otto72

Mike - M*A*S*H reunion on Fox Network tonight @8:00ET
You may already have it on you Radar

Nice pictures of the Pups Chris

John nice you had a good trip

Dream67Olds442

Thanks Keith, Happy New Year's to ya buddy, hoping you're having a great day!

slantflat

Thanks Keith, already planning on seeing it.

Chris the Awful house is not in a bad part of town. I suspect the chef and the shooter were already acquainted and this was a continuation of events that started at an earlier time. I probably won't be going in tomorrow so I'll have to wait until next weekend to get the scoop.

Koda

Mike, yes, that's me. Getting fatter and grayer.

I hear that waffle houses bring the hood with them, they don't have to be in the hood to be hood.

Vintage Chief

Test...this is ONLY a test....

EDIT: Test complete.

Chris, this is Mike's Waffle House...

https://maps.app.goo.gl/FV36vWmdLjFanMQX6

Dream67Olds442

Much better! Looks like a nice area.

Vintage Chief

Look along the side of the Waffle House building - I think that's Mike's Suburban (date APR 2023)...

Dream67Olds442

GO BLUE!!!!!!
27 - 20 over Bama in OT
Headed to the National Championship game!

Jamesbo

Chris congratulation on the win Norm next time you go shopping see if the G Store has any pimentos The stores around here haven't had any in months ODD? None of the clerks seem to know why

Vintage Chief

Jim - Interesting about pimentos. I'm going to grocery store this morning after dental cleaning - I'll check.

Took a short nap yesterday afternoon. Finished The Pacific EP:7 late last night. Up since 4:30AM, dental cleaning @ 8AM. Feeling far better. Wondering if I had a mild case of flu. The body reacts to various illnesses far differently as we age. Since I had my flu shot in early October, I'm curious if I had enough immunity built-up to ward off a more serious attack - oh well. I might try to get in 18 tomorrow. Cold today, plugged in block heater for Ford250 diesel tractor @ 4:30AM. These old beasts need all the help they can get in colder weather.

Vintage Chief

Jim - Sorry to disappoint but I went to this Lidl grocery store this morning. It's the first time I've ever been in one of these grocery stores. There's been one in the area for I guess x3 years now. I heard they have good produce and cheeses. They do have good produce, cheese was nothing stellar. Although, most stores around here have a pathetic cheese selection so nothing new on that front. I looked for pimentos - none - they have never carried them (I asked a couple workers).

Dream67Olds442

Thanks Jim! It was an exciting game.

Norm, glad you're feeling better!

Vintage Chief

Nice clean pearly whites. They'd like to address a very minor amount of detailed carpentry work. They had an 8AM available tomorrow so I'll be back in the morning besides the temp. tomorrow while pleasant is going to have 20 mph - 25 mph wind out of the North which equates to ~40°F windchill - thanks, but no thanks on getting in 18.

Vintage Chief

Chris - Yeah, congrats to Michigan. I was thinking, didn't Saban coach for Michigan State at some point in his career? I think he did. Did Michigan state ever play against Big Blue? Saban's been all over the place when I think about it. I should probably look up his stats.

Vintage Chief

Oh yeah, 1995-1999 he was @ MSU. How could I forget that Ohio State vs. MSU game.

Koda

Norm, I just got a mega bill from my new dentist. I called them up and checked to make sure my insurance was valid and to ask why it didn't go through it. To their credit, office manager told me to ignore bill and they would resubmit and send me the bill for the difference.

slantflat

Hi everyone.

I feel like I'm playing hooky since I stayed in bed until 10 and am not at work. I still got the trailer parked and parts unloaded from the truck and over to Mom's for lunch before noon.

Norm that is Waffle House #1583, on the main drag through town. I watched it being built, and have been a regular patron there since it opened at Thanksgiving 2004. That is Dan and Annette's yellow Suburban. They are an older couple. Dan had a stroke a few years ago and doesn't drive, and lately they've been running around in Annette's Camry. Don't know the fate of the Suburban, but Dan has said there is a list a mile long of people who want to buy it. Not sure I'd be on that list but it is cool to look at.

