As of today, I have been officially back in the workforce for one week. The drive back and forth to Sierra Vista is longer than I would like, but I have been bearing up well. A decision has been made for me to stay there for two nights a week in order to provide me midweek driving rest. So, for either a Tuesday/Thursday night or a Monday/Wednesday night arrangement, I will be staying at a motel down there. I have already been traveling with a two changes of clothes in case I was too tired to drive home, and I may up that to three when monsoon season starts as that you don't want to be out on the highways when there's bullet rain. I have seen people skid off the road. I have never lost control while driving, but that goes back to something Clint Eastwood said in Magnum Force. "A man's got to know his limitations".
With today being a paid federal holiday, I rested at home today, but coming off a three day weekend might make tomorrow night a good night to stay down there. Then again Thursday night for this week. I may go over to the 9/80 schedule so that I can get every other Friday off. That was mentioned to me during the interview as a selling point, and it was mentioned to me this week that I can flex my hours at my discretion, as long as I get in 80 hours in the two week pay period. I think I will make tomorrow and Thursday nine hour days, and do an early out on Friday.
I'm not going to get into specifics about the work that I am doing. As my blog profile says, I'm an engineer, and in this job I will be performing test engineering functions. I see an opportunity here to develop some skills while leveraging those that I already have. And my marketability is greater than it was when I was testing medical devices, though my intention is to ride this train some. That's all for now about the job..........it's a good fit for me, and I like it that one office tradition is to go out for a walk on some afternoons. That's good exercise and the 1.14 miles we did on Wednesday gave me the adrenaline that I needed for the drive home.
On the ham radio front, I have been somewhat active on the local 2 meter repeater scene and developing some good on-air friendships with some local hams. I probably ought to develop a separate post with some musings on the local 2 meter scene here. I'm also thinking of starting another blog page and devoting that entirely to my amateur radio activity and using this blog for life, other interests, and anything else that strikes my fancy. If I do that, I would place a link on my qrz.com webpage.
I have also started building another antenna, this one for the six meter band, that is, from 50 to 54 MHz. I recently purchased a brand new transceiver with that capability. Six meters is a fickle band and exciting on occasion, and operating there is something that I've wanted to do for some time. I've been reading some back columns from QST magazine that's devoted to VHF/UHF enthusiasts. I still strictly consider myself an HF guy, and getting on the 20 and 40 meter bands is more in line with my interests. Conditions haven't exactly been the greatest as of late, but with sporadic E openings on six meters that may be where I will hang out once I get back on the air. Perhaps I should do that separate blog page and chronicle my activities there, so I can editorialize on current events, coin collecting, and other things here.
Getting back to that six meter antenna project, what I have in mind is for it to be quasi-portable. Each leg of the antenna will be 56 inches in length, and I have purchased some PVC pipe sections for this antenna. I want ease of assembly and disassembly as that I could see taking this setup out into the field and seeing what I could do from mountaintops. My new rig will easily do portable operations as well; all I would need is a marine battery and the antenna, and I'm good to go.
As for the political scene here, the obsession that Organized Media has for deposing President Trump I think is bordering on some sort of mental sickness. On one day you read about fired FBI Director Comey alleging that Trump wanted an investigation shut down, and then one or two days later another news source credibly discredits that, but Organized Media by that time has a new story for the day. They may on occasion quietly admit that there is no evidence of Russian hacking, but continue to pursue that story anyway.
The Russians did not flip even one vote from the Electoral College. Voting machines are NOT connected to the Internet, and thus they cannot be hacked from some hooligan in St Petersburg or Blagoveshchensk.. Then there's the "well the Russians influenced things somehow!", but the reality is, is that the Democrat Party has lost 1100 seats in state and local races since Obama took office. They are in decline and are now a regional party. They are in the process of self-destructing as are the Republicans at times. I think the upshot here is that the last election was a referendum on the political establishment of both parties. It was a chance to blow them up, and we took it because if we didn't we would risk not ever getting that in the future.
Now I'm hearing rumblings that Hillary may run again in 2020, and if she does, she'll do even worse that time around. From what I'm able to observe, the jobs are coming back, and so is consumer confidence. How do you run against a better economy?
Anyway, I need to jet out of here, as that I owe one more phone call somewhere, and some emails. Maybe I can catch up from my motel room tomorrow night.
Don't forget to pet a dog or a cat!
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