Working from Home

Posted on May 29, 2010 by Brian Gallimore

I brought all the stuff I’ve been working on in the office home so I could spend the weekend here instead of all alone in the office.  This is all equipment from automationdirect.com (the walmart of industrial automation).  I’ve been pretty impressed with everything, especially considering they are generally 1/2 price of the competitors.  I’ve called in to their tech support several times (free) and I’ve always been connected to a real English-speaking, knowledgeable technician right away.  PLC is DL260 w/ ECOM100 Ethernet, HMI is C-More 12″.  I’m also using a standalone ProLinx module to translate between Modbus/TCP and AB Ethernet that is used by some of the vendor equipment I’m interfacing with.  (that module cost more than my whole PLC rack by the way)

Posted in Work | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

Can you guess what’s in the picture?

Posted on May 26, 2010 by Brian Gallimore

Can you guess what’s in the picture?

A) Strawberry ice cream

B) Chicken

C) Plastic foam

D) None of the above

Answer below

What you need to know:

Folks, this is mechanically separated chicken, an invention of the late 20th century. Someone figured out in the 1960’s that meat processors can eek out a few more percent of profit from chickens, turkeys, pigs, and cows by scraping the bones 100% clean of meat. This is done by machines, not humans, by passing bones leftover after the initial cutting through a high pressure sieve. The paste you see in the picture above is the result.

This paste goes on to become the main ingredient in many a hot dog, bologna, chicken nuggets, pepperoni, salami, jerky etc…

The industry calls this method AMR – Advanced Meat Recovery.

In 2004, as a result of  mad cow disease (Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy), the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) ruled that beef could no longer be processed this way, because testing showed that parts of the bovine central nervous system ended up in the meat.

As for products using mechanically separated chicken and pork, FSIS ruled that they are safe to eat, but required them to be labeled as such.

Despite them being safe, FSIS states that no more than 20% of the meat in a hot dog come from mechanically separated pork.

http://www.fooducate.com

Posted in Interesting, Strange | Tagged | 1 Comment

Butt Lift Procedure Picture

Posted on May 26, 2010 by Brian Gallimore

Received via e-mail:
—
Dear Family and Friends,
Most of you know I went in for a small surgical procedure for a butt lift. I did not have the most pleasant of experiences. I wanted to show you how it turned out. Please, refrain from getting this procedure.

You will regret it!

Much Love,
Please see my photo below……

Posted in Humor | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Mason Jar Case Project

Posted on May 23, 2010 by Brian Gallimore

masoncasefronttop2view
Dave suggested that cases would be a good way to store mason jars full of food.  At first I thought this was unnecessary, but the more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea.  If all your jars won’t fit on shelves, you need someplace else to put things, and placing them in sturdy boxes allows for safe stacking and easy transport.  We figured out that an area 16-1/2″ x 16-1/2″ x 7″ would allow for 25 pint jars or 16 quart jars.  Filled weight with quart jars would be 33 pounds.  I couldn’t get this out of my head until I had a design down, and so this is what I’m sharing:

masoncasefronttopview2 sides:

1/4″ plywood cut 16-1/2″ x 8-1/2″

1×2 (or 3/4″ x 1-1/2″ S4S) cut 16-1/2″

(2) (or 3/4″ x 1-1/2″ S4S) 1×2 cut 7″


front and back:

1/2″ plywood cut 18-1/2″ x 8-1/2″

masoncasebottomfrontviewbottom:

3/4″ plywood cut 16-1/2″ x 16-1/2″





masoncaselidlid:

1/4″ or 1/2″ plywood cut 18-1/2″ x 17-1/2″

(4) 1×2 cut 15″ (or if you want to be able to use the box as a stool, use a piece of 3/4″ plywood cut 16-1/2″ x 16-1/2″)

leave 1/2″ space along the long side and 1″ space along the short side

(Updated 5/25/2010: changed front and back from 1/4″ plywood to 1/2″ plywood)

