A three hour tour ....

[Lin]

I chuckled when I saw this.

Over the years there have been a number of threads dedicated to the Mary Ann VS Ginger debate.
(personally I think French Toast girl would and should win with a resounding margin, had she factored into the competition)

Coming this week to Vancouver ...

http://www.vancouverboatshow.ca/features/show-features/

[justinkelleher]

I never miss an opportunity...

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPOL8C4FPdc[/youtube]

[BeauV]

I think I could watch that about 100 more times, naaa maybe only 200 more times.

[Ish]

I chuckled when I saw this.

Over the years there have been a number of threads dedicated to the Mary Ann VS Ginger debate.
(personally I think French Toast girl would and should win with a resounding margin, had she factored into the competition)

Coming this week to Vancouver ...

http://www.vancouverboatshow.ca/features/show-features/

Cool. I just got a pair of free tickets for Thursday...now I just have to get organized enough to get there in time to enjoy it.

Mary Anne...I'd just as soon remember her as she was.

[Orestes Munn]

Ah, the French toast lady. Cute, yes, but I'm too old to eat that stuff and I'm not sure she'd have much entertaining to say about Quine, Wittgenstein and the philosophy of language, an obligatory topic on a voyage of any significant duration.

[Lin]

I chuckled when I saw this.

Over the years there have been a number of threads dedicated to the Mary Ann VS Ginger debate.
(personally I think French Toast girl would and should win with a resounding margin, had she factored into the competition)

Coming this week to Vancouver ...

http://www.vancouverboatshow.ca/features/show-features/

Cool. I just got a pair of free tickets for Thursday...now I just have to get organized enough to get there in time to enjoy it.

Mary Anne...I'd just as soon remember her as she was.

That is a wise approach.
Have a great time at your Safety At Sea Course and the boat show! Pure sunshine is forecast for Vancouver while you are here. Enjoy.

[Lin]

Ah, the French toast lady. Cute, yes, but I'm too old to eat that stuff and I'm not sure she'd have much entertaining to say about Quine, Wittgenstein and the philosophy of language, an obligatory topic on a voyage of any significant duration.

She might be cooking savoury French toast with challah, herb de provence, garlic, parmesan cheese and tomato chutney. : P

[Ish]

I chuckled when I saw this.

Over the years there have been a number of threads dedicated to the Mary Ann VS Ginger debate.
(personally I think French Toast girl would and should win with a resounding margin, had she factored into the competition)

Coming this week to Vancouver ...

http://www.vancouverboatshow.ca/features/show-features/

Cool. I just got a pair of free tickets for Thursday...now I just have to get organized enough to get there in time to enjoy it.

Mary Anne...I'd just as soon remember her as she was.

That is a wise approach.
Have a great time at your Safety At Sea Course and the boat show! Pure sunshine is forecast for Vancouver while you are here. Enjoy.

Thanks, Lin. I'm actually looking forward to the pool part, my PFD is filthy.

[Lin]

The pool part was my favorite! I was in the inaugural SAS Course that was held in BC, and was the only woman in the first course. It was hard work hauling people into the liferaft and pulling them across the pool. I loved it.

[Orestes Munn]

Ah, the French toast lady. Cute, yes, but I'm too old to eat that stuff and I'm not sure she'd have much entertaining to say about Quine, Wittgenstein and the philosophy of language, an obligatory topic on a voyage of any significant duration.

She might be cooking savoury French toast with challah, herb de provence, garlic, parmesan cheese and tomato chutney. : P

Hamotzi lechem min ha'aretz!

[Ish]

Ah, the French toast lady. Cute, yes, but I'm too old to eat that stuff and I'm not sure she'd have much entertaining to say about Quine, Wittgenstein and the philosophy of language, an obligatory topic on a voyage of any significant duration.

She might be cooking savoury French toast with challah, herb de provence, garlic, parmesan cheese and tomato chutney. : P

Hamotzi lechem min ha'aretz!

Gesundheit.

[SloopJonB]

That girl is the absolute definition of Joie de Vivre.

[Soñadora]

Ah, the French toast lady. Cute, yes, but I'm too old to eat that stuff and I'm not sure she'd have much entertaining to say about Quine, Wittgenstein and the philosophy of language, an obligatory topic on a voyage of any significant duration.

