Things I'm thankful for this week:
1. Clear Sky with a Moon Sliver - After being inside at work for several hours, it's nice to leave the building, breathe deeply of some fresh air, and have a nice view of the night sky.
My phone has been ringing off the hook today. Presidential primaries are quickly approaching here, and the campaign phone calls are on a full court press. The sad thing is that they're pretty much all negative campaign ads. Experts say negative campaign ads are effective, and I suppose on some people they are. For me though, I just don't get them. The first rule of all ads is that after you see/hear them, you need to check the quoted facts, and most of the time you need to assume that lots of things a candidate "said" were taken out of context. Plus, if all they do is tell you how the other guy isn't a good candidate, that doesn't mean that the guy who paid for the ad is any better. All that says to me is that the guy who paid for the ad doesn't have any kind of improvement plan that he thinks is good enough to share.
On an unrelated note, I was noticing something about myself this week. I suppose in lots of ways I'm pretty selfish. I go along with my blinders on doing my own thing at my own pace most of the time. Then some days it's like I wake up, look around, and happen to see other people clearly for a brief period of time. That person is lonely and looking for a friend, that person needs help with something, that person needs someone to care, etc. And I want to help or do something, but I don't always know what it is that I should do to help. Sometimes my shyness and insecurities take over and I end up not doing anything. Sometimes I make an effort and it seems feeble or hokey, and I see clearly how inadequate my interpersonal skills are, and I feel kind of frustrated until the blinders fall back on and I forget and go back to doing my own thing. I have no idea where I'm going with this or what exactly the lesson is. OK, maybe I am getting a slight lesson, but it's not fully developed enough to articulate it. I was just noticing and thinking.
The thankfulness post comes out tomorrow. Once again, I didn't do so well. I better get on that!
Well, I don't really have much to say today. Things have been chugging along. The robot is "bagged and tagged" until next week when we are allowed to work on it for 8 hours before the competition next weekend. The driver tryouts were interesting. Some kinds were "naturals" at driving it. Within the space of 5 minutes you could literally see them increasing on the learning curve. Others were not naturals - one kid almost tipped it over within the first 15 seconds of driving it. After all the kids had tried out (one practice run through the obstacle course, then one timed run), us mentors/judges went into a room and did a calibration. It was almost like an interview calibration at work. First we looked at the data on their timed runs, and from there we picked the top five. Then we went through a discussion of ability to handle stress, communication skills, dedication to the team and practice, maturity, etc. We eventually narrowed it down to three.
I played racquetball this evening and got beat all three games. I gave another 3-hour training session to other engineers in my group today (the last 3 hours are next week). Work is getting to be very busy, partially because I haven't been working as many hours (over the required forty hours) because I've been leaving at a decent time to go to robotics. That's all I've got today really. Nothing exciting, just some ordinary days in life.
I've been going hog wild all last week and probably will be most of this week. A week ago Thursday I went to the grocery store hungry, and my cupboards were very bare. Plus, they were having a "meat truck" sale at the grocery store. They had pork ribs on sale. Pork loins were on sale. I purchased some meat (actually, a lot of meat): two whole racks of ribs, a whole pork loin, and a package of fresh pork sausage. The crock pot has been getting a workout. First it cooked some dry rub ribs. Then it cooked about half of a pork loin. Yesterday it simultaneously cooked more ribs and a smaller piece of loin. I had the oven fired up to cook some pork chops too. If I had a dog, it would be living high on the hog (just like me). Now that I have it all cooked, tomorrow evening I'll have to freeze some of it or else it'll be going to waste.
To cook the ribs I didn't use Linda D.'s recipe, although I do plan to try her homemade sauce again some time. Here's how I've found to make the best ribs so far. Put them in the crock pot on low for 8+ hours. Then remove them and put them on a flat pan. Lightly brush them with BBQ sauce, and bake them in the oven for half an hour or so (I put them on 350). That way they're fall-off-the-bone good while still having a little bit of crunch on the outside. I cook the ribs in the crock pot mostly dry (maybe a little juice or a can of pop in the bottom with some rub on the meat) because I'm not a huge BBQ fan. I've read recipes that say to do it both ways, so do whatever suits your fancy there.
