09:07 – The AC is fixed. It turned out to be a blown capacitor. Living without AC from late Sunday night to yesterday afternoon was unpleasant, but no worse than that. I don’t know if this heat wave has been an all-time record for Sparta, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it had been. It very seldom gets up to 90F in Sparta, so a run of several days over 90F is unusual to say the least. At least we weren’t in Winston, where the heat-chill numbers have been near or over 100F during the same period.
I was a bit concerned that the power would fail, with everyone running their AC flat-out. We had numerous flickers, but no outages. Blue Ridge Electric Co-op did an excellent job of coping with the heavy demand. We haven’t had even a momentary outage since we moved into the new house in early December of last year.
Today, we’re working on science kit stuff, some of it in our work area out in the warmish garage, but most of it in the house where the temperatures are normal. Once we get this batch of biology kits boxed up and stacked in the house, it’ll be back to labeling and filling bottles for more kits.
Email from Brittany. She and her husband have been out buying more sacks of bulk staples in preparation for another packaging party this coming weekend. They’ve also bulked way up on their canned goods. I said earlier that I suspected they’d be up to a six-month supply of LTS food by the end of this month and a one-year supply by the end of August, but it looks like they’ll hit one year’s worth by the end of this month.
In reality, they’ll be well over a one-year supply, because they’re aiming at 1.25 million calories per person, or just over 3,400 calories per person per day. That’d be generous for four adults, let alone for their family of two adults and two young children.
They’re repackaging all of their dry bulk staples in 7-mil foil-laminate Mylar bags from the LDS online store. Those are great for long-term food storage, except that they’re not rodent-proof. Although they don’t have rodents in their basement, Britanny and her husband talked about alternatives to protect their bagged food against a future rodent problem. They decided against using steel garbage cans to store the bags. Instead, Brittany’s husband is surrounding the shelves he’s building with heavy steel mesh, which should do the job.
“Britanny and her husband talked about alternatives to protect their bagged food against a future rodent problem. They decided against using steel garbage cans to store the bags. Instead, Brittany’s husband is surrounding the shelves he’s building with heavy steel mesh, which should do the job.”
One word, and it’s spelled C-A-T. I removed some rodent parts from our back porch the other morning and, in general, rodents and similar vermin who venture into the house or shed here don’t last very long.
Mostly sunny, seems very still and quiet, slight breeze. Off to vets group later and then picking up Mrs. OFD at the airport, back from Denver. We’ll probably grab an early seafood suppah at our usual spot overlooking the ferry dock and sailboat marina down in Burlap. The lake level is noticeably down and we really could use a couple of days of heavy, steady, soaking rain.
Started picking our tomatoes; there are a couple of peppers and wife doesn’t think we can grow them here but I’m not giving up on them yet. She is on-board now with the grow bags I got; the difference is significant between growth in them and that in our raised beds. We can also move those around all over our vast estate here. I’d like to step up garden production accordingly but have zero illusions that we can ever feed ourselves from this little plot. So meanwhile, in addition to the bulk staples and canned goods, I intend to set up a root cellar config in, surprisingly, our cellar, and load in a big bunch of potatoes, carrots, onions, beets, garlic, turnips, etc., and next spring figure out how we can grow some of them here, which should theoretically be easier than the peppers and eggplants.
We’ll be ordering three-plus cords of firewood in the next week or two and ideally I’d like us to be in good shape for another long cold snowy winter, maybe with the power cutting out, maybe with goblins and orcs and gremlins roaming around.
A mere 109F predicted for today. We’ve hovered there for a week but starting tomorrow there is supposed to a gradual decline. Pool is at 93F as the night temps have stayed at about 80F all week. Eats up the chlorine fast. Keeping the house at 78F and the electric bill should be hell. Shorts and t-shirt (or no shirt) 24/7.
Have had two internet outages in a week at one of our facilities. First was local (F2) line failure and yesterday they said it was local electrical failure. Still took 3.5 hours to get it back up. I’m blamin’ the heat but that doesn’t make the boss stop calling me and asking ‘When?’.
“I’m blamin’ the heat but that doesn’t make the boss stop calling me and asking ‘When?’”
Doncha just LOVE dat? Even if you explain to them that time spent on the phone reassuring them is time lost from actually fixing the problem/s, you’ve still lost that time.
From the Cartoon Department:
https://westernrifleshooters.wordpress.com/2016/07/28/the-fundamental-problem/#
“Team GibsMeDat” I love it!
Cartoon dept – sent this to a fellow worker this morning
http://assets.amuniversal.com/e542557016c20134707c005056a9545d
“Cartoon dept – sent this to a fellow worker this morning”
Excellent! Man, that used to piss us off! Then after many hours or a day and a night fixing everything, you’d never hear from the bastards again. And they’d often bitch about any O.T. or comp time legally earned. I distinctly felt like they expected us to fix the problem during regular working hours on TOP of our regular responsibilities. And like RIGHT NOW. With a running update.
I won’t miss IT very much and neither does my next-younger brother after thirty years as a UNIX guy. We were both forced out long before we were ready to retire but fuck it; what’s done is done.
And I had my problems with cop brass back in the day, too; in essence, working for other people sucks rocks.
WRT mice: heavy metal mesh will not keep out mice, not even window screen. Mice can get through the smallest hole and will chew through screen. A cat or 7 are a good investment. While we only get a mouse in the house every year or two our lazy well fed house cats catch them right away and delight in presenting their trophies to us. Our garage is another story and one our cats demands to go in the garage every day for mouse patrol. She gets at least two mice per week.
“She is on-board now with the grow bags I got; the difference is significant between growth in them and that in our raised beds.”
To make moving those grow bags easier, pick up some old wagons at garage sales and put the grow bags in them. I have two grow bags with bush tomatoes and peppers that I move every couple of weeks to take the most advantage of the sun angle.
“Mice can get through the smallest hole and will chew through screen.”
Mr. DadCooks is correct, and mice have been known to chew through CONCRETE! Years ago I’d find their droppings in silverware drawers, which had been closed and were four feet up off the floor. Snakes can also get through tiny openings, often in pursuit of mice and other rodents.
C-A-T spells cat and they are masters of rodent control. But hey, don’t like cats? Get snakes!
“…pick up some old wagons at garage sales and put the grow bags in them.”
Currently using the wheelbarrows but a wagon would work more easily.
“… that I move every couple of weeks to take the most advantage of the sun angle.”
EXACTLY! A moveable feast!
Our AC died last week. Called the Home Warranty company, they sent a tech. out 2 days later. A LONG time in 96f Mississippi weather (with Heat Index of 106). The tech said the capacitor in the condenser fan had blown, and by-the-way, the coils needed cleaning. So he went away for a day to order a new motor covered under the Home Warranty (he claimed the capacitor is built-in). While we were sweating, I called the vendor and asked if they could clean the coils when they came out to replace the fan. Next thing I know I get a call from the Home Warranty firm. “We see that you are now reporting the coils are dirty. This changes our coverage as the dirty coils likely caused the fan motor to fail so we won’t cover the fan replacement OR coil cleaning. Have a nice day.” Oh Boy. Me and my big mouth. Cost me $425 for both service calls, fan replacement, and coil cleaning. When will I learn to shut up?
File a complaint with a consumer or insurance regulating agency. Home warranty companies are crooks.
“Home warranty companies are crooks.”
YES. No way dirty coils caused the fan motor cap failure. There is a MASSIVE amount of clear space for air to flow over the motor, and while heat causes cap failures, it is a normal part of use that they get hot.
Caps fail. It’s an expendable part.
Just for laughs, do you have the model of the condenser or the fan motor handy?
If the whole fan really needed to be replaced, it’s usually $100-200 for the assy. and $55-100/hour for service, based on my own experiences. If the cap is separate, then it should cost a WHOLE lot less, maybe $35, possibly more. Coil cleaning is a hose and a spray can of coil cleaner, or just a hose…..
nick
It could be a new high temp in Vegas today. 115F. A/C is going almost 24/7 this week.