Posted in Projects | Tagged , , , , , | 6 Comments

Garden Update: May 22, 2010

Posted on May 22, 2010 by Brian Gallimore

The family went to the McKinney farmer’s market this morning and found some good deals. One the way back we stopped at the local nursery off Greenville. They had a sign out front ‘retiring, everything must go’. I asked the lady helping me what the story was, she explained that the area would soon be the new stadium. I was not impressed, an over-priced, over-hyped, concrete shrine to the religion of football replacing a local nursery with lots of beautiful old native trees.
Anyway, I did get a great deal on some plants. Their tomatoes were $1 each. I knew I needed to replace 2 of my upside-down tomatoes, and figured I could find room for an additional 2 on top of that. Those upside planters don’t seem like a good match for little seedlings. I think you need a plant that is over 12″ in height to start with. Also, Amber wanted to fill up some of her pots with geraniums, so we got a flat of those too.
Most everything is growing pretty good right now. I think it is too hot for the new carrots to survive in the full sun. They sprout up, but then die within a day or so after they experience the full Texas sun.

Baby Herb Plants
Herbs
Radish and Sweet Potato
Green Grapes
img_5547
Upside Down Tomato Plants
New Marigold
Celebrity Tomato
7 Tomato Plants
Beans are Taller than Me
Butter Beans, Black-Eyed-Peas, Cucumbers
Corn
What\'s Left of the Sunflowers
Watermelon
Cucumber
Blackberries
New Tomato - Black Prince
New Tomato - BHN 444
Troubled Tomato
Marigold

[Show slideshow]
1 2
Posted in Gardening | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

More Jars

Posted on May 22, 2010 by Brian Gallimore

Mike went to a garage sale and picked up a bunch of free jars for me. Looks like there are lots of quart jars in there, along with some non-canning jars too. I’m done looking at craigslist for a while, I have enough!

Posted in Life | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

A Third ENCAPULATOR movie

Posted on May 21, 2010 by Brian Gallimore

Or is it encabulator… who was the first? Here is the one a friend sent me today via email:
Encapulator

here are two that I had posted before.

OK, five minutes on the interweb has revealed all the secrets. According to the wonderful wikipedia article, this bit is ” a fictional machine whose alleged existence became an in-joke and subject of professional humor among electrical engineers. (see: technobabble).” Electrical engineers you say? Go figure! Check out the wiki, there are even some data sheets created by GE in 1962, including a picture! golden.

Posted in Humor | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Can-O-Whoopass

Posted on May 21, 2010 by Brian Gallimore

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Inflation Chart Porn

Posted on May 20, 2010 by Brian Gallimore

Recently, I was turned on to the website “National Inflation Association“.  They are one of the numerous groups that are concerned about the possibility of hyperinflation and the detrimental effects of inflation.  The charts below are all from their website, and the text below is from a recent email from them.

fttm
dowgoldratio
budgettrade
medianhome
hourlyearnings

[Show slideshow]

The Dow Jones declined by 376.36 points today to 10,068.01, but to us it is meaningless what the Dow Jones gains or loses in nominal terms. The number NIA cares most about is how the Dow Jones performs in terms of gold or the Dow/Gold ratio.

One of our top ten predictions for 2010 that we announced on December 21st, was that we would see a sharp decline in the Dow/Gold ratio from 9.3 to below 7.

Two weeks ago with the Dow/Gold ratio at 8.7, NIA said, “We expect this downward trend in the Dow/Gold ratio to accelerate in the weeks and months ahead.” Today the Dow/Gold ratio finished at 8.5.
Continue reading →

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Mason Jars

Posted on May 18, 2010 by Brian Gallimore

The $5 deal
Dave forwarded me a craiglist ad for “50 to 75 mason jars – $5 – Plano”.  I emailed the person and said I wanted them.  The lady had bought them earlier, and used about 20 of them for table decorations.  I gave her $5 and said thanks.  After dinner, I went outside and started opening up the boxes, sorting and counting.  Here is what I bought for $5:

126 pints, 6 wide-mouth pints, 9 quarts, 7 wide-mouth quarts, 2 half-gallons, 4 half-pints, 5 fancy pints.  I forgot to count all the ones that were used as decorations.  So I got a great deal on mason jars, now I just need to clean them all up and use them.

Me and the new jars

Posted in Gardening | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment