07:41 – Science kit sales are running much faster than expected. In the first week of 2013, we sold more kits than in all of January 2012. This may be an anomaly. If not, we’ll not just meet our goal of 500 kits for 2013, we’ll blow through it.
We’re low on stock of all the science kits right now. Barbara and I are working on new batches of 90 chemistry kits, 60 biology kits, and 30 forensic science kits. For the time being, the life science kit is taking a back seat. I just don’t have time to work on it at the moment.
11:45 – I just finished bagging eight sets of chemicals for the CK01A chemistry kits. That was the most I could make with what we had on hand. There are 38 different chemical bottles in a CK01A kit. Current stock status on each of those ranges from (mostly) zero to maybe 60 bottles, so we need to get to work on labeling and filling 60 more sets. Not to mention making up the chemical solutions we need to fill them.
We’re in a bit better shape on biology kits. I have 15 sets of the regulated chemical bags already made up for the BK01 biology kits, and sufficient bottled chemicals to make up 15 sets of the non-regulated chemical bags. Until yesterday, we had four FK01 forensic science kits in stock. They’re still sitting there on the shelf, but they’re spoken for via a pro-forma invoice I issued yesterday to a major New England university. Those four forensic science kits ship as soon as the check arrives. Fortunately, I have enough chemical sets made up to assemble another 15 FK01 kits pretty quickly.
What we lack right now is small parts bags. We have four of those in stock for the chemistry kits, none for the biology kits, and none for the forensic science kits. Fortunately, we have everything we need in stock to build batches of each of those, which we’ll work on over the next few days.
Wait. You’ve sold more kits in one week than in your first year? While I hope your business is successful, I hope the demand doesn’t outstrip the supply!
This is why I retired at 20. This guy swore to uphold the Constitution. I guess he never read it.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2013/01/08/mcchrystal-backs-serious-gun-laws/?wprss=rss_politics
No, we sold more kits in the first seven days of 2013 than we sold in the month of January in 2012.
“You’ve sold more kits in one week than in your first year? ”
He sold more this past week than in the whole month of January LAST year.
General McChrystal needs to go home and STFU. WTF is he doing in retirement running around and shooting his mouth off? Congrats on your twenty, MrAtoz, I guess; I did four active and four reserve and that was about all I could stand of it. But of course that was in the early 70s, a bad time for the services.
What? I have to read ALL the words? 🙂
Must remember to smurf interweb AFTER coffee is drank, and eyes are fully open!
Bill, just Invert.
That way you’ll be as alert as you can be when the other North Americans are just waking up and saying dumb stuff.
“…AFTER coffee is drank…”???
I would use “drunk” in that sentence. But hey, YMMV.
“Usage note
As with many verbs of the pattern sing, sang, sung and ring, rang, rung, there is some confusion about the forms for the past tense and past participle of drink. The historical reason for this confusion is that originally verbs of this class in Old English had a past-tense singular form in a but a past-tense plural form in u. Generally the form in a has leveled out to become the standard past-tense form: We drank our coffee.”
I’d say “I drank my coffee” and “we drank our coffee”, but “I/we have drunk my/our coffee”.
What I meant to say is
“I’ve got to stop coming here.”
😀
Geez, Bill, we’re just tryin’ to help ya here! Look at the talent you have here! For free! A professional write. A disgruntled and bitter English major/former grad student/TA. Another professional writer in the Vampire State who will kill on command.
But you’d probably rather shovel snow or something out there.
Yeah. “A professional write.” Meaning “writer.” See, my problem is frigging typos, due to fat fingers furiously flying over the keys, small keys, on a small keyboard. I should slow the eff down…
I’m only joshing OFD. Though it is hard to be taught English by someone who quite likely can’t pronounce “Learn to park your car at Harvard Park” correctly! 🙂
Why did you mention snow! Now we have a snow warning advisory predicting another 8″ tonight! And the sky was blue early this morning.
I suspect he read it, he either didn’t understand it or believe it.
Yah, I know you were joshing, Bill; so was I. As for trying to pahk in Boston or Cambridge, it is a fool’s errand and likely an expensive one, too. If you ever go there, do not attempt to drive a vehicle in and around those places; you will rue the day. Pahk ya cah outside the city somewhere and ride the T in and around; rub elbows with the salt and pepper of the earth. I had enough experience to go ahead and drive down there but now would choose not to, as the T works pretty good and anyway downtown Boston and the Hahvuh Square area are eminently walkable and more fun.
Now git on out there and shovel that stuff; we is having a so-called January Thaw here this week; temps in the fotties.
As for our generals and politicians reading the Constitution and swearing to uphold it; all just a little show for the rubes and bumpkins out here. Means nothing to them, and nothing to the rubes and bumpkins. Birdcage liner for a real long time now. The anti-Federalists got all in a huff back in the day, rightfully so, and made the other Founding Geniuses draw up our Bill of Rights, and that is about to become more birdcage liner; the Tenth Amendment already is such. As for McChrystal himself, he is a typical strutting peacock bullshit artist and fitting as a typical character in one of the late, great George MacDonald’s Flashman series books.
Netflix nooz:
http://www.salon.com/2013/01/07/netflix_gains_8_warner_bros_tv_shows/?source=newsletter
I’m not familiar with any of these shows; anyone?
Really, government and all its branches—including the military—have lives of their own. You think just because it is a republican democracy that the military does not want to reign supreme over all citizens, in addition to all citizens of the world?
My family members intending to do career hitches have all backed out. If it weren’t for the politics that came crashing in on their jobs, they would have stayed. As one said after quitting immediately upon returning from his first and only tour in Iraq: I may not be smart, but I am not dumb. And what I was doing for the military was quite obviously dumb. (He was valedictorian of his high school class and graduated cum laude from university, so he IS smart. He is the one I told of in an earlier post, where US military vehicles with tracks, ran over generator power cords in the neighborhoods they patrolled, severing them and enraging the citizens. Even though they KNEW they were doing this, his company commander would not stop doing it. Ugly Americans in action.)
I’ve been to Boston twice, and would like to return, as each time I was on business time, and not personal time. The second trip also entailed a trip to Middleboro, not far from the curiously named Assawompset Pond, that required renting a car and driving, but only to and from the rental place. Once back in Boston, I took transit or taxi. It was insane doing that.
“… because it is a republican democracy…”
Huh? When was this? Oh yeah–about two-hundred and some-odd years ago. It ain’t anymore.
“Ugly Americans in action.”
Yeah, I saw daily examples of this during my tours of SEA back in the day. It was embarrassing. I ain’t no saint or paragon of virtue but I tried to learn the local languages and customs and treat regular citizens like I would wanna be treated. In return, they treated me like royalty. While many, maybe most, of my fellow G.I.s went out of their way to be stereotypical ugly, loud and obnoxious American brutes. More than once I managed to stop outright abuse of locals, several of my better moments in life thus fah. (vastly outnumbered by fuckups and wrongs committed).
Assawompset Pond is near to my hometown/old stomping grounds and of historical interest:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assawompset_Pond
I was born in New Bedford and probably drank water from it many times and I can remember the alewife runs near there and all around that area, when we could catch them with our bare hands, and come home bleeding from dozens of small cuts.
As for spelling, the lazy good-for-nothing authorities down there have made it “acceptable” to take all the *-borough towns and spell them with *-boro. So “Middleboro” is really “Middleborough.” You will note from the Wiki article that it featured in King Philip’s (Metacomet’s) War; there was at least one militia company from there that fought in pitched battles to the northwest in Sudbury and environs and suffered heavy casualties; that war remains the highest per capita KIA in this country’s history. It was brutal and scary. Twenty years later, one theory runs, remaining nightmares and PTSD may have helped to precipitate the Salem witch hysteria.
I have not served in the military, but assume the company commander had a few choices at hand.
1. Patrol in tracked and armored vehicles.
2. Patrol in wheeled vehicles with less or no armor.
3. Patrol on foot.
4. Not patrol.
If there were wheeled vehicles with similar armor available, then I would completely agree with Chuck. The company commander would be violating his orders if he did 4 and endangering the men under his command with 2 or 3. Offending the locals is unwise in the extreme, I’m not sure if the other choices are any better.
Howzabout getting the eff outta the armored vehicles and the patrolling of the roads for convoys carrying steak and ice cream to the REMFs in the Green Zone? I have better ideas for how to run things there (and for street cop work back here) but would just as soon we get the hell outta there for good.
Seems the watchword of my cousin’s company was ‘to be feared’. That appears the real reason the commander would not stop using the track vehicles. My cousin was a chemical expert and on the scene instantly after small bombs went off, to analyze them. He was sure their outfit’s belligerence was the actual cause of many of those bombings, which killed a good number of his buddies. About halfway through his tour, he managed to get a transfer to an accounting job in another place. He just marked time until he could get out, after that.
I know you’re not talking about me. For one thing, I’m only a semi-pro writer. More importantly, I don’t take orders from anyone.* I do kill, but generally as a result of finding myself in situations where killing seems to be the best available option.**
* Much to the annoyance of my wife.
** I’ll admit that “finding myself in situations” is somewhat misleading. At around age 20 I saw the movie Death Wish and thought, What a great idea! That said, while it is unusual, probably unwise, and rather suspicious-looking for a man to wander around crime-ridden urban areas, it’s not illegal. By contrast, attempting to rob or kill such a man is illegal, and the muggers deserve what they get. Double that if a “youth gang” managed to catch themselves a woman and found themselves dead.
Here’s an interesting factoid, apparently put forward by JP Morgan (the original source quote I cannot seem to find, but the quote is all over the Internet): no challenger to the Prez that lost ground in the polls in the month after his convention has ever been elected President since 1948. Accepting that, it was clear by the end of September that Romney would lose.
I am still baffled by how—even now—Republicans around me, refuse to accept the fact that Romney lost. Not only were they super-duper confident going into the election, they were beyond disbelief when he lost—almost mentally incapacitated. And instead of being introspective, they still blame the ‘stupid electorate’ for not choosing Romney. I’m not sure they are even capable of picking up the marbles and choosing someone who can win. I said from the outset that Romney was another choice without the charisma to win. Rick Perry definitely had the charisma, but was far too hardline right to be accepted by his own party, let alone the country at large. It will be interesting to see who steps up next, but if there is no change at the top of the party in who is presented as those choices, it will not really matter.
Meanwhile, even I am amazed at how the Republicans cannot stand against Nobama—nor are they even trying. Looks like it is going to be a much more difficult 4 years than I had imagined.
SteveF wrote:
“More importantly, I don’t take orders from anyone.*
* Much to the annoyance of my wife.”
Steve, if that’s true you’re unlike any married guy I’ve ever ‘met’.
It’s true, Miles_Teg, or at least close enough as makes no difference. And my wife is continually annoyed by it. She’s constantly saying things like “No husband acts like that” and “I talked to all of my friends and all of their husbands do X” and “If you want our family to work then we have to compromise and respect each other and what the other wants.” I always thought she was just bullshitting on the first two, and that all of her friends were likewise telling their husbands “All of my friends’ husbands do X”, but maybe not. The third point is definitely bullshit. Oh, the sentiment is correct, but she does whatever she wants and very clearly doesn’t give a damn what I want, and insists on being the one deciding what we will do for the family.
-shrug- Twelve and a half years until the youngest is 18. In the meantime, I use the aggravation and the situations to fuel my writing and in particular my songwriting.
@Chuck in Tiny Town in re: Republicrats: I gave up on those poseurs a long time ago, 1998 to be precise, when I became an Independent. The late great Sam Francis wrote about them in his book “Beautiful Losers.” They suck. Worthless. There is a reason they call them the Stupid Party; I call them the Stupid Half of the War/Money Party; the Dems are, of course the Evil Half. This past year I also gave up on national elections. Why participate in this stupid charade anymore; they laugh at us for doing so. But we’ve been all through this last year.
And in re: that company commander; he, and I am sure, his superiors didn’t ever read military history. I would point them specifically to, for example, the assassination of Obergruppenfuhrer Reinhard Heydrich. Who would be more feared than an SS commander and his fanatic troops? Yet they managed to blow his ass away. In a tightly controlled totalitarian regime, no less. You can march and strut and bang your fucking drums like the fuckhead Orange Order in Northern Ireland and hope to scare the bumpkins but it doesn’t work. All you do is piss them off mightily. Thus the increased casualties via IEDs in that unit over there.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykyxXgYLx08
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2AHQbbsMpE
Keep yer eyes peeled for the omnipresent King Billy flag; that shit happened 300 years ago but it’s like yesterday to these pogie-bait capons.
RE: Middleboro/ugh
I knew it started out as Middleborough, but went with the “modern” spelling as it was shorter. For somebody who often writes in the vernacular, you sure are picky! 🙂
My paternal family were settlers in the Bay area around Boston, and then moved North to Canada to fight the French (spit). Though exactly where, I do know know. As it was a Dr. William Griggs that incorrectly diagnosed the Salem witches (I believe it was you who pointed that out), I have surmised the reason for the wish to stay in Canada after the war was over, was to distance themselves from the taint. We lost the “S” as we crossed the border. All speculation, of course, but it makes a nice yarn, and is much better than pretending I’m an heir to the 7up fortune.
Your paternal family sounds like they may have arrived with the 1630s Great Migration, as did one of mine, on the Winthrop fleet.
Dr. Griggs was probably more of a witch doctor than Reverend Cotton Mather, I guess.
If you’re in the area again sometime, travel a bit north to Danvers, MA, and there visit the home of one of the “executed” witches, Rebecca Nurse. Take a little walk out the back and you will find a cemetery where three more accused witches are buried. The house is a real kick; you can look at it from a certain angle, whatever the season, and easily imagine yourself back in 1670. But the area sucks rocks; it is suburban sprawl writ large, with strip malls, gas stations, heavy traffic, etc. One would never know that Danvers was the actual site of the witchcraft stuff, not what is today Salem.
http://www.essexheritage.org/sites/rebecca_nurse.shtml
http://www.rebeccanurse.org/
Of course, I gave up carrying my Republican card in the early ’80’s, having been convinced that the party was not only controlled by hypocrites, but filled with people whose prime goal was to become a felon. And they were good at that. Had a tough time convincing my parents that party was neither honest nor conservative. Both my parents had been quite active in party politics before I was born. I did eventually win over my mom to the Libertarian side, and my dad occasionally voted for Libertarians. Bill Weld in Mass. really wowed him. But Weld apparently went soft in the brain somewhere along the line after Mass.
But who else is there to counter Nobama? Libertarians are growing, but not nearly fast enough to offer resistance to what is going on.
Republicans around here did manage to snare the fundies—who were Democrats when I was a kid,—and who are simply rabid about their views. Really, the party now has more to overcome with that unholy alliance than Kennedy did being RC. As I see it, the only hope it has is to return to its pre-Lincoln Libertarian roots. I am awfully afraid that the gun issue will be overwhelmingly lost with no opposition whatever, considering how badly the fiscal cliff issue and voting went.
Somebody please mention when comment editing returns. In the meantime, I keep getting logged off so often that I am not going to bother logging back on, until editing returns.
Dear OFD,
Wanted to reply to your answer re my query re catechism but I can’t seem to find your reply.
Searching for catechism yields no result.
email me, will you?
jim`
Two ring a bell with me…
The Following – A new drama series starring Kevin Bacon. Hasn’t aired its series premiere yet. Kevin Bacon is a former FBI agent that’s consulting with the FBI to catch some serial killer. I heard Kevin Bacon lost much of his fortune with the Madoff scandal, so he could use the paycheck. 🙂
Revolution – Surprisingly popular its first season. It’s another showing trying to fill both the void left by Lost going off the air and the public’s craving for post-apocalyptic dramas. Basically, everything electronic on the planet stopped working (think global EMP that never ends) and this show picks up 15 years afterwards. So, half of the show is about surviving in the new low tech world and all those day to day plots and the other half is about the mystery of why the power went out. Season One finished up. No idea when Season Two starts.
As with most TV, suspension of disbelief is required to enjoy.
@jim:
http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/_INDEX.HTM
http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P7Z.HTM (2263-2265 are the sections I have now quoted twice via cut-and-paste and are unchanged over several editions)
Thanks. I even found them in the paperback. Must have had a brainfart the other night.
Chad said “Basically, everything electronic on the planet stopped working (think global EMP that never ends) and this show picks up 15 years afterwards. “
I’ve got that story somewhere around here. It was a short story in an anthology or collection (I think collection of one writer). The cause were “the Waveries” – entities which ate and re-emitted electric waves. They started for Earth when Marconi’s spark emissions encountered them, rebroadcasting fragments of what they encountered as they got closer and closer. It was ackowledged that they were travelling faster than light, but never explained. When they reached Earth, they grew stronger, and electric current was being eaten up within fragments of a second of starting to flow. The Earth reverted to steam trains, hand-set type, hand-written letters and mail deliveries by bicycle, viable country towns, MUCH smaller cities, full employment, brass bands, parlour pianos and pianolas, wind-up gramophones, “but I miss the lightning”.
Chuck Waggoner said “But Weld apparently went soft in the brain somewhere along the line after Mass.”
Since we’re past the season of goodwill to all men, I now feel safe in saying that that applies to everyone. I offer in evidence one of my brothers, who turned. The other one virtuously continued in the family tradition, remained a strong Prebyterian, has a diploma (degree these days) in theology, and is an elder and lay preacher. I’m not quite that committed, but Presbyterian is the closest I can get around here, there’s a lot to like about it, even if I’m not as strongly into predestination as the party line dictates.
Want edit!
Preferably WYSIWIG.