Angels and Demons: MY thoughts.

Went to see the movie last night (very late) and with all the criticism I have seen about the movie I thought it would be pretty bad. I was pleasently surprised, while the science was waaaay off, we enjoyed the plot and the twists and did not immediately guess who the bad guy really was. The pace was good and there were no long moments of boredom, all in all a watchable movie late at night or early for the matinee prices.

A shout out to the Memory guys.

Just wanted to give a plug to memorysuppliers.com They helped me find hard to find memory for an off brand lap top. So if you need to beef up your machine give them a look.

I couldnt find the memory Ineeded anywhere, not even on their site, but when I called the 800 number it took all of 2 minutes to get what I needed ordered! Thumbs up.

My Last Day

For 10 years I worked for Kaiser Permanente, the first 4 years was a wonderful time, the management were people oriented, and cared about you and everyone in the shop was a friend or at least someone you could walk up to and say, hey! lets go grab a beer. Then The West Coast took over and Turned a Regional organization into a National one run out of California.

When California took over, one by one we saw all east coast Managers let go, to be replaced with faceless people on the opposite coast. We saw Management start to ignore the professional advice they were paying us to provide and to follow a strictly California Centric theme, one with lower efficiency and markedly lower Availability of servers. As the numbers and stats declined we saw Re-organization after re-organization as wave after wave of management came and went as things went down the tubes. Never once did the idea that the things that changed were at fault for the flagging statistics, no the problem was the people...the technical experts who were hired for some inexplicable reason could not meet the same numbers they once had. Never once did management consider the fact that they kept increasing the number of servers and continuously reduced the size of the support staff that over work might be the real issue.

But that is all in the past, to "FIX" what was broken the company decided to just outsource most of IT, believeing that the problem lay with the workers and not the management.....we will see how that works for them.

But for now, I am free, no longer is that big carrot of a pension out there encouraging me to endure abuse and over work, no incentive is out there to make me work unpaid over time or 12 hour exhaustive shifts rarely having time for a lunch break. No My new company doesnt have any kind of carrot other than the 401k I contribute to, and thus there is no stick big enough to induce me to work for free anymore.

For some perverse reason I am sad to be leaving Kaiser, it is probably the good memories from before it Nationalized, when we were family and we all worked together and had reasonable expectations of us....and a managementthat actually cared about employee satisfaction. We didnt need a union, we didnt need strong contracts, we just worked together....but that is over probably never to return. Now I take my UNIX Admin skills to whoever makes it worth my wile to work for them. Anyone know of a small company that interested in Quality over Quantity?

I feel free and liberated now....so here is to the future.

More Prevarication from O

Well for a President who said he would make sure no one making under $250,000 a year would see new taxes, he sure is laying them on thick and heavy.

Cigarrets,Soda's and anything HE classifies as Junk food, and now he is moving to ensure that the pre-tax deductions from your check towards your Medical Benefits are going to be AFTER tax deductions, which does increase your tax burden. Add that to Cap and Trade which even the Democrats call a BIG tax and we see the middle and lower classes getting hammered yet again.

Here is the Article

Take it to heart!

"There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws."

Ayn Rand

Where are people going to go?

The Administration is in full assault mode on Corporations and Investors.
Bringing new confiscatory taxes against businesses (something like a 190 BILLION in new taxes) while people are already being laid off left and right and the unemployment rate is closing in on 9% .

On top of that the Government is singling out individuals they don't like and and targeting them with individual tax policies made just for them.

People who obey the laws and stand up for their rights are then leaned on by the Administration goons known as the White House Press Corps, smearing and villifying them and dragging them through the muck because they had the temerity to want to keep what is theirs (Chrysler Bond Holders) instead of handing it over to the UAW...

Man, I am seriously considering just packing it up and finding a place where the Big O' cant get me....except that they are waging war on foreign nations that don't play ball and give over private banking information on request....

Is it just me or does it seem like suddenly our Government...the Government of the people by the people for the people has become some sinister evil nemesis?

I was going to post this but....

The Mad Ogre at Madogre.com beat me to it :)

I know how to save GM. Turn a GM factory into an Ammunition Plant. Make Primers and ammo. They could make .45ACP, 9mm, .380, .223, .308, and they could start turning a profit almost immediately. Hell, just Primers alone could get them back on their feet.

Oh I really Like this guy....

Finally found something useful on Youtube.

Weekend of fun

Running up to PA to pick up the Remmington .22 Semi-auto rifle that I grew up plinking with.
My dad picked up a new Ruger 10/22 so is willing to let me take the old Remmington Nylon Stock rifle that was with me on every river float and weekend outing into the woods from the age of 14 or so. This gun has been dumped in rivers, sunk in mud bars and banged into trees so often that Im amazed it still shoots, yet shoot it does and quite well.

I think it is a Model 66 but have not actually seen it in decades so will have to wait till I pick it up to see for sure. It loads from the butt of the stock which I have not seen in any other rifle. I am so anxious to get it back in my hands. Dad picked it up in the "Barber Shop / Gun Shop" in our tiny little home town of Reynoldsville in the early 70's for under $100 new. Boy if I knew what the price of Guns and Ammo was going to do then....