Tidbit

I almost skipped posting today because I don't have much to say as almost all day involved being at work in training.  But then I decided I would tell you about BS this evening.  It was the very good chapter of I Cor. 13 this evening.  That was special in and of itself.  However, it was also very obvious tonight that a couple people in our meeting are going through some difficult times.  Life can change on a dime, can't it?  Things can be going along so smooth, and then in a few moments so many things can change to turn your life upside down.  It was a lesson to me again that we need to pray for others.  Not just the ones we can see struggling (they definitely need to be included), but for all the others too because maybe they're just able to hide the struggle inside better.

Monday Meanderings

Since I'm feeling lacking in wit today, there are only a few bullet points.

• I have not turned on the furnace yet, although it's very tempting.  I'm making do (cheating) at the moment with a small radiant heater thing I have to help heat my office/bedroom area.  However, the ten-day forecast is showing it barely getting into the 60's most days, so I may have to relent.
• I'm not relenting today though.  Last night I woke up at 3:30 AM and laid awake for a while because I was too hot and it was raining a lot.  It helps if you remove one of the three blankets covering you.
• One of my last Reader's Digest volumes must have had almost 8 pages of advertisement detailing all the options of Medicare.  That's your government at work - spending your money to advertise to people that they need to be more dependent on the government so they can spend even more of your money.
• The refrigerator is almost bare.  I might have to grocery shop soon.
• Everybody on facebook was talking about the changes.  I'm not really seeing that they're all that major.  Plus, those changes showed up for me more than a week ago I think.
• Last night I was catching up on my "Prairie Home Companion" and heard about a syndrome called "Norwegian Bachelor Farmer Tendencies" where everything tends toward chaos very quickly in the house.  Is there such a thing as "German Bachelorette Engineer Tendencies"?  I think I might have that.  I believe the two syndromes are similar.

Happy last week of September, folks.

Feeling Tired

This post will be short as I feel pretty well exhausted from the week.  I worked 43 or 44 hours not counting the 10 hours of driving for work too.  So that's a total of more than 50 hours on the work clock plus two nights spent in a hotel.  I actually slept well at the hotel.  The only problem was I didn't go to bed early enough.  The stinkin' TV kept me up too late, which is my own fault I know since I'm in control of the remote.  My weakness is cop shows.  I'm getting better at resisting turning on the TV at hotels, but sometimes it still gets me.  I'm disappointed it did this soon after 'vention too.  :-(

It's starting to feel like fall, which I guess it should since fall has officially arrived.  The leaves started to turn more noticeably this week, which makes sense as October is imminent.  And, I wish I were in ND this weekend with the parental units at 'vention.  But, it just didn't work out to go this year.  This is only the 2nd or 3rd year of my life that I didn't make it to at least the weekend of that convention.  Such is life.  I have an invite to a chicken boil in the area here, so I won't be pining too much.

The place I traveled to for work was over in Ohio.  I don't have enough items to do a full-fledged summary list.  I spent almost my entire time there working, so there really isn't much to say other than I had some good beef brisket and ribs for supper last night.  They were cooked dry rub, and then you could put sauce on if you wanted.  I'm becoming more of a dry rub fan as I get older.  First of all you get to really taste the meat flavor.  Secondly, when someone else controls the sauce they put too much on there, and there is also the danger that the sauce taste won't be up to my high standards.  I don't like sweet BBQ, so I have to diligently watch for that lurking danger (OK, I'm not quite that bad, but I do try to steer clear if possible).  The other thing I can say is you know you're driving through a more isolated area when the small town gas stations have outdoor vending machines.  They have those in ND too.  That way when they're closed at night, the travelers are happy to have a place to stop and get a bottle of pop if needed, and the gas station owner still makes a little bit of money.  I drove through some Amish country too, so I passed a couple horse and buggy rigs.

That's it for tonight, yo.

Horse Colors

A few weeks ago in the course of conversation a friend described me as a "horse of a different color."  This was after my friends (who were all female) told about what age they were first allowed to wear high heels and I mentioned that I never had a desire to wear high heels.  In fact, my mom had to beg and plead with me to try even the smallest heel.  As I dwell on that description, I think I would have to agree that it's apt.  It's honest, yet not insulting.  At least not in my opinion, but then I am a horse of a different color.  The other expression that is similar might be "marches to the beat of a different drummer."  For some reason I could always relate to the ugly duckling story too.  To quote someone else, "it is what it is."  I accepted my different color a long time ago.  The only thing I haven't figured out is exactly what that color is.  Is it a totally non-horse color like bright green, or is it more of a striking horse color like all white or maybe a dark maroon?

