I'm here, I'm here, I'm here, I'm here

Hey folks Im in

The good parts.

The weather has been spectacular. 82-84 F. in the day, sunny or partly cloudy. Everybody rides bikes no POVs. It was part of my job to ride around the airport today and look at a project site. Man that was tough!! My room window looks east so I get the sun and moon rise over the ocean. The ocean view is spectacular, so far there has been steady trade winds and everyday I can watch these 3-4 foot breakers. Yes, folks I have an ocean front room, cross the road and add about 75 ft of land and Im at the beach. I have seen a total of 5-6 ppl on the beach it is all around so I guess the locals think no big deal. I walk to work and take the beach road so I get this view for about half of the walk. I guess I could ride a bike but hey it is only a 5 minute walk to the office.

I could give yall some of the bad parts but hey, I think Im gonna walk the beach. The sun has set and it has cooled off. Plus I got this new LED headlamp that really needs to be broken in before the moon rises. I must proudly add that the LED headlamp purchase was a result of GHOOM. I miss and want my rollerblades. This place is virtually flat. However the blades are in the mail, woo hoo GHOOM optimization again. Also want my bowling ball. This place has a 7 lane alley that is empty. Get this you still keep score by hand!!! The lack of bowling ball and fishing gear was also a result of the aforementioned GHOOM. Unpleasant result? Yes, but analyzed and fully evaluated.

Final note: for some reason we get Sunday and Monday off? Im sure there is a justifiable reason if you think about it? Regardless on Monday while ur going to work, Ill be .. hmmm hangin in paradise.

Kwajalein

OK, arrrgh yes I have to go back to work.

Translation: I'm almost out of money. I know, I know.. I made a vow not to go back to engineering but, alas U R what U know. He he ha ha so I modified the vow! Anyway, the modified vow is if I have to go back to engineering, then it better be an easy, fun/exotic job and location. A true life (if, then) logic statement. Pretty tuff vow if you consider, growing up in Alaska plus 25 years of engineering up here. Note the amount of money isn't the first criteria. Shucks and darn the first job I apply for sends me an offer. The job is located in the Marshall Islands. Of course I said yes. I think of it as trading seeing fur seals in the Pribilof Islands (been there, done that) to sea turtles in the Marshall Islands. Yeah, I've seen the bears at Brooks camp too. Been snowed in in Glacier Bay NPS, that was a blast. Alaska been very very good to me (old SNL Garret Morris line).

So far so good. I sent back the first bundle of paperwork last week. I had the pre-employment "physical" today; basically they just drew a ton blood and other fluids, data collection of materials to be sent "back east" for further analysis. Yeah my blood pressure was OK and so was the uh prostate, being over 40 is a bitch. Remember when the hernia check as a big deal??Barring some weird unknown illness and the security clearance I think I'm in. (Fingers crossed, knock on wood).

GHOOM (geek high organization/optimization mode) is setting in. OMG, first a Gantt chart to organize all of the crap I need to get done b4 I go. Need to list everything I'm taking; which puter, camping gear, prescription goggles (holy shit I need an eye exam, extra glasses) fishing stuff (hmmm poles are in Soldotna @ mom and dads). Arrrgh Banking - I hate automatic EFT's but should get that set-up for all of the house bills. Yikes 20 and 18 yo sons with the run of the house, holy fuck that is "risky business". FYI Tom Cruise is a punk. Bike!! Can't drive on the island. Throw away bike?? Everything rusts out. Need to evaluate the proper bicycle for the tropics. The party!! need to have a party b4 I go!!!Warning Warning Danger Will Robinson. Sigh this is sooo much fun. More fun than humans should be allowed to have. wooo hooo

Kids Say the Darnedest Things

Every now and then, I get a warm fuzzy from one of my sons. It is a kewl feeling because it indicates that perhaps, as a parent, I did actually influence them. Note, I didn't say I did something right. The jury is still in deliberation on several counts before the final tally comes in. The other night while watching the news, as our highest nationally elected official, was commenting about the possibility of pending "civil war" in Iraq, my eldest son, Primo says, "Dad, I wish I believed in God." This part made me cringe, cause I do believe in God and Primo's atheists believes may in fact, one day get me struck by lighting. The next part was awesome. He continues to say," Because then I would know that these assholes would be going to hell." What was really kewl was the tone of his voice made it clear he had a complete grasp of all of the assholes including the politicians, capitalist, religious zealots and terrorist ones.

Wooo Hooo!!!, see I did it. My eldest knows right from wrong.

