CLM

I remember my first CLM (Career Limiting Move) I was working as a tlecom engineer and was surfing the web for some good prices on phones and every freaking site I went to was crap, dad links, links that went to the wrong product. Finally I get to one last site and I'm so pissed that I find the wemaster address and send him an email with my company email address. It went something like this;

"I can't stand this crap you call HTML, this programming for this website is so bad it makes me truly sick to my stomach"

there was more but, those were really thetwo statements that mattered in the email. Well, apparently this web admin didn't appreciate this constuctive criticism very much and found the number for the President of the company and then shit rolled downhill. I was given a heads up so I knew what was comming my way. By the time I spoke with my president he wasn't really upset, it was more like, well Pete, you made fun of someone and they told on you so now we gotta pretend like their website isn't all that and apologize. I drafted a letter and had my boss preview it as well as thpresident and then conviently forgot to send it.

Medicine

Holy Batshit, I have heard of this before but, this is all a little too much. That is part of what is worng with this nation, medical care. It is obcenely expensive because insurenace companies do not care how much care costs, they cover it and make up for their cost in their premiums. The helthcare providers know this and charge more and more for their services, then as if that was not enough, they scare you into thinking there are so many things out there that you need those services for.
Case in point, I have recently been diagnosed with high blood pressure, wich they tell me leads to heart attacks and to check it everyday and be careful. I also have GERD or Acid Reflux or ulcers or some shit,(over 7 years they still can not give me a straight answer) I start having weird chest pains that I have never felt before and can not associate with any other problem that I may have so I call my doctor. I get the "I have seen people younger than you have heart attacks Pete, life is too short", "in my professional opinion you need to get to the nearest emergency room right away" and here is the kicker, because I do not have health insurance, I go to the VA Clinic 20 miles away I get, "I must advise you that the VA can not cover an emergency room visit unless you go to Syracuse" Syracuse is the big VA hospitol that is about a 2 hour car ride that will cost me at least 20 bucks. Now, I am nervous becasue of all this "as soon as possible" bullshit and I go to the emergency room. do you kow how much an emergency cardiac visit is? Do you know how many x-rays they take and the EKG and everything else costs? do you know how much a 33 year old fulltime college student makes in the summer time when the only gig going is tutoring math at school 2 hours a day, 4 days a week?

Now, I am not completely ignorant, I know that they are obligated to ensure that I get the care that I should get regardless of monetary issues. I know it would not be very advisable for a health care professional to say anything else when someone calls in that may or may not be having a cardiac arrest but, shit! If I it were not for the fact that I am a bit freaked out by having high blood pressure(they actually used the phrase, "I hear your head is about to pop off") and the fact ath my grandfather on my fathers side died of a heart attack, my mothers mother had a heart attack, and not to mention that my wifes mother had her first heart attack at the age of 35, that and I am not the most stress-free person in the world....I would have never thought that I may or may not be having a heart attack and even contemplated going to the emergency room.

Now, I am not really blaming anyone at all, it is really more a problem of the system I guess, I surely can not really complain about the healthcare I recieve, I sure would not want their job but, fuck me, I almost wish they would have found something wrong in that emergency room so I could have a jsutification for the Gi-Normous bill they are going to expect me to pay two days after I get it, like thats going to happen.......

Data Destruction

This site reminded me of the summer I spent working for an unspecified IT department reformating and then destroying hard drives. I still have a hard drive magnet on the hood of my sweet ride that hasn't moved in about a year...

I spent the summer removing the hard drives from pc's that were just too old to use and they were going to "dispose" of them (dispose means of course properly disposal as specified by the law, wink, wink) Anyway, we took these drives out, reformatted them, then ran them throug a three level format, all F's, all ones, all zeros. Then, as if that wasn't enough, we tore the drives apart, removed the platters, and cut the platters in as many pieces as possible and then threw it all in the trash, er, recycled them.....

What a waste of my time, you have someone who has worked in IT for 10+ years, you're paying them minimum wage, and you have them reformatting and destoying hard drives....

but, I ain't one to gossip so, you ain't heard it from me...

$$$

Let me see, I can go to college this year or I can buy this...hard call

WTF

you know what? This guy is an official duchebag...

Happy Early Father's Day!

This is a fun article I found that seems completly tue!

schtuff

I really can not argue with anything that this says....

Local News

Yet another great reason to live in Upstate NY

this guy must be a friggin Genius

Cruise

Maybe I can get my student loans to cover a cruise to the Galapagos Islands....

would be a pretty sweet vacation

Physics

Other than Cosmomlogy, this is why I decided to become an AstroPhysics Major...

and here's a little more on the Casimir effect itself..

and a little more info as it pertains to space travel...

Whoa

This little bit of majic was great, especially the way that one girl just FREAKED

Aerospace

The candle that burns twice as fast, lasts half as long...

This site has some awesome pictures of Russian Aerospace technology. Not only do they protray the sheer enormity of the Vostok vehicles but, also shows the dilapitated state of the current Russian Aerospace Program. With all the effort the Russians put in during the space race of the sixties and how they were able to accomplish so much in the way of technology ond sheer willpower is overshadowed only by the inability to mainitain such a strong and powerfull program.

It would be great however, if I were independantly wealthy and could A. Go to see these things that close myself or B. Take that old space shuttle and turn it into my house, it would no doubt take wayyyy too much effort time technology to get it to actually fly at this point hehe...

WTF?

I could hardly believe this article when I read it but, then again, I an believe it. Wait till the Mormons catch on to this one...

WTF?

I could hardly believe this article when I read it but, then again, I an believe it. Wait till the Mormons catch on to this one...

WTF?

I could hardly believe this article when I read it but, then again, I an believe it. Wait till the Mormons catch on to this one...

Zealots...

sadly, this is not the first time I've heard about someone doing this...

Quotes

Some of these are a bit cliche and run into the ground but, there are also some good ones in there...

Exploration

It's amazing how little we really knew about the mooon before we actually landed men on the surface. It just amazed me whatching this video from the national archives how much was unknown when we landed. You tend to take information for granted. Will we really find out things that our machines were not able to tell us when we land on Mars? I think that there are some things that we will never know about Mars untill we put human eyes and feet on the martian surface but, hopefully we'll be more prepared than the Apollo astronauts were anyway...

People

This guy is on to something I think...

and here is some evidence you'll have to read down the article a little bit to find the bit about the "expert"

WTF

I found this site quite entertaining. I had been wondering why God doesn't heal amputees myself...

Scthuff

This is pretty darn kool for those of you who rember when vinyl was all there was...

The Supontover that wouldn't go away

ok, so this guy has his wife send me an email saying that he was unexpectedly shipped off to Europe for some kinda special unexpected operation for an undertermined period of time. On the one hand I'm glad that my baby isn't going to the guy but, shit, now I have to relist and it's going to sit in my father's precious yard for another two weeks...I hate people

for the backstory on the sale of the beast

Physics

I now understand entanglement, thanks Amir !

that is to say, I understand the theory, how the experiments work, and the effect

next is the why, if someone figures that one out, let me know...