Frozenrobot

Awesome Hat!?!

August 3, 2009

So I bought this and I think it is awesome and I think I can pull it off, but there is a few problems with it. I can’t wear it to work, because this is not the kind of hat you wear to design farm machinery. I also have some concerns about wearing it when we go out, because this is the kind of hat frequently worn by douchebags. I don’t consider myself a douchebag, so I must be careful not to be too obnoxious while wearing the hat. I do think the beard adds some credibility to my not-douchebagedness… right?

Posted in Rants | 2 Comments »

9 Liters of Blood

July 15, 2009

That is the equivalent of the 20 units of blood I have donated to the Red Cross over the last four or so years, yesterday was my 20th. I started donating when my mother went on dialysis, before her kidney transplant. I have never felt light headed and once I finally get in the chair, after answering the 127 million questions that you have to answer every time, it only takes me about 10 minutes to bleed. It is not nearly as bad as people think, I actually prefer it to the dentist. Anyway, I guess this is my service announcement. If you meet all the Red Cross’s requirements and you don’t pass out at the sight of a needle then you should donate, it saves lives.

Update: if anyone was curious, my blood type is O Positive.

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America…Hell Yea!

July 7, 2009

4th of July went off with a bang, pun defiantly intended. Thank You to everyone who came out to visit, it was a blast! Pun intended again. I have a few pictures here. There really aren’t that many good ones, except the ones of Sarah showing here patriotism.

I did manage to replace the broken springs on the BMW, before the 4th. It was easier then I thought it was going to be, it just took a week to gets the parts. It is a good thing too. Lets just say, Gillian and I have decide the key to a happy marriage is drive separate cars to work.

Posted in Events, Rants | 1 Comment »

What the F$%&, BMW!?!

June 27, 2009

UPDATE: I got the broken springs out last night, it involve; removing the sway bar, disconnecting the differential mount and 5 jack stands. Now I am just waiting on new parts.

I got the shocks for the BMW on Friday and after work I got the car up in the air and took the wheels off. That is when I figured out what that rattling noise was. The bottom coil of both springs had broken off, this is something that should never happen, I thought. Yes, the shocks also still need to be replace, the broken springs probably caused them to fail. Now I also need to replace the springs, which I had to order, so now both cars in the garage don’t run. After examining the broken coils, it looks like they have been broken for a long time. Neither Gillian or I can remember ever hearing a large Bang! let allow two large Bangs!, and we have never overloaded it, so they might have been broken ever since we bought the car. It really is a testament to how well BMW builds suspensions, that we can drive with broken springs and we never noticed until the shocks started to fail and the broken piece started to rattle. Now I have to wait for parts to continue this mechanical drama.

Posted in Broken, Cars, Rants | 2 Comments »

Swag!

June 23, 2009

…or is it shwag? I never know with you crazy kids and your hipster lingo. Everyone was given one of these bags at work because we went 100 days with out a “lost time incident”, basically meaning no one got hurt. Going a 100 days without getting hurt may not sound like that big of a deal, but you have to consider there are some 800 or so people working 8-10 hours a day building large farm equipment and no one so much as busted a knuckle or dropped something on their foot. Anyway, this post is mainly just to keep my blog from getting stagnant, like some others. I don’t really have much to type about, this bag is one of the more exciting things to happen lately. Which is fine, I have had enough excitement in the past few months. I did finally fix the hole in our siding that I made when I put the hot grill to close and it melted, I didn’t take picture of the fix because it doesn’t look great, it just looks fixed. We also went to see the Beach Boys a few weeks back with Gillian parents and Santi and Sarah, as a Father’s Day present. It was a great show and they surprisingly played for almost two and a half hours straight! Also, surprising to some, but not to me, I knew almost all the songs. Oh, and in Falcon news, I finally bought some used cylinder heads off ebay and I am having them and the transmission rebuilt by a guy I play hockey with.

And speaking of cars, the rear shocks on Gillian’s car need to be replaced, so I got it up in the air to take a look and it seemed like no big deal to replace…I was wrong. Yes, I am going to be an asshat and bitch about our BMW, oh poor me, poor me. Anyway, I guess the problem really isn’t BMW as much as it is the local BMW dealership, but the only reason I have to deal with the dealership is because nearly every replacement part on the car is a dealership only part. What really frustrates me though is that A) the parts department isn’t open on the weekend so when I wanted to fix I couldn’t and B) when I called them on Monday to get the part they didn’t have it in stock so they had to order it! How the hell do they not have SHOCKS in stock! That’s like saying, “sorry we are out of motor oil, we are going to have to order it.” Oh, and for some reason it is going to take a week to get here! So apparently BMW shocks are not made, they are grown, on a small Dampener Farm some where in Bavaria! OK, I feel better know, I probably won’t have the parts until next week, hopefully replacing them won’t be as frustrating as buying them.

Posted in Falcon, Rants, Work | 3 Comments »

3 Years

June 9, 2009

Last Wednesday, June 3rd, Gillian and I celebrated our 3rd anniversary. We both almost forgot, again this year. Last year we didn’t remember until Erika sent us and e-mail congratulating us. This is further proof that Gillian and I truly don’t understand calenders. Hopefully this also shows our friends and family that just because we forget which day your birthday, anniversary, or child’s first baptism lands on, it doesn’t mean that we don’t care.

