Hope and Change... but mostly Hope.

I'm tired of everyone who would deny the President and his family a 10 day vacation in Martha's Vineyard.   The plunging stock market can wait.  The 10% joblessness rate can wait.  The useless loss of American lives in Afganistan can wait.   Time for a little much deserved R and R.
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Do you think I'm saying this because I just haven't felt confident enough to leave Nanepashemet Telecom for my own vacation this summer?
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Maybe that's so.

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But I have some really important stuff to take care of at my company.

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It's just not as stable as the way our President has guided the country.  So he goes, and I slug away.
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It's not that I'm  jealous of the President.  But I am truly sick and tired of this lightweight who seems so inadequate as he draws the salary of the Chief Executive of the United States. 
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Hope and Change... but mostly Hope.

Web Site Feedback

Peeps -
I did a quick rewrite of the Nanepashemet Telecom web site today to reflect the fact that we have widened our focus beyond the wireless industry and have started to take on more traditional project management in the site acquisition and construction management segments.
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Appreciate if you would hit the site and give me a little feedback.
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http://www.nanepashemet.com/

9:35 AM Pisc said...

The black background should be a lighter color.

Some stock pictures would improve it.

Some fast statistics (permitted X number of sites, including tough to zone municipalities like _____); reduced time cycle accomplishments;

Throw the PMP training and certification, that is good for a Google hit or three.

A statement about Elsier's RF knowledge and how integration with the RF design team is essential to proper siting. You are not task masters, you are project managers... . except having worked around you, a core competency is horse whipping people to get the job done. So you could go with that, too.

Unbroken

Just finished reading "Unbroken" by Laura Hillenbrand, which is the story of Louis Zamperini's extraordinary life as an American Olympic Athlete who was imprisoned by the Japanese in WWII.
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In the Berlin Olumpics 5000 meter men's track and field event, he received the praise of Adolph Hitler for his furious finish.
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He survived over 40 days on a raft in the Pacific during which time he was strafed by Japanese aircraft then utimately picked up by a Japanese naval vessel after drifing over 2000 miles.
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During the next two years in Japanese prison camps, he endured unimaginable torture at the hands of sadistic prison guards. 

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Zamperini has since forgiven his Japanese captorshaving embraced Christianity, but it is hard to read this book without feeling disgust at the brutality of the Japanese with their atrocities of human enslavement with massive rape, genocide, and torture.  Their policy of "kill all POW's" in the event of their possible liberation and their mass murder of Chinese, Polynesian, Korean and other civilians puts them shoulder to shoulder with the Nazis.
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Like the Nazi's, they viewed themselves as a superior race, when in fact their actions made them sub-human. Isn't it ironic that within the framework of our own lives, the cultures that proclaimed themselves as superior were morally and humanly the opposite?
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Zamperini is still alive and lives in California.
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I came to this book by way of Ryan who received it from Pat Piscatelli in a class move of sending it to FreshAyer.
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A riveting read.

Banjo Fretboard Practice

Janet Davis, author of the Janet Davis Ultimate Banjo Songbook, says that if  you practice the major chords up and down the fretboard .... taking a chord a month, following the Circle of Fifths, and pick out the root notes.......at the end of a year, you will have memorized all of the note positions on the entire fretboard.
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A month a chord seems like a long time... why couldn't you shorten it to a week a chord???  And practice the chromatic and pentatonic scales for these keys at the same time?   That would see the whole thing done in three months.
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This week is C Major week and next week is G Major week.

Nothing to It but to Do It.

A big push this weekend to trim out the deck door and staircase.  Homan Electric installed the lighting yesterday and this project actually sees a possibly complete status if I can catch a wave of energy and motivation this morning.
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I have all of the exterior and interior trim pre-primed stock purchased from Peabody Building Supply and there is nothing to it but to do it.
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The Grandkids, Will and Ethan are due as well, and we will be heading out for some FreshAyer tomorrow.   Lots to look forward to.

Focus Guitar

Thanks to some kind advice from Construction Industry Recruiter Brendan Ahern, I have changed my guitar purchase focus from the Yamaha to a Breedlove Atlas Stage D25/SR Acoustic Electric Guitar.

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Even though it's a lot more expensive, I believe it will be worth the wait to save up for it.

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In the meantime, I'm happy to concentrate my musical stylings to my Gold Star FE100 Banjo, which is a hell of a quality instrument itself.

