So what do you do when you piss off your wife by taking that consultancy job that inevitably, predictably mandates professional on-site supervision of the project, much too far away from home?

Answer: You piss her off even more by getting roped in and join the team.

Oops.

And you end up alone in a condo you didn’t even pick, one that feels like a mausoleum or a tomb, eating take-out delivery and pizza, unable to get home, tired of timetables and intelligent systems and human resources - although it’s the “good” kind of tired. 

I’m not allowed to vent at work or to my wife right now, so hopefully I’m not doing anything that might strip me of my security clearance.  The wife is outwardly supportive (and still pissed) during screen-time and the kids are wondering if Dad’s going to be home for Thanksgiving in time to get the tree (Sorry). 

We all know the answer, and personally, I blame Trump. 

I can’t sleep.  No Nyquil.  The Election is over.  Baseball is over.  Football is unpatriotic.  The NBA is trash.  Hockey is Canadian, and that’s worst of all.  200 frickin’ HD channels on a screen the size of a limousine.   Nothing to watch.  Nothing to do, nobody to complain to except God (who’s busy with faithless liberals suddenly finding religion), except to have your mind wander to that snarky Aussie Test engineer you corresponded with in ?Melbourne? and I find this throw-away account on a political flame forum that reminds me of how I got me to this point?

OK, this works.

I should make a blog to ramble on, but this will do the trick.

I blame Trump.

I blame the Democrats too, for being too stupid to make deals with a potential President-elect in September and October (the way you’re supposed to every election cycle).  They genuinely were that arrogant and ignorant believing that their own media lies, expending common sense, and ignored negotiating with Trump before the election to hedge their bets. 

Oops.

I blame Obama.  That idiot can’t negotiate himself out of cage he’s been locked out of, let alone Trump.  But we all know after 8 years that he’s got the business and leadership acumen of a flea.  He’s a blood-sucker, with a brain barely the size of a grain of sand.  And re-watching that “mic-drop” where Obama mocked Trump that he would never be President? 

Oops.

I blame the media, who are so scandalized that Trump walked out of negotiations to have dinner with his family whilst neutering the EPA in one fell-swoop.  Their jaws are still on the floor muttering about the dinner rather than the bureaucratic gears throughout the Federal government grinding to a halt.  I don’t think the EPA is going to be threatening our company with endangering the local fauna, nor the Department of Labor coming after us for not hiring any black Process Engineers.

I blame foreigners, who can’t seem to get it through their skulls that the fabled “Trump will be stopped by how government works” is as phony as every media narrative that has come before.  What the hell do they know about America?  Trump doesn’t need Congress to throw wrenches into “Free Trade”.  He has the regulatory agencies.  There are literally thousands of regulations in every agency that can be interpreted to slow-play and drag competing foreign goods, services, and finances through the mud.  Do Canadians really think they’re the only ones who can require businesses to research and document which Canadian goods cannot fill their needs before they’re allowed to import competing products from the US? 

Same with Visas.  Same with illegal immigration.  Same with security matters from Asia Pacific to NATO.  He doesn’t need Congress.  The laws are on the books.  It’s all a matter of enforcement and non-enforcement.  Obama showed the way…

…and Trump’s team is in charge of enforcement come January, with every DC bureaucrat is ducking their heads to avoid getting an unceremonious pink-slip like McCarthy did.

The moment Trump won with no help from (and no favors to pay back to) the Democrats, Obama, the media, and foreign “donors”?  There went your negotiating leverage.

Oops.

The local authorities and everyone else in places well beyond Gotham took all of twenty-two nanoseconds to offer the best deals to get the floor open stat once Trump walked out on the idiots in Manhattan who live in their own imaginary world, pretending they have leverage, pretending that Trump was on the ropes because “his transition team is in disarray”. 

Oops.

If anyone’s in “disarray”, it’s everyone from the OSHA coordinator checking confined standard spaces to the golfer-in-chief who gets more vacation time in a year than I’ve had in the last decade.  Did you see Obama trying to redouble his criticism of Trump?  The man in the White House has been thoroughly whipped (again).

All those questions about the land-use and property taxes in the bids and wrangling that went on for …forever?  Gone.  Funding approved.  Certification pre-approved.  Projections have changed - dramatically.  Requisition some more CNCs, DCS, HMI, scanners, piping, yada yada, and don’t forget the big bag of money to fund the incentive packages and new payroll.  We didn’t increase capacity near enough.

Oops.

Lastly, I blame myself.

Me: “It’s too good to be true.  Let’s be reasonable and even-keeled”

Jerk: “You can’t half-ass your way out now.”

Me: “[expletive]”

Oops for me too.

But mostly, I blame Trump.

The glorious Bastard.

America is great again.

Now I can sleep.

Terry wrote on Nov 9^th, 2016 at 6:12pm:

bogarde73 wrote on Nov 9th, 2016 at 4:54pm: First, consolations to those who wanted the other side to win. It was a close run thing really. But you do know they lied to you don't you. The media and their bought & paid for pollsters. The shysters with the big money. However, most of all I think this new president deserves a big round of applause. He's the guy who wouldn't give up. And isn't that what you want from a leader. From the start they put him down. They said he'd never run, then they said he'd drop out, then they said there was no chance he'd get nominated and finally they said until five minutes ago that Clinton was a shoe in. 90% of the media tried to put him out of the game, so did the hedge funds & the rest of the big Wall St money, and even a lot of people in his OWN party tried time & time again to bring him down. Well all those people you believed, they lied to you, but Sprint, Panther, myself and a few other guys told you the truth about what would happen because we saw what the people wanted. And you do want the people to decide these things, no? So there is - and has been for a year - a new star in the political firmament. More like a black hole really. He sucked them in and chewed them all up one by one, saving the best for last. So now. . .whose got egg on their faces? First, Newsweek for their egotistical cover. Madam President indeed! We all know the only kind of Madam she is. And what about the NY Times, the conscience of the people . . .they think! At the start of counting they had the Clinton woman at 80% chance of winning. By near the end they had her at 5%. How's that for reliable media! Don't forget that doyen of fair play, NBC. As the votes came in they had to be dragged kicking & screaming to the keyboards to chalk them up. They were probably having a meeting to discuss whether they could change the results and get away with it. But I don't want to end without some special attention for some of our friends here: Dopey - that would be a toss up between Gandalf and Bojack, I'll go for Gandalf because he has a 1400 year handicap Mr Funny  - that would be Greg, who gives us fun and who we hope does not leave the building. Sleazy - well that would have to be North by North, who I will gladly show the the way to the exit Grumpy - no doubt about that, Redneck for sure - he must be extra grumpy tonight. Streetwise Girl - Marla, she won't be disappointed because they're all losers to her PRESIDENT DONALD J TRUMP . . . .sounds just dandy don't it? And now I'll go and explain to my grandson how it's a lie that President Trump will start WW3. And remember, winners are grinners.  Tha-That's all folks. Well, I've been writing congratulatory messages all night, but I'll leave this perfunctory note. Congratulations to America. For my part, I've been mired` in consultancy, requisitions and G-Code; these past few months being rather hectic with some old colleagues who were themselves assigned to a start-up/sub-division which might be spun off in the future, who knows. What are they up to? Essentially, ganged CNCs and the necessity of retooling for their parent company, their contractors, sub-contractors, and possibly even some of their competitors.  I think I've mentioned before that many outfits in the US were hedging bets for just this eventuality.  Things were already being set in motion.  We don't have a green board yet.  We don't have a completely free hand to make any "new" hires` - the shackles are still on with the regulatory regime still unchanged and Obama still in office.  But even there the feeling we're getting is that everyone from OSHA to the EPA are going to be looking over their shoulders, knowing the new boss might not take kindly to inspectors and certifications being withheld using regulatory and extra-regulatory means.  There are some professional people in the regulatory agencies, but these days there are far too many busybodies who try to justify the fact that they do useless jobs like require environmental impact studies on bird populations for turbine testing. So the outlook has become "uncertain" - an improvement because before it was "impossible".  So we can at least offer hours to people within normal channels.  And if the economic outlook really changes, if the Trump phenomenon is even halfway successful, our outfit won't be the only one to benefit.  There's an American boom in the works if things fall right. For my Aussie associates, I've already noted that Trump is not necessarily good for them.  If they choose to tie their fate to China, it's their destiny to choose. I've advised before how China's fate is tied to the US in ways that are simply not mutually vital to the US. For the Aussies here, choose well.  I very much doubt you appreciate your geo-strategic situation any better than Americans, but as with any destiny, it's your responsibility whether you understand it or not. For Americans of the productive stripe, there's a lot of work to be done, for sure.  The anti-Americans in our country and their foreign collaborators will be throwing wrenches into our works. This was one victory, hopefully the first of many more to come.

The Light is Green.

Actually, the Light is flashing Neon Green.

Terry wrote on Mar 28^th, 2016 at 8:30am:

bogarde73 wrote on Mar 28th, 2016 at 6:58am: I am looking to Trump as a last chance for action. Look at the last three presidencies. Clinton virtually nothing. Bush a war that was a mistake. And Obama, the biggest promises of all and the biggest disgrace of all. Nothing done for America at all in 24 years. America's cities & infrastructure are crying out for renewal. I think this is a theme Trump should take up & run with now. There is for eg an eviction epidemic going on in the cities now. A whole industry. This is the kind of thing that is at the root of America's troubles. It all comes down to a roof, food on the table, health. It needs someone to stand up & be an FDR. Trump's instincts are contrarian to FDR's call of internationalism and economic strangulation.  He espouses a return to the 50s era which dismantled FDR's New Deal and saw American economic growth behind a wall of protective trade. It's already begun:  from commodity chains and exchanges to a mad-dash for milling and foundry-clean floorspace.  Some local governments (from Mexico to China) have even threatened to impound or outright confiscate tooling to prevent American repatriation (as if a restatement of that possibility were not already baked into the cake), hence the focus INCONUS on start-ups recently, often as subdivisions, reorganization and spin-offs from established host companies, for example, in macroprogramming for multi-gang CNC. It's a hedge for an obvious trend, and opportunity, in which some basic entrepreneurialism is filling the gap.  Capability is not a question.  We can teach 16-year olds to run HVACs and set the molecular filtration units rather than having grad-students delivering mail (which would mean a raise for everyone involved).  The question is "How much capacity?  At what price?  On what timetable?" The money managers have lagged behind as they always do, asking "When do you get funding?", not realizing that money chases wealth, not the other way around. And while I have many professional relationships overseas including in Aussieland and the Western Pacific, I'm under no illusions as to what the original American Conservative paradigm means for their businesses and our's. As stated earlier, Trump's instincts are not directly beneficial to Aussies and our overseas partners.  Many are too focused on the negatives without acknowledging that unless business is beneficial to both sides, it won't last.  Others have not fared as well.  Word has gotten around that many have gone nuclear in conference, which is (and is not) surprising. This is business. Trump has shifted the dynamics of how we look at a competitive US market, whether he wins or loses - just by pointing out the sword of Damocles.  And if it comes into full focus, no matter what industry in America you're in, everyone will have to break ground, add payroll, and adapt. Interesting times :)

The light is green

You got to think it is for anyone interested in sexual assault in the USA with President Groper in charge.