It always makes my day to see the results of miscalculations with video goodness so I can play them over and over.

Like this one.

I got woke up by the damn phone again this morning, of course. For the first time in recent memory I was on track to get more that the 4 to 6 hours of sleep I seem to have only been getting for the last several months.

So I staggered into the kitchen without my glasses on and proceeded to nuke a cup of yesterdays coffee while I went and took care of business.

After the DING of the timer went off I grabbed my crap and headed out back under the umbrella to fall into one of the stadium chairs and proceed to light up a smoke.

My daily ritual when it isn’t pouring rain.

As I was sitting there staring off into space trying to get my shit together, I kept seeing something move out of the corner of my eye.

Something TINY.

It was hauling ass too, whatever it was.

I would get a little glimpse of a red molecule with many legs buzzing back and forth along the metal rim of the glass table. I’m not joking when I say it was moving out, it took me two solid minutes of trying to keep the little bastard in my view finder to get a picture.

Blurry because they are action shots, it would’t hold still.

There was two of ’em.

For scale, this dinky little Aphid strolled by too and they didn’t pay it the slightest attention, probably because it was too big for them to attack.

That is the glass table top, notice the individual grains in it.

So life goes on day to day, completely ignoring and oblivious to whatever the hell Kim Kardashion is or isn’t wearing.

I think maybe we should take that perspective ourselves.

It’s still clean.

You won’t see that ever again.

The thing is, how do I put this, “Functional” again.

It is far from being done at this point but I did stick a hunk of bar stock in it, dug around and found a POS hand ground cutter bit that was so dull that I could hear it rubbing on the work piece and proceeded to do a function check.

It will make chips at this point but that is about as far as I am going to go with that.

I still have to go through that pile of scrap they call a compound, still have to strip down and repaint the chip tray, build a stand, finish dialing in the compound and about twenty other little items but as I said, it will make chips again.

I will say that I am kind of proud of myself that it turned out so pretty. More the shame that I am going to ruin it’s good looks but I don’t own Bench Queens.

Never have and never will.

They are tools and they were made to work. When you work, you get dirty. End of story.

No amount of shining and polishing is going to keep this thing pretty.

Oil, dirty hands and greasy chips flying all over will have it grungy and dirty in no time.

I’m fine with that.

If it’s sitting there all pretty that means it hasn’t been working.

Now that it is mostly together I can start cleaning up the huge freaking mess that went right along with this project.

Between that and moving stuff all over last weekend, right off the top of my head I know that there are parts, fasteners, tooling, extra chucks and everything that goes with this lathe scattered all over that damn garage.

I can think of at least nine different drawers in six different tool boxes that has something that goes with this lathe in it right this minute.

But it’s come a long way since I started this upgrade and I think I am going to be happier than a clam at high tide when I finally get it all dialed in.

Sometime last week when I was messing around with this stupid Mini Lathe upgrade, I was attempting to put all the electronics and the switches back into the control panel after I had painted it.

Thinking myself to be somewhat Un Retarded, I figured I would outsmart my stupid ass for once and took multiple pictures of how it was all put together, BEFORE I took it apart, so I could slap it all back together without a bunch of hassle.

Suuuure.

I ran into their little trick of them somehow soldering the wires to the illuminated ON/OFF switch and had to cut them.

I thought I had that covered by taking the pictures AND marking the wires that weren’t numbered.

I get most of it back together until I get to this switch. I then discover that I didn’t get the right Angle of the Dangle with my pictures and can’t see some of the wires that go to one of the terminals, the fuse holder is right in the way. On top of that, I tried to De Solder the little spade terminals on the switch after I got it out to be able to get the actual wire off the terminal so I could just use crimped on female spade terminals and just slide them on.

Typically this quickly turned to disaster when I got the middle terminal too damned hot and it partially melted something inside the switch, rendering it useless.

Off to the internets I go, without completely thinking through this problem as you will see.

Five bucks and three days later I get the new switch, that’s when I discovered my photography skills suck ass.

