The Drama Department : 1960’s

There was a long standing tradition of Theater in our family with my parents first meeting while playing parts in the play The Taming of the Shrew at Chico State. My Dad went on to lead the drama department to the annual Shakespeare Festival in the fall and the One Act Play tournament every spring. For such a small town Chester California had a top quality stage that saw regular use throughout the school year. The Drama Department was just as respectable as the Athletics Department back then but now it has been cut from most curriculum budgets. Maybe Glee will start to change that…

My first experience on stage was at the age of 6 in the first grade Christmas Pageant and all we had to do was walk around in a circle doing an Indian War Dance while holding our tomahawk in one hand and clapping our mouths with the other. We had plenty of rehearsals but we failed to have a full costume dress rehearsal so at show time I was surprised to find my burlap sack of a costume kept falling down around my ankles. Suddenly I had to decide which hand to use for which purpose. I was so determined that the show must go on that I had to let go of the pants every so often to perform the other acting bits. I was vaguely aware of the laughter but too young to appreciate the brief glimpse of fame.

For the Second Grade show I was happy to accept the job of opening and closing the curtain. It was a relief to work behind the scenes and it was still a big deal for a little kid to open and close that big velvet curtain. My next onstage effort was in the third grade production of Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. I was given the added responsibility of running the lights in addition to pulling the curtains. I felt like a real stage-hand and truly enjoyed the job. With two banks of lights including the house lights over the audience it felt like real power. I wanted to stay back stage for the remainder of my theatrical career but the next year I was convinced to play the Third Wise Men and had to sing We Three Kings for the Fourth Grade Holiday Show.

In the fifth grade we were assigned Frosty the Snowman for the Christmas show. We spent a couple of weeks building the Snowman Costume and I was offered the part of getting inside but for some stupid reason I turned it down and instead took simple role in the chorus. So my friend got the role and right away I had regrets and wished I had taken that part. It is true that I suffered claustrophobia and maybe I was worried about getting too hot in that big suit but the real truth is I was afraid of looking goofy.

The next year the Sixth Grade put on a production of Scrooge and I was not going to regret anything this time around and by practicing for the audition I was lucky enough to get the lead role. By then I was ready to live the part and I was good, maybe too good. I got rave reviews but after all these years I wonder if I would have been better off with the Frosty role instead of Scrooge?

Pitfalls of the Poor and Anonymous

There was an old TV show called Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous where we got all the inside scoop on that group, but why has there has never been a show about the Poor and Anonymous? It’s about time they got some representation so I am here to speak for those who didn’t get a reality show.

The basic difference between the lower class and the upper class is how they deal with ownership. Poor people don’t own much so they keep what they have while the well-off turn over their property so fast they never get attached. That sense of ownership is just enough satisfaction to keep folks from complaining. A wealthy family can own several houses but they never move all the way in while single home families take full ownership and are in no hurry to move.

The next most common pitfall for the poor people has to do with entitlement. We all see the wealthy acting entitled to the good life but we rarely notice when the poor person exercise their right to lose. The scam is getting some of the people to believe they are entitled to be poor. We don’t just accept our poverty, we embrace it and actually learn to love it. That is why there is no revolution today. We have been programmed to love the life of disadvantage we live.

Another mistake the poor people make is delegation. Rich people get others to do all their work, not just the dirty work but even the fun stuff too. Regular people have to do all their own work both at home and on the job. Poor people would rather do it themselves. Even when there is someone that can help, we often prefer to do it ourselves.

Guilt is the best example of how different the classes can be. The well to do have no guilt but everyone else has to feel bad for enjoying some basic luxury such as cable TV or a six pack of beer. Hoarding is another pitfall for the poor. I still have clothes from much too long ago…even after a house fire I still have too much old stuff. Poor people are too busy working, too tired to try harder and just plain out of energy from all that worrying.

So the solution for poor people is to stop settling for less, stop feeling guilty and start delegating your poverty to someone who can better afford to be broke. We do this by making poverty more attractive to the upper class. Somehow, someday we will find a way to make it fashionable to be poor.

Entertainment in the 1960’s

TV: Television was (and still is) king. Black and White was A-OK back then because the first color sets sucked so bad it took an extra few years before people were willing to try again. All the first generation color boxes had a kill switch that would turn it back to black and white when the flashing colors started to nauseate delicate viewers. Tuning in was a science both at the box and in the field. For every hour of viewing there was a proportional amount of time required twisting the antennae. It was the early version of “Can you hear me now?” as we called back and forth, “How does it look now?”. Every Saturday morning we were up early to watch the test pattern change into the Captain Sacto cartoon show. We were proud if we made it up late enough to see the 'Signing Off The Air' show where they showed the flag and played the national anthem at the end of the broadcasting day.

Movies: We didn’t get to see all the movies that came out but some were too big to miss. The Beatles movies, James Bond, Disney and a bunch of Westerns were generic while The Graduate, Easy Rider and The Magic Christian are specific examples of what we saw. I watched Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid followed by Bonnie & Clyde all within a year of my 8^th grade graduation. We also moved twice during that time so maybe that was when I changed. To Kill a Mockingbird was the film that moved my parents so I figured it must be good. With movies like that, one or two a year was still enough. Every year the school would take the entire student body to the theater for the Holidays where we each got a bag of goodies, mostly peanuts and oranges but still some actual candy too.

Music: The old hi-fi was in every house along with a stack of records, LP’s and 45’s. They were so common because they were affordable. Playing in the school band was required for all 9^th graders so we all learned to read music whether we liked it or not. I thought it would be cool to play the Oboe but that turned out to be a big mistake because it is not easy to play and I ended up frustrated for the year. I still managed to have fun with music after all but it was from outside the school.

Books: I was no big reader due to being cross-eyed and the glasses didn’t help enough to read more than a few minutes at a time even after my second eye surgery by the age of ten. Luckily my Mom was an avid reader and was willing to read out loud so I managed to keep up. Later I figured out how to use just one eye and after that there were many happy hours spent at the libraries: public, my school, my Mom’s school, My Dad’s school…there was an upside to having both parents being teacher.

Talking: I only include this because of the preference that people show lately for smart devices that make talking seem like something the dinosaurs used to do. People have lost their voices while they sit next to each other socializing with their thumbs. Reality is second rate today and makes the old conversations seem like lost magic. Even when we were out dragging main street in our junker cars it was only an excuse for elaborate dialogues straight out of That 70’s show.

Games: Board Games were big, but so were impromptu sports depending on the season. There were only three of us so we had a system for me switching teams but there was also a two-man rule book where each person was one man team. You had to pitch to the other guy in baseball but in football season you had to be your own quarterback and receiver. We followed the seasons with baseball all summer and then football until the lake froze over on Lake Almanor and we played hockey until the ice gave out and we started on baseball again.

Sports: In addition to the ad-hoc sports at home we did water skiing in the summer with the lake only 100 yards from our front door and snow skiing for the long winter on a regular basis. There was a weekend bus that would come and take all the kids to the local ski hill preceded by a pickup truck that would take our skis and poles. Extreme tree climbing was such a special sport it deserves a chapter of its own as well as the hunting, fishing, trapping and taxidermy.

Not Being Entertained: After all that other stuff we needed a break now and then and sometimes we had to do nothing at all in order to balance our sensibilities. Seriously, we could survive without constant reinforcement unlike today where even I have to have my phone mail fix every few minutes and I am not as bad as others I know. In the 1960’s we not only knew how to turn on, even more important; we knew how to turn off.

Global Warming Vs Ice Ages

It’s not that I don’t believe in Global Warming, it’s just that I am opposed to Ice Ages. They say the Ice was a mile deep over New York City~! I will take 30 feet more ocean over a mile of ice any day.

There are few people who deny that the earth has been through many Ice Ages and it will happen again. You would think we would appreciate this break in between but instead we are using panic to ruin the picnic. I know it is politically incorrect and possibly irresponsible to give an excuse for polluting and other bad environmental behavior. I am all for going green and doing the right thing, I just don’t want to have to wear long underwear all year long.

My real beef is with our urge to help mother nature in her natural progression between one Ice Age and the next. We want to make the clouds brighter so the sun will be reflected and we can cool the earth. It doesn’t take a Science Fiction writer to see the potential problems with this, and it again ends with a new Ice Age.

If we don’t want the sea level rising then we should shoot the moon out of the sky and do away with those pesky tides where the ocean level goes up and down not once but twice a day, we need to regulate that variation.

What would we do if we were going into an Ice Age. Would we encourage everyone to buy a big gas guzzler and drive it all night hoping to pollute our way out of the problem? If everyone held up a hair dryer would that help? I can only assume we would oppose an ice age as much as this global warming and we would also find a way to blame ourselves so we can take credit for the fix.

Why do we think we get to take credit for the problem anymore than we think we can change it back? And even if we could change it, how can we assume we should change things. What makes us conclude our reasons are smarter than the Mother Nature? When the sun finally goes supernova I am sure we will find a way to blame ourselves and then try to figure out a way to stop it.

I like to think of this contest between Ice-Age vs. Global Warming as a slow motion sports contest. Global Warming is leading but Ice Age still has plenty of time left to turn things around. I will be rooting for the Global Warming.

Civil War Story: Chapter Three - Runaways

“These workers are all free men.” I said to the Confederate Officer escorting the group of Mercenary Agents searching for runaway slaves.

“Do they have papers?” Asks the leader of the Agents trying to catch my eye but I am still addressing the Army Officer hoping he can save me the trouble.

“We worked together in Martinsburg last year. You remember us don’t you Sir?” I am looking right in his eyes hoping that he will remember me though he may not and why should he if I can’t remember his name either. I pulled my hat off in respect along with a hope that the red hair might jog his memory, or mine.

“I can vouch for this man and those are his workers. They helped us dismantle and move the railroad engines we now use out of Petersburg.” Maybe he didn’t remember my name but at least he remembered the event. What was his name again…McKinney, McDaniel, McDonald?

“Officer MacDougal” I suddenly remembered. “Thank you Sir, for remembering us and the work we’ve done for General Jackson.” The Agent man was patient but unimpressed.

“You two can vouch for each other but the original question remains and that requires papers. Well, Sir?” In spite of his previous vouching Officer MacDougal had nothing more for us as shown by his shrugged shoulders and I had to admit that our previous cooperation with regard to the engines was mostly a matter of us staying out of his way than anything else.

I knew the papers would be the only solution now but also knew from experience that those who asked for papers rarely accepted them. I took one last stab at avoiding the paperwork by pointing out to the Agent directly now, “Could any runaway slave work as hard as that?” At this the men made the dirt fly even higher in the air and some of the Agents seemed to get the point but the leader didn’t even turn to look so I proceeded to my lock box.

The lock box is four layers deep. Accessible from inside or outside the wagon, it has an iron box on the outside with a wooden box inside that and finally the leather suitcase that holds all our papers. Mostly this is track charts and contracts but in a special section are the papers we use to prove who our people are to doubters like these.

Having papers is only half of the job. Presenting them properly and giving the other fellow something in return was the only way to get this situation resolved. I dug out the papers with a bit of a show and my lead foreman Rocky instinctively pulled the canvas over our heads to protect the contents of the box. Even though there was no chance of rain he still looked up for any potential threat. “Birds…” he offered as a possible suspect.

I started with my favorite offer, “Here is my contract with the State of Maryland to operate in this area along with my Reference from the Commissioner of the Transcontinental Railroad.” It didn’t always work but some people were impressed at the official document and my obvious excitement at the idea of a railroad to California. He handed them back and held his hand out waiting for what he had requested so I swapped him for the other papers and he took several minutes looking up at the workers in between pages.