That's all I have for today.  I don't even know why I told you this since I didn't really have anything to say.  Oddly enough, it's these short nonsensical posts that get the most comments.

Small Soap Box

As I was reading a magazine the other day, I came across this "info-ad" from Toyota promoting their hybrid and alternative fuel cars and their roadmap of cars for the next several years.  It got me fired up on this topic again.  I'm not a huge fan of hybrid cars, but I'm not a hater either.  In fact, two of the engineers I work with own a Prius.  They each own one - they don't share the same one.  So this rant is not about discouraging you from buying a hybrid or alternative vehicle.  My point is that you need to be realistic as you make that choice and think about the long term consequences of your decisions and actions.

First of all, don't kid yourself that you are single-handedly saving the environment by buying a hybrid car.  Actually, hybrid cars may help the environment somewhat, but maybe not once you factor in the whole "lots of batteries" dilemma.  All you've done is trade in gasoline emissions for lithium ions or nickel metal hydride and all the emissions and by-products that are a result of producing batteries.  I am not educated enough yet to know what all those by-products are, but I'm sure there are some.  The law of Murphy pretty much says there will be.  If you want to pay extra during your purchase to buy a hybrid car to save some gas money to balance out the extra you paid up front, then I say go for it.  It should be a net savings as long as the batteries in the car last longer than 5 or 6 years.  Plus, you have the added bonus of feeling good about being an early adopter.

Now electric vehicles....that's another ball of wax.  First of all, you have the same battery problem that hybrids have, possibly a larger one.  Secondly, if everybody had an electric car, the power grid would not be able to support them.  Maybe in time the grid can be beefed up to support more electric cars, but that won't come without expense to you.  Your power company and/or taxes will ensure that.  Or you will need to put up a windmill in your backyard to support it.  Are you willing to pay that expense?  Are you willing to support your government as they approve the building of a bunch of power plants?  Is it OK if they build them near your house?  What method of power generation are you willing to support?  Coal?  Oil?  Nuclear?  Natural Gas?  Hydroelectric?  FYI, right now solar and wind by themselves won't cut it, so you'll have to choose some of those other ones too.  But, if you want to be an early adopter, I say go for it.

The other great white hope is hydrogen and the hydrogen fuel cell.  They like to advertise that the only by-product of burning hydrogen is water.  That is true as long as you stay focused only on what comes out the tailpipe.  If you step back and take a look at the big picture, some thornier issues emerge.  The most obvious issue is that hydrogen by itself does not occur naturally in nature.  To isolate hydrogen by itself, you have to supply energy.  In fact, the most common and cheapest way (speaking relatively) to produce hydrogen (steam reforming using methane) produces greenhouse gases.  The more costly way to produce hydrogen (electrolysis) doesn't have any emissions but oxygen, but again it's expensive, and you have to put energy into the process to get hydrogen.  Where do you think you're going to get that energy?  You guessed it, from all the old sources I already mentioned.  If you like to be progressive and an early adopter, then I say go for it.

I'm sure there will be some ingenious ideas that will come along and eventually solve many of these problems, and I hope I'm alive to see them.  But, the law of conservation says that as you solve those problems, there will always be unintended consequences that you weren't able to predict.  That's all I'm saying.  Will it make things worse or better?  We'll have to wait and see.

Subway and 5K

After my Friday evening rest, I decided I would try running the 5K on Saturday morning since my muscles weren't feeling all that bad.  As I mentioned previously, it's my employer's 100th year of doing business this year.  As part of that celebration they were having a 5K and 10K walk/run on Saturday, and I couldn't resist being a part of history and getting my "free" T-shirt with my registration fee.  Plus Jared Fogel "The Subway Guy" was going to be on hand for the event.

There were almost 400 race participants, and I think most of them were people from work, or family and friends of people from work.  It was kind of fun.  My time was 31:31, which again was not real stellar.  It was mostly fun except that my knees started hurting almost right away, probably because of all the exercise the day before even though they hadn't been hurting before the race.  It wasn't so much my knee joints as it was the something-or-other-band (iliotibial band?) that runs on the outside of your knee.  My brief internet search tells me it's from faulty pelvic mechanics and that the gluteus maximus can also contribute to the issue.  Anyway, I ran through the pain (my PT Ananias would probably yell at me for that) and never walked, although my jog was pretty slow in some cases.  Needless to say, I decided to take it easy today since I'm having difficulty going up and down stairs due to my ITB(s).

