Smartie's Bar & Grill #68

Gee I dunno.I doubt even the great Mark Spitz could have spent
2 weeks swimming,But if'n you insist.
I have read 2 great books { maybe 3 } about true life stories
of Guys stranded at Sea.I'll see if I can remember their titles.
Very engrossing stories.
One was - Adrift - and another was - Kon Tiki - a true classic.
Another one was a stranded story involving murder.
- And the Sea Will Tell - { made into a movie } by Vincent Bugliosi
who wrote - Helter Skelter - One of the first big books I read after
flunking out of college and going to work as a Dispatcher.
Bugliosis also wrote a near impossible to finish book { definitive account }
in defense of the belief that Lee Harvey Oswald shot J.F.K.
- Reclaiming History : The Assassination of President John F. Kennedy -
{ 1,632 pages } I read somewhere that Bugliosi wrote his books out
in longhand er something.Then had his Secretary copy.Didn't ever use
a computer,I believe.

 

Never seen a spider like that.I usually catch a black widow each year.
I once caught a Cow ant { Red Velvet ant }.Notorious bite.
It was just sitting in my driveway.I researched it right quick.Never
seen one before or since.The Female is wingless and the one that
has a very nasty sting.Supposed to be one of the most painful.

 

Good morning, Mondayites. Need more coffee...

 

And when MMC sees a Spider like that.....I will give Nature a helping hand.

 

Right on...

 

Oh alright.....I will get up and get ya some coffee Sugah. Ya wearing a blouse Right? Low Neck top Right? Consider it a Coffee Perk.

 

'Bout the only spider I don't have issue with is a daddy long legs.

However, I once had a house infested with them, they hung off the ceiling in the shower in great numbers. Washing your hair while keeping an eye on the ceiling was a bit of a trick......

 

They congregate in certain places on my patio. Fascinating creatures. Do you think they have tiny muscles in their tiny legs??

 

Fascinating!!!!!

 

Of course...how else could they walk.

 

Spider magic.

 

Just a common garden spider. It is a good sign. Almost as lucky as a toad in the garden. The soil food web and all.

 

Spitz was my constant inspiration. I never thought I could be another Mark Spitz but he was the man!

 

How about this dude?

 

I spend the day yesterday in the control booth of a very very very tall crane. Cool! One of the things I love about my work is that I get to go places most people don't. I once spent a summer in the cockpit of a then secret stealth boat. I've been involved in two rocket launches - one experimental and one for the NMD [I have a badge ]. I once thought I had walked into the depths of hell in one of the largest foundries in the world. It was truly surreal; with an aisle going through the middle of it all and dintense fire blazing in all directions around you. I've been involved in just about every type of manufacturing you can imagine... from clean rooms for growing silicon wafers for semiconductor manufacturing, to the biggest potato chip plant in the world where I saw an ocean of potato chips the size of a football field. Truly mind boggling! The food industry was cool because in some place you could eat all you want! But that was really bad when I spent a week at Pepperidge Farms stuck between the Millano line and the fudge brownie line. I asked but they wouldn't let me take a gallon of milk in there with me. And my week at the Marshmallow Rice Crispy bar plant, where you could smell the vanilla a quarter mile away, was really tough.

I've helped to develop many new technologies and get to see a lot of secret stuff. I love doing cutting edge work most of all. Not long ago I helped to develop the first system that can recycle carpeting. THAT was a huge problem and it is always nice to help with something that really makes a difference. I was also critical to the development of MOPVC - Molecular-oriented PVC - where you get twice the strength using half the material as regular PVC. But that one pissed me off because we no sooner got it working and they sold out to a company in China!

It can be dangerous, intense, super-high pressure, high liability, and scary as hell sometimes, but it is an ongoing adventure that I wouldn't trade for anything. But you are always holding your breath when it comes to liability. One mistake could be a disaster. People could die. I've spent many night lying awake and worrying about something I might has missed or forgotten. It is intense in every sense.

I remember one job where I was starting four, 500 HP electric motors, all at once. Simply put, if we experienced a catastrophic failure on start, the building could have been destroyed and everyone killed. The most dangerous moments occur the first time you start a new system. Yesterday was dicey because you are stuck in a very small compartment with very high power circuitry right behind you. If there was a serious failure, there was nowhere to go. You're dead. Sometimes things just explode. Sometimes there is just no way to completely be safe. And I was there because they were into an inexplicable failure already. You don't really know what the risk might be until you sort it out. Until then you just try not to think about it.

