Trip

A list!

1. Working in Indiana: Tired.
2. Conservative Talk Radio
3. Stupid People On The Road
4. Media perception of "Hackers"
5. Wikipedia Game
6. Music on the trip back


1. So as you're probably aware, I've been going back and forth to our facility in Montezuma, Indiana. A new sawmill has been built. This is a new construction into which go logs, and out of which come cut boards. It is incredibly mechanized. Minus the sorter, the whole thing runs with five people. One controls the machinery that debarks the log, one runs the saw that squares-up the log, making it into a cant. Two guys run a pair of resaws, that saw those cants down into boards, and one guy operates the edger, that trims the sides off of rough boards. Then there's the sorter, which has a few graders and stuff.. but anyway. This is a huge, huge deal. I'm involved because its all very computerized. There are two critical systems, with a number of other less critical systems. The two critical computer systems are windows based computers that do all of the decision work for the headrig and the edger. If one of them goes down, the associated machinery stops as well - which means that the whole mill stops running. And time is money. Well - lumber is money. But its alot of money. Lets say the edger was down for 3 hours. $14,000. That's how much money, give or take, we'd have not made. And that doesn't take overhead into account. So its big business. And of course the owner, who spent a million dollars on this new structure and its associated machinery, is anxious, and is worrying everyone to death. So its pretty high stress. I'm somewhat insulated, thankfully, but its been a long three or four weeks for alot of people. Heck - yesterday - Thursday - I was up at 4AM Central time so that I could be at the Mill when it cranked up the first shift at 5AM Central time. And we left around 8PM Central time. So it was a long day, and this morning we were up at 4 again. I'm back home now, having just drove in, changed clothes, and sat down to blog while I had the vibe going.

2. Conservative talk radio people are fucking idiots. And let me try to be generous: I don't just mean that they have ideas that are different than my own. They're hateful and stupid. They go on and on about how The Democrats all hate america, and want the terrorists to win. Like, seriously, they say that, and seem to believe it. Its disgusting/sad/funny/scary.

3. I don't often do tons of highway driving. Heck, my job is 5 minutes away from my house. But lately I've been logging some highway miles with this back-and-forth to Indiana stuff. It seems to me that highway driving is pretty easy. I turn on the cruise-control, and just drive. So when I run into people who are first blocking the left lane, doing the same speed as the car in the right lane, both of them below the speed limit, and the car in the left lane is not making any progress in passing the other car, and only after a minute or two does the driver finally get around, but then hangs out in the left lane, instead of changing into the right lane so that I can go around them in the "passing lane", IT MAKES ME FUCKING INSANE. Well, it makes me feel insane. I don't do the road rage thing, but it makes me grind my teeth and wish that they would get the fuck out of my way. Oh - but that's not it - so they finally get into the right lane, right? Then as I put cruise control back on - I had to turn it off because they were being slow - I speed up and pass them, then merge into the right lane, and a few minutes later, here they come whizzing past me, to speed a few hundred yards in front of me, only to slow down again, so that I am forced to pass them - or try to pass them, in whatever lane they've chosen to leave open. I'm still frustrated. Let me just say this: Drivers - if you have cruise control, please use it. On the highway, set it to the speed limit and just drive. If you encounter a snarl, slow down until it clears, then turn your cruise back on. Also - please drive in the right lane. The left lane is not "yours". I had one guy who I came upon in the left lane, pacing the car beside him/her that was in the right lane. I waited patiently behind it in the left lane, and finally it managed to move beyond the car in the right lane. Patiently I waited for it to merge right. Nothing. Waiting. Nothing. Usually I just give up and pass on the right, and one or two people who came up behind me did so, but I was feeling a little - peculiar, so I sat behind him, for a few miles, finally giving him a quick flash of my brights. And I wasn't riding his ass or anything. Anyway, after another quarter-mile he moves over into the right lane. I pass, and right behind me as I pass, he moves back over into the left lane!. Shit - have I missed something? Are there times that you're supposed to just drive in the left-hand highway lane? Cause I didn't think that there were. So please - cruise control! I don't want to play leap frog with you for 10 miles, because you can't decide if you want to do 65mph or 80mph. And use the right lane. The right lane is for driving, the left lane is for passing. For fuck's sake.

4. While on the six-and-a-half-hour-one-way road trip with my boss to or from Indiana, I bring and use my iPod. I don't do it to be rude, and he's rather a "silence is golden" type, so I jam out to tunes. I take the earpieces out and engage in conversation sometimes, but for much of the trips he listens to his radio and I listen to my iPod. Earlier today, on the way back from Indiana, we spent a few minutes discussing the portrayals of computers and information technology in movies and television. We talked about 24, and how funny it is that they're about 30% right on. They use some of the right terms. But the other 70% is just totally bonkers. I'll leave it at that. If you're a computer person, you know what I'm talking about. If you're not: you cannot take a dim, far-away, grainy image and "blow up" someone's license plate or face. It just does not work that way. Like I said - I digress. I could ramble on for hours.

5. I made this up about 3 hours into the drive. Pick two completely dissimilar things that are categorically different. Like the Danube River and John Lennon. Or Gaius Marius and the Hamburger. Then start on one and try to navigate to the other, just using the wiki links provided in the text of the article. I don't know why you'd want to try this. I can only imagine that - for me anyway - it would be met with terrible failure - I always end up reading articles until well past time that I should be in bed, and there's 17 or so tabs that I haven't even gotten to yet.

6. Music that I listened to! Now, since I really enjoyed my tunes, and feel like still more lists, here are the tunes that I listened on on shuffle on my iPod Nano.

"Auf Ashe" Franz Ferdinand
"Disposition" Tool
"I'm Hiding" Korn
"Kind of a Drag" Ultra Vivid Scene
"Intolerance" Tool
"Pucifier" Various (Underworld Soundtrack)
"I Am Stretched On your Grave" Dead Can Dance
"Dragostea Din Tei" O-Zone
"Snakeface" Throwing Muses
"Lost Keys" Tool
"How Sweet" Ultra Vivid Scene
"Clock" Coal Chamber
"Pig" Coal Chamber
"Tragedy" Coal Chamber
"Conga Fury" Juno Reactor
"Thoughtless" Korn
"Its On!" Korn
"Girls" Death in Vegas
"The Pot" Tool
"Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps" Cake
"Counting on Me" Korn
"Playboy" Hot Chip
"Engine No. 9" Deftones
"Teenager" Deftones
"Ticks & Leeches" Tool
"Overloading God" Julia Darling
"With Teeth" Nine Inch Nails
"Fireal" Deftones
"Roads" Portishead
"Pollution" Limp Bizkit
"Every Day is Exactly the Same" Nine Inch Nails
"Down in the Park" Foo Fighters
"Be Quiet And Drive (Far Away)" Deftones
"Unspoiled" Coal Chamber
"Blood, Milk and Sky" White Zombie
"Thief" Belly
"Go To Church" Ice Cube
"Everlong (live accoustic)" Foo Fighters
"No No No" Yeah Yeah Yeahs
"Getting Smaller" Nine Inch Nails
"Date with the Night" Yeah Yeah Yeahs
"Keeping You" Tanya Donelly
"Invincible" Ok Go
"El Cu Cuy" Coal Chamber
"Edelweiss" Tanya Donelly
"The House Wins" Ok Go
"U.R.A.Q.T." M.I.A.
"Pin" Yeah Yeah Yeahs
"My Mercy" Coal Chamber
"Eon Blue Apocalypse" Tool
"On the Radio" Regina Spektor
"Method of Groove" Life of Agony
"Cesaro Summability" Tool
"This Time" Life of Agony