Just then I turned to see a commotion in the distance and could vaguely make out one voice shouting above the others yelling "Runaway!" At first I thought it was another reference to the workers but this was no human runaway, it was a string of loaded rail cars we had moved up to the spur track earlier to make room in the rail yard. There's Ray Smith riding his horse as fast as he can stretching to his full length to wave his hat and get our attention but there is no way he can catch the cars and also no chance the army can move all the men waiting down at the station.

We took off fast as we could to the nearest point on the track with the intention of derailing the cars before they could run into the waiting troops at the platform and the explosives sitting on the loading dock. I grabbed some tie tongs from the tool car and hooked onto a wooden crosstie and headed out with Rocky pulling on the other handle of the tongs so we could both face forward. As we got close to the track I could see Charlie heading the other way on a course that will take longer but then I remember, we just worked there the other day and the gravel is loose, easier to jam the tie down between the tracks for the best chance at preventing disaster. Good old Charlie is always thinking ahead like that.

When we get to the spot I am surprised to realize it is a rail and not a tie that Charlie was dragging but then it made more sense of course; the tie alone could snap, and the rail by itself would bend but the two together would be our best chance. I shoved the tie in, saw the rail in place and turned my back to run knowing the derelict cars were only seconds away when I look back to see Charlie swapping the tie and rail from one side to the other to force the cars away from us but I am sure he is too late as the cars disappear in a cloud of dust. One thing for sure, those cars did derail. It wasn’t until the dust cleared that we could see Charlie still standing there with a dumb grin on his face. For an uneducated pig farmer he sure does come up with some good ideas.

By the time we got turned around again it was too late, the Agents were gone along with their soldiers and all the workers. Colored, Indians, Mexican and Chinamen alike were loaded up and taken away during the commotion. I had tried to be reasonable in dealing with these Authorities but now there was no choice left except to send word for the Commissioner to come from Baltimore and make the case to get those workers free again.

Hi-Tech Series: Chapter 8: The Business of Lifecycles

There are several stages to the business lifecycle. If you search for Business Lifecycle there will be sites with 7 stages, 5 stages, 4 stages but I am here to tell you there are only three. The typical lifecycle goes from Change to Containment followed by Consolidation. Any given company may get stuck at one stage and never move on while others go through the whole cycle every year. Every company has to go through the cycle sooner or later, like taxes. Technically there are 5 stages if you include birth and death but only the other three keep recurring in a never-ending loop.

Change is the first stage of the business lifecycle. If there is no change, there is no lifecycle. Change is always the result of some disruption that caused the change. We like to use the catch phrase Change Management but it is a contradiction in terms when management is all about stability and predictability while change is not. There was a time we tried to manage the change but now we accept that Change is in charge and we never will be able to manage it.

Here are some of the telltale signs that your company is suffering Change.

• Lower Standards: It’s much easier to change if you don’t have to follow the rules.
• Increased Budget: Change always costs lots of money.
• Increased Headcount: Someone has to take the blame. There is always plenty of blame to go around during change, and who better than new hires.
• Buying other Companies: Sooner or later there has to be a good one.
• Bad News: Scandals are inevitable.
• Good News: Here comes the microscope.

After a period of Change companies must evolve into the next stage; Containment. It should be obvious that this includes layoffs, reduced budgets and all the other money saving efforts of cost containment but it goes even further where they try to contain the workers and products from leaving. When things get bad companies will do anything to contain the disruption that caused the change. Contain the bad news… contain the competition… buyout the competition.

Another branch of the Containment bureaucracy is Reorganization aka; re-org. It can go by other names; retool, retrofit, right-size and smart-staff are some of the insulting euphemisms in current use but in the end it amounts to musical chairs. It can be as simple as a name change or a complete shake down. My computer services department has been moved from the original place in the Engineering department, to the HR group, then Facilities, then Financials and finally to the current location under the Operations department.

Finally comes Consolidation. If you didn’t die then you must be stronger. Things either get back to normal or you get bought out by some other company that is in another stage of the life cycle. Consolidation brings a period of stability that can lead to productivity and worst of all profitability. That’s just the kind of thing that can start the ball rolling again. If you are lucky enough to survive all the way through the lifecycle to the Consolidation stage then you know it’s only a matter of time until the Change will start again.

Blind Deaf and Happy

It was Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg talking on TV recently so I was respectfully listening as she clearly stated that the best advice she ever heard was to sometimes be deaf. I was shocked that she agreed with that philosophy even after I heard it was from her Mother-in-Law on her wedding day and meant as a personal motto not a way to run the Supreme Court. It is true that Justice is blind, we have all seen that Statue, so maybe being deaf is also good.

After a while I cooled off and thought it over and decided she was right. We should filter everything we hear to decide if we should get mad or not. I can tell when my filter is broken and I over-react to little things and other times it is nothing but filter and I end up missing the fire drill. It is good advice with loved ones to let some things go and not hold others accountable for every little outburst. And if it makes sense for our loved ones then maybe it is good practice in general.

This advice is along the lines of turning the other cheek, so now we have to also turn a blind eye and if needed we turn a deaf ear. That’s a lot of turning of the other cheek so to speak and we can even practice turning a tasteless tongue and a numb finger if that will help to keep the peace. That leaves us with nothing but our noses to properly judge the world. There are plenty of stink jokes that will fit nicely here, please fill in the blank with your favorite: ________________________.

If we can learn to selectively turn our senses on and off at will then we should never be offended again. The trouble today is that everyone is too sensitive, always getting their feelings hurt by something that could easily be shrugged off. Come on America, show some backbone and muscle through the insults and ignorance of others. It’s all part of the game, just staple it together and call it bad weather, as Jack Johnson would say.

If someone or something offensive is about to hurt you, don’t let it land. Even if it does land don’t admit it, go blind and deaf. It’s easier than you think.

Railroad Series Chapter 6: Derailments

Derailments are the number one disaster on the lines. There are plenty of other more dramatic catastrophes such as Tunnel Fire, Bridge Collapse, Washouts and Landslides but they are rare compared to the nearly daily occurrence of falling off the track. When you get called out for a derailment you never know what to expect.

