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I think it may not all be GE making the decision. Government over the last 10-20 years have made it hard for companies to operate at an efficient level. I know for me it has been some tough decisions, you want to give your employees every bit of incentive you can but then regulation gets more expensive to the point where you have to make a decision of still making a profit and outsource or eventually loose everything slowly. Not saying this is what happened but I'm sure it was part of the reason. Look at home depot and every other company when they were told all full time employees had to have company healthcare plan available. They cut many people down to 28 hours a week to avoid it. I'm sure some did it because they didn't want to pay but at the same time that would have put many out of business. All of them made the smart financial decision but now those part timers tgat were working 36-40 hours are now taking home a lot less money. It's tough anymore to run a business and make money. That and every aspect of the US is buying foreign junk which I am sure is not helping GE in the big picture.
 
I had a busy day...after the kids were washed and dressed around 9am we stained the trim for my screened-in porch (or, I stained it while my daughter chalked up the driveway and my son sat in his Bumbo chair and tried to eat some big plastic blocks). While the stain dried my daughter and I removed the old trim and screen. This is the last wall left to do, then the "re-screening the porch project" is done!

I had my daughter carry a box for the old nails. I'd toss them down to her after I yanked them out, and most of them she lost under the leaves but a few she tracked down. She scolded each one for being bad and put it in "nail jail."

Then my wife took the kids to the park which freed me up to install the new screens at a faster pace, and I tacked on as much of the newly painted trim as I could before they got back, which wasn't much unfortunately.

It felt late in the day when they got back but it was actually only about 3:15, so I had my daughter help me throw out all the old screen and trim, then I had her watch from a safe distance while I climbed up the big tree in our back yard and sawed off a couple branches that hang over the house.

I did it all without power tools, felt good. I copied some of the techniques I'd seen professional tree-trimming people using in my neighbor's yard last year, like dangling my saw from a long piece of rope attached to my belt loop, and tying the branch I was cutting to another higher-up branch so it didn't fall onto the house when I cut it. Everything worked exactly like how I envisioned so I was really happy.

I gave her her first tree-climbing lesson too.

Then my daughter helped me cut up the thick part of the branches for firewood (she stood on one end to help stabilize while I sawed the other end) and she watched me dispose of the thinner leafier end (she thought the sight of me dragging it to the stick pile was just hilarious for some reason) and then she got a wheelbarrow ride before we went in so I could cook dinner.
 
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Flyover, it's great that you are involving your daughter in the repairs and yardwork. I have fond memories of helping my father with projects around the house and yard. Even when I wasn't actually able to help he made me feel like I was. LOL.
 
zannej said:
Flyover, it's great that you are involving your daughter in the repairs and yardwork. I have fond memories of helping my father with projects around the house and yard. Even when I wasn't actually able to help he made me feel like I was. LOL.
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Thanks. I figure there are a few good reasons to keep her involved:

1. Keeps her out of my wife's hair while my wife is busy with the baby and other stuff.

2. I want her to have the skills and interest to do some of this stuff on her own when she's old enough (in about 8-10 years) so I can be freed up to work on other projects. (Why have kids if you're not getting free labor out of them??)

3. I don't want her to grow up and be clueless about handywork or shy away from tools, even if she marries a guy who's real into DIY anyway. Self-sufficiency is something I value and try to instill in my family when I can.
 
Flyover said:
Thanks. I figure there are a few good reasons to keep her involved:

1. Keeps her out of my wife's hair while my wife is busy with the baby and other stuff.

2. I want her to have the skills and interest to do some of this stuff on her own when she's old enough (in about 8-10 years) so I can be freed up to work on other projects. (Why have kids if you're not getting free labor out of them??)

3. I don't want her to grow up and be clueless about handywork or shy away from tools, even if she marries a guy who's real into DIY anyway. Self-sufficiency is something I value and try to instill in my family when I can.
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LOL. It worked out for my father. I helped him put up fences and do a lot of stuff around the farm. I wish we'd been able to work on more projects together.
The last time I saw him before he died was when I was showing him some work I was doing to fix up my bathroom-- I was chiseling out the rotted substrate and painting the scraped up wall.
Being able to fix things and use tools does come in handy. Even something as simple as knowing how to cut off and cap PVC lines outside was helpful. I wouldn't be able to have running water for the cows' water trough if I hadn't known how to do that-- and I've met people who think doing those things is so incredibly hard when it really isn't. Or things like snaking a drain-- not that hard. I need to work on my arm and hand strength though-- had to get a friend to help me un-jam the garbage disposal, but I did manage to get most of the glass (at least the bits large enough to cause it to bind up) out. I had to un-jam my grandmother's garbage disposal before-- mostly her problem was she had a bunch of tomato skins stuck to the blades and I had to pull them out and throw them in the trash. Not being afraid to get my hands dirty has helped.