Mom wants to get her hair cut this afternoon, and I need to charge the battery in the big mower and get it back into the back yard. That thing will rot into the ground before I touch it again. After all that it will have been a successful day.

Keith I did see the MASH thing last night. It was something I had seen before, and not anything new. Trapper and Henry and Frank, and the father have all been dead many years. I wish it would have had more commentary from the actors.

Well I hope everyone has a good short week.

Vintage Chief

John - I've been down that road a couple times during my span of life. Even then, you have to stay on top of the game often times negotiating the rapids between the insurance co. & office manager. Sometimes it's a simple oversight - e.g. incorrect date of service, incorrect procedure was coded, forgot to file....it can run the gamut.

Dream67Olds442

Yes, he was either 500, or 1 game over 500, in '95 thru '98. 1999 was his 1 very successful year there when they went 9-2, with wins over Notre Dame, Michigan, OSU, and PSU. After '99 was when he skipped town to LSU.

Vintage Chief

Loafing about watching YouTube videos of old GM plant assembly lines, engine fabrication, body fabrication, blah, blah, blah. Two of my 1st cousins went to work in the auto industry after their return from Vietnam. Both were in between 1967 - 1969, kill someone else to save your own life. One (Larry) went to work for GM, his brother (Terry) went to work for Chrysler. Terry worked in the brake fabrication/assembly area. He died ~10 years later from Mesothelioma before they even identified it as Mesothelioma - sad. Anyways, these old films you just didn't see and couldn't find anywhere in the 1960s/1970s unless there was some special on T.V., you were in a trade school (I guess), vocational school, etc. They sure as hell weren't available on YouTube -

I was taking FORTRAN/COBOL and other computer courses in college about the time some of these old reels were made - I really enjoy watching how many industries, in this case auto industry, shifted manufacturing processes to robots + computers - really amazing, fun to watch.

John - can't recall exactly what you do (aside from bitch about being underpaid and dealing with management *** hats). Don't you manage some portion of a Toyota assembly plant?

Dream67Olds442

I worked on the assembly line/s at Kelloggs for 4 summers when I was in college. Pretty amazing to watch, not much fun to actually be there working them. Mixing and cooking on the 4th floor, baking on the 3rd, individual packaging on the 2nd, final bulk packaging on the 1st. I know it's Michigan, but with no A/C, and no windows open (dust and bug concerns), those 3rd and 4th floors were brutally hot. Lots of jobs reserved for the Summer help on those 3rd and 4th floors. I'm sure it has all changed dramatically, that was +45-years ago. There's no more cereal production at what used to be the main plant in Battle Creek anymore, only the Corporate Headquarters, and there has been talk for many years about relocating that.

Koda

I do bitch a lot.

I've spent 17 years in the production engineering division of Toyota North America. My department is final assembly and that's everything after the shell body is painted. I work at the satellite office of my division at the Indiana plant, so I am a national employee rather than a plant employee. I have been directly seconded to the plant before for a two year assignment as line support engineer.

Most of what I do involves identifying a need and spending money to provide a solution. Our needs change based on line speed changes, model changes, putting a new car on a line, or building a new line. We analyze the changepoints in the car, draft a plan, make a budget, get the budget, write a specification, bid it out, select a vendor, write a purchase order, review and approve concepts, then designs, go to buyoffs, clear equipment for shipping, receive and install the equipment, trial and confirm the functions, certify the equipment, train the operators and maintenance, hand over the final documentation, and sign off to pay 100% of the purchase order. At various times I have been an engine line, trim line, final line, or conveyor engineer.

I currently am the site guy for something called the Toyota Vehicle Electronic Checks System. TVECS. It's a windows program that executes steps in order, sometimes in conjunction with machines ran by programmable logic controllers (PLCs). It communicates to the car's multiple ECUs via the DLC3 OBDII port (the same one you clear codes through.) My main activity at the moment is enabling all the machines on the East line to be able to accept right hand drive vehicles. We are expanding our capability with these wireless transmitters we call dongles that allow the car to be talked to wirelessly at each station once it is built and turned on in new ways. I struggle a lot with the new role because of the metric ton of tribal knowledge it requires. For some reason, I was forced into the role a year ago, and I don't know if they found out I build PCs on the side and that was deemed enough qualification, or whether it was because I applied for the job 3 years ago and didn't get it when it came with a promotion. Seems like they have no problem with me doing the job; only the promotion part. It's a lot of windows PC building, upgrades, maintenance, updates, and specialized peripherals.

