What is making you happy right now

[Catgrrl]

Congrats Nessus!

Ominous: About 10 years ago Hubby taped his friends' wedding and they walked down the aisle to the Imperial March. And walked out to the song at the end of the 1st original Star Wars movie when everyone is celebrating (can't remember the name). Years later he showed me the copy. It was pretty funny-and very nerdy.

[Khendraja'aro]

As long as you don't set your wife's ringtone to the Imperial March on your phone, it's a-okay

[Timbuk2]

And walked out to the song at the end of the 1st original Star Wars movie when everyone is celebrating (can't remember the name). Years later he showed me the copy. It was pretty funny-and very nerdy.

Brilliant

Youtube is your friend.

[Catgrrl]

Yes, thanks!

Khen, actually one of my friends does have his ringtone for his wife as the Imperial March. Have I mentioned I'm surrounded by geeks?

[earthJoker]

Have been to a client setting up a project on a new machine. The went extraordinarily well.
- No major traffic jams on a very busy Autobahn
- Project went well, with no major issues
- Delicious free lunch, perfectly cooked horse steak

[Aimless]

Things you can put in hot eggnog: coffee liqueur

Movies that are nice: I Love You Man; something else.

Good places to chill, in the winter, when the whole town is COVERED with beautiful snow: a lovely warm cozy and now clean balcony; our place

[wiggin]

(I'm second author)

Just saw this now - fantastic news! Congrats.

[Kerberos2002]

1. I was approved after selection to initiate a postgraduate course in Industrial Engineering (2 years). My focus on it will be mastering Statistics and its math.

2. After 5 long years, I got a letter from consulate, my Italian citizenship was granted!

3. I intend after completing 1., use 2. to get a PHD abroad.

4. I´m pretty sure I found the woman of my life (and the best is that she says the same thing from me )

Was an unusual year, too much goods news. It makes me believe that the world will really ends in 2012.

[Ominous Gamer]

Went to the parade today.

Walked away with best stroll float (dressed the wagon up like a pirate ship with lots of cardboard and wood), got to walk in part of the parade, and got reserved bleacher seats about halfway along the route. Kids have more beads than they know what to do with, and my 3DS found 7 other 3DS' while out there. Pokewalkers claim over 17,000 steps.

I'll get pictures up sooner or later, but for now I'm so very very tired.

[Aimless]

Getting two old laptops for free just when I need them... those hinges are mine!! Turns out they're called either friction or detente or constant torque hinges or something

[GGT]

(I'm second author)

Way to go, Nessie!

[GGT]

Peanut butter waffles on a grey snowy day, two kitty sisters waiting for warm naps on my lap.

[Aimless]

So drawing on the touchpad is ridiculously easy and fun, and I'm really enjoying it. Never really done any digital painting before tbh (besides stick figures ).

[wiggin]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/...ry.html?wprss=

U.S. forces rescue kidnapped aid workers Jessica Buchanan and Poul Hagen Thisted in Somalia

By Debbi Wilgoren, Updated: Wednesday, January 25, 7:40 AM

U.S. special operations forces have rescued a kidnapped American aid worker and her Danish colleague in Somalia, the White House and officials with the aid organization said Wednesday. During the raid, all nine of their captors were killed.

Jessica Buchanan, 32, and Poul Hagen Thisted, 60, were abducted by a group of armed men in the Somali town of Galkayo on Oct. 25. Both worked for the de-mining unit of the Danish Refugee Council, which provides shelter, protection, food and other assistance for thousands of displaced Somalis in Mogadishu. They were in Galkayo to monitor humanitarian aid activities, the council said.

Buchanan and Thisted were rescued early Wednesday local time (Tuesday evening in Washington), the Refu*gee Council said. The U.S. Africa Command, based in Stuttgart, Germany, said special operations forces received information about where the captives were located, then confirmed their presence and staged the attack.

After killing the men who were supposed to be guarding Buchanan and Thisted, the troops found the pair, unharmed, in an outdoor encampment. The Associated Press, quoting Somali pirates who had spoken with pirates at the scene of the raid, said the guards had been chewing the narcotic leaf qat for much of the evening and may have been sleeping as the U.S. forces approached.