Two weeks ago another female engineer started in the group I work in, so now we're up to about 15% of the engineers in the group being female. I think that's slightly better than the average in the industry. The main reason I mention this is to tell you what my co-workers like to tell new people about me. One of the favorite things to tell the newbies is that I'm from Canada (because I grew up in ND). Let's just say the people at work are geographically challenged. The Canadian thing is a believable enough fib that lots of people get taken in by that one even though I don't say "eh" all the time. The other one they like to tell new people is that I'm really unique because I'm the first Amish electrical engineer. The new person believed the Amish tale this time. I'm not sure if she believed them because she knew beforehand that I didn't have one of those "moving picture boxes", or if she thought I really did have that Amish vibe. Oh well - I suppose there could be worse things.
My list didn't grow very fast this week. I know this is bad, but I was almost too busy to be thankful. Things I'm thankful for this week:
1. A good mood with an upbeat song on the radio. "Home" by Dirks Bentley.
Eva asked about the homemade muffin status. It's doing well. I don't have a picture of the muffin itself, but I did look at it earlier in the week, and there are no signs of mold. It's very hard and crusty. When I brought the muffin in we started a molding betting pool. Below is the picture. I think it will definitely make it past March, but if it does mold it will be in the summer when it's more humid. I checked the recipe I used, and it does not call for any high fructose corn syrup. I also checked the canned pumpkin, and the only ingredient was pumpkin (no preservatives).
I'm working on patience this week. As I mentioned about a year ago, I work with a guy we'll call Barney. As the link describes in more detail, we do not have the same thought processes, and we do not think at the same rate of speed either. We have made some progress over the last year. He doesn't look like he's going to stroke out every time we talk (his nervous tics are much reduced), and he's more likely to ask questions, etc. Part of this is probably due to sharing the same cube for almost a year. But, we have a ways to go, and I still don't really have all that much more insight into what makes him tick as a person.
Barney and I are working together on a project. By together I mean he does most of the work, and I just "advise" when needed. Last week "we" needed to make a project schedule. This involves listing all the tasks, who will do them, how they interact, and when the tasks will be done. We typically use Microsoft Project as a tool to do this. Barney had never used Microsoft Project before and needed some help on the general concepts of how to create a schedule. First, I showed him in general how Microsoft Project works. Then we started with a template schedule I had made previously and got to work listing the specifics of his project. Since I wanted him to "own" his schedule and get familiar with the program, I had him do all the navigation in the program and provided input when needed. I spent a lot of time sitting in the chair asking thought provoking and leading questions in an effort to get Barney to use critical thought and put his schedule together. I almost had to sit on my hands and bite my tongue to keep from telling him everything he needed to do and to keep my body language from looking impatient, but I know he needs to start thinking it through for himself. So I sit in my chair and try valiantly to let him do that. It sure is hard work though. I'm guessing that's how parents feel when their kids are learning. Maybe the love for your child helps you be patient? Or maybe not because you want them to succeed? Not sure....
In other news, I notice my blog has begun to get consistent hits from Belgium and India. Interesting, especially because I don't think I personally know anybody in those two countries. OK, that's not true since I do personally know people from work who are in India. But, I highly doubt they have ever found this blog.
Now I must begin the process of heading for bed. It's a big day tomorrow with three continuous hours of training. And I'm not taking the training, I'm giving the training to some fellow engineers.....good thing it's on a subject I know quite a bit about. This is session 1 of 3. But that ain't no big thing for some of my readers who are teachers. You probably do that six hours a day every day no sweat.
Tomorrow are robotics team driver try-outs. That should be interesting. I might let you know how it goes if it does, in fact, prove to be interesting.
Last week my cube mate Kadmium was on vacation, so we had someone "stand in" for him. He was way quieter than Kadmium, but not nearly as productive as the 3-D version. Kadmium was back in his chair this morning though, and 2-D Brian was no-where to be found.
Things I'm thankful for this week:
1. Lazy Sunday lunch in the sun.
My taxes are filed. I think I'm becoming more efficient every year at preparing them, so it only took a couple hours this year. Due (mostly) to a raise in my wages at work, I paid several thousand more dollars in federal income tax this year, but my refund was only a couple hundred dollars bigger. I did get a bigger salary this year, but I still like to complain about my $50's and $100's making my wallet too thick.
My effective tax rate for 2011 was 14.93%. Since I got a raise, I don't suppose I can attribute all of that to President Obama. For comparison purposes, it was 13.85% in 2010, and in 2008 it was 12.77%. Similar to last year, this does not include the taxes I pay to the state (income and sales), social security, Medicare, and Medicaid taxes. Once you add all of that in, my total effective tax rate is probably much closer to 27% or 30%. So, I guess I'm working for the government for more than 1 week out of every month.
