Coffee 2-23-2013

I had some coffee, I just snuck in and got in and left on the pronto down low. I had a busy morning getting around to help sell girl scout cookies at the local kmart with the daughter. They did good. Thursday and Friday I had to dig up my sewer pipe to do a repair, and the weather here wasnt good for that at all. I'm beat from that so all I've done after help sell the cookies is watch the flyers game and examine my eyelids for a while.

lowfog01 wrote:Hey Chris that revolver looks a lot like my .38 except my .38 has a vented barrel. That attracts a lot of attention on the range because it spits fire when you shoot it; it's loud and very obvious to anyone at the range. It has started many a conversation.

Hey LIsa, yeah, your .38 is probably more like the .357Mag. that my wife just took from me It is a LCR, like SMitty's .38, but bored out to .357Mag. My wife loves it!

Nice find on the stove! That'll make a great summer project.

Actually they're the same size. You can shoot .38 Special in that .357 ... but NOT vice-versa. The .357 is just built to handle the higher pressure.

Oh, thats true, and I do practice with standard .38 loads. Also .38+P loads, and of coarse .357Mag loads.

SMITTY wrote:Actually they're the same size. You can shoot .38 Special in that .357 ... but NOT vice-versa. The .357 is just built to handle the higher pressure.

Hello all. I'm down in West Monroe Louisiana.. for the winter board of directors meeting of my car club..
Seems that now that I'm 'retired' some board members want me to spend some of my 'extra' time on the
board of directors of the club.. We'll see, today was a long and rather boring meeting day..

Another storm in the east.. wow,you guys are having a real winter..

Well it's late, and I have a tour to go on tomorrow. so it's time to get to bed..

G'Nite all !!

Greg L

LsFarm wrote:hello all. I'm down in West monroe Louisiana.. for the winter board of directors meeting of my car club..
Seems that now that I'm 'retired' some board members want me to spend some of my 'extra' time on the
board of directors of the club.. We'll see, to day was a long and rather boring meeting day..

Another storm in the east.. wow,you guys are having a real winter..

Well it's late, and I have a tour to go on tomorrow. so it's time to get to bed..

G'Nite all !!

Greg L

West Monroe... thats the duck dynasty boys hangout isnt it?!!

Thanks for the coffee Freddy...

I forgot how crazy the shipyard is until I went back to work for a week. I am a welder by trade, but they called me back up from lay off to be a Shipfitter for 30 days. That was better then lay-off, so I took it. Three days into it, they offered me a job as a full time Shipfitter, so wanting to work past 30 days, I took that, even though it was a $3 cut in pay over my former rate. Two days later they called me up and said they were recalling the welders. That left me in a conundrum, because as a Shipfitter I had 40 people under me in seniority, but as a welder I have very few.

Ultimately I went back to my core trade of welding. The pay is better then shipfitting, but it really had to do with bringing your trade outside the shipyard. Inside the shipyard, a Shipfitter is a Shipfitter, but outside they are called laborers since all they do is install steel plates and grind. A welder is a welder no matter where you and the welders at BIW have a good reputation so you can get a job welding just about anywhere. I did like shipfitting as you had to use your brain to figure out problems, but welding is all skill and it is nice to use that skill to build a ship that could conceivable see battle or take on 50 foot waves.

Either way, everyone is back from lay off and with so many ships to build, the hiring frenzy will commence. They are saying in the next few months they will hire another 720 people for various trades due to work load and an aging workforce that is retiring. With that many people, hopefully they will start up their third shift again as I made more money on that ship and saw the wife and kids a lot more too.

Here is a cool video of a couple of cranes picking up a 900 ton deckhouse of one of our Destroyers just to give you an inside view of what we do.

good video NoSmoke

Yes, West Monroe La is the hangout of the 'Duck Dynasty' crowd.. I went to their factory outlet, aka tourist trap. It was nothing special.
Tee-Shirts and Duck calls.. LOL.. what else would be there ??.

The weather is mid 60's in the day, mid 30's at night.. Another tour today,,
Excellent food,, I'll be fat again by tomorrow night.. Drinks and snacks gets me every time..

