John

Geez, my last post was after a month of employment at Bruker. That ended in March of 2015 after starting in July of 2014.

I was out of work again from March to October 2015, when I landed a temp-to-perm gig at Rigaku Analytical Devices, where we make these very cool devices for materials analysis. So called LIBS (Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy) uses a laser to vaporize a bit of the material being sampled (no, no giant laser beams melting through buildings and such, just a little bit of invisible light in the near-infrared spectrum (1064nm)). But the laser kind of vaporizes the material, and a spectrometer samples the generated light spectra. I don\’t understand a bit of it. But I don\’t need to – I just write the software.

Currently I\’m maintaining a stable of spinning wheels (five of them. That might be excessive), a couple of looms (one on the floor, one is a table-top), and I have four raw sheep fleeces that need to be washed. (Perhaps also a little excessive?)

I\’m taking a dyeing course on Saturday, and I have an advanced spinning course slated for March 13 in Northampton.

The spring program of Sheep & Wool festivals kicks off in April. CT on 4/30, MD (yes, I\’m going to Maryland) on 5/7, NH on 5/14, RI on 5/21, and MA on 5/28. They are great fun, especially if you are a knitter/crocheter, or a spinner or weaver, or even if you only like sheep and lambs. Or lamb. They usually have some tasty lamb dishes for sale, if you\’re into that sort of thing.

I should come back and set up pointers to these events!

Oh, and the temp-to-perm thing looks like it\’s happening at Rigaku. I\’m budgeted and on the org chart for next year. I just don\’t know how much they\’ve budgeted for me yet! Keep your fingers crossed.

John

I noticed that I last posted when I was out of work, nearly a year ago. I am coming up on the first anniversary of the layoff, but I\’ve been working for a month now, at a place called Bruker Detection, which is related to Bruker Diagnostics, but the connection (as well as the connection to Bruker Daltonics and the other Bruker subsidiaries) is unclear to me. As long as it\’s clear to the accountants, I guess that\’s enough. It\’s a contract, though, and due to expire in October. (My security badge runs out on 10/10, so that\’s a hint.)

But I\’m enjoying the work, I find that the people are very nice ( and on average, VERY intelligent), and I\’m learning new stuff to put on my resume. Hopefully the next period of unemployment won\’t be 11 months long.

Not that anybody really reads this blog much, but I am looking for work as an embedded software engineer. My resume is current and I would appreciate any leads that you might send to me.

This horror will not go away even if we could remove every gun from America. Timothy McVeigh did not use a gun, and the Columbine killers made bombs as well.

The problem we need to solve (and fast) is the fact that we are producing so many (or any at all) young people who consider these actions to be very real options in their tortured lives.

There was an abundance of guns in the 50\’s (we\’ve always had guns in this country) but these things almost NEVER happened. We have a culture that glorifies violence, makes a scary percentage of the population (especially prevalent among the nation’s youth) feel utterly hopeless, and has seen a precipitous drop in moral awareness as we systematically rejected traditional sources/institutions (organized religion etc…) and have yet to replace them with anything that might work as well. Note: I’m an agnostic and not a fan of organized religion, but there needs to be some universal moral force in play.

Parents, families, schools, the media and popular culture have abdicated their roles and responsibilities in creating a network of influence that cannot be legislated. Call it mind control, manipulation of the masses, the suppression of free thought, but we have failed to do what every successful society has done since we climbed down from the trees, and that is instill in every member of society the value of life, the importance of collective adherence to a code of acceptable conduct, and respect for their fellow man (or countryman at minimum).

When a teenager of a broken home with minimal supervision, who perceives he has no future, is not inspired by school or other institution, is angry and alienated from everything and everyone (all of whom have failed to acknowledge or understand the tell-tale signs), acts out the anti-social, misanthropic violence he sees in his daily diet of ultra-violent video games and movies, all we can come up with is to get rid of the guns.

More than 40,000 people (more than a jumbo jet load every single day) die in auto-related tragedies every year in the US. Do we react to the epidemic of this roadway carnage, and drunk driving, by an outcry to ban all cars? No, we launch massive campaigns to educate people about the BEHAVIORS that cause these actions.

As with virtually every aspect of modern life, this issue is rife with complications. But simply getting rid of all the guns will only result in the these same individuals blowing up a school bus full of children to make the same desperate, extreme statements. It is a widespread cultural problem that will only go away when we address it as such. How many innocent people have to die before we realize why it\’s happening?

