Various and Sundry

OK, still not a lot of my own original thoughts going on here, so here are a few more links of interest.

This one is about a guy who makes these machines that walk with the wind.  Very cool, and I appreciate it from an engineering standpoint.  But, some of the guy's remarks are sort of sad.  That's really what he wants his legacy to be?  No "he was a very kind person" or "he inspired me to be a doctor" - and not trying to reach for something truly eternal.  He's trying to make something that wanders on this earth forever.  Very sad.

Speaking of engineering, this is also very cool.  It's a saw that can literally stop on less than a dime when it senses a human finger (or similar thing) touching the blade.  The new blade and module are only $60, but I hear the saw itself is about $1000 more than your average model.  But, it might be worth avoiding a trip to the emergency room to reattach a finger.  Interesting note:  hot dogs are very commonly used to simulate a human finger.  When UL does some tests for our appliances, they use the standard finger hot dog too.  Cheese cloth is also popular for testing the potential to start fires.

I played racquetball and then went straight to GM this evening.  I don't think I smelled too horrendous.  I bet I'll make a great old person if  my hygiene is this bad already.

I'm looking forward to the long weekend.  Great plans are afoot.  Per usual protocol, I will tell you about it afterward.  Why would I want to ruin the suspense for you and tell you the plans ahead of time?  Alas, the plans do not involve going to Manhattan, much as I would have liked to go there.  It just didn't work out that way though.  Lindal, you can see it's not just WY that I'm snubbing.

Scorcher of a Weekend

That's right, I was gone again.  To another wedding.  After the wedding season I always tell myself if I get any more invitations to weddings in faraway places where I won't know many people, I'm going to send my regrets and not go.  Kind of like childbirth though, after many months, I forget about vowing not to do that, and then I end up going to more weddings.  I get the travel bug and think that it might be nice to go to such-and-such a place to see whats-her-bucket get married, and there I go.

Sorry the list for the trip isn't all that inspiring.  It was the wedding of a girl I went to BS and SMM with for a couple years when I first moved here.  She is also the grand daughter of the people where I go to SMM.  Before I give more details and don't have a list anymore, here it is:

1. Summer in Florida is like being up north in the winter.  Basically you spend all day inside in the climate control because the weather outside is too inclement to spend much time out there.  Lots of heat, lots of humidity.
2. Mooching off others for room and meals again.  Yeah, I have a knack.
3. Getting an inside look at family dynamics while they prepare for a wedding is interesting.....and occasionally uncomfortable when you're a guest and unofficial adopted member of the family.
4. Sand like sugar - the finest I've ever seen on the most beautiful beach in the world:  Siesta Key
5. Lots of cars that are tan, brown, silver, or some shade in between.  Usually they're Buicks.
6. Many slow drivers.  Can you say retired people?
7. A multi-tiered cake in ninety degree weather is a precarious thing, even when no-melt frosting has been used.
8. Became better acquainted with my elders' daughter that lives in Canada (and two of her sons and her husband), so that was nice.
9. My airline flights.....not so nice.  I think 3 out of the 4 were delayed.  There were not any overnight stays involved this time, but it was close.  Both times I arrived at my resting place for the night around 2:00 AM or later.
10. I read three novels over the weekend.  I haven't been able to do that for a long time.
11. Dolphins at sunset by the jetty.  Nice.

The people whose house I go to meeting at most frequently.

Dad and Daughter

Very nice, yes?

For Doctor Gin, who likes to know what the cake looked like.

Random Places

The weekend summary post isn't quite done yet.  So I'll give you a few links to some things I've enjoyed recently.  First of all, here is a great song about summer.  I like it because it's acoustic and about nostalgia and being able to remember but never being able to truly go back to being a kid.  It never was one of Wynonna's popular singles, but I think it should have been.

A coworker sent me this link on budgeting.  My favorites are from December 9, 2007, from January 2, 2005, from July 11, 1999, and from May 4, 1996.  That's pretty much a true story right there.  I don't deal with budgets, but it works the same when doing engineering cost estimates for a new circuit board design.

I better head to bed soon to try to catch up on some sleep.  Airlines robbed me of several hours of it this weekend.  And I robbed myself of several more hours by getting too engrossed in a book.

Turtleburgers and Stuff

The guy I give a ride to BS consistently arrives at my house 15-20 minutes before we need to leave.  He usually waits in his car or outside until it's time to leave.  We have discussed that he does not need to be that early, but he prefers it that way.  Today he out-did himself.  He arrived almost an hour early.  I was just about to step out and mow my lawn quick when he arrived.  He nicely offered to mow my lawn for me so I could get other stuff done.  I took him up on the offer, and he even had time to pick up some twigs and branches and do a little flower bed weeding.  It was kind of awkward, a little strange, but sorta nice.  But hey, waddya gonna do?  It was good to get some unexpected things done so I don't have to stay up so late tonight doing them.  Plus, that leaves some blog time.  :-)

Need a fourth of July food suggestion?  I got this in my inbox today.  How about these lovely turtleburgers?  Handmade ground beef patties, topped with sharp cheddar cheese, wrapped in a bacon weave.  The next step, add hotdogs as the head, legs with slits for toes, and tail.  Place on an oven rack, covered loosely with foil and baked for 20-30 minutes at 400 degrees (would think you could grill too).   A little crispy, not too crunchy...just how a turtle should be, no?

Mmmmmm......looks yummy......

New Specs

As promised, here are pictures of the new glasses that I ordered over Memorial Day.  I blame the photographer for capturing the bad hair and double chins.  Good help is hard to find.

Old Glasses - circa 2008 I believe.

New glasses - markedly different from the old ones.  ;-)

I went with the transition lenses again for this round.  I can never decide if I like them or not.

Eva, here's the history you were looking for on Barney.

Kayakin' Kind of Weekend

I had a guest for the weekend.  Friend Jack-E came to hang out.  A good time was had by all (I think).  I'll keep the list short and sweet.  Not necessarily in order of importance.

1. Sun
2. Beach
3. Kayaking
4. Grilling
5. Fellowship
6. Blue Heron
7. Chipmunk Trap
8. Asian Grill
9. Chocolate and Ice Cream
10. Biking
11. Fresh Strawberries
12. Barnyard Animals

The chipmunk trap deserves a little more explanation.  Score now:
MelBMarvis:  3
Chipmunks:  0

I set the chipmunk trap again this afternoon, and within 15 minutes I noticed I had a victim.  I went out to inspect, and he was struggling to take his last gasps of breath.  I felt really bad then and contemplated rescuing him, but I stayed strong and let him expire.  When I went back three hours later, another had joined the first in his fate.  Chipmunks look an awful lot like large mice once they're wet.  I reset the trap.  I'll check later to see if I had even more success.

Some pictures to illustrate the weekend are below.

Up close and personal with a blue heron.

Reflections while kayaking.

Jack-E navigating the river.

Just another average day in the neighborhood downtown.

Eight seconds:  Piece of cake.

You're Not In Kansas Anymore, MelBMarvis

Guess where I was this past weekend?  It goes a little something like this.  Actually, it barely goes anything like that song.   I was supposed to get to Kansas City on a Friday, but the first leg of my flight was delayed, which means I narrowly missed my connecting flight.  I spent the night at the Crowne Plaza courtesy of Delta airlines in Bloomington, MN.  Home of the giant ski jump.  The bright side is that the delay wasn't due to weather, so Delta gave me hotel and food vouchers and I didn't have to spring for that myself.  The steak at the restaurant was excellent.

The return flights were marginally better.  Once again there were delays on the first leg, but I managed to squeak onto my connecting flight before they closed the doors.

What about the time between the two flight experiences?  I went to the capital of Kansas to witness my cousin being married.  Privies were in ample supply, even that far away from Kansas City.  I didn't have to wet my feet to get to them either.  When I received the wedding invitation, I waffled about whether I wanted to go or not.  You know how I feel about weddings.  I debated further within myself and finally decided if airline ticket prices were reasonable, I would go.  Well, tickets were reasonable, so off I went.  I wouldn't say I know this cousin extremely well.  We grew up many hours apart, and we didn't see them on a regular basis.  But, family is family, and that's still a kind of special bond.  When I got to thinking about it, I realized it wasn't like we were total strangers.  I shared hotel rooms with her for two weeks in Ireland.

I was a big mooch and stayed with some other family members in their hotel room.  I'm good at wrangling invitations that way.  Six people in a small suite isn't bad, right?  I also pulled a Mel on the trip.  While waiting for an airline flight I went online with my "smart" phone and ordered a wedding present for the happy couple.  On the very last screen after I pressed the purchase button, it said there was an error, so I assumed the purchase did not go through.  Me being me (only the phone is smart, not necessarily the user), I didn't bother to check or confirm that assumption or do another order online.  I just put some cash in a card and called it good.  Then I went to check my e-mail on Sunday evening and saw that the purchase had gone through.  Whoops.  I think it's bad manners to Indian give a wedding present, so I'll chalk that one up to experience.  When in doubt, check for a confirmation e-mail.  That's the moral of the story.

That's about all I've got here.  I know you miss the bullets, but it just didn't feel like a bullet kind of trip summary.  It was interesting to see my cousins much more mature than I remember them being, and it was good to see some family again that I don't see very often.  And oh yeah, the wedding was good too.  Watch out for the red velvet cake.  It can have odd side effects - at least I think that was the culprit.

The wedded couple cutting the cake.

Here are a few bonus pictures that I scrounged up from my Ireland and Scotland photo albums just for fun.  We all look so young because that trip was seven years ago.  And it must be the good young-looking genes. :-)

Cousins (with the bride) near Killarney, Ireland.

The bride and family near the William Wallace Memorial in Scotland.

I had to post this family photo because I was derelict in taking any other pictures of the family at the wedding.

Dishing It Out

More will be said about the tornado weekend on a different post.  Today I think I would like to discuss work.  Maybe some of my teacher readers can offer some advice.

As I mentioned a few months ago, I am responsible for helping to train a couple of the new engineers.  This means I often am required to review their work and give constructive feedback, let them know if they're missing or forgetting critical tasks, and give them advice in general if they ask for it (and sometimes when they don't ask for it).  I delegate some of my tasks to them too.  Anyway, today as I was working I realized that I feel like often all I do is criticize their work, and maybe I should look for things to tell them they're doing well.  With Rickshaw, he does good work in general, so I think I will be able to find some opportunities.  For Barney, I'm not so sure.  Every time it seems like he's catching on and might be coming up to speed and I feel less frustrated, he'll ask me a question that seems to indicate like he's farther behind than I thought he was.  I guess I'll have to keep my eyes and ears open for praise opportunities.

In general my frustration level with Barney is lower than before.  Part of it was that I needed an attitude adjustment.  When I thought about how many questions Rickshaw actually asks, I realized he probably asks me just as many or more than Barney does, and sometimes I have to repeat myself to Rickshaw too.  But, Rickshaw seems to have more common sense logic where Barney can sometimes make strange (to me) leaps in logic.

Speaking of rewarding someone's work, what's your philosophy on giving praise?  My theory is that if someone did a good job, then tell them so and resist all temptations at that time to add a "but" or any other kind of criticism.  For myself, I know that's way better than a "good job, but we need to work harder" like the higher ups in the company often give you.

That's all I have for today.  Take care now, buh bye then.

Memorial Day Weekend

You may have noticed I've been delinquent on summarizing my Memorial Day weekend.  I finally have a little bit of time tonight to put my thoughts together on that.  I went to the cheesy state to see Widdle Brudda and SIL-Lan and their family.  Pops and Gma B. were also in attendance.  The list of notable things from the weekend:

1. My prescription didn't really change, but my glasses will.  Actually, they will be new, but the preliminary reaction from the family when I showed them a picture taken with my cell phone was that they looked the same as my old ones.  I'll post a picture for you to see for yourself once the new specs arrive.
2. How can I go to the cheesy state without stopping by REI and buying some kayak or bicycle accessories?  The answer is that it's rarely possible.  Maybe I'll have to post a picture of the new bike carrier setup when I think of it.
3. Enjoyed spending time with family.  I think it had been five months since I had seen any of my family.
4. The family ambushed me and lured me into Macy's and New York & Co. where I purchased some new clothes.  Not only are the clothes new, but some of them have *gasp* ruffles.  I blame this on the fact that I wasn't mentally prepared to shop.  I thought I was just going along to see Widdle Brudda's family get their pictures taken, but the "coincidence" is that the place was in the mall.  It's kind of like hypnotism.  My mind hadn't been conditioned to resist any weird shopping vibes that day, so I succumbed to them.
5. The new clothes do have ruffles, but I'm happy to say that no new color themes were established.  I played it safe with blue and black and some shades of gray.
6. My one niece thinks it's a fact of life that mom (Gma B.) is an opera singer.
7. I sparked an interest in tennis for my nieces.
8. Much time was spent jumping on the trampoline.  Not only did we do that, but we increased the thrill by sometimes jumping while swinging tennis racquets and hitting a tennis ball around.
9. Most of you probably know how jumping on the trampoline goes with youngsters, and I was putting in good effort and breaking a sweat jumping.  Then the nieces wanted me to pick them up and drop them onto the trampoline, which I did.  After a little bit, my one niece told me not to pick her up near her arms anymore.  She wanted to be picked up around her ribcage because "I don't like to feel your sweat."  That cracked me up.
10. Just because they're small and younger doesn't mean they don't notice.  In fact, when you're young, there are probably way more "shiny" things that catch your attention.  My one niece even knows what it means when you spell out the word S-E-X-Y.
11. I read my nieces part of a Junie B. Jones book.  The story line was OK, but I'm not sure how I feel about those books.  They have really bad grammar, and I'm not sure I would want to encourage that kind of thing.
12. We played softball on Memorial Day, just like in the good old days at the Page school or Hunter Park.
13. You gotta love a good picnic potluck in WI.  Even though it was 90 degrees outside, there were still lots of good, hearty hot dishes to sustain my strength.  This is genuine appreciation here, not sarcasm.
14. I love hard work.  I can watch it all day, especially when it's my brother finishing a reupholstering project.
15. For this trip I had a book on CD to listen to.  The advantage is that it makes the drive seem like it's not very long, but at the same time I felt like I missed out on some good thinking time.  I may have to go back to the traditional AM and FM radio and my Sunday CDs.  The book on CD was a fictional book, and I think for drives that I prefer to listen to non-fiction even though when it comes to reading I prefer fictional books.

Cage Match

Baby Bear

The Score

MelBMarvis:  1
Chipmunks:  0
Raccoons:  0.5

On Saturday I set my chipmunk trap with the sunflower seeds that I mentioned I purchased.  I checked it on Sunday afternoon, and I didn't have anything yet.  Then I got lazy and didn't check it until this evening when I came home from BS and there was a 'coon digging around in the bucket.  I scared him off, but he didn't scare far, and he kept trying to come back for more.  He even walked right up to my sliding door and wasn't too scared of me when I yelled and told him to "gitonouttaheah".  Boy, was I wishing for a .22 right about that time.  Anyway, I scared him off with a shovel.  I wondered if I actually had caught something that made the raccoon so persistent, so I checked the bucket.  I think it had been a chipmunk.  It was the right size for one, but other than that it was hard to tell.  I dumped him out and left him for the carrion eaters.  I decided not to set out any more "bait" overnight for the raccoons.  Maybe he'll die eating that half rotted chipmunk flesh.

Question:  In a fight, groundhog vs. raccoon, who would win?  I'm thinking coon.  I was just wondering as the coon was taking shelter underneath my deck, which is usually where Gary the Groundhog likes to dwell.  I wondered who would be the Alpha if they met face-to-face.

This almost makes me re-think my decision to not have a dog.

From Here and There

I tried to give the Red Cross my blood yesterday, but they don't want it for another 7 months.  I passed the screen for mad cow disease, but apparently Cozumel was recently put on the malaria risk list.  Jamaica,  however, is not on the malaria risk list even though they're at about the same latitude.  When you think about it, the pool of possible donors must be very small.  Once you rule out all the people who have lived overseas for more than 5 years, others who have traded sex for money or drugs, people who have had sex with someone from Africa even once since 1977, those who have shared needles with others since 1977, men who have had sexual contact with other men since 1977, anybody imprisoned for more than 72 hours, people who have traveled to Central or South America recently, those who are taking or have taken certain prescription drugs, everybody with a family history of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, and people who have been in contact with another person's blood in the past year, the pool must be pretty small.


I had my air conditioner yearly maintenance done last week, and I now have a new approach to the air conditioner.  My previous approach was to try to run the AC as little as possible.  When I was talking to the service technician this time, he pointed out that sometimes it's good to run the AC a little bit more regularly to keep everything well-oiled, etc.  This is a large philosophy shift for me, but he does have a point.  I know cars don't work well if they're not run on a regular basis, so it does make sense that I should occasionally run the AC throughout the summer.  Therefore, the new policy is:  I will keep the thermostat at 78 degrees, which means that on most days when the temperature gets above 85 degrees, the air conditioner will probably run.  Today was one of those days as it was above 90 degrees today, and for the night I may have to bump the AC temp down to 76 or 74 degrees in order to sleep comfortably.  I think I'm OK with my new policy change, especially since the summer could be a hot one if it's already above 90 in early June.

I was catching up on my alumni news, and I read that my favorite electrical engineering professor died of cancer.  He wasn't even very old.  I'll post the tribute to him at the end of my post.  He was probably one of the toughest professors I had, but he was also one of the best at explaining concepts so that I could clearly understand them.  He gave me my love of Signals and Systems.  Austin Zeller in the photo with Dr. Schultz?  Yeah, I know him too.  He and Poppins were study buddies along with Richard and Jason.

Prepare to be Wow'ed....

....by the snail's pace at which I work.  As I mentioned about two years ago, there was a spot on my closet ceiling that I had been watching for a couple years before that.  It started out as a very tiny stain on the sheetrock.  Over time it continued to slowly grow.  Eventually it became large enough that I started to worry about it.  I ruined one sweater using it as a test sample to catch the water and measure exactly how much it was leaking.

In Christmas of 2009, Widdle Brudda came for a visit, and being the resourceful guy he is, he volunteered (really, he did - there was no arm twisting involved) to take a look at it.  He thought the problem might be the starting-to-curl plastic thing-a-ma-bob around the sewer vent pipe, so he replaced that.  However, he said the pipe felt loose when he made that repair.

So, he got out the big guns and cut a hole in the sheetrock.  The hole became much bigger than expected, but eventually we found there were multiple compounding causes for the leak.  First, it appeared as though somebody didn't like the vent being on the front of the house, so they moved it to the back of the house.  That would have been fine except that with the cathedral ceiling in my loft, they routed the pipe up to the peak of the roof, back down the roof line a little bit, and then up and out the back side of the roof.  For those of you up on your plumbing knowledge, that type of pipe configuration is known as a P-trap.  It's great for drains when you want water to sit in the "P" to prevent sewer gases from coming up the drains.  However, it's not so good on a vent pipe whose purpose is to allow air to come in and out of the sewer system.  Yeah, water sitting in the "P" blocks that flow of venting air.  That was mistake #1.

Mistake #2 was that not only did they form a P-trap, but then they didn't glue the pieces of pipe together.  This meant when water sat in the P, it could leak out of the joints in the pipe pieces onto my drywall.  Not so good.  Bad news #3 was that the pipe that was supposed to go out to the roof had broken where the pipe meets the roof.  So, if rain or snow happened to come in the pipe on the roof, it may or may not go down the pipe.  If it went down the pipe, it would get caught in the P trap.  Lovely.  Water would be on the drywall either way.

Widdle Brudda had to leave for home after doing the surgery on the sheetrock, so I was in charge of calling the plumber to repair the pipe ASAP.  I had a couple options.  He could put a one-way valve in the pipe and have it vent between the drywall and roof.  I would need to leave a portal in the drywall to access the valve as they need to be replaced periodically.  Or, he could vent it to the outside, but I would have to do something different with my drywall configuration.  I chose option #2.  This was the very last week of December 2009.

In January and February (2010), I didn't want to be losing all the heat out the roof, so I worked diligently on getting the new drywall box made and mudded.  By March or April I had primer on the new drywall and bought the new paint for the closet.  I even went as far as emptying my closet and putting up plastic in preparation of painting.  Summer arrived.  I lost my motivation to work on the project.

As previously mentioned, this resulted in my "closet" being split between three locations.  I used the guest bedroom closet, the living room chairs, and the floor of my bedroom for about six months, possibly more.  When I had company coming in October I "cleaned up" and moved the clothes from the living room to more piles on the floor of my bedroom.  Finally in May of 2011 I was in a motivated state and finished the painting, and the beginning of June I cleaned up all the painting and sheetrock mess.  I could move my clothes back in!

It's amazing how nice it is to have all your clothes in one place.  My bedroom suddenly feels extremely spacious without those piles of clothes cluttering it up.  I got fancy and made a little collage as seen below.

Sunday Stuff

I have so many ideas for posts that I can't keep up, what with everything that's going on.  I'll keep the words short today and just post a few pictures.  The first kayak excursion of the season happened today.  It was very nice without any capsizement.

I took a Sunday afternoon nap for the first time in many weeks.  It was one of those make-you-groggier-when-you-wake-up-than-when-you-went-to-sleep kind of naps.  Ahhh.....that felt good.

Similar to last year, some robins built a nest on my house and hatched some eggs in it.  Yesterday I got up close for a picture of the three babies hanging out in the nest.  Today I was going to do a similar thing for Avis's photo project thing, but as I was up there taking a picture, one of the babies freaked out and flew the nest.  He landed on the deck uninjured, and I was able to snap a good picture of him.  Then he took off on wobbly wings while both he and his mama squawked away.  He flew down into the ravine, and I lost sight of him.  I'm not sure what his final fate was.  When I looked later the nest was empty of all birds, so I'm not sure if the parents evacuated the place or what.

Notice the little eyebrow hairs he still has.

Just Like Grandma Used To Do It

They say you don't just lick it off the rocks.  In other words, I come by it honestly.  Grandma B. was, shall we say, a bit of a pack rat.  This resulted in many magazines, newspapers, and other such things occupying vast tracts of space in her house, including her bedroom and bed.  While I've been trying to finish up the marathon year-and-a-half long closet project, things have taken a bad turn, and for the last ten days my bed has been looking like this:

Yes, I sleep in it without taking the clothes off the bed.  Yes, that is only a double bed.

The good news is that the painting is done, and all I need to do is some clean-up, and my closet can be restored to order.  Compared to a year ago, the clothes on the guest bed have migrated up to my bed, and the piles of clothes in the living room have formed larger piles on the floor in my bedroom.  Gin, maybe by this 4th of July I can give a completion report.

In other news:
If you're looking for a good alternative to The Settlers of Catan, I would suggest the board/card game called Dominion.  Similar to Settlers, you need strategy and a little good luck, and no two games are the same.

Two Saturdays ago I was called by a telemarketer to take a political survey.  Do I know who my Congressman is?  Do I know who my U.S. Senators are?  Would I say my Congressman is doing a good job?  Do I think global warming is real or not?  It was kind of interesting, but there were also some questions that seemed like they might give false data points.  For example, they asked if economically I was worse or better off than last year.  I said I thought I was better off (no thanks to any politicians).  It was just because of where I am in my career and because I had a good year at my job.  Did they ask if I thought I was better off because of the government?  No.  Hmmmm.....skewed questions?  Maybe?