Missing large

rwballca Free

Recent Comments

  1. about 20 hours ago on Working Daze

    I resemble that remark. BS in Mechanical Engineering, 1969. Slide rule is now in a glass case with a note to “Break Glass in case of power outage”. Father’s Day gift from my kids, a long time ago.

  2. 9 days ago on B.C.

    I interviewed at a hospital in MV in 1991, give or take a year. The pay was comparable to what I was making in Modesto but cost of living was significantly higher. We looked at houses for rent and were shocked at what they wanted for a place that didn’t meet building code. I opted to stay in Modesto. Lived in San Jose 2012-2015, paid $2800/month for a house, moved to AZ and bought a 2,230SF house, pool, 3 car garage, etc for $210K.

  3. 11 days ago on Shoe

    The rate of increase in inflation has slowed but overall inflation is up about 15% in the last four years. All of the issues cited by others have been documented in Congressional hearings, either Senate or House so it isn’t speculation, they have entered evidence into the record.

  4. 16 days ago on Working Daze

    I arrived as the Facility Manager at a hospital in Northern California in 1985; there was a personal computer in a large tower case that was being used as a doorstop (not making it up). I asked what it was for and how much did it cost. It was supposed to schedule preventive maintenance on building equipment (mechanical & electrical) and cost $56,000 (in round numbers). Neither the salesman from H (a national company that sold it) nor the hospital staff realized that it needed software in addition to the hardware! It was about 4 years old as I recall; we had a manual system of 8×10 card stock that was working so no one cared. I contacted the sales team at H and said I wanted to return it. After much wrangling they agreed to provide a “store credit” toward the purchase of more of their equipment; they had provided an Energy Management System (EMS) for the 300,000 square foot hospital that still was booted off a cassette tape in a boom box type device. Updates to the EMS hardware and software were installed but the new software never worked as advertised; a senior VP from the H home office in the midwest visited and asked what he could do because our chain of 238 hospitals had put their products on a “do not buy” status. I told him to send a technician who could make it work! About a year later we started a $55 Million expansion project that included a new EMS system that was written by a team of six people (it worked, some bugs but they were fixed quickly).

  5. 28 days ago on B.C.

    The product, wheel in this case, lasts for 1 day past the warranty.

  6. about 1 month ago on B.C.

    In polite circles that is called a Subprime Loan. They know the borrower can’t pay it off, and there is a good chance of default so they get enough in the early period of the loan to cover losses later.

  7. about 1 month ago on Shoe

    And lastly: bending over backwards.

  8. about 1 month ago on B.C.

    Agreed. Take a half gallon nominal size carton of modern ice cream and let it thaw in a sink. About half the mass will remain, the milk, cream, etc will drain out so what’s left is the fillers. Homemade ice cream will pretty much go down the drain.

  9. about 1 month ago on Wizard of Id

    My brother dropped a plate while unloading the dishwasher in the early years of plastic dinner plates. It survived so he called the whole family into the kitchen to watch; not sure if it was the same plate or not but the next plate dropped shattered while a crowd was watching.

  10. about 1 month ago on Working Daze

    Remember that the US Treasury has admitted to injecting money into the market to prop up values.