we've all got secrets

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10927526/ I however would like to take credit for the idea of using sept 11 to fake your own death

here we go again

a lot of automotive folk found out monday that they were getting canned in the short future; it was news that one couldn't escape for three days in these parts, and now has sipped into obscurity along with the fact that sweden has vowed to be completely fossil fuel free by 2020. (google it; i don't have the energy to link)

Well now i must break my short lived vow of not trying to figure things out in a public forum-type setting. As the voice of the masses carries so far, i couldn't block out the common themed cries about "fat cat auto execs" that take million dollar bonuses while the company is "selling out the working man."

[sigh]

no one ever mentions that the "working man" in this case can easily make upwards of 100K a year with OT. I think people are afraid to state the obvious, which is these jobs are based on a legacy of low-skilled people performing repetitive tasks for what probably amounts to some 5 hours a day. Do you understand what i'm saying? Sure, maybe half those workers are real "hands on type" people, but the other half aren't even familiar with basic hand tools, which wouldn't be so bad if they weren't so god damned cocky about their jobs and such.

Likewise, why should anybody, executive or otherwise, volunteer self inflicted pay cuts at company A, when company B, C and D are paying the going rate for the work they're qualified for? I think the red-states will agree with me when i say nothing's more american than leaving a perfectly good job for one that pays slightly more money.

I've decided that when i look out onto the city of detroit, it's not unlike staring at one of those 3D posters. If you focus too closely, you'll go insane trying to count the squiggles. If you let things get to hazy, you might as well be in a drunken stupor. You have to find just the right amount of focus. (of course, those 3D posters never worked for me and i suspect everyone who claims to see the sail boat is a lying fuck)

Being a battery engineer, today i stopped a finished car going out the plant door, so i could use it to test-run a battery charger. When i opened the hood, i noticed that the screws meant to hold in one of the head lights were sitting in the holes but completely unfastened. The freakin light could have fallen off the car at any time. I asked the repair guy if he was going to report it and he said "what's the point?"

What's the point indeed

worms in my brain get them out

As mentioned, i have very limited internet access at work; almost completely utilitarian in nature, we get sites like Map-quest, weather.com and one that was just recently added, MSNBC. At first i thought it would be nice to have a ready internet distraction during the all too frequent down times and when i can't stand another piece of alternative energy literature without incurring the onset of seizures. But like most grand ideas, (most notably, the idea of "a stripper wife") this was not as great as it would seem.

Look, the problem is i have too much time, enough to read every article MSNBC has published in a week. It's too much and at the same time not enough... first i start on a national level. these articles about the war, they just don't mean anything by themselves, like looking at a mural through a pin-hole. See, today, i read about John Walker Lindh. He was a freedom fighter, see and he was fighting against the northern alliance with a team the U.S. supported back when john first went into the bush. Then things changed and everyone switched sides. They say he thought he was being rescued by U.S. forces when they picked him up; boy was he wrong. But then again, did he start the prison riot that killed that CIA official? One story with so many perspectives. things aren't going as well as some would like you to believe. A lot of people die but a lot of people don't; they just get blown up and put back together.

There was another article; it was about famous football players who get killed in the war by friendly fire and normal people who get the same thing. It told us about letters home that say they were heros and how many unfriendlies were killed by that person and the way to keep up moral is to keep FF on the DL. It was here because i saved it and now it's gone forever even though MSNBC keeps articles online for months after they're published. And then i wonder if i ever even read that article and think quietly "is anyone keeping track of this?"

See, the average person would never have time to read all this crap everyday, but then when you do, it's like a curse. Right, here's the problem: we weren't there and we'll never really know what happened. In fact, even if we were there, we'd only know what happened from our side of the room and that doesn't tell you a damn thing about what the other guy saw let lone why those people where doing that thing they may or may not have done. Does it make any sense? It's like when you ask for someone's opinion and they try to see things from your perspective but they can't because your perspective is built off a lifetime of experience that can never be fully understood even by you, let alone the guy in the cube across from you who just disappeared one day because his "legal issues" caught up with him and his wife thought the judge was going to go in the guy's favor especially with the baby involved but it didn't work out that way and no-one every saw him after that. Too much but not enough. I think his name was Ron because that's the person people ask for now when they walk by his desk two or three times and say "didn't ron sit over here?" and i say who?

i think i'm going to take a little time off to work on my car.

once more for the crowd

In case you haven't figured it out, MSN is one of the few websites i have access to at work. I don't know why they choose this.