Posted in Events | 3 Comments »

Dodging Bullets…

May 19, 2009

or maybe “Dodging Axes” would be more appropriate. It all started a little over a year ago when I narrowly escaped getting laid off from Chief Automotive, I had been with the company six month longer than the other the engineer they “let go”. After limping along for a year, and taking a 20% pay cut I left Chief Automotive and took a contract position with Case New Holland. Two weeks after starting the job, CNH reported a first quarter loss of 125 million dollars and a plan for “restructuring”. When I flew out to Pennsylvania for training I was told that “restructuring” meant that due to budget cuts all salaried contract employees are going to be “let go”… wait I’m a salaried contract employee!?! Luckily due to my unique position in the company, I am considered essential and am one of the very few salaried contracts allowed to stay on. That would have been the worst business trip ever. That brings me to today, six weeks after leaving, Chief Automotive has announced that they are closing the plant in Grand Island and moving all operations to Indiana where they will merge with a sister company, RotaryLift. Most everyone is getting laid off, a few people, 1 or 2, could have the option of relocate to Madison Indiana, 850 miles away.

Hopefully I am in the clear for now but who knows what will happens next quarter, this recession is a real bitch. I know Gillian is getting tired of me coming home and telling her “Ok, I still have a job, but…”

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Engineer in a Reasonably Priced Car

May 10, 2009

I must say I love driving out here in Pennsylvania!! They don’t know how to build a straight road or they just encourage their road workers to drink on the job, either way it is just wonderful. This is a big change from the flat, straightness of every road in Nebraska and I have been pushing this little car into every corner I can find.

I wasn’t to excited about getting the economy option for my rental car but I really couldn’t justify anything better, since it just me out here. I also wasn’t happy about getting the Chevy Cobalt. I had a coupe version of this car once on a business trip, I only spent about 10 minutes in it and I wasn’t to impressed, this time I have it for two weeks.

First off, like every rental car I have ever had the person that parked it must have been seven and half feet tall, so I had to spend 20 minutes adjusting the seat. This is where I found my first complaint, the space between the door and the seat adjuster is extremely small, I tried to adjust the back rest and came back missing my wedding ring. It was pined between the door and the lever and slipped off my finger. So after a brief panic attack, I found my ring and opened the door the finish adjusting the seat.

I reluctantly started the engine, and wasn’t surprised, it sounded like…well, crap. Then I went to release the park brake and jammed my elbow into the center console arm rest, you have to lift it to get to the brake lever!?

I finally got it on the road and it actually drives pretty well. The Cobalt had no problem humming along the highway at 70 mph and …umm, lets just say faster. This is where I found another complaint, no cruise control. This thing has a CD player with an Aux jack and an on-board computer thingy but not cruise control.

For the drive to the office from the hotel I intentionally picked a route that avoided all highways, which means Amish back roads! Picture a mid-level rally course on very smooth asphalt. Wide open countryside with bends and hills, it is beautiful and incredibly entertaining, until you come over a hill and have to slam on the brakes to prevent plowing into the back of a horse and buggy.

The car handles pretty well, for a front wheel drive car. When you really start to push it in the bends the tires do start to squeal, but there isn’t much body roll. The engine and transmission is also quite good, you can easily brake the tires loose on dry pavement and when you have your foot stuck in it, it shifts quite smoothly at 6000 rpm. The brakes on the other hand are rubbish. For a small, light car it is frightening to stop from high speed.

The interior is not nice but it is not that bad, mostly plastic but they tried to make it look good. It is a comfortable car, once you spend 20 minutes adjusting the seat. The cup holders hold a styrofoam hotel coffee cup adequately but in did manage to turn hard enough to get coffee all over my leg, on the way to work, of course.

So then the question is, would I own one…no. Well at least not this model, I would rather have a two door with a manual transmission. If we do ever end up moving out here, yes that is a possibility eventually, I would definitely get something similar. If I didn’t I would end up in my truck, nose down in a ditch every day.

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Business Trip

May 10, 2009

Last Monday I landed in Harrisburg, PA for a two week business trip in New Holland, PA. The baggage claim area had a display of a Hummer, a Cadillac, and yes a New Holland Tractor…I found this hilarious! I picked up my rental car, a 2009 Chevy Cobalt LT…awesome! Actually, it is a pretty decent car, but I’ll get into that later.

I have spent the last week weaving in and out of Amish horse and buggies, seriously they are everywhere, to and from the Case New Holland Technical Center, where I have been cramming 6 months of training into 2 weeks. At this point I could go into details about my training but it is only interesting to me.

Now I just have to stave off boredom for the weekend.

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Deja vu

April 9, 2009

case-ih-logo1

For the last year or so I have become increasingly more worried about my job security at Chief Automotive, not so much worried that I would get laid off but that the company would fold. So I quit, and took a position with Case New Holland, yes this is the company I worked for right out of college. I am now the Resident Design Engineer for the Crop Preparation Group at the Grand Island plant…basically I design haytools…these things. I am the “Resident” Design Engineer because I don’t actually work for the plant, I work for the design group in New Holland, PA. That means I am the only design engineer, for haytools, in the plant. My boss and all my co-workers are in Pennsylvania.

The plant still builds combines, haytools are kind of the red headed step child of the plant. The production line is stuck over in a corner and most people don’t really care too much about them, because they are not combines and I like it that way.

It is very odd being back, I left almost three years ago and I never thought I would come back. I left because I was a Manufacturing Engineer and I wanted to get into design and Chief Automotive offered me that. Now I am back as an “experienced” design engineer, a little hire up the food chain. The product, production line and the area of the building did not exist the last time I was at the plant, so everything is different but at the same time nothing has changed.

Fun Fact: Case New Holland is owned by The Fiat Group, so Ferrari is technicaly a sister company. Fiat is also in the middle of taking over Chrysler… maybe.

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