Remember: Almost all tax bracket percentages will increase by 3% for 2013. That's a significant chunk of change! So enjoy the low taxes you have in 2012, and be sure to vote wisely in the November elections if you have a vested interest in how much tax you pay. This nation is a representative republic, not a democracy, so you need to choose your representative wisely.
It amused me that the government gives you an option to purchase savings bonds with your tax refund. You don't really want your money back, right? You just want to donate it to the government in a different form.....
I have not been impressed with my state tax situation the last couple of years. No refund, and I have to pay a very small amount in. This is mostly due to the fact that I now make too much money, and they don't allow me to claim a homestead tax credit like I used to. Plus, my diamond shoes are too tight.
Here's an interesting chart I got from my online tax preparing software. Note that 1/5 of your taxes go to national defense, and 56% of your taxes go to social programs. So.....if they're cutting budgets, those are the two biggest pieces of pie they're going to have to cut a few things out of. The truth is harsh sometimes, but that doesn't mean it's not the truth.
Whew! I'm glad it's Friday. The week in general wasn't so bad, but today was kind of tough. It was pretty much full of meetings from 8:30-4:00 (including lunch, although it did involve free pizza), and a couple of the meetings were pretty tense because of some "misses" in a project at work. We got the old "How did this happen, and what can we do in the future to prevent this from happening?" Robotics this evening was a welcome change of pace. Maybe it was the recent full moon bringing out the crazies.
Swanny posted this short clip on her facebook page, and it just cracks me up. Plus it reminds of some other good times.
I also saw this on facebook the other day and figured I'd do it. Everyone has six names...
1. Your real name: Name is being withheld to protect the guilty
2. Your detective name (favorite color and favorite animal): Green Goat (Lame - not detective-ish at all. This seems more like my Sesame Street name. If I am a detective, I probably share an office with Ace Ventura.)
3. Your soap opera name (middle name and street you live on): Jane Fort (That's good - seems generic enough.)
4. Your Star Wars name (first 3 letters of last name, first 2 of middle name, first 2 of first, last 3 of last): Burjabuill (Am I on the dark side or the light side?)
5. Superhero name (Color of your shirt and first item to your immediate left): White Speaker (That's right - I'm a Caucasian woman saving the world one inspirational speech at a time!)
6. Goth name (black and one of your current or former pets): Black Lady (Totally cool - I would totally fit in with a name like that.)
Hmmmm.....doesn't this seem like all these questions are targeted at stealing your identity? You give your name (including your middle name), your favorite pet's name, your favorite color, the street you live on......all those things you need to answer the security questions on websites. It looks suspicious to me. I would recommend not doing this on your blog or on facebook. :-) Have a great weekend! I think I will because "life is what you make it - make the best of it."
I just read a post on facebook about young girls keeping diaries. I never had a diary in school. I never really felt the need to write stuff down about what I did or thought or felt. When we were mandated to write a diary in some grades as part of a writing exercise, I usually wrote very mild, generic stuff because the teacher may or may not be reading it. Sometimes I told jokes in the diary instead of writing about something else. I also have a brother close to my age. He is a pretty good brother, but brothers are famous for finding their sister's private things, so that deterred all diary keeping too. My therapy back then was doing jigsaw puzzles and playing minesweeper and solitaire.
During college I didn't keep a diary either, although my writing streak did come out occasionally when I was upset or trying to work through some philosophical stuff. At that point I would usually write a long e-mail to my roommate (who was also a good friend). That's kind of weird because I could have just told her face to face, but I liked being able to get it all off my chest without interruptions or worrying about my emotions being so overwhelming that I wouldn't be able to properly verbally express myself.
And now that I'm not in school I have a blog. It's kind of like a diary, but not completely. If I didn't want to share minor stuff with my teacher in 6th grade, how am I okay with sharing private stuff to the entire world? Weird.....maybe there's an exhibitionist deep down inside trying to get out.
Things I'm thankful for this week:
1. A good 2011 performance review.
The last several weeks I've been mentioning the FIRST robotics stuff. Here's a link that gives a good visual/video overview of what our robot needs to be capable of doing. And here's a picture of what I helped two kids work on today. We successfully drove it around for the first time today without letting any magic smoke out!
