Right now I’m essentially babysitting just about the worst product my company has ever released. And, in all reality, it’s not a horrible idea. The idea behind the product is really pretty fantastic. In fact, the idea sells the product more so than the product sells itself. That’s really where the trouble comes in. The product is riddled with poor design choices and terrible implementations. It’s proof that no matter how good an idea is, good ideas on their own are not enough to drive the success of a product. The product has to be well designed, well supported, and well thought out. This product I’m working with? It’s none of those things. It’s scampering from one poor choice to the next in a cascade of blatant cash-grabs that billion dollar businesses want to purchase but we’re stuck supporting.

I think I’m a little in shock about how much work I have coming my way. It’s pretty intense. It looks like I’m going to have at least two, possibly three concurrent high profile projects as well as a number of smaller projects interspersed. I can’t really say how things are going to go, but I’m going to do my damnedest to get it done and do it right. I’m also writing this post on my phone using JuiceSSH, which is pretty cool. I’m glad I bought it. It works really well. It has this badass feature that allows you to use the virtual keyboard as either a “hunt and peck” for commands or an “autocorrect” for long strings of English words. I’m also tunneled into a raspberry pi over WireGuard. I need to buy at least one more of those, maybe two, and a large external drive to tether to it. Well, back to the grind, I guess.

I just have one thing to say:

Being on the road sucks.

That’s really all, at the moment. Maybe, if life slows down some, I can get a few more words out there. I’ve learned a hell of a lot in the last month or two of being a road warrior. Not only professionally, but in adapting my life to being a remote one.

Needless to say, OpenVPN has become my friend. I’ve learned quite a bit about making my life easier in all respects by using it. Especially when it comes to maintaining a connection to my family and my home life despite my not being home.

For the last month, I’ve been busy. Stupid busy. Retarded busy. My employer has had me working 10 to 12 hours a day six days a week. Sometimes seven. I’m doing the same job I had been doing prior, just for a better situation. I can actually afford to live, now. I’ll be upgrading the accommodations for my family, upgrading my car, potentially upgrading my computer, and hopefully in the next ten years I’ll be upgrading my career as a professional metrologist.

I don’t get very many full weekends off. Whenever I do, it feels like a special occasion. If I’m getting more than a day off at a time it’s usually due to holidays. I need a break. I need time to sit on my ass and be lazy, or just be domestic and do something in my house.

It feels as though I would benefit from taking a break from worrisome things. I need to avoid the news for a while; to avoid twitter and other sources of information about the world collapsing in on itself. Looking at my timeline, you’d think the sky was falling. Anti-vaxers are going to kill us all with long-dead diseases. Ebola is going to mutate and make everyone hemorrhage to death from their anuses. Bobby Jindal is going to run for president, win, and make the national religion Christianity and force prayer in school.

Statistical Analysis of Variance. Using standard deviations six times higher and six times lower than your target, determine whether your process is “in control” or “out of control”. Good stuff.

It’s also part of the framework for determining the reproducibility and repeatability of gaging. I’ve discovered that Minitab is one of the best software suites for achieving what you need in calculating ANOVA for your GR&R. It’s a great deal faster than laying out your own Excel spreadsheet, and it allows you to completely automate the process. Doing capability studies, GR&R’s, and X̅&R charts becomes a task that requires seconds, rather than having to deal with irritating Excel spreadsheets or plotting by hand. I’ve learned a ton about statistical process control. I’ve also learned a ton about what works, and what doesn’t.

I’m full of piss and vinegar today. I’m ready to bust some heads and kick some ass. The summer of truly living life has finally gone full swing. My employer needs to back the hell off of me a bit, but other than that I won’t complain too much. I won’t jinx myself to say that things are going “well”, but they certainly aren’t as dismal as they’ve appeared to be in the past.

I was uncertain when I wrote the first blog post about my new job, but I’ve found out that CNC machines are rather diverse and quite complex. It would seem that numerical control panels and machines are actually interchangeable to a certain extent. The machine I’m currently running has a FANUC 18i panel and it’s attached to an Okuma 2SP-35H dual-spindle lathe.

The one in the image I found is fitted with a FANUC panel as well. I hope to learn more about CNC as I go along, machining is actually pretty fascinating to me. It also seems to be a pretty lucrative trade to get into.