On June 13, 2008 · Comments Off
“Hello this is Clovis Chitwood Heavy Industries technical support how may I help you?”
“Well, I’m calling because you software is running much slower since I upgraded.”
“Which version did you upgrade to?”
“Version 13.666, it’s running much slower than version 13.665. Is there anything we can do to speed it up?”
“Sure, we had so many complaints about version 13.665 being so damn fast we put a “Turbo™” button in the user configuration screen. Just go to System, Setup, User Configuration. In the bottom right hand corner do you see the button labeled “Turbo™“. Is it glowing red?”
“No it’s blue.”
“Okay click the button then.”
“It turned red.”
“Good now you are in “Turbo™” mode. Now you’ll find reports on the printer before you even knew you wanted them.
“What’s this slider bar underneath the turbo button?”
“You mean the “Turbo™” button?”
“Yes, it’s labeled reliability.”
“That’s also new for version 13.666 it’s the “Reliability™” control. Slide it to the right to increase your reliability, slide it to the left to make the software more buggy.”
“It’s set at 30%, right now.”
“Yes that’s the default.”
“So all I have to do is slide it to the right and I’ll get less error messages.”
“Yes and you won’t have to reboot every twenty minutes either.”
“But it only goes up to 50%”
“Well nobodies perfect.”
“Why in the hell is it set at 30%.”
“Job security. Is there anything else I can help you with?”
On June 12, 2008 · Comments Off
On June 12, 2008 · Comments Off
Good news at work. The co-worker who is moving to Mississippi is going to be able to work from home. I’ve got mixed feelings, but on the whole I’m happy about it. If for no other reason she will pave the way for me to be able to move out to the boonies sometime in the future and not have to worry about being able to make a living. Well I’ll still have to make a living I will just already have a job.Of course if the whole thing falls apart it could end up poisoning the well for another decade. Like I’m ever going to actually up and move to Wyoming, but Trousedale, Jackson or even Overton county just got a lot more attractive.
This should be an interesting weekend. It’s Father’s Day and my Brother and Grandmother’s birthday this weekend. I don’t even know if Mom and Dad are in town this weekend. Hulk on Friday, I think the there is a group seeing a matinée of The Happening on Saturday. King Kong outside Saturday night. It’s the original I would really like to see it, and if I remember right there is something going on in Nolensville Saturday as well. Oh well All I really care about is King Kong Saturday night and it won’t upset me too much if that ends up not happening. As long as we all get to hang out for awhile I’ll be happy.
You may have noticed that the site format has not changed since I switched to WordPress. It’s a little more complicated than I figured, but PHP and CSS are worth learning so I’ll get there.
Well don’t cross the streams
On June 12, 2008 · Comments Off
I really wanted to bust it open and play with the mercury. I refrained. I bet there’s not enough to really have fun with anyway. Not like the switches in those old style thermostats. I always wanted to stick them in my guitars so that the would automatically switch off when they went vertical. Maybe if I ever upgrade my thermostat I’ll savage the one in there. I wonder if you can still buy them? The old school thermostats or the mercury switches. Ever look at one of those old thermostats. They are pretty clever. They use a spring to measure the temperature. As it gets hotter the spring expands. That’s what made is so complicated to make an accurate spring powered clock. Temperature changes would cause the spring rate to change and the clock would go faster or slower (or was it the rate changed as the spring unwound?). The solution was to make a main spring of two different types of metal that had different rates of expansion. That way the differences would cancel each other out. Those guys were clever. What made the spring the bane of chronometerers makes it perfect for thermostats. You just position the mercury switch, oh yeah I never explained what a mercury switch is did I. A mercury switch is a glass tube with a wire embedded on each end. It is partially filled with mercury which is conductive. When the switch is vertical the mercury collects at the bottom of the switch and there is no connection. As you tilt the switch towards the horizontal at some point the mercury comes into contact with both wires and completes the circuit. So you just stick the mercury switch on the spring so that when it expands the switch goes from on and off. If you look in the thermostat you will see how adjusting the temperature control moves the switch around on the spring. The cool bit is if you watch the thermostat with the cover off and the lights out if you move the temperature control at the point the mercury makes contact with both wires there is a blue flash through the little tube. Of course those new fancy computerized thermostats still can’t switch automatically from heat to cool and you can’t amuse yourself in the dark with them. So much for progress.
