On Engineers & Technicians: Rules to Live By

Regarding Engineers:
Angus McThag opines in response to a previous post:

"Engineers are born such, the education is a formality, thus they get called engineers as soon as they begin the sheepskin ritual."

For the most part, this is true.
Most real Engineers I know I could not possibly imagine in any other occupation.
Taking something apart, putting in (mostly) back together, fixing or adjusting it.
Whatever.
Guys (and a couple women) I know that are deft at wielding a screwdriver or soldering iron would just not look or sound right as a software coder, kindergarten teacher, dog trainer, or barber.
As a Chef, maybe- it's a similar cognitive process...

But-
In reminiscing about some Engineers I have know in my life, I was reminded of an old bit of technical / engineering foolscap from back in my radio days...

Not truly geared toward Engineers per se, but Technicians as a whole.

The Technician’s Ten Commandments
1) Beware the lightning that lurketh in the un-discharged capacitor, lest it cause thee to bounce upon thy buttocks in a most untechnician-like manner. 

2) Cause thou the switch that supplieth large quantities of juice to be opened and thusly tagged, that thy days in this earthly vale of tears may be long. 

3) Prove to thyself that all circuits that radiateth and upon which thou worketh are grounded and thusly tagged lest they lift thee to radio frequency potential and cause thee to make like a radiator, too. 

4) Tarry not amongst those fools that engageth in intentional shocks, for they are surely non-believers and are not long for this world. 

5) Take care that thou useth the proper method when thou takes the measure of a high voltage circuit lest thou incinerate both thyself and thy meter, for verily, though thou hast no account number and can be easily surveyed, thy test meter doth have one and, as a consequence, bringeth much woe unto the supply department.  

6) Take care thou tampereth not with safety devices and interlocks, for this incureth the wrath of the supervisor and bringeth the fury of the safety inspector upon thy head and shoulders.

7) Work thou not on energized equipment, for if thou dost, thy fellow workers will surely buy beers for thy widow and console her in other ways. 

8) Service thou not equipment alone, for electrical cooking is a slothful process and thou might sizzle in thine own fat for hour upon a hot circuit before thy Maker sees fit to end thy misery.

9) Trifle thou not with radioactive tubes and substances lest thou commence to glow in the dark like a lightning bug and thy wife have no further use for thee except thy wages.

10) Thou shall not make unauthorized modifications to equipment, but causeth thou to be recorded all field changes and authorized modifications made by thee lest thy successor tear his hair out and go slowly mad in his attempt to decide what manner of creature hath made a nest in the wiring of such equipment.

Numbers 7 & 8 are near to my heart, and number 9 always makes me giggle...


TBG - - [Exit- pursued by a charged electron]

Back to Beijing - IAAF World Champs 2015

(Like Famous the Tam is wont to say, I hate using good stuff at an away game.
I had to write up the my current tasking here for Oculus, the company newsletter; 
Since I wrote it, I have no issue with reproducing it here... Enjoy.)

Has it really been seven years?
Yes … Just seven years ago, the Olympic Green in Beijing was simply awash with my co-workers.

StAss the Mad Russian, Chief Propeller Head, Ty, Ben (no longer) in Florida, The Apostle, Spongemark, SGK, and a host of others in addition to your humble correspondent were dispatched far and wide over Beijing during the 2008 Olympics.
(For some of those tales, head to the left of the page and navigate to Aug of 2008, or click the Olympic tag to see all of that content)

Ah, yes- the agonizingly slow buses to the shoebox-like accommodations, the thorough and very invasive security pat-downs to get in and out of event spaces, the insane traffic as we tried to go from site to site or to see the local attractions, and of course, the spectacle of the opening ceremonies. Good times...good times...

Fast-forward to August 2015, and we (and by we, I mean yours truly, the lone survivor from the Battle of Beijing) are back in the Celestial Kingdom, and once again courting heat stroke, black lung disease and food poisoning as we provide stats interfacing for the Really Big American Network broadcast for the IAAF World Track & Field Championships in the National Stadium (国家体育场北京 aka the Bird's Nest). The former Olympic sites are a little faded and dusty, but the Water Cube and the other structures around the former Olympic site are still very recognizable.

