We have such great neighbors. They are so welcoming and invite us to holiday stuff reguarly including this afternoon for some food, snacks, and company. It really means a lot since we have no family here. Do any of you idiots have neighbors you spend the holidays with?
Gave my friend's 2 kids the Arduino starter kits I picked up from Amazon... and they loved them. Super excited. Their dad had given them a couple of Raspberry Pi's, but they found them too complex and confusing. They were already saying that the Arduino was way easier to understand and they couldn't wait to start in on it. I found out that one of them was already in the robotics club at school, where they were building out a 150 lbs robot. I had no idea, but it's given me some thoughts. I've recently gotten a bit of a promotion at work and now run one of the remote offices for the company, and as a result I have a respectable budget at my disposal... so I'm going to do what I can to help sponsor the robotics club. I have no doubt that we can fly in some of our actual robotics experts to do some demos for the kids. It really is a lot of fun helping kids get excited about something.
FYI, this is some of the robotics work we're doing. In this case, it's for education specifically: https://www.fingerfoodatg.com/softbank-tethys/
We used to... There is one neighbour that would always have a big party on Christmas Eve... probably 50 people would show up. Been going on since I was in high school. It got to the point that the parents would go home and the kids would hang out and show up home hours later. As families got older, kids had kids, it dwindled in size, and eventually stopped. Then the neighbour just went batshit fucking insane, and we just wanted to see less and less of her (she lives across the court from us). We would also have a bit of a pre-Christmas party some time where we'd invite all the neighbours over for appies and drinks. Most people would show up with something for the group, some would not. It got a bit tiring doing it year after year without anyone really offering to take a turn, so we just stopped having it one year, and it hasn't happened since. We do have our next door neighbour who comes over for a backyard fire and a few beers a few nights during the holidays... we're pretty close with them, but they've got grandkids and are busy for Christmas stuff. I usually look after their cats when they go away, and vice versa. Great neighbours, but we don't do holiday stuff with them... if anything, he comes over here to take a break from holiday stuff and just hang out drinking beer in the shop.
something something robotics... arduino.... workshop.... why don't you program one of those lego sets to be a third hand and get a beverage out of the fridge then hold it for you while you work?
Oh, please. We’ll see how you crack third-rate jokes in a few years when the robots are syphoning out your body energy. The horrible, horrible robots......
Of course my drugged out aunt in law talked a big game about coming to our Christmas dinner but never showed. I’m guessing she never intended to show up. Fuck attention whores and their bullshit. If she was my aunt, I’d block her from all events.
Our day yesterday was seriously one of the most rested and unplugged days we’ve had in years. It wasn’t overwhelming or full of pressure, it was just simple and easy. I wouldn’t want to do it every year like that but it was a nice change of pace.
Yeah, it seems to me like Xmas is a lot of work most years... and sometimes it's nice to just do nothing. Probably one of my favourite Xmas vacations was during the Y2K stuff, where I couldn't fly home for Xmas because I had to be around for the world to end to see if I could help fix it. The boss felt badly so put 2 of us up at Chateau Whistler for 5 days, all expenses paid. Being able to do what you wanted, sleep until whenever you wanted, etc, without having some artificially imposed family obligation over your head, was glorious. No getting up early to drive for 2 hours to see family you barely knew and only saw once a year, and didn't like... no hours of work making or cleaning up after dinner... just doing what you wanted, and having it all done for you. It was glorious, and I'm tempted to go do it again soon.
I love the glitzy gathering Christmas years, but the quiet years are just refreshing when they happen. I think this year was just so weird with Christmas on a Wednesday and then in our personal lives us buying the house at the first of the month and then me having surgery five days later. I took an income hit and nothing really got done the way it normally would. Not the end of the world, but also not ideal.
Well this is what I get for making fun of skynet shit. Working in the yard and a drone flew over our house with a camera. The only neighbors within at least a half mile of us are family members, and none of them got drones for xmas. I had a gun on my hip but unfortunately the FAA considers drones an aircraft and it's a federal offense to shoot one down. So I decided I was gonna moon it. The moment I unzipped my pants the thing took off. Like most women in my life.
Well after 13 years as an agent for a trucking company, I’ve been let go due to “billing Issues”. Keep in mind my corporate office is the one handling billing and their aging reports go back 2+ years. What a crock.
Manufacturing has been in a recession for the past 3 quarters which directly correlates to demand for our services. Apparently the new executive VP isn’t fond of me, which is insane since I produce for them $14M in sales a year and have been with them over a decade. I don’t believe everything necessarily happens for a reason, but I do believe there are definite pros when changing jobs. I’ve been wanting to leave for years but was comfortable where I was. This will probably end up being a blessing in disguise.
I got a new shotgun. It doesn't look bad. (MSRP isn't what I paid.) A5's are hard to come by anyway, I searched everywhere and the only place that had any in stock only had the camo versions. Told them I really wanted wood, so salesman checked the back. Said he's been selling guns 15 years and that's the 2nd A5 Ultimate he's seen. A very functional piece of art. Thing will be used more than any other firearm I own except maybe the .22. **edit** I realized that as a history nerd, some people might not immediately recognize the name "Auto-5" the way I do. The interesting history behind the gun I now own: Spoiler: spoiler: it involves wars Originally brought to market in 1902 by John Browning, the Auto-5 (4 rounds in the magazine, one in the chamber) was the first ever semi-automatic shotgun produced. Meaning, it was the first shotgun produced which would automatically chamber a round without user intervention. Browning Arms was the company in charge of marketing and selling the sporting/non-military designs of John Browning, so they started selling the Auto-5, but Browning also sold his design to Remington, which produced it as the Model 11. WWI started a few years later and by then the design was so refined and effective that it was the de facto close quarters weapon. But it was produced by both Browning and Remington, same looks and everything, just two different guns, the Remington Model 11 and the Browning Auto-5. The way it worked, the barrel was attached to the bolt, and when the gun recoiled the entire bolt and barrel assembly moved rearward by about 3 inches, ejecting the spent shell and loading a new one in the process. It was cool to see, better to hear, and horrible to be on the receiving end of. The same design -- manufactured by both Browning and Remington -- found heavy use again in WWII, with Remington bowing out of the market shortly after the war, the Auto-5 really making a name for itself in the close quarter combat of Vietnam. Browning continued sales of the exact same 1902 design until 1998. The hiatus didn't last long, because demand was so high for the shotgun that had essentially created the auto-loading market. In 2014 Browning brought it back. Same look, except this time the barrel doesn't move rearward (destroying accuracy in the process). The bolt uses a patented inertia system, basically a fancied up version of Newton's Third Law: Shell goes boom, bolt goes back and ejects spent shell, shoulder stops the recoil, bolt bounces off recoil spring in the stock and moves back into battery, bringing a new shell into the chamber with it. Simple, effective, lighter, and beats the hell out of the gas-based systems other manufacturers are using. The entire setup weighs just over 6 lbs.
Keep your head up man, you may well be right. When I was restructured out of my last job , I was pissed off beyond belief and felt an incredible sense of betrayal at the company that just fucked me over. The company had treated us beyond great for all the years I was there, but they got sold and the new investment group only cared about the bottom line, not the employees. The last act the former management was able to implement was my 6 months severance pay, for which I am extremely grateful. Anyways, I keep in touch with a few friends that are still working there. Dear God am I glad I'm not there any longer, there is no way I could deal with the way they're being treated now. So yeah, it's definitely a betrayal from a place you've worked for years, but there may be worse things in store for those still there. I'm sure you'll land on your feet. Best of luck to you.