Anyway, turns out americans are the sober, photo snapping snitches of the space party: see for yourself

Also, keep your enemies closer, as they say.

hope for the future

my seven (is he seven?) maybe eight year old nephew just got a little pet rat and very little white pet mouse. he named the rat "lieutenant Magma" and the much smaller mouse "tiny."

genius, pure genius.

reality pulls us back in

sometimes i hate online news sources because they can amend articles and then you have no proof of the original content. for example, this article about Ray Nagen originally didn't elude to any controversy surrounding the New Orleans Mayor and simply quoted his racist comments as fact. Thinking it was pretty funny, i planned to post it here. Of course, now that one person somewhere had an original thought and realized this guy's a dick, MSN jumped on board for the big win.

Also, everyone should read this article about friendly fire. It should ellicite some kind of response, even if you are dead inside.

crazy old man

I miss the old guy at work. He was a retired employee of "company X" that came back as a contractor (basically like me) to fill some time, make some money and offer some expertise. I don't really know a lot of people where i work because i only actually do work with a few of them. Also, as we all know, engineers don't make very exciting friends, and i'm surrounded by hard-core desk-jocky engineer types. Frank, as he was appropriately named, was not only a constant presence, but also a good guy with which to discuss the nothings that you discuss to fill the day. Unfortunately, as of the first of this year, he is re-retired.

Since we were both contract workers for the worst engineering group in the company (leadership-wise) we had (or "have" in my case) a lot of empty time to fill. When we got bored, we'd wonder around our huge engineering complex, discussing for the most part, cars. I can say without a doubt that he had some degree of experience with every aspect of automotive design and manufacture. Also, he was a former supervisor, so it made me feel a little better when he agreed that our immediate higher-up was a useless mass and most of the industry is not as we live it. If it hadn't been for this old guy, i would have learned very little in the past 6 months. Worse, the bit that i picked up on my own was the real trivial stuff, like "how to fill out form Z" or "where to request access A." You know, the type of stuff that the losers above would ask me to do as my part in the cogs of the corporate gear system. Even still they pretty much leave me to fend for myself on that info. Frank, on the other-hand, was preaching the good stuff; how to get ahead in the business, how to interact with the factory workers, ways to subvert, side-step or weasel around the system. He could talk to angry plant/quality/whoever managers and tell them not what they wanted to hear, but what he need to say in a way they'd want to hear it.

we would often find ourselves working at one of the many local assembly plants and end up walking the lines. He had such a wealth of knowledge it's just spill out. Then, when the topic of work wore out, we'd turn to the topic of cars in general. He was working on an old MG... i can't remember the year. He'd offer advice for the Fiat and even go as far as offer up use of his son's car hoist, should the need arise. Sure, occasionally he'd forget what topic he was speaking on and would require a reminder and yes, it was pretty hard to interject my own thoughts once he got rolling, but what can you do?

My old guy emailed me the other from Florida. He said the weather was wonderful and he saw a bobcat from his patio. He asked for an update on my current job prospect, which he was advising me about (still outstanding) and mentioned that he hasn't had a chance to go fishing yet, but you better god damned believe he's gonna. (the last bit were my words, not his)

the boob icon is broken :(

I love listening to Car Talk on public radio. Here's a great fan letter i found on the website.

a tech quiz

which of the following rumors is true:

a) high-tower quit his lucrative engineering job in alaska to return to tech to get a teacher's certificate in order to return to a remote city in alaska to be a teacher.

b) the wildman set a wedding date for his fall minneapolis wedding which will take place in a park.

Skelert, you're exempt from answering.

from the 313

this quite hilarious internet video oddly reminds me of my time spent in the U.P. last month.

Also, you guys have to check out the FBI's wanted lists. There's like the crazy lookin dudes you'd expect, but then's the the international man of mystery and the ex-military guy who probably joined the A-team... we should take bets on who of us will end up there.

Finally, i'm shocked at how much good content MSN has. And i can access it from work. this article deals with Lions and their thirst for human blood. Can you even imagine fighting a lion?


(Keep hitting refresh)

Eat your vegetables. Except Broccoli.

this is a pretty good article about diet vs. vitamin supplements.

this is a pretty creepy article about what happens when you light things on fire that are still alive.

