28 March 2011

All the news no one cares about

A good weekend, all in all. TBH and I went to Indianapolis for the state Masters short course yards swim meet. She took first in her age group in 6 of 8 events, and 2nd in the other 2. She swum the 1650 free, 1000 free, and 500 free, in addition to short events in the backstroke. Two good days' work done there.

Next stop, the home state Illinois meet in a couple of weeks. Illinois usually has a big meet, since the Chicago area has a lot of swimmers and teams. I expect Evanston Wild Catfish and Naperville Waves will be the big squads in the meet. We'll see how the Western Illinois Masters Program Swimming (yes, the acronym is WIMPS) does. They probably won't have enough people to win high points in individuals or relays, but they'll make a good showing for their size. Looking forward to the meet (except possibly for several heats of 70+ years old swimmers doing 400 individual medley or 1650 free-those events can take a while. A looo-ooong while).

While in Indy, we did up a dinner at the local Benihana. I do like the cutting and dicing show that the chefs put on in front of the hibachi. Makse one wonder how those guys do it-and who washes out. People like 'Stump' Kobayashi, or 'Three-Fingers' Ito would I suppose not inspire great confidence for the diner. Though if I had a Japanese restaurant, I'd hire a hibachi chef that was missing a digit or two just for the hell of it.
Anyhow, a huge and delicious dinner was served up for us.

When we take a long trip, we tend to rent vehicles. With the right coupons and offers, one can get a vehicle fairly reasonably. Besides, a person has to splurge once in a while. I drove my first Holden. Well, a Cadillac CTS, on a Holden Sigma II platform. Heavy beast of a car for its size, not a terrible drive, but really not my style. It has some ergonomic issues in the interior as far as control placement, especially in the doors and the seats. Those are on the designers up in Detroit, though.

Finally, we got ourselves a new boss in the Design Lair. No more Team Rimmer, alas. The new guy is a degreed mech engineer, which is good. In this litigious society it's good to have calculations run by someone who's supposed to know his stuff. It's hard to get a fix on someone on his first day, but...
...you know in the war movies, when the platoon gets the replacement leader, all squeaky clean and full of book learnin', but not wise to the ways of people in the platoon or in the art of actual combat? I feel like that's what we've got. We'll see how he does when the fecal matter impacts the rotary-blade air mover and Rimmer starts telling us how to design something.

Ah, good times coming up! Ought to be fun.

yankeedog out.

6 comments:

  1. S'funny, the Sigma may have started life in Aus, but I don't think was ever used on any Holden vehicles down-under. Current Commodores are based on the larger Zeta platform. Have read good reviews on the CTS - good as far as US cars are generally considered down here, anyway - would like to take one for a drive one day, but I suspect most rental versions are hardly the top spec versions available :(
    Meh. I'm biased t'wards the blue oval myself, in part I suspect due to their usual underdog status down here.

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  2. Congrats to TBH. You can always send the new boss to me for training. I've just spent an afternoon, a night and a morning getting a press back up. The Japanese may be able to do buildings but not printing presses.
    PS He may come back slightly harmed ;)

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  3. Nice work by TBH. At the next staff pow wow just tell the new boss that you all think of him as your 'Big Toe'.

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  4. Al-Yeah, well, we'll see. This guy is already talking about being overwhelmed and wanting a quiet place to concentrate. So would I, when everyone is in there needing something right away. Maybe I'll pine for the good ol' days when Rimmer was running things.

    Drej-The CTS is an OK ride, but (and it's sad to say) Cadillac is nothing special these days.
    My other cars, HMS Rattletrap and the Brazen Chariot, are both Fords. Gotten good miles out of them so I can't complain.

    Bangar-Holy crap! They're keeping you busy, aren't they? That's a long stint.

    Therbs-Thank you, sir. I'll pass along your compliments. Like I said above, the jury is still out on this new guy. I think he knows his stuff but not sure how good he is at managing things.

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  5. Job done YDog. And yes I get long days ... just not as often nowdays.

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