Two tests down-

and just one to go before I'm done with my last class!

Nope, I'm not excited. Of course not. What's to be excited about?

I haven't seen the score from last night's test but I think I did well enough to pass. I'm not quite so close to being finished that I don't care about the grade...

Surgery is complete, Mom is doing well!

I got a call from my sister, Mel about an hour ago. The surgeon had just come from Mom's surgery. She did not have to get a replacement mytral valve, they were able to fix the original one. The patch on the ventricle required some kind of high-tech fabric to cover all the perforations and make a good patch and they only did one bypass.

Overall, the Doc said Mom was doing very well and she had no apparent complications during the procedures. There's still a concern about having to re-open her if there is any internal bleeding that can't be controlled with medication. The Doc called it about a 1 in 20 possibility.

I am very relieved. I'm still worried about her but I'm relieved that this hurdle has apparently been cleared without fault. I can't wait until I can talk to her again!

Mom's surgery is today

She is having the hole in her heart, between the two ventricle chambers patched up, receiving a new mitral valve and 2 arterial bypasses. That's a lot of work going on in her chest to refurbish her pump and it is expected to take 6 hours to accomplish.

I talked to her last night and she reports feeling relaxed, confident and in good hands with her surgeon. She has placed her circumstances in her Lord's hands and says she is not afraid. I believe her.

But that won't stop me praying for her safety and protection and her medical staff's skills, all day today. If you are of a mind, her name is Joyce McCord and I know she would appreciate your prayers too.

Its Snowing!

The first no-kidding, really going to dump down snowfall of the year is making its appearance outside my window right now! Hurray! The weather guessers are expecting a storm through Wednesday with 24" of snow in the mountains and 6" in the valley where everybody lives. This is great news!

With a good enough snow dump, Powder Mountain Ski Resort may get open by the weekend so I can get out and play!

I sure am glad Noah & I installed the house Christmas lights yesterday when it was 45 degrees!

A Monday morning email

NOTE: The following is a no-kidding email I (and everyone in this organization) received this Monday morning. The emphasis is mine. I find it incredibly interesting that operating Process Teams are part of the AF's core process, not actually supporting the Warfighter. Its also remarkable that every existing meeting or IPT must be scrutinized, immediately, to determine if it can be retired to support the new IPTs being developed to support the Core Process of having meetings. Remember, when you read this, I am not making this up! These are your tax dollars at work, figuring out how to incorporate more meetings into my daily life...

Good afternoon All,
Last week at the kick-off meeting of the Develop and Sustain Warfighting Systems Process Team, which is one of the Air Force's core processes under the AFSO21 umbrella (Gen XXXXX is Chair with Gen YYYYY as co-chair), we learned that our Centers will be required to invest significant manpower to work on sub-process improvement teams during the coming months. Within a week or two, expect a memo from Gen ZZZZZZ with this tasking.

We discussed the challenges we all face in sourcing more work at this time. In an effort to help us free up manpower to work on D&SWS, I agreed to collect a list the numerous forums/boards/IPTs that are within the control of the Air Force, and offer a recommendation as to ones that we could strategically pause for about 6 months while we devote concentrated effort on getting charter, scope, schedule, and teams with expected outcomes in place for D&SWS. Then we could revisit the list and determine which ones can be permanently deleted or merged into a new D&SWS team, as well as ones that should resume. This would free up some of us and our people to work on D&SWS.
I am tasked to respond to the D&SWS Team by XX December. My POC is XXXXXX, cc'd on this e-mail. He will work with your CAGs/PEGs to develop the list and coordinate recommendations, but I wanted you to know that we are doing this. It would be very helpful if you will send this on to your action teams with your endorsement -- I would also appreciate any feedback you have for me

Thank you and V/R

You'll shoot your eye out kid!

I don't know if anybody else likes A Christmas Story as much as I do, but I admit it; I love the movie and I make a point to see it every Christmas season. My enthusiasm for the movie doesn't hold a candle to this guy, Brian Jones. He bought the house in Cleveland where the movie was filmed!

He's unsure whether he'll make enough money to cover his $500,000 investment, but as sure as a kid's tongue will stick to a frozen flag pole, he's committed to the project.

Brian has funded some of the aquisition of his little part of A Christmas Story by producing Major Award lamps and you can get one of your own by clicking on that link. Who wouldn't want a Major Award lamp anyway? I know I want one!

