Final Saturns in Tennessee

The final Saturn vehicles are being built in the Spring Hill Manufacturing Facility for General Motors. They are laying off the bulk of the employees to retool the plant for a new vehicle, the yet-unnamed Chevrolet crossover vehicle. I took a few photos around the plant to give an idea of what the place is (was) like.

Part of the deal with the state when they built the plant was that it had to be below a certain height, so they dug a big hole and built the plant in a man-made valley. Another requirement was that it be painted to match the color of the sky, and it looks like they came pretty close:


One of the more difficult applications I have been dealing with was the Automatic Storage and Retrieval System, basically a big sorting shelf with cranes that deposit and remove parts. I'll be glad when they demolish it next month:


They had a bit of a celebration to celebrate the last vehicles off the line, complete with Saturn balloons!


They built out all other colors and the last color they build is white. It looks like Henry Ford's old plan, "any color you want, as long as it's white."



There are a lot of people who will be looking for jobs while the retooling goes on, and some, especially local suppliers who will not have a job when the plant opens back up.


The celebrations were pretty subdued for this reason. They finally announced the new vehicle today, so that was cause for celebration, even though most of us knew about it months ago. It's nice to hear it become official though, so there's hope for continued work for a long, long time.

Two Peeps, Two Cracks

The last two Peeps I've played (2-table Token SNGs on Full Tilt Poker) I got knocked out with AA both times. I played them completely differently, and I played them completely WRONG.

The first time I was the short stack with six left. These tourneys give a token to the top 5 players and give cash to the player who finishes sixth. The next shortest stack went all in, and I have AA. I knew the big stacks would call with ATC to try to knock him out but I went all in anyway. THE REST OF THE TABLE CALLED and KQ rivered a straight to knock me out with sixth place money.

The next I went out tenth when I was (again) the short stack and I picked up AA in the SB. Since the big stack was the BB and it folded to me, I decided I had to double up here. I might have been on tilt after folding A4 in the BB after two players went all-in, both with Q high. I was short enough to take the risk but pussied out and saw a flop of A44. AA on the very next hand made me feel like just getting my blind back wasn't enough. I just called the half-bet and pushed on a flop of 975. The BB called with 95 and I said "Wow I suck!" in the chat just before my tourney ended.

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Poker? You first!

I actually played some poker yesterday! No, I didn't stay up late enough to play the Hoy, but I did play some of the donkey limits on PokerStars. I'm nursing a pretty small bankroll on there and have no way to get money in or out, so I gotta make it last. Playing $.50/$1 limit satisfied my poker jones for the evening.

The lower the levels you play, the more you run into table coaches. I called a guy all the way down with 22 unimproved and he went off on me like I was the worst player he had ever seen when he never connected with his AQ. "I can't wait to take all your money away," he said. "Sorry, it's my first time, but pairs beat ace high right?" When he started I was stuck about $20 but managed to leave the table even after he paid me off on every single hand we played together. Maybe acting like an ass flips the PokerStars "Doom Switch." Wouldn't it be great if it did?

****************


I was really anxious for spring this year because I wanted the Drive in Movie Theater a mile from my house to open. It was open for a few weeks last year but we were so occupied with moving in we didn't get a chance to attend. I made it a goal for this spring. They opened two weeks ago but I wasn't interested in the films the first week and it was a frigid weekend. This weekend it was in the seventies and they were showing a double feature "The Bridge To Tarabithia" and "Ghost Rider." $5 per person and you can bring in your own food and drinks.

We had a good time. "Tarabithia" was a kids movie but I wouldn't let my children watch it. Not just because I don't have children. "Ghost Rider" was really dumb, but in a very cool way. The plot was very 70's comic book, which is okay by me, since I was raised on 70's comic books. The wife fell asleep ten minutes into it, so I guess her review would be "zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz."

Mrs. Bogey and I decided that it was a fun and cheap evening, picking up some fast food or pizza and watching a flicker at the drive-in could become a routine around our place. Unfortunately the place burned down on Sunday. They show films on Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights starting at 8pm, but when we drove by the place on Sunday morning on the way to breakfast, the sign had changed to "Closed Due To Fire."

I was so disappointed I felt like stopping to see if I could help in any way. There were people there pulling burned bits out of the cinder block shell that housed the snack shop.

I hope they get the place going again, there's not much to a drive-in but the old couple that run it pretty much just did it as a hobby.

If they decide it's not worth the trouble, at least I got to go once before the fire. And if they decide to sell it, I would have to give it some serious thought.

Picasuggle

I saw this on Mr. Subliminal's and it just plain roolz.



Update: Too much fun!

Even Newer Comic

New Comic?

Compiled the List

Here is a list of things that happened under the current administration. Each thing on the list is an example of documented corruption or incompetence.

Misleading statements about Bush's National Guard duty
Election Day Phone Jamming
Enron Campaign Contributions
Karl Rove's Intel Meetings
Mecidare Bill Cost disclosure
Medicare Fake Video News
Harken Energy
Yellowcake forgery
Armstrong Williams
Abu Ghraib
Tom Delay
Bernard Kerik
Downing Street Memo
U.N. Wiretaps
George Tenet/WMD
Nigerian Uranium
Detroit Terrorists
Halliburton No-Bid Contracts
Boeing Payoff
Dick Cheney's Energy Task Force
$700M diverted from Afghanistan to Iraq
Pentagon-Israel Spy Case
Duke Cunningham
Jack Abramoff/Indian Gaming
Valerie Plame
Donald Keyser's Taiwan Trip
NSA warrantless surveillance controversy
Guantanamo Bay Torture
US Attorney Firings

Note that Hurricane Katrina or The Occupation of Iraq, since those are judgment calls, (although most reasonable people judge them as incompetence) are not listed.

Maybe you can explain away a couple of these things. But this list is OVERWHELMING.

As far as "more corrupt than Clinton?" Is that really the standard you're shooting for? Why is "he's not worse than Clinton was" the standard response from you guys? I'm not a Clinton fan. You guys SHOULD be aiming higher. I know, I know. You CAN'T.

Poker Comic #130 Sponsored by FREE POKER MONEY

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President Cowboy

George W. Bush was born in New Haven, Connecticut. He went to prep school at Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts, and got his undergraduate degree from Yale University in Connecticut. He got his MBA from Harvard in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Why does he dress like a cowboy?

Anyway, here's the letter of the day from the local newspaper in Naples Florida.

There may have been presidential administrations in U.S. history more corrupt than the current one.

There may even have been administrations more incompetent, as unlikely as Hurricane Katrina, the Iraq debacle and now Walter Reed Army Medical Center make that appear.

But never in American history has an administration been as corrupt and as incompetent as that of George W. Bush.

Thanks to you, George W., we'll never know what kind of president Jeb might have made.

Clifford E. Landers Naples

George W: The Perfect Storm.

Review: The Gaming Directory

I am constantly amazed at the international nature of the search engine hits that this blog receives. The poker players out there (especially due to the UIGEA) are becoming more international, and when intelligent people play poker, they start looking for information on the internet about poker. Lucky for us (and them) they sometimes find blogs first.

The other thing they find are portals, and one of the useful ones for UK players is The Gaming Directory, the Definitive UK Gambling Resource. (I love how the brits will actually call it "gambling." It lets you know right away you're not going to get information about the newest first-person shooter.) The Gaming Directory claims to provide "an unbiased Professional resource for Businesses and the Public who are interested in finding information about land based UK casinos, gambling locations and online UK gambling."

I am not in the UK, but my review of the site shows a very professional attitude and extremely comprehensive amount of information for UK based players. They have information about Online Poker Rooms, Online Casinos and Online Sports Books. They even have information about Lotteries and Horse Racing. If you can place a wager on it in the UK, The Gaming Directory covers it.

If you're in the UK and you're interested in Online Gambling, check out The Gaming Directory. You'll be glad you did.

News Unworthy

I heard on the radio this morning that the Opie and Anthony Traveling Virus Tour will be in Las Vegas at the Hard Rock Casino on April 14th. Anthony Cumia is planning on arriving the night before (Friday the 13th) and playing poker all night. If you want to play with a celeb, you might be able to get into the game. I've heard him talk about playing in Kevin Smith's home game, and he sounds like he has some idea of how to play. I'm going to try to swing a trip out there that weekend so I can try to get into the game and see the show. The lineup so far is:

Jim Norton
Joe Rogan
Louis C.K.
Frank Caliendo
Bob Kelly
Rich Vos
Otto & George
Ralphie May

I really want to see Louis C.K. and Joe Rogan. What I've heard of them on XM Comedy is hilarious so I can't wait to see them live.

PSO Rumors

I still keep up with most of what goes on over at the forum at Poker Source Online and I think there are big things brewing. There was a thread talking about a new logo, and I doubt they would come up with only a new logo over there. I expect and entire site overhaul, and I'm sure there will be a big shakeup in the promotions offered and member's freerolls. If you're a member over there be sure to take a look once in a while. If you haven't signed up there yet, you're missing out on a lot of free stuff. You really can't go wrong with anything over at Poker Source Online. I'll keep you updated on any changes I see over there.

Poker Comic #129 Sponsored by FREE POKER MONEY

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With a Capital "T" Which Rhymes with "P" and that Stands for "PUSSY"

The biggest problem I have with laws like the UIGEA is that they are fundamentally flawed in a country that purports to value "freedom." The government has decided what you should and should not be doing with your money, and gambling on the internet is one of the things those we've elected to supposedly defend our freedoms have decided that we should not allow ourselves to do.

Why should I be surprised when things like this also happen.

Yes, the town has outlawed bars that allow pool, karaoke and trivia video games. Nothing is allowed that is more interactive than WATCHING TV. The people of this town have decided that you shouldn't be spending your money on alcohol while enjoying a game of pool, a round of trivia or (god forbid) singing karaoke.

How did people in this country get so far off track? Where do they get off thinking that they need to control the people that surround them so much that they can't allow them to SING WHEN DRINKING? What are they trying to protect themselves from?

