Jobs, work and steady employment!

Having been at the same Salt Mine for just shy of two decades, I sometimes regard management, managers and the whole idea of direction a bit askance. ( Lots of !WHAT! were they THINKING????)

After the last 6 years of extreme stress and unending toil, dismaying new discoveries, incessant globe trotting and not nearly enough sleep, I've suddenly found myself doing something I hadn't chosen to do. Apparently several of the management types decided that they needed an experienced Sr Manufacturing Engineer to attempt to side-step some of the hassles that have befallen the previous program.

I was shanghaied.

Much to my surprise things are much better, while not by any means laid back, I have some control of the trajectory short of turning in my badge and I get to choose the folks who will be working on my assigned work-package.

Per the last visit with the Doc, the BP is down 20 points or so...I'm sleeping again (well sorta) and I see daylight NOT through a window but actually walking about in it producing Vitamin D the old fashioned way. At least I will as soon as the Deluge ends.

It appears that there MIGHT be something TO this gig after all!

While the financial strictures of the program tell me that we will be doing anything and everything with very little resources, I'm confident that we DO know how to make THIS project work and be a moneymaker in spite of a very Scotch bid to get the work.

I'm working on the initial estimates to get the workload, to spec out and hire a crew and get down to doing what we are known the world over for... making flying machines. This time for the USAF, a very demanding customer.

I've even been told that a smile has crossed my visage in the last few weeks.

What next, Sunshine?

SLOG, Splut and splash...

Splash, slip and slide.

THAT is what happens when the Rain Gods decide that the Deluge needs to be repeated 10 times over 15 days.

Took the Brown Dinosaur (my 1981 Chevy 4x4) and new-to-me car trailer up to Longtime College Friend's place so he could move some heavy duty warehouse racks. In order that I not need a ride back home, I strapped my trusty S-10 to the trailer and ventured off into the miasma.

Evidently, even with a constant supply of rain, SOME folks cannot remember how to DRIVE in it. You know its bad when the evasive maneuvers move the S-10 around on the trailer such that it requires shuffling and repositioning prior to chaining it back down even MORE snugly. A yahoo cut me off in traffic, braked heavily, flew me the #1 sign and changed lanes again and departed into Warp Drive. Once my heart rate assumed something less than a vibration and more resembled beating, I slowed to the widest shoulder i could find and repositioned the S-10 on the trailer and continued on my way.

Once at LCF's place I discovered that continuous rain also makes his back 40 more closely resemble a swamp than a driveway. Time for four wheel drive and GENTLE applications of the Loud Pedal - instead of my more normal use - to coax the truck and trailer back to solid, if not dry, ground.

The Brown Dinosaur and trailer are awaiting his venturing out. The drive HOME was not nearly as exciting.

I want to go shooting on a not-raining day. It appears I'll be waiting a bit more...

Life in the PNW.

Stretch...

Cracking knuckles.

Back, on a new project, hopefully a bit more time...as the saying goes...Miles to go before I sleep.

Have a few waiting in the wings, some good days, some funny things.

More to follow SOON.

Life and busy-ness

There are some times that there are just NOT enough hours in the day... It will be that I'll be back. Just might take a bit. sleep(a bit), work, drive between the two. That about covers the daily activities.

I'll be back (as a semi-famous actor/governator once said).

Still raining....RAINING.

Holy COW its been a WET past month or so...we are verging on several records for rainy streaks in the "Dry Season"! There is a 5 gallon bucket on the back porch that is my unofficial rain gauge, one that I have had to empty twice in the last 3 weeks...that is a LOT of water.

OTOH, I don't have to water the grass, not even the new re-seed which may drown before it sprouts. Some of it is growing nicely as i walked through it with bare feet this AM while checking the mailbox that no-one thought to get yesterday.

YESTERDAY was really nice, a few puffy clouds, sun and a light breeze, not even enough to loft a good sized kite. Of Course, I was WORKING again...and today, when I'm OFF...its RAINING.