Meanwhile, I made the mistake of looking on Facebook this morning and seeing people losing their minds about gun control and the shootings in Las Vegas. Early news this morning said 50 dead and 200 injured. Some online reports said 400 injured. There were different accounts about the number of suspects. TV news said there was a surviving female accomplice/suspect. Online said it was a solo act and that the perp may have shot himself as police got closer (but they are unsure of who fired the fatal shot). Said they found about 10 guns in his hotel room. So, cue all the people claiming that this wouldn't have happened if we banned guns. I had to stop myself from making an irreverent joke about it being the country music that caused it. I saw a few people blaming ISIS. Jerkwads misusing guns to murder people (particularly in senseless killings like this) is one of my pet peeves. And of course, the liberal newsmedia will probably not report anything if it turns out that the guy had the guns illegally.
 
My personal crackpot conspiracy theory of the day: criminologists know that mass shooters are largely inspired by media coverage of mass shootings. But ammo manufacturers know that media coverage of mass shootings always sparks calls for gun control, which inspires gun owners to rush out and stock up ammo because they think it's about to be banned. So who do journalists listen to, the criminologists or the ammo manufacturers?
 
I called DirecTV today to ask why I no longer get free Pandora. A very rude gal from India, with a very thick accent, asked me to verify the phone number on my account. I gave her our two cell numbers and my house number and told her it was one of the three. She said before she could help me, I had to tell her which number was on the account. We went round and round for about a minute, until I got pissed and said I could not understand her, and asked to speak to someone from the United States. She said, "I speak good English" and no, she would not transfer me. She then said that with my DVR, I never received Pandora. Since I was just listening to it last weekend, I told her that she was incorrect. She insisted that I never had Pandora, because the box I have was not compatible. Well, that was it for me. I told her as a result of her rudeness, I wanted to be connected to the cancellation department. After a 10 minute wait, a guy from Texas was very nice and told me that the gal I was speaking to was incorrect, and would fix my problem immediately. Well, I filed a complaint on this beotch, and hopefully she will no longer have a job because it is their policy that once you ask for a specialist from the USA, they are required to transfer me immediately.
 
I hate every sort of cable, dish company. They will do anything to keep you as a customer but treat you like crap while you are a customer. I hate that they all raise prices every year and expect you not to care or notice.
 
Yeah, and they offer all sorts of incentives to get people to sign up for their services and have cool perks for brand new customers, but longtime customers get zip-- except prices going up.

And the service has become less reliable over time. Signal goes out more often than it used to. I've had Dishnetwork since 2002. Tech support went from being in USA to being in India.

Havasu, I think a lot of the phone jockeys from New Delhi don't even understand the customers half the time and they are given scripts and things they are supposed to ask or say and if anything is off script, they don't know what to do. I had that problem with Hughesnet when I was stuck with them. It took me about 2 hours to explain to the woman that I needed to order a new modem because mine was fried-- I saw smoke come out of it, it would not come on, I tried all the troubleshooting methods, etc. She refused to let me speak to a manager or escalate. One time, when I was trying to explain to a phone jockey that what he was telling me to click on wasn't on the screen (he kept telling me to click on "the little man" and refused to accept that it wasn't there-- my modem had unregistered itself and didn't have the full diagnostics). I kept asking him to tell me the direct url in the modem so I could get to where I needed to go. He actually yelled at me. I told him I was filing a complaint, hung up, called and got someone else. I kept getting conflicting advice/suggestions from tech support. I eventually had to drive to McDonalds with my laptop and go to the dslreports forums to get help and fixed it myself. I have a very looooong negative review detailing the 10-year nightmare I had with those idiots over on dslreports. LOL.