PS just a bit on the religious thing. I'm not a Sunday worship dude. I just believe that a whole lot of things in nature are just right. I think no matter how long things took to evolve there must have been God behind it all. I also can see that there is a fucking whole lot of demons and evil shit hanging around. If good then bad, If heaven then hell. Yada yada

Amtrak - The Neglected Sunset Limited

Howdy sports fans,

G-daddy is back home, but I need to catch y'all up on the last 2/3 of the "desert trip 2006". First, the Amtrak Sunset Limited. OMG it fucking sucked @#!$ Here is a bit of an history lesson; Amtrak owns no rails therefore, every Union Pacific freight train and its Burlington Northern freight hauling cousin has the right of way on the rails. I have never seen sooo many freight trains in my life. I bet we were passed by four or five consecutive freight trains. All of Arizona and New Mexico was passing or getting passed by freight trains. In the middle of nowhere, the tracks are three wide with a pull over section. I swear it took 10 hours to go from Tucson to Demming AZ just a small piece down the rail. Then because of the delays, we were late getting into El Paso. The engineer just stops the train. RR engineers can only work continuous 12 hours max. I think airline pilots and truckers have this same restriction too. So, the dude stops the train in Willcox AZ and we have to wait till an new engineer is driven out from El Paso. Arrrgh.

We must have passed all of the cool desert scenery at night, cause I didn't see any during the day. The water color inspirations for G-daddy the artist, were limited at best. But if anyone ever gets to Willcox there is a very cute run down white house with a backdrop of the biggest, fullest, dark rich, evergreen trees. It is located across the tracks from the train stop (no station in Willcox). The "stop" is literally the section of track between the Dairy Queen and the Circle K store. The house has a corrugated roof with a wide rust streak, cause by the flue stack. The paint is faded and peeling with an almost light baby bluish teal trim. I think I'll try this one, on acrylic and larger than my normal post card fair. If that isn't lemonade I don't know what is?

The moral here is: If u wants to take the train; get a connex, pimp it out and make it comfy, then ship yourself as freight. You'll get there on time as freight, cause if you take Amtrak you'll be late. The train was twelve hours late. It was scheduled to arrive at San Antonio at 10pm and it arrived at 10am the next day. Pretty sad when the French, Germans and Japanese all have 100 mph screamers and we have Amtrak. Needless to say, I did experience the dining and lounge cars to the fullest extent. The dining car food was a plus.

Puter update, the trusty laptop is still suffering. I am waiting for an elegant solution via divine inspiration (perhaps a lightening bolt). However, I think I'm in love with Linux. The relationship is still young so I don't want to jinx it. Tomorrow's episode is San Antonio

San Diego headin East

OK all here is an update to the travels of G-Daddy

After a fun filled week with my college buddy JP in San Diego. (did I ever tell U bout da time we ran for student body President and VP at UAF?) NOTE - Lesson learned, don't fuck with ur computer and drink an entire bottle of scotch with ole college buddy. Oban, 14 yo, west highland, for those interested. The laptop is basically a travel weight at this point in time because, I optimized some stuff while really blind eyed drunk. Funny thing is I knew that drinking lesson (scotch and puters just say no) from past experiences but alas some lessons need to be revisited. Yes, it wasa long way to say it, I'm out of e-mail range for a while. Anyway the drinking was boss. We caught a rock show at the CASBAH in downtown SD, Saturday night, 4 bands for 8 bucks.

Now it is time to head east. sooo tomorrow I take the Amtrak Pacific Surfliner to LA then the Sunset Limited to San Antonio. The Sunset "limited"is just an econo class section of the Texas Eagle, For some reason they just can't call it an Eagle with cheap seats??^$$. The plan is to see Christy and her girls, old man Al is back on the slope, then go camping with Sue Grooms and Nicole. Yes, I have been inspired again and have one painting almost done. Hope fully the dessert ;-) train ride will give me another moment or two of inspiration.

Oh yah, the biodiesel conference, it was kewl. It was geared toward 20 million gallon a year plants and other producers, growers and f fleet managers operating in that order of magnitude. Nobody was talkin WVO, these dudes were talking soy beans to diesel fuel with no cooking in between. At this point in time, I would like to bestow some conference wisdom on those interested. Next time U plan to attend a conference with an exhibit floor - just pay for an exhibit pass, once U get a pass just go to any conference session you want....nobody ever checks. pls the Biofuel Conference exhibit pass still cost $275.00 plus I bought a $100 text book (geek).

Folks our next episode finds our super hero pondering, either buy a diesel car, get a job or, hangout for another 3 months. See y'all next week for our show titled, " Boy, I look like Samuel L Jackson in this car" OR " It is 82 Degrees F again, u gotta love workin in the South Pacific"

TTFN

My rants and ravings

I cannot sleep, therefore I rant.

