Run Little Gnome Run!

I'm back in Portland after working in Seattle today. It was quite the workday, requiring three ounces of Ireland's finest and a pint of homebrew to decompress. I had to take a couple personal days to:
-get the DOD off my back (IRR B.S.)
-get the state off my back (Truck Tags and Insurance)
-get the Feds and states to pony up the dough they owe (Navy/Treasury/IRS snafu)
-turn in expense reports in order to stop floating my company a no interest loan.
On the way home I heard today's Fresh Air. It's an Al Gore interview on global warming. He makes a point about the Bush administration that has always chapped my ass. Bush's implicit/explicit statment prior to getting elected was basically 'hey, I'm an idiot, but I'll surround myself with my dad's cronies, who are bright dudes' (I paraphrase). Problem is they are all crooks and always have been. The case in point is Phillip Cooney. He is supposed to be telling the president what to think about 'Environmental Quality', but he is a PR man for Exxon, as well as Exxon's counsel for the Valdez affair. He isn't a scientist, he's a crooked lobbyist, as are the rest of the cabinet.
Lawyers and PR men are not scientists, and newspapers are not peer reviewed, but we treat their misinformation with undue legitimacy. This allows the general populace to walk around ignoring problems such as an overinflated economy, environmental devastation and energy shortfalls that make me cringe.
If you are not following the scientific method, and your studies are not peer reviewed then you have no business attempting to set public policy, as you are just an asshole in a suit who will F shit up in the long run.
This includes but is not limited to:
-Evolution
-Global Warming
-Energy Policy
-Economics
This last one is important. Economics as understood in modern academia is not really a science. It is a Socratic idealogical study based on the core idea that the economy can and will expand forever. I don't know about you, but I live on a finite sphere. The only answer to all three aforementioned problems is to stop breeding and stop breeding NOW! Way to go Chance, Missy, Sean, Christina G. et al. for leading the way to a future with less mouths to feed, burning fossil fuels and generally cluttering up the planet.
(CK's note- despite this rant we love all rugrats, including but not limited to: Dylan, Jaiden, Julian, Vanessa, Annalise, Solstyn, Tandem, Daniel, Christopher, Alex and any other rat bastards I may have missed.)

Back From the Brink

Thank you Broadcom. You have made a hardware device without a Linux Driver, costing me 4 hours of my life.
10 minutes to find the answer to why my shit didn't work.
1 hour deciphering the secrets of 'Terminal' and NdisWrapper.
1 hour was searching in vain for my linksys router password.
2 hours of cursing the gods and general bitching unrelated to the problem at hand, but this counts since most of the bitching was about the poor organization in my office as I searched to find the Windows CD that contained the drivers in question.
It seems that all my other hardware is doing what it is supposed to, so all in all it was a good transition. I'll do the desktop when I get more time in a week or two.
Now that I'm done 'Sean-ing out' I need to build my wife a desk, plant my garden, string up my hops vines all while dreading work tomorrow.

If You Never Hear From Me Again...

I'm home for the long weekend, and chores and errands have piled up. I will be back in Federal Way for early next week, but still have a boatload of weekday buisness to attend to here in Portland. It's giving me an ulcer.
Last thing that happened before I left the jobsite on Friday was one of the diesel generator breakers tripping on ground fault. All the site electricians had gone home, so we'll have to figure out what is wrong on Tuesday. I can only hope the building gets sucked into hell before then.
I've come to the breaking point with Microsoft's operating systems. I've been researching and they have Picasa, Firefox, Podzilla apps for Linux, some I'm taking the plunge. I've transferred all of the files I'd hate to lose to one machine and dug up the system restore disks for the other. If you never hear from me again on this blog I have failed in my transition to the new operating system. The stress of failure will have caused me to go into the woods to live off of fungi and lichen, never to return to 'civilization'.

Lost Puppy

As I was leaving the construction site today there was a stray puppy dog hanging out by the diesel generators. It was a small grey mutt who had chewed through its lead and had been wandering the neighborhood since mother's day (according to Weyerhaueser security). It was really sweet, and I thought about telling the wife to drive up and get it, but thought that Max would eat its face. Security came to get it, and animal control will probably pick it up in the next fews days.

Silver Falls State Park, Oregon

 

Temporary Reprieve

Turns out I got today off. We would have been the only trade working at the jobsite today, and the GC didn't want to pay anyone overtime to keep the jobsite open just for us. So I came home and beat my wife. We went to Silver Falls State Park and hiked around, then had a picnic in Silverton's town park. I then went to the hippie grocer who had strawberries, mangoes and bananas all on sale. So here I sit sipping fruit smoothie late in the afternoon on a beautiful Sunday. Too bad I have to drive back to Federal Way in the morning.

People who don't dig the Jefferson need the beats.

An open letter to wifey and all other anti-Jeffersonians:
Some anti-Jefferson rumblings have made it to my ears. Here are some ideas to ponder when seeking to dismiss our greatest countryman.
The Declaration of Independance.
I've always thought that this document was quite the enigma. Rich white dudes bitching about being put upon. It does, however, contain some statements about the founding principles that should not be forgotten such as:
-"...whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government..."
i.e. it leaves the door open for change, even in the government they were looking to set up.
-"...that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness."
You may ask 'but what about slavery'. In Jefferson's version he censured King George for this barbaric practice.
Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom.
-"...no man shall be compelled to frequent or support any religious worship...nor shall otherwise suffer on account of his religious opinions or belief..."
Christianity has this weird 'they persecute us for are beliefs' or 'we'll have to suffer for our religion' thing from Evangelical's understanding of the book of Revelation. Although I nor any man can know the future, I can tell you about the present. This country has a wide array of religous views, all made possible by T.J.'s writings on freedom of religion, that are tolerated and allowed to flourish.
Letter to the Danbury Baptist Association.
Necessary for freedom religion to be a reality and not just some nice words on paper he also understood that "...legislature should make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, thus building a wall of separation between church and state." Without this idea we'd all be worshiping fundamental evangelicism at mega churches in the suburbs.
More importantly he was a well rounded man who believed that the country would best be served by well educated farmer/statesmen. This is what draws me to the man. The idea of what we now call sustainable agriculture where expounded by Jefferson and practiced at his Monticello estate. He believed that we should seek to draw from the land as a society in tune with our agriculture. It is my opinion that he would be aghast by the state of what farming has become, with ADM and ConAgra raping the midwest to produce monocultures.
"Good husbandry with us consists in abandoning Indian corn and tobacco, tending small grain, some red clover following, and endeavoring to have, while the lands are at rest, a spontaneous cover of white clover. I do not present this as a culture judicious in itself, but as good in comparison with what most people there pursue."
In conclusion
-Jefferson good
-Wifey needs the beats.

Working

I've been in Federal Way for a couple weeks now. No end in sight, just wires, grease and battery acid as far as the eyes can see. On Thursday I tried to send 260-ish amps through a cable rated for 93 amps during some load bank testing. It lasted about 2 minutes. Ted4 es en Fuego. It was a good thing the load bank was right by an open roll up door, or I'd of smoked out the building. I'm actually kinda pissed they sent such a horribly underrated cable, that'll show me not to check the set up when drawing hella current.