Derailments come in all sizes; sometimes just one wheel on one car is off the track and can be put back with a simple frog device. The frog is a 300lb flange that fits over the rail with a channel to guide the wheel back in place. There are two flavors of frogs; inside and outside so if more than one wheel is off you will need one of each. Other times the whole car comes off but is still upright and can be corrected with two frogs. A whole string of cars can be re-railed in this way, all that is needed is the engine to pull the cars over the frogs. There is no better feeling than watching the wheels magically jump back on the track. That is an example of an easy derailment.

Sometimes the whole train comes off the track and falls all the way over clear down in the ditch with broken rails everywhere, no easy access, and you might not get back home for a few days. They bring a special Work Train accommodated with sleeper cars and a cook car where you can get all you can eat and best of all; free cigarettes. The workers would be fed three squares during 16 hours shifts on duty and 8 hours sleep until the disaster is over. That is an example of a bad derailment.

Derailments come in all different locations. The most common place is on those little spur tracks that go into the mills and granaries along the line, where the maintenance is lax. In the railroad yards along the way there are lots of old side tracks where it is common to have simple derailments but the trains are never going very fast so not much can happen. They never work late in the yards, it can always wait until the next day. Out in the field along the line the trains go faster and the derailments are more dramatic and the repairs more urgent. Derailments also happen at all time so it was a running joke that any good weekend or holiday will be sure to get interrupted with a call from work.

When the wheels are too far away for the frog to reach but still close enough to save, then the car has to be lifted. If the car is empty or lightly loaded in can be lifted one end at a time with the Big Boom Truck. There was a little boom truck for little lifting jobs but only the Big one could lift a car. If the car is fully loaded, or for lifting an Engine the only thing that can handle the load is the Hook.

The Hook is a work train specially designed for functionality and not beauty. To look at the hook you would think the boom is too short to get any work done at all and the overall appearance is one of more wreckage rather than the solution. But that ugly monster was amazing at snatching the heaviest loads even though it was only a few inches at a time. It could take up to 20 minutes to set the blocks needed to stabilize the hook but we had to be sure, after all, we wouldn’t want it to fall off the tracks too. After all that setup the Hook would take two minutes to move the loaded car or engine another 6 to 10 inches closer and then we had to reset the blocks again.

My first derailment was also the first time I saw a worker get killed. That is the next chapter in the Railroad Series, Chapter 7: Fatalities.

You Can’t Comprehend One Million

I can’t even remember his name but I sure can remember my high school algebra teacher acting like Jack Nicholson in a Few Good Men telling us we couldn’t handle a million. He had a reputation as a “Bonehead Math” expert and his recurring theme said the human brain cannot grasp the number 1,000,000. We were ignorant 10^th graders still stupid enough to fight back with grains of salt on a table, stitches on a tablecloth and stars in the sky, but in all cases he insisted we could not look at them all at once, or count them or ever know them all individually.

That was enough to get us started in an ongoing conversation outside the classroom as each student admitted their personal limit for comprehension, many liking the number 1,000 , some less but none more than 10,000 except the stubborn few who insisted we could make it all the way to the forbidden million mark. That was how I began my journey to prove I could get to one million by first counting up from 1 (always got lost somewhere in the 5,400’s,) then down from 1,000,000 (nightmares with flying 9’s) so I finally switched to writing on a page.

I started with the notion of writing all the numbers clear to a million but it didn’t take long to see that would be too much work. That’s when I realized I only needed a million digits and started over again with just one number repeated over and over again. I first used the number zero but I could only get about 5,000 per page and it is easier to write ones which almost tripled the output to around 12,000 numbers per page but when I went to the period I was able to get 20,000 characters per page which translates to only 50 pages as compared to 80 or 200 for the others. The period is not a technically a number but it is the decimal point so that’s close enough.

I will have to give that teacher credit for making me think big after all these years. but I still won’t admit he was right. We should all be allowed to think to a million and beyond. I can lay out those 50 pages of dots and visualize a million now and am ready to begin on a billion. It will take a while but at least I have something to look forward to.

The Moon in the Man

I started out this article as an indictment against our modern world because we are so lame that we couldn’t keep up the Space Race of the 1960’s but I soon realized we have plenty of good reasons not to spend so much money for so little real value. The truly amazing thing is that we did manage do to it back then. We were different then as we surely are different now but there is still enough of a common thread for us to appreciate each other.

I don’t want to sound like one of those conspiracy theory people who think we never went to the moon and just faked it at Area 51. That would have been harder than the real thing. I do believe we went. I just can’t believe we will ever do it again.

That was the last time we could do it. We barely had the technology and the money did hurt at the time but we were ready and willing and miraculously able. Today we have too much technology and we can’t even keep the space shuttle going, we could never make it back to the moon let alone beyond. We lost a certain required skill that is missing today and we need to get it back. Let’s go ahead and call it is; crazy. We were all crazy back then but it worked better than this.

Something was different back then…certainly the economy but more than that, we felt empowered to dream big and do great things. It’s not like the world was young and innocent because I was there and it was not. Maybe it was the last time we could comfortably be our selves before we grew up and stopped doing childish things, like flying off to the moon.

How many people are still driving a 1980’s model, only NASA. And no plan for an upgrade… I’m not asking for a billion dollar budget but right now there are back yard enthusiasts sending up more interesting launches than the US Government. So it will have to be private business to push us to the next level. It seems like the Mission to the Moon was the last time the two political parties could agree on anything and maybe it could be the next thing to bring them together again.

Gold Mining in the Year 2050

During the great depression of 2025 the State of California tried in vain to find the mother-lode gold in an effort to restart the economy and finally balance the budget at the same time. They used all the latest technology and mapped out the likely spots but every test came back negative and in the end they admitted they were still no better off than searching for a “needle in a haystack”.