 

that was when eggs were backed by gold and not cheap labor, so the year of the andy griffith show.

 

Virtually harmless the Daddy long Legs.They haven't the ability to
penetrate skin.But they are very fearless and can sometimes
out fight a Black Widow.However a Black Widow is somewhat hard
to squash whereas a Long Legs will fall apart practically by blowing
on it.Both spiders are fast but not as quick as a Brown recluse.
Supposedly a Daddy Long legs has more potent venom than
both A Recluse and a Widow.I can't remember the YouTube I saw
a couple months ago where this Guy known for being fearless and
travelling to places to experiment with getting bitten,felt like he
wanted to get bite by a very dangerous Centipede.
I found it. Go to YouTube under { Brave Wilderness ] and watch
this guy inflict hisself to a bite from a Giant Desert Centipede.
He was prepared but wishes he never attempted.

 

I worked with one guy who had been hit when a 12,000 volt transformer reached out and bit him. Put him in the hospital for months. It was funny, but not, when someone opened a high-power panel. He would get as far away from the panel as possible. He would literally go to the other side of the production area.

But then there was the cleaning guy who decided to pressure wash the inside of a live 480 Volt panel! Seriously!!!

 

IDK about production, depends what ever on earth you're producing?
But in Construction, safety matters and becaue of that, for me at least, it's all 110 volt which is safer, and my country/the power grid is running at 240 volt which is lethal.



I saw this, and had seen it all.


Sure, these transformers plug into the wall/the grid, but that's as close to the grid as construction likes to be, in my country - with its 'considered deadly' 240 volt grid.

 

True story:

I had a delivery to a Sears store years ago. This was when I lived on the 5th floor of an apartment building on the west side of downtown Portland, Oregon. I had not heard of Antifa... or the Proud Boys.

So, I was sitting there, being unloaded, and getting bored. It was snowing.

I decided to walk around inside the shopping mall. There was a Victorinox (of Swiss army knife fame) store in there. I was drawn inside, and ended up getting suckered out of $70+ for a pocketwatch.

Anyway, the Sears store finished unloading my trailer and I left. The freeway traffic was bad, because of the snow, so I decided to take the 'surface streets' back to my company's yard.

I used to listen to CB radios back then.

Some other trucker comes on the CB and hollers at me that my trailer LIGHTS aren't working. So, I've had this happen before, and know exactly what the problem is. I thank the other driver, and start looking for a safe place to pull over.

I find a spot, jump out of the truck, fix the problem, and continue on my way.

After I get to the yard, I do my business then stop in to chit-chat with the office folk before going home. Eventually, I am able to steer the conversation toward me being able to show off my new pocketwatch. I grab the chain, that I had hooked to my belt, and yank out... the rest of the chain. There is no pocketwatch.

Of course, I know that my new pocketwatch is out there, in the street, where I fixed my trailer lights. I also know that I won't find it under the snow. I decide to just go home.

I liked living in downtown Portland, and working out of a suburb. I would laugh and laugh at the poor fools, mired in gridlock, while I did the speed limit, going the opposite direction.

At this point, it was dark and still snowing. I made it all the way to my final turn. I was waiting for traffic to clear, so I could make that left turn onto my street.

An oncoming car dimmed his headLIGHTs, like he was signalling me to go ahead and turn in front of him. With the snow, I didn't want to, so I waited. Then, the next car dimmed his headLIGHTs, as if to signal me to go ahead and turn in front of him. I still waited for him to go by.

It wasn't until I pulled into the parking garage, that I realized that I had driven all the way home without my car's LIGHTs on...

The apartment, that I lived in, required a key to enter the building. You had a key for the exterior door, and another key for your apartment door.

So anyway, I put the key for the exterior door into the lock. Now, listen closely; somewhere between the time that my brain sent its signal to turn the key, and my hand responded by turning the key, every single LIGHT in the building went out due to an exploded transformer.

The next morning I went back and retrieved my new pocketwatch. By this time, it had been run over several times.

I checked the warranty. It clearly stated that the chain was not guaranteed. I wrote a letter to Victorinox, telling my story, and they sent me a new watch.

It still works.

 

Back home finally after an 18 hour graveyard and morning shift.

Too tired to cook or eat.

Just guzzled a pint of milk and going straight to bed.

 

My alarm clock goes "meow! meow!" around 0500AM daily.

This means "wake up Human and feed me!"