Labor Day weekend.
Yah hoo!
One time I worked every day of Labor Day weekend. Most of the nights too. It was an exciting adventure. I got to fly in a 767 from Texas to Washington. It was just me, two pilots and another engineer. I'd gone down there to help troubleshoot a problem and we ended up flying the bird back home to get the EMI (electro magnetic interference) expertise available locally. It turned out the problem was a cracked microwave cavity on one of the LRRA's (Low Range Radio Altimeter). It only caused a problem when the door to the rack that the LRRA was on, was closed. That made trouble shooting the problem quite difficult. Open the door to look at the box...voila! the problem disappears. The door was lined with metallic foil which created a resonant chamber effect, which caused the one LRRA with the cracked microwave cavity to interfere with the other. The LRRA provides the pilot, autopilot and other airplane systems with the vertical distance between the airplane and the surface below the airplane.
See I told you it was exciting :-)
Actually though it was very exciting and involved a whole bunch of people working together. Since this is a public blog I won't get into details.
Just one little detail...
We were flying back up North and the airport tower was closed. The pilot was smoking a cigar. He was a young gun. We were coming in at night and he was looking for the lights of the airport. It's funny how much a mall parking lot lit up at night can look like an airport. Just for the record this was not a commercial flight. We were flying under part 91 rules.
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Rachel started college yesterday. What an exciting time. All the energy and LIFE from those young people. Lot's of ideas, enthusiasm, fun. I'm really happy for her. I think PLU is going to be a great place to be, and a wonderful stepping stone to the future, for Rachel.
I'm sure she will have lots of stories to tell and write about as she progresses through college.
One of the best decisions I ever made was to attend a small liberal arts college. For me it was an education in how to think, how to be an informed citizen, as opposed to training - where you learn what to think.
My point is that you are "trained" for a particular vocation or task. You take computer training to learn how to use a tool or go to beautician school to learn how to cut hair. Education on the other hand is learning how to learn if you will.
I don't think formal education is necessary for everyone. Certainly there are many self-taught enlightened people. The nice thing about college is that it brings a lot of different people together so you can learn together. That's fun.
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I was sort of hoping if I turned the comments on maybe someone else would write this web log. I'm always trying to delegate. Didn't get many takers.
Oh well..........
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I got to go to Fry's Electronics in Renton yesterday. I thought I'd died and gone to heaven.
If you are a geeky type or just like tech stuff Fry's is a great store.
I cut this little description of Fry's off their webpage
The History of Fry's Electronics, Inc.
Fry's Electronics, Inc. was founded in 1985 in Sunnyvale, California in a 20,000 square foot location by the three Fry brothers, John, Randy, and Dave, and Kathryn Kolder. Fry's is a closely held private company, with active involvement from all of the founders in the daily operation of the business.
Fry's was founded as a Silicon Valley retail electronics store in order to provide a one-stop-shopping environment for the Hi-tech Professional. Fry's has been keeping Hi-Tech Professionals supplied with products representing the latest technological trends and advances in the personal computer marketplace for over 18 years. Fry's retails over 50,000 electronics items within each store. There are currently seven stores in Northern California and eight stores in Southern California, six stores in Texas, two stores in Arizona, and one store each in Oregon and Nevada. The stores range in size from 50,000 to over 200,000 square feet. Fry's also provides customers with added shopping opportunities via its online center at Fry's Outpost.com
I get to go back to Fry's to return a wireless router. Oooo Ooooo Oooooo I am excited. They have so much cool stuff there.
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Have you ever noticed how a fair amount of stuff that used to last a long time has become more disposable?
Three items that come to mind for me are telephones, electric fans and Christmas lights.
A telephone used to last forever. I've probably bought 10 phones over the last few years. Either because they stopped working or in the case of cell phones because I changed providers.
Same thing with electric fans. A good electric fan should last 10 years or more. I've bought numerous fans for our house that last a couple of years and then the motor or the oscillation mechanism gives out.
You might as well throw out Christmas lights after a year. Or sometimes after bringing them home from the store. Except that seems really wasteful...so I spend an inordinate amount of time, sometimes trying to get a 4 dollar string of lights to work.
What's the problem?
A lot of manufacturing has been moved to lowest wage countries. Phones used to be made in the good old US of A. Ditto for fans. Not sure about Christmas lights. The manufacturers of these items find that having a fan made in Mexico, phone in Malaysia, Christmas light in China helps the old bottom line. I'm not silly enough to think that those countries and the people in those countries couldn't produce high quality products.
A couple of things are going on though. One is that people tend to make quality products if their work environment is adequate. The second is that quality tooling and materials have to go into the production to end up with a quality product. Neither one of those items are being taken care of very well by the Corporations who have moved manufacturing off shore.
What the Corporations has gotten though is cheap goods, cheap labor and unreliable goods that have to be replaced frequently. Sounds like a win/lose deal to me.
I bought an expensive electric fan yesterday at Fry's. Relatively expensive anyway. It's called a Vornado Silver Swan
It's guaranteed for ten years. On the box it says it's designed and engineered in the USA and manufactured in China. I like the way it looks. We'll see how long it lasts.
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My advice to any young person considering a career would be to not count on any type of skilled manufacturing job as a lifetime occupation. Or any job for that matter. It's sad to me to see the skilled high paying manufacturing jobs in the Aerospace industry moved offshore.
That's why people need to be educated. If you know how to learn you can always learn to do something new.
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I still haven't gotten my Hi Monkey lunch box. It's on the way though. I ordered it from CafePress.
Looks like an interesting place to shop or maybe create some things other people might like.