Greg L

I wonder how much money they make off the show? Really doesn't look like the millioniare bizz the show hype suggests. Anyways, morning to all. A day late an a dollar short but here I am. Another little snow pisser headin our way the sages of weather say. We've had a much more "normal" type winter this season. My coal stash is looking like the end of march, maybe a week or two of April and it's spent.
I haven't been around as much lately do to some other issues but good to see most of the gang is doing well. My Bro in Law is a welder for Cianbro No Smoke, Been with them for 15 years now. He and my sis are currently down in Costa Rica getting away from the winter. They go down there every winter for a couple of weeks. Got a little cabana on the beach. Wouldn't have minded tagging along but who would run my stoves? . I'll be off to France myself soon for the first of a couple of trips. Out in the sticks in the old cathar/Templar country. Should be fun. Got allot of projects around the old homestead too this spring.

PS: I read that old post Greg where you redid the portion of your house. That was a big project that came out great!

LsFarm wrote:Yes, West Monroe La is the hangout of the 'Duck Dynasty' crowd.. I went to their factory outlet, aka tourist trap. It was nothing special.
Tee-Shirts and Duck calls.. LOL.. what else would be there ??.

The weather is mid 60's in the day, mid 30's at night.. Another tour today,,
Excellent food,, I'll be fat again by tomorrow night.. Drinks and snacks gets me every time..

Greg L

Yeah usually they all are tourist traps. Friend of mine was in Vegas and stopped at the "pawn stars" gold and silver shop and it was all setup for tourism. But its what is to be expected. Todays world is influenced by popular media so lets face it. What would you rather a younger generation watching, A&E's "duck dynasty" or MTV's "teen mom"

That weather sounds pretty darn sweet, this time of year im ready for warm weather change.

anthony7812 wrote:

LsFarm wrote:Yes, West Monroe La is the hangout of the 'Duck Dynasty' crowd.. I went to their factory outlet, aka tourist trap. It was nothing special.
Tee-Shirts and Duck calls.. LOL.. what else would be there ??.

The weather is mid 60's in the day, mid 30's at night.. Another tour today,,
Excellent food,, I'll be fat again by tomorrow night.. Drinks and snacks gets me every time..

Greg L

Yeah usually they all are tourist traps. Friend of mine was in Vegas and stopped at the "pawn stars" gold and silver shop and it was all setup for tourism. But its what is to be expected. Todays world is influenced by popular media so lets face it. What would you rather a younger generation watching, A&E's "duck dynasty" or MTV's "teen mom"

That weather sounds pretty darn sweet, this time of year im ready for warm weather change.

I'd rather watch Duck Dynasty.

Saw this on my way home from work on Saturday.

That looks like every day on each major MA highway.

anthony7812 wrote:stopped at the "pawn stars"

LsFarm wrote:West Monroe La is the hangout of the 'Duck Dynasty' crowd.

Speaking of TV shows.... I was just over at Charlies house & he said " You'll never guess who phoned me". He was so right... Rick Dale of the "American Restoration" show! Charlie had sent him photos of the Harleys he has restored & Rick phoned him in person to talk about them. He left Charlie with the impression that it's possible that he have Charlie restore a bike for the show. Time will tell!

SteveZee wrote: My Bro in Law is a welder for Cianbro No Smoke, Been with them for 15 years now. He and my sis are currently down in Costa Rica getting away from the winter. They go down there every winter for a couple of weeks. Got a little cabana on the beach. Wouldn't have minded tagging along but who would run my stoves? . I'll be off to France myself soon for the first of a couple of trips. Out in the sticks in the old cathar/Templar country. Should be fun.

I am not a big fan of Cianbro, even though my Uncle worked there as a project manager for years, as did my cousin, and I still have some kin at the fab shop that are still welding for them. I really should not have that attitude towards them as back in 1992 they did take me right out of High School and let me practice welding until I passed their tests and became a welder. Part of it is the nature of construction; they finish a project and lay people off, but over the years it is funny how they only give out benefits at 1000 hours (6 months) and lay a pile of people off at their 900 hour mark. Kind of like how Walmart employes 500 part-time people to run their stores. I don't look favorably on that, and since 1998 have enjoyed being part of the Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers for both the railroad and the shipyard and like collective bargaining agreements too much to go back to that nonsense. But without them, I would not be where I am today and can understand why your BIL works for them.

But if he likes Cianbro, then your brother in law should like Costa Rica better. The one thing that surprised me was how many American's there were down there. When I asked them why, the answer was that they can live like kings for a fraction of what Florida would cost and the weather is better and the natives more subservient to boot. If you ever do go, take a night time tour of the jungle, that is really neat; it will completely freak you out as the animals follow you on the tour making your hair stand on end in fear, but something that really must be experienced when down there. As for France; I have tripped all over the world but have never got there. I bet Paris would be sweet to visit. Have fun there in any case!