Profit - I would like to offer my definition of profit. Profit is the difference between what a company spends to produce a product and the sale value of that product. Profit can be created in two ways; under compensating workers that produce the product and/or inflating the sale price of the product produced. If a worker was paid the real value for the labor required and the product was sold at its' true value, there would be no profit. In simple terms, making a profit either rips off your workers/subcontractors, or rips off your clients/customers. To be highly profitable, basically means ??? Outsource work to China or India and really under pay your workers or sell products with a grossly over inflated sale price. That is a global economy.

Capitalism Sucks - I wish ppl could see the difference between democracy and capitalism. Capitalism is all about money; get a good education and get a good job. Be a worker for the wealthy and well established. Democracy should be about life; get a good education so you're knowledgeable enough to vote and recognize bull shit terms like "re-vamp" and the "war against terror". You know that constitutional line about the….pursuit of happiness.

Voting - You know, I’m not sure that voting ever changed anything major. Voting didn’t stop Hitler. Voting didn’t end slavery nor racial segregation. Is voting really a manifestation of freedom? Does voting end poverty, wars or child abuse? I believe Change is the result of Action. I think in this day and age, in the US, elections are won with money. Capitalism again. Political lobbyists buy congressional influence, again with money. Honestly, why can’t ppl see how money corrupts and blinds us from what is really important. Life should not be about money but in today’s US society it sure as hell is almost all about money.

Life - Here is my philosophy of life. Life is a long hallway with many doors on both sides as far as you can see. To fully enjoy life you must travel down that hallway and open as many doors as possible. Some doors you open, look, then turn around and shut them. Some doors you open and experience love, joy, and happiness. Some doors you open and see adventure. Some you open see pain, sadness, and sorrow. Perhaps you open a door and see another hallway to travel down with more doors to open and explore. The more doors you open, the more you experience life. When I was younger, I used to think you had to kick open each door with gusto. I am older now and open the doors with confidence, strength and dignity. All of that kicking hurt my feet. Funny thing is some doors now open to familiar spaces. I never thought there would be repeats. Those repeat doors I can either enter or close and walk away. Most times I walk away.

Good night

WVO King

OK it is time for a WVO update

Here is the progress so far.

B4 the USVI trip I hand painted several 5x7 flyers/cards looking for members and ppl interested in the Anchorage Bio-fuels cooperative. Posted them, the hand painted bills, in all of the greenie places around Anchorage; the coffee shop next to REI, the Organic Oasis, Natural Pantry (Anchorage equivalent to a Whole Foods Store) and other tree hugger hangouts. The reply was dismal. Only four return calls.

The week B4 Christmas I sent out 90 letters to all of the hamburger joints, donut shops and Chinese buffets. Fifty bucks postage so far, including a self addressed survey post card. Basically it was a romp through the restaurant section of the yellow pages. The turnout was a bit better. I got about 14 returns, with an average of 15 -20 gallons of WVO available oil a week from each restaurant. Note I got also got seven, return to senders>, no donut shops nor Chinese buffet replies. Just for the record, yes I did create an MS Access database file populated with all 90 restaurant records and ALL four private ppl responses. Oh how punny, Yeah !! I geeked out.

A good indicator that I’m ready to go back to work is the fact that I sketched a system piping/process flow diagram of a small 50 gallon batch plant, complete with a materials list and cost estimate. Good thing I don’t have any drawing software on the laptop, else I would have created an AutoCAD file with a bill of materials. I stopped short of an electrical one-line diagram. I have a bunch of ckt bkrs and a small load center from an old ASTF grant project that I can steal/salvage parts from so, I need not get carried away with that. The final const for a good quality 50 gallon WVO-biodiesel batch plant is about a grand in Anchorage AK dollars. Here is what is next.


Make second contact. This is an easy one, since I only have less than twenty contacts to make. This is a one day task/completed by Monday 1/9/05.

I need more private members. Sigh, I think the next step is posting a newspaper add in the Anchorage Press, the local progressive rag. Point is I need more folks to use the bio-diesel. This will take place next week also. How about Tuesday, don’t want this to be like work or anything lol

I need a diesel vehicle. This is quite the exercise; I have the WVO sources but no diesel automobile. This is where living in Alaska is a disadvantage. If you want to buy a big ass Dodge Cummings Diesel that gets 8 gallons per mile there are a lot of those available (why bother). However, a 1985 diesel Mercedes-Benz or Volkswagen diesel sedan or wagon, for about 3 grand, is nonexistent up here. I’m still looking but those animals are rare birds. Yeah there are lots in Cali, but it is another 2 grand to get the vehicle north. Hisssss nasty Baggins has my precious

I need to complete the 50 gallon batch plant. That is easy just spend the money and buy the stuff. The plan is to construct a 50 gallon batch plant, set-up in the carport, by March 1, 2006. Oh BTW that is also the date targeted for my return to work. The return to work is another blog entry for sure. Arrgh just typing that phrase makes me ill, double yuk.