“We should remember that Mrs. Buchanan and Mr. Thisted were working to protect the people of Somalia when they were violently kidnapped,” said General Carter F. Ham, commanding general of the U.S. Africa Command. “It is my hope that all those who work in Somalia for the betterment of the Somali people can be free from the dangers of violent criminals.”

Officials said the United States learned last week that Buchanan’s health was rapidly deteriorating, adding urgency to the rescue effort. Details of her health problems could not be learned. “We wanted to act, and we did,” Vice President Biden told NBC’s “Today” show on Wednesday.

The Refugee Council said Buchanan and Thisted had been brought to a safe location, and were on their way to being reunited with their families.

“Thanks to the extraordinary courage and capabilities of our Special Operations Forces, yesterday Jessica Buchanan was rescued and she is on her way home,” President Obama said in a statement issued early Wednesday. “As commander-in-chief, I could not be prouder of the troops who carried out this mission, and the dedicated professionals who supported their efforts.”

As is often the case with kidnappings, the U.S. government said little about the abduction of Buchanan and Thisted before their rescue, because officials believed that publicity could endanger them or make it more difficult to secure their release.

But Obama was briefed regularly on the situation, starting the day after the kidnapping, an administration official said. His chief counter-terrorism adviser, John Brennan, met with the Danish justice minister in November to discuss options. Last week, after learning that Buchanan was in poor health, military officials finalized the rescue plan, and special forces prepared to implement it.

Obama appeared to reference the as-yet unannounced rescue when he spotted Defense Secretary Leon Panetta at the U.S. Capitol for the State of the Union address on Tuesday evening. “Good job tonight,” Obama said.

An administration official said Obama had authorized the raid late Monday, and received frequent updates on Tuesday as it progressed.The president was told that Buchanan and Thisted were safe and in U.S. custody at 6:43 p.m., about two hours before he headed to the Capitol. Obama phoned Buchanan’s father, John, from the Capitol shortly after the speech to tell him his daughter had been rescued.

In December, aid groups and Somali citizens staged a large demonstration in Somalia demanding the release of Buchanan and Thisted, the Refugee Council said.

“Paul and Jessica are in Somalia to assist and support people in need. They have been accepted in Somalia as guests, but now they are kidnapped by criminals. We want them released,” a banner held by the demonstrators said.

Obama, in his statement early Wednesday, said Buchanan “was selflessly serving her fellow human beings when she was taken hostage by criminals and pirates who showed no regard for her health and well-being.”

“The United States will not tolerate the abduction of our people, and will spare no effort to secure the safety of our citizens and to bring their captors to justice.”

These kind of things are always iffy to carry out, and I'm always a combination of happy and relieved when they work out to everyone's satisfaction (er... except for the bad guys). I'm always impressed that these ever work, but I guess things have gotten a lot more sophisticated since the days of botched operations like Eagle Claw and the Ma'alot massacre.

[Flixy]

The U.S. Africa Command, based in Stuttgart, Germany

I knew it, Germany is in Africa!

[wiggin]

Actually it's a bit complicated why AFRICOM is based out of Germany. There's multiple reasons: for one, it's a very new and quite small combatant command (only a few thousand personnel total; compare that to the hundreds of thousands in CENTCOM or EUCOM), so a lot of the administration and capabilities are actually seconded from other combatant commands. Because of geography and need, most of that comes from either Europe or North American bases - the US 'air force' for Africa is run out of Germany with bases in Germany and Florida; the 'army' in Africa is run out of Italy, and the Marines and Navy barely even exist except on paper. It makes sense; why duplicate effort for such a small real force posture? The rebranding of AFRICOM is really to signal a new US focus on African operations, recognizing the continent's growing importance from a variety of perspectives; in reality, though, its actual operations are quite limited.