I hate Detroit

it's funny too, because my last three roommates all loved this hell hole. Rapper and celebrity Obie Trice was shot last week on a Detroit freeway. I drive on that Detroit freeway. Then again, lots of people do. Then again some more, lots of people get shot.

Grey. Dead. Broke. Burned. like a rotting pirate ship long abandoned. It's not that the city is COMPLETELY devoid of all culture and entertainment... it's just that one has to work so hard to seek out such devices. Also, no offense to, uh, anyone, but the people around here ("here" being "the northern midwest") aren't exactly as a whole... attractive.

Unfortunately, or conveniently, this is really the only place were i can become a master of two trades I'm loving: autos and alternative energy. Today at work i sat in a million dollar car; one of only 60 that will ever be made, it's the first "consumer" fuel cell vehicle. From the outside, it was basically a compact with a fancy pant job and freakishly high curb weight. sadly, there's only two applicable gas stations in michigan, with no plans for additional. I'll avoid rambling on about the state of the industry and the technology and all that.

Monday i start classes: "Hydrogen Infrastructure and Alternative Energy Transportation." It's been exactly three years since i've been involved in any sort of scholastic program and i'm hoping it won't be too hard to clean the rust off the ol' gears. I think i'm excited. hopefully i won't get shot.

...damn i'm itchy for a tattoo...

update: this guy knows what i'm saying. Even if it is from a few years back. So basically Imagine this, but with time to get worse.

my online impersonation of an angry new englander

you ever wonder how much energy your TV uses when it's "turned off?" (i'll save you the medical mumbo-jumbo, it's probably between 10 and 25 watts.)

you want to see a lot of f'in pictures and videos of aircraft compliments of NASA?

eh?

you down with one of the best online sources for alt energy resources?

you know anything about the new hybrid tax laws ya punk?

(i should sleep now...)

let me check my notes, reprise

A poem for the new year, written by former detroit-blogger rob, inspired by the engineer's life.

A slave ship for stupid
white people of course,
opposed to smart indians
in Delhi; job outsourced.
Engineers aren't queers
so rest your fears,
of them surfing at work
gay porn.


But i digress. on a side note and AS an engineer (engineer of machines, engineer of men, engineer of funk), this year I hope everyone can learn to see the beauty of functionality.

let's do a round up:

astro-tourists? no.
flying cars? maybe after i get the fiat running.
meals in a pill? nay.
peace on earth/goodwill towards folks? negative.
ultra-efficient fuel-sipping cars? only in a honda press-release.

looks like we haven't caught up to the future yet. but then again, my cell-phone has a 3D graphics card and simultaneously can radiate microwaves deeper into my skull than any before, so we must be doing something right.

I'm Batman

this will be my final entry of the year. I hope it meets the standard that i have set in the past 12 months.

In case you missed it.

I try not to dwell on world events, but It could be argued that the shit pretty much jumped off this year. I, for one, have a hard time remembering last week, so for my sake and yours, we'll recap the highlights. For you the viewer, i will scientifically rank the importance of these events, in this, the last of the year's "of 10" ranking game.

-Tsunami becomes a household word. A quarter of a million brown people get "a very bad feeling about this" before they and everything they know are taken away by a wall of liquid death. Stupid American news insists on first reporting number of American dead. U.S. response: could that happen to us?/10

-Indian Earth quake kills nearly 100,000. No one has any more info on this. Didn't "those brown people" just have a tsunami? me: what the hells going on?/10 U.S. BOR-ING!/10

-A hurricane proves how close society is to calapsing at any given moment. This event is memorialized by the rape, murder and random gun fire that follow. Neighboring towns close their borders to refugees with a makeshift wall of shotguns and redneck cops. Gas goes to 3$/gal and i wait with baited breath for gun fire to erupt in my neighborhood. The revolution never comes. In the end, though saddened by he misery, I can't help thinking, this is why I don't love below sea level. Also, the used car market is flooded with flooded cars. (carfax.com your used car purchases for the next 3 years). Finally, news reports inevitably interview locals who draw obvious connections to the "t-sue-naa-mi" that recently wrecked residents of the Indian ocean, even though the number dead from Katrina was about 0.01% the number dead from wall of liquid death.
Army Corp of Engineers: "I told you"/10

-The big Cheese bites the big enchilada. (the pope is dead.) Worry not, little little camper, for in no time a replacement old man who is completely out of touch with reality is ushered in to replace the hat diva of yore. me: 0/10.

