and best friend, died and the company was bought by a bunch of yahoo's that didn't understand the oil industry.
'00's, new job at a underfunded company, my wife and I separated, my boy grew up and joined the Army and left the nest.
'10's, we'll see, but it's looking ugly.
The reason for this?
I keep being told that Conservatives want to go back to a period they idealize. I don't! I've lived through five decades and some were good and some sucked, but I don't want to live them again or live them over and over. I love the advancements that have been made in my lifetime, however, I see the pitfall we are leaving to the future generations.
I want my grandchildren to enjoy these advancements, plus more, but with the debt we have already foisted on our children and with the shift to government directing where spending will go, My dreams that my grandchildren will have a better life than me is now just that, a dream.
As of today, I, my wife, and my son each owe $41,500 just to pay off the incurred debt. Ever run up a credit card debt and work to pay it off? It took me a long time to pay off an amount a hell of a lot less than $40K! And that was after I stopped spending. The government just keeps piling additional debt on us and telling us as soon as they can, they promise to stop spending and will pay off the debt....really!!! Any year now.
I am angry! I live on the front lines of what this country is turning to. ( A long read, but worth it) We are turning this country into a system where there are more bureaucrats and government workers than there are people actually producing something besides rules and regulations that they will tax or fine me with.
This is a personal rant about what a WONDERFUL day I had today, so feel free to skip it if you like.
AN OIL FIELD PRIMER:
The production site I work at has been having problems for about the last 3 1/2 years. The oil wells that bring fluid up have an average cut (water to oil ratio) of 97%. For every barrel (42 gallons in the oil field...I don't know why), we get 32 barrels of water that we have to do something with. Normally we shoot this waste water down another non-producing well at about 1100 psi with the idea of flushing oil through the zone towards some of the producing wells...at least that's the theory. The ideal thing is to produce the maximum amount of oil while being able to get rid of the water so everything stay balanced.
MY COMPANY:
We have severe injection limitations.
The owner wants to produce a sh*tload of oil, as do we all, but he always wants to run the wells that bring the most oil which also bring up the most water. We Operators have come up with 9,000 combination's of maximum oil production and still get rid of the water, but he keeps insisting that "ON PAPER" we should be able to run this new combination that he's worked out.
It doesn't.
WHY I'M STARK RAVING:
Yesterday, the day Operator decided he would run over balanced and "hide" some of the water productions by shunting some of it to a stock tank, thereby getting the production numbers up for his last day on shift.
Well, he forgot to close the shut at the end of his shift, and the night guy after about two hours noticed the production for those two hours was equal to what we normally do in a day. It took him about an hour to find the valve that was cracked.
When I got to work this morning I had 417 bbls (17,514 gals) in the stock tank and and an unknown amount of water that had skimmed from the stock tank to our shipping tank, contaminating the oil (we cannot ship oil that has more than 3% water).
That worked out to another 123 bbls (5,166 gals)...that means I got stuck with 540 bbls (22,680 gals.) extra water to get rid of...and still try to produce oil, so shutting all the producing wells down is out of the question.
My Foreman called in sick this morning (good thing...bad thing?), so I got to make all the decisions about what wells to keep running and what to shut down. I managed to get rid of about 200 bbls but I left my relief right on the edge of disaster, and that is something I just don't like to do.
As an extra added bonus the company that handles our pipeline wasn't completely happy with the accuracy of the machine that records how much oil we ship out and wanted to run another test...out of any day to do this they picked a damn good one. I got us passed even though the bastards showed up 2 hours before they said they'd get there. (Damn, I'm good!!!)
This is not the first time that that Operator has pulled this crap, and I got to talk to the owner about what happened during our morning telephone report. This Operator is the first to talk about "team work" and is also the first to leave you hanging and the first to complain about others not doing something HE feels should have been done. I hung his ass this time, he screwed three people trying to make himself look good. He even left a note saying he would work OT during a guys vacation, not a full shift, but he'd come in for two or four hours....to help out. Damn, if I'm there for 8 to 10 hours, I might as well work the 12.
There...I feel better, tomorrow is another day with more problems and I'll get through it just like I did today.
I was thrilled that my team was going to be on TV today...until the game started. Down 31-7 at halftime, that was the end of my hopes for anything close to a descent season, and I guess CBS agreed as they switched to a different game.
It's going to be another loooong season.
The other thing with football that bothered me today was regarding the news that Rush Limbaugh was interested in partnering in ownership of the Rams. The Players Union voted that they were against his owning a team.
Word that Rush Limbaugh is interested in buying the St. Louis Rams has some African American football players swearing off any future employment with the team.
New York Giants defensive end Mathias Kiwanuka and New York Jets linebacker Bart Scott say they would never play for the Rams if Limbaugh owned the team.