My blog. My opinion, whether you agree or not.

I\’m moved to tears by the recent killings in Newtown Connecticut. A clearly disturbed kid of merely 20 years forced his way into the elementary school and killed 20 children, five adults, and himself. He had previously killed his mother at home after stealing guns that she had legally purchased and possessed.

The hue and cry of those that oppose guns is, understandably, to make it more difficult to buy guns. From that perspective, it\’s a reasonable approach. But it\’s an approach that doesn\’t get to the heart of the matter. It\’s an approach that cannot work.

Making it harder to get guns is not the answer. Guns are already hard to get. With few exceptions (black market notwithstanding), in order to purchase a gun, you have to have a license, so you are known and vetted by the local and state police. In order to purchase a gun, you have to pass an on-the-spot FBI background check, so you are known and vetted by the FBI. In order to purchase a gun, you have to purchase it from a licensed dealer or someone who knows you.

It will never be impossible to get guns. There will always be a black market. Heroin is illegal. It\’s pretty easy to get. (heroin deaths in Massachusetts have risen 6-fold over the past 13 years). Marijuana is illegal. It\’s pretty easy to get. If guns are made illegal, they\’ll still be easy to get – machine guns are illegal, but they\’re still used on the street by criminals, mostly by drug cartels.

It\’s not the guns, clearly evidenced by the recent attack in China in which 22 children and an adult were wounded by a knife-wielding attacker. Thankfully, those people will apparently survive.

It\’s not the guns, as evidenced by all of the guns in the country during the 1940\’s, 1950\’s, and 1960\’s. There were no mass murders like what we\’re seeing today.

It\’s not the guns, as evidenced by the Oklahoma City bombings. The bomb was made of fertilizer and diesel fuel. I\’ve known how to make that kind of explosive after reading a Field and Stream article while I was in junior high. (yet I\’ve never blown anything up).

It\’s not the guns – it\’s the people. But how?

What is it that makes people do these terrible things, whether they use guns, knives, Sarin or Ricin? Or trucks full of explosives?

What is wrong with a society that produces people who think it\’s OK to blow up a building in Oklahoma City?

What is wrong with a society that produces people who think it\’s fun to poison a subway?

What is wrong with a society that produces children who think it\’s OK to go shooting in a theater, mall, or elementary school?

As long as these people are being produced by society, there will be a danger of mass killings like this, regardless the tool used to do the killing.

What is wrong with these people, and how do we fix it?

I just wish I had an answer.

Peg was willing to go a B. I called it a C.

At least it was a decent experiment…

I tried for whole wheat pasta, but whole wheat has a lower gluten proportion than semolina – somethimg I neglected to take into account. So there wasn\’t enough water in the eggs, so the whole wheat pasta just didn\’t hold up. I switched back to semolina in time to make dinner. That pasta was OK but I rolled it too thin and it was difficult for the ravioli to hold up.

Ravioli filling was

• finely diced chicken breast
• finely diced sun-dried tomatoes (packed in oil)
• Italian seasoning (a mix of dried herbs)
• a finely diced shallot
• some diced garlic
• some olive oil

I really need to get a ravioli press – making them by hand is a real pain in the ass. A lot of them broke, spilling chicken and tomato bits into the boil. It was ugly. And frustrating to see the raviolis break open like that after putting in the time to make the filling, pasta, and assemble them!

The sauce was pretty good:

• 3 T butter
• 3 T flour
• 2 C milk
• 3/4 C tomato puree
• 1 T dried onions
• 1 T Italian seasoning
• salt
• pepper

Make a roux with the butter and flour, cooking it until bubbling, but not enough to brown it. Whisk the milk in gradually, avoiding lumps (!). Stir in salt and pepper to taste, along with the Italian seasoning and onion.

Let the mixture thicken up nicely, then whisk in the tomato puree. Adjust salt and pepper.

Cook the ravioli in rapidly boiling water, drain. Serve with sauce and grated Romano or Parmesan cheese.

The filling would have been better with ground chicken and sundried tomato pesto. As it was the chicken and the tomatoes were both kind of tough and rubbery, and Peg and I think that could have been avoided with ground chicken. Since the tomatoes were rubbery, I thought pesto would be a better approach.