Stick to the Script.

If you want to amuse yourself sometime, pick up a call that you know is a telemarketer. One of their first questions is to verify your name and where you live. When they ask, throw them off their script by asking questions of your own.
What is your name and how do you spell [...]

Interview with the Ranter.

DM sent a few interview questions my way and this is my response.   It kind of felt like homework but was fun too.
#1  Imagine you are 85 years old- your mind is strong , but your body is weak.  You are looking back over your life…what are 5 goals you would like to have accomplished [...]

Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams Pt. 2

When I started working for the Dept. of Defense out of college, I met up with a man who would be my boss for many years.  He was an engineer’s engineer.  Always tinkering with stuff at home and trying out new products and how they could best fit into his work.  He purchased an Amiga [...]

Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams Pt. 1

I just finished reading the book The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch; I know, it’s been out for a while, but I’m slow.  In it, Pausch tells an audience from Carnegie Mellon University, where he is a professor,  that he has terminal cancer and goes on to recount his childhood and how he dreamed of [...]

Is Rick Sanchez the New Dan Rather?

Yesterday, Rush Limbaugh was removed from his interest to become a part owner of the St. Louis Rams.  It seems as if he was becoming a distraction to the process of buying the team.  Now if you listen to Rush on any regular basis, you’ll know that he’s the NFL’s biggest fan.  With an audience [...]

Purell, H1N1 and OCD

When working for the Department of Defense, we used to have a saying.  Crisis creates cash.  Whenever we needed funding for a project, we’d have to convince an Admiral or General that such and such a device would save lives.  While I worked in a navigation lab, we convinced the Pentagon to fund putting GPS [...]

Ranter Takes a Vacation

As many of you fine readers of this blog know, I wanted to take a vacation this summer for the first time in, well a long time.  The summer started and between different kid summer jobs, summer school, swimming lessons, friend visits etc. we managed to fit a few days in to take a vacation.
We [...]

Sabotage

At one of the power generation sites here on the west coast, an investigation is taking place.  Now this location has hyper security requirements and it seems that a couple of loose bolts were found at the bottom of an electrical cabinet.  When this was discovered, the place went into lock down and the interrogations [...]

Am I an Antique?

So here’s some random thoughts from the week.
We will have had two graduations in as many weeks.
Our two baby chicks got eaten by something.
It was painful to see my youngest daughter sad over that.
I went to an antique mall for the first time in my life.  This place was huge and it took over an [...]

Positively Parallel Parking

A few weeks ago I was musing about bringing out the best in your kid by focusing on what they do well instead of what they do poorly.  This week it hit me that I need to speak in a more positive way to them.
After spending an hour with my oldest daughter practicing parallel parking, [...]