Kiwanuka told the New York Daily News, "I don't want anything to do with a team that he has any part of. He can do whatever he wants, it is a free country. But if it goes through, I can tell you where I am not going to play." Scott said, "He could offer me whatever he wanted, I wouldn't play for him. . . . I wouldn't play for Rush Limbaugh. My principles are greater and I can't be bought." Just what the hapless Rams need: Quality players who refuse to play for them.
Before I get started some good news. Chris is finally at his base in Korea. He's a little miffed because he's on standby status, which means he isn't doing what he was trained for and he gets to occupy his time mopping a lot of floors. He hated being in Alabama because of the weather, so he goes half way round the planet and it turns out Korea in July is just like Alabama. Temps in the high 80's with 60 to 100% humidity and Thunderstorms every couple of days.
The reason I know this is although he doesn't have a phone he can get on the internet with a Wifi signal so we can IM over AIM. Even though he's 16 hours ahead of me, being I'm up most nights, we can communicate regularly.
I knew you were dying to know what is up with him, so I wanted to get that out of the way. (mheh)
Now, important stuff.
Have you bought any of those florescent light bulbs they are foisting on us? My local DWP sends me one every 6 months to get me going on being green.
I'll admit, they work fine, using less energy and they last longer that incandescent bulbs, we use them at work and even with vibration we've only had one or two out of about 35 go out over the last year and a half. But like all mandated "green" laws there is something they forgot to mention.
The congressional authors of the law understood they were, in essence, phasing out incandescent bulbs.
They did this, they said, to help save the planet from overheating. But the light-bulb left did not weigh -- or care about -- the unintended consequences of their crusade.
One of these consequences is the potential for an environment disaster in your family room.
You see, fluorescent bulbs contain mercury -- a bad, bad pollutant and health hazard that the Environmental Protection Agency has been sounding alarms about for years.
Well, isn't that special.
The first section is titled: "What Never to Do With a Mercury Spill."
It says: "Never use a vacuum cleaner to clean up mercury (but see the 'What to Do if a Fluorescent Light Bulb Breaks' section below for more specific instructions about vacuuming broken fluorescent light bulbs). The vacuum will put mercury into the air and increase exposure."
To vacuum, or not to vacuum? That is the question.
Idiots! Energy has to be produced somewhere to power the damn things. I guess they just thought that electricity is created at that thingy you put the plug in.
For the last few days I've been listening to this story of some black kids getting kicked out of a swimming pool.
I hope the SOB's running the pool are ashamed, embarrassed and even their dogs won't talk to them. If they want to do right, they should let these kids have their swim day for free for the rest of this summer and offer them a 75% discount to come back next year.
But there are some racist things going on out there that aren't getting any national coverage.
Akron police say they aren't ready to call it a hate crime or a gang initiation.
But to Marty Marshall, his wife and two kids, it seems pretty clear.
It came after a family night of celebrating America and freedom with a fireworks show at Firestone Stadium. Marshall, his family and two friends were gathered outside a friend's home in South Akron.
Out of nowhere, the six were attacked by dozens of teenage boys, who shouted ''This is our world'' and ''This is a black world'' as they confronted Marshall and his family.
I don't believe in "Hate Crimes". It a stupid concept. The idea that it can be proven exactly what a persons thoughts were while committing a crime is ludicrous. I've had some things pop out of my mouth that amazed myself when I've been nervous, scared or mad, but if the crime is agaist some minority group, it is always the first thing they say, "We are investigating this as a "hate crime", yet when it's a "minority group" committing the crime and racial things are said...well, "We don't want to jump to conclusions and get anyone upset". Bullshiite!!
They are going to have figure out how to level these laws if they want them to work.
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Obambi has broken another campaign promise. (Bet you're surprised)
Forced abortions. Mass sterilization. A “Planetary Regime” with the power of life and death over American citizens.
The tyrannical fantasies of a madman? Or merely the opinions of the person now in control of science policy in the United States? Or both?
These ideas (among many other equally horrifying recommendations) were put forth by John Holdren, whom Barack Obama has recently appointed Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, and Co-Chair of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology — informally known as the United States’ Science Czar. In a book Holdren co-authored in 1977, the man now firmly in control of science policy in this country wrote that:
• Women could be forced to abort their pregnancies, whether they wanted to or not;
• The population at large could be sterilized by infertility drugs intentionally put into the nation’s drinking water or in food;
• Single mothers and teen mothers should have their babies seized from them against their will and given away to other couples to raise;
• People who “contribute to social deterioration” (i.e. undesirables) “can be required by law to exercise reproductive responsibility” — in other words, be compelled to have abortions or be sterilized.
• A transnational “Planetary Regime” should assume control of the global economy and also dictate the most intimate details of Americans’ lives — using an armed international police force.
Impossible, you say? That must be an exaggeration or a hoax. No one in their right mind would say such things.
Well, I hate to break the news to you, but it is no hoax, no exaggeration. John Holdren really did say those things, and this report contains the proof. Below you will find photographs, scans, and transcriptions of pages in the book Ecoscience, co-authored in 1977 by John Holdren and his close colleagues Paul Ehrlich and Anne Ehrlich. The scans and photos are provided to supply conclusive evidence that the words attributed to Holdren are unaltered and accurately transcribed.
This man is adviser to the pResident on health and science? Things like the "The development of a long-term sterilizing capsule that could be implanted under the skin and removed when pregnancy is desired opens additional possibilities for coercive fertility control. The capsule could be implanted at puberty and might be removable, with official permission, for a limited number of births" was just a fantasy back when he wrote this, now the product exists. Good thing huh girls, otherwise you'd have to report to a gov't sanctioned station and take your pill under supervision every 24 hours.
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Now that I'm in a bad mood, and I hope these thing worried you too, I'll put something that while it's another little degradation that we are forced to deal with, but this guy got his revenge.
Good PR United!!! A few hundred to fix or replace the guitar or 2 million people laughing at you and booking on Delta or American, because you admit you don't care whether possessions entrusted to you get there in one piece or not...if they get there at all.
In case you haven't heard, Michael Jackson died two weeks days ago.
I was never a hard core MJ fan (I think I have one of his albums, inherited from a friend who died) but I enjoyed his music with the Jackson 5 and in the 80's.
For about two days I put up with the 24 hour coverage of his death. I'll admit I was curious about the cause and what would happen to his children, but once it devolved into just opinions then the opinions of the opinions, I got disgusted with the coverage. If I flipped by a news channel and anything about MJ came on, I moved on immediately.
Hence, I haven't seen much news for the last week and a half. With all the important things going on in the world, that the MSM would drop everything just because some has been celeb of dubious character OD's makes me furious.
Missed one day of blogging because I was just too tired after work.
Missed the next day because I screwed up on paying the damn cable bill, they shut down my internet and was too tired to deal with it after work.
Today is a Friday for me, so I figured I'd deal with it. Igot caught up on the bill and while getting my internet connection back running, I got to talk to a very nice tech guy. My computer is over 7 years old and showing it's age...it's slooowwww. While waiting for my computer to reboot and get the browser going we had a lot of time to chat. Being he had asked me what state I was from at the beginning of our conversation, I asked where he was. He was in Panama.
He was pleasant, polite, knowledgeable, very patient and spoke English with only a hint of accent. I had to go though this same scenario about a year ago and it was not a pleasant experience. That tech was nice enough, but couldn't speak English worth a damn. On top of going through internet withdrawal syndrome and being PO'd at myself for missing the damn bill, I was dealing with a guy that couldn't explain how to correct the problem.
Either Charter is hiring better people, or I just had the luck of a bad draw last time. I just can't trust cable companies since my experience back in '85 when Sammons Cable insisted I owed them $300 and I showed them all the bills that said that actually they owed me $75 credit. They threatened to sue me, ...then went out of business...I still have their converter box that they insisted I bring into their office sitting in my garage.
I was almost in a good mood about work. Now I'm just pissed and don't want to deal with two of the three guys I work with.
The guy I relieved this morning is the only one against going to a 4/12 shift and he moaned about it all though shift report. Not what I wanted to deal with at quarter to 5 this morning. When the Foreman came in, his understanding was one dissension and no schedule change (crap!). Later, when the Foreman talked to the owner, it was the guy will have to deal with it or he can quit. We'll hire back the guy we just laid off.
Fine.
Then my relief shows up and announces that he's not doing any work anymore and is not supporting the sked change (that he's lobbied for over the last year) because our health insurance is only going to cover the employee, dependents are out of pocket.
It's not fair (to him) because if he has to pay for dependent insurance, I'll be making more than him. He doesn't seem to grasp that because I'm single (separated) and my boy is Gov't property, starting this year, this bozo has been getting a yearly bonus that works out to him making a hell of a lot more than me over the last 5 years.
My company kept us on for over 6 months with no production, another year and a half when we couldn't produce enough to pay the bills and right now we have an income that can buy chewing gum OR baling wire...but not enough for both at the same time.
I am a human float switch!
I've effing had it with people that can't bend a little or grasp the reality of what's going on around them. I don't like the (lack of) Business Plan that our company operates under any more than they do, but I here I am, and I'm going to give my time on the job to making money for the company as best I know how. I'll carp as much as the next guy about how it would be better if I ruled the world, but I don't! So I get up at 3:30 AM tomorrow and drag my butt into work again.
