But not that cold...
YET. My fingers were numb riding my bike home from Joel's place after work tonight. I'm NOT looking forward to riding the bike in snow and ice. At least I have a helmet now which looks dorky as hell but I truly believe it is only a matter of time before I'm hit by a car on my bike. I've already crashed twice on the one day it was icy screwing up the bike really bad and busting up my hand, but when I got the bike fixed I had snow tires put on which was jävla dyrt (f-ing expensive). When Frida took it to the repair place for me they were like "Did he have to go to the hospital? How bad was he hurt?" So I guess if the bike repair guys say that the thing was messed up.
-My new favorite Swedish word is "sjuksköterskeutbildningen", and I are proud cause I can say it good fer realzz. The meaning is boring but it is a bus stop. Peeps in my Swedish class say it's worth the bus fare to hear the Stephen Hawking robot voice with the Swedish accent say it when you stop there on the bus. "Nästa, Sjuksköterskeutbildningen" Joy!
-I hate Jason Mraz so, so, so much. I want to claw my eyes out when the song comes on the radio in the mornings on the way to work, seriously. I can't believe the other guys still tap their feet to it like it's not the most dry-heave inducing tripe ever conceived by humans. Maybe I should say something. I guess I'm too polite.
-Still playing Castlevania. I recommended it to Jerker. He said he played it on his PSP for like 10 minutes and quit. It felt like the sky had fallen on my head. I wept bitter tears of defeat.
-Really want to see an Amon Amarth show after Cosmo Lee's entertaining review on Pitchfork. Favorite quote from his review: "To see men, women, metalheads, and Wall Street types [when he was at a show of theirs in NYC], young and old, chanting, "Oden! Guide our ships!" was quite heartwarming." Guess I should start by listening to some of their music. Meh.
-Watching the new Dexter episodes a few days after they come out still. Gonna start watching the new season of Top Chef tonight too. Also watching season 12 (newest) of Top Gear as it comes out. Just got the newest epsiode tonight. Top Gear is seriously one of the best TV shows ever, even if I do fast forward through the garbage interviews with British people I don't know when they introduce the Star in a Reasonably Priced car.
-Don't have much time to listen to music, which is truly unfortunate. I wanted to get an ipod when I'm back for Thanksgiving, but thanks to the stupid dollar gaining like 30% on the crown and a lack of fundage it looks like that's down the drain : ( : ( THANKS A LOT STRENGTHENING DOLLAR
Oh, on that note. It was really difficult for me to see how impossible it is to accurately translate one's wages from one currency to another, but this kind of puts it in perspective. Compared to when I started my job I now make 30% less money in dollars. That is a crapload. But my wages haven't changed at all and prices here have remained completely constant. You can see from this example alone how pointless it is to try and convert my wages here to dollars and compare to what I might make at home, which I did when I got here as I didn't understand this strange reality. You can definitely translate prices for goods though. When I got here a lot of good stuff in the U.S. (i mainly was comparing electronic gizmos like an ipod, but a general rule of thumb is half price in the U.S.) was about 50% less than here, but not quite that much anymore : ( : (
I now are sad for no ipod.
13 November 2008
06 November 2008
Work story!!!