On June 12, 2008 · Comments Off
The Honorable Jim Cooper
605 Church Street
Nashville, TN 37219
Dear Representative:
I am writing to ask that you join your colleague Lincoln Davis in cosponsoring and supporting H.R. 2784. A bill that would open more of the continental shelf, from 50 to 200 miles out from the shoreline, for oil exploration. This bill would open up 8.5 billion barrels (potentially 86 billion barrels) of oil for recovery. Eight and a half billion barrels of oil is more than two year of our total oil imports. It is over ten years of our total imports form the Persian Gulf.
It is true that it would take years for this oil to become available, which is all the more reason to get this bill passed as quickly as possible. Just opening this area for drilling would send a message that we are serious about expanding our production and potentially help stabilize this volatile market. I understand that this bill will before the full Appropriations committee soon. I know that you are not on this committee but I ask that you use your considerable influence to see that this bill becomes available for a full house vote.
Respectfully,
Clovis Chitwood
www.clovischitwood.com
Well you may have noticed a change. I Installed WordPress. So far it’s really cool. I got all the old content moved over and now I’m going to spiff the place up a bit.
Had fun seeing the Nashville Rollergirls. It was an interleauge match. The Nashville Rollergirls are a league. There are three Nashville teams, the best of which get together to play other the leagues from other cities which is what we had seen at all of the other matches. I had a little trepidation about seeing an interleauge match, would the play be as good, would they be playing as hard. Well that was just silly, they played hard! There were twice the number of pileups as usual. I’m not an experienced enough observer to know whether this was due to sloppy play or the play was just more aggressive. It seemed to me they were more aggressive. Like they were more comfortable going at it with each other than with teams that come n from out of town.
It was a little awkward at first figuring out who to cheer on. I had favorite skaters on both teams. So I just ended up cheering both teams on. The two teams were Damsels of Distress, and the Assault Rivals. Rambo Sambo played for the Damsels and Slammy Lou Harris, playing last night as Salty Salami, played for the Rivals. It was a squeaker. the Rivals stopping a last period charge by the Damsels by one point.
Wimped out on Belcourt’s midnight showing of Fight Club, but I’m going to be there for Repo Man come hell or high water or extreme fatigue.
On June 7, 2008 · Comments Off
Okay the Nurburgring will have to wait. There was one more little thing I wanted to share. You know how you do stupid stuff that ends up freaking you out. Well I pulled a dandy tonight.
I left Opry Mills a bit spiritedly. I can’t help it I love corners, especially big sweepers. Just as I floated out onto Briley the Battery light didn’t just flicker like it will under heavy acceleration, it came on and stayed on so I backed off to about sixty and it went off. Now this was odd because I had not really been accelerating as heavily as I would usually have to get the light to just flicker and every time I tried to speed up to just seventy the light would come on nice and bright. At this point I’m hoping I’ve cooked the alternator, at least one fifty maybe two hindered to replace, I actually checked on that kind of stuff before I bought the car, and not that the belt is frayed or about to come off. The belt is only a couple of months old so shouldn’t be a problem unless something else was busted and causing problems, plus if it came off that would mean no water pump so that would mean waiting on the side of the road for a tow then having to figure out how to get a belt tomorrow with out a running vehicle. Of course if the alternator froze up it would likely throw the belt and I’d be in the same predicament anyway and still have to buy a new alternator.
