RETIRED WARRANT

Yesterday we had a few things for the class to get done and one of the other instructors and I spent the afternoon tutoring one of our students who was having difficulties. We actually stayed late and so on the way home rather than mess with cooking and all I stopped off and picked up a couple of pizza’s for dinner. I then swung by a neighborhood store and picked up some lottery tickets and then was going to the post office to check the box, but there was an accident blocking the parking lot so instead I just went home.

I flipped on the TV and was getting on the computer when I noticed Fox News was reporting an incident in Minneapolis about a bridge collapse. The initial reports were kind of sketchy but then they started showing pictures and I was shocked. The bridge was huge and the damage devastating. There was a semi and a school bus along with many cars.

Through the rest of the evening I watched as they kept reporting and on particular thing caught my ear. I guess a year earlier they had discovered some cracks and I guess they didn’t follow it up. If this is true I can just imagine the lawsuits.

It also got me thinking about how many bridges I cross each day on the way to and from work and while traveling around town. I sure hope Caltrans has been keeping up the maintenance on ours here. Also it makes me worry about how they would hold up in an earthquake since I do live in an area prone to earthquakes.

I know that a few years back they did a lot of retrofitting of the freeway bridges in San Diego to make them less susceptible to collapse during a quake, but when you see something like that on the news it really gets you thinking.

A few weeks they had the tanker truck that had a wreck and when it caught fire caused the bridge up there to collapse. I just hope that things like that could be prevented. Anyway I will hold the victims in my prayers and I hope the recovery process moves quickly.

This morning was quite a frustrating day. I got up on time and all, but I had to install faults as soon as I got to work and a few of the radios were not cooperating. Anyway instead of having the class start troubleshooting at 7:15 as planned we didn’t get them started until 8. Then I had to cut the troubleshooting time back a bit because on of the instructors has an evaluation today and borrowed the class for an hour. At least I am ahead of schedule so we will just work on more troubleshooting tomorrow and if we have to finish up on Monday.

Today I may be able to go back to Stargate Warriors. I had PM’ed an admin asking how long it would be until I could go back and was told the period is 14 days, but someone we know from another fed quit and it was only seven days. I just want to make sure so I do not wind up fedless. I will talk to the folks tonight when I get home. Laila wants me to start posting the standings for planets and OP posted of the fed page. It should not be too hard and so I will get that all put together. Other than that I guess things are going great.

Well time to get back to doing the job. My break is over and I have some stuff to get done.

Today I had to come in a bit early to open up the classroom and labs. I guess I should have thought about it a little more as I can’t start the labs anyway, until I get another instructor so that we have enough safety observers. The military guys all have PT today so I suppose I will have to put the class on a break until they get back.

The past two weeks I have seen something that has made me pretty happy. On my way to the freeway each morning I catch 16th street through National City for a few blocks. People use it as a speedway and never seem to follow the posted speed limit. The past two weeks every morning there has been a motorcycle policeman on the street, usually with someone pulled over, and I welcome it. Also since today is trash day with him being there I did not see any of the shopping cart bums rooting through people’s trash. All in all it is a win win situation, and I hope to see this policeman each morning.

This morning on the radio the subject was about Barry Bonds and his breaking Hank Aaron’s record for home runs.

Even though he has not been positively caught using steroids and performance enhancing drugs, most people feel he has. He has made enough money in his career to pay for high priced lawyers and all to keep things quiet.

When he gets the record I think it should get the little asterisk like the one that Roger Maris has all those years after breaking Babe Ruth’s record. He had the asterisk for playing more games in a season than the Babe. He also had to put up with adverse pressure from the press and fans who wanted Mickey Mantle to break it.

Aaron had the same things going on as many people did not want a black man to break the records. He had death threats and all kinds of things going on. I remember when Aaron broke the Babe’s all time home run record and also remember that nobody really realized he was that close to it until the last couple of years. Aaron was just so consistent over the years. He quietly gained all those home runs having just about the same total runs each year throughout his career.

Bonds, McGwire, Canseco and others have been flashy hitting their home runs. They have also dwarfed others in size and strength. Canseco actually came out and admitted he used steroids and told about others that were using them. McGwire denies using them but it appears that he was and also it affected his being elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in the first year of his eligibility. I have a feeling the same thing will happen to some to some of these other players that have been suspected of using steroids.

I think all records set by players suspected of using performance enhancing drugs should have an asterisk after their name in the record books. That is just my personal opinion. By allowing these guys to set records and have the records stand tarnishes the game.

