Not to much going on today. . .

We ate some dinner at Denny's. What beats a club sandwich and a cup of hot C?

Abby liked this style for our formal occaision.

Abby pointed these out as the new style. They reminded me of a Robert Crumb cartoon.

The R Bar & Music

Today I took it upon my self to reorganize my closet, and now I can go on and lead a normal life.

We had some beautiful weather this morning but, it, eventually turned to rain. So this afternoon I started playing my guitar, and thought about the R Bar. Now, a while ago, my brother (TLM) was stationed in Biloxi, Mississippi. TLM and I have a mutual friend, CCC who traveled with me to make a visit to TLM. We were on a mission to deliver a car to my brother, dramatically improving his quality of life. Also, to dismiss the thoughts of complete benevolence, CCC and myself wanted a crack at partying all night long, for several days. The excursion went well, and we booked a cheap motel room and dove into New Orleans for a couple of days. The two things that stand out to me, besides the Drag Queen that CCC unknowingly wanted to investigate a little closer before he realized, was a place called The Gumbo Shop and The R Bar. Now it was the R bar that I was thinking about while I was playing my guitar. When I concentrate and look back, it was 6 years ago to the day that we made this trip. We came across this place late in the evening. The R Bar is decorated in a deep royal red with a permanent house band of skeletons. The skeletons were a little four-piece combo, hanging upsidedown from the ceiling, instruments and all. This place crawls with atmosphere and I was wishing that this was one of the nights that some musicians stumbled in, but there was no such luck. So, as I sat with the guitar this afternoon I thought, what would the skeletons have played? Anyway this is the music that came out of my meditations: R Bar Skeleton band.

More About the Ion Farm

It's early for a Sunday morning, but I don't like to sleep in. There's too much to do. My friend MW told me a story once about his grandfather and I always remember it. MW noticed that his grandfather was always out and about early, getting his chores done, or working an idea he had for his home. It seemed to MW that he never would take it easy and have a day to sleep in. So, MW decided to ask his grandfather why this was, and the replay was, "Today might be my last day on this earth, and I want to enjoy as much of it as I can."

What's it like working on the Ion Farm? Here's a presentation that explains it better than words.

"Seven Blunders of the World"

Wealth without work
Pleasure without conscience
Knowledge without character
Commerce without morality
Science without humanity
Worship without sacrifice
Politics without principle

—Mahatma Gandhi

Seaport Blvd.

Snap on the run.

City view

In front of the Aquarium, looking back.

The Harbor

The Yacht

I think this will do in a pinch

This building gives Abby vertigo.

Stretched Hummer

Fascism and Boston

I found an interesting article on fascism. A political Scientist named Lawrence Britt came up with these 14 attributes of a fascist nation.

I'm going into Boston today with Abby. We are going to be looking for a site to hold a special event. Boston has a few, don't you know? Anyway, we were going to take the Tube in but I think there is going to be too much walking from our stop to where we need to be. Maybe I'll put some snaps up of what we see.

We are planning to go into downtown on tomorrow as well, but this time to get acquainted with this place called Boston.

Periodicity

I just downloaded a periodic table to reference at the farm. I thought it would be handy to have on hand. I took at look at it after I got it down and was surprised.

I remember that the first time I saw a periodic chart it was as a giant wall map in my grade school. Big and bright and full of colors for an old map. You could see the wrinkles and creases in it that poured down the face of it like rivers heading to an imaginary watershed. The printing was thick and coarse and if you ever have felt one of the old style window shade teaching aids, you know the tactile sensation I'm thinking about right now. I can remember staring at that periodical chart as the revolutionary war raged on verbally during history class and poetry was spoken aloud lauding "The Fence" by Robert Frost. I was intrigued with the"Heavy Elements" and maybe that was because it had the word "heavy" in their title and I was entering my prepubescent Heavy Metal phase. There was something cool about them.

There was some dispute I recall over their names and our particular chart had the Soviet names and the American nomenclature. I recall thinking about what a great day it would be in America when we could look at the periodic table and see our victory in the cold war impressed upon the world of science, for all of history remaining to gaze upon. When I thought about that day, I could see parades in the street and confetti and streamers. I could not see who the central figures in the parade were in my mind, but I thought that they would have to be the scientists that proved that America discovered these elements and named them first. What a day that would be, I thought, when scientists were paraded through the street! When the US population could call a rare earth (more heavy metal names) element Americium or Californium and know it was the right name in their heart. The skies would be blue and the flags would wave on that day, I could tell you!

