Arrgh!

OK, obviously I’ve pissed off the universe today.

I had a post finished, and my Internet connection dropped out.

I went back to writing while I waited for the connection to come back up.

Some friends called, they were cleaning a Ruger Mk III 22cal pistol. They’d taken it apart and couldn’t get it back together properly. The slide kept jamming. This is a common problem with this particular weapon, like most weapons there’s a trick to reassembling it correctly – and the Ruger is a bigger pain in the ass than most, it's like German engineering, or rather over-engineering. (Update, Note: just to be clear, Ruger is an American weapon). I hate Rugers, they're fine weapons, don’t get me wrong, but it’s like working on a BMW – you’ve got to be a humpbacked four-armed, left-handed, googly-eyed midget to work on the damned thing. Also it helps if you know how to swear in German. You have to point the barrel down while inserting the main spring, then flip the weapon over so the barrel points up and the hammer lever drops into the pivot slot on mainspring lever. Only then can you tension the spring and close the housing. If you don’t do this correctly, the hammer is forced up into the firing position and doesn’t retract, which means the slide jams against it. This process sounds easy, and it is, but it’s not something you can talk somebody through on the phone. So I had them come over and showed them how to properly disassemble and reassemble the weapon. If it seems odd that they didn’t know how to take apart their own weapon, well, it’s a 22cal Ruger. A weapon like that gets cleaned about once a decade, usually (unless you’re anal retentive about it like I am and clean them after every firing. A clean weapon is a happy weapon. Just sayin’).

OK great, got that done. Just as I was heading inside to check the Internet connection, the power went out.

It came back on after five minutes.

I wasn’t worried, both my word processor and blog editor are set to back up every couple of minutes.

Except, of course, they didn’t.

I lost the entire blog post and 2000 words of the novel. Goddamn it all to hell.

Also did I mention that this week is spring break? No? Well it is. So the 12-year old is under foot all day, which is why you’re not getting anything deep, blogging wise.

And now the Internet is back up and I’ve got nothing for you, deep or otherwise.

So, here have some ShopKat:

[Note the visual pun: Copy Cat, hardee har har]

Apparently the paper towels gave her some attitude, ShopKat doesn’t take that kind of shit lying down. Certainly the paper towels will think twice about offending her again. Oh, yes, they will.

Before you ask, yes that’s her box. It’s full of old towels and it sits on the work bench next to my carving station. Because otherwise we have issues over who owns that chair. Once I put the box on the workbench, she stopped trying to kick me out of my chair, and if you don’t think a two pound cat can kick a 180 pound combat veteran out of his own chair, you’d be wrong, wrong, wrong, I direct your attention to the aforementioned paper towels.

Hence the box. Now everybody is happy.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to figure out why the backup didn’t work and recreate ten pages of novel.

Keep On Tryin’

I'm doing some updates and maintenance to my network systems, so I'm going to be offline for a bit.

Oh stop your whining, it won't be long. An hour or so. Or two. Or three.

Maybe.

Well, OK. There is the remote possibility that I will suffer a catastrophic meltdown, since some of the installations I’m doing are Microsoft betas.

Yes, I know.

No, I haven’t gone soft in the head.

I’m interested in a number of their “Live” series products and I want to take a look at them – especially the upgraded Live Writer Beta which will allow a Twitter plug-in that automatically tweets blog entries (and if you don’t know what that means, don’t feel bad, neither do I). This is in addition to a couple of other updates and some maintenance that I’ve been putting off (you really, really, need to shut down every once in a while and blow the cat hair and dust bunnies out of the cooling system. Really).

I'm also having some equipment problems in the shop that I have to deal with while network systems update. I'll blog about those later - just in case there's anybody out there who needs to know how to fix a jammed Shopsmith MKIV idler/control sheave assembly (hint, penetrating oil, wooden wedges, and a mallet).

However, in the meantime, have some Bones.

Most TV I can take or leave, but Tuesday nights are shaping up, intelligent entertainment wise. I’m a fan of the new TNT series, Leverage. Intelligent and funny – it reminds me in spirit of the old Mission Impossible series (not those horrendously bad Tom Cruise movies). If you haven’t seen it, and you like intelligent, funny, and thoughtful entertainment from a terrific ensemble cast headed by Timothy Hutton, then you should check it out. The writing is terrific and John Rogers has done a great job with this show, which sort of makes up for Cat Women. (Sorry, John, you rock and Kung Fu Monkey is on my daily must read list – but, seriously man, Cat Woman. Ack.) John talks about the writing of last night’s episode here.