Also another thing that was brought up is what is it with these sports hero’s and the troubles they have been having with the law? The latest sports guy to get in trouble is Atlanta Falcons Quarterback Michael Vick over illegal dog fighting and animal abuse. Yeah, I know he has not been found guilty of anything yet but since it is a 40 page federal indictment and some of his friends have come out in the open and confirmed things with the press, I figure he will have some problems. But then he is a rich sports guy and can hire a few high priced lawyers to get him off.

The comments today on the radio were basically about if these guys did not have professional sports to turn to they would probably be in prison and would have been living a life of crime. The only problem is that they still have the gang banger mentality and with the income from sports they are nothing more than rich gang bangers. I guess that is why I have lost interest in watching professional sports. Yeah I watch the big games but they have all lost me as a fan.

Well time to get to work, so I guess I will get this saved. I have to earn my pay check.

Wow, July is almost over. This year is flying by way too fast. Oh well I guess now that I am older I can expect that.

Since it is the end of the month it is paperwork day. I have all mine done and ready to turn in. I will also probably be teaching all morning and doing lab this afternoon. I guess we will see how far I can get this morning. The students are supposed to have their weekly military training, but it looks like it may have been moved to another meeting place.

Last night was one of those times when I found it hard to go to bed and then once I did go to bed I couldn’t get to sleep even though I was really tired. I wanted to go to bed by 11 but I was posting op and I also was nearing another infrastructure level. I got my level and then raised my population and was about to log out when just on a whim I checked my projects and found that I could use my space programs in about 40 minutes so I stayed with the game to redeem them for more planets.

I have been getting a lot of questions from folks asking me why I left Stargate Warriors. I think they may be thinking the fed is falling apart or something. I have been telling them about my mouse mishap and though they might find it hard to believe it that is what happened. I think there are a lot of people that are looking for us and FV to fall apart, but that won’t happen.

Yeah we have had a few folks that have had to quit mainly for real life issues. We have also kicked a few out for not following the policies we have established. We are also being a little more selective with who we will consider after a few mistakes with people in the past.

If you can’t keep the chat clean, if you can’t maintain a PR above 4 Billion, if you don’t have maximum level X systems for your race, and if you don’t have good OP posting statistics then don’t bother applying. We would rather have 10 active played than a full fed of 20 people not doing their part for the fed.

Laila has her next to last court date for the last case today. After that she will only have to go back for the decision. So I wish her good luck. It has taken so long and has been pretty costly, but it is almost over.

Anyway, I guess that is about it for today. Got to get started for the day and get some work done.

The weekend is over and while I got a lot done there were still some things I would have liked to get finished but never got to.

No problem though, I will get to them. The one thing I did get finished with that I am very happy with is organizing my bills and statements. I have been meaning to get to it for a long time, but I just let the stack get higher and higher. Finally the stack got so high I had enough and decided to do something about it. Now the box where my incoming mail goes is empty and also all the checks for next month are written and ready to mail.

I was happy to see Tony Gwynn and Cal Ripken Jr. inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame over the weekend. These guys were remarkable and I love the fact that they each played their entire careers with one team.

Gwynn was known as Mr. Padre having grown up in the San Diego area and having played his entire career with the Padres, though he could have made a lot more money playing for another team. Ripken played his entire career with the Baltimore Orioles and broke Lou Gehrig’s record for consecutive games played. In this time of steroids and performance enhancing drugs these guys were both clean and both good ambassadors of the game. Mark McGwire should have made it this year but the steroid accusations will probably keep him from being selected for a while.

San Diego has really been hopping with Comiccon and the west coast tryouts for American Idol going on. I heard on the news there is no a single hotel room to be had here. That should give the economy a boost.

I guess also there is some bad news, because of the drought we are in they are trying to limit residents to 20 gallons of water a day. I don’t know how they are going to work that but I will tell the kids to try and save water and all.

Well almost time to get to work. I guess I had better get this closed and get in there and teach.

Today is Friday, hurray for that.

I got up on time and talked to Laila before taking off for work. I remembered to take my jury paperwork just in case they needed it and drove in. There was a lot more traffic this morning than there usually is on a Friday, but I made it to work wait plenty of time to spare.

Now I am just waiting to see what I will be doing for the day. I will be either teaching the Receive side of the Transceiver or helping work on the antenna system. It looks like it is more in the direction of working on the antenna.

Well I found out and it was teaching. It is now lunch time and I taught all morning and also go my quarterly evaluation done so it was a very good morning. After turning the class loose for the weekend, I went ahead and helped with maintenance for a while and now I am sitting down for a few minutes.

I have to stop off and get dog food on the way home and I am thinking on grabbing something already prepared for dinner so I don’t have to cook today. I am going to start out the weekend by being a little lazy.

I just saw the funniest thing. I was talking with one of the guys and we went outside to the break area where it is warm. Someone had hired a sky writer to start over NASSCO Shipyard and write HA HA HA HA HA over the area of the wreck yesterday. It was pretty funny.

Well I guess that is it for now. Looks like I might be needed again to assist with some more maintenance.

Well Jury Duty was swift and fast today. I got up and as planned after talking with Laila I drove down to the 24th Street trolley station and I caught the San Diego Trolley downtown.

I was supposed to get to the courthouse by 7:45 AM but the trolley was so slow I got there at 7:55 AM despite catching the trolley at about 7:15. The trolley was really crowded and so I had to stand the whole way but I didn’t have to try and find parking and all.

Also with Comiccon in town and a huge wreck on Harbor Drive just outside the NASSCO Shipyard it would have taken me forever to get there.

Anyway I got there and went through security, got my paperwork, took my chair, and then we watched a movie about jury duty and a judge gave us a briefing.

We then listened as names were called and people had to go answer questions about thier apperwork and things like that. They finally got to a point where they started calling people over to the jury office to be assigned to court rooms. They were calling about 6 at a tme for awhile and then they called a huge group of 25. I figured that was for the long case.

All of a sudden my name was called and I was the only one called. That had me wondering so I wnet over and they gave me an envelope and sent me to a courtroom in the criminal court building. I gave them the envelope and they asked me to wait outside, then all of a sudden the 25 people called earlie showed up.

I staretd thinking, oh no, not another long case. I know my job supports it, but after the last time if I were to have to go for another long period I would be worried that they might have to let me go. I also figured I would get released right away due to the last trial after finding for the death penalty.

Anyway the baliff came out and called role and then invited us into the courtroom. The judge arrived and then she hit us with the news that we if selected would be sittiing on the criminal grand jury if selected. That one had me worried, as there would be no defense attorney’s to kick people off th jury.

She then started calling names and filled up the jury box and the alternates, then heard reaons why people couldn’t serve that long. I was lucky to have not been called and then as they started excusing folks and filling the seats, my name was still not called.

I was also worried about the questions being asked, like are you a US Citizen, are you a resident of San Diego and what do you do for a living. I could see if my name had been called I would probably have to serve but thankfully my name was not called. The judge swore in the people that had been called up and thanked and excused the rest of us, so I went down to the jury office and they said turn in you badge, that my service was completed.

That was awesome, and so I went ahead and caught the trolley back to my car. The ride back to the car was not that great. The trolley was pretty much empty but some street person decided to sit across from me and I think he was trying to scope me out to rob me or something since I was dressed nice for court and all. He started telling me his life story and ow he lost everything in the stock market and was having to live on the streets.

He asked me what I did for a living so I told him and then he said wow I must be well off. I told him I get by and then he asked me why I was riding the trolley. i told him that I didn’t want to have to mess with driving and parking downtown.

Anyway, keeping up my guard I was careful to not alert him to the fact that I was getting off at the station until the trolley came to a complete stop then I excused myself and quickly left. He didn’t follow so that was cool. I then got the mail and came home. I called work to see if they needed me to come in but no one was there. I had also called from the courthouse but also didn’t get an answer.
I figure by the time I eat lunch and get back to the schoolhouse it will be time to turn around and come right back home, so I guess I will just stay home.

I switched on the news and they are talking about how the stock market dropped big time today. That is not good news.

Anyway, that is about it for now. I am going to make something to eat and wait for Laila to wake up. Then it will b a night of unification wars.

So that all worked out and now I will not have to worry about jury duty until next year at this time.

Wow, what a morning, well, actually I think it started last night and just continued into today. Yesterday after the class finished their practice troubleshooting we shoved them off for the day and then started doing our routine maintenance on some of the transceivers and the DAMA units. It really wasn’t that bad, as we just had to check the oscillator frequencies and adjust the voltages for the voltage driven oscillators. As long as we make sure we let them warm up long enough they usually are not that hard to do even with the age of the equipment.

Anyway everything was going fine until it came time to check the 5 Mhz oscillator for the DAMA. It was low and needed to be adjusted. To adjust it you have to take off the top and bottom panels then extend the unit with almost all the cables disconnected to the 90 degree position. You then have to remove the oscillator and adjust it then wait for ten minutes and check it for drift. If it drifts then you have to adjust it again and wait another ten minutes. Luckily we got it the first time but taking off the covers and cables and then having to put everything back together is very time consuming.

WE got that done and I left a little late to head for home. I stopped off at the post office and got the mail and stopped at the mini mart for some milk and a few other things. When I got home I opened a letter from Philippines Airlines and it was a letter of apology from the airlines for the night I got stranded in San Francisco. They also let me know that the next time I fly to Manila and back they will only charge me $438 for a round trip ticket. That is awesome and has changed my opinion of them greatly. Laila was thrilled when I gave her the good news.

After that I logged into the game while making dinner and redeemed my space programs and tried to learn the way the new fed works. They have different OP requirements and all their people go out at the same relative PR where in SG we have two levels. I then started the waiting game to DP expiration.

I finally had to go out because I had to get to sleep and all the fed mates were leaving. Since I have the empire size that I have, there is no way I will let it come out unattended because I do not have a chance to reset. That is how our empires in SG got so large. The top empires in SG never go out unattended, it is just asking for trouble.

Anyway I got put in pretty fast and then went to bed. I got up on time this morning and got my coffee and all. Laila was a little upset with her family and their lack of cooperation in helping her take care of her father. I guess some of his sisters and brothers are fairly well off but never help when family members are in need. I am not even in the family yet and I help when I can. I just hope she gets it all ironed out because I know it is stressing her out.

Anyway after we said our prayers and all I took off for work and on the way in heard a lot of the uproar about what the city council in El Cajon did yesterday. El Cajon is a city just east of San Diego. It is known for its gang, prostitutes, drugs, and illegal aliens. With all these problems the city council in their ultimate wisdom went ahead and passed a law banning the worst think of all. You can no longer smoke in public in the city of El Cajon. Great thinking guys, I guess that will help get the crime rate down.

Well after getting to work the Navy instructors all had to go to a command function so I held a review and gave the class the transmit test. I hate giving a test to classes I did not teach the entire area too, because I know what information I put out and I know how I explain things. Anyway I gave the test and there were a few failures so the guy that taught the majority of transmitters was a little unhappy. They will retest tomorrow when I am on Jury duty.

Yup tomorrow is the big day for jury duty again. I hope it goes fast. I already know that after the Erskine case I won’t have to worry about being on a jury again. The prosecution would love me but a defense attorney will kick me pretty quick I am sure.

I have been debating on driving to the trolley station and catching the trolley down to the court house as parking down town is really terrible. I guess I could go park at City College and walk but it has been really hot and humid and the walk back to the car in the afternoon would overheat me. The traffic trying to get back home would also be a killer.

Well I guess that is about it. Lunchtime is almost over and it is time to get into teaching mode. I have to remediate the students that failed so they can pass the retest.

Well today is really starting out strange. I am here but none of the other staff or students has shown up. Since it is not my class maybe they were told to come in later or something, I don’t know.

Again I took the weekend off from blogging. Actually I took the weekend off from a few things. I did get my chores done and all of that but I really basically just rested and stayed on the couch much of the daytime and posted op and chatted at night.

I got all my stuff ironed yesterday, and I have been making a lot of progress with my infrastructure in the game.

I finally figured out how to move stuff around in my Yahoo account so I have classified users. Also for the game chat we now are using Yahoo instead of the IRC because it is more convenient and causes less lag in the game.

Well I guess the grocery store workers have voted on a contract. They were going to go out on strike. I still can’t see why baggers and cashiers need to make that much money, as that is not a career job, but so be it. That is why I will continue to buy stuff at the commissary and have given up on shopping out in town mostly.

This morning on my way to work I was listening to the radio when an interesting point was brought up. Over and over again since the Athenian’s democracies fall apart after about 200 years. As the people continues to vote for the people that will give them the most from the government funds the people grow more and more dependant and apathetic until the government is overthrown and a dictator installed. Well we are at 221 years old now, so how long will it last? When grocery store baggers get over $8.00 an hour, the time has come to stand back and wonder where we are going.

Well it is the normal start time for the day and still no staff or students are here. I wonder if there is a holiday or something I was not told about. There have already been calls from people wanting to talk to the military staff. This could get interesting. I do know the guys like to go to the gym and work out before class, and that might be where they are, but since the senior guy is on vacation they have been taking a few freedoms.

Well I guess that is about it for now. I can at least get the lab set up for the day.

Last night I got to go to bed early again, and I am really beginning to like being able to get the extra sleep. I wake up in a lot better mood and I have more energy.

Last night just as I was getting ready for bed I had the news on while brushing my teeth and all, and saw where someone had driven a car through the side of the neighborhood pizza place. It is the same pizza place whose delivery guy ripped us off last year, and that I haven’t one business with since. Anyway someone drove through the side of their place last night and it made the news so he got some free advertising.

This morning they were still talking about the illegal alien who crashed his car with his son in it and then ran off and left the son. I guess instead of calling 911 to get help, which he could have done anonymously, he called family members to pick him up, and they didn’t call for help either. The family is still all over the news saying if he had papers it wouldn’t have happened. What a load of crap that is, and I am wondering why the local news shows are even having these people on the air.

Anyway enough on that today is going to be a different day as I have no idea what I will be doing at work. I guess maintenance since I have to wait until next week to start receivers. I guess we’ll see what happens. I do know there is a bunch of preventive maintenance scheduled for this week, so guess I will help with that. Anything to keep myself busy will be good with me.

Well I found out what I would be doing. I got to jump in and teach the three equipment racks to the new class. For some reason some of the Navy guys don’t like teaching the racks. I really don’t mind because I have a few rack sea stories to tell, about things that have happened with the racks installed on the various ships I have served on, and I also read up on them a few years back and found out some interesting stuff about their capabilities so I have a lot of stuff to add to the lecture.

So that changed what could have been a very boring day into on with a little more excitement in it. It also made the morning fly by pretty fast. I love the teaching part of my job the most, especially when teaching the schematics. Labs aren’t that bad unless the equipment decides to get moody and not operate the way it should.

So I guess that is about it for today. My legs are a little heavy from standing so I am going to take it a little easy this afternoon and work on some paperwork.

Last night I was really happy to get reset early and I actually went to bed before 10:30 for some much needed sleep. I woke up at four this morning looked at the clock and went back to sleep until the alarm went off. That gave me some extra time to chat with Laila and check game stats and all.

Today the freeway was practically empty which was surprising. The neighborhood roads were a little congested as the guys with shopping carts were out rooting through people’s trash today. The recycling center still hasn’t opened, but there is already a bunch of activity in the neighborhood. I wonder if there is another one open somewhere close that I haven’t seen.

Today work should be really quiet as my class graduates and I won’t start teaching the new class until they get to receivers. I will be helping when they have labs and all. I am a little worried as they appear to be a bit behind right now and it is a big class. I guess I’ll see later today when I get a look at the schedule and see where they are at. It just seems to me they are a bit behind, but I could be wrong.

Yesterday since I aggravated my tooth and all I decided rather than to attempt to eat lunch I would use the lunch hour to gas up the car. I was traveling on fumes and figured I would catch shorter lines if I went at lunch. Anyway I got in the car and drove towards the 32nd Street gate, but when I got there it was secured to outbound traffic, because they had painted new crosswalks, speed limit and lines. I had to make a u-turn and head all the way to the back gate and then go back to 32nd Street to get to the gas station. My gauge was almost to 0 when I finally pulled in to the gas station and filled up. Then when I started to head back to the building they had opened the gate to outbound traffic and were getting ready to close it to inbound traffic. I guess it was just bad timing on my part. At least the car is full again and I probably won’t have to gas up again for a month.

When I did get home I signed on and updated my posting on UC and then fell asleep at the keyboard off and on for a while. It is nice using the IRC for chat because if someone wants to get a hold of you it has an audible alarm, so that would wake me up and I could update and go back to my nap.

I did go over 10 million planets yesterday so that was a good achievement and I have been able to attack and win even with my defensive miner ships. Judy also had a good day picking up about 100K planets too.

Well I am back. I got my class graduated and then we took care of a few equipment problems that have been plaguing one of our labs. I don’t normally work there but sometimes a new set of eyes help.

We have been having compatibility problems with some new equipment we got and it has been driving the boys crazy. Anyway I went over this morning and we were looking at some stuff when I suggested that we switch ports on the master unit and that cleared up much of our problem. After that is was just reconfiguring some stuff and we had to repair one unit that had a bad circuit card.

We then also repaired a computer terminal, so all in all it was a great day. Now lunch time has rolled around and today is MWR pizza day, but since I can’t eat pizza I will go ahead and wait until I get home so I can eat something I don’t have to chew.

I guess that is about it for now. Time to see what the next item to fix is. Since we are on a roll, might as well keep going.