A couple of weeks ago, I decided to install one of those Nest thermostats. I turned off the A/C mains, did the install and fired it back up. Nothing. I did this about 7pm so the temp would be down. Redid everything and still nothing. A/C repairs are 24/7 in Vegas, of course, so I called one up. The guy said he could be there around 10pm, but would talk me through troubleshooting. I explained what I was doing and he said I most likely blew the fuse on the control board when the A/C main came back on. He walked me through finding it. I took my multimeter up and sure enough the fuse was gone. A 3 amp. Try to find a 3 amp. No go at Home Depot, Walmart. I finally called O’Reilly Auto Parts. I explained I needed a 3 amp standard blade auto fuse to the chick who answered. “A what?” I kid you not. I had to talk her through where to look in her own store. They had them so I bought a pack and got the A/C up. The A/C guy was still on for 10pm but I called and thanked him for the free assist. The next day I called his employer to thank them and schedule a checkup. I had the caps replaced. The fan motor was on it’s last legs and had that replaced. I don’t want to lose the A/C when it’s over 100F 24/7.
Home warranty companies are crooks.
I will echo that. When we bought our house we had a warranty. Heat pump was no longer heating. Called out the company, $50 deductible, and they found a hole in the condenser/evaporator (depending mode) and rather than replace the coils soldered over the hole and recharged the system. Two week later, same problem, same deductible, same solution. Two weeks after that, same scenario. I asked the home warranty company why they did not replace the coils or the entire unit. They stated they repair, not replace when possible and a hole can be repaired. I asked how many times, they said as many as it takes.
I thus abandoned the system, had natural gas installed, and a new pack system at my expense. I was done dealing with a system that was unreliable and required constant repairs and paying of deductibles. Yeh, the warranty company was basically crooks and the clod they sent out to do the repairs was a clueless idiot.
Major premise: All insurance companies are thieving scum.
Minor premise: Home warranty companies are insurance companies.
Conclusion: Home warranty companies are thieving scum.
One of Arizona’s highly trained cops gets in a scuffle with an American Native women. He throws her down. She gets up with a pair of scissors. His response, “I feared for my life”, draws a bead and executes her on the sidewalk. Come on! A burly cop against a woman with scissors and his response it to shoot her. What? No baton. No Tazer. Yes, she had scissors. Why not just shoot first and ask questions later and stop messing around. Any quick movement, any type of object in your hand, and cops shoot. The Dumbocrats want to take your guns away. Then knives. Then *pencils*. We are sheep. We are Dirt People.
Would I be called a crazy prepper if I suggested you might want to buy a spare capacitor to have on hand…
MrAtoz – Scissors are basically two sharp knives. Some will penetrate a standard bullet resistant vest. All will cut an artery in wrist, leg, or neck. You would be surprised just how dangerous scissors are as a weapon. My son had a training film on edged weapons in Police Academy and scissors were right up there. Scissors are considered a deadly weapon. Did the officer have a taser? Could he have made a better decision? Sure. What decision would you make when a combative person approaches you with a deadly weapon? I’m glad I’m not a cop these days, knowing that thousands of people will be second-guessing your every split-second decision. I hired my son to run my business so he didn’t have to deal with this any more. This is a tragedy. But it wouldn’t have happened, like most police shootings, if the victim had simply obeyed the officers commands. Coming at an armed man with a weapon, after fighting with him, is not a life preserving decision.
How about a young cop giving her the runaround till she’s pacified or exhausted. A first response for a pair of scissors, in the open, during daylight, shouldn’t be kill shots. I don’t want cops trained this way. Every cop should have a non-lethal response to a situation like this. I bet he could have jogged around her and wore her out instead of killing her. I wasn’t there so can’t make the call, but the “I feared for my life” tool given to cops is just wrong. A cop trained with an extendable baton would have ended this without killing her. Maybe the only training he had was a semi-annual 50 rounds at the ranges.
/rant
I’m with MrAtoz on this one.
I still can’t believe the stuff they’ve adopted as doctrine and the powers they’ve given themselves.
BTW, I’m pretty sure they stopped training with sticks because it looks bad on video to see a cop with a truncheon hitting someone. That left them with just the gun, but with the witness dead, who’s to gainsay them?
nick
^Although they don’t have rodents in their basement^Although they don’t have rodents in their basement yet
FTFY.
There are those people who have rodents and those people who don’t have rodents yet. There is no other condition.