So! A good (and exciting!!!) story, and one that will maybe give you some idea of what it is I do... Some of the time. So, Jerker and I went to our old factory warehouse to take some measurements of a spreader that was shipped back to us for refurbishing. It's been in service in Germany for like 7 years, and it's all beat to hell and dirty as shit. So there is three main parts to a normal spreader. The center section and then the two twin-beam arms on both sides of that. The arms telescope out from the center and are held together by an end gable on the outside to shape like a giant rectangular U. Anyway this spreader is separated into it's three parts, and we are going to take measurments to see how close to tolerance the TBUs (arm thingys) are (answer: not very... now). The port had done some of their own repairs to it while they had it and we have to figure out if the out of tolerance...ness is from them or us or what, and why there was uneven wear in certain spots and not in others, etc. Stuff like that. Anyway, the TBUs are about 25 or 30 ft long and weigh about 5,000lbs each. The one we are messing with is about 4 feet off the ground on these giant metal stands. In order to check the tolerances we have to get the thing squared up as even as possible and as flat as possible, which means lifting it off it's stands and putting metal plates under it. Obviously we have two giant winches on the ceiling to lift it with. We adjust the end without the end gable (read: lighter end) with no problems, but it still isn't quite square so we have to adjust the end WITH the end gable (read: heavy as shit). One of the regular workshop guys is like "Yeah just slide the straps down to the other end and lift." And proceeds to do it, then tear ass with the winches to jack up the heavy as hell end like 6 inches in about 2 seconds, then slam it back down. "See?" and walks away. I'm like "I think we should support the other end, I mean, if it slips..." Jerker "It'll probly be fine." Here's the thing about inertia: It's very difficult to comprehend, even when you know how much something weighs and can see how big it is. If the winch isn't DIRECTLY over the center of the TBU then no matter how slow you lift it a tiny force to the left or right will send 5000lbs hurtling in that direction. Imagine having one of those huge Ford Super Duty trucks hanging in the air and swinging in the breeze. If you try and stop it from swinging, even though it looks like it's going slow, it will KNOCK YOUR SHIT DOWN. Anyway, Jerker very slowly winches up the heavy end. It starts to go a little to the right and then SHIT! It pulls the light end (like 2,000lbs) RIGHT OFF OF THE STANDS. The other two real workshop guys came running over cause it must have sounded like it fell through the earth and hit China or something. I can't really remember how loud it was cause I was too scared when it happened to notice. Luckily there was a wooden pallet in a very lucky spot that shattered and absorbed most of the impact thus no damage was done. When it fell though, I had my hand on a 1/2" thick steel plate, the corner of which ran straight up the length of my hand at about 50mph when the heavy end slid off. SOMEHOW it didn't slice it right open, well, in half really. I have no idea how. We both got REALLY lucky to not have more than only a scratch on me. I learned my lesson: Don't just SUGGEST them, ALWAYS INSIST on the safety precautions and if for some crazy reason you are refused, sit the shit out.
Yaw-mo-be-there
Haha I tricked you. I split this into two posts so you would read them both. DUMMY! NOW READ!
I'm very glad Obama won. Did he go back on his signed agreement, opt into public financing, and buy his presidency? You bet. Do I like that? Not one bit. Can he turn everything into rainbows and unicorns. Doubt it. Is the US headed toward "socialism"? Well if whatever he does sucks you better believe it'll be undone faster than you can say "Hussein" by the Republican horde that swarms Washington next election cycle. So everyone lamenting the fact we elected a "Marxist" can suck my sickle and two hammers. The election is over, remember? You can leave your fear tactics and scary word list on the desk, they finally failed you and they are of no use now. Next election you better bring something more to the table or it'll be four more years of your money going straight into the pockets of free-loaders and high school dropouts. The fact that the entire world is totally pumped that he won means a lot to me. And it'll be freaking awesome being proud instead of mortified when people from other countries start talking to me about our president. Which doesn't come up THAT often but still.
Oh which reminds me, I made this post mainly to talk about something that happened today, but I'll tell this short one too. There's this dude at work, who's probably like 65, kind of strange looking and almost always gives me a hard time about not being fluent in Swedish yet. Tuesday we went to the Port of Stockholm to test a new spreader design we've been working on for a few months. On the car ride there everyone was talking about the election, of course, and they were asking me about it. Anders (boss) asks: "Do you think Obama will get elected?" Me: "Yeah, I'm pretty sure." Old dude: "SO HOW LONG TILL YOU THINK HE GETS SHOT?" Everyone else just kind of chuckles, embarrassed, and I'm like "Well, there are a lot of crazy people with guns out there, but the security is good, they know it'll be more dangerous for him, blah blah, I really hope that doesn't happen, blah blah..." The issue fades and we get on with the (pretty awesome) day. Anyway, Wednesday, it's official, he's elected, and at the coffee break I can tell this dude is absolutely CHOMPING at the bit to say something to me so I do everything possible to avoid him. Sure enough right afterward he comes in all pretending to talk to my buddy Bosse for like two seconds and then comes right up to me and: "So how long till he gets shot?" AGAIN. I give the same answer as the day before, undeterred he presses on: "WHAT DO YOU THINK THE KU KLUX KLAN THINKS ABOUT HIM BEING ELECTED?" I'm like dumbfounded now. "Um there's not much of the Ku Klux Klan left..." "WHAT DO YOU THINK ALL THE BLACK PEOPLE WILL DO WHEN HE GETS SHOT?" Me: blank stare. "I BET THEY WON'T LIKE IT, DO YOU THINK THEY WILL RIOT?" Me: mouth agape. "I BET THEY WILL RIOT!" I slowly turned back to my computer to ignore him and he walked away.