What

evs

[Ish]

Ah, the French toast lady. Cute, yes, but I'm too old to eat that stuff and I'm not sure she'd have much entertaining to say about Quine, Wittgenstein and the philosophy of language, an obligatory topic on a voyage of any significant duration.

Just a reminder, you're never too old to eat that stuff. Hush yo mouf.

[Tigger]

Plus, it is no longer Mary Anne or Ginger ... it is Kate or Pippa!

[LarryHoward]

Plus, it is no longer Mary Anne or Ginger ... it is Kate or Pippa!

Wouldn't that be two apples from the same tree?

OM. Waaay too high brow for this thread. I'm headed in to supervise removing a 3,000# generator from a very small space while our Navy customer watches and offers pithy advice. Then we'll get 8" of snow. At least the traffic will be light.

[Orestes Munn]

Plus, it is no longer Mary Anne or Ginger ... it is Kate or Pippa!

Wouldn't that be two apples from the same tree?

OM. Waaay too high brow for this thread. I'm headed in to supervise removing a 3,000# generator from a very small space while our Navy customer watches and offers pithy advice. Then we'll get 8" of snow. At least the traffic will be light.

At least you get to be useful. I am something called, "Tier I", which means I get to sit in my office with no one else around and do stuff I could easily do at home, until "dismissed" by my "supervisor". Taken literally, this means I should have been at work since 2010.

Whelp, time to gird up my loins, such as they are. At least the streets should be quiet.

[LarryHoward]

Plus, it is no longer Mary Anne or Ginger ... it is Kate or Pippa!

Wouldn't that be two apples from the same tree?

OM. Waaay too high brow for this thread. I'm headed in to supervise removing a 3,000# generator from a very small space while our Navy customer watches and offers pithy advice. Then we'll get 8" of snow. At least the traffic will be light.

At least you get to be useful. I am something called, "Tier I", which means I get to sit in my office with no one else around and do stuff I could easily do at home, until "dismissed" by my "supervisor". Taken literally, this means I should have been at work since 2010.

Whelp, time to gird up my loins, such as they are. At least the streets should be quiet.

It went well. Funny how the better we plan, the smoother the job. Less than 1/2" clearance for a 6' generator skid while making a 3 step pick with a forklift. My tech is pretty good and left nothing to chance. Now if my friends from Kohler can figure out why my 10,000 hour, JD powered generator stopped working at 100 hours on the meter. Damn common rail diesels. Who thought it was a good idea to hook up microprocessors to the simplest 4 stroke system in the world?

It's nice to leave the office in jeans and boots to participate in "real work" sometimes.

[Slick470]

Larry, I deal with the electrical design side of generators on and off with my job. All critical application, life safety (obviously also critical) or stand-by.

We have had more issues on the units where the manufacturer has decided to combine all of the electronics on one board. The tech shows up and says "the boards bad" but has no idea why.

We've also had a rash of natural gas generators having line pressure/regulator issues. Not fun.

[LarryHoward]

Larry, I deal with the electrical design side of generators on and off with my job. All critical application, life safety (obviously also critical) or stand-by.

We have had more issues on the units where the manufacturer has decided to combine all of the electronics on one board. The tech shows up and says "the boards bad" but has no idea why.

We've also had a rash of natural gas generators having line pressure/regulator issues. Not fun.

YEP. Even more fun when they wrap the troubleshooting in a totally proprietary system the requires active on line, encrypted connections with the corporate server for the electronic troubleshooting to work and tell the parts changer (hard to call him a tech) what to test next or to change. Particularly since the regional (sole source) rep uses either a Sprint or AT&T Air card to try to connect - in a county that has big holes in coverage for all but Verizon. Then parts take 2 weeks to arrive (no expedited parts on repairs). Been fighting this one through 3 unsuccessful visit since late October.

[Slick470]

Parts changer. I like that.

We have a job going on now with two nat gas gensets hooked up in parallel. Same manufacturer and model. One works the other doesn't. The amount of finger pointing is just silly.

Even though we don't have anything to do with the problems, our design has been checked over and over and confirmed appropriate, we keep getting drug into every little fight.

Hope you get yours sorted out soon.

