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.

Merry Christrmas

Sorry folks I haven't posted in awhile so I'm gonna wrap a bunch of stuff together.

Christmas depresses me.

The Boyz spend Christmas at their mothers' house. I think kids need a tradition so I guess that is OK but still I get sad. I don't want to go to my parents house, cause that is an old tradition and I think I need to move on not go backwards. Primo (the son that lives with me)is home from college. He is not goin back didn't like the school or location (Honolulu). The drugs (ice/meth mostly) , violence and prejudice shocked him. I told him any large city is like that. Next day we had a very heated discussion that culminated with a hole in my wall. Merry Christmas.

Get a Job

The subject matter of the fight/discussion was how nobody here (his immediate family)has their shit together including me. Which pissed me off but maybe he is correct? I left a good job 4 months ago and not really been doing much of anything since. Alright there was 3 weeks in the USVI. True, I needed a break, that job was killing me. Honestly I don't want to go back to building design engineering/consulting. I did it for over 20 years, but I'm not really moving to anything else. I got a bit of cash to hang till Jan/Feb., Why should I rush to get back into that rat race??? Just to add to the tension my Dad told me to get a job. Kind of funny, the first time in forty plus years he said that. He also said "don't start a business I've known to many ppl that have lost everything by starting a business" arrrgh I was respectful, it was Thanksgiving, and changed the subject.

WVO-Anchorage Bio-Diesel Coop

I did send out letters to all of the burger joints in Anchorage. Including fried chicken/catfish joints and donut shops80 letters in all. with a cooking oil survey card. please please I hope I get a good return on the survey cards. I am approaching this with a new philosophy. I'm not doing the capitalist money thing. I just want to make diesel fuel out of waste vegetable cooking oil and develop a net work of similar minded folks in Anchorage.

Why I shave my head

In various circles, I have given several reasons for the current bald "look" I exhibit these days. 1. Michael Jordan has retired so I need to carry on in his image. 2. In my family, we have the island hair loss pattern. The hairline recedes in the corners leaving a small "isle of hair" in the middle of your head. Last Christmas my younger brother (by seven years) had achieved the full island effect. Boy, did I give him shit. To avoid any future retaliation from brother I just shaved it all off.

Those being great bullshit reasons, I must come clean with the real story. I used to cut my own hair. It was easy I had a pair of clippers and I would just put the plastic guide on and cut my hair. Kind of like mowing the lawn, adjust the wheel height and go. Well, the clippers were fairly inexpensive (cheap) from Sears. And after about 6 or 7 years they where starting to get dull. Dull clippers with kinky hair sucks. Yes, I have real tight kinky hair. Not the type that makes great "fros" the real tight stuff that u just cut short and forget about it. Anyway, the clippers started to do more snagging and pulling than cutting. Well in typical G-Daddy fashion, I started pricing a new pair of clippers. Sears didn't sell them anymore maybe mail order but I didn't check. (hmmm internet that is an idea) Checked K-mart, Wal-Mart, and Freddie’s they had them but nothing really struck me. Yeah I know, …what about clippers ever strikes anybody? Whatever I didn’t, buy any.

So the next time I start cutting my hair the bastards start pulling like crazy and I get fed up. Being the engineer, I figure I have a good diamond stone to sharpen my camping knife, soooo I'll sharpen my clippers. Engineers can logically justify taking anything apart. So, with the clippers now apart G-Daddy sharpens the blades. During the process of sharpening the blades, the plastic height adjustment guide drops to the floor and is stepped on by somebody? It kind of breaks. But if you hold it just right, with index and fore fingers on one side and with the thumb on the other side you can hold the guide while the clippers are cradled in the crook between the thumb and index finger. Easy. OK so I reassemble the clippers, and proceeded to cut hair. The sharpening was in concept only, bastards still pulled and snagged my hair. Somehow, during a most severe snag, my index finger slips causing a slight fluctuation of the pressure required to hold the plastic guide in place.

Well needless to say the guide pressure fluctuation causes major guide misalignment (the guide falls to the floor) that exposes the clipper cutting edge. Operator overcompensation for the encountered snag resistance brings the exposed clippers dangerously close to the operator's scalp. Yes the result is a 20-25 square mm bare patch. So now its like 11:30pm and I have two options go to Wal-Mart or shave it all off. I shave it all off. Refer to reasons 1 and 2 above. Of course, this has led to several interesting observations;

• Hot showers on a bald head feel great ...woo hoo!!
• Some women love it others hate it. I guess those cancel each other out.
• For the first time in my life my mom and dad have said, "Let your hair grow back!"
• Watch out for eyebrows when shaving your head in the shower. (Eyebrows grow back in about 3 weeks).
• The scalp stubble has a velcro effect when pulling shirts over head so go with the grain