CenterLeft.net

There are some perks to driving through an ice storm at night. I find it much easier to not be distracted by the possibility of a horrible and tragic death if I can’t see it coming through the ice on the windshield. And hey, I don’t even think that the laws about signaling for a lane change apply when the lines are completely invisible.

Sometimes I’m amused at how much of my life and career is spent behind the wheel. I get to drive a lot for work and I still love it. I can always use some more time to myself to just be alone, think, and enjoy the scenery. The hectic schedule of work takes on an entirely different meaning when you’re paid at the same rate to be in front of your customers as you are to spend a day, on each end, behind the wheel on the open road.

The real benefit to me thought is the guilty pleasures of being alone with full control of the radio. Every now and then Beth gives me the evil eye when we’re on the road together and she guesses at my secret country addiction.

Oh man, not again.

I’ve gone through a couple computers for work now, and every time I change it’s a big hassle.  It doesn’t seem like I really do that much with them, but I have a fair bit of reference information that I need to use day to day and loosing all that hurts.

But even worse this time, it seems the adapters have been upgraded to a new technology.

I’m scheduled to survey a room tomorrow to see if it will be suitable for one of our most sensitive pieces of equipment and to make sure there aren’t going to be any surprises I am running through my equipment tonight.  But sure enough the one thing I didn’t count on has bit me in the ass.  I can’t even plug the equipment into my computer.

So here I go into a series of important meetings tomorrow and I can’t even do the main job I’ve driven 4 hours to come out here and do.  Hopefully I’ll be able to get an adapter mailed to me overnight, but I think this is going to turn into another long week.

Day 3 on a new time zone and I already seem to be on top of it.  This is a new record for me.  Time changes usually kick my ass.  But, so far, I’ve been sleeping just fine on the new schedule and staying awake in class.

This is always an uphill battle for me.  I usually end up knocking off for sleep as soon as I get back to the hotel from work.  But then I wake up sometime just after the restaurants close and get to spend a wonderful night awake and hungry.

Speaking of food though: I’m starving.  So, off I go.

It’s always nice to get messages out of the blue from old friends.

Every now and then I get a urge to reconnect with everyone.  It seems to happen more often when I’m traveling, but the feeling came on me a couple weeks ago while I was munching on some sausage and cheese in a pub in the Netherlands.  So, I pulled up a word processor and quickly had a note put together and ready to send.  So I opened up e-mail and just as I’m ready to press send…

I don’t have her e-mail address.

I checked facebook: her account lapsed. I searched the internet: only old contact info.  Even worse, none of my other friends could help it seemed.

So I just pressed save and ordered another beer.

But wait long enough and apparently the world will come to you.  Either that or she saw my name on someone else’s blog.

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It’s shaping up to be a busy year.  Beth and I are finally getting married, more details to come once the invitations go out. So there’s a wedding and a honeymoon to go on, which will probably be two separate events for our own sanity.  Work is looking like it’s going to be a lot of fun too.  I’ve got a new system coming this fall that is going to be some of our newest and greatest technology.  I’ve been wanting to work on these for a while, and I’ll finally get the factory training to go with it.

So the calendar is really starting to fill up and  I’m excited for all of it.

Some days it’s easy to understand why so many service engineers take up smoking and drinking.

It’s been a busy couple weeks around here.  Summer is in full fling with all the associated projects and outings and work is fun, but keeping me on my toes.

In no particular order here’s what’s been happening:

• Ollie is getting bigger.  He’s just over 4 months now and stands taller than Sophie and his head is about twice the size of hers.  I’ll have to post some more pictures and videos soon.  We still don’t have any idea what type of dog he is, but we have really been enjoying him.
• This weekend the fish club got together for a home show and competition.  I volunteered to travel around with the group as a judge and we spent Saturday traveling all around the Seattle area.  It was a lot of fun to meet everyone in their homes and get to see all the tanks they’ve been working on for so long.  There was lots of amazing stuff out there.
• Beth and I finally had a weekend day off together.  We went for a great little hike.  The dogs were really pooped by the end.
• I’ve got a new boss at work.  So far he seems to be getting along well.
• The media PC died last week so we haven’t had the easy access to all our TV shows that we’re used too.  We ordered a new one and it’s scheduled to be delivered tomorrow.  I still can’t believe that the entire PC costs less than I paid for just the processor of the previous one.  That, and it’s going to be 4 or 5 times faster.
• Beth and I have bought our plane tickets to Europe.  I’ve got some training in the Czech Republic in August, and this time Beth is going to come along.  We’re going to add a week of vacation on to the end of it and spend some time traveling around Austria as well.

Well, that’s it for now.  Get out there and enjoy the sun!

It sure seems like it costs the government a lot of money when they pay for me to sit and wait while all the paperwork is getting filled out and approved. But then, I guess that’s the price you pay for some assurance that the lab isn’t going to explode and turn eastern Washington into a sheet of glass.

You can’t live with them, and you can’t eat them.  I do have to say, non-porous surfaces are a god send for potty training.  But I understand the sentiment on days like this.  When you’re a walking sponge, it’s really a toss up whether you would rather go outside into the absolute downpour or stay inside and risk a beating.

I dusted off the motorcycle this week and have started riding again.  The replacement grips came in last week and they’re working like a charm again.  I also have a couple new things on the way.

In recognition of the type of weather that I typically get to ride in out here, I’ve ordered a type of bag that is probably new to the motorcycling community.  You can see them in the picture on the left.  You might be more familiar with these bags if you have spent any time on the water in canoes or kayaks.  If they can be dropped into the ocean and still keep your stuff dry, I think they’ll probably work fairly well for my gear as well.

Even more exciting for me though is I finally broke down and ordered some parts to upgrade the airflow for my motorcycle’s engine.  It’s going to take a little work to put it all together, but it’s really going to sound great and make a huge difference for performance.  And hey, I don’t need that gas economy anyways!

What makes loud noises and costs a lot of money?  If you said children you wouldn’t be wrong.  Thank god I don’t have any of those or I really wouldn’t be able to afford my lifestyle of vice.

Just a quick snag in the plans for today: the truck had to go into the shop for a bit.  Putting enough miles on the thing and stuff will start to fall off.  But really, I don’t need to have all my tires rolling do I?  I mean there are 3  more on there.

Oh well, it’s nothing money can’t fix.

Most days seem to just go okay.  But then there are days like today.

That keeps life interesting right?  When every, blessed, simple little thing goes wrong?

You would think when the motherboard of a computer blows up it would be a pretty strait forward thing to replace. And it probably would be, except when that motherboard is the heart of a $1+ Million microscope.

And that’s just the start of how interesting things can get.  I’ve got 4 versions of software, 3 versions of hardware, old school network connections, new school hard drives and drivers and $500,000 worth of cameras and detectors to get working again.

But then again, the last time I did this everything went smoothly.  Right up until the end when the backup of the finished product hosed everything and took me all night to start over on.  So maybe a little fun upfront isn’t so bad.