Is it paranoia? I've noticed that people all around me seem to be TERRIFIED of things that they weren't afraid of in the past. We didn't used to have things like helmet laws for bicycles, seat belt laws, laws against riding in the backs of pickup trucks. Sure doing those things was risky, but it was up to us to determine if we wanted to take that risk. For some reason that decision cannot be left to ourselves anymore, we must be TOLD how much risk we can allow ourselves.

How pathetic are we, as a nation?

Blinded By the Daylight Savings

I got stung twice by the forward push of Daylight Savings. Two stings and just general misery.

It got me yesterday when I logged nearly an hour in advance to register for the bloggerpods tournament. Only I forgot about Daylight Savings and I actually logged on ONE MINUTE too late to register. Of course I suspected, but I just barely missed it. No iPod for me.

Then on my way into work this morning, it was dark again. I had to go in extra early because of the Daylight Savings change on the servers I support, and Daylight Savings had pushed back the sunrise by an hour. When I flicked on the headlights of my car, all I could see was the very faint glow from my parking lights. No headlights at all. FRICK! Luckily for me, the hi-beams were working. So I blinded the three other souls I saw on the road this morning at 5am (which felt like 4am, or even earlier as I didn't get to sleep until after 1am.)

On my way home I pulled the fuse and examined it, then pulled both bulbs and examined them. All of them looked fine. Somehow this examination miraculously brought one headlight back to life. A stop at the Auto Zone for a new bulb brought the other one back. It will be pre-dawn for the rest of the month when I head for work, so I won't have to blind any more pickups at 5am.

R.I.P. Brad Delp

I don't have a single friend that doesn't have some fond teenage/early twenties memories associated with this legendary album, which Brad Delp is ultimately responsible for. If it's not the greatest debut album in the history of rock music, I don't know what is.

RIP Brad.

R.I.P. Richard Jeni

This guy was extremely funny, and probably has the best collection of Showtime/HBO Hour-Long Comedy Specials after George Carlin.

Guys who shoot themselves in the face must really want to go.

RIP Richard.

Poker Comic #128

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Faggot

What are the consequences if you call a presidential candidate "faggot" in a public forum?

Of course you get to be on CNN, Fox News, and whatever other "news/entertainment" television you want. You get to sell tons more of your mindless, ethically-challenged, SHITTY pseudo political books to like-minded bigots and assholes. You get a zillion hits on your web site so people can see your non-apology apology.

Never mind that she did the exact same thing at the exact same conference last year, only she used the word "raghead" instead of "faggot."

Why on earth do people who do the WORST things get EXACTLY what they want as a reward for misbehavior?

I need some more hits on my website. You're all ragheads faggots.

Keep Your Money Safe For Poker

I got an email this morning saying that I received $386.56 in my moneybookers.com account! Sweet!

Except that I don't have a moneybookers.com account. I never have.

As usual it's another scam to try to get you to login through one of the links in the email to surrender your account information and password so they can raid your account.

You can usually tell if one of these emails is a scam because of misspellings or obvious errors in formatting. This one was suspicious because of the MANY MANY places where you could click to go to your account "directly" instead of typing the url into the address bar or using a shortcut/bookmark that you created yourself.

Do yourself a favor, and NEVER EVER click on a link in an email and then log into an account that has real money or information in it.

I caught myself doing it last week. Even though it looked like a legitimate email from a company I ordered something from for an amount I was expecting to see, I still stopped when I had to login to my account after clicking on an email link. Type in the URL of the site you are going to. The few seconds you save by clicking on the link isn't worth the risk you take in giving your account information to an unscrupulous email scammer.

Pokery Action

I showed up an hour and a half late for the Bloggerpods2 tournament, but it looks like it didn't go off as planned. They've rescheduled it for next Sunday if anyone is curious. I got lucky that the Full Tilt servers were down when the tournament was scheduled to begin. I'll try to remember 6pm Central time, although that will be after daylight savings so it will feel live 5pm.

Daylight savings is weeks early this year as everyone who supports a computer system already knows. It's your basic nightmare here as we have to deal with process engineers who think that it's okay to schedule events daily by scheduling the next event to occur 24 hours after the last one. This will cause more problems than Y2K, mark my words. The sun was coming up this morning as I drove in at 5:45 this morning, so I sort of welcome the extra hour of darkness in the morning.

I was still in the mood for some pokery type action when I logged in late for Bloggerpods2 since I hadn't played a hand since last weekend, so I fired up a SNG on Full Tilt. The action was pretty typical, (aka some dork calling all in pre-flop in the first five hands with J9 soooooooooted) until we got down to the final four. I took third and fourth out in one hand when my AQ beat A7 and A8 on a flop of QT8. I lost the heads-up match when my opponent called off half his stack with T2 after missing the flop. He must have felt the ten coming on the turn and I was too pot stuck to get away from it. When he insta-called I was expecting to see AT because that was the only hand I could reasonably expect someone to call a 2500 flop bet with, so when I saw the T2 I was too disgusted to play another game.

I'm taking my second place money and going back to WoW.