Randomness

     I got an iPhone and am now totally addicted to taking photos with the camera especially the Hipstamatic App. I guess that makes me a Hillbilly Hipster. I have a friend that doesn't like Hipsters which I don't really understand. My only problem with hipsters other than wearing skinny jeans, which are the devil, is they got it easy when it comes to outlets of information.

      Back when I was a kid (I can't believe I just typed that) you had to work like a mad bastard to find the cool stuff. I mean you had to dig because your parents usually weren't a roadmap and our library was the size of closet. All you had were your friends and maybe a few magazines that would steer you the right way and of course movies. It is actually kind of impressive how things would fall into ones lap, a friend would tell you about this guy called Kerouac, another friends dad would tell you about Bob Dylan and JD Salinger and still yet another movie would turn you on to Hunter S Thompson and Henry Miller. Henry and June...what the hell kind of movie is that, I don't know but it is rated NC-17 so hang on...

     

     By God if you heard about something cool you had to do real research to find it now you use Wiki and you not only know about the author/musician but what he was wearing when he wrote the book/music. Shit you don't even need cliff notes anymore with Wiki, want to know what Hamlet's deal was, give me a second... Ok, his uncle killed his dad to gain the the throne and the Queen and Hamlet knows because the ghost dad told him. Done. 

    I'm just jealous is all, the hipsters have almost instantaneous discovery when it took me months to piece meal together things about the Beats or listen to more than three Bob Dylan albums. Now you can find out about all the Beats in a few clicks and download almost all of Bob in an hour with a fast connection. 

    What I am trying to say is I feel RIPPED OFF! Damn kids.

Lunch Time Nap in ESD Smock

Beltway 8, heading to the place with my stuff

When God crashes Windows he opens an Apple

     So I moved to Houston, I got the job to actually make the money and just when I was reaching escape velocity to move out of my cousin big house things started to fall apart for our hero.
     First his brand new Bunn coffee pot died for no apparent reason, just repeatedly flashed "CLe" as some cryptic clue about who or what had murdered it. Turns out it is a common problem with that $130 model of Bunn coffee pot, the sad thing is it wasn't the one I wanted in the first place. Another shiny appliance with a clock that would have to be reset constantly.
     Next while walking out of work that Monday I spot the front tire of my car looking a little strange. Now I am not a mechanic and know next to nothing about cars but I am fairly certain that the tread isn't actually supposed to be coming off the tire. Now if I was back home in Kentucky I would probably just take a chance and drive a few more years on this bald and rapidly disintegrating tires but after seeing how these assholes drive and a number of motorist standing on the edge of the fast moving interstate attempting to change a tire while SUVs whiz past them at 80 MPH with drivers clutching a small dog and a cellphone I thought it best to sink $280 on new, cheap tires. I could just imagine myself in the same predicament and it was scary. Plus the fact that I have a shit ton of stuff from IKEA in my trunk because I was planning to be moved out before November.
     Lastly I had two hard drives die on me within two weeks of each other. I had gotten a 1.5 TB hard drive the summer before because I was so worried that I would lose my photos if I didn't spread them around. Obviously it was a good plan as I had photos in two states when catastrophe hit my two hard drives here in Texas. I will never buy another Western Digital Hard Drive if they can't take a few hits now and again. What could I do I was poor back then and could only afford lame ass equipment.
     So my acer computer, my contact with the rest of the world croaked on me without any provocation. After working all the magic that I could think of, replacing the hard drive, reinstalling windows Vista, praying, calling in an exorcist the bastard almost got back to the point in which it would run again. Then it died once more. This is after almost three days of searching for the ever illusive drivers for programs such as the wifi and the display. Nothing is more infuriated than getting the driver for your internet but it not loading because it wasn't digitally signed. If someone can explain how do you get on the internet to get digitally signed driver when it is the driver for the fucking wifi please send me an email.
      So a week of reinstalling, buying a new hard drive, getting pen drives to boot from and searching for just the right stupid driver it still wouldn't work. I completely snapped, I don't know if it was a combination of being heavily caffeinated or extremely aggravated but I decided screw stupid Windows and Bill Gates and this lame ass excuse for an OS and I went out and bought an iMac.