Tuna Lips said...

Under 6 months on yonder countdown clock, I spies. Sounds like a proper time-herizin to take on some project entertainin' for the rest of us. Perhaps a chow regimen rich in walnuts, or maybe learnin' on pickin' that there banjo, Scruggs style. It will make time pass with ease, like a turd outta that Senator Barney feller's buttocks, on account of the afermenshuned walnut stew.

Newsweek Magazine - Fair and Balanced

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All of that chatter about print media like the New York Times, Boston Globe and Newsweek magazine being liberally biased is just plain bunk.

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These fine publications are professionally dedicated to the highest standards of objective, unbiased journalism.

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Anyone can see that Newsweek equally protrayed Michele Bachmann  and Michelle Obama.  Except for the crazy eyes pose and "Queen of Rage" caption, it is a virtually identical portrayal.

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Fair and Balanced.

Sawhorses for the Pram Repairs

After a reasonable search to find some free sawhorse plans on line, I settled for this knock down version and hope to make two or more of these to work on the pram and store it off of the ground in the winter.  In the summer, they can be knocked down and stored under the deck.
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I probably have enough waste stock from the deck project to whip these together by the weekend.
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My version will be from 2x stock rather than the 1x4's specified here.

Maine Respite

We came mighty close to attending the Maine Lobster Festival this weekend.
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 Instead we went to the Owl's Head Transportation Museum in Rockland which is a world class collection of primarily automobiles... incredibly clean and high end.... a first rate take and truly a must see in the Maine Down East region.

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The highlight of the museum visit was an air show featuring a WWII American Corsair fighter plane flying in manuveres with one of only two remaining  a Japanese Zero's in existence.   The power and speed of these fighters were impressive, and you couldn't help but wonder what those Zero's attacking Pearl Harbor must have looked like.
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Our hosts for the weekend were the gracious Frary's of Marblehead, MA and St. George, Maine.   Kevin and Susan Frary have their beautiful vacation home on the Watts Cove inlet of the St. George Penninsula and they incredibly watch the sun set in the west over the ocean inlet every evening.

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We were accompanied by Dale and Gail Johnson , some of our favorite Peeps. and not just because they laugh at most of my lame jokes.

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There are other reasons.

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On the ride home, we stopped in downtown Portland, Maine, which has become completely revitalized and is a destination in itself.  I was inpressed with the amount of foreign tourists who were enjoying the shops and restaurants of the seaport district.

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A nice weekend respite.

Anonymous Million Bucks

So I'm trying to imagine that I'm a political candidate for President and somebody sends  a contribution to my campaign from a PAC for one Million dollars.
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But I know absolutely nothing about it when asked.  Not who sent it, who the political action committee was, or how much it was.  Yet it was arranged by an attorney that my company had done extensive business with.
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Turns out that the PAC and the business behind it went out of business as soon as the check cleared.
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But I know nothing.
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That's Mitt Romney's story this morning.
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I've been thinking of throwing the prestigious Nanepashemet endorsement to Mitt.  He's got good hair and I generally like his decision making... but this one really bothers me.
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If somebody sent a check to my organization for a million bucks, I would know their names, their kids names, their birthdays and whether they wore tighty whities or boxers.
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But Mitt knows nothing.... I Don't buy it Mitt.  You've got to come up with a better answer than that.  Nobody throws an anonymous million to a candidate, and everybody know that.

Jim L. said...

The hair really ain't that good.


Tuna lips said...
I am beset by one of them boners that last fer more than 8 hours that yer 'sposed to see the doctor about. Brings to mind my days sweeping floors at that Morman compound just over the line in Ole Mexico. Had a boner fer 8 hours back then, sho nuff, what with all them longjohn wearin' sissy boys bringin' more than one date to the dance! Thems called me the rock of ages, before they set the federales on me. That's another story, thank the almighty fer kin like Shoo Fly!

