Missing my bike.

It's a beautiful Wednesday here in Sacramento. A bit of a chill in the air this evening. Just got back from dinner at Chili's. It was typical fair, but nice to sit and be waited on. Work was hard today. We had to load in a pipe grid to the second floor of a high school. A whole lot of steps, up and down, repeat 35-40 times. But in the end everything is going in pretty easily. I think we will be finished tomorrow with the job that was supposed to take 12 man days. We are doing it in 4 man days. This should make the boss happy.
As the weather is warming I keep thinking about getting on my motorcycle and taking a couple days to put a couple thousand miles on it. Hopefully I will be able to ride a bit next week. Besides being away from the Countess I miss my bike.

Late March

It has been a while since the last post. About three weeks have passed. They have been interesting for me. I worked mostly at a church in Los Gatos installing dead hung rigging for the stage curtains and track. I did install a motorized roll drop with a drum that is 60' long. That is a pretty interesting rig. The drum splices are made by heating the one side and sliding it on to the other then letting everything cool down. Quite interesting, it's the first time I did that sort of splice.
I took a couple days off last week and went to Tucson for the wedding of my niece. That was a nice break and a very nice trip. The wedding was well done. The setting, in a desert park, Tonoha Chue, was beautiful as the sun set and the ceremony began. The best to Jen and Greg.
Today I drove up to Sacramento to work on a pipe grid in a high school. I suppose this brings me up to date.

Just another good day

I guess I am pretty lucky. The last week went well and today was very good. Spent the week near San Diego installing theatrical rigging in a new high school. A simple dead hung system with 3 motorized sets for the stage electrics. I still can not figure out why the people in charge of the design of an auditorium that is to function for the sole purpose of putting on a performance to consistently cut the budget for the stage equipment. This is like designing a restaurant and putting in a single residential oven. But all we can do is install what they have paid for.
I came home to the Countess and we had a very nice day. Went out for breakfast, did a bit of shopping and then took the mutt for a walk on the beach. Just a very nice day together. This is why I love her so much.
It's off for another week tomorrow. This time up north near San Jose. All I can do is hope things go as well there.

20 Days Later

It's been 20 days since the last post. Nothing really stands out as having any impact on my life other than making a commitment to go to Sturgis this August. That will be something to look forward to. But other than that February has been a typical month. Went to work, earned enough money to pay bills and take the Countess out to dinner a couple times. We watched our investments lose value a bit and saw another home go on the market because of foreclosure. The times are rather unnerving. But I still feel confident that by the time we need it, there will be enough funds to retire with some comfort and a measure of security. This year I will reach the magic 59 ½ years. Only 6 and ½ years to full retirement. I think I am actually looking forward to it. My body has been telling me that I am not 35 any more. Even though my mind is telling me I am. My body is winning the battles more and more. I do worry about not being able to do anything when the time comes because I will be in too much pain to move. Is it too late?

Feb 3

It has been about a week since the last post. I have to say the days have been rather typical. Work and home have been quite predictable and filled with the sameness of so many others. It really doesn’t bother me. I rather like the routine. I did mail in my absentee ballot last Friday. Something not done every day. Other than that there is not much to report event wise. I was too lazy to get out and ride this weekend. Saturday was a great day to go, today was rainy so I wouldn’t have gone anyway. One of my ex-co-workers had open heart surgery last week. He is 5 years older than I am, over weight and is usually a very high stress person so I sort of expected it sooner or later. But still as I approach 60 I do start to worry about the body breaking. We just aren’t built to last this long. I need to take better care of this body.

How dumb are we?

It has been raining here for the last couple days. We certainly can use it. I won't have to water the grass for quite a while now. In Southern California we have to water the grass all year around. There is no dormant season. It grows and needs to be cut, just a bit slower in the winter.
Work goes well. I have taken the bull by the horns and dealt with some lingering problems and now the stress is gone and all is well with work.
Today the government says it is going to give everyone $600. This is supposed to start the economy going in the right direction. I don't quite understand the logic. I know if I give my kids money to bail them out of a problem they just turn around six months later and create another one. They don't learn from their mistakes and act as if the bail out will always be there. I feel this is exactly what will happen with the economy. Business needs to get lean, stop overcharging for goods, and not be so greedy. Individuals need to get lean, live on what they earn - not credit, and not be so greedy. Then the economy would correct itself over time and be a lot stronger for it. I do worry about where we are headed and what the country will be like in 30 years when I am just a passing topic of conversation at the family get togethers. Did our society look this dumb 30 years ago?

A week goes by

It has been a long work week gone by since the last post. I worked in the field for most of the week. I am currently working at 3 schools in Beverly Hills, CA. The principal at one of the schools has a very difficult time working and playing with others. The workers can not enter the grounds before 7:00 am. They can only drive on to the premises to load and unload materials and tools before 8:00 am. Deliveries can not be received after 8:00 am. Access to certain parts of the school that we need to get to can not be reached during school hours. Parking for our work trucks is 4 blocks away. She has made it about as difficult as she can for us to do our work. The other 2 schools, although difficult to access due to parking problems, are at least accessible and we can receive parts and get tools and equipment from our trucks during the day. It makes me wonder how someone with so little sense can get into a position of responsibility for so many children. She gains nothing by making our job so difficult to complete. She gains no measure of safety or security for the students by not allowing us to park close to the auditorium and our work. All she accomplishes is to increase our resentment of having to work at her school and a general bad attitude towards the school, the district and doing further work for them.
This weekend found the Countess and I just relaxing. I didn’t get out of bed until 10:00. We had some problems with the wi-fi router and configuring the network. That took a couple hours to resolve. All is peaceful now. She is able to use her laptop from the bedroom and I can so my thing in the office on the host computer. I had planned on going for a ride today. The weather was beautiful, but my carpel tunnel has kicked up again and the hand strength and feeling is just not there to be confident to ride the motorcycle. Maybe a short ride tomorrow before the football games.

