Get off my LAWN! "Grumpy Old Farts"

[Deleted member 268085]

Counter with this slowed down Bill Withers song. I like how the e-piano hovers over the melody.




It’s amazing what can find it’s way into drainage pipes. Sometimes joints break.

Yup. Like construction rags and porn mags. I had a new townhouse plumbing system back up on me. Wastewater in the kitchen sink, even. And it was a holiday! Found a plumber, who showed up with his wife. He tried his small snake first. No help. Brought out the master blaster snake, and pulled out a bunch of debris including what I mentioned first. Cost me a fortune.

 

[beans-on-toast]

Building your own always winds up costing more, be it an instrument or an amp. Some use it as an excuse to buy more tools.

 

[Deleted member 268085]

Those private equity companies are never good. It isn't about the businesses, it’s about cutting and squeezing every last cent out of them, then selling off the shell. Bain was cofounded by Mitt Romney, gee I wonder whose interest he lobbies for.

I despise Mitt Romney and Bain. When I got laid off by Motorola, an existing client (Baxter Healthcare) wanted to stay with me instead of with the remaining Moto consulting group. That income was going to fund the development of my own consulting company. Then Bain bought them. Then they fired the entire top management team. Then they fired me and stripped the company bare. Lost lots of good people. No idea what the current Baxter operation entails. I would up burning through $200K of retirement money before I decided I'd had enough, and retired.

 

[Black Out Jazz]

Those private equity companies are never good. It isn't about the businesses, it’s about cutting and squeezing every last cent out of them, then selling off the shell. Bain was cofounded by Mitt Romney, gee I wonder whose interest he lobbies for.

misspelled lowlife

 

[GonePlaid]

I despise Mitt Romney and Bain. When I got laid off by Motorola, an existing client (Baxter Healthcare) wanted to stay with me instead of with the remaining Moto consulting group. That income was going to fund the development of my own consulting company. Then Bain bought them. Then they fired the entire top management team. Then they fired me and stripped the company bare. Lost lots of good people. No idea what the current Baxter operation entails. I would up burning through $200K of retirement money before I decided I'd had enough, and retired.

The days of working 35+years for a company and retiring with a nice pension have pretty much disappeared except for some union gigs or government work.

 

[Black Out Jazz]

I despise Mitt Romney and Bain. When I got laid off by Motorola, an existing client (Baxter Healthcare) wanted to stay with me instead of with the remaining Moto consulting group. That income was going to fund the development of my own consulting company. Then Bain bought them. Then they fired the entire top management team. Then they fired me and stripped the company bare. Lost lots of good people. No idea what the current Baxter operation entails. I would up burning through $200K of retirement money before I decided I'd had enough, and retired.

Motorola, huh? I am in the LMR industry.

 

[beans-on-toast]

I despise Mitt Romney and Bain. When I got laid off by Motorola, an existing client (Baxter Healthcare) wanted to stay with me instead of with the remaining Moto consulting group. That income was going to fund the development of my own consulting company. Then Bain bought them. Then they fired the entire top management team. Then they fired me and stripped the company bare. Lost lots of good people. No idea what the current Baxter operation entails. I would up burning through $200K of retirement money before I decided I'd had enough, and retired.

There was a Motorola R&D center in town, I knew several that went their after getting higher degrees. All is gone now. The property was sold, the old buildings were torn down and condos reside there now. Many went to a major research center that developed switches for the phone-internet industry. That company shut down as well. Thousands more lost their jobs. The latter company exists today as a shell that manages and licenses their intellectual property. What a mess.

 

[gtmalone]

Building your own always winds up costing more, be it an instrument or an amp. Some use it as an excuse to buy more tools.

Stop talking about me!

 

[gtmalone]

It's interesting and sad to look at the history of companies that are no longer around or are almost gone. Nortel was a primary supplier of PBX and key systems for our division. In the course of about 10 yrs, Nortel went from top in their business to out of business.

When we were at the appliance store yesterday I saw they still had a Nortel key system. We would have installed it.

We worked pretty close with the folks at Nortel on purchasing, inventory, and IT matters. They were just across the highway from us in Richardson. Great folks. Sorry this happened to them. I have a friend that worked there for a long time. He was able to stay employed until close to the end. His pension went night-night and was paid from the PBGC but much less than he would have received for Nortel.

Nortel - Wikipedia

 

[Deleted member 268085]

Sad to hear about the demise of Nortel. I thought we had them fixed. Back when, they used the number of patents granted annually as a leading indicator of future success. They had been averaging about 20 new patents a year. Then one year, they only registered 10 new patents and got all kinds of worried. A consultant spent 3 days looking at their operation and couldn't identify any changes that would case such a dramatic drop. As the consultant was standing in the office door of the senior VP who hired him, an engineer walked up with a question. During conversation, the engineer mentioned that he missed the break cart that used to come through the engineers pod with coffee and sweet rolls. Turned out that the VP looked at the engineers talking around the break cart, decided they were wasting time, and killed the break.

Welp, it turned out that the engineers used that break convo time to discuss work, and the issues they were having. It really helped them with problem solving. The consultant convinced the VP to reinstate the break cart. He did.

And guess what?

The next year? 20 new patents.

I wonder what wound up killing them.

 

[beans-on-toast]

I used to have a big Hammond organ, Model E Concert, that dated back to the 1930’s. An amazing sounding instrument. It was manufactured by Northern Electric. The Northern also had a large tube production facility. It wasn’t just about telephones. The company morphed into Nortel.

 

[Black Out Jazz]

It's interesting and sad to look at the history of companies that are no longer around or are almost gone. Nortel was a primary supplier of PBX and key systems for our division. In the course of about 10 yrs, Nortel went from top in their business to out of business.

When we were at the appliance store yesterday I saw they still had a Nortel key system. We would have installed it.

We worked pretty close with the folks at Nortel on purchasing, inventory, and IT matters. They were just across the highway from us in Richardson. Great folks. Sorry this happened to them. I have a friend that worked there for a long time. He was able to stay employed until close to the end. His pension went night-night and was paid from the PBGC but much less than he would have received for Nortel.

Nortel - Wikipedia

Dunno if you recall Nextel, the cellular/radio gizmo. I was in the system core of that thing, wrote all the interface code(Unix) between the billing systems and central offices. All of our CO switches were Nortel DMS100 HLR/VLR and MSCs.

 

[gtmalone]

Sad to hear about the demise of Nortel. I thought we had them fixed. Back when, they used the number of patents granted annually as a leading indicator of future success. They had been averaging about 20 new patents a year. Then one year, they only registered 10 new patents and got all kinds of worried. A consultant spent 3 days looking at their operation and couldn't identify any changes that would case such a dramatic drop. As the consultant was standing in the office door of the senior VP who hired him, an engineer walked up with a question. During conversation, the engineer mentioned that he missed the break cart that used to come through the engineers pod with coffee and sweet rolls. Turned out that the VP looked at the engineers talking around the break cart, decided they were wasting time, and killed the break.

Welp, it turned out that the engineers used that break convo time to discuss work, and the issues they were having. It really helped them with problem solving. The consultant convinced the VP to reinstate the break cart. He did.

And guess what?

The next year? 20 new patents.

I wonder what wound up killing them.

It's all in the wiki link. Telecom bubble in the late '90s followed by poor management.

 

[Polish Thunder]

I have always enjoyed Pink Floyd, but I think I like Roger Waters even more now.

Pink Floyd's Roger Waters says he turned down a 'huge, huge amount of money' from Facebook to use a song, calling Zuckerberg 'one of the most powerful idiots in the world'

For the record, I am not into social media (except for this fine forum...TB) and I do not have a Facebook account.

 

[Black Out Jazz]

I have always enjoyed Pink Floyd, but I think I like Roger Waters even more now.

Pink Floyd's Roger Waters says he turned down a 'huge, huge amount of money' from Facebook to use a song, calling Zuckerberg 'one of the most powerful idiots in the world'

For the record, I am not into social media (except for this fine forum...TB) and I do not have a Facebook account.

 

[Black Out Jazz]

I don't do fake book Instagram Twitter or any of that garbage.

 

[GwenOnBass]

And LinkedIn is Facebook for people with a resume.

 

[Winslow]

I guy I worked with in the '80s had a brother who worked for Pontiac in the design group. Right after the Fiero was released, he called his brother and told him NEVER to get in one. Turned out the plastic body was HIGHLY flammable. Yikes. When a design engineer tells you not to use the product, something's way wrong.

Well... they did name it "Fiero," after all.

And to be fair about building "excitement," I suppose fire can be somewhat exciting.

Building your own always winds up costing more, be it an instrument or an amp. Some use it as an excuse to buy more tools.

SHHHHHHHHH!!

Geez man, I'm going to the hardware store later, and Mrs. Winslow sometimes glances over at these threads!

I need that new router, d@mmit!

 

[notJaco]

Well... they did name it "Fiero," after all.

View attachment 4305213

And to be fair about building "excitement," I suppose fire can be somewhat exciting.


SHHHHHHHHH!!

Geez man, I'm going to the hardware store later, and Mrs. Winslow sometimes glances over at these threads!

I need that new router, d@mmit!

Tell Lady Winslow she can use it to make mixed drinks.

 

[Winslow]

Tell Lady Winslow she can use it to make mixed drinks.

Don't underestimate Lady Winslow...

She'll expect to have input on the purchase, so she can use it at her workbench too!