Not a Nazi

Those who are closest to the Mountain of a Man know that I'm not always correct, but rarely wrong.  If that bothers you, then think of it as some kind of a zen haiku, and move your ass down the road a bit.
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So it bothered me a little when I was observing some Facebook diatribe between some of my liberal and conservative friends, when one decides to label others  as a "Nazi" because of a disagreement in the debt ceiling compromise.
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Seems to me that calling someone, or a group of people, Nazi's is indicative of a case of paranoid schizophenia that probably doesn't belong within a friendly Facebook discussion.
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Before you call someone a Nazi, maybe you should consider whether they slaughtered six million Jews as well as an additional five million Gypsies, Homosexuals, and Mentally Retarded  people in death camps while simultaneously proclaiming the racial superiority of a select group of Caucasian Europeans.  Also, to be a Nazi, they would have trampled peoples rights, stolen their possessions and enslaved whole populations to work as slaves in forced labor camps.
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Hundreds of thousands of Americans died to rid our planet of these Nazis.
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So, before you glibly use your freedom of speech to lable someone who you disagree with as a Nazi.... think about how shortsighted, insensitive, and freaking stupid you sound.
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There are no Nazis in Washington debating the debt ceiling.  There are civilized people with differences of opinion who are seeking to find compromise.   It's called Democracy.

JimL. said...

Isn't it ironic, though, to realize that even democracy can lead a nation to ruin.

Professional and Responsible

I'm supposed to go to New Haven tomorrow, but six hours to and fro in the F150 just lacks the appeal that it used to.
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I'm seriously thinking of using that time getting gritty with Google Maps in the subject area  sitting in front of my office computer.  With the street view feature, combined with all of the assessor's ownership information availble on line, this is actually a tough choice. 
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The problem is that I've visited this particular part of New Haven County three times, and each time came up with a candidate that wasn't optimal from a network engineering viewpoint.   Usually it doesn't take this much effort to hit paydirt.  Plus, the area is not a garden spot.
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And if I just go to Google, I'm just postponing the inevitable.
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In the end, I will do the professional, responsible thing... because that is what a Mountain of a Man does at Nanepashemet Telecom.

More Spartacus.

More Spartacus in Jaunuary.  Another reason to wish these months away.

TommyO said...

Oh My...
I can't wait, we have to have viewing parties, this is too cool.
TommyO

Guitar Necessity

I've been keeping my eye on a Yamaha FGX730SC Acoustic Electric Guitar.  It's offered on line for less than $500.00 and since my other acoustic guitar was stolen about a year and a half ago, I've been looking for a suitable replacement.

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The problem is that I'm not a very good guitarist.... and just a little better on the Banjo, so it's hard to justify an expenditure like this.  But the other night, my grandson, Ethan (who with his older brother, Will constitute the best Grandkids on the Planet.... just ask their Nana Joanne) asked me to got get my guitar and play him a song.

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My Epiphone Les Paul is hardly appropriate for this type of request.   I mean that is an ax made to wail the blues.... and what the hell does two and a half year old Ethan know about the blues anyway?
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It is true that his Dad is doing prison time, but Ethan doesn't know that.   He thinks that FreshAyer is just a cool place to wrestle with his father around the fenced in picnic tables.  By the time he figures out what the annoying biweekly trips were all about to see his Dad every other Sunday, he will have forgotten what transpired in our lives before he turned three.

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So playing him a tune on my blues electric guitar is out of the question.

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Which is a perfect reason to purchase that Acoustic Yamaha.

Deck Push

Big push to get the deck finished today.  The stair railings and banisters have to be installed, stair risers need finish boards,and the deck door has to be trimmed out.
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Then some serious clean up and dump runs have to occur before the dump closes at 4:00PM today. 
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After that, the priority will turn to getting the rowing boats repaired and coated so that the months of Aug. and Sept. see them on the water.
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It never all gets done.

Singular AHoy.

Yesterday, we went for a nice shoreline cruise in the WhaleEye with Dale and Gail Johnson.  It was a perfect warm summer evening in late July.  You would have thought that everyone with a boat would have been taking in the perfect conditions.
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But it seemed like every boat was on its mooring.  There was little or no boat traffic.....the only other boater I knew was Tyler Gill, who gave the WhaleEye a hearty "Ahoy".
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I thought that I was the only one staying away from the boat this year.  Maybe the economy is keeping us away from recreational pursuits.
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It was nice to be crusing around Marblehead Sound by ourselves with the Johnsons.  But weird that we were the only ones around.

Private Jet Taxation

President Obama wants to increase the taxes on people who fly in corporate jets.  Does he know what turmoil he is really about to cause?

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If the CEO's and corporate BigWigs all travel by commercial airflight, it will screw things up for everyone.  Bigger lines in security, no seats in the airport clubs and the uneasy experience of potentially having to sit next to the Big Boss for endless hours in the air.