I agree that this is a tragedy. But the idea of a heavily laden officer running around with a young woman chasing him till SHE gets tired is plain silly. (sorry) Not all departments issue tasers and baton training is useful for hand-to-hand not against an opponent armed with a weapon. I am surprised that you do not assign ANY responsibility for the outcome to the victim who was doing the most stupid thing possible, attacking an armed man with a weapon. If you have ever had any knife fighting training, the first thing you learn is DON’T because no matter how good you are you WILL get cut and hurt. So the officer had to neutralize the threat without coming within arms length, and don’t forget a person can lunge over six feet in half a second. Was there a better way to handle this? Yes. But I don’t know what it would have been without exposing the officer to possible life threatening cuts. We both don’t want to be the one to have to make the split second decision because Monday morning quarterbacks will always find us lacking.
One word, and it’s spelled C-A-T. I removed some rodent parts from our back porch the other morning and, in general, rodents and similar vermin who venture into the house or shed here don’t last very long.
I wish. Our 14 lb white Siamese male is not a mouser nor a ratter. He thinks that they are cool and likes to play with them. But he get bored if they play dead, alive or not, and walks away.
They decided against using steel garbage cans to store the bags. Instead, Brittany’s husband is surrounding the shelves he’s building with heavy steel mesh, which should do the job.
Mice and rats can get through 1/2 inch holes by dislocating their bones.
I think her husband is using lath with 1/4″ holes.
But I’ve forwarded on the comments in case Brittany isn’t reading comments today.
Oh, she’s stupid or altered enough, and she is the one that acted, but stupid or high or nuts shouldn’t be a death sentence. It was a suspected shoplifting stop.
As a CHL holder, I’d be hard pressed in most jurisdictions to justify my use of deadly force due to the force disparity between me and her based on sex and size.
This guy was a BAD COP. His trainers recommended against hiring him. Without audio, it’s hard to be sure, but my deputy who ran our class would probably say this was a case of ‘respect my authority.’ He jumps out of the car, runs up to her, and puts his hands on her. According to my trainer, that’s almost ALWAYS where it goes sideways, and there is almost always no reason to start there. No one, esp those with mental issues, likes to be grabbed and most will fight back.
Should she have followed directions? Yes. Was she mentally capable of it at that moment? Who knows. Do I want to live in a world where the cops can jump out of their car, run up on someone, grab them and throw them to the ground while they meekly comply, FUCK NO.
Get them in the habit of that and see where it ends up.
nick
I actually had a decent experience with a home warranty recently for an AC problem (my sons house, his warranty-I don’t buy those either). Turned out to be a shorted control wire that technically wasn’t covered but he found the short in an accessible place and fixed it anyway, it would seem to depend on who the ins. subs to for service and how competent the service guy/gal is that you draw .
Yah, how about fuck that. This may come as a surprise to many, but the citizenry is not, in fact, required to do everything the police demand. Amazing but true! If anyone wants to live in a full-blown police state, there are plenty in existence. True, almost all are shitholes, but at least everyone knows their place.
Uh, right. Millennia of experience to the contrary.
Given the choice between a pair of scissors and an extensible baton, the latter wins every time. In spades.
But… but… there’s a 0.5% chance that the noble and heroic police officer — our last line of defense from the anarchic horde — might be injured! And it’s his right to get home safely at the end of the shift! Compared to that, the life of a civilian is nothing! Nothing!
My training in the Navy as Aux. Security Force was that if thee person brings deadly force, that is how you respond. He might be better with his bat than you are with a nightstick. And safe distance from a knife with a holstered weapon is 21 feet.
That said, it seems to me that there were ways it could have been handled better. Much better. And the resort to deadly force seems way to quick these days.
If the whole fan really needed to be replaced, it’s usually $100-200 for the assy. and $55-100/hour for service, based on my own experiences. If the cap is separate, then it should cost a WHOLE lot less, maybe $35, possibly more. Coil cleaning is a hose and a spray can of coil cleaner, or just a hose…..
I got one of my Trane 3.5 ton A/C units fan motor replaced at the office last week for $465. The service dude had to run to the Trane warehouse up on I-610 for the new motor.
