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December 17, 2008 Snowmageddon

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  I was workin for Caltrans, about 45 miles south on the 15, at the top of the mountain. We went to work at 6 am on the 17th, snow started at 10 am. Las Vegas Paving was working on the road, and had detours up. It didn't stop snowing all day and and night. We worked 27 straight hours to keep the road open. We lost it about noon, and were behind until it stopped about 18 hours after it started. At 6 pm the relief crew from Needles, couldn't get up to us, because the road was closed, so we worked another 12, and others went home to be the day crew. I was plowing with a CHP officer, retrieving people from stranded cars for about 8 or so hours during the night and into early morning. We got two and half feet of snow at Mountain Pass, which is the top of the mountain. 15 was snowed in all the way from Cajon Pass, to the state line (Primm). 40 was shut down because of snow at EB Barstow, and WB at Goffs, and 95 was shut down at Searchlight. Up on the mountain the snow was deep, but i...
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Worth

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  Something is only worth as much as someone is willing to pay for it. Worth to a person is subjective. Something that I have is worth what I want or need.
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Why Do We Have Courts?

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Because our Constitution says so. Our rule of law derives from that Constitution. There must be some resemblance of law and order in a civilized society, otherwise there is only anarchy, and chaos. Neither of which can be, if a society is to exist, let alone evolve. Courts are the adjudicators, and the police are the enforcement of societies rules for existence in said society
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War Crimes

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  Were they really war crimes? I mean did the U.S. ever have concentration camps? Did the U.S. ever put wholesale innocent people in ovens, and gas chambers? Or do unethical tests on kidnapped people? No on all accounts. So, no, we weren't guilty of real war crimes. Were we guilty of breaking the law, yes, I wasn't there, but I can figure out that to fight evil, we must get down on the same level. We must do that without losing our humanity, because that is the only thing there is remaining to glean from that situation.   There is no winning, nor is there any morality, killing is killing, and it is all bad, no matter the reason. No matter how much we try to justify it. Thing is, for us as a country to exist, we must fight and kill for that existence. This idea that there are rules that make it ok to kill, is pure fantasy. We need good men doing bad things to bad men for the good, the bad, and the indifferent, without losing our humanity as an individual or country. They ma...
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My Driftin Memory.

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  I saw the cars in California buried in mud. Those pictures remind me of when I worked for Caltrans at the Lake Henshaw Yard. The San Felipe Rd from SR 79 to Scissors crossing on SR 78 near Banner grade was 17 miles. It was a County Rd. They had a mud slide on the western 5 or 6 miles. They started from the 79 with a front end loader, a grader, and a dump truck and started east clearing the road. Another crew with the same equipment started from the east end and worked west. Took them 3 weeks to clear the road. On our end at the 79 JCT, there were about 6 or 7 cars buried in mud about 4 feet of mud. We had some problems in Sentnec Canyon the 78 between Scissors crossing and the Yaqui Pass Rd turn off. Which meant we had to go all the way to Julian and down Banner Grade to get there. Whi ch was about 40 miles around. I hadn't thought about that in years. Things you remember from a picture.
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AI and Jobs

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  In Bridgeport Connecticut, manufacturing has come back. Great right? Yes it has but not the way Trump wanted. He thought bringing manufacturing back would bring with it jobs. That is backwards 1950's thinking. Because it hasn't. “These newer, successful manufacturing companies in Bridgeport don’t have assembly lines with workers performing repetitive tasks. They have high-skilled workers meeting exacting specifications for a relatively small number of picky customers,” said the Post. “That’s what most American manufacturing firms look like today. Ninety-eight percent of U.S. manufacturing firms employ fewer than 500 people, and 93 percent employ fewer than 100, according to 2022 data.” The “manufacturing” jobs actually employ more robots than anything, per the Post's editorial. Automation makes them extremely productive, and more productive workers are paid more, but it still means fewer people work in manufacturing than in the past. Pay attention to what is going o...
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Goodbye Father

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 Goodbye Father Well father, here I am   a lost child once again, with no direction. Now, I do not have you to show me the way, or to help me along. What will I do? I wasted so much time not listening. I regret the times that I was a problem, you did not deserve any of that. I could have been a better son. In the end, I owed you much more than I could repay. I had to do the things the way I did them. If I were as smart as I think I am,   I would have listened to you once in a while. These are my regrets and they are not in dispute.   I would like to thank you for the things that you have given me over the years. I would like to thank you for the mental toughness to live life. For the driving vocation, and appreciation of all things cars and trucks. I would like to thank you for teaching me to think for myself, and to make my own decisions right or wrong. I would like to thank you for the wisdom concerning finances, and...
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