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What if you burp, fart, or snore?  Now it can have career consequences on middle management types, who are generally struggling to keep their jobs as it is.

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Plus, the poor smucks who cater to bigwigs in the private aircraft industry will be jobless.

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I had the experience of traveling on a Gulfstream with the Big Boss when I worked for General Dyamics.  Trust me... you want to keep these guys on their personal jets and avoid their appearance in commercial airports where you can fade in with the general public..

You have to think harder on this one Barack.  Once again, the middle class bears the burden.

Bitter Medicine.

There is another financial crisis looming is Washington.  This one involves legalizing a higher debt limit in order for the federal government to borrow and pay its bills.
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Imagine if everytime you had to pay the bills, you just got a new loan to do so.   And that your expenses vastly outweighed your income, and you had no plan in place to reverse the situation and balance your finances.
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Peeps.... that is our  situation in a nutshell.   And the people who vote to increase the debt have no real personal consequences.... no motivation to make the tough descisions about the expenses that have to be cut back to bring this situation under control.
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We are into financial pain... which will get worse every year if we don't take some bitter medicine now.

the Why

The other day somebody asked me why I took the time and effort to add to this Blog every day.
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It certainly is not an income producer, nor is it necessary to massage my ego and self esteem. That can happen in a lot of other ways.
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Part of the reason is that I like to write and always have.  I started keeping a journal as a sophomore in college and have always made notebook entries throughout the years.  Maybe it's the Irish in me, but I get a lot of satisfaction in turning a word.
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But that is a relatively small part.
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Another part is that it is good emotional therapy for me which helps to even out the highs and the lows.   A professional friend years ago told me that he always writes letters to people that irritate him, then decides whether to send them after he's all cooled down.   Writing does tend to mellow you out somewhat.
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I would say that this factor holds a little more weight, because I can write about the politcal issues that tend to irk me quite a bit, and diffuse the energy that can overcome and occupy my mind to an unreasonable extent.
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After a little bit of introspection, I can truly say that the largest reason that I publish this blog is to share.  To share thoughts, ideas, advice and observations with my family and friends... and yes, my enemies.  What I say isn't always right, but it is absolutely always what I believe.  And even if some of it is in parables, it is always pure truth... or my version of reality.
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Sometimes, it is fun to spice things up with a little satire.... like when I call myself a Mountain of a Man, or when I call the Peeps pathetic lesser beings.    I hope you can tell when my tongue is in my cheek.
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I want my friends and family to see benchmarks... to feel free to agree or disagree... to see if my insight or remarks can help them in any way.    I've been accused in the past of thinking I was always right about everything.  That was an accurate observation then, and I stand guilty today.  Going forward, I always think I'm right.  Looking backward, I realize that sometimes I miss the mark.
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But being wrong has value.  You have a benchmark to measure and probe so that the truthful reality ultimately shows up.
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Sometimes my posts are personal and other times they are pretty mundane.  I know that most of you really don't give a shit if my deck gets built and stuff like that.   These are usually communications to my kids or close friends.
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What this Blog has really given back to me is a sense of the depth and richness of life.   There is no way that I can communicate a sixteenth of the stuff that drifts by my earthly position every day.

Tuna Lips said...

Further to them points, yiz pervide a service to this here communitization, an "open mike" iffin' y'll allow, fer folk of bright cogitatin', such as myself, to get the message out on issues that effects one's day to day machinations in this woebegone vale of tears. Fer instance, I got me a stubborn case of crotch rot, and with no swamp weeds to swabble my whoochin' stick in, I am suffering like Jesus on the road to Calgary. Anyone, help a brother in need. Send yer homestyle cures for this most pernicious of malladies, forthwith. And on the double, too.
I digressify. Big mammal, you are a community organizer. Next step, the White House. And I will accept your nomenclature for head of the moonshine, smokes and gun shootin' board, straighten' things out right proper, I would.

Rock Star

Don’t want to be a Rock Star,
Take the chance of dying young.
Drugs and drink will come to stalk me,
Hold their fully loaded gun.

A demon drives my music,

Makes me think I’ve gone insane.

Need to find some peace and quiet,

Amy Winehouse Dead at Age 27

Next to the roaring freight train.

Where to find my self composure,

Riffs and chords to guide my ax.

Put a sheet to my exposure

Ease it up and just relax.

Don’t want to be a Rock Star,

Just want to jam and play..

Find some lyrics, write some music,

Live to rock another day.