     I used to own a 2nd Gen iMac back in the 90's when they came out in color schemes, I bought a blueberry from Sears for around $800. If I am not mistaken I was also sick of Windows 98 and the underpowered POS that I was using at the time. This new iMac has all the bells and whistles, a 27 inch screen that is just a little less brighter than the sun, Thunderbolt jacks, SD Card reader and a ton of other options and apps that I haven't the foggiest what they do.
    As I said more than a decade ago, Fuck PCs.

Godzilla Alarm

      I don't know what is more interesting the fact that Grandpa is watching Godzilla 2020 or whatever at 8 am on a Sunday morning and that the volume might actually be drowning out jet planes at the nearby George Bush Airport or the fact that it sounds like all the voices were dubbed by the same actor, even the women.


   

The Fam...

or How The Hell Do I Stop This Crazy Ride

     Grandpa and Grandma slinked in like ninja a couple of weeks ago. Krista informed me that this day would be coming weeks beforehand but like any diagnosis that doesn't have a good outcome, we tried to block it out of your mind completely and hoped beyond hope for a miracle like something on Touched by an Angel. So it was rather a surprise when I came home Friday after work with a song in my heart and joy in my mind because it was finally the weekend and I was tired that I saw that red car in the driveway and my heart sank like a fucking stone.
     Grandpa is more machine now than man, oxygen tanks, motorized scooter, defibrillator and God knows what other after market replacement parts plus diabetes, bladder issues, prostate cancer, high cholesterol and a hatred for socialized medicine though he is getting all his health care via the Veterans Administration. Grandma has brain cancer, a beard, missing front teeth and also is a diabetic.
      Let me put it like this, they have a small dog and named it Benji.
      So I was surprised that Sunday talking to Grandpa about his low salt diet as I watched him mixing left over manwich, refried beans, pico and salsa together in a medium sized Tupperware bowl and shoveling it down between breaths from his oxygen line. Grandma on the other hand ate an entire pound of candy corn in 3 days. They really don't understand healthy eating I don't think.
      I know this sounds like complaining but to tell you the truth I really like these people, well Grandpa at least. He always has some stories about Vietnam or living in Arizona or a good fart story to help pass the time. I hate to see him eating this shitty food and driving himself to the grave faster, well as fast as a Rascal can go loaded down with Oxygen tanks.

Re-Blue Collared....Still a Snob

For the record, I so don't give a shit about in Entertainment.

1) American Idol

2) Dancing with the Stars

3) Real Housewives of (whatever uber rich asshole city)

4) X-Factor or anything that starts with the phrase Simon Cowell

5) Just about every sit com on TV. (Let me sum up TV sit coms over the last 30 years, she is smart, he is a    moron and they have 2 kids and  live in a HUGE fuck all house.

6) Really any Reality TV show that involves singing or dancing. I saw this show back in the 80's it was called 

    Star Search.

7) Coupon people, Coupons are the Newspaper Hoarders of the 21st Century.

8) Book Jackets that don't have a synopsis.

9) Book synopsis that states the protagonists career in some incredibly specific field. She was a forensic dentist specializing in vascular gum disease. Hi, I'm a reader specializing in not giving a shit.

10) America's Got Talent

      I have to say I look forward to getting my own place so I can enjoy the hermit lifestyle. Get a nice chair to sit and read in and by done with all this loud TV bullshit. Maybe I am just a little mad at TV because of our long bitter affair back in the 80's. When we used to spend every night together, skipping things like home work and study to enjoy each others company. Let's face it, there will never be another MASH or Newhart coming down the pike anytime soon. Somewhere though you started leaving me slowly, sure there were a few good smart shows on here and there, X-Files and the like but for everyone of those you made 10 Full House or Home Improvements. 