I own six A/C units between the house and the office. Three Tranes, two Ruuds, and a Hitachi (wall unit). Something is always going on between them as only one of them is less than 10 years old.
And I had to have the roof at the office repaired Monday. Replaced two vent pipes and many shingles. That was a quick $650.
And the dadgum aerator on the office septic tank died last night. The guy came out and got it running again since it was covered in crap (literally) and off balance. Nasty, nasty, nasty. I’m not sure yet if that was covered by my service contract or not. I am on my third aerator in five years. The good thing is that the solids in the first septic tank are only half full and we don’t need to vacuum them out for another year or so. That is $500.
“Home warranty companies are crooks.”
And SLOW.
My bottom line is the “I feared for my life” training is wrong. What’s wrong with backing up behind a car? Putting something between you or circling around. Whatever, cop training should be heavy on “Protect and Serve” and not lethal force. A pair of scissors, a toy truck, a *pencil* and you’re blasted. It doesn’t matter how stupid people are, they aren’t military with a kill, crush, destroy mission statement. I guess “Protect and Serve” is a thing of the past.
My father was a podiatrist. As he once told me: “Insurance companies don’t make money by paying claims.”
Four years ago we replaced our broken central air with a 4 ton Goodman heatpump. They build them for Amana, also. We? Uh, I replaced. We is the help to move heavy stuff. 🙂 I replaced everything but the ducts, they were fine. And connecting the Freon.
Fun fact: do not build the plenum level with the attic rafters so the flexible ducts curve into the top of the plenum. Build the plenum a couple of feet higher and then at rafter level attach the ducts. You get rid of the curve for less air restriction. Just like plumbing, every elbow is a restriction. The extra height is so the blower pressurizes the plenum and the air flows pushes back down into each duct. The blower can’t blow evenly. The output is 2 by 1 feet and the plenum is 2 by 2 feet. More or less… made sense when I did it. I have more air into the back of the house (bedrooms) with the new plenum. Which is a good thing. Except when the summer sun is setting on the livingroom/kitchen/diningroom wing of the house. Fans! It’s all great in the winter.
To validate the warranty the system had to be “professionally installed”. My knowledge of AC is pretty much “add a can to the car” and “buy a new window unit”. So, yeah, I’m not going to be messing with Freon. Soldering copper is not in my skill set. Yet.
As for my install work? The guy offered me a job. For real.
The warranty is for the lifetime of the original owner on the kompressor and 10 years on the rest. It’s a 2 stage heatpump and the blower is infinitely variable speed. I wanted to go for the 3 stage top of the line and all deluxe but didn’t want to to cough up the extra grand. Guess what failed last March? With my 84 y/o mom who is always cold? The blower spun a bearing. I heard it go with an interesting grinding noise. The system had always made a rumble in the wall sound from day one.
We called early Monday morning, they came out, yep, the blower, but they don’t keep ’em in stock. “Because they us cost about $750”. Can’t blame them for that. Just by luck the owner of the company was in Austin, picked up the motor and met our repair guy in Burnet.
Down one day. Because OF COURSE this stuff breaks on the weekend. All fixed by 3PM on Monday. Cost ~$220 for labor. For an $800 motor.
We bought the system from a company in Florida. Dropped shipped onto our “parking lot” for $3777.00 including a 10K heater and fancy thermostat. I had Home Depot out for an estimate. He quoted $6500 plus maybe some extras. Ah….. and I wanted the outside unit moved…. so it is not under my bedroom window. Why has every frickin’ house and apartment I have lived in has the damn thing under the bedroom window? Home Depot are pussies and don’t go under houses…. but they can cut the tubing and solder in elbows to move the unit. No no no, that’s way too much southern engineering for me.
Ah, Hillary has unveiled her new tax plan, “Full List of Hillary’s Planned Tax Hikes”:
http://www.atr.org/full-list-hillary-s-planned-tax-hikes
Looks like there is something for all tax payers on there so that she can give freebies away to the non-tax payers.
And, lookie, lookie, a carbon tax, “Democratic Platform Calls for Carbon Tax”:
http://www.atr.org/democratic-platform-calls-carbon-tax
We are going to be taxed to breath. And taxed when we die. Here comes more taxes !
Sweet, the tax death of the US! Why even try to get ahead? Bring us your sick, lame, lazy, retarded crimmigrants! Wut a kountry!
Speaking of carbon taxes and Climate Ejaculation, has anybody ever published a plan on how lowly Dirt People will actually *fix* Climate Ejaculation? We know we Dirt People caused Climate Ejaculation ’cause THE SCIENCE IS SETTLED YOU DUMB FUKSTIKS! Cutting back on cheap fossil fuels, adding Green energy, taxing the shit out of everything; just exactly how and how long will it take to save us? Please inform me. I’m just a lowly Dirt Person.
Here’s why the Navy should never name a ship after a person. Next up, The USS Caitlyn!
Global Warming, to the extend that it exists at all, will not be solved until I smite the baneful Daystar. Fear not: I’m working hard on figuring out how to do it, because the Daystar offends me.
Right. Ships should not be named after people. They should be named after concepts. USS Boot to the head. Marine landing craft Curbstomp all the Jihadis. Ballistic submarine Fuck You Up.
I like those names, My Lord!
“Britanny and her husband talked about alternatives to protect their bagged food against a future rodent problem. They decided against using steel garbage cans to store the bags. Instead, Brittany’s husband is surrounding the shelves he’s building with heavy steel mesh, which should do the job.”
One word, and it’s spelled C-A-T. I removed some rodent parts from our back porch the other morning and, in general, rodents and similar vermin who venture into the house or shed here don’t last very long.
BTW, once the rodents get behind the steel mesh, they will laugh at the cats (kinda close somewhat, the rodents are laughing at the owl):
http://www.breakingcatnews.com/comic/sunday-with-natasha/
Metal trash cans for the win. Lids strapped down. Ugly, wasteful of space because they are round and don’t stack well. But it they aren’t rodent proof , we are down to storing every thing in glass jars.
Told Mrs. OFD today when she got back that if she votes for Cankles, I’m voting for Trump, and our votes will cancel each other out so WHY BOTHER?? She’s offended by pretty much ANY Repub who runs anywhere except totally RINO types; a dyed-in-the-wool Irish-Murkan Democrat. Nostalgic about Camelot and all that rubbish.
I’m actually not voting for anyone above the level of town and county, period. People I can talk to in meatspace.
On that cop case with the Native Murkan female with the scissors; in my day I could and would have easily taken care of her without blowing her chit away instantly, “fearing for my life.” The other cops would have laughed me out of the state. But I had decent training in that stuff, plus advanced training, and I had the experience and size and speed. OTOH, I would not have jumped her and put hands on her and escalated it like that in the first fucking place. It looks to me like the usual excessive force and lethal as the default setting again.
Now if it’s a good-sized guy or two coming at me with scissors and moving fast I’m gonna light ’em up. And yes, I know women can be just as dangerous, if not more so; saw my share of female bikers back in the day. The bikers, incidentally, rarely fucked with the cops; they knew that at most they’d be in jail for a bit, and that if any cops got hurt, all Hell would break loose on their heads for a long time.
We ran the vets combat group thing ourselves alone today; went well, as it usually does. One more sorta FNG, another Army infantry type. 38 years combined active and Guard; our Army artillery guy has 40. Me and the remaining ex-jarhead were short-timers and GTFO as soon as we could. He’s a fucking maniac still and has gone through six wives, drug addiction, and prison time. Two sons were also jarheads, drug addicts and did time.
Off to get the two big bay windows for Mrs. OFD’s studio tomorrow; once the guys come to install them in a couple or three weeks, I’m insisting on the railing for the back stairs and at least one door and frame completely replaced, while also hammering on the need for a generator before winta.
Metal trash cans for the win. Lids strapped down. Ugly, wasteful of space because they are round and don’t stack well. But it they aren’t rodent proof , we are down to storing every thing in glass jars.
I like the thick plastic pails that the Augason’s rice and white flour come in:
http://www.walmart.com/ip/Augason-Farms-Emergency-Food-Long-Grain-White-Rice-28-lb/22001476
and
http://www.walmart.com/ip/Augason-Farms-Enriched-Unbleached-All-Purpose-Flour-26-lbs/49020865
If a rodent comes after them, they are going to have to gnaw for quite a while.