[BeauV]

Many years ago we did a AI program to diagnose a bit of military equipment. We had the "bright" idea of linking it to a big-ass computer back at HQ that would do the difficult job of running the BIG AI software, yards and yards of PROLOG code (for those with a tech history bend). Well, this worked GREAT at the lab, but we sort of forgot about the fact that this piece of equipment was going to get tossed out of a C-130 and the guys on the ground didn't want the SatPhone link we'd assumed they would use broadcasting a signal that was like a "bomb here" signal for one and all to receive.

We "redesigned" the entire system to work with a 8.5X11 inch laminated sheet of paper that showed a flow chart, and a Marine who read off light patterns on the front panel. No "AI" anywhere, damned little electronics. It cost about 1/100th of what the AI radio linked system did and worked about 95% as well; it got a much higher rating than that from the guys in the field who didn't have to broadcast anything! Within two hours almost every Marine who took the class could diagnose the busted systems faster than the AI software back at HQ. It was a lesson in the appropriate and inappropriate application of technology that I've never forgotten.

[LarryHoward]

Many years ago we did a AI program to diagnose a bit of military equipment. We had the "bright" idea of linking it to a big-ass computer back at HQ that would do the difficult job of running the BIG AI software, yards and yards of PROLOG code (for those with a tech history bend). Well, this worked GREAT at the lab, but we sort of forgot about the fact that this piece of equipment was going to get tossed out of a C-130 and the guys on the ground didn't want the SatPhone link we'd assumed they would use broadcasting a signal that was like a "bomb here" signal for one and all to receive.

We "redesigned" the entire system to work with a 8.5X11 inch laminated sheet of paper that showed a flow chart, and a Marine who read off light patterns on the front panel. No "AI" anywhere, damned little electronics. It cost about 1/100th of what the AI radio linked system did and worked about 95% as well; it got a much higher rating than that from the guys in the field who didn't have to broadcast anything! Within two hours almost every Marine who took the class could diagnose the busted systems faster than the AI software back at HQ. It was a lesson in the appropriate and inappropriate application of technology that I've never forgotten.

Beau,

Others haven't bothered to learn. Read up on ALIS, the F-35 "Autonomic Logistics Information System". Coupled with a "robust" Prognostic Health Management System (PHM), it is intended to forecast failures before they happened, send that info back so the part and mechanic (who only had to know how to change the part) coulds be waiting when the aircraft landed, update the master data so a new part could be ordered, update the aircraft capabilities so it could be scheduled for another mission and identify that the bad part was being inducted into the retrograde system for repair. Since the aircraft was going to set new standards for reliability and maintainability, we were planning "on demand" training based on electronic training jackets so that the mechanic could have his training updated "just in time" as he was unlikely to have recently done that job.

Sure. No problem. At the time, I was PM for Naval Aviation Training and Ranges and my team was responsible for scoping training infrastructure, managing the procurement of training systems (Mechanic and aircrew), and developing manpower estimates to feed the system - with plenty of assistance from the aircraft PMs and their contractors, of course. For the F-35, we estimated that if ALIS/PHM was only 90% effective, the manpower would go up by close to 50%, the training pipeline for mechanics would double and cost would blow up the budget. 5 years later, the estimate for life cycle support for the F-35 jumped above $1Trillion dollars.

As I used to describe to my job as a Navy Aviation Maintenance Officer, I made a pretty decent career fixing things some contractor swore would never break.

[BeauV]

Larry,

We need a BIG bottle of your favorite booze and we could have a BALL draining it while telling stories about technology applied to these sorts of programs. I still get angry thinking about it all, and it's been two decades. We'll definitely need alcohol.

BV

[justinkelleher]

Cool stories guys.

I never miss an opportunity...

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPOL8C4FPdc[/youtube]

[LarryHoward]

Larry,

We need a BIG bottle of your favorite booze and we could have a BALL draining it while telling stories about technology applied to these sorts of programs. I still get angry thinking about it all, and it's been two decades. We'll definitely need alcohol.

BV

That would be a lot of fun but there is so much fodder. At least in aerospace, I'm afraid the rising tide through 2008 floated a lot of "one shot wonder" executive boats and a lot of folks got put into the front office because they made money in an up market. Lots of struggling today as those managers try to cope with a shrinking market and fickle customers. Some have done OK. Many are struggling.