The other somewhat unspoken reason for not establishing a large unified combatant command HQ in Africa proper is the sticky political and historical issues. African countries have had their fill of Western powers setting up shop on their soil, and though the US was never a major colonial power, the presence of a permanent military base might rankle. To my knowledge, the only country in AFRICOM's area of operations with a permanent US base is Djibouti, and it's pretty small. Other US operations in Africa are done in conjunction with local governments, on a small and temporary basis, or run off of nearby naval assets. It's possible this will change in the future as the US becomes more engaged in the region, but for now it was probably wisdom to keep from establishing a large military presence in an African country.

What is interesting is that the US has been sharply increasing its covert ops footprint in Africa even as its conventional operations stay fairly low key. US special forces have been involved quite significantly in Somalia for years, and they are now cropping up in other places - Congo, possibly Libya, probably Kenya, etc. It appears to be confirmed that the CIA (or possibly USAF?) has been running drone surveillance in parts of Africa for some years now, and there have been a small but steady number of airstrikes carried out by the US (and possibly some by Israel, though it's unclear). US 'advisers' have been involved up to their necks in any number of small conflicts as well.

[Flixy]

I know, but reading it made me sile, and this is the happy thread after all! There's also US forces going after the LRA, right? I remember some 'outrage' from talkshow hosts about going after 'christians' who are 'fighting muslims'.

[wiggin]

Yes, there's a very small contingent of US special forces (~100) operating somewhere in the CAR, DRC, and S. Sudan. That's what I was obliquely referencing by mentioning Congo (i.e. DRC). Rush Limbaugh had a pretty big faceplant on that one. It's stuff like this - taking down the LRA, or rescuing hostages, or feeding the hungry - that actually makes me feel good about all those billions of dollars we spend training and equipping these guys.

[Nessus]

I would nevertheless hazard a guess that the aggregate amount of human misery continues to have a positive gradient as a function of time.

[wiggin]

Probably true, but the proportional misery goes down.

[Nessus]

A good job souls don't exist, isn't it?

[Ominous Gamer]

County ITS finally gave me full permissions and passwords for the servers. I'm in charge of staff directories and uploading meeting minutes, but I have access to the public site in case something happens to my supervisor.

I also have the facebook account information, and soon twitter.

all this power...

[Bitter Jeweler]

[Bitter Jeweler]

Reading about Bitter's CAD/CAM success is making me happy, I am genuinely happy for you. As much as I love the "old fashioned" skills of creating something yourself you can't help but love what can be done with CNC machining.

Ironically I have had a very challenging couple of months which finally resulted in some personal triumphs (after considerable tribulations) and I've been busting to tell people but a confidentiality contract severely limits what I can say!

Fuck it though I have to let get some of this out somewhere, it might as well be here in the world forgotten...

I have been through an exhaustive and stressful process of developing a new product which was commissioned by a powerful organisation headed by an individual I will refer to as Barbossa, as for the product I cannot tell you what it is though you may end up guessing - I will refer to the finished products as "Roy's" since this is the nickname I gave them early on in the ordeal.

So, we had to cast hundreds of these "Roy's" within a few months (the deadline was not negotiable) and a very talented sculptor was the creator of the final Roy design (the sculptor was guided by Barbossa's brief outline of what he wanted) and this particular sculptor really took on the responsibility for something quite daunting that tested the mettle of everyone involved - it would be fair to say he bit off more than he could chew.

The tooling we manufactured involved 3D laser scanning of the original sculpture, 3D printing of a "pattern" for prototyping (green-sand casting) which then resulted in some slight design changes (this was a delay we could do without). Finally everyone signed off on the "winning" design and we very quickly set about manufacturing the tooling (for die-casting) and in no time we began production - only to hit a massive (almost fatal) flaw in the process, which had myself & the sculptor at a very real risk of being torn apart by Barbossa and his henchman (lawyers).

I am the manufacturer of the casting but the sculptor chose to use a Toolmaker of his own choice and due to the number of chiefs on the project (in different States & Countries no less) I was not given the opportunity to put forward my opinion on what might go wrong (we can't all be fucking blind optimists!) and before I knew it I was looking at the finished die with a sinking feeling - I could see immediately they had put the in-gates and risers in the wrong places.