       Now everything is some semi-celebrity trouser stain sitting in judgement of people with a modicum of passion and some talent. You mean I perform and Sharon Osbourne and Howie Mandell will give me some pointers. You mean the woman that is famous for keeping her husband alive and the guy that was on a hit show in the 1983 and now makes phone commercials will tell me about talent. Get the fuck out of here! Funny how that works out, on the talent shows the Celebrity panels are lame and on the Celebrity Shows the celebrities are so lame you wouldn't even bother asking them for an autograph if you ever got stuck next to them in coach from LA to NY. Which Baldwin brother are you, obviously not Alec because his ass wouldn't be in coach.

It Burns

    Toshiba Heavy Industrial Motors, chocked full of Aluminum Goodness.

    I've taken to calling the 100 Ton Press, the Cornballer because just like that shoddy machine from Arrested Development you should never touch it or get near it ever. I almost made it an entire Monday without burning the shit out of some body part, then the very last thing I did before leaving was cover the oven with the molten aluminum and I barely touched my arm to the machine and burned my arm.
   I guess at this point in my life I can take a few burns if I can make some money and get 40 hours a week. Who needs flesh anyway really? I mean pain free work environment is for pussies and people with real college degrees right. I have to say it still beats my last jobs at Deathcel with their ridiculous 12 hours shift with only 2, 10 minute breaks and 30 minutes lunch. Can you imagine how draining it is to come in the middle of second shift, stay and watch third shift come in and then leave just when first shift is walking in and setting up machines. It makes my body hurt just remembering those days. I remember it took me over three months before my feet and calves finally stopped constantly hurting all for $8.50 an hour.

    Selah.

Toshiba and the Magic of a Paycheck

I am so slow at writing blogs these days. I remember one I tried to work on one blog a week way back in the 2005ish area. I used blogging as a writing exercise, nothing more then people started commenting. Mostly good, well all good because I deleted the negative comments.

Anyway, enough excuse. Let's crank one out for old times sake.

I got a phone call for an interview about 3 weeks ago for a job as a machine operator. I had no idea what job I applied for as I have applied for so many since arriving and realizing that the one job that my cousin thought he could help my attain wasn't going to happen. I feeling in the nuts that said this isn't going to happen. I trust my nuts, not my gut because my guts have been known to be full of shit. After some cross checking in my files, I figured out the job was at Toshiba International. I got excited thinking it was going to be consumer products but turns out it is heavy industrial motors. When I say motors I mean huge motherfuckers, though I don't get to deal with any of the cool stuff I got stuck in making the rotors which goes in the guts of the motor before it gets shafted and wrapped in copper. I get to stack hundreds of 1mm thick pieces of steel lamination the inject molten aluminum into a mold which produces cooling fins and the like. Sounds a lot less interesting than it is believe me and of course that is the nature of factory work.

1. Stack Them
2. Mold Them.
3. Send Them.
4. Repeat 100 times in 8 hours.

Of course it is more complicated than that, you have to change models, molds and materials but that is basically it. Oh and lift 75 pounds of hot fucking metal and place it on a wooden pallet. Do it quickly though because that shit is hot and heavy and you got more parts to run. I'm not complaining I really need a job and I lack any real education that would get me a chair and a desk. (thanks Daymar College, you swine).

I have to say that the paycheck part is pretty damn sweet and that day shift is also nice. Plus if you need a drink of water you don't have to BEG to go, just go and drink. I feel like Red from Shawshank Redemption, I can't take a piss without asking after all those years. Bathroom Break Boss? Drink of water boss? Think my own thoughts boss? Strangle you in the parking lot after work with a shoe string because you wouldn't let us leave during the biggest ice storm in 100 years boss....

So I like my job so far, it is scary and complex because the idea of having any kind of instructions anywhere would be MADNESS. I get to work with molten metal and use a jib crane and pray nothing explodes.