To give you an idea of my slow pace, I'll give you some illustrations.  Right after mile one, a lady pushing two kids in a stroller passed me.  These kids weren't 10-pound newborns, they were probably 2 years old.  A dad pushing a stroller passed me too.  I was keeping pace with a 50-something guy in my building.  He was doing a run-walk type of thing, so we took turns passing each other.  He said if he runs fast enough where his legs feel good, it's too fast for his heart, so he alternates between running hard and walking that's about equal to my jogging pace.  Even one of the software engineers in my group passed me around mile 2.5, and he's not what you would consider extremely athletic, although he has been doing the couch to 5K program there at work.

Here are a couple pictures from the event.  And yes, they had Subway sandwiches for the participants after the race.  I ate some even though I wasn't feeling all that hungry at 10:00 AM after running three miles.

Jared "The Subway Guy" and I

J-Kac - A friend from work finishing the 10K in 45 minutes.

PJ - another friend from work with his girlfriend Amy.  I kept pace with him until Mile 1, when I started to fall behind.

Hard Day At The Office

Yesterday was our department outing at work.  That's usually a good time - fun with a bunch of goofy engineers.  There was a large selection of activities to participate in.  Here are a few of the highlights:

1. The software engineer manager was telling a story at breakfast and described his wife as very anal.  Now that's a very big accomplishment (if you want to call it that) to be more anal than a software engineer.
2. The morning activity I chose was to do my annual shooting.  Things available to shoot included the usual .22 pistol with a scope, a single shot .22 pistol, a .22 rifle, derringer, 9mm Glock, Colt .45, a .40 pistol, an old school revolver (maybe a .45?), an SKS rifle, and a crossbow.  Many thanks to all my co-workers who shared their arsenals.
3. After a delicious lunch of roasted pig, lots of us played a good-natured game of softball that involved many jokes and giving others a hard time about their bad knees and bad backs.  We even had a few heckling spectators.
4. The last inning of softball included Dilly Bars.  I was pitching for my team, and it was kind of distracting to pitch to batters who would hold their dilly bar in their mouth while they took a swing at the ball and then ran the basepaths holding their ice cream.  One of our outfielders was also super-talented as he managed to field the ball and throw in from the outfield without letting his ice cream hit the grass.
5. I took a quick drink of water, and then some of us played a rousing game of ultimate frisbee.  We were breathing hard after about 5 minutes, but we played another 30-45 minutes until it was time for volleyball.
6. Our boss (hardware engineer manager) had issued a volleyball challenge to the software engineers for a best 2 out of 3 games with the loser supplying donuts to the other team.  One of my software engineer friends wasn't really impressed with the challenge because he said that kind of challenge was unfair given the typical athleticism of software engineers.  But, somehow the software engineers managed to squeak 2 wins out of us hardware engineers.  No donuts for the hardware engineers.  I think they had some ringers.
7. After the main challenge event of volleyball, we played a few more games and managed to get the volleyball stuck in a nearby tree.  In the process of trying to knock the ball out of the tree, we managed to get some other things stuck up there:  another volleyball, a pop can, and a small piece of plywood.  The weapon of choice that was most effective for getting everything down was water bottles.
8. After that strenuous day, I went home, took a shower, and then chilled out the rest of the evening and debated whether to be a part of history and run a 5K the next morning.  I also spent some time stretching and hoping I wouldn't be too sore for the next couple of days.  More on that later. 
9. During the shooting I was able to use my rec specs for something other than racquetball.

All for now...

Focus on Grapes

A guy in the cubicle quad across the hall has relatives in the blueberry and vineyard business, so the last couple of days he's been bringing in fresh grapes.  They're not your usual grocery store seedless grapes.  They're actually juice grapes.  They're an acquired taste, but after the first one or two you get used to the thick skin and seeds, and they taste pretty good.  That was my afternoon snack for a couple days.

A couple days ago I got a business card from a component rep that was unusual (the card was, not the rep).  Sometimes on the back of their business card people will have their info in Chinese or Japanese if they're from one of those countries.  Or, they might have the company logo or a solid color.  This was an extreme case of the company logo.  See the picture below.  I laid the card on a magazine so that you could see the picture was in focus.  It's just the text on the card that's making your eyes wig out.  It's even worse in real life.

