Airline Travel

Put another uneventful airline trip in the books. I went home to ND for Thanksgiving. It was good as usual. Maybe I'll let you know more details later. For now here's a few things I noticed on my trip today.

• You know that area just past security where you stop to put your shoes and belt back on? One airport had it labeled the "composure area". That has a nice soothing ring to it. It made me want to get out my score and jot a few bars of music down too.
• I saw a white girl passenger today who looked like she was growing dreds. Do white people have the hair texture necessary to correctly grow dreds?
• The Minneapolis airport gets poor marks for having luggage friendly bathroom stalls. It feels like you can't enter them without standing on the toilet seat and wiping all sides of your luggage against the germ-infested stall walls.
  
• Are there really that many people walking around in airports thinking "I brought all this stuff through security without a container. I think I need to go and buy an expensive piece of luggage to put this stuff in"? OK, maybe the occasional business traveler has an issue with his luggage's zipper getting damaged en route or something. But is it really a high enough occurrence that it can support a luggage store in the airport? Or are people buying enough sweatshirts and stuffed animals at the other shops that they need to purchase another suitcase?
  

Miscellaneous

• The name Margaret is one of those classic names it seems. Margaret Mead, Margaret Thatcher, Margaret from Dennis the Menace. Most of the younger Margarets I know have the handy nickname of Maggie. I happened to notice this because a girl I play softball and volleyball with is named Maggie. One of my cube mates has a daughter named Margaret/Maggie too.
• Cranberry sauce made with fresh cranberries is surprisingly easy to make. You just put the cranberries, sugar, and water in a pot, boil for 5 or 10 minutes, and it's done. Although I think you could probably get by with a little less sugar than the recipe on the bag calls for.
• I'm thankful for GM and that I even know what GM is.
• Raking leaves on Saturday was surprisingly painful. I was going like gangbusters for a couple hours feeling great, and then when I went to straighten up I could hardly tip my head back at all. The rest of the day and most of Sunday were not so fun. Yesterday was a little better. Who knew muscles could get so angry?
• Massage therapists are great. If you marry a massage therapist, is that like marrying a carpenter? Where home is the last place they want to do any of that kind of stuff because they do it all day as a job?
  
• I have a bad habit of getting into this mood to do online shopping/ordering shortly before I go somewhere, and then I have to try to have somebody stop by my house and check for delivered packages.
• When I was looking in my closet today, I noticed I still sometimes wear shirts (in public - not just as pajamas) that I wore as a senior in high school. Yes, I know some people do wear their pajamas in public, especially at Wal-Mart.
  

Engineer Good

I've posted a link to this before, but they've added a few new videos on "Thank an Engineer". They do poke fun at slide shows in one of the videos though. I'm not sure how I feel about that since I have many fond memories as a kid of Dad setting up the screen and the slide machine and seeing pictures from many years back, especially of the era when women had double-knit polyester dresses that only came down to *gasp* their knees. And, my cousins like Hank, Mike, Dwight, and Dan had shaggy hair just like the kids are wearing it these days.

Willy Nilly

I read about them in a magazine a couple months ago, but I actually work with a guy who uses one. It's called an ecigarette. You still get the nicotine without the tar, smoke, odor, etc. They even come in a variety of flavors. Just like ice cream. If you're addicted already, this seems like it might be a nice alternative. If you don't smoke, then you probably don't need to start using these e-thingys. The tricky question is: If you quit your regular cigarettes and only use these ecigarettes, can you tell your health insurance company you're tobacco free or not? Isn't it sort of equivalent to using the patch?

It cracked me up today when I noticed that one of the girls who sits in the same cubicle vicinity uses instant message abbreviations when she talks. She says things like O-M-G! And she isn't a valley girl either. Actually, one of the guys in our group tends to do the same thing, but his abbreviations often include profanity, so I won't repeat them here.

Has anybody out there read the "Twilight" series of books? A spouse of a guy from work recommended them and said they were very addictive. I'm not sure I want to start down that path.

Bathroom Behavior Observation #9

It has been a while since I had one of these installments. And I might be slightly repeating one of my previous installments, but I think in this case it bears repeating because there is a slightly new twist. Why would someone talk on their cell phone in the bathroom? I just don't get it. There are several reasons why I don't get it.