Your humble correspondent is the boots-on-the-ground in Beijing, with very capable tele-support provided back in Florida by St.Ass and  The Apostle. This World Championship is basically a pre-Olympic event, a warm-up if you will, for the Rio Olympics in August 2016.

I had a bit of a scare in the days leading up to departure for the event … The container of equipment for the event was on-site in the port of Tainjin when a warehouse full of chemical and explosives blew up. I was sitting on the edge of my seat to find out if the container was OK. A backup plan was put in place where I would hand-carry the equipment in case the container was damaged, lost or destroyed.

The word came down the day before I left Jacksonville that the container had arrived in Beijing and all was well. (I brought the backup equipment anyway, because you never know.)

On arrival, I found the pre-shipped equipment was in pristine condition. I wish I was in as good condition after the 25 or so travel-hours it took to me get here.

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There is a huge parade and showcase for Chinese militaria next week in front of Tienanmen Square and the Forbidden City, in celebration of the anniversary of the victory over Japanese aggression (not kidding).
They are practicing different aspectds of how they will be screwing up basic services and inconveniencing everyone this week... We got caught in a traffic holdup and after waiting on a freeway offramp for 45 minutes and a van with no A/C, I said Adios MotherF'er and walked to the site... Ain't nobody got time for this.


There is absolutely no truth to the rumor that I set up a Teamviewer app and was running my systems from the bar in the hotel, in order to avoid the traffic and the roasting highways.
No truth at all. None. Nothing to see here... Just move along.



I said move along. Now go.

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My real workstation at the Birds Nest....

So China   Much exotic    Very Broadcast   Amaze.

There is a little Easter egg here that a few folks caught. So worth it.
The TIS Virus lives!!
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A funny story: Everyone knows that the Silk Street Market is a six-floor building dedicated to separating tourists from their money in exchange for counterfeit or poorly made knock-offs of name-brand merchandise and mass-produced tchotchkes and gewgaws.

First-timers are cautioned not to go alone, or at least to be very wary of any deal that seems too good to be true. And this visit was no different.

The crew headed for the Silk Street Market to shop for souvenirs. One of the NBC runners for the event, who we shall call "Ferguson" in order to shield him from further ridicule, split off from the rest of us in search of adventure and treasure.

When we caught up with him later, we found he had not heeded the warnings from the Old China Hands on the crew, and proudly showed off his new "finest quality" Rolex he had just purchased for a ridiculously high "friend-price." Most of us, having seen the gamut of knock-off Rolexes from the shoddy to the near-perfect, gathered around to see how he did.

In a word: Awful.

Crappy band, ticking second hand, lightweight ... It was sad.
And poor Ferguson...
He thought he'd gotten a deal.
They saw him coming and they laid the sales pitch on hard.
Sat him down, gave him a cup of tea, brought out the pretty inlaid wood boxes and gave it to him with both barrels.

Word of his folly spread quickly once we got to the site for work that day...

And to add insult to injury, his painful lesson was reinforced every day, all day long on-site. 
There is a tape source named 'X'. During the broadcast, the director will call cameras and tape sources to be used on the air, and very, very often we will hear the director call "Ready X ... Roll X!" (Rolex! - Get it?)
In the spirit of fun, everyone started calling the source "Ferguson" or "Ferg" - So we heard "Ready Ferg ... Roll Ferg!" instead of “Roll X!” all through the broadcast.
========================================================

From our "That Dude is Fucked" Department...



By now everyone should have seen The World's Fastest Man, Usain Bolt get taken out by a Chinese cameraman on a hands-free Segway...
Fortunately Bolt escaped the attack unscathed, later joking that American Justin Gatlin had paid the guy to run him over...
He had a great sense of humor about it.
Not sure the Ogranizing Committee will be as forgiving. They have zero tolerance policy  about public embarrassment. That and the $50,000 camera he destroyed...
I have a feeling that next week Segway CameraDude will be posted in 二连浩特市, (which is so far away that it doesn't have an English pronunciation) and will be videotaping yak turds for the rest of his career.