Too late, the tooling had been made at great expense (on a much bigger CNC machine to Bitters) and could not be remade, but it could be modified if necessary and it would prove very necessary. On the face of it, the problem we had with our castings was this: They were the right size and shape but they looked crap! The surface finish was not good enough, there was a rash of porosity on one side and ugly laminations (folds in the metal) on the other side. We had tried moving the in-gates and risers (Basically this is how the metal gets into the cavity and feeds molten metal into the casting as it cools) but the real problem was not where we fed the metal into the cavity, it was the shape of the damn product! It had too many dimensional changes (from thick sections to thin sections and back again) and very limited options for where we could get the metal into the cavity. We had modified the design of the tooling 3 times and got closer to achieving success each time but it still eluded us and we were about to run out of time - we couldn't give up...

I was literally lying awake in bed at 3am on a Tuesday night and this nagging idea had been bouncing around the outer edges of my thoughts and it finally presented itself centre stage in my sleep deprived mind - it was obvious what I had to do to fix this thing and get back on track.

The solution? A filter!

The real problem had not been just the shape of the cavity but the turbulence in the molten metal as it flowed through the thinner sections of the casting causing it to "squirt" and thereby draw in gasses which caused the porosity, the thicker sections then stayed molten for longer and caused the appearance of laminations. By using a simple silicon carbide ceramic foam filter (these are used in sand casting but to my knowledge this is the first time they've been used in a permanent mold or Die-cast design) we were able to slow the flow of metal to a more manageable rate without chilling too soon and EUREKA!

Mr Barbossa has his shiny minions, Mr Sculptor has his fame and I have less hair, bags under my eyes and a nice warm feeling deep down inside rather than that cold knotted ache I had when things were looking grim a few weeks back.

Happy

That's pretty cool! I know wha your talking about with the metal "spray" issue going from thin to thick. I face the same issues in casting.

When can you let the cat outta The bag and show I off!

Oh, my sister works in a foundry that does large sand casting. I got a tour of it. Cool stuff!

[oldmunchkin]

I love the butterfly, Bitter!

There are so many things making me happy right now, it's kinda hard to pick just a couple to put here! As stated before in this thread, I now am the caretaker of the laundromat here. Doesn't sound like much, but it's perfect for me. Best of all, the mortician (talked about him before) owns it. He is fantastic to work for. I am basically on my own unless I need something, in which case he tells me to get what I need. He is also backing me in my laundry business! It's really nice having a paycheck plus a bit more!

I finally got one of the local quacks to send me for an MRI! Voc Rehab is paying for me to "get healthy" so that I can keep running my little business!

I lived to be 48! That was in question this time last year, so am pretty happy with that simple accomplishment!

[Bitter Jeweler]

Good to see such a positive post from you, Munch!

[oldmunchkin]

Thanks Bitter! I am actually pretty content with the general direction my life is going. Like everyone, I have bad days/events, but I am happier than I have been in a long time! I am optimistic for the first time in years. Hmmm, this being alone thing is great!

[Aimless]

Glad to hear things are going well Munchkin

So, it's the ginger's birthday on monday and we've both been swamped and tired lately... by a stroke of luck I managed to get a reservation at a nice restaurant tonight. She dressed up, I suited up, and then we went out to flaunt our disgusting mixed-race love over superomnomnoms it is, as the Swedes say, a very mysig night <3

[oldmunchkin]

Aimless, you appear to have Aim in your life!

A terrific night was had by all! Had a birthday party at the local Elk's club for a great friend. Her husband played (one man band) and sang and we all just had a blast! I guess the rowdies stayed at the Bloody Bucket tonight, because there was no drama! If I get permissions, I will post some pics later this week.

[Ominous Gamer]

BestBuy knows whats up. Flipping through their ad today, and directly under a "Celebrate Black History Month" they have Eminem's Curtain Call CD shown.

Every other CD has a black guy on it.

EDIT: The ad