BTW, the BSU hates the movie. She just doesn't get it at all. I think its because she isn't from the Midwest. Somehow Ralphie Parker and his family seem like a symbol of the Midwest and I can see myself in Ralphie's shoes very easily. I guess its time to check the tv listings for this year's viewing!

Some interesting visitors today!

Just one block over from my house is a wooded, steep canyon, a greenspace that borders a big park and a golf course. There is a resident quail covey that lives in the canyon and frequents our neighboorhood. Its not very hard to find the covey behind the house across the street or cutting across the chuch's grass across from me. Last week they were all in my neighbor Leonard's backyard and I startled them when I let the gate slam shut. They all flew up into his trees with a swoosh and I had a good look at them and a chuckle for startling them.

Today, while I was out in the shop, I heard some odd, scratching sounds out beneath my bird feeder. I suspected that there were sparrows cleaning up from the spills but when I looked out, there were quail in my yard! There were 4 or 5 on the ground that I could see and it sounded like there were more on the shop roof. I called the spouse on my cell phone and she was able to sneak out and get a good look before the little bobble-headed birds startled and flew up into the big pine tree.

It was fun seeing the birds so closely and to watch them pecking about. I hope they come back though I may have to put bells on my cats to keep them apart!

What a nice break this has been-

Sure, I know that it might be easier to post smaller posts more frequently, and I think about it most every day- while I'm busy doing other stuff. So that explains why I haven't posted in a few days now, I've been busy, doing other stuff.

Like what? Well, there was Turkey Day preparation shopping to be done and then Turkey Day preparations to be made and Turkey Day cooking and eating to be accomplished as well. Thanksgiving was a very nice day with both my kids in attendance and one girlfriend, (not mine!) too. We had all the usual fixings in generous quantities and it was all pretty wonderful.

Friday we all went to see the Utah Grizzlies hockey team kick butt against the Victoria Salmon Kings. Final score was 7 to 3 so the train horn that blows when the Grizz score got a good workout on Friday night. It was our first hockey game of the year and we had a great time, even the spouse, which I think is just great. I love it that she is finding pleasure in getting out and doing stuff that she wouldn't have considered just a couple years ago.

Saturday was chores and errands and cleaning up my shop. The shop gets piled up and cluttered mighty quickly with all the different projects I do out there and every so often it just needs a day's cleanup and tool put-away. I also replaced a dead battery powered light on the outside of the shop entrance with a wired overhead flood light and a waterproof switch. I have a combination padlock on the shop door and I had to have some kind of light in the entrance to see to operate the lock in the dark. Now I have plenty of light!

I also ground coffee for the office coffee bar this weekend and today Noah and I put out the house Christmas lights. The Thanksgiving display of my Pilgrim kids and pumpkins came in and the camper got moved and covered for the impending snow.

I contacted an Episcopal priest, Father Emenheiser, in Travese City, and he agreed to have a visit with my mom before she goes into the hospital for her surgery on Tuesday. I asked him to take Communion to Mom and pray for her before her surgery. Mom of course, isn't Episcopalian but I knew that a priest would be better prepared to take Communion to her than a pastor from her own faith that wasn't her own pastor. So, thanks to the internet, I set up a pastoral visit for Mom. When I told Dad about it, he figured Mom would probably try to convert the priest and set him straight during their visit! Its not out of the realm of possibility.

In between all this fun, I've done 6 or 7 chapters of Accounting homework problems and researched the review material for my 2nd test that I'll take later this week.

I didn't go shopping on Black Friday and I didn't get to go skiing at Wolf Mountain that opened today. I might have gone skiing but the boy still had a paper to write that's due tomorrow, so he couldn't go.

Can I rest now? Its been a really nice weekend and now the weatherman is promising heavy storms for later this week so ski season can only be days away. I'm ready for that!

A KitchenAid saga

I tried to do a good thing last week. The BSU has a KitchenAid mixer, one of those table-top models that is a hand-me-down heirloom from her mother's lunch counter from many years ago. I think the spouse received the mixer, well used, in 1986 or 1987. I even repainted the mixer not too long after it moved into our house so long ago. And last week, I decided that I was going to replace the worn out power cord. The rubber insulation had cracked and split and was hanging down and it just looked pretty sad.

So I bought a white 2-wire extension cord on my way home from work on Wednesday last week, and after dinner, I carried the mixer out to the shop for a power cord transplant. I have changed many power cords over the years- its usually a simple task to open up the case of whatever appliance or tool that needs a new cord, disconnect the old cord from its connections and to install a new cord in its place. Not so much with a KitchenAid mixer though...