Anyway so I’m cruising down Briley at sixty cars whizzing by me. When I get to I-65 I have to slow down even more to keep the light off. My the time I’m headed up Old Hickory I’ve got to keep her below 45 to keep the light off. I cruise by Auto Zone on the off chance they are still open. It’s right before eleven at this point and they stay open till midnight at some locations during the summer, I can’t remember specifically why I know that but it involves DeMartini. No dice, they are as dark as a, as a, hmm, as a closed AutoZone. So I cruise back toward the house. I’m sitting at the light waiting to turn back onto Old Hickory and I happen to look down at the gear indicator. It’s on “2″. I had been driving around in second gear. Which meant the alternator was turning speeds it was intended to only turn for short periods of time, it got hot. When it gets hot enough it stops charging. So I put the gear selector into “D” and everything went back to normal. I’ll try and get it checked tomorrow anyway just to be safe. I’ve been meaning to do that, I want to be able to hold the throttle down through all the gears. I’ve not been able to do that since I bought the car. The Battery light will flicker and I back out of it, it’s instinct, too many years of driving around with thirty five dollar alternators that got replaced every three months.
On June 6, 2008 · Comments Off
I have the most entertaining dreams, except for the ones where I dream I’m getting up and getting ready for work like I should when in the slightly more real world I’m managing to ignore the alarm clock and sleep late, those just suck. I can’t remember the last nightmare I had, unless you count the one where my dream house, when I say dream house I mean the house that I live in in my dreams not a “dream house”, slid into the street. Maybe that requires some clarification. I don’t remember much of my dreams but the ones I do remember take place in a relatively consistent world. My house for example, it’s kind of like my house but not really, there are more rooms and they’re smaller, less square. And there is a large screened in porch on the back that is literally filled floor to ceiling with even for me not really all that interesting junk left by the previous owners. The floor creak, there is a blue hallway and it’s a whole lot less stable than my real house, hence the sliding into the street in that one dream. The backyard is bigger and occasionally has cars that I am pretty sure I bought some time in the past. Sometimes they even run. In last nights dream there was this rather crude but spectacular multi level water feature. It even had some squatters on one level that I think were Hispanic but I’m not sure. We got along so i let them be. At one point Dad showed up and helped me turn this huge valve to turn it on. Then we stood n the driveway and chatted for awhile. About what I can’t remember. Anyway I didn’t even remember the dream until halfway through the morning when Jay IM’ed me about something and it jostled the memory into mt conscience. Sometimes it’s days before I remember a dream. I’ve tried to keep a dream journal but I remember them so infrequently that the desire has waned by the time I actually remember one upon waking. When I started this there was a point but like most of my dreams I can’t remember it now.
It’s been an interesting week. Work kind of sucked. Found out were losing someone next week. She’s moving to Mississippi. On one hand I’m kind of envious that she’s able to just up and move on such short notice. Were not really close at all but I’m happy for her that she’s doing something exciting. I’ve not really talked to her about it I’m just assuming she’s excited about it, but I think that’s a pretty safe assumption. It stinks for us that she’s leaving behind though. We really need the bodies and it takes at least six months before a new hire is able to really carry his or her weight. Just training her replacement is going to take away from time that could be spent on other stuff assuming they can even find someone in a reasonable amount of time. It took forever for them to find the last person they hired. Thankfully she seems to be coming along rather well.