We released version 15.00 of our software today. A lot of new capabilities and quite a few bug fixes. Probably some new bugs too, hopefully nothing major. Especially with the fundamental changes that I made to our data storage system converting it from distributed to sparse (we look for and use duplicates now). I’ve personally got at least 20,000 lines of C++ and 2,000 ??? lines of F77 in this release. We’ve been working on it since May of 2015.
The users are probably going to hit us for 5 GB of downloads today and again tomorrow off our website. Sounds like a lot to me but is so little compared to video now. The new install utility is 98 MB and expands to 224 MB. Unreal how the world keeps on changing.
Back to the grindstone. We just found out that our Visual Studio 2015 produced EXEs do not work with Windows XP so one of my guys is on a major research project.
It must be sorta cool for guys working in your biz to know that the boss knows a lot about IT and engineering and development and is not just another pretty face in a suit and high heels with an MBA.
another pretty face in a suit and high heels with an MBA.
Is that some kind of tranny crack, soldier? Six months Cankles panty crust scraping detail for you. Don’t make me add Huma to the detail.
Note to self, stop wearing high heels at work. And forget about the MBA. And wear a frigging suit some day!
It must be sorta cool for guys working in your biz to know that the boss knows a lot about IT and engineering and development
Nope. They know much more than I do (and tell me constantly, sometimes hourly). My youngest programmer, 33, has been telling me for the last six months, “you’re writing a database from scratch!”. To which I said, “so what?”. I’m just an engineer who slings code. The 34 and 40 year old programmers just shake their heads.
My partners want me to put on a suit 2 to 3 weeks out of the month and go see prospects so we can sell more, etc. They think that I should be in the million mile airline club. It ain’t all fish and chips every day.
You can thank the greenies for the bad capacitors. When they banned PCB’s they stopped making a cap that would last 20 years. We have had ours go bad every year or two now like clockwork for 10 years. At around $200 a pop.
Helpdesk guy just gave notice on Tuesday that his last day will be next Friday. That’s 9 days. Today he put in a request for vacation – for all of next week. That’s 1 day. Sheesh.
So I could deny it and deal with a cranky employee that doesn’t want to be here, with full administrative access to a lot of data. I don’t think that’s such a good idea. He’ll want to be in Oh Canadia next week no matter how bad I need him here.
Or I could permit it and be short all of next week in addition to the following time while we locate a replacement. I know a guy that can fill the slot, but he goes back to school in 4 weeks in any event. Getting his current manager to give him up will be a challenge. He’s a good guy.
It’s a shame I don’t have an @OFD in my little Windows world. I need to find someone that can just get things done like the guy that’s leaving.
So I’ll fume and gripe and complain while I find someone to fill the slot. Then I’ll adjust to whomever I get so the job can get done with as little fuss as possible. Then life will go on.
/rant.
Turned in my office keys as today is my last day. Gave them 15 months notice. Replacement is still struggling. Not my problem.
Congrats, Ray.
Enjoy, Mr. Ray, it sounds like you really earned it. Keep posting those amazing photos you take.
@Ray, remember to not answer the phone and make a new voicemail announcement with something appropriately snarky. 😉
Lynn wrote:
“There are those people who have rodents and those people who don’t have rodents yet. There is no other condition.”
I had mice in the house in Canberra, on and off. Here in Adelaide I’ve never seen mice or rats or evidence of them. Have seen a dead rat in the driveway though.
“Mice and rats can get through 1/2 inch holes by dislocating their bones.”
Anywhere a mouse can get its head, it can get its body.
Lynn wrote:
“…ATR…”
Why the hell do sites put popups on their links ALL THE TIME? Do they think people like it?
“Why the hell do sites put popups on their links ALL THE TIME? Do they think people like it?”
+100
Extremely annoying. And one of the main survival/prep sites does it.
Lynn wrote:
“…ATR…”
Why the hell do sites put popups on their links ALL THE TIME? Do they think people like it?
Yes, they do.
I use uBlock in FireFox. Highly recommended.
And I have Flash turned off.
Thanks, I’ll give uBlock a try.