I spent an hour trying to take it apart. I could see where the ends of the cord were, I just couldn't get it taken apart far enough to access the connections. After an hour of fiddling, and after cutting the old cord off, which I had done first, before discovering I couldn't get the mixer apart, I gave up and went inside to look for some instructions. A little Googling did produce a PDF copy of the repair manual for these mixers, 28 pages worth!

It seems that to get the top cover off so that the cord can be replaced, a pin needs to be driven out and a planetary gear case opened up and all the gear grease drained out first. I decided that maybe I would find a real repair shop and let the shop change the power cord and reset the speed controller timing instead of me fussing with it.

So I did find a local repair shop and I took the mixer in to get it fixed. That was Thursday and they promised to have it back to me in time for Thanksgiving mashed potatoes and pie. On Saturday I got a phone call, the repair guy said he couldn’t fix my mixer. He claimed that the power cord was unique to KitchenAid and obsolete! He insisted tha no other cord could possibly be substituted in spite of the fact that it is just a rubber insulated, 2-wire cord… Good grief! In reality, it just sounded like the repair guy didn’t care to tear it apart either.

Monday found me telling this tale to my buddy Loc. He got busy on the KSL classifieds and found 2 mixers for sale locally. Or sort of locally, as it turned out, because the one that I wanted was down in Lehi, nearly 75 miles away. But the machine was nearly new and a price that couldn’t be ignored, so I called and ensured it was still for sale and then made plans to go get it after work.

In spite of numerous miles of backed up traffic due to lane closures and 2 accidents as we went through Salt Lake City, we did make it successfully to the home of the seller. After checking it out, the spouse declared it perfect; it is much quieter than the old one, and I paid for the machine and we headed home. We stopped for dinner on the way back home and by the time we finally got to the house, it was nearly bedtime!

The spouse loves the new machine and I still have to pick up the old one. I’m going to fix it myself, clean it up and retire it as an heirloom once I get it back home.

There are backhoes and jackhammers outside my house!

And I'm not there to get pictures, rats! It seems we have a broken water main and at this time, from the live reports coming from the BSU, it is on the city's side of the meter. This water line break is the second one called in and being fixed on my block today. Hmm...

According to the nice lady in the water department, the city is installing some new pressure regulators in our system and the operational checkout of these new parts might cause customers to have low pressure, or high pressure fluctuations in the household water. Well, I think some of those high pressure fluctuations found the weakest links in the supply lines on my block!

Our leak didn't appear as a leak, just a humming sound in the inbound water supply line in our basement, beginning yesterday afternoon. It sounded like there was water running through the pipe so I had checked it out last night, going throughout the house and the yards looking for water someplace where it didn't belong. I didn't find any loose water, so I attributed the sound to the work the city was doing. The sound was annoying though and continued even this morning and that was enough to get me to call the water department to inquire about the cause.

And within the hour, the workers with heavy tools and motorized equipment showed up!

[This episode had nothing (consciously) to do with my comment on Terry's Wednesday One post about drinking water earlier today. Its just coincidence.]

An Ogden fatality last night-

Just 5 blocks from my house. [No link yet, I'm looking.]

There's a busy intersection at the bottom of the hill below my house. I pass through this intersection every day, as many times as I leave the house or return home. There are no crosswalks and it is in between two traffic lights, one just a block north and the next one 2 blocks to the south. During high traffic times, this is really a dangerous intersection and often the traffic flow just won't allow a left hand turn, so I end up turning away from the direction I want to travel and going around a block or two to get headed where I want to go.

Last night, this intersection claimed a victim. I don't have all the details but it was reported on the news that a woman was hit by a car as she crossed the street. There's an Albertsons grocery on that corner and many of our local people walk to that store for their shopping. I'm guessing that is what happened last night.

The BSU and I happened to see the traffic tie-up at the intersection because we were at the grocery getting some last minute Turkey Day necessities that she couldn't find at the commissary last weekend. At the time we did not know about the fatality, just that there was another not-too-unusual accident at the corner.

That must leave an awful hole in somebody's family during this Thanksgiving holiday time. I also learned this morning that a close coworker, Matt's father passed away last night after an extended battle with Alzheimer's disease. My sympathies go out to both of these families.

Finest Thanksgiving television ever!

Baboon Pirate is wishing happy thoughts to all nd offers us this classic piece of Thanksgiving television as a fun present. I couldn't get the video to download all the way tonight but give it a chance.