25 years later we are ready to try again and this time the chief engineer on the project promises it will be more like finding a “trombone in a haystack”. My job was to setup super microwave signal sources on the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada between Reno and Las Vegas so that we could pick up those signals on the other side of the mountains in the foothills between Sacramento and Fresno. Instead of searching for Gold we soon found ourselves searching for granite outcroppings, underground water and any other source that might act as a good receiver.

Eventually we were able get detailed images at some depth it was never in the places we wanted. Every time we tried to zoom in on our favorite spots we had trouble finding solid rock to bounce our signals off and ended up testing in smaller distances at shallow depth just to get any readings. We were trying every frequency of every spectrum and poking around with every conceivable detection method.

One hot summer day I wiped the sweat from my forehead and then leaned up against a tree and to my surprise I started hearing the sweet music of a positive hit in my headset after nothing for days. Then the signal disappeared when I let go of the tree and even though I could get the signal back by touching the tree again my brain refused to accept to conclusion that a tree could carry my signal better than the ground. Luckily I had a co-worker who specialized in biology and he could explain how the root system was like an upside down antennae positioned perfectly in my ground loop and capable of picking up signals in materials which had been silent for all our attempts.

This was the first real breakthrough and after that we were able to create maps that consistently returned impressive images from %90 of our deep viewing. That was when we started getting a picture of things much deeper than the 1 to 10 miles we had been viewing, now we were seeing down to 100 miles and got the first glimpse if the deep drop-off and the heavy pull on the plates directly below Yosemite valley.

By using the latest Global Positioning Sonar Enhanced Lasers guided by Google Universe Interplanetary Triangulations we were able to pinpoint the mother lode once and for all. That was when we started getting some interesting results from the probes. And that is the next chapter in this series: Gold mining 2050: Chapter Two – Deep Pocket Drones.

Railroad Series: Chapter 8 How to Change a Rail

The most basic railroad maintenance task is changing a broken rail. It only takes 10 minutes if you are in the train yard where you can drive right up with a boom truck but if the broken rail is in an inconvenient location where you have to get permission and the rail won’t fit then the 10 minute job can turn into an all day job; with overtime.

Most broken rails are reported by track inspectors who will give the exact location down to the hundredth of a mile with details on the size and length of rail needed. The worst case was a broken rail reported by trainmen who are famous for getting the milepost wrong so it can take a while and sometimes footwork to find it. Once you know the size and length of rail needed, you then have to get a rail from the nearest stockpile and move it to the location which more often than not means hand loading the rail with rail tongs onto a hand car and manually push in to the worksite.

After you have all the material it’s time to get permission to remove a rail. On the main line you can simply call the dispatcher on the radio and he “gives time” and the trains will stop until you call back with the mandatory “In the clear”. On the branch lines there is no dispatcher and you have to put up flags according to the book of rules. There are no excuses when it comes to safety so we were required to put out three flags in each direction along with a “ torpedo” explosive device to get the engineers attention that there was a flag ahead. Even if there were no trains coming, we could get fired if we didn’t so we always put up one yellow flag, two miles away and then a red flag a quarter a mile from the broken rail and finally a green flag to tell the train they were past the break. Those three flags had to be duplicated for trains coming in the both directions. Putting up the flags could take an hour if the dirt was hard and you had to dig or collect a pile of rocks.

The trickiest part is making the new rail fit. All rails are supposed to be 39 feet long but in the field they rarely are. If it just a little too long you can bang the existing rail-ends on either side to gain up to an inch of slack. If the rail is too short you can actually make it grow an inch or two by using a hot rope. The hot rope is made of asbestos and soaked in diesel oil and when stretched out along the rail and lit on fire makes a smoky light show in addition to the rail stretching. Once the fire goes out, the hot rope can be coiled up again for indefinite reuse. I never did figure out how to make a cold rope.

If the rail is too long or too short by more than an inch or two then you have to cut in a short stub rail called a Dutchman. Cutting can be done with a torch, motorized hack-saw and even with a sledge hammer and rail chisel. Any time you have to saw you will have to drill holes for the bolts. The drill had a motorized version that would break down and we would end up using the two man hand powered drill. It would take 5 full minutes of turning that crank to get one hole drilled with both laborers insisting they were doing all the work. No matter how big the hole, the bolt still had to be bent to make it fit which leaves the threads striped and that one bolt can end up being quite a time consuming detour.

The boss expects every rail to be changed in 10 minutes or less and can never understand why it sometimes takes all day and overtime. In spite of all that, changing a rail is still one of the easiest chores on the list of maintenance duties, mostly because there is no digging with the pick and shovel. There is plenty of pick and shovel work when it comes to changing broken cross ties. That is the next chapter in the Railroad Series.

The System’s Analyst Chapter Two: The Curse of the Systems Analyst

Here it is, the Bottom Line on top: Never take a job with “anal” in the title. If your job has an anal in it anywhere chances are you will end up acting or feeling like one.

When you finally get good at being an analyst you can’t help but go too far and end up over-analyzing everything. You know you have gone too far when you start questioning basic things like what day it is or what time it is, even though you just looked at your calendar or watch. Then in an effort to compensate you head toward the other extreme where you skim over everything and ignore all the details in a recurring vicious cycle. Your relatives, friends and co-workers will be sure to let you know when you are analyzing too much or too little by starting many of their sentences with “No one cares…” or “Wait a minute…”.

The analyst is cursed because everyone assumes they know it all. Engineers get to specialize in just one thing but analyst are supposed to cover everything. If we knew it all we would have a better job than this! People also assume you will do anything and expect you to cover everything from the Enterprise Infrastructure down to the paper towels in the restroom. They will also accuse you of reading all their data or listening to their calls even though you can’t keep up with your own email and phone calls. Again, if we were that sophisticated we would find better stuff to snoop.

