The New American Digest

posted by Jean Dec 3, 2006
Note: 20 years ago

I read the title of this post and cringe.
Where was my brain the day I wrote that in my profile??

Yes, I am a welder. NO… I am not microscopic. Sheesh.
I will leave it as written in the hope that it will keep me humble.

Some folks have asked that I include some personal info on my blog, so I thought this might be a good place to start… what I do for a living.

I work for a manufacturing company in Florida. I weld… under a microscope.
The engineers also call this type of welding metal fusion. GTAW.
It isn’t like the type of welding you see done in a body shop, although I wouldn’t mind knowing how to do that too.

One department makes bellows and seals for companies that make machines that make computer chips.
However, the department I work for primarily makes bellows and seals for the aerospace industry. I take great pride in the jobs that I work on. Why?
Because most of the aerospace jobs are critical components in assemblies that can affect the life and safety of the people who use them.

Examples:

We make fuel drains for Lockheed and other customers. Needed for in-flight fueling of military jets.
We make components that are part of the pilot ejection system.
Yet another, a bellow for the PAC-3.
Fluid accumulators for NASA shuttles… they change urine into potable water.
Then, there is part of the assembly that controls the wing flaps on commercial jets.
Another assembly that is part of the fire detection system in the cargo areas of commercial jets.
One of our newest customers is a major oil rig manufacturer.

The job I work on most often is part of the system that signals when the oxygen mask drops out of the ceiling of a jet and dangles in front of your face. It’s called an air breather valve.
This bellow assembly is made of stainless steel. The parts I weld… under a microscope… are a mere .0015″ thick. The inside diameter is less than half an inch across, the outside diameter is less than one inch across. Thus… the need for the microscope. And, precision and dexterity.

The thickest material we weld is a mere .009″ thick. Other than the hardware, which might be from 1/8″ to 1/4″ thick, that gets welded to the bellows.
Did I mention that paper is about .003″ thick?

I’ve been doing this job for eleven years.

I’ve had other jobs in other areas of manufacturing, to include… metal stamping, plastic injection molding, quality control, emergency first aid (because my first college major was nursing), CNC operator for the bolt carrier for the M-16, and tester of electronic detectors.
Four different companies over a twenty-three year period.

I also spent nine years working for the local chapter of the National Safety Council.
I started as a part-time instructor (because my major ended up being education). I taught five different driver improvement classes. Oh, yeah… the ones everyone loves to attend when their license is suspended or, right after getting a traffic ticket or a DUI… and a special class for senior citizens so they can get an insurance discount.
After four years of teaching, I was hired as a department manager for traffic and occupational safety. I got to hire and train other instructors, among a gazillion other things.

I’ve also waitressed, tended bar, worked at a country club and… one year of subbing at a high school. The one job in my life that I liked the least?
I wrote obituaries for the local newspaper.
It wasn’t the job itself that I disliked. It was the people working at the paper. Some of the most cold-hearted and egotistical humans with whom I’ve ever had to associate.

I was working there the day the first shuttle blew up. I was on the beachside that day and witnessed it. A horrible sight. When I got to work that afternoon… a mere two hours after the tragedy… people at the paper were already making jokes! I don’t think I stayed more than another month after that.

Manufacturing has been a major component of the economy of this country… forever.
Unfortunately, that has been changing drastically.
It has been a major economic component of almost half my life.
My father was a machinist for Goodyear for 31 years. He wanted me to go to college so I wouldn’t spend my life in a factory, like he did.
I graduated from college in 1974, and still ended up in manufacturing.
I’m not sorry.

It took several years; I was formally “retired” in 2020; I collect a modest stipend but I left myself open to consulting work. My skill set is highly specialized but overall, has faded from importance in the field. Lately, however, I’ve noticed a resurgence – probably because my work is involved with fundamentals and the industry moved away … and discovered that those fundamentals were important but the talent pool had faded away in the interim.

I enjoy my work. I miss the profession. It was a hobby long before it became a profession, and it became a hobby again once I “retired”.
A hobby is an activity with negative cash flow …

I recently saw a job posting on LinkedIn. I couldn’t have written a better job description for myself: my specific specialty, remote work, pay far above and beyond what I’d ask for in my position here in Idaho (but in line with the last corporate job I held), small start-up, interesting ideas.

Keep in mind many if not most job postings on LinkedIn are … shall we say … suitable for questioning.

I pulled out my resume. I looked at it, I thought of the “cost” of returning to the formal work world. 60-80 hour work weeks, air travel between Boise and San Jose, corporate meetings, dressing the part … dealing with California.

I swore to myself long ago I wouldn’t work for a start-up unless I was a principal – my name on the corporate papers.
They pay me thousands so they can make millions off my work.
I put my resume back into its folder.

But funny thing – as I write this, I look again at the posting, I look again at my resume … and I ask myself “Should I submit it just to see what happens?“; let them tell me No?
What do I do if they say Yes?