Its terrific! Thanks, Pirate!

Here's the direct link.

Overtired and crabby today...

What do you mean- today?

Ok, more than usual.

I 'm really feeling a bit of malaise today over work and tasks undone, new systems to learn and struggle with, and ski season not starting yet. Its cloudy outside and matches my mood.

There's tuition checks to write, Christmas is right around the corner and the title to the motorcycle hasn't made its way through the DMV yet.

Hmph!

New requirements! Job security, I suppose

Everybody loves getting a new requirement added to their monthly or weekly list of things to, right? I mean, none of us have enough work to do to keep us gainfully employed, right?

This morning I received notification that my big program that I am struggling to get implemented, has been entered into a new AF management program called PoPS. That's an acronym for Prediction of Program Success. This program is designed to standardize the methods used by Program Managers to report their program's status to senior leaders for management oversight. That seems like a reasonable idea, doesn't it. We should be reporting our efforts in a manner that can be easily reviewed and identified for "management assistance" when it is required.

Does an instruction manual that is 178 pages long give you any idea of the complexity of this new program? It should! Good grief! These are charts, not rocket surgery!

Of course, I have an entire week to read this manual and figure out how to get my charts in compliance with this new program… Talk about increasing my workload, this is ridiculous!

That was quick! Mom's out of the hospital again!

Well Mom's been in, and back out of the hospital this week. As I reported earlier, she went in on Wednesday after her pulse and heart rate weren't right. I talked to Mom today and she is back to cousin Tammy's house. Seems that she got well checked out on Thursday and by Friday morning was sent home.

Mom is still scheduled for open heart surgery on the 28th, so she's not out of the woods just yet. But she sounded good today and that's good news.

Mom is back in the hospital!

I found about it today from my brother Tim who had finally figured his way to this blog and then navigated over to Sister Mel's blog. I did not get a chance to call today but tomorrow I'll certainly be calling to check on her.

Mom's got surgery planned for the 27th of this month. I'll bet that she will be staying in the hospital until time for that surgery. Right now, I'm not planning to go back to Michigan, since I'm trying to write a check for Noah's tuition for next term.

I sure hope Mom's getting better.

This was cool!

What is it? Its a space shuttle booster engine being tested, tonight out at ATK Thiokol, near Promontory, Utah. I heard about this from Noah last night, so the BSU and I drove out to see it after work tonight. Of course, a few thousand other folks heard about the motor test and drove out there tonight too! Night time tests are pretty rare so that explains the traffic jam on a road that is usually nearly deserted.

We didn't get there in time to get around to the front side of the mountain, so this little film clip is from the back side. It was very impressive! You can see more about tonight's test on KSL News' website.

I'm expecting Jimmy Hoffa to show up next!

Our local news has been filled for a week with this story of two people lost and presumed drowned in Strawberry Reservoir. Those two people's bodies have not been located by the search crews. But
3 other bodies have been found during the search! According to this report, there should be 3 more bodies of folks presumed drowned since 1995 that haven't been located.

It is a big lake, deep and very cold, year round. Its froze over for a few months of the year. But these folks don't have to die and they might not have died, except that its known that none of them were wearing lifejackets when they went into the water!

Its a damm shame that people have to die for failure to follow the most basic water safety rules. Its dumbass is what it is!

So, with the steadily increasing body count from Strawberry Reservoir, can Jimmy be too far behind?

UPDATE: The bodies of the missing Roundy couple have been recovered. Their funerals are set for Monday.

I haven't tried this for a while-

But I've noticed in my visitor log that I'm getting a semi-regular visitor from Haughton, Louisiana. This visitor is coming to see me from Possumblog and I don't know who it might be, so, I'm asking you to say hi in the comments and introduce yourself.

I'm a former Haughton resident myself, having lived out there with my family in 2 different places when we first moved to Utah in 1989. Its a nice little town with lots of big pine trees in the yards and it was pretty rural while we lived there. I'm reminded that we had a resident woodpecker in our neighborhood that would intently hammer on the metal mailboxes like he was getting paid to make noise. He obviously wasn't banging to dig bugs out of holes so we were pretty sure he just liked the attention.

Anyway, Haughton visitor, don't be shy. Jump in and leave a comment or two and tell us what you like here at Wasted Electrons.

Take a message, I'm blogging

Want to see what the world famous, prehensile tailed author of Possumblog looks like at work? Click here to see the video! Sadly, the toast burning guy does not make an appearance in this episode.