Thursday, April 28, 2011

Glasses

When it comes to my glasses, I'm still not a happy camper.  This is the second time I've gotten new lenses for the titanium frames that it I like.  Three years ago I got new lenses for my glasses at Lenscrafters and wasn't happy with the result.  The lenses were a bit small and until dirt built up between the frame and the lens, the lenses would pop out of the frame sometimes when I was cleaning them.  Then after a couple years the lens got discolored and weird around the edges.  Last year I got an eye exam and got new glasses.  Recently because I had the prescription and didn't need an eye exam, I decided to try again to get new lenses for the frames I like.  This time I went to VisionWorks.  After waiting over two weeks I got my glasses back.  The day they said my glasses would be ready, they were closed because of Easter(Fucking Bible-Bangers and their bluenose policies).  I guess the whole fucking mall was shut down.

At the top of the reflection of the flash is a flaw in the lens.


In this picture the flaw is barely visible in the shadow of the frame.
 Above are a couple pictures of one of the new lenses.  The day after getting them, I noticed a couple of flaws in the right lens.  One is in the middle of the bi-focal and there is also a star off to the side of the bi-focal.  It was hard to get a good picture of the lens and these two are the best of pictures I took.  Now I have to wait another two weeks for them to redo the lens.  Nobody keeps the lenses for my prescription in stock and they have to special order them.  And those Coke bottle bottoms they make them out of don't come cheap.

In all my years I've had more problems with getting glasses here than any other place in the country and I've gotten glasses in many places across this country.

At least at VisionWorks they didn't give any BULLSHIT like at Lenscrafters when I was told that maybe the frames are rusted(only ferrous metals rust, not titanium) and not be suitable to have new lenses.  At one place this time I was told that maybe the frames would not be strong enough to withstand the process of getting new lenses.  The frames are TITANIUM, one of the strongest metals there is and almost impervious to corrosion.  I hate people that think I'm dumber than they obviously are!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Clowns Yes, Clones No!!

Because of all the "Birther" Bullshit, thought I'd do this post.  Not that the Birthers will change their minds, but at least the sane, rational thinking people will consider this a settled issue.

The framers of the Constitutions were some smart dudes.  They foresaw far into the future, over 200 years in fact.  Only a "Natural Born Citizen" can be President, no clones.

Article 2 Section 1 of the Constitution
No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.

Natural-born citizen

Who is a natural-born citizen? Who, in other words, is a citizen at birth, such that that person can be a President someday?


The 14th Amendment defines citizenship this way: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside." But even this does not get specific enough. As usual, the Constitution provides the framework for the law, but it is the law that fills in the gaps. The Constitution authorizes the Congress to do create clarifying legislation in Section 5 of the 14th Amendment; the Constitution, in Article 1, Section 8, Clause 4, also allows the Congress to create law regarding naturalization, which includes citizenship.


Currently, Title 8 of the U.S. Code fills in the gaps left by the Constitution. Section 1401 defines the following as people who are "citizens of the United States at birth:"

•Anyone born inside the United States *


•Any Indian or Eskimo born in the United States, provided being a citizen of the U.S. does not impair the person's status as a citizen of the tribe


•Any one born outside the United States, both of whose parents are citizens of the U.S., as long as one parent has lived in the U.S.


•Any one born outside the United States, if one parent is a citizen and lived in the U.S. for at least one year and the other parent is a U.S. national


•Any one born in a U.S. possession, if one parent is a citizen and lived in the U.S. for at least one year


•Any one found in the U.S. under the age of five, whose parentage cannot be determined, as long as proof of non-citizenship is not provided by age 21


•Any one born outside the United States, if one parent is an alien and as long as the other parent is a citizen of the U.S. who lived in the U.S. for at least five years (with military and diplomatic service included in this time)


•A final, historical condition: a person born before 5/24/1934 of an alien father and a U.S. citizen mother who has lived in the U.S.


* There is an exception in the law — the person must be "subject to the jurisdiction" of the United States. This would exempt the child of a diplomat, for example, from this provision.


The previous one was a Clown.  Not that he wanted to make anybody laugh, he just didn't give a fuck about anyone other than himself.

Monday, April 11, 2011

Jackie and Dunlap on the deal to avoid a shutdown



H/T to Squatlo, who I stole this from.

I like the line about how I have never seen so many grown men acting like idiots and I watch wrestling!!

A Project from Last Summer waiting to be finished


This is one of the projects I worked on last summer UP on the Tundra. I decided I needed a better set-up for the water pump. The point in the ground seemed to be plugged as the pump would run as long as the water was running, instead of cycling on and off as is normal. Also thought I'd make a better pump house than the one I had made out of metal and foam panels. When I pulled it apart, I found an ant's nest in the foam core of the wall panels

Water pump after I removed the box around it.
  I tried to pull up the pipe and point to see if the point was plugged or what the problem was with the water supply. After several days of working on it with make-shift rigs to pull the pipe, I finally got the pipe up, but the point remained in the ground. So I went down the road to a town large enough to have several home improvement stores to get supplies. At Menard's(a Mid-West chain) I got a 2" point( the old one was 1 1/4" and I thought bigger would be better) and four 5' lengths of drive pipe, but they didn't have any drive couplings. Then started the search for drive couplings as the pipe was useless if I couldn't connect them together. After checking all the other places that might have drive couplings with no luck, I stopped back in at Menard's to see when they expected to get some in. While asking about the drive couplings, one of the guys said they were on the truck that came in that day and another guy said he thought he could find them. A little while later he came back with the required couplings and I was on my way. Then I stopped at a tool rental place and rented an electric jackhammer and the tool for driving pipe.

Ants had made a home in the foam core of the walls of the old box.

After getting home and having something to eat we started on the project. A friend of mine had made the trip with me to get the supplies and he offered to help with driving the pipe and point down. It wasn't easy as after adding the five foot length of pipe, you had to lift the jackhammer up on top of the pipe to drive it down so it was a good thing I had help lifting that heavy jackhammer while standing on a step-ladder. One of the tricks they told us about at the tool rental place was to turn the pipe in a tightening direction while driving and it will go down easier. In a couple of hours we had the pipe and point down in the ground and when I put my tape measure down, it came back with nine feet of it wet.




The pad I poured for the new pump house.
 After pouring the pad and letting it set up, I rigged up the pump. I used a 3/4" plastic pipe with a foot valve down inside the 2" pipe. I made it long enough that the foot valve would be a foot or so above the bottom of the point. This worked good and during all the time that I ran the water to flush it out to get the water to clear up, the pump would cycle on and off and it didn't run out of water.


The pump on the new concrete pad.
 Once I had running water again in the cabin, I worked on making a new pump house. I had a bunch of cement blocks that used to be holding up a mobile home I tore down several years ago. I used them to make the walls of the pump house. For my first attempt at laying block, I think I did pretty good.
The block walls for the new pump house.


I need to make a cover for the pump house and insulate it. That will be one of my projects this summer UP on the Tundra. For the winter I laid some 2x6s across the top and put a piece of sheetmetal from the roof of the mobile home over it.
The pump in the new pump house.






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Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Quotes and Some Thoughts

I can hire one half of the working class to kill the other half.
Jay Gould

The sad truth is today  half or more of the workers are gleefully attacking the others without getting a thing in return other than getting roundly FUCKED!!
 
When a man tells you that he got rich through hard work, ask him: 'Whose?
Don Marquis
 
Managers in all too many American companies do not achieve the desired results because nobody makes them do it.
Harold S. Geneen
 
Management must manage!
Harold S. Geneen
 
Work is accomplished by those employees who have not yet reached their level of incompetence.
Laurence J. Peter

A variation on the "Peter Principle".
 
It can be liberating to get fired because you realize the world doesn't end. There's other ways to make money, better jobs.
Ron Livingston
 
I have found this last quote to be true from personal experience.

George Carlin



George Carlin has some interesting takes on abortion, religion and consistency.
"My God has a bigger dick than your God"

From his stand up and kinda cuts off in the middle of a rant.

Monday, April 4, 2011

After Birthers

This makes as much sense as those who still ask to see Obama's birth certificate.  It doesn't matter how much proof is given, official printout of certificate of birth from Hawaii , birth announcements in both Honolulu papers(I guess they phoned that in from Kenya), people saying they grew up with him and went to school with him, they still refuse to accept the facts.  Can you say "WILLFULLY IGNORANT" boys and girls???

What really gets me are the politicians that say, "I take him at his word that he was born in the United States, BUT I'm not going to tell anyone what to think."  Talk about trying to have it both ways, saying yeah I believe he's a citizen, but I won't contradict the foamers at the base of the party!!  Let's hope there are enough sane and rational people to vote these ASSHATS out of office.