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May 24, 2026 · 1 min read

Promoted to a refinery upgrade project in California

Tom KirkmanIndependent Project Manager

Was urgently transferred / promoted to a refinery upgrade project in California.

Sunny blue skies this week.

Not missing the Midwest crappy weather at all.

For 3 years I lived in Southern California in the 1980’s.

LA is bonkers, and so is Northern California.

But Central California in an industrial district, I’m not so worried about random woke zombie brain eating attacks.

Even found a (hopefully) suitable church less than 2 miles away, which seems not woke (hey, this is California).

Stuart Turley I can chew up your free time again on a 6th or 7th (?) time on your podcast, if you are bored, with my unconventional dyslexic autistic spectrum, random unrehearsed blatherings on energy vs. woke idiocy 😁

PANIC HARDER DAMMIT !

Irina Slav I just renewed my annual paid subscription for substack.
Irina is the only person I have a paid subscription to; I’ve known her for a decade or so on Oil Price, and Irina’s wordsmithing flair exceeds mine (I don’t say this lightly).

Decades ago, my dyslexia convinced me to read an entire dictionary cover to cover, in order to better understand the English language.
I have difficulty explaining this basic concept to normies.

Anyway, this current refinery project has reasonable hours, 10 hours a day, 5 days a week.

I have weekends again ! 😃

FROM THE THREAD

Tom's notes 9

  1. Tom Kirkmanreplying to Patrick Devine

    hey Irina Slav you have fans here 😃

  2. Tom Kirkman

    Something that Project Management Institute (PMI) never mentions is the contributions of mildly dyslexic and mildly autistic Free Thinkers can contribute to the Project Management discipline.

    I still use PMBOK *6th edition* as the pinnacle of Project Management.

    PMBOK 7th edition sucks, and the current 8th edition sucks even more.
    Inmates running the looney bin.
    8th edition is horrible.

    John Shurr, MBA contributed to the very first edition of PMBOK.

    The excesses and bizarre overcomplications of the 8th edition are a *parody* of actual project management.

    < stern glare >
    < block me, I don't care, I'm speaking truth >

    Needlessly overcomplicating basic concepts is idiocy, and counterproductive.

    Posts and comments like this are why the Grand Poohbahs at LinkedIn / Microsoft shadowban me for stating obvious truths.

    Hoping I can convince PMI to get back on track to realty, before AI attempts to screw everything up with absurd and totally inaccurate "helpfulness".

    AI = Artificial Ineptness

  3. Tom Kirkman

    Simon Derricutt while I *can* use a wrench (I grew up on a farm) I get paid to *think* and not to do.

  4. Tom Kirkmanreplying to Ray Freudenberg

    cool!
    We could tag team on a podcast !!!!

    Those who know me know that I can freely blurt out words and thoughts that most dare not speak.

    That's my dyslexic filter firmly in the *off* position ! 😁

  5. Tom Kirkman

    Thanks Vincent Bourdonneau, I'm enjoying this change 😃

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