Friday, April 29, 2005

 

You need to come down here and get my jugs

I have recently spent far too much money on camp gear and now I must use it. Over the past few months I have acquired a propane camp light, a new tall sleeping bag, a water filtration system, and a new "day and a half" back pack. It is supposed to rain here tomorrow with a chance of thunderstorms most of the day. I don't think I care. I've packed extra socks. I'm good to go.

Thursday, April 28, 2005

 

Another Night on the Porch

After my 1.5mi walk and 0.5mi run (getting back into things slowly) I decided it would be another good night for being outside on the porch. I have successfully built a barrier to keep the neighbor's annoying dog away; this makes the porch much nicer. I cooked on the grill the last two evenings I sat on the porch and, believe it or not, did not feel like grill food but, rather, spaghetti. Luckily, I have my parents 30+ year old Coleman camp stove. I fired it up and cooked out again tonight. I did recently move inside due to sprinkles but should be able to go back out soon to do some reading. Another nice evening outside.

 

My Soap Box

My best friend is a pharmacist. My girlfriend, knowing that fact, sent me a link to this article:

Absolving pharmacist's conscience

Apr. 15, 2005 12:00 AM

Since Gov. Janet Napolitano has vetoed the "conscience bill" that would have allowed pharmacists to refuse to fill abortion and emergency-contraception prescriptions based on religious or moral views, I have a solution:

The pharmacist should just tell the patient that he is out of the medication and can order it, but it will take a week to get here. The patient will be forced to go to another pharmacy because she has to take these medicines within 72 hours for them to be effective. Problem solved. - Dan Gransinger, Scottsdale
The writer is a pharmacist and pharmacy manager.


The reason for a “conscience bill” is because the pharmacist, in the general case, finds the emergency-contraception prescription morally objectionable due to religious beliefs. The author needs a bitch slap. The pharmacist would obviously be lying. How could any pharmacist deny someone a prescription, by lying mind you, not have a moral objection to their own lying and hypocrisy? How could any pharmacy manger (this is kind of pointed to you Mr. Gransinger) allow a pharmacist to lie to customers?

My best friend used to be a pharmacy manger in Tucson, Az but recently moved back to Indianapolis, In where he is no longer in a management position (due to his own choice). As a pharmacy manager, I hope he would have reprimanded any pharmacist for such behavior. If the pharmacist continued their behavior, I hope he would have had them fired. Now as a lowly pharmacist, I hope he makes it a quest to report these people.

I do not agree with abortion in most cases. If you talk to me about the subject I think you will, however, find I am very reasonable and am mostly concerned about the over life of the child. My personal beliefs on quality of life are much lower than many others simply because I know where I came from and how far I have made it; I feel too many people give up to early. This being said, my main objection to pharmacists making up the rules as they go along on a “moral” or “conscience” basis has more to do with the fact that making moral or conscience based decisions for me is not their job. What happens when a pharmacist quits handing out pain prescriptions because a certain percentage, one that is morally objectionable to the pharmacists, ends up being used, not for pain but, by drug abusers? I think I might just go into my job tomorrow and tell the boss I will not pull another cable through a ceiling because I find the action morally objectionable.

Monday, April 25, 2005

 

Good Night

After a long day at work and work to do once I got home, I decided I would treat myself to a nice sit outside for awhile. I recently purchased gas for my grill so I fired it up. I put some chicken -- trying to not make some of my famous moisture free chicken this time, and a potato(e) on. I lit up the 5 new oil lamps M mounted on the porch rails and several citronella-scented candles. I sat outside and read a book until dinner was done, I ate dinner outside, then fired up my new propane camp lantern and read until just a few minutes ago. What a nice relaxing evening.

Saturday, April 23, 2005

 

Maiden Voyage

The maiden voyage on M's new (used) boat was less than stellar. The day started off cold and cloudy; it only got colder and cloudier. Cold with cloud cover meant no skiing for the day. We stopped for lunch twice. Once on the west side of the lake and the wind was so strong we were being pushed to shore. We then drove to the east side of the lake so we could let the trees block the wind for us. After lunch, M wanted to drive around, so he did. After about an hour of driving around the engine all of a sudden revved up real high, M grabbed the throttle and pulled back, and once we slowed down you could smell the smoke and M killed the engine's ignition.