1. First of all, both women that I've seen do this at work are not American, and they're speaking in a foreign language. 95% of the people in the building wouldn't understand their conversation if they had it in the hall, so why would they go to the bathroom for privacy?
2. How can they think the bathroom is private? There are people going in and out of there using the facilities fairly frequently, and there are echoes and everything.
3. The one lady does use the small "sitting room" area of the bathroom as her phone booth, but the "sitting room" is more like a chair that shares a space with the handicap stall and sink, so that still doesn't seem like a good place to have a phone conversation. Plus, there's only a partial wall partition between the sitting room and the other four stalls.
4. Why would these people think the person on the other side of the conversation would want to hear all of those noises coming out of the stalls? Your phone does pick up background noises you know.
5. One lady is Brazilian, and the other lady is Indian, so I can't even form any theories so far on how it's acceptable to talk on the phone in the bathroom in certain other cultures. I haven't noticed a pattern in ethnicity other than the fact that they're foreigners.

The one reason I don't want to even begin to entertain of course is that the reason they do this is because they're engineers, and engineers exhibit strange behavior as a matter of course. Perish the thought!

Speaking of odd behavior, some of the guys at work tell me that there is one guy who does actual work in the bathroom. Not just thinking, but we're talking about taking schematics and highlighters in there with him. No joke.

Travelin'

I had a good weekend. I went to WI and saw my "little" brother and his family at their new house. Here are a few excerpts:

• Seeing my brother and his wife is always good.
  
• Young children can make believe for hours on end. Sometimes this is good, sometimes this is bad.
  
• We spent a couple hours straight on the trampoline. First we did some jumping. Then we pretended we were lions, then kitties, then horses, and who knows what else. We ended with some more jumping.
• Had a blast when I made an impromptu stop to hang out with some other "mature" young women on Friday night and stayed out until all hours. Dominoes is lots of fun when you're in good company.
  
• Hugs from your nieces are precious.
• One radio station is already playing all Christmas all the time. That's a little extreme.
  

That's all I've got for now. Here's one picture from the weekend.

Promotions

Today I found out that as of November 1st, I am officially a Senior Engineer! For many of you not familiar with the engineering "corporate ladder", here's an explanation. The general sequence if you stay as an engineer and don't become a manager is Engineer -> Project Engineer -> Senior Engineer -> Lead Engineer -> Staff Engineer. Depending on the company, there are levels above Staff Engineer too, but it varies more. And you have to work forever to get one of those really elite titles. If you're fresh out of college, you'll probably start as an engineer. If you graduate from college with a Masters degree, you might get to start as a project engineer.

What this means for me is that I'm basically still doing the same job I have been doing. They will throw a few extra peanuts in my cage every week, and I'll probably be put in charge more often of reviewing younger engineers' designs and mentoring/training more engineers. Another step toward becoming a "subject matter expert" you could say. I think this also means I am quickly approaching the "middle years". Yikes!

I would have bought all my friends who came to visit tonight a nice supper to celebrate, but none of you showed up, so I raked leaves and went to a weight lifting class at the Y instead. Oh, and no, I'm not a HMS - we have GM on Tuesday right now instead of BS on Wednesday. ;-)

Speaking of promotions, I also found out that another engineer I've worked frequently with is moving to Italy for her new job position / responsibility at the end of this month. This makes me happy for her but also a bit sad to lose her leadership in the project I've been working on. Let me take you on a little journey here. We both started at the company around the same time and spent the first two years working on our first major project together. She (Jill) then moved to procurement, and I only worked occasionally with her for a couple years. She moved to a different position again, and I have had the privilege of working with her for the last two years.

It's always a pleasure to work with Jill for a couple reasons. First of all, we think in very similar ways, so we don't have to spend much time debating how to approach a problem very often. Secondly, she's competent and does things quickly and well. After working with people who are the opposite of this, I have a deep appreciation for working with someone who knows what she is doing. Best of luck in Italy, Jill! May our paths meet again. Actually, I'm fairly certain they will meet occasionally based on what her new role is.

Randomness

• Why is pineapple juice one of the few juices you can still purchase in a tin can? Is its taste strong enough that it overpowers any metal tastes it picks up?
• Last week I was eating lunch at Subway, and two ladies came in whose shirts clearly identified them as employees of the bank about a block away. I watched them leave, and I kid you not, they got in their car and drove the block back to the bank. My walk from the parking lot into work is longer than that, and it was even a really nice day with sunshine and everything. Just saying.
• Waiting five years before washing your windows may not be the best idea. I suspect the fly specks come off easier if you do it more regularly.
• Spiders are not big fans of flat surfaces and places that get lots of sunlight. They tend more to places that have shapes/indentations and darker places.
• I still have not mastered the art of cooking salmon. It just doesn't taste like it did on the cruise compared to when I make it myself.
• 15 minutes: The mean amount of time it takes people in Grand Forks, ND to get to work - the shortest commute of any U.S. metro area. Woo hoo! Congrats not only on having the shortest time, but also for being considered a "metro area".
• I know, I was hiding under a rock probably and am the only person who didn't hear this earlier, but did you know that President Obama won a Nobel Peace Prize? For what? He's just starting his term and has barely done anything yet. I guess if Al Gore gets one, then Obama needs one too.
  