Fah.

Sometimes

Sitting at my desk on Sunday grinding on mandatory training, not neglected, just not made high enough priority to shoehorn into incredibly BUSY days. Thinking of all the places I would RATHER be today...Woods, Lakes, Rivers, Mountains....just about ANYWHERE but a desk.

Yesterday I was here as well, listening to the growl of radials and the snarl of big V-12s powering the warbirds up and out of the pattern to come around and then thundering down over the crowds. Saturday was General Aviation Day at the local airport, leavened with a large dose of the wonders from a bygone era. One of the local successful folks has a flying collection of the wonders of those days, mostly in flying condition unless the parts to return them to the skies are made of Unobtainium or are just too difficult to handle and too dangerous for Modern Sensibilities. Fah.

After work I went over to the source of the beautiful sounds, just as the doors were closing, shutting away the sleek lines and unbridled power. I'll have to get over there next weekend when some of the others will be flying, along with some visitors.

Thinking back to the travels of late, I was AT the site of the birth of the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries A6M Zero, an unassuming concrete clock tower, now the site of the MRJ and the MHI portion of the Boeing 787. This shot was one sunny evening, just before the sun fled below the hills across the bay. The light was surreal and crisp enough to stop and take a minute to appreciate it.

Now where factories stood making the nimble aircraft, while the B-29s tried to remove that capacity, a new generation of aircraft takes shape. Maybe its irony that the same Boeing that designed the B-29 to reach the Empire of Japan, now works with the same companies it built bombers to destroy in order to further the reaches of aviation.

That minute nearly cost me the walk to the main station instead of the spur train, but with a steady jog I made it just as the bell for the doors rang. In Japan, when the doors close, the train GOES. The walk is not a bad one and until recently it was leavened by the glow of a beer machine on the corner near the station. The demise of the beer machine is all the more reason to jog to the spur train.

Back to my training so I can get OUT of here and go see the marvels of a by-gone era...

Friends and smiles, changes in life.

One of my dearest friends is working through suddenly raising her grand kids, circumstances don't matter for the small ones...all they know is that they now live at Oma's house.

It has had its moments with the 12 year old deciding that life is unfair, wrong and being generally difficult as only a 12 year old girl can. The youngest has conquered some small people things and is blossoming with the example of her Grandmother's guidance, the middle one, a boy, starting to make that transition from a boy to a young man. He is learning the intricacies of making fish sticks and fries, and more complex things with the pride showing through as he serves his little sister's dinner and makes up his own plate. He has conquered pancakes from scratch (with oversight) and is learning that WASHING the dishes is important as well as dirtying them.

The youngest has the warmest spot in the house, the spot by the wood stove that heats the modest house of her grandmother, a space that she shares with the ferret and occasionally the cats, though the cats usually sleep in the elder's room (does double duty as a home office) while still having the run of the indoors.

I marvel at my friend's flexibility and resourcefulness, raising kids on a tight budget is challenging enough without all the added expenses that today's kids seem to have. She is a wonderful cook, a fact not always appreciated by kids raised on boxes of stuff that can have water added for a "faster" meal. I have seen her whip up the same type (tho hardly same class - FAR outranks the box stuff) of food in LESS time than the box preps require. Parent - teacher conferences, trips for the kids, field trips and all manner of things that HER children didnt have that its assumed that all kids do today.

With all of this she is starting a new career at a grandmotherly age, tho NOT demenor, working through the startup of a business that can be quite demanding while still doing the old job to cover the expenses and feed the new mouths at the table. She is also an archer with her own longbow and a huntress with a rifle as well. She and the grandkids have been camping, hiking and generally out goofing off with their Oma and they love it.

Having been raised in the city, in apartments, the kids had to learn about the outdoors, mud and less pavement. Its been a learning experience for the kids as well as their Oma.

I'm proud of her though for doing so well with the sudden influx of life.