===========================================
Outta here on Monday.


Cannot wait.

TBG - - ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒE

Observations from the Field

Watching the news in the last couple weeks about the oh-so-Earthlike planet (somewhere off the Kessel run, reachable in 11 parsecs or so) and all the speculation therein...


We (all the Family here on vacation in Montana) were discussing the possibilities.

My final opinion, just before packing it in (at 7:30 PM - I was TIRED) was:


"I don't even qualify to live in Australia.
Even if we were able to colonize another planet in my life time there's not a chance they'd let me live there."

Truth.

TBG - - ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒE

All The Gear - All The Time - Oz Bike Ruminations

Really missing my bike right now...
Especially sitting in the traffic while the local bikers filter through the traffic here.

I kinda liked being able to do that when I rode here last year, and would love to see the practice legalized in the 'States.
(Filtering - Motorcycle lane filtering is when a motorcycle rider moves alongside vehicles that have either stopped or are moving slowly, less than 30km/h. Lane filtering laws now apply in NSW. It's somewhat legal in Kalifornia too, but there is quite a bit of controversy regarding the subject.)
Of course, lane filtering, even if legalized in the US (especially the South), would be looked upon as blatantly unfair and presumably oppressive to four-wheelers, and become a challenge to right-thinking drivers everywhere and Steps Would Be Taken to end such a heinous practice. (Think lane-squeezing and car-door opening.)

It would become a case that would (I think) encourage wearing All The Gear, All The Time.
Now I know that some Really Conscientious Riders (Weekend Warriors, Rolex Riders, Etc) do it, but some of us (yes, guilty as charged) for whom riding is our main form of transport don't go full kit every time we ride.
Really- boots, iron-cloth riding pants, chaps, armored jacket, rhino-hide gloves, full-face helmet, etc etc ad naseum are a little much in 95-degree heat to go two residential blocks to the grocery. Proponents will argue accidents will happen anywhere, do you have a fire-extinguisher, and you do carry your pistol everywhere just-in-case, right- then go right or don't leave the driveway.

Granted - I don't go full kit each-and-every-time, but I also don't go Squid-mode - shorts, flipflops, tank top, 110mph with my head afire like some sportbikers...)

I really should go ATGATT but I don't, and that's my mistake...
I'm sure my man Borepatch would chastise me using very personal experience as a cautionary tale, but I'm in recovery (after all, isn't acceptance of the situation part of recovery?)

Another aspect is for a rider to know his/her limitations and expectations. (a/k/a pull stupid stunts, win stupid prizes)
Like this:

Yeah- that's gonna hurt.


Moving on- I think I've mentioned it before- before heading off on a long bike ride, I like to go to YouTube and watch some Russian dash-cam motorcycle videos...
They are the best incentive to go ATGATT.



She's gonna have a problem hitting that shifter with those shoes...

TBG- ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒE

Glutton For Punishment - The Followup

The plan:
Drop off car near Cronulla Station, take 5:25am train to Otford, Walk to trail head at Otford Lookout.
Begin hike at +/-6:30am.
Need to complete hike at Bundarra before 7:00 PM to catch last ferry back to Cronulla.
12 hours to do 26km. Easy peasy.


You know- there is a reason that they recommend making it a two-day hike...
Looking at the satellite views from Google maps doesn't tell the whole story.
I should have taken the walk from the station to the trailhead as a sign of things to come.


I got to the station just after 6:00 am.


From the station to the lookout is a 300' climb.
Not a good way start...
I had my backpack with water, a change of clothes, etc, and I had picked up an aluminum telescoping walking stick... The stick was a life saver.
I used it in it's original office to steady myself- but I also employed it to fight off the spiders...
The bad thing about being first on the trail for the day is that overnight the spiders have laid webs thick and heavy across the trail.
Everywhere.