Following Leverage, comes one of my favorite shows ever, Bones. I love nearly everything about this show – but especially the interplay between Bones and Booth. Then, last night during an extended scene the soundtrack was Keep on Trying by Poco. Now, I’m not a big Poco fan – especially the current version – but, hey, you can’t argue with the talent in the band’s original line-up: Richie Furay (Buffalo Springfield), Jim Messina (Buffalo Springfield, Loggins and Messina), Randy Meisner (The Eagles), Tim Schmit (The Eagles), and George Grantham. The harmony in Keep on Trying is terrific – late 60’s Rock and Country fusion, which is, of course, what Poco was known for. The video is a montage of clips from Bones, and if you haven’t seen the the show, you probably ought to:

Following Bones is Without A Trace. Which I also like, though I sometimes think it takes itself way too seriously, but still it’s pretty damned good.

Well, anyway. So far the upgrades are installing fine. Things are looking pretty good for a Microsoft installation – and in fact I’m writing this under Live Writer (haven’t installed the new plug-ins yet). Two of the computers are cleaned out, and I’m about to head out to the shop to blow the goo out of the keyboards with the air compressor. This machine is pestering me for a reboot, so that’s next.

Back in a bit.

Definitions

You know, some songs just define a generation.

It's different for everybody, I suppose.

But I hear this, and I'm instantly back in 1967, surrounded by long haired Hippies, bell bottoms, Vietnam, the civil rights movement, and some truly great music (yes, yes, some truly horrific music too - not nearly has horrific as what would come in the '70s though and I'm not just talking about Billy Don't Be a Hero, but Disco is a totally separate post, on another blog, far far away from here).




Originally written by Darby Slick of Great Society, Somebody to Love was performed by the band around the San Fransisco Bay Area throughout 1966. Great Society included Darby's sister in law, Grace Slick who sang vocals and played piano. The song didn't get much notice outside of the hippie club scene and would most likely have faded away in a cloud of pot smoke along with Great Society, except Grace departed the band in 1967 (and departed Darby's brother too) and joined Jefferson Airplane - and she took the song with her, along with her own tune, White Rabbit.

Somebody to love became Jefferson Airplane's first big hit, charting at #5 on Billboard's Hot 100.

Frankly I can't think of a single song from the 70's, 80's, or 90's that transports me back in time the way this tune does. And I'm not sure the new century even has music anymore - I suspect the kids nowadays just pipe psuedo-randomly modulated microwave energy directly into their brainstems from their iPods. Really. I suppose I think of the 70's when I hear anything by the (shudder) Bee Gees - in a Hey! Wasn't I getting a root canal when this song came out sort of way - I can't listen to that falsetto crap, I turn the radio down, not up the way I do with 60s tunes. I hated the 70s, really, especially the music - well that and paisley.

I think that officially makes me old.

But you know what? I officially don't care.


So, what songs define a decade for you?

Big Damn Science

As I'm sure most of you know, we're big on the cutting edge sciences here at Stonekettle Station.

Especially Plasma Physics.

With all the hoopla surrounding the Large Hadron Collider , the Stonekettle Station Research Division wanted to do our part for the advancement of entertainment science - you know before those crazy Swiss bastards cross the streams and the world ends in a 12" ball of compressed degenerate matter orbiting near light-speed somewhere north of the chocolaty new singularity that used to be Switzerland.

Now, despite the enormous capability of the LHC and it's Bush-like potential for world ending catastrophic failure, it can't do everything. Like Rush Limbaugh's ego, it's just too damned big. It's a little known fact that originally, the LHC was created by scientists out of spare stereo parts in order to warm a cup of Top Ramen noodles to the temperature of the Solar corona, but those little Styrofoam cups kept exploding with great big Bangs - eliciting shouts of "Oh God!" and fits of giggles from the hungover post-grads (In fact, LHC originally was an acronym for "Look! Holy Crap!" Fact, you can look it up.)

And that's how all great scientific discoveries are made, by accident - usually food related.

CERN purchased a smaller microwave oven for the research staff and turned the LHC towards the hunt for the so called "Oh God!" particle.

Unfortunately, like the rumored Alaska State Quarter, the God particle as never actually been seen by man and in fact may not even exist. The hunt for it is all consuming and leaves CERN scientists little time for pursuing other less famous and even more elusive particles such as the "One Missing Sock" particle, the "Iraqi WMD" particle, or the highly theoretical "George W. Bush's Brain" particle.

And that's where we at Stonekettle Station come in.

