Recently on the 12th and 13th of November the east coast or more specifically the outer banks of North Carolina and Virginia were hit by a perfect storm combining the remains of Hurricane Ida and a low pressure system coming out of the north east. This storm system labeled a perfect storm and something that hadn't been seen since hurricane Isabell or the ash Wednesday storm from the 60's produced hurricane force winds of 75mph and caused millions of dollars in damage from Cape Hatteras all the way up to Hampton Roads with some of the most notable damage taking place in Currituk island and Norfolk   read more

Welding in general is not easy but when it comes to what is difficult I find that vertical is the hardest so far when using 60XX series rods to do the bead work. Simply put these rods are junk in that the quality of the weld looks like crap and the slag is a major pain in the ass to get off the weldmont. Now I know that I am only speaking as someone who is learning how to weld for the first time and so far I have struggled with a few things that have lead to my difficulties such as getting the right angle, travel speed, heat, and arc length but vertical as any welder can tell you is a real pain   read more

have a 5 year old daughter attending a public school here in Virginia Beach during the start of the official flu season and the first official swine flu season. Over the last 5 weeks she has been sick every week with something new and missed five days of school during that time and the school system along with the parents of other kids are partialy to blame. First the school system is to blame for not having a policy in place requiring parents to keep their kids at home if they are presenting symptoms of an illness such as coughing, sniffles, runny nose, fever, lethargy ect ect. The second   read more

Welding horizontally for me is difficult when it comes to doing a root pass on 3/16 palte with a 3/32 gap using 6011 rod for the root pass on a miller machine with the amps set at 75 and arc control set to 50. I have no problem with penetration going completely through to the otherside of the two plates but the problem is that I am struggling with maintaining the keyhole size even with an increased travel speed and shorter whips. It's enough of a problem that I am also fighting with buildup on the face of the weld. I am also having problems with restarting the root pass because I can't get   read more

Recently I had computer trouble and after following some information on the manufacturers website I ordered an exact replacement motherboard from a seller in China for $63 plus $25 shipping. After it arrived I determined that it was not a defective motherboard but a failed power supply so I picked up a new one from Best Buy for $40 made by Dynex ( let me take a moment to say just how much I love this power supply with its extra long wiring and abundance of sata power connectors and the wire sheathing ).Putting in the new power supply with the new board I was only able to get the drivers and fans   read more

When I originally wrote this blog I laced it with venom directed at a specific website and its operators with the intent of letting my anger override my better judgement and common sense just as the head admin of said site had done at one time over a costume he felt slited about. At the last instance I saved the 25 minutes worth of acid bile that I had written to the rough draft file and walked away from it for a few days allowing myself time to cool down. See the whole premisis of the blog came about after either the site owner or one of his employee's played a nasty trick on my by putting   read more

like most people who aren't in union jobs or government jobs work during the holidays not by choice but because the scheduling generally falls that way requiring everyone but the upper management to be at work to make the establishment money so that the man can wipe his mistresses bottom with $100 bills. For my readers who are younger than 30 there was a time in American history where holidays were sacred family events celebrated by all but the few people who either didn't care for holidays and family or who were from foriegn countries that had immigrated here and just didn't celebrate it.   read more

Ok I have to say that I love going to the beach and by that I mean the ocean beach not a lake beach because the ocean is soooo much more better than a lake beach any day of the week. Today was a great beach day with comfortable temperatures and low humidity and a nice strong breeze coming onshore and to top it all off there was a ton of shells everywhere to be had. My daughter went from being a cranky butt to having a good time so I settled into my hobby of searching for nice and unusual looking shells over the next 5 hours which turned out to be the best day ever for hunting shells. I found   read more

friend asked what others were doing to prepare for the peak of the swine flue which is coming up in about 2 months time and the government is predicting up to 90,000 deaths related to it as compared to 40,000 from the regular flue. All that I can do is be sure to wash my hands more regularly and keep my distance from those who may be infected or potentially infected as much as possible but given the work I do that will be very hard as I work in the retail environment though thankfully its during midnight hours. One of the things he brought up was the N95 masks which you see most often on video   read more

So recently I started attending a local trade school in the hopes of learning how to become a structural and maritime welder initially to work in one of the many local ship yards such as http://www.sb.northr opgrumman.com/index.h tml or http://www.baesystem s.com/Capabilities/Se a/index.htm and get in making a decent pay check and do something that has some actual meaning behind it as opposed to working at Walmart as I do now. The school that I'm going to is http://www.auto.edu/ in association with http://www.ecpi.edu/ campus/virginia_beach _va/index.cfm . The course that I'm taking runs 10 months   read more