Kazakhstan, Rocket Scientists, Trucks, And Catering

By Richard Clements

A recent Friday was like an old fashioned field trip. I got to take a break from my normal routine. My normal routine is delivering panels of concrete to buildings under construction. I have four trucks working this job on a steady bassis. The construction of these buildings is precise, accurate and fast.

Delivering units to Havre de Grace water treatment plant

Delivering wall panels to apartment building in Bronx

I received an order that got my interest to assist in the retrieval of a commercial satellite. It seems that the launch facility was a little rough in handling the satellite and banged it around so much it was now an insurance job. I can’t understand how this could have happened.

I arrived at the contracted hour before 12 p.m. on Friday at Dulles Airport. After looking all over the place for a rep from the freight company, I finally found some folks, rocket scientists, from Orbital Labs which is also in Dulles Va. I was given directions by them collectively, to the area of operation, that turned out to be wrong, than a second set of directions from a guard that turned out to be wrong, then, finally, a third set of directions that was correct. With that I finally met an air strip escort. I was brought in to an area on the tarmac next to the plane. This beast is a Russian built Antonivich 124 and was copied from our C5 Galaxy. This plane and its crew are as close to privateers as it gets.

This plane regularly carries 2 to 4 million dollars for fuel, fees and expenses all paid in cash. There were even customers who wanted to reload the plane dealing directly with the crew on the tarmac. One thing I must note is that everyone involved was in good humor and relaxed to an unusual level. I guess all that cash does that.

Now that the plane has done the customs thing and the air in the cargo hold is checked, it morphs to another form for self unloading. The rear has gantry cranes to load trucks and the front opens to facilitate “roll on roll off” cargo with ramps.

The rest is kinda routine except that no one was in charge and trucks were all over the place. It was kinda like watching 6 chimps hump a beach ball. All the while we were kept amused with stories of the incompetence of the satellite launch facility in Kazakhstan. I did learn one thing. If I’m ever going to launch a satellite I’m going to do it in French Guiana verses Kazakhstan.

After loading and securing we embarked on our 8 mile journey through rush hour traffic. We arrived safely and than it happened, the highpoint of the day, all I can say is that there is nothing like watching two rocket scientists with combined 12 years of college and another 10 years of graduate school try to figure out how to operate a cargo strap and roll it up. It seemed the rolling up part was the most difficult.

It was a good day and I must say those rocket scientists sure know how to have lunch catered. I asked them if they could use me on their next Kazakhstan launch, they said NO. I also asked them numerous times if they would be interested in abandoning their Northern Virginia 125,000 foot facility and moving to Havre de Grace at the intersection of Rt 155 and I-95, they said NO.

Ever Have Nightmares Someone Could Be Charging Phone Calls In Your Name And Number?

This morning, my mother was in the process of paying her bills when she noticed an extra $50 tacked on to her home-line phone bill. The phone company told her to contact Johns Hopkins Hospital, where the billed calls had been charged to her number. When she contacted the hospital, she was told that someone claiming to be a family member had charged calls to her number while staying there recently.

A family member? Who in the family had been in the hospital? No one we knew of, and we have a pretty tight knit family. Something happens and everyone knows about it within an hour. Even so, how was someone other than her or my father allowed to use that number for billing purposes?

If it really was a family member, it was someone with my mother’s maiden name, under which she is listed in the phone book. We have a suspect in mind, but no other evidence at this time because the hospital refused to give the name of the person falsely using my mom’s phone number.

I was shocked. One, how is this legal — letting people charge calls against any number they choose? Two, how are we supposed to stop fraud like this if we don’t have a name to press charges against?

Even though they agreed to remove the bill, I frown upon Johns Hopkins Hospital for their initial failure to protect my mother’s credit. There should be a better method of charging someone’s calls — not using a phone number that could belong to anyone. How about insisting on a charge card with proper ID?

How many other people have had this happen? How many of them actually caught on to the problem? How many other crooks will continue to use this to avoid paying out of their own pocket?!

What blogs and news sites do you check out regularly?

Just wanted to share a list of blogs that I check everyday for the latest news, whether local or national. What sites, besides The Dagger of course, are you checking out regularly?

I’ll first start off by saying I use Google Reader as my rss feed reader of choice. Here are a few interesting feeds I have subscribed to: (yeah, this is for my geeky side)

• BuzzMachine - Jeff Jarvis’s look at the media industry
• PaidContent.org - All about the economics of digital content.
• Wired - a daily technology news website

Onto the news:

Local
HarfordNow.com - want a place to find all the local news feeds from Harford County on one page? Harford Now is it. Of course, I designed it.

National
KausFiles on Slate.com - One of the first political blogs on the net written by a Mickey Kaus, who claims he is a liberal but is called a conservative by many other journalists. I enjoy his writing styles and even look at most things.

The Huffington Post - yeah, i can’t stand the content, but they are the perfect model for a news/blog startup right now (although I am digging the new Daily Beast)

TechCrunch - No, I’m not just fishing for links by listing the two most popular blogs in the world. Want to know what’s going on in the tech world? Look no further.

Drudge Report - Simple and effective. No matter what side of the political specturm you are own, you should be checking Drudge for the latest news. So influential, news websites would tailor their headlines in order to be picked up by his website.

OK, your turn…

What should the government do about the Big 3?

Will giving the Big 3 automakers in Detroit (Ford, GM and Chrysler) $25 billion dollars help turn around the downward spiral they have been in for the past 25 years? Should the government be in the business of bailing them out at all?

To tell you the truth, I haven’t made up my mind about this issue. I was, and remain, against the $700 billion bailout of our financial industry, but the auto industry is so rooted in a specific area of the country. Markets can correct themselves, towns and families cannot.

On the other hand, it is clear that their current business model is inefficient and just doesn’t work. Why is that? Is it because of poor management at the executive level of the companies? Is it because of the UAW (United Auto Workers) union and their policies, including the pensions and health benefits for retirees? Or is it as simple as saying the products coming out of Detroit are inferior?

The answer is it’s all of the above. To make matters worse, it’s a snowball that has been rolling for way too long.

Maybe bankruptcy is the answer? The airline industry has seen many of it’s companies come out better after filing. But bankruptcy could terminate all of the union contracts, specifically the pension and health benefits for retirees. This is mostly the fault of the executive at the Big 3. They gave in to union demands. The union was only doing their job.

So what do you think the government should dol?  Should they give them the money or make them go into bankruptcy?  Any other solutions?

photo credit: mandj98

Is this the new definition of change?

Two families have dominated US politics over the past quarter-century. The Bush family, with “41″ serving as Vice-President for eight years, then President for four, and “43″ in office for the past eight. Then there is the Clintons, with Bill serving as President for eight, and wife Hillary getting elected to the Senate and making an unsuccessful run at the Presidency.

Along comes a new shining star running on the promise of change. He soundly defeats both families on the way to the white house. Now the word is he wants to name Hillary to his top Cabinet post.

Some change. Someone wake up Jeb.  He might get his chance in four years…