Moral of the story: There are assholes in every country who take great pleasure in rubbing you the wrong way for no reason other than they like being a dickhole, I guess. On a nicer note... At the Stockholm Port, I went up in both of the gantry cranes they had. I don't like heights at all, and the walkways on these things are probably at least 200ft in the air. The walkways are basically metal grates that you can see right through straight down to the ground, there's nothing else underneath you, no supports for the grates or anything. It really looks like theres basically nothing holding you up. I was pretty happy I didn't freak out. It was fun being inside the cockpit thingy with the driver though, in the front the floor is glass so you can see straight down, which didn't bother me since I was enclosed. When they drive those things hard it's impossible to stand upright, it knocks you right over, it was like an amusement park ride. Really cool.
I'm very glad Obama won. Did he go back on his signed agreement, opt into public financing, and buy his presidency? You bet. Do I like that? Not one bit. Can he turn everything into rainbows and unicorns. Doubt it. Is the US headed toward "socialism"? Well if whatever he does sucks you better believe it'll be undone faster than you can say "Hussein" by the Republican horde that swarms Washington next election cycle. So everyone lamenting the fact we elected a "Marxist" can suck my sickle and two hammers. The election is over, remember? You can leave your fear tactics and scary word list on the desk, they finally failed you and they are of no use now. Next election you better bring something more to the table or it'll be four more years of your money going straight into the pockets of free-loaders and high school dropouts. The fact that the entire world is totally pumped that he won means a lot to me. And it'll be freaking awesome being proud instead of mortified when people from other countries start talking to me about our president. Which doesn't come up THAT often but still.
Oh which reminds me, I made this post mainly to talk about something that happened today, but I'll tell this short one too. There's this dude at work, who's probably like 65, kind of strange looking and almost always gives me a hard time about not being fluent in Swedish yet. Tuesday we went to the Port of Stockholm to test a new spreader design we've been working on for a few months. On the car ride there everyone was talking about the election, of course, and they were asking me about it. Anders (boss) asks: "Do you think Obama will get elected?" Me: "Yeah, I'm pretty sure." Old dude: "SO HOW LONG TILL YOU THINK HE GETS SHOT?" Everyone else just kind of chuckles, embarrassed, and I'm like "Well, there are a lot of crazy people with guns out there, but the security is good, they know it'll be more dangerous for him, blah blah, I really hope that doesn't happen, blah blah..." The issue fades and we get on with the (pretty awesome) day. Anyway, Wednesday, it's official, he's elected, and at the coffee break I can tell this dude is absolutely CHOMPING at the bit to say something to me so I do everything possible to avoid him. Sure enough right afterward he comes in all pretending to talk to my buddy Bosse for like two seconds and then comes right up to me and: "So how long till he gets shot?" AGAIN. I give the same answer as the day before, undeterred he presses on: "WHAT DO YOU THINK THE KU KLUX KLAN THINKS ABOUT HIM BEING ELECTED?" I'm like dumbfounded now. "Um there's not much of the Ku Klux Klan left..." "WHAT DO YOU THINK ALL THE BLACK PEOPLE WILL DO WHEN HE GETS SHOT?" Me: blank stare. "I BET THEY WON'T LIKE IT, DO YOU THINK THEY WILL RIOT?" Me: mouth agape. "I BET THEY WILL RIOT!" I slowly turned back to my computer to ignore him and he walked away.
Moral of the story: There are assholes in every country who take great pleasure in rubbing you the wrong way for no reason other than they like being a dickhole, I guess. On a nicer note... At the Stockholm Port, I went up in both of the gantry cranes they had. I don't like heights at all, and the walkways on these things are probably at least 200ft in the air. The walkways are basically metal grates that you can see right through straight down to the ground, there's nothing else underneath you, no supports for the grates or anything. It really looks like theres basically nothing holding you up. I was pretty happy I didn't freak out. It was fun being inside the cockpit thingy with the driver though, in the front the floor is glass so you can see straight down, which didn't bother me since I was enclosed. When they drive those things hard it's impossible to stand upright, it knocks you right over, it was like an amusement park ride. Really cool.
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