(One of billions)

Gah.

Once I got started I was doing pretty good. I resigned myself to the fact that this was going to be an all-day thing.
One thing that all the documentation said was that it could be done in one day if the hiker was in excellent shape.
Dude, I am NOT in excellent shape.
I'm not even in decent shape.

By about 10:30 I had made several up-and-down traverses- from the top of the hills and cliffs, then down to the beach, then back up to the top of the next cliffs to the next descent to the next beach...
And the beaches- beautiful and deserted, but-

Slogging in hiking boots across the sand will sap every bit of energy you have.
And there is an inevitable realization that when you go down, you must also go back up.

I had made it to Garie Beach by 10:45 and the sun was starting to come out...
I slathered up in sunscreen and kept at it.
The worst climb was coming up... The climb up to Garie Overlook was another 350' up a winding log and stone path. I'm not embarrassed to say that it took me almost 90 minutes to get to the top, and another 30 to recover from the climb and eventually move on.

One thing about the paths and trails...
There is quite a bit of variation in the paths- from barely-recognizable paths through scrub, to wide-open roads, to composite decking that traverse grassy areas.


Rocks in the path like this are ankle-breakers. Not to hikers: Wear boots with good ankle support. I wore my Belleville boots- had I worn sneakers I would have had to bail an hour into the trip.


Wide-open spaces. Watch for spider webs.

Another danger was not paying attention...
If you stopped on the trail, you had to make sure you weren't standing on these:


Some bad-ass army ants would boil up out of these holes and (I assume) bite the shit out of you...
I saw them swarm once early in the day, and I steered clear after seeing how fast they could move.


Composite decking on the cliffside.


Another high climb from sea level...


Mmmm. Nice decking...

There was a long relatively flat stretch (about 4 miles or so) where I just got roasted by the sun... It was a tease, however.

Pretty plants... They are probably poisonous, this being Australia and all...
(Took this pic with my Samsung phone, hence the quality- most other pics were taken with my Oz iPhone from the tournament.)

Rain was in the forecast for the afternoon and I could see the clouds rolling in from the north as I soldiered onward.
I didn't realize how fast the storm was coming. I got to the next way point, Eagle Rock at a 1:45p, and the wind was whipping and the rain started.
I hunkered down under an overhang of rock waiting for the worst of the rain to pass-
it took almost an hour- and now I was starting to worry about making the ferry at 7 PM.
I also knew I had 2 major climbs in front of me...
One thing I had in my backpack was one of those Mylar space blankets...
I wrapped up in that, covering my head and my backpack (a wet backpack is HEAVY) and got on my way.
Fortunately the rain had slacked off a good bit- just waves of drizzle...
Curracarrang to Wattamolla was a wet blur for me. It was my next resting place...
I changed socks and got going again- another high climb off the beach at Wattamolla and then off across the cliffs again heading for the Marley beaches.
I got smart going across the Marley beaches by taking off my boots and carrying them in my backpack- much better going- definitely worth the time.
One last climb up from Marley's beach - it was just after 4pm... I had a 400' climb over the next mile and a half- then a long downhill to the ferry in Bundeena and the rain was getting heavier... the drizzle was now waves of short light showers.
I got to the trail end at 6:05pm, and walked through the streets of Bundeena trying to find the ferry dock. I got to the dock just at 6:30- the last inbound ferry just arrived.
I got my ticket and sat on the boat to wait for the ride back to my car...
It was uneventful, except I could barely drive once I got to the car.
I had to take my boots off and massage my feet and legs for a bit before I could get back on the road...

But I made it.

From the pedometer on my phone...


Did I have a good time?
Not really...
Was it cool?
Yes- I'm glad I did it.
Do it again?
Nofuckingway.


TBG- ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒE

Oops!

There is a reason semis are prohibited from driving on New York State parkways...


Yikes


TBG- ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒE

Ow.

+ 1 for perfect measurement on the string that is holding the Gatorade bottle...

TBG- ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒE