New Shoes Triple Feature

In the last two weeks I've been on a crazy shoe buying streak.  I bought three - that's right three - pairs of shoes!  It seemed like it was time.  Here are the stats:

Black shoes:
Age: 18 months
Brand:  Keen
Use:  Heavy - worn 4 or 5 times per week
Replaced by:  Dansko clog style
Travel History:  Nothing exotic if I remember correctly....mostly just within the lower 48 states.
Other comments:  The life seemed a little bit short - possibly shortened by being worn so heavily and the fact that the shoes were very hot (didn't seem to breathe well).  This resulted in my feet sweating a lot, which doesn't help a shoe last for a long time either. Mostly this pair is being relegated to my new garden shoes because of their smell.  And because a lot of the padding on the inside is worn out.

Brown shoes:

Age:  2.5 years
Brand:  Born
Use:  Medium - maybe 1 or 2 times per week
Replaced by:  Born shoe with laces
Travel History:  Traveled to Mexico twice if I remember correctly.  And lots of places within the U.S.  Maybe went to Saipan?  I can't really remember.
Other comments:  Similar to the black shoes, partly being retired due to smell and the inside padding being worn.  And because one of the leather straps is partially broken.  Because they're slip-ons, they may be used occasionally for tenting at convention or going down to the basement or out to the garage.  I'm still undecided on that.

Black sandals:
I've had this pair of black sandals for so long that I may have bought them before I started blogging.  I honestly can't remember.
Age:  Unknown - likely 8-10 years
Brand:  Dansko
Use:  Sporadic (only worn in the summer maybe once every two weeks except for when traveling to warm climates)
Replaced by:  Dansko sandals
Travel History:  Been to lots of places - a few that I can remember are Brazil, Mexico, Puerto Rico, all over the U.S., and likely some other places I can't remember.
Other comments:  A great pair of shoes.  If they still made this model, I would have bought them again.  They were comfortable, had a leather foot bed that helped keep the odor down and kept the blisters to a minimum.  Being retired due to odor and the straps being in danger of breaking.  Now if only I had an international trip planned where I could give them a proper shoe send-off.  ;-)  I was told the new sandals look less grandma-like when they're on my feet.  :-)  Hey, I was going for comfort and ruggedness.  maybe that's what grandmas want too.

Various Stuff

In some ways it has been life as usual around here.  In some ways not.  A few things going on:

• We handily won both games of our doubleheader in softball this evening.
• Last week one of my softball teammates broke her nose in two places and broke her eye socket when a fly ball missed her glove and hit her face.  Ouch!  I think that's worse than a dislocated finger.
• The week before that was our first softball game of the season.  Most of the trees didn't even have leaves yet.  I think that was a first since I've been playing.
• It feels great to walk outside at lunch time and not need a coat!
• I ran over a garter snake with the lawn mower a week or so ago.
• I knocked down a robin nest they built on the house.  And of course it had a couple eggs in it that cracked open.
• I've been doing some quality yard work.  Mowing grass, weeding flower beds, raking, re-planting a little bit of grass, washing the skylights, etc.
• It's amazing how nice it is to look out a newly cleaned kitchen window.  It doesn't really bother me to look out a dirty window, but I definitely notice how clear a clean window is.
• I trapped and killed a mouse in the house.  I'm not sure exactly how they're getting in, but maybe through the attached garage?
• Work has had a bit of a shake-up.  I was unexpectedly pulled off the project I had been working on for almost two years.  Right now I'm on "special assignment" for the launch of a new tool I've been helping to launch, and soon a new project will be arriving I'm told.
• It's hard to transition off a project you spent two years on without getting to finish it.  But....it's always exciting to get a new project too.  In some ways it's good to be off that other project because it was sucking some of the life out of me (lots of stress).
• The stuff at work has caused me to focus more on my future career plans.  It's still not super clear and of course we know everything is subject to change.  It doesn't hurt to think a little bit about it occasionally.
• Getting two other internal job offers also makes you think about career plans.   But.....I think I have at least one more circuit board design left in me.  We'll see.
• To answer the question about whether I'm going to Brazil.  I'm not planning to in the near future.  I'm just learning Portuguese because I work with a lot of Brazilians and don't always like being at a language disadvantage.
• Other than that, I've been working like a crazy person, exercising when I can, and that's about it.

And so life goes on......I'm looking forward to summer.  I have lots of exciting plans!

2014 Bushel Basket List, Weeks 15 & 16

Checked off the list - #21 - Learn Portuguese - OK, it's not like I'm fully fluent yet.  But I have gone through eight lessons twice and know how to ask where the bathroom is, say I speak a little Portuguese, I don't understand, and I know how to ask if the restaurant is located here or there.  And I have purchased Lessons 1-30, so I'm pretty sure by the end of the year I will have gone through all of them and will be able to speak about the basics.

I thought about doing the Rosetta stone thing, but I understand that you have to do a lot of that at the computer, and I really don't need any more hobbies or work that require me to sit at the computer.  Instead, I decided to give the Pimsleur course a try.  It's mostly an audio course, so I can do a lesson any time I take an extended drive in the car alone (which is quite often).  Those lessons make 30 minutes fly by in the car.

2014 Bushel Basket List, Weeks 17 & 18

Checked off the list:  #1 - Go kayaking on a river or lake I've never been on before.  On Saturday May 10th, I went kayaking on the Rock River / in the Horicon Marsh in the cheesy state.

P.S.  I know I skipped weeks 15 & 16.  I'll come back to them in a different post soon.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T

Respect:  High or special regard.

Pride:  Inordinate self-esteem; conceit; a reasonable or justifiable self-respect
Humble:  Not proud or haughty; not arrogant or assertive

Some events at work the last several months got me thinking about these words.  Is there a difference between thinking you're worthy of respect and having pride?  It seems like there is a difference, but the line to cross from one to the other can often be difficult to identify for our human nature I think.

Related to this, here are a few verses for thought.
Proverbs 16:18 says, "Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall."

Proverbs 16:19, "Better it is to be of an humble spirit with the lowly, than to divide the spoil with the proud.

God is no respecter of persons"

Psalm 138:6, "Though the Lord be high, yet hath he respect unto the lowly: but the proud he knoweth afar off."

 

I Peter 5:5, "Likewise, ye younger, submit yourselves unto the elder. Yea, all of you be subject one to another, and be clothed with humility: for God resisteth the proud, and giveth grace to the humble."

 

Romans 2:11, "For there is no respect of persons with God."

 

So there is definitely a difference between respect and pride.  And God is not a respecter of persons, but he is most definitely a respecter of spirits/attitudes.  And I've learned the hard way the last few months that there is more pride hiding in my heart than I thought.


At a workshop at the last Society of Women Engineers Convention I attended, I went to a session on how to influence people.  One thing the speaker mentioned is that one of the oldest concepts for humans is the concept of respect.  It's supposedly one of those things that's in the reptilian part of our brain.  We are constantly assessing if people are respecting us, and many times we might become angry or irritated when we feel we are not being respected.  For example, road rage:  one of the reasons we often get road rage when people cut us off in traffic is because we feel that person just disrespected us by cutting us off.

Does this need for respect come from pride?  Or do we need to feel worthy of a certain amount of respect to have proper self esteem?

It seems we need to have enough respect for ourselves and our soul to believe that God would be willing to send His son to the earth to die for us.  Yet, we don't want to feel inordinately good enough as we are that we don't need the redemption His son gives us.

Now to live humbly.....

Robotics Competition Season 2014

Ahhhhh.....it feels good to relax on a Friday evening.  I think it's the first time I've done that in about two months, possibly more like five months if you don't count when I was on vacation (out of town/coutnry) two Fridays.

Which means that I have time to update you on the robotics competition season.  We went to two district competitions, one regional competition, a state competition, and the world competition!  We only got one second place medal out of all of them, but we made it into the elimination matches every time except at the state competition.

It's probably a bit boring to go into all the nitty-gritty details on what rank we were and whether we were the captain or not.  If you want to see our season record details, go here.  Overall the robot did well.  We had a few break-downs at unfortunate moments, but our robot was feared enough in most matches that they had to double team us to play good defense on us.

To answer Eva's question about qualification matches vs elimination matches, I'll give you the general overview of a competition.  Depending on the size of the competition, there are 40-100 teams assigned to one field.  Each match has two alliances of three teams each that play against each other.  After some practice matches, the qualification matches begin.  Teams are randomly assigned to the matches and have different alliance partners for each match they play in.  Enough qualification matches are usually played such that each team plays in 10-12 qualification matches.

At the end of the qualification matches, rankings are given for the teams.  The rankings are based on a point system published at the beginning of the build season.  Once the rankings are known, the alliance selection begins.  The top eight teams start out as team captains and get to pick other teams to join their alliance for the elimination matches.  Teams can pick other team captains if they want to.  The only rule is if a team captain declines that invitation to join an alliance, they cannot accept any other invitations, but they still maintain their right to form their own alliance.

After all the alliance selection is done, a double elimination tournament is played among those eight alliances that were formed.  The elimination matches are always the most exciting part of the competition in my opinion.  New game play strategies emerge because teams know much more about each alliance that is in the elimination matches.

Here are the various competitions in pictures.

Our pit.  That's Brandon, my master wiring student this year, in the back of the pit.

At the first district competition that we went to.

Alliance selection in process at the Purdue Regional competition.

Setting up the robot during one of the elimination matches.

Fancy awards ceremony in the auditorium.

Cool light/laser show before the awards ceremony.

The master programming student at the local district competition.

State competition!

Opening ceremonies at the world competition.  One of the inspirational speakers was Reggie Showers.  He was very interesting - someone who has definitely benefited from the marvels of engineering.

Archimedes field at the world competition.

If you're interested, here's a link to one of the finals matches on the Einstein field at the world championship.  The audio isn't great, but the vantage point gives you a good view of the field.  And yes, there are truly some teams from other countries including but not limited to The Netherlands, Israel, Australia, Chile, Mexico, and Canada.