How sad to see that the heavy elements that were unofficially named at the bottom of the chart have been officially converted to the American version. The greatest imaginary day of my youth had come and gone with no fanfare, and no scientists were paraded through the street. There was no Stout Soviets to beat their shoe on the table and protest strongly against this travesty. Oh, how I miss the Soviets! A nation can only be as great as it's opposition, and we my friends are swirling in a power vacuum that the Soviets have left us.

The Crappernet

The 4th shift weekend days started today. I see lots of new faces around me. Which means that someone has been breaking the first rule of Fight Club. It's going to be a long day. We have 4 active machines getting built and about 6 guys: 2 to work, 2 to learn, 2 to b.s. with a couple of floaters to take up the slack in any necessary areas. Of course, with all the freetime I've discovered a new "buzzword" I think that will catch on like wildfire. It's called "The Crappernet" and it's a situation when you can use a PDA and a wireless network to surf the net while hanging out in the bathroom stall. It's the ultimate in productivity and falls right in line with eliminating smoke breaks in the workplace. In fact, I think the stall should have a timeclock on it you have to punch to get in and out of it. I plan on having a talk with my Marketing Guy to see what we can do. It falls right in line with what I believe the framers of the internet and computer technology foresaw in their future, whilst suffering horrendous bowel cramps creating the code that one day would become Hot or Not.

Introducing: Hope, the cat.

Hope, the cat, can feel the love today. She get's so happy she just drools and purrs. At least I hope that's why she's drooling.

A random shot from the commute.

The sun looked so good today, it's been raining so long...

Pasta!

I like mine with chicken and pesto

PostSecret

PostSecret is great because not only does it post some of the most disturbing thoughts I have ever read, but does it with great postcard graphics to drive them home. When it comes to heinous secrets, they care enough to send the very best.

Jung Personality Test

Just took a Jung Personality test. I've always identified with Jung's abstractions. Here are the results:

ENTJ - "Field Marshall". The basic driving force and need is to lead. Tend to seek a position of responsibility and enjoys being an executive. 1.8% of total population.

Free Jung Personality Test (similar to Myers-Briggs)

At least it was honest with me. My palm reader says the same thing.

Bunkhouse

This is the Migrant Ion Farmer Bunkhouse.

The Farm

Long is the road, and hard that leads up from hell and into the light.

Personality Tests and Tools

Stumbling around this morning I ran into a whole battery of personality tests: Personality Tests and Tools. I guess I'm going to tag it up here for future reference. I'm not a big believer in these in general, and oddly enough, it's the generalisations that make me wary. Going to the farm now. . . more later. . .

The Art Of The Bag Job

The previous shift left a nice bag job this morning. A nice long project that might take some ingenuity to complete because there is no procedure for it. Actually these are the type of jobs that I like to do, especially since there is no wrong way to do it and you meet all kinds of people chasing down parts for it. It kind of got me fueled up to take on as much work as I could get done this morning. It's funny how your mind will find a way to accomplish a task when you know what the end should be.

A colleague I work with doesn't have the same insight. I had to give him a task list that he accomplished piecemeal while I progressed. Unfortunately the tasks I gave him were not enough to keep him from commenting on my work. It was like working with Clippy the Microsoft Office Paperclip-Thing:

"It looks like you are trying to tighten a bolt. May I be of assistance?"

Hell, no, Clippy. Beat feet, Jerk!

I guess he's just doing what he knows. He's a Technician of Least Resistance. Don't get me wrong, there is a time to take the easy tasks, but when you don't finish the task you're doing so that you can take an easy job, and do that consistantly, you gain nothing but my opprobrium.

Sponge

The time has come for me to take the shadows that I percieve on the cave wall and abstract them into some perception, vaguely resembling a reality in which I believe. It has been said that a life worth living, is a life worth writing about. How funny is it that I just had about 10 minutes of writer's block after that sentence?

The Ion Farming starts at 7:00 AM and continues to 3:30 PM. I was worried about traffic when I came here, but starting a little earlier in the day combined with the Ion Farm's location helps keep the tension low. I try to be the sponge, absorbing the intracies of the farming processes, and with some success. It's like walking into the middle of a movie and trying to find out what's going on. I try to refrain from asking to quickly and learn with my eyes. Unless it's a question, you can never learn anything by talking, you only re-affirm what you already know.

Sometime I get this feeling like I'm really on the verge of something big, something huge. I guess it's that delusion that keeps me searching and looking for the purpose, looking for what I was meant to do.