That kind of income would certainly help build resources for the coming “adventures”. I sure do enjoy the work. I’ve got patents in the field. I’ve done the Silicon Valley start-ups before. And … I’m in my 70s and don’t really have the desire to work 10 hour days for a mid-30s boss.

Stay tuned. Wishy-washy is my middle name.

*

I delayed posting this until the wishy-washy faded away.
I did not submit my resume … I’m now officially a “has-been; once-was” in my own mind.
It was a good run, ended sooner than I expected.

But gives me time for a new adventure.
Doing what ghost does … sort of … in miniature.

submitted by ghostsniper via Comments

I have a teeny story about this I’ll relate at the bottom.

Henry Gross, a tremendous vocalist
“Simone” from 1973.

Simone though I know
How you’ve tried not to show
That you’ll leave me on my own some day
Here in my heart I can say

Simone we’ve begun
And darling you’re the one
I’ve been saying up these words to say
All my life, for today

Oh my darlin’, come and heal me
‘Cause I need to be your loving man
Oh my darling can you feel me
‘Said I’m giving you the best I can
Oh darling, take my hand

Simone I believe
In a while you will see
How very fine our love can be
Come build your dreams, next to me

Oh my darling, come and heal me
‘Cause I need to be your loving man
Oh my darling can you feel me
‘Said I’m giving you the best I can

==================

It was a Friday night and I didn’t have a date so I was driving around in my 66 Mustang convertible with the top down and the radio playing. There was a 6 pak of Bud on the seat and I was throwing the empties over my head and I was 18 years old.

The radio just played Henry Gross’s “SkinKing” song, which I never heard before but liked it, and then they came on with the question, “Who was the singer on the song “Nantucket Sleigh Ride”?*, which I happened to know. If you were the 3rd person to call in with the correct answer you’d win Henry Gross’s “Yellow” album.

I was driving down Highway 41 and was passing the Villa’s and lo and behold there was a phone booth out in the middle of know where. I dropped that dime and was the 3rd caller and got the answer correct. 53 years later I still have that album.

*BTW: Lesley West, Mountain.

Hate to say it …

Hate even more it’s necessary …

It ain’t “politically correct” …

Which usually means it IS correct …

Here goes …
Don’t even need to guess …

NEVER, EVER trust a black woman you don’t know … and maybe not even then.

A special cup was no longer available.
Which seems to be sufficient justification for such activity.

A shop in Salt Lake City, Monday this past week:

There was more damage outside the shop.

There are two words a white man is not allowed to use: Both apply in this case.
That thing was arrested shortly thereafter.

Ol’ Remus and Scott Adams :
“Don’t be there“
“Don’t be near them“

Need to cull the herd.

submitted by illinoisbeekeeper via email

Best shot I have from the observation point
second runaway ramp visible
several million cu yds of rock moved in the building of I-70

From a highway marker at 38° 56.025′ N, 110° 28.347′ W

They call it the San Rafael Reef, a 30-mile-long stone barrier, a sawtooth ridge at the eastern edge of nowhere. For centuries, only the most intrepid travelers found their way through its narrow slot canyons and on to the Green River crossing. The early Spanish explorers detoured 20 miles north to avoid the forbidding wall. In 1883 the Denver and Rio Grand Railroad also avoided breaching the Reef, laying track just east of its sheer walls, north to Salt Lake City. In 1957 the decision was made to increase the nation’s interstate highway system and I-70 was engineered to bisect the San Rafael Swell. Here, at Spotted Wolf Canyon, workers could stand and touch both walls of the canyon before construction began in October 1967. Engineers and surveyors used body harnesses and ropes to work as high as 400 feet above the canyon floor. Crews excavated 3.5 million cubic yards of rock from the area at a cost of $4.5 million for eight miles of road. On November 5, 1970, the Utah Department of Transportation opened the 70-mile section from Fremont Junction to Green River for two-lane traffic. Two more lanes were added in the mid-1980s.

The two lanes were added later but until they built the other two lanes, a large road cut, visible for miles, sat with no road through it.

DT:
A long time ago when I travelled quite a bit between the eastern Sierra and the West Slope, I-70 was still essentially a 2-lane highway with no services between Green River and Salina where 70 ended at a pile of dirt at the Salina exit (as US50 west from there), a bit over 100 miles. My travel eccentricities caused me to “camp” off the road a bit and – as a “normal” 2-lane road, I could find a place to pull off and head out into the dirt a half-mile or so and crash for the night.

Can’t do that anymore – I-70 became civilized with fences, limited access, rest areas, and paved parking. But that 100-miles of road is still one of my favorite stretches of Interstate in the country; far different than the eastern end (in Baltimore).

I-70 now is complete and heads south from Salina, essentially nullifying US89 between Salina and Sevier, to end at I-15 at Cave Fort. US50 still splits off from I-70 at Salina heading west across Nevada to its end at I-80 in Sacramento.