M quickly pulled the cover off the motor to try to investigate the problem. Luckily, the engine was not on fire or pulling the engine cover off would have been a major mistake (boat engine covers are designed to contain fire and taking the cover off does two things: 1) ruins the containment, and 2) allows significantly more oxygen into the compartment). The smoke was actually coming from the lower unit. We tried to start the boat up again, it started, but made bad noises. It didn't sound like the noise was coming from the engine but from the lower unit. I lifted the lower unit to check the prop, put it in drive and it spun, but things didn't seem or sound quite right so we turned the engine back off and started rowing. Using a paddle and a very expensive -- double bindings, graphite core, etc. -- slalom ski, we paddled the 20', heavy bastard in high wind and chop to the nearest marina. The story goes on from there, including me sitting in the boat while M went to get the trailer (thank God MFMJ lives just up the hill from where we stopped), a long talk with the owner of the shop at the marina, tours of quarter million dollar cruisers, and the seller of M's new (used) boat not calling back.

Speaking of quarter million dollar cruisers, I want one. We toured a 38' boat with two sleeping areas. A 38' quarter million dollar boat is nice for a few days. But you couldn't live on something like that with another person. I've thought about living on a boat for years. They come decorated, fully loaded with A/V equipment, kitchen ware, and just about anything you can think of. There is no yard to mow. If you want to move, well, you move. I couldn't handle a house boat: too pedestrian, too much like an RV. But a cruiser is high class living. As long as I stay in the southeast, it is generally warm enough to stay on one all year round. Heck, people live on boats in the Louisville area all year round. For two people though you really need about 50' of boat. Those suckers, used, sell for $350-$450k. I found the kind I want though. The brand is Sunseeker and they are based in the UK. Maybe once I have that good education and that high paying job I can afford one of these.

Thursday, April 21, 2005

 

Nothing to say

Things have been somewhat quiet around the Georgia ranch lately. Nothing real major to report; here are the small events.



Yeah, that's about it. I'll let you know when I have something interesting.

Tuesday, April 12, 2005

 

Oh! -- The humanity ... er, I mean, paperwork

I just finished both my FAFSA and Passport applications last evening (the FAFSA people require you to use a Windows machine. I find this rather interesting considering our government sued Microsoft for being a monopoly then turn around and require people to use Windows). Before that I did my taxes. Now I have to fill out some apartment applications. When I'm done with that I have to get all of my medical forms filled out. Does it ever end?

Saturday, April 09, 2005

 

More on the amp rack build

So now that I have a big sub and two amps in my trunk I now also have a mess. I did the install of everything very nice from an electrical standpoint( hello, there's an electrical engineer here). I used big fat wire, I have two bus bars for any additions, and some caps too. But mechanically it looks like a dog's ass. My roommate, M, and his friend, MFMJ, wanted me to do a big, fancy new enclosure for the sub out of fiberglas and insert some sliding tray into the trunk to mount the amps to the package tray so they could be slid out of site (sheesh, two mechanical engineers). Not having the time or the cash I've done it my way (if I had the time and cash I'd be working on the Superbee.

I rearranged the components first before making my hide-the-mess cover. I wanted to move the amps to the rear of the trunk to show them off more and the sub more to the center (front to back) of the car (while still keeping it near the side for better acoustics). That done I knew I'd never be able to cut a 4' X 8' piece of hardboard out while trying to shove and hold it in the trunk, not to mention that it wouldn't fit in there. To make things easier, so I could work on the huge sheet of hardboard on the garage floor, I made a template out of two pieces of cardboard then taped them together. The template fit very well in the trunk so I put it down on the hardboard, made a trace, used a square and a compass to straighten all of the lines up, and cut it all out (I did the trace in green and the corrections in red so that I could tell the difference -- smart huh?).