I've launched two plants, done projects in eight, been to Japan twice. Never had to go to our Mexican plants. During the previously mentioned loan, I was the engineer for the west trim lines here at Indiana, which meant I was the second guy they called after maintenance. During that time, I replaced the laser printers that cut the VIN and Certification labels for both east and west plants. I have held onto that role as the guru to be called when needed by my successors on both trim lines, so I am CR label printer advisor and TVECS guy now.

My main beef is that I have been here 17 years and am stuck as a mid level engineer. To make a long story short, we used to have a different system (30A, B, and C), and I was briefly a senior level 30C engineer, even though it took me nine years instead of the usual five. We then had a re-org (14, 15, and 16), and the senior level engineer (16) became a position of Senior Engineer. I was demoted from 30C to l5, and have not been allowed to be promoted in eight years since then, despite doing multi-million dollar installations. Meanwhile, two women got promoted this year, one from 14 straight to 16 with three years experience, and one from 15 to 17 (manager) with the same. I'm currently in on and off semi-frequent talks with the new HR rep for my department, and I've explained I either want an early retirement with all benefits, or a backdated promotion, with revised performance reviews, back pay, and back raises, or I'll transfer to a maintenance group and be a maintenance team member and get paid more for less hassle. They've been giving out "we're scared of the UAW" raises, and, if they do it again, a maintenance team member will make more than I will due to their big raises and my chronically small ones. To be clear, I do not begrudge a maint guy his increased pay; he deserves it, but it's finally getting to the point I can call HR on their **** as it is at an undeniable level now, and I relish doing so.

1969w3155

Norm, I looked into Apple + for the Masters of The Air series. $9.99 month to subscribe but, you can do a free 7 day trial going to the monthly rate if you don't cancel. I'll wait until the series has aired, and then sign up for the free trial, and binge watch it. Gotta be that bit of Scottish in me Chris: "M" yeah baby! I ain't gonna talk about the Lions/Cowboys officiating. Somebody was paid off.

Dream67Olds442

Yep, I'm pumped for the Championship Game! Michigan will need to get pressure on Penix, but I think they can, plus don't let that Odunze receiver get deep.

Ok, I'll mention it, the Lions got robbed, plain and simple, a real screw job! Hoping they win at least a couple in the playoffs. I think they are capable of beating anyone on any given day, just depends on which team shows up.

Vintage Chief

John - Excellent write-up, thanks. You've achieved a very outstanding career platform - good for you. With my academic background writing/coding several assembly languages in late 60s/early 70s & throughout my grad career, the principal investigators at my research institute deemed it admirable to appoint me their go-to network/software/hardware administrator for the institute - w/ no monetary compensation. Eh, I was young, dumb and full of fun. Conducting sophisticated blood platelet coagulation research assays/experiments employing million $$ scientific equipment on a daily basis wasn't enough, each PI (Principal Investigator) now wanted me to upgrade their ancient 16-bit/32-bit s/w to more elaborate languages & make use of the network for sophisticated collaboration between PIs. Eh, young, dumb & full of fun. By the end of my 1st year I basically had all the equipment & PCs speaking to one another among the various PI labs w/ installed/upgraded various programs - part of my non-compensated network administrator role. After 5 years teaching college & 12 years as a research associate the light bulb went off one day - I make no money. Left my research assoc. position, took one year off, purchased all Microsoft Certified Software Engineer curricula textbooks, studied one/month, took 12 exams, walked into Microsoft at the end of 1999 & said give me a job. They had just released Windows 2000 - welcome aboard.