Outside of work it’s been a great week. Deb had a birthday dinner for Stephania Wednesday night. That was fun. Thursday was Blue Sky with Stephen and Suzie and Alan, then tonight was Macaroni Grill and then Kung Fu Panda. It was alright story wise. Really just an animated Jackie Chan movie. Some of the stuff was lifted straight from Jackie Chan movies. I guess that’s not really a bad thing. The wisdom imparted by the wise old guru, a turtle, which explains why Suzie loved the movie so much, was a little bit on the fortune cookie or inspirational poster type. The moral of the story was “your special just the way you are.” Which in this instance translates to the fact that even a fat out of shape panda can become a Kung Fu master in a few days, just my being himself. Of course everyone is special and it’s important to know yourself and to be true to yourself, but does that translate to it being okay to being fat and out of shape? I’m not saying it’s immoral or bad to be fat. Hell I’m fat. Not chunky, not a little heavy, but fat and I know it. I’m not exactly happy about it though and I don’t really think I should be complacent about it. I know I would certainly be healthier and feel better and I imagine be happier if I lost weight. I can’t think of one thing that would be bad about waking up tomorrow less a hundred pounds, assuming I didn’t just wake up without a leg or some shit like that. Okay I wouldn’t have any clothes that would fit, but it would be a hell of a lot easier and cheaper to buy a whole new wardrobe if I was more conventionally shaped. I don’t think it’s a good idea to identify who you are with your body shape anyway. I can see that being a bad thing at both extremes. I think it would be just as pathetic if I thought of myself as a fat person and used that as a reason to stay fat. Not that it usually takes a reason to stay fat. I’ve not managed to be not fat in close to twenty years. But that would be just as pathetic as becoming an anorexic because to be happy I thought I had to be thin. Wouldn’t it be a whole lot healthier to think of who you are as what you think and do rather than what your body shape is? But even there my argument kind of falls down, I’ve never heard of a ninety eight pound sumo wrestler or a four hundred pound ballerina. Seems like somebody could go out on a limb and make an inspiring movie about a young person who through hard work and dedication, for longer than your typical movie training montage, ends up triumphing over mediocrity.
Damn, that was a little harsh, I didn’t start out to write a rant that just kind of came out. Just to play devil’s advocate, strange position for a non believer but I’m quite flexible for my size, it’s a sweet movie and the animation is top notch. The characters are all anthropomorphs of course but there are scenes that just look so real. Like somebody was out there in this strange world of talking pigs and ducks, China it seems is peopled mostly by pigs and ducks by the way, with a camera filming this movie. Some of the more stylised animation reminded me a lot of Samurai Jack which is not a bad thing at all.
Well this is turning into a long post but I want to mention something else I started this week. FOoSHNARG, Fraternal Order of Secret Human Nashville Area Resident Geeks. It’s basically a Google calendar that I made public, so if your using Google calendar you can see it and add things to it. Go wild. There is also a website fooshnarg.org where you can view the calendar. Hopefully we can keep everything on there and there will be less confusion about what’s going on. If you want to add something but are having troubles just email it to clovis@fooshnarg.org and I will try to get it up.
Oh boy, it’s late and I want to take a lap or two around Nurburgring before I go to bed.
On June 2, 2008 · Comments Off
“The first rule of FOoSHNARG is don’t talk about FOoSHNARG…”
Okay, this is just going to be a short post. I created a Google calendar for FOoSHNARG. I know your thinking, how long has Clovis been up. Not as long as you think. FOoSHNARG or Fraternal Order of Secret Human Nashville Area Resident Geeks. If you can think of something better than “Human” I’m open to suggestions, the rest of it your stuck with. Seems like it’s always an effort to keep everyone up to date on what’s going on so maybe this will help. There is a link to the right and right here. Bookmark it Baby! I think anyone should be able to see it even if you aren’t using Google’s other services. If you do already have a Google calendar you should be able to edit it. I just set it up to day and everytime I try to look at it I end up signed in so I’m not sure how it looks to someone who doesn’t already have a Google calendar setup.
If there’s something going on and it will let you, stick it on there. (If it won’t let you email me and we will figure out what’s going on) Put your birthday up there, I put the one’s I had in my other calendar up already (If I got it wrong, fix it. If it won’t let you, again, let me know).
Oh, I got ahead of myself, who is FOoSHNARG? If your reading this your FOoSHNARG. Hold on, the perfect way to start this post just occured to me.
Remember wherever you go there you are.
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