In other news, yet another pet peeve of mine came about: People lying to the cops to frame/set someone up. So, some of my friends live in this slum of a trailer park and the landlady is a lying, cheating witch. A couple friends of mine moved in to the trailer next to the animal murderer (who still hasn't been arrested). Anyway, the landlady initially thought the guys were just friends but then she found out they were gay and dating one another. So she started trying to dick them around on rent-- saying they owed more than they did and was generally being a jerk. She wanted to kick them out, but didn't have any legal grounds to do so. They paid rent on time, didn't violate any of the rules, etc. Now, in the past when she had tenants she didn't like and wanted out, their trailers would mysteriously burn down-- happened numerous times. Anyway, while my friends (we'll call them P and J) were not home-- someone set the trailer on fire. J was asleep over at his grandparent's house and P was on his way to pick him up. They were both at the grandparent's house when they were called and told about the fire. Neither one of them was close enough to have started the fire. Anyway, miserable B of a landlady tells the cops all sorts of BS. Said J had keyed her car and she got the animal murderer to lie and claim that J tried to burn his (the animal murderer's) trailer-- but there was never a police report filed. Police picked up P and interrogated him and tried to bully him in to saying J did it. He refused and gave J an alibi. Then with zero evidence, they arrested J and splashed it all over their FB page that he's an arsonist. Two of the kickers: they have proof that the animal murderer killed people's pets and did nothing but they never charged him; and there is a convicted arsonist living in the same trailer park that they didn't even think to question. I'm afraid my friend is going to get railroaded and people will only focus on him being gay. He's never committed any act of arson before and he had no reason to burn the trailer.
 
My screened-in porch is asking for more trim than I had stained. I kept buying more and staining it, thinking "This oughtta be enough" but it was never enough. I can't believe I went through ≈280 linear feet of that stuff and the porch still isn't done!

Well, another bundle of wood lathe is sitting in my garage awaiting stain. This time I know I've got enough trim. I just don't have enough time!
 
Tonight I was coming home, it's a dark wet miserable night. Out of nowhere a deer was in front of me. I almost got the car stopped before I bumped here off her feet. As fast as she went down she was back up and walked around to my side of the car like she wanted to say something. I was flashing my lights at the oncoming car. That didn't help. that driver almost got his car stopped before bumping her off her feet and she was up and gone. No damage to either car. That really isn't the best place for a deer crossing.:hide:
 
nealtw said:
Tonight I was coming home, it's a dark wet miserable night. Out of nowhere a deer was in front of me. I almost got the car stopped before I bumped here off her feet. As fast as she went down she was back up and walked around to my side of the car like she wanted to say something. I was flashing my lights at the oncoming car. That didn't help. that driver almost got his car stopped before bumping her off her feet and she was up and gone. No damage to either car. That really isn't the best place for a deer crossing.:hide:
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You are lucky your car did not get crunched.
one morning around 5am I was driving in white out conditions
over the Uncompahgre Divide
in the middle of the road was a huge bull elk, I stopped and flashed my lights
he dropped his head and challenged me.
I backed up, he walked back and forth pawing the ground and snorting at me

finally after 5 minutes he walked off
 
nealtw said:
Tonight I was coming home, it's a dark wet miserable night. Out of nowhere a deer was in front of me. I almost got the car stopped before I bumped here off her feet. As fast as she went down she was back up and walked around to my side of the car like she wanted to say something. I was flashing my lights at the oncoming car. That didn't help. that driver almost got his car stopped before bumping her off her feet and she was up and gone. No damage to either car. That really isn't the best place for a deer crossing.:hide:
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They are just getting ready for the rut here. We have to both scan the road ahead as they are jumping out everywhere. Just when you think you are safe and are in the city one will run out between two houses. They are everyplace now.

I’m used to her yelling deer and I’m on the binders so the other night she yells bear. Sure enough if I wouldn’t have stopped we would have nailed a black bear. That is pretty rare to see. We know the bear has been around because the one neighbors bird feeder gets hit every night. I keep telling him to take it down but he keeps filling it up and putting it back together.

The strangest run in with a white tail I had was seeing two run out and stopping and waiting for them to cross and then the big buck comes flying out of the woods and runs head on into my drivers door of the truck. I told the adjuster a deer hit me and he said you mean you hit a deer. I said no a deer hit me.

Good thing you didn’t have any damage Neal. Everyone keep their eyes open for them it is the season.
 
Once while in a patrol unit at work, a 400 pound black bear hit the side of my car. My boss also said, "you hit a bear" and I fought with him until I showed him the $3000 damage to the right side of my police unit, that started at the front passenger door, and all the way to the back of the car. The bear ran off, and appeared to not even phase the old guy.
 
Our four legged building inspectors wouldn't be a 100 lbs . But the can make a mess out of a car when they get hit at speed.
 
finally came to the realisation i am getting old.
what triggered this epiphany?
I passed a group of young thangs washing cars in shorts and skimpy tops
And I checked out the mom
 
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