Funny story during my MS interview. The guy doing my interview asked what's the 1st thing a PC does when it's turned on. Here I am, modestly nervous, navigating him through a list of s/w sequences which load from the dynamic link library registry hives when the OS instantiates. Each time I can see I'm failing & he's again asking what's the first thing to happen. I'm getting confused now & I simply say I give. He looks at me & says how about POST? We both got a big chuckle. I'm navigating through the muddy water of the Windows registry hive and he's asking about the basics of a PC. Salary increased five fold from an associate research scientist to a MS network engineer after two years (stupid money). Dongles...LOL. I recall setting up dongles for clients/customers PCs in several engagements when they 1st hit the network airwaves...they all looked at me like deer in the headlights.

Some of the historical changes I've witnessed over the years in s/w languages & h/w has been amazing. Most is basic & rudimentary - nothing more than ones & zeros, + & - integers - nothing more, nothing less. Ah, the good old days.

Vintage Chief

Dan - Thanks for the heads-up on Masters of The Air. I watched World War II in Colour on Netflix about one year ago - excellent series if you haven't seen it. I binge watched Breaking Bad when it was released & I mean some serious binge watching. The other I really, really loved was Shameless - absolutely fantastic.

Vintage Chief

It's amazes me how anyone (if they're interested) can pull up an image from Google Maps, post the image & someone can identify not only the image but the owners of the vehicle.

Vintage Chief

In April 2019 I was snooping Google Maps locations near my home when low & behold I pop up on Google Maps...who'd have thought, eh?

Vintage Chief

This one's sorta/kinda funny. I stopped by a friend's place one day after playing 18 a couple years ago. I said to him (Barry)....call me Pablo.

Greg Rogers

Ya missin' the Olds Norm?

Vintage Chief

Vintage Chief

The Equalizer 3
Taking a break from WWII

GCH

Started the 98 yesterday and had the engine running warm and also checking antifreeze one more time.
We had 16 F and the engine starts fine , was nice to hear the 425 running again after some time.
They have -45 F in northern part of the country and the forecast where we live next weekend are -22 F.
Should be nice when the spring is coming

Vintage Chief

Disappointed in The Equalizer 3. Plot development began well enough but fell well short of my expectations. The ending sucked. Movie doesn't even begin to touch the original film. I love Denzel as an actor, but this film didn't do it for me.
Dental appointment was in/out in <20 minutes. Debating on golf...

Vintage Chief

No more debating...tee-time @ 12:30PM

Dream67Olds442

Great pic!

Dream67Olds442

Too cold, too cold, too cold, just too damn cold!!!!

slantflat

Good morning everyone.

Well, lunch is over. Funny that it's still morning. We eat lunch at 11am. Some people start lunch around 1030.

So I have the extra bad wall guy this week. Today I have 9 wheels signed since 6. In a minute I'm gonna go ask the lead for a new wall guy. This guy needs to be in the soup line, not here.

I think our nice days are coming to an end. Supposed to rain this afternoon then be gone. Then it will be cold and muddy.

Yesterday was indeed successful. Got the mower moved to the back, got the parts out of the truck, got the car worked on(a little) at least it's in the basement. Did laundry. Had pork barbeque sandwiches for supper. Slept all night.

Probably gonna work on my crooked and diveted wall this afternoon. No real plans all week actually.

Page 350 of TNGMT archives. We are waiting to hear how Sandy's surgery went. She was having a double mastectomy and reconstructive surgery. Clint just bought a new toy hauler trailer. Jamesbo just went to a city hall meeting, probably his first and last one ever.

Okay gotta go find my POS wall guy. It would be different if he were a decent guy, but he's a ***** and smug and I don't do smug. Have a good afternoon everyone.

Koda

Norm, I used to joke that I spoke beep, as I remembered the four different sounds of the POST.

1969w3155

Well sheet, I was looking forward to this one. The History Channel used to have a lot of WWII programing 15-20 years ago, not so much anymore, which is too bad as I like watching and learning about it. I have seen ads pop up for WWII in color, but I can't remember if it was streaming or on the History Channel. A dvd that you might want to consider is : "They Shall Not Grow Old", which is a WWI documentary with actual wartime reels. They studied old interviews, and brought in lip readers to match up the dialogue to the soldiers. Peter Jackson directed and produced. It was released in very limited theaters, the closest to me was the Detroit suburbs. I had to wait a couple of months to order it, as it wasn't originally released to the U.S. market on DVD.