All your co-workers and customers will assume you are available anytime, especially vacations and holidays. They are allowed to be freaked out during the disaster but you have to stay cool. Worst of all, everyone assumes you want to help them with their friends, relatives and acquaintances for any and all issues and projects. In the same conversation where they were complaining about being overworked they will freely assign you non-company related tasks and never think twice.

The analyst usually works. You have to be self-motivated and not rely on others for help while at the same time you must also work well with others as part of the job. This creates a bi-polar response where the analyst can’t get along with the other team members when they are working on a team of one. Sometimes a Systems Analyst has been around so long they need to separate them from the herd so they reassign them as Senior Systems Analyst. It’s not a promotion, just a distinction so the other regular analysts will know to leave him alone.

If I had it to do all over again, I would get me an honest job without any anal in it.

Interview with a Dishwasher

My first real job was washing dishes at Jerry’s Restaurant in Susanville Ca, paying $1.35 an hour. There was no job interview, the training was free for anyone interested. Most of the other dishwashers treated the work as drudgery and I gave that a try but I couldn’t do it. I was 14 and loved the big washing machine and the challenge of a stack of dishes up over my head. Sure I got embarrassed when I had to mop the floor in front of my school mates but when I got back in the kitchen I was king and soon became one of the best dishwashers at the place.

That was when I got to thinking what it would take to be the best dishwasher ever. I figured there must be a fancy restaurant someplace in New York or Paris where they really do have a job interview for dishwasher. Then I fell into the habit of practicing for that interview so I could become the best in the world, as if there were an Olympics for dishwashers. After that the drudgery became great fun as I perfected the art, if that is possible. After a month I got promoted to Fry Cook and I was never as good at cooking as I was at the dishwashing and I missed that feeling of confidence, but you can never go back once you start up the ladder of success.

Later on in my career I was often required to interview candidates at a hi-tech call center where we had a high turnover due to smart people who didn’t want to do the dirty work. We were having trouble with people passing the interview with flying colors only to fail at the actual job of helping customers or debugging issues in the lab. All our candidates were equally qualified technically but after they got hired they couldn’t grasp the team concept, or the required self-motivation and working outside the comfort zone.

That’s when I hit on the idea of using the dishwashing interview. Dishwashing is the solution I argued. In one simple real-time test we get to see if the interviewee is willing to jump in and take care of the dirty work. We can see in a minute if they have the right organizational skills, manual dexterity and most of all; humility.

Of course they never let me drag a candidate back to the break room to watch them wash the dishes but it sure made for some good debates and it might actually have improved our interview process. Most of all, I was hoping it would improve everyone’s attitude when it comes to doing the dishes but the truth is; nobody likes doing the dishes.

The Trillium Thief

The last two years before we moved from Portland to Sacramento my wife was determined to keep us healthy by taking regular hikes along the 22 miles of trails in Forrest Park. These trails are very steep and the forest is quite wild, yet it’s right there off 23^rd street in downtown Portland, though it feels like being out in the middle of nowhere. We saw many natural wonders on those trails and one day there were a bunch of pretty little three-petal flowers in bloom so I picked one.

Then on the way back to the car we were confronted by a self-appointed Park Ranger. “You’re not supposed to pick that flower!” We stopped short in the trail dumbstruck, me standing there like Yogi Bear with the pilfered picnic basket. “Those are Trillium flowers and they only bloom once every 7 years, don’t you know?” Again we stood in silent disbelief hoping to avoid criminal prosecution. “So now what should we do?” was my best effort at a clever response. She must have heard the remorse in my voice as she suddenly and silently turned to go as if her job was done.

Back at the car I felt like a murderer with a dead corpse. Should I leave it there or take it along home and risk further punishment. They might have a road block already setup… There was no way to enjoy the spoils of my stolen booty now. I should have known better. This wasn’t my first experience with rare flowers. The Mountain Lily grows in the high sierra where I grew up and we had to drive miles to see even one and then for only one week each summer. We scorned the city slickers who dared to pick one and now I was the ignorant despoiler. The only difference is there were lots and lots of trillium out that day.

The Trillium incident reminded me of my evolution from blood thirsty big game hunter in my youth to passive picture shooter in my later years. I am no vegetarian by any means but I can’t bring myself to kill the animals anymore. I had to quit because they kept looking back at me, but I remember thinking, “…at least I can still fish”. And then later on even the fish were looking back at me and I had to quit fishing, but I could still squash a bug. But no, even the insects finally got a good look at me and it’s come down to the flowers; I can’t even kill a Trillium without feeling bad. Now I can’t even kill time without looking over my shoulder at the clock.

Civil War Story - Chapter 1: Who Shot Stonewall Jackson

I never meant to kill General Jackson, I swear it was an accident. At least that’s what I keep telling myself after all these years, but there were plenty of reasons to suspect I might have done it on purpose. We spent years fighting together and we rarely saw eye to eye on any decision, but we had respect for each other and none of our quarrels ever came to violence. All the same, if there had been a trial, it’s hard to say how the jury might have voted.

Colonel Jackson and I first met in Winchester when I was working as Roadmaster on the B&O railroad out of Martinsburg. I always called him Colonel because that was what he went by when we were stationed together long before the beginning of the war. I never did take to calling him Stonewall because the first time I ever heard that usage it was in a derogatory tone as if to say he should have moved to help during the battle of Bull Run but instead he stood still, like a stone wall. I still called him Colonel even after he got promoted to General but only as an inside joke and never to his face.

The oldest of all reasons for me to have any quarrel with the Colonel was when he took a fancy to my favorite girl and he ended up getting all the dances, if you catch my drift, but that was all way back before the Gold Rush. For all that, neither of us ended up with her and she was gone and married by the time the war started so that was an old wound at best and certainly not one worth killing for all those years later. I wasn’t even close to being jealous back then.

I will admit to a being a little jealous of his later success and maybe a small portion of anger when I had to leave my railroad job behind to help him and his Army of Virginia by way of acting as Aide-de-Camp in charge of transportation when I preferred to stay on back at the roundhouse but as there were no trains or tracks left anyway and I felt I could do no better than agree to his terms. But in this case as the others there was no grievance bad enough to make me purposely kill the best Officer in the Confederacy.

I will acknowledge I was angry when the Colonel came through our section of track and tore up every rail and spike so they could build new lines in the Richmond area at the beginning of the war. I got over being mad because we had enough extra material to rebuild and I accepted it as an equaling of resources, so to speak, but I could not accept it when they came through again one year later and this time they stole most of our best railroad engines. Then came the last straw when he burned down the bridge at Harper’s Ferry; twice!

It is also true that on the very night of his death at the battle of Chancellorsville I had argued with the Colonel at length not to keep fighting after dark while he insisted on rushing ahead to “…out-flank them again!” That was how we got separated in the heat of the battle and I got turned around in the darkness convinced he was behind me so the riders coming fast must be those damn Yankees and I had to protect his retreat, but instead my shot was the fatal wound for the poor Colonel. But it was all purely unintentional, circumstantial. It was an accident I swear.

The Volcano Whisperer

As a kid born and raised in Chester California it was our civic duty to know all about the “Only Active Volcano in the Lower 48 United States” which was Mt. Lassen, just a few miles away. It was an easy day trip for the class to see the bubbling mudpots and smell the sulfur in the air. I took a personal liking to that mountain and it seemed tame in spite of the recent eruption in 1910. Hiking to the top only takes a few minutes on an easy trail and the view from the summit is convincing proof there is still fire down below. With clouds rising from the steam vents and the walls of the crater flashing electric yellow from the pure sulfur made it truly feel like the volcano was still alive.

Mt. Lassen’s glory only lasted until 1980 when Mt. St. Helens took over the crown as the Most Active Volcano on the entire North American Continent. Again it felt like it was happening in my own back yard with the ash in the air and all the commotion on the news. Seems like everywhere I go there is another mountain mouthing off. That was when I first got the notion that somehow it was my fault and I had better stop making the mountains mad. I spent years living at the base of Mt. Shasta always looking over my shoulder to see if the mountain was looking back.

Now anyone who has watched the science channels on TV knows that the most active volcano in the USA and maybe the whole world is the one that made the islands of Hawaii. That is one super volcano that has been going on for a long time and I have never been anywhere near the place so at least I am off the hook for that one. But I still wonder whenever I see a volcano spouting off on the news, I can’t help but think that somebody must have done something.

I don’t know why I like all the Natural Disasters so much but you must admit they are exciting. Earthquakes are the worst but unpredictable even when their location is known in advance. Ice Ages are impressive but who can wait that long. Hurricanes, Tornadoes, Cyclones, they are all impressive but so temporary you can’t plan a party. But not the good old volcano. They are always there where you left them ready to provide entertainment at any time.

Education in the 1960’s

Way back then schools were simple compared to all the options available today. There was no home schooling, no alternative school, no church school, there was just the one public school and we still learned enough to get by. Now days hardly any kids go to the public schools with all the virtual classrooms out there we will soon end up with virtual teachers and finally virtual students.

The most import class when I was recess because there were so many. We had an Early Morning recess before class started and then the regular morning recess right after show and tell. Next came Lunch recess which was followed by the afternoon recess and then finally we had the after school recess while waiting for the bus. With all those recesses we needed some down time to catch our wits but first we had to spend an hour each on Art, Music and PE which left precious little time for the reading, writing and ‘rithmetic.

The favorite high tech device at school was the Projector. There were two variety of projector, the common overhead projector and the motorized movie projector. Even though there was an overhead projector in every room they were still only used on irregular occasions for special material and the one shared movie projector was only dragged out for super special occasions such as holidays or snow days when we couldn’t go outside for the many recesses.

In between projector use the next most high tech tool in our classrooms was the mimeograph machine. It took a simple piece of carbon paper and turned it into a real printer with a simple cranking motion, no electricity required. They should have kept it around just for the exercise.

The real work horse back then was the chalk board. This ever present wall of green (sometimes brown or black, later replaced by white) was used by every teacher without exception. How else was the substitute going to communicate their name. The chalk board was a combination bulletin board and shared display. Every student took their turn at the board just for the fun of it. For us there was nothing more educational than that clicking and scraping sound of a teacher conveying knowledge on a chalkboard.

Cleaning the chalkboard was a privilege that all the wannabe students would fight for. You could tell how productive a class was by the size of the chalk dust cloud produced when the chosen kids would clap the erasers every afternoon. The gym class had no cloud at all while the science classes consistently put out a veritable fog and in between were various clouds of a size in direct proportion to the quantity of the learning achieved in that room.

The sound of chalk scratching on the chalkboard has been replaced with the squeaking of magic markers on whiteboards and now there is no way to measure the teachers productivity.

Sweet Spots

Life is a series of long boring stretches with brief moments of extreme along the way to help us remember anything at all. In between the sour spots are occasional sweet spots where everything works out right for once. October is the sweet spot in time for yellow leaves on trees. That is also the month when the tarantulas migrate.

The planet Earth certainly sits within the sweet spot zone in the sun’s warmth. Alongside Mother Earth is the Moon which also represents the perfect balance between living too close together and someday collide or too far away so they eventually wander apart. If the moon were too big it would take over more than our tides and if it were too small it would only be a token.

The sweet spot is not always at the middle. Being wealthy or powerful is best savored at the top just as the sweetest golf score is down at the bottom. Like the old joke that goes; “When they called for brains I thought they said pains and I didn’t want any”. When we line up for brains you want to be first and for pains the best place is last.

Carbon owns the sweet spot on the Periodic Table of elements by virtue of being flexible enough to bond with more neighbors than anyone else and in more ways too. All the good stuff is made with carbon and not just living matter. The hydro-carbon bonds cover everything from gasoline to plastic. On our planet in this galaxy with this set of universal physics, there is no better building block than carbon.

The color green sits on the sweet spot of our visual spectrum. There are good arguments that we specialize in green because plant life did it first but in any case there are more shades of green than any other color and it sits right in the middle of visible light between the extremes of infra-red and ultra-violet.

Goldilocks can be the cheerleading mascot of the sweet spot philosophy; finding that best of all worlds, the middle ground between too much and not enough of whatever is under discussion at any given moment. The banana belt is a kind of sweet spot, geographically speaking. Sweet spots are out there, everywhere and anywhere but it’s up to us to find them and I am hoping to find mine on vacation next week.

Server Room Series – Chapter 5: Quarterly Outages

I had a friend who was a Millwright and every summer they had a two-week “Shutdown” at the mill so they could rebuild all the machinery that had to run 24\7 the rest of the year. My friend was mad that he had to work double-time for two weeks while everyone else had the time off, so he eventually switched from millwright to truck driver even though the pay was less and the job was not as interesting. No one wants to do the dirty work.

In the hi-tech world the shutdowns are more frequent and our company has settled on once every three months around the second week of February, May, August and November. We have two basic types; minor and major Quarterly Outages. A minor outage has to have basic services up so people can keep working on projects while the major outages require every device be turned off for a complete fresh start.

The timing of the shutdown is critical so the last one down has to be the first one up or every other machine will sit there on boot up waiting for the other guy to start the handshake. The network has to be first, the DNS name resolvers are second, and then come all the secondary service providers so that none are left hanging. Each type of server has further dependencies to get the desired clean start and it is not uncommon to have to go back and start over.

There is that one brief moment in the middle of the major Outages when everything is turned off and the server room is almost silent for once, except for the background hum of the AC and UPS units. The place is almost dark with all the racks silent and missing their blinking lights it is as spooky and feels as bad as having the power go out completely. It is almost a peaceful moment except for the anticipation of something going wrong on reboot and we are always anxious to get it over.

Even though we have test machines that we practice on before each outage and we try to anticipate every contingency there is still always some fallout after the Outage is over. Every outage is good for a few panic attacks and there is almost always that one server or service that does not come back up and some patch has to be removed or the whole machine rolled back to a previous version. Finally we declare the Outage is over and take a comp day off to recover from the all 24 hour marathon but right after that we immediately start planning for the next Quarterly Outage.

Chapter 5: Maintenance of Way Cars

When it comes to railroad cars there are those famous train cars, the flatcar, the boxcar, the tanker, the refrigerator (or reefer) but there is another class for the maintenance department. The Maintenance of Way Department gets its name from the old “right of way” concept that was leftover from the “Eminent Domain” loop hole that all railroads used to make a land grab back when that was still legal.

In all my years working on the railroad I was always on the lookout for one of those hand cars where two people would push the handle up and down in a teeter-totter motion to drive along the tracks like the ones used by Charlie Chaplin in the old movies. I never did find one of those hand powered cars even though I made a thorough search through all the scrap heaps in all the train yards and camps up and down the line. But I did find a heap of other kinds of track cars such as these.

Gravity Car:

No more than six inches tall it folds into two pieces and can be removed by one man in a single move. Weighing no more than 45 pounds the gravity car may sound light weight but in fact is a heavyweight contender being capable of carrying over 2 tons. It is composed of heavy metal diamond shaped wire mesh of hollow pipe frames for an incredibly strong yet light little piece of equipment. These are loaded with everything from spikes, creepers, plates, ties rails and even workers though not recommended. This car was responsible for a number of ankle and foot injuries beyond the protection offered by the mandatory steel toe boots.

Track Car:

This small square box was nothing more than a frame with a lawn mower motor in between the two passenger seats and barely room for any equipment. These were light enough for one person to take them off at a crossing though two people was the minimum under the book of rules, though we often went out alone. These small cars were only meant for inspection purposes and light weight tools though they invariably were overloaded with tools and extra workers.

Motor Car:

This is the four cylinder version of track car with room for 6 workers sitting on ¾ inch plywood top over the engine and it was so heavy it could only be taken off the tracks using a pair of runner rails that pivot on a center allowing the car to be turned out into a tool house or take-off ramps conveniently located at regular intervals between stations.

The minimum crew for a motor car was 4 men but 2 experienced employees were generally allowed to skip that rule. Yes, I have done it alone several time but only using the best take off rails and pivot that were supposed to never leave the local tool house.

We used to have a morning ritual to fill the gas tank without a funnel and not spill a drop. It may sound droll if not dangerous but I remember practicing and finally getting good enough to volunteer for the morning fill up without a funnel.

Crew Car:

These Diesel powered trolleys were up to 10 feet long and could carry as many as 40 men and equipment by attaching push cars. Crew cars did have take off rails but they were rarely used and crew cars were always used in conjunction with work trains and would simply stay on the sidings with the trains.

Push Car:

These are low flat cars that can be attached to any of the motorized cars but are just as frequently found to be pushed by hand. With two push cars you can accommodate even the longest rail using one at each end. Railroad rails will easily turn from side to side but not very much in the up and down direction. You can load ties and even loose gravel on a push car and then move it an dump like a wheel barrow. It still takes two strong men to take a push car off.

The first fatality after I started was a runaway push car that went 17 miles down the hill to hit an unsuspecting welder sitting on the rail. His helper never heard or saw anything because the push car is so low to the ground and runs silently. We all had a different view of push cars after that.

Hi-Rail Car:

This is any motorized vehicle with the necessary attachments to allow it to drive down the rails. It is mostly heavy trucks for work but can be more suburban looking passenger vehicles for the big shots to have a special close look. The bigger the shot the fancier the hi-rail car all the way up to actual Cadillacs just so they could remain comfortable during their track inspection while we had to poke along in our motor cars.

I never did find one of those hand powered push cars like Charlie Chaplin used but I did find out that they were outlawed in the 1940’s for causing too many injuries and were thereafter banned for life nationwide. I am sure they still exist somewhere and I would even pay money to ride one despite the risk if they ever put one in at Six Flags.