Sunday 1-13

It's been a week since the last post. First off I thought that it has been a good week, but then I think that "good" is purly arbitrary. Some parts were good and other parts were not so good. I overworked my body the first half of the week and that hurt. The market was off 400 points so that was not good for my investments. But the Countess and I had a relaxing weekend. We did some stuff around the house together, gardening and decorating. The pantry has food, the vehicles have gas, I went for a nice ride on my motorcycle - our life is content. I guess that does make it good over all. We are safe, secure, healthy and happy with our lives. If something enters into this that threatens any of those things then we worry. Until then, it's good.

1/7

It was a fun day to be a rigger. Installed a paint frame motorized head block that was not working for many years. The client was thrilled, the boss happy because I made him some money and I didn't have to work all that hard. A new head block, refurbished motor, new cable lift lines and new hardware - installed without a glitch; just a fun day.

The countess and I had a nice quiet evening. We have to share the TV remote between her TV and the main one downstairs since she gave her remote a bath with the laundry yesterday. She picked up the remote along with the bedding and now its clean as can be but don't work to good. So tomorrow I go to the cable company and exchange it for a new one. Rather humorous I think.

Where has the time gone?

I just realized that it has been 4 days since the last post. Where has the time gone?

On the 2nd I did a nice little job in the field - I've been in the field all week. I see so many examples in my work of people responsible for building design, architects, engineers or consultants that don't have a clew about what they are doing. I go to a high school and have to rig the smoke vent hatches over the stage. The first thing wrong is that the school was built years ago and they are now just getting to rigging the smoke vents. The vents are a fire safety design element that should have been working from day 1. The second thing wrong is that these vents are the wrong type to have for this situation. There are two types of vents made. One type has latches at the hatch door that must be released so the doors will open. The other is spring loaded and will release when the line holding them shut is broken. The ones with the latch are not supposed to be used on stages. This type can not be connected to a fusible link nor can it be tested and reset from the stage floor. But it is less expensive than the correct one so guess which one gets installed. The spring loaded doors are the correct ones to use because they can be winched closed at stage floor level and there can be fusible links installed in the line that will break if the temperature reaches 165 deg and open the doors automatically.

I guess the architects and consultants were sick that day they taught theater design in school. Of course the building and fire inspectors don't know that much about the job they are supposed to be responsible for either. It just doesn't make sense that people in those positions don't know enough to do their jobs correctly and are not held accountable for their ignorance.

The last two days I spent rigging a couple schools in Beverly Hills. These are very simple jobs for elementary school stages with dead hung battens and some track and drapes. The original design, done by a theatrical consultant, had the schools spending over a quarter million dollars on motorized systems that the faculty and students wouldn’t have the skills, knowledge or abilities to ever use. So we came in and provided a practical stage design that will serve the true function and level of use for the stages. We saved each school about $150,000. That is a bunch of tax payer’s dollars and state money. I don’t think anyone really cares, but I’m still glad we could do this. I hate to see that kind of senseless waste. Here again I just have to wonder what the professional theatrical consultant was thinking. How can they possibly think it justifiable to install an expensive motorized rigging system into a small elementary school stage where the staff can’t utilize it, the productions don’t justify it and the students can’t and won’t learn from it? It seems to be only about ego or status or something like that.

We installed a couple very expensive motorized systems in an elementary school in San Diego last year that just blew me away. The “stage” area had a ceiling height of 13’ and the theatrical consultant designs and sells the school 3 motorized electric sets at a cost of $120,000. The travel on these sets is only 6 feet! The control system cost $60,000 and can do everything you would expect in a Broadway theater. The drama teacher doesn’t know what light fixtures should go where, much less how to set a queue. The batten will go up and will go down, that’s it. What a waste of school money. Sometimes we can help, other times we are helpless.

A new year begins

I am a bit surprised at myself today. I didn’t watch very much football at all. I took the Countess to see a movie, Tom Hanks in Charlie Wilson’s' War, a very entertaining movie by my standards. The Countess also liked it. We took down decorations and cleaned up a bit. Now the home is more back to normal and seeming a bit more comfortable. I guess there is a relief knowing the Christmas season is over. I am very proud of the fact that we did not get ourselves into any further debt. This makes me very happy with our ability to handle the pressures of the season. The Countess was great. She is the main reason for everything that is good with my life.

JP is leaving early in the morning to head back to his life as a college student. He doesn't have to start school until the 21st, but I guess the old folks are getting on his nerves.

Speaking of old folks, when we went to the movie today the ticket clerk ( a woman around 50) asked me if we were "seniors". I asked her what the age was that the theater considered senior and she replied 60. I said that we were not quite there yet. She says that it was OK; she would give us the senior rate anyway because the regular admission rate was too much to pay for a movie. So we saved about $5. I thought that was rather nice of her and it made us feel better about the movie theater.

Tonight I was reading several other Blogs. Most bloggers were taking a look back at the previous year. I must admit I have to admire all of the authors for they have so much more insight into what they feel and where they have been than I could ever get out of my past experiences. I guess my life has been pretty boring or I just don’t realize the significance of what I do. Perhaps that should be my resolution – To do something this year that will put some significance into my life. How to make your life significant . Now there is a best seller if I ever.