It fit perfect (how this happened, I'm not sure). I had to make some 2" tall standoffs to hold the hardboard up off the amp rack (I set the amps lower on purpose since I wanted them to look like they were sitting down in the hardboard. Note: I'm not worried too much about cooling since these Alpine amps have cooling fans). Finally I put all the parts into position, screwed everything down, and cranked up the stereo to make sure I had not ruined anything (especially to make sure the hardboard was secured well enough to the sub box to keep it from rattling). It looks good and sounds good too. Now I just need to cover the hardboard with some gray carpet, to match the carpet in the trunk, and I'll be finished.

I started this project at about midnight and was finished by 2am. Who knows what kind of wild hair I had up my ass: almost manic-depressive. The hardboard cost $6.change and I'm hoping to get carpet for about $10 or so. I've tried to keep this all real cheap. The only reason I started in on the stereo on this car is because M gave me a real nice 12" MB Quart sub that he didn't want anymore.

The head unit is still the stock Delphi (and somehow sounds great. I'll be sad when it finally craps out because it sounds good and keeps the cab of the vehicle looking stock). When I move into the shity I'll have to be careful to only crank where I don't park for long periods to help reduce my chances of theft and also keep the cab clear of any materials someone might decide they want for their own. Hopefully only 5 years of that and I'll get to move back to a less urban environment.

The speakers in the door are about 1/2 new. The drivers are from a project I did years ago. I had a warranty return on the tweeters and they just sent an entire new setup. I only used the tweeters and kept the rest of the stuff (which I eventually gave to M and he gave back to me for this project) Since I didn't have the tweeters I just used the factory units. I was surprised to see factory tweeters. The stock Matsushita/Panasonic amp wasn't driving them for crap. I'm surprised they are taking this much power but they are filtered twice when it comes down to it: once from the crossovers that came in the box and another time from the inline cap in the factory wiring. They are only being asked to produce the highest of highs.

I did replace the rear speakers with new JBL 6 X 9 speakers. To me, the 6 X 9 is one of the best car speakers. Huge surface area for producing enough bass so that you can hear it above road noise, and an odd shape so they fit in many place. They clipped right into the factory locations and with the wiring harness adaptors from Crutchfield the install was next to painless. Even though JBLs are a "cheaper" brand I have been impressed every time I've heard them used.

The amp was also supposed to be cheap. You can read here in the blog about how that piece of junk blew up ... again. And also how I replaced it with two amps I bought from eBay stores. Count me as not impressed with eBay stores. Yeah, I saved about $100 but it felt crooked somehow.

Now it is time to get some real, actual work done today.

Friday, April 08, 2005

 

What the hell is wrong with people?

My roommates girlfriend, C, made chocolate chip cookies for the activities surrounding her younger sisters wedding this weekend. She left about a dozen of the little bastards here for me to eat. Damn, I think she is trying to make me fat(er).

 

Blogger

Please excuse my last post showing 3 times. Blogger had and oops when I was publishing this and it was posted 3 times. I deleted the duplicate posts and they no longer show on my Blogger Dashboard. For some reason, even though I've republished the blog a couple of times, they still show up.

Thursday, April 07, 2005

 

When there is no cuss word bad enough ...

My hot girlfriend did not get into Georgia Tech. I don't even know what to say or think. On one hand I am very upset that the program did not see what I know, yet I am in at Georgia Tech (totally different program) so I am not allowed to be upset at the entire school (such as my male mentality is trying to make me do).

Please excuse me if this jumps around a bit. I am currently less than happy, somewhat sad, and upset.

1) I am glad Palila already posted about this before going to work so that I don't break the news to the world.

B) My biggest fear is that something like this will cause Palila to want to stay in Terre Haute and not move down here. Yeah, I moved first, it is my fault, but I hope she still wants to come. Palila should be happy about moving down here. The last place I moved to where things started off on the bad foot only continued to march along out of step.

iii) Things, while on pause, are not dead in the water. A job in the area for a couple of years would really help to boost a resume and make Palila a stronger candidate for 2006 or 2007 entry. Hell, I'll still be in school! This, however, just one of many options and are just my initial blatherings.

0100) Shit. Fuck. Damn.

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