Irony on the back of a business card.

Hodge Podge and Mish Mash

This year there will be sista woikas in this field, which we haven't had for about six years I think.  With only brothas for so long, my housekeeping skills have gotten really rusty.  I'm trying to decide whether I should sharpen my own skills, or if I should just hire a maid to clean regularly for me.  Hiring a maid would have two benefits.  It would both keep my house clean and stimulate the economy.  The obvious drawback would be the extra cost.

Most of my readers probably know this already, but North Dakota lost good ole Frances F. last week.  We don't mourn her passing since her quality of life was minimal this past year and she has much better things to go on too.  I'm sure it will feel different for Mom and Dad now as they drive past the care center Sunday morning without stopping.  I was trying to remember if I had one very distinct memory of her, but I don't really think I do.  I have several memories of her, but not one that sticks out clearly.  She could be blunt as a baseball bat, but she sure had a love for souls.

I feel like I haven't spent a whole week in the office for weeks on end now, which is making me feel a little bit discombobulated and like I'm falling behind.  The reason is because I haven't spent an entire week in the office for several weeks.  First I went to Iowa for the build that wasn't.  Then we had holiday the Friday before Labor Day.  Last week we had Labor Day off, and then I was also on vacation Thursday and Friday.  This week one day will be lost to the annual team outing at work.  Next week I may be out of the office for a brief trip to a supplier for a day.  Busy busy I say.  It keeps life interesting.

The sinuses are slowly clearing up with a dry cough kind of lingering too.  It's better than last week.  The fall exercise routines will soon be kicking in.  I went to the grocery for the first time in several weeks today.  Life goes on.  That's all I have for today for riveting reading folks.  Buena sueño.

Convention C & C

Assignment:  Compare and contrast the conventions from the last two weekends.  To keep them straight for the purposes of this essay, call the one in Iowa M, and the one in the center of this state A.

Similarities:

1. An overabundance of food for the soul.
2. Helped with preparation of natural food.
3. Morning walks.
4. Middle of the night treks to the bathroom with a great view of the stars.  I'm not getting that old that I have to make lots of trips in the night.  But, the problem is that I drink less during the day so I don't have to go out during meeting.  Then at the end of the day I feel really thirsty, so I end up drinking a bunch of water at night lunch.  This results in the late night bathroom treks.
5. Seeing some special people - both woikas and non-woikas.  Some of the special people at A included JC, Myra, Dana, M&M, Kim, Tim&Kate, and of course all the people that I meet with on a regular basis here at home.  It's sad the list is that short after living here for more than eight years.  It really wouldn't be that short if I actually listed all the "regulars".
6. Sore posterior by the end.
7. Very nice clear blue skies for a couple days.
8. Tent dwelling.  That's right - I tempted the forces of nature and braved the tent again.
9. Helping with clean-up.  I would highly recommend it - I consider it a good way to ease out of the convention life.
10. Stew!

Differences:

1. Social interactions.  At M, there were several people of similar age and station in life present to hang out and visit with.  At A...not so much.  I had my pick of young married couples with children to visit with - or middle-aged and older people.  Not that there's anything wrong with that.  There were a few single people in their mid to lower twenties, but I'm starting to be ancient compared to them.  The weekend also brought a couple more people my age, but still not a lot.
2. Horizontal resting hours.  Jack-E and I stayed up past 11:00 PM several nights talking at M.  At A, I regularly broke the Crafty Ducky rule of not heading to bed before 9:00 PM.  I think one night it was even as early as 8:30.  I wasn't sleeping by 8:30 by any means, but I had already started the nightly teeth brushing routine one night around that time.  In my defense for being so lame, the allergy stuff was making me feel a little bit draggy.  Plus, when you have stuffy sinuses and you're trying to talk amidst a din of other people, it makes conversation a bit of a challenge, so I gave up on it.
3. Walking companions.  I had some at M, but not at A.  There are benefits to doing it either way.  When you have less social stuff going on, it does make more time for God if you can manage to quiet your mind.
4. Food preparation.  We mixed the veggies and put the dressings on at M.  At A, I was on the other side of the coin preparing the veggies.  After the experience at M, as I ate at A I can tell you that I paid much closer attention to the salads and how the dressing was mixed, etc.  It was also interesting to observe how long it took for the veggies to go from our processing until I saw them appear on the table.  Often it was a day, but not always.
5. Tent situation.  No rain at A except maybe a small sprinkle one night that I'm not sure was even a sprinkle.  As previously mentioned, that certainly was not the case at M.  Another difference in tents was the size.  Jack-E's tent was very spacious with plenty of room to stand up and walk around.  My tent on the other hand is.....tiny.  There is barely enough room for my single air mattress and my small duffel bag.  To put my clothes on, I pretty much have to lay down.
6. Temperatures.  M was first unbearably hot, then rainy, then on the cool-to-cold side.  A was more moderate.  It was only slightly cool on Thursday, and then Friday through Sunday were very pleasant with each day getting a little bit warmer.  The nights were pleasantly crisp at A.
7. Corn on the Cob.  As can only be expected of Iowa, the corn on the cob at M was delicious, and we had it twice.  I dare to be blasphemous to Uncle Walt and say the corn on the cob there was as good as it is in ND.  I suspect they plant the same brand and variety of seed.  Now A wasn't bad and it was better than some years, but it wasn't up to the same standard as M.  I would give M an A+ in the corn on the cob department, and I would give A a B+.
8. Empty places.  Not being a "regular" at M, I had no way of knowing if people were missing.  I certainly noticed a few people missing at A.  The biggest gap I noticed was in the veggie room.  It used to be that the space at the sink to wash the buckets, knives, etc. after all the chopping was done was never open.  This year though, it always seemed to be open.  I can't remember exactly who used to do it, but I think it's a combination of one of the helping ladies dying and several of the men getting older and not being able to help as much as they used to.  Since school was already in session, I think the benches in the meeting shed at A were more than half empty for the first two days.
9. Phases of the sun.  At M., I noticed the beautiful sunsets.  It was the beautiful sunrises that I saw at A.  It could be related to which way the tent was pointed and to which direction had the most unobstructed view.
10. Smells.  M was kinda heavy on the chicken poo smell occasionally.  A didn't have any real strong smells, but one day I think I did smell horses or cows.  It wasn't quite strong enough to know for sure.

We heard so many good things, I don't think I can narrow it down enough at the moment to leave you with any single special thoughts.  One story I enjoyed that we heard and that came to mind this evening was a little boy who was having a struggle.  He came to his mother and was wanting to talk to her a little bit.  She asked the boy if he had shared his trouble with God.  He said he had.  But, he also said, "I need someone else with skin on them."  It is nice to walk in the way with some other people, isn't it?  I should be clear that neither convention was better than the other, they were just different.  It's kind of amazing how they can be so much the same and yet different at the same time.

Did I already mention the beautiful sunrises?

That's all for now folks....I should start heading for bed now, what with my newfound early bird to bed tendencies and all.

I Owe A...

Well, as the post title implies, I went to Iowa for the long Labor Day weekend.  Mostly I was at 'vention, but on the way home I made a stop.  Let's just get right into the highlights list.  I took a few pictures (not many), and even fewer are fit for public consumption, so it's only text today.

1. Pleasant surprises in the form of seeing George, Charlie, Jim, Bob, Karen, and Ronda.
2. Pleasant non-surprises in the forms of Jack-E, Jen-E, Uncle Becks SSPHCD, Share Bear, Windy, Swanny, and others that I can't remember but I'm sure are important and will be disappointed I forgot them.
3. Meeting new people (including J&J-E) and re-acquainting myself with a few others in the area.
4. For much of the weekend I felt kind of in disarray.  This was due to extreme heat followed by rain getting in the tent, resulting in much wet stuff.  I had stuff dwelling in the tent, my car, J&J-E's camper, and the bunks.  Then I had to try to keep track of it.
5. Contributing to the disarray was the fact that my roof rack had a major malfunction.  Thank goodness Bernie wasn't injured in the process, although he did have to make the trip home in the trunk instead.  Herman also escaped from the mishap with only minor cuts and bruises.
6. A beautiful cerulean sky on the drive home and while bicycling.
7. Did I mention Bicycling?  I did that on Monday with Jack-E and Ducky.  Eating was also involved.
8. My "job" at 'vention was to help make and dish out the salads.  I don't believe I've ever really had a job actually in the kitchen before, so that was a first.
9. Beautiful sunsets.
10. Food for the soul.  Three days.

That's all folks.  Except to say that whether this is severe allergies or the beginning of a cold today, I'm not impressed.  I'm pretty sure it was just allergies all weekend, but today there is a worsening of the symptoms.