I probably spent a half an hour looking but I finally found the wiring diagram, at the same place I ordered the switch from, The Little Machine Shop.

Long story short, I finally managed to get the new switch wired in and it actually works.

Now for the Paul Harvey Moment.

The Rest Of The Story.

The same day the switch finally showed up, a small dim light came on.

I ALREADY HAD ONE OF THE DAMN THINGS THE WHOLE TIME!

DUMBASS!

I’m sure you all have one of these laying around somewhere, yes?

IT’S THE SAME DAMN SWITCH!!!

SHIT!!

Oh this gets even better.

I was just out in the garage fooling with this thing again and was going through a couple more envelopes from that outfit getting some decals out that I had ordered.

The one the switch had come in was sitting on top so I snatched it up and stuck my hand in it to see if there was something else in there I had missed.

Here comes the Face Palm part and why I say my Man Card is safe.

Look what I found.

It came out of the envelope like that, allow me to tell you what it says,

“INSTALLING THE POWER SWITCH UPGRADE KIT”

Complete with pictures and detailed instructions,

AND!!!

The very same damn wiring diagram that I spent a half an hour looking for On Line!

So in typical Man Fashion I snagged the switch out of the envelope and threw everything else down.

Because we don’t need no stinking instructions.

Right?

Riiiiiiiight.

For the second time in a week, a very popular Blogger who’s name I won’t mention and to who’s site I won’t link to, has come out with posts trashing the Boomer Generation.

Reading through the comments, there seems to be a slathering wish for what they are calling “The Day Of The Pillow”, where they feel perfectly justified by their perception of Boomer self centeredness and greed, to suffocate us in our beds when we get old and feeble enough to be unable to defend ourselves.

Both posts are full of vitriol pointed towards the Boomer Generation but upon closer inspection, I see a lot of anger issues from Gen X’ers who’s main self righteous anger seems to be stemming from their common claim that they were “Latch Key Kids”.

Just so you know, I had that exact same experience growing up but for some reason I haven’t figured out how to blame the entire generation of my parents.

Funny that.

This claim exposes the true reasons for their anger without them apparently being able to see it when I can, from space.

They feel abandoned .

Poor widdle snowflakes gots the Daddy Issues but can’t seem to put 2 and 2 together so hey, lets attack that whole generation because our parents were too busy partying and being self centered to love us, right?

You try and tell them hey, you little fuckers are all growed up now and are beginning to hold office and take over the joint. If you don’t like what The Boomers In Charge are currently doing, then walk away from the Pity Party and fucking do something about it .

OH THE HOWLS OF OUTRAGE WHEN YOU POINT THIS OUT!

How DARE you interrupt our Pity Party you fucking Boomer.

There’s one, GET THE PILLOWS!

So after leaving one comment over there and getting swarmed by the RageAholics I figured just exactly the way I figured after trying repeatedly to teach some things to the younger generations, who’s only goal in life is to finish the last level of the latest video game,

Fuck ‘Em.

You sonsabitches have convinced yourselves that all of the worlds problem instantly materialized and have been exacerbated ever since the day the first poor hapless fool was born in a certain time period that has since been classified as The Boomer Generation?

Fine.

You take the wheel bitches.

BTW, don’t bother calling me when the Check Engine Light comes on in your new fucking Hybrid POS or “it’s making a funny noise”.

BTW, the spare light bulbs for the bathroom are in the closet down the hall. Handle it.

Put on your Big Boy britches and start taking care of shit on your own you fucking Know It Alls.

I should be around long enough to see the first signs of how that’s going to work out.

BTW, the looming economic blowout and the resulting world wide crash is going to be a pretty steep learning curve for all of you little whelps.

Now if you will excuse me, I am going to go On Line and find me a new pillow.

UPDATED;

Apparently Friend Of The Blog, The Defensive Training Group has had about enough of the Boomer Bashing also.

You definitely need to go read this whole thing because his response to this Day Of The Pillow horse shit is EPIC.

Wish I’d a thought of it myself.

That’s right you soulless bastard, stick that shit in your memory bank.