About eight months ago we set out to acquire our very own high definition plasma-based electron supercollider. And as every particle physicist can tell you, the best place to find such cutting edge, advanced entertainment research technology is COSTCO. There was some dispute between the scientists and the accounting department regarding the best base technology, plasma projection or LCD - the research assistant didn't care, just as long as it was "Playstation compatible with minimal lag time and big honking speakers." Eventually we settled on a Mitsubishi Plasma DLP wide-screen in the 40gigawatt range with like a bizillion different kinds of input and an gargantuan, multifunction, super technical remote control (seriously, the manual for the remote was the size of the LA Yellowpages and came in four incomprehensible languages, including Engrish, so you know it's good science).

After some initial configuration issues, we brought the monster on-line seventeen months ago and have been smashing electrons into a non-reflective charged 67" wide screen and conducting advanced research across a broad spectrum of digital cable and HD DVD's ever since.

So, for the last year, things have been good - no sign of that GWB Brain particle though and we believe that it may not be a particle at all, but rather a "collapsed wave function." We did however find two missing socks and a catnip mouse when we moved the older tube-based electronic collider to make room for the new machine.

Unfortunately, Monday, we accidentally generated a black hole, a big rectangular one.

There was much screaming, crying, and general waving of the arms in an aimless Nancy Pelosi like fashion - we had intended to to conduct a thorough review of last season's Heroes in preparation for the upcoming new season's research and the failure of our equipment threw the entire lab schedule into disarray. Besides, Monday night Alton Brown was doing a review of the physics behind beer and we missed it. This vexed us mightily.

Eventually after much rigorous testing (which consisted mostly of my wife looking for the manual, and me whacking the side of the device and cursing), we determined that the main mercury-sodium plasma-electron projector (i.e. the "Lamp") had failed or what we in the applied technical sciences refer to as "shit the bed."

After much consternation upon discovering that a replacement lamp cost several million dollars (OK, $200 plus S&H, but still), the accounting department remembered that we had gotten COSTCO's automatic 2-year warranty extension. We contacted COSTCO "Concierge Service" (which I guess, is the fancy way of saying "service department," but then again "concierge" lends an international flavor to the process and that can't be bad). They talked us through some highly rigorous diagnostics, i.e. unplug the TV, now plug it back in, and try to turn it on. The diagnostics confirmed the lamp failure.

COSTCO then promised us a replacement unit via 2-day UPS Air, which arrived right on schedule yesterday.

The replacement unit contained directions and many, many dire warnings about mercury poisoning and high voltage electricity which I mostly just ignored. I unscrewed the access panel on the back of the unit -which contained even more dire and horrific warnings about mercury, high voltage, user serviceable parts, bright lights, gremlins, particle beams, black holes, and animal dander - popped out the old module and inserted the new one.

No joy.

Seems you actually have to put the cover back on before powering up the particle accelerator, there's a safety lock out. Don't want an undergrad accidently leaving a LEGOS Star Wars storm trooper in there, or you know, one of the research animals). Not wanting to endanger the genetic future of everybody in a hundred mile radius, I reattached the cover and fired that sucker up.

The lights dimmed. Two nuclear cores at the Palmer Atomic Power Plant and Bakery came online under emergency startup, oil prices rose, and the resulting photonic barrage of excited electrons blinded the Hubble Space Telescope and disrupted weather patterns from here to Nome. Over head, the aurora flamed and roared.

It was, as they say, a thing of beauty.

So, after a four day hiatus, Stonekettle Station high definition plasma research is back in business, riding the razor sharp edge of particle physics and bringing us all one step closer to the heat death of the universe and the third season of Heroes in digital HiDef.

You can thank me later, if we're not all eaten by black holes first.

______________________________________

All of which is a fancy way of saying that since I didn't have anything else to blog about today, I talked about my stupid TV set.

One thing, COSTCO Concierge Service was just plain outstanding. Prompt, courteous, knowledgeable, and aggressive about living up to their obligation. I've rarely been so impressed by customer service. After we contacted them initially, they assigned a dedicated technician to our problem, gave us a direct access phone number, ordered the part, and called back the next day to confirm that the part was on its way via the most expedited method possible and to give me a tracking number. They asked if I was comfortable performing the replacement swap-out myself or if I would prefer a service technician to come to my house and take care of it. Once I confirmed that I felt fully qualified to open the set and change what was essentially a big damn light-bulb, they provided me with a complete set of directions and a toll free number to call if I needed real-time assistance during the process. They also provided return postage for the failed unit. And they just called back here about ten minutes ago to confirm that I had received the part and that everything was working properly.

And that, folks, is how you do customer service. Outstanding COSTCO, and thanks, you've got yourself a dedicated customer.