-Civil unrest in France. i'm still not sure this even happened. Me: [null]/10

-Michael Jackson wears pajamas to court. Why is it that i can go from sweat pants and wife beater to full suit in less than 3 minutes when the Raging Cajun is in town, but MJ's team of freak herders can't wrastle that man-boy into a pair of slacks? If the world had ended that day, i would not have cared. me -6/10.

-1000's of U.S. soldiers die in Middle East. 10,000's of other people die of the same disease. Thankfully, the fighting ended months ago. As a result, Iraq has an election. I don't know how i feel about this anymore. Numb, i suppose.

-"Tear'rists" bomb British public transportation. Can we even FEEL shock anymore? me: I still wish we had public transportation/10

-A guy is shot for running off a plane suspiciously. Some claim the man made bomb threats, while most maintain the word "bomb" was never uttered. Events are made more disturbing by the fact that almost every citizen agrees the man had it coming, thus proving The idea of living in fear has firmly been rooted into our society,
me: 9/10

-I get a well-paying job that requires little actual work and even fewer original thoughts. I slip into a coma of boredom and fill my days writing absurd blog postings. To dull the pain, i buy a 1979 Fiat Spider and fulfill one life-long dream, that of having a fun, second car. In order to combat the inevitable death of my brain, i enroll in grad school, thus fulfilling a second life-long goal, actively participating in the official study of alternative energy technology; A science for a future. My cynicism is briefly sidelined.
me: 6/10

There was some other stuf... a slew of airplane incidents, some political deaths (both national and local, figurative and literal), and some of us finally become a member of Steve Job's I-Pod nation. ( i feel so urban and silhouette-ie) So in conclusion, just in case you forgot, this year sucked bad for a lot of people. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. But then again, if you're going to study Alternative energy technologies you gotta have some hope for the future.

to the victor go the spoils

today the Fiat and I locked heads in the first of what will surely be on ongoing series of epic battles. Today's war was waged when i decided it was time she released hold on those dreaded security lock lugs. Have you ever tried to remove the lugs of a wheel with nothing more than a series of large wrenches and own guts? I'm here to tell you child, it ain't a pretty sight. The first two, whom i have affectionately named Skip and Skipper, were worked off with some industrial grade penetrating oil and the biting teeth of my adjustable wrench ("dogs" as they honestly and appropriately call this tool in the electrical trade.)

Skip's older sister Veronica is a bitch. Fortunately, I was able to take my Dremel tool to her face and make me a fine surface for my wrench, ol' bitey, to grab onto. She was third to die. That left Sedgwick. Sedqwick, i determined, is the older, molesting uncle of the first three lugs and wasn't leaving his home with out fight. I'll spare you all the details of the final extraction, the same way a doctor leaves out the part were he was standing on the table, cracking your gran-pappy's rib-cage. But i will say, before the job was done, my knuckles were mangled, my borrowed pipe wrench was warm and RoboCop 2 had been quoted at least once.



"You're coming with me, Cain."

today's day

White guys rapping is funny. I offer this movie from SNL as proof.

interesting:

About 15 minutes a day, of my total daily internet usage, is spent looking at new material. Inevitably, i always seem to find things like this. Who makes this stuff? And how much of it am i missing?

Fiat update:

Finally spent some quality time with the Fiat in my newly heated garage. Here's what i found:

The good: I found the clutch inspection plate that my tranny was missing, in my pile o' parts. Now i just need to find the four bolts that hold it on.

The bad: The wheels have locking lugs on them and neither I nor the guy i bought it from has the key to get them off. Any ideas how to go about this? (and i don;t have dynamite, so don't even ask)

The ugly: this car has an alarm system on it. No shit, just like the Caddy did. It's disabled because the battery is out... but i found these two remotes in the parts pile that looked like garage door openers... no joke, they're huge. Well then i find a black box in the glove box that's the heart of the alarm, tied into a motion detector. this thing is straight out of the 80's... very retro. I shall be sure to cut it out as soon as i get the wheels off.

Locking lugs AND an alarm on a 79 Fiat? somebody was a little paranoid.