Open thread

I’m swamped again today – blogging will resume later this evening.

Consider this an open thread.

TGIF!

15 Responses to "Open thread"

Severian says:

February 24, 2006 at 2:39 pm

Damned inconsiderate of your employer expecting you to work and not blog!!! I thought all you evil Republipuke bloggers had indentured servants and other downtrodden people to do your bidding!
GBA says:

February 24, 2006 at 2:43 pm

Severian,

Where have you been? I missed your colorful, sarcastic point of view
Severian says:

February 24, 2006 at 3:33 pm

Hi GBA,

Well, my employer wants some work too! It’s hell being a merchant of death, they actually expect work! I should get one of those govt union jog…
Severian says:

February 24, 2006 at 3:34 pm

err…that’s jobs…keyboard was made by the lowest bidder.
Sister Toldjah says:

February 24, 2006 at 3:41 pm

I missed Sev, too! Glad he’s back
GBA says:

February 24, 2006 at 3:43 pm

Severian,

My vacation is over tomorrow so I have to go back to work too. Technically I am the boss but my clients rule my world. Sometimes I feel like a two bit whore.

I have been having fun all week fishing out back in our pond while I blog with folks here.

It’s good to see your twisted soul killing the keyboard again.

I think Nick the Guy got censored. I saw his post and then it was gone.
Severian says:

February 24, 2006 at 4:21 pm

Sorry to hear your vacation is over GBA. They are always too short. I know what you mean about clients though, I played the consulting game for a few years, billable hours, client meetings, etc. Well, I can’t be bought, but I can be rented… Still, the independence is nice, but as a wise person once said, you are usually your own most stressful boss, I know I’m hard to please.

Fishing, sounds great. When I was a kid I didn’t appreciate fishing enough. Now I long for an excuse to sit around doing nothing but looking at the lake. Youth is so wasted on the young.

So, you catch anything good?
GBA says:

February 24, 2006 at 4:34 pm

Severian,

I stocked that pond about five years ago when I bought this place. So it’s flush with Largemouths, crappie, sunfish and catfish. Been eating fish all week here.

I am an owner so I get no relief. But I love my business and the folks who work for me and it’s an honest living. So I have few complaints. I love my clients when they pay me on time. When they don’t the dialog usually gets rough.

Consulting sounds like fun though.
Severian says:

February 24, 2006 at 5:31 pm

Sounds like a great pond GBA! Well stocked and cared for. You have yourself a great combo larder and relaxation spot there.

Clients who don’t pay, that’s got to be an irritant. Most everything I’ve ever worked on has been funded by the DoD, and one thing they do is pay their bills on time. They’ll cancel a project right out from under you, but until they they will pay on time. Last project I was on that was canceled just brought joy to my heart, even though it resulted in my unemployment. I never in my life saw a more screwed up mess that was going no where fast and expensively. Rumsfeld personally made the decision to drop the hammer on that one, and he was about a year too late in my opinion. Was a terrible thing to work on, constant stress. When the project got canceled, my reaction was “Fire me I don’t have the balls to quit!”

Fortunately most of them have been much better!
GBA says:

February 24, 2006 at 5:58 pm

Severian,

DOD is a rough business. My older brother is and aerospace engineer for SAIC. And younger brother is a Major in the Air Force who is getting his Phd at The Air Force Institute of Technology. He likes to burn holes in things and destroy them.

They always talk about how they wish they were working on something else other than the bad stuff.

Let me guess who you hang with? Lockheed?
sanity says:

February 24, 2006 at 8:09 pm

Well saw something interesting in censorship, and decided to blog a bit about it.

Link

Take a look if you wish.

The fact that this happened is more funny than sad.

Fear the hat!
forest hunter says:

February 24, 2006 at 8:21 pm

Big Bang Hunter, How can I contact you?

Sanity, typical (revealed or not ) hypocrisy in action by the PC imposers.
Severian says:

February 24, 2006 at 8:44 pm

Never worked for Lockheed surprisingly, though I worked for Martin Marietta, which is now part of Lockheed. I think I’d shoot myself before I went back, the work was really interesting, but the management was about as bad as anything you’d imagine. Made Dilbert look like an optimist. Made “Office Space” look like a dream job.

Almost worked for SAIC up in Pax River near DC once, but chose another offer. SAIC is a strange company, I’ve never quite figured out their business model, each office/entity seems to engage in cutthroat competition with the other SAIC offices. Strange.

So your younger brother works at AFIT eh? Cool! I got lucky enough to work in directed energy for a few years. Really fascinating, rewarding work. One of my coworkers had come from the MIRCL work out at White Sands. That was one really scarey big dangerous laser. When you fuel it with deuterium and fluorine, that’s one deadly, hard to handle combination. So, does younger brother get to work on the new E-4B airborne laser, or the recently announced C-130 based special ops laser bird? Ask your brother if he remembers a system called Stingray, an Army system.

I’ve never felt I was working on “bad” stuff, I’ve been perfectly happy doing what I do. The work is interesting, and occasionally you work on something that gets used a lot and works well, and that’s quite rewarding. A couple of systems I worked on get daily use today, and work very effectively.
Big Bang Hunter says:

February 24, 2006 at 9:43 pm

Forest – My Email is hunter2night@yahoo.com if that helps…

– Bang
GBA says:

February 26, 2006 at 10:19 pm

Severian.

I am back at work tonight and was just taking a break befor my night guys get here. I miss the Ozarks already but I am glad to be back in civilization.

I have no idea what my younger brother is working on these days. He just started at AFIT this fall. And was at Kirtland AFB in the DED before that. One paper he help publish a couple years ago was about:

Diode-pumped Nd:YAG and Nd:glass spinning-disk lasers

They needed more power and better cooling so they came up with is model to do just that. I have a PDF if you want to read about it.

I will ask him about Stingray when I see him next month when we go trout fishing.

I don’t pretend to understand fully what he does nor do I ask him many questions about his work. I am just a simple guy with a simple mind. Every once and a while he’ll email something he published. Most times when we get together we don’t really talk about the shop. Mine or his.

SAIC recruited my older brother out of NASA. I don’t have the foggiest what he’s working on these days. I just know it’s has nothing to do with saving the whales.

I thought you worked for Lockheed because they are so diversified and usually get the high risk projects that attract the direct attention of SOD Rumsfeld.

My boys just came in. Time to get back to work.

Latter Days.

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