Operation Beach Kayak: SUCCESS

• Sunday 12:00 PM. Contemplate how to spend a beautiful Sunday afternoon while eating lunch.
• Sunday 12:30 PM. Debate internally whether to take a hike, go for a bike ride, or go kayaking.
• Sunday 1:00 PM. Finish lunch and start a quick reconnaissance mission for Operation Beach Kayak Revisited.
• Sunday 1:15 PM. Reconnaissance data in. Temperature: In the 70's. Wind: 0-5 mph. Waves: 0-2 inches. Looking good!
• Sunday 1:20 PM Put kayak on wheels and begin trek to the beach.
• Sunday 1:30 PM Meet people on the beach stairs who do not question my sanity but do agree it is a perfect day to kayak.
• Sunday 1:35 PM Get in kayak in water. Only one brief moment where I fear tippage. Manage to get going with only my feet and one arm getting wet.
• Sunday 1:36 PM Start paddling! Realize life jacket got left in garage. Oops. Carry on.
  
• Sunday 2:00 PM Reach pier and stop to take a few pictures.
• Sunday 2:00-2:30 PM See someone practicing the kite part of their kiteboarding on the beach. Startle a lady who is wearing a wetsuit and jogging in the water.
  
• Sunday 2:30 PM Arrive back at home beach. No mishaps exiting kayak.
• Sunday 2:32 PM Return to house. All's well.

P.S. Mom, next time I will remember my life jacket. Promise.

New Digs

I moved on Thursday - here it is. My new cubicle. Notice that you can even see most of my desktop area right now. It's kind of fun to have some "cubies" again, but it may hinder my productivity a little bit to have three other people easily available to talk to. Seeing how I'm such a Chatty Cathy and all.


The other three guys all have a similar setup of 6'x8', and the cubes are arranged in a square around a small center area. The total area for all 4 cubicles is 14'x16'. Right now the center area is open, but they're supposed to be bringing some storage cabinets in to that area.

Cornucopia

A couple weeks ago when we had that cold snap I finally gave up on all my vegetable plants and did a final harvest. Compared to last year, I had a great harvest this year. Besides the vegetables pictured here (gotta love the mini green peppers), I probably got 2 or 3 more jalapenos earlier in the fall and a couple ripe tomatoes. I even ate a couple cucumbers that were half formed and then started to wither on the vine when I forgot to water during a dry spell. Unfortunately, I had way more jalapenos than tomatoes, so my salsa plans didn't work out all that well. That's why the jalapenos are shriveled. I haven't figured out what to do with them yet.

Musical Cubicles

Can you believe it? It's already been a year and a half, and now it's time to move to a different cubicle. Somebody higher up than me has decided that not enough people are sitting in our area, and what needed to be done was to completely rearrange everybody's cubicle so that they could squeeze twelve more people in. Most people right now are sitting in a double cube (I'm one of the few who has a single), and now they're going to move almost everybody to quad cubes (including me). Space alotted: 6' x 8'. Up next: double decker cubes, just like chickens. You better hope you aren't on the lower deck. ;-)

They started tearing down half the cubicle area on Monday, and they've been rebuilding the quads for most of the past week. I'm one of the lucky ones who gets to move from my old cube straight to my new cube. Some of the unlucky people had to move out of their cubicle a week ago and either work from home or find a temporary cubicle. Some of those people then get to move back to the same approximate area at the end of this coming week. The really unlucky people had to move out a week ago, have to wait for them to rebuild the first half, tear down the second half, and then rebuild the second half before they can move in. That's a total time of about a month of being a vagabond. And, oh yeah, don't let this affect your productivity.

Such is the life in Dilbertland. I'm actually looking forward to the move a little bit. There are advantages and disadvantages to both the single and the quad cubes. It will be a good change of pace to have people in the cube to chat with again. Two of the guys I'll be sharing with I'm sure will be fine. The third guy.....not so sure....he tends to whine a lot. I'll have to wait and see. Like Garrison Keillor says though: "Life is what you make it. Make the best of it."

The picture below is the current state of my cubicle. It doesn't fully do justice to how it feels because you can't see the boxes really close to the camera that help to add to the claustrophobia I think many people feel when they come to visit me.