I think I might have posted this one before, but it was still amusing again since half my day at work is spent on conference calls. The "being on mute" one is a common mistake. And the guy who doesn't know how to work the access code to get into the meeting is another common one.
That's all for today. I actually get a break from most of my conference calls this week because I'm in in-person training all week. For nerdy stuff. Which is a whole different ball of wax. Maybe more on that later. Have a good week.
I put on one of my favorite shirts and noticed that it had a bit of a "thin spot". It was too late to change clothes, so I wore it to work that way. When I polled my family and one friend for opinions, they varied from "ready for the gardening/rags pile", "cut off the sleeves and make a short sleeved shirt", "put a sweater over it", and "change your shirt and never wear it again".
The decision became easier by the end of the day when it looked like this.
Since I don't have a sewing machine to hem it for a short sleeved shirt, it went into the garbage that night. You know what that means.....a dreaded shopping trip some time in the future! Either that or an online shopping spree, but sometimes that is difficult for shirts since how they're cut determines a lot about whether they fit correctly or not.
The furnace had a tune-up on Friday, so I decided to leave it on for the season. I think I could have toughed out more days, but I decided I wanted to inhabit all of my house rather than stay in the one room where I have my little oil heater thing. October 18th seems to be a relatively "average" day to turn on the furnace. Last year I had to turn it on earlier because I had guests the weekend our first cold snap came through, and I thought it would be impolite to make them freeze.
Oh, and this summer I turned on my AC in the average range as well - maybe a little bit toward the early side. Once again, I was having some guests (and it was getting real hot and muggy in the house).
In other news, I have some car suggestions from friends and family.
For a boy:
Donald
Clifford (related to my car having a nose on the front)
For a girl:
Peppa (because my car kind of has a 'snout')
Harriett
I still haven't decided if it's a girl or boy, but Uncle Bex is lobbying hard for Peppa, especially after I got a speeding ticket last week. She said Peppa has too much pep!
Besides selling my old car, I also bought a new car. Like most big decisions, this one needed to marinate for at least a year. Last summer I vaguely thought about getting a new car, but then I paid almost $1000 to fix Herman's brakes, so I decided to keep him another year.
This summer I started getting serious. I test drove a whole bunch of cars. Chevy Equinox, Toyota Rav4, Hyundai Tucson, Subaru Outback, Subaru Crosstrek, Subaru Forester, Honda Civic Hatchback, Honda HRV, Honda CRV, etc. I think you get the idea. A decision matrix was involved. It looked like this:
Key learnings were that a checklist of features you're interested in helps prevent surprises that features are missing. It also helps to make sure you check to ensure all the features are present when you test drive. The other key learning is that a test drive can make a big difference on your opinion of a car. It can make a car be quickly struck from the list (not enough pep, seat uncomfortable) or move it quite close to the top of the list (fun to drive). The funnest car to drive of all the ones I drove was the Honda Civic Hatchback and was very tempting. But......"fun to drive" isn't everything, and it didn't quite overcome not having a factory roof rack option. And, it didn't overcome a smaller cargo area compared to my existing car.
What I decided to do was to be a loyal customer and stick with the Mazda family. I bought a Mazda CX-5. So far I like it and it's working out. Not too many surprises other than the salesman telling me AFTER I wrote the check that the dealer couldn't get a roof rack for almost two months. WHAT?!?! I almost returned the car right then. It's prime kayaking season, so a roof rack is essential. He suggested looking into aftermarket options. So I did that a little bit, but the I also checked Amazon and YouTube. The installation video looked relatively uncomplicated, and Amazon could sell me the parts. So I had the parts ordered and installed in less than a week!
Here's the car as I bought it - before the minor operation:
And here it is post operation.
Winking in the sun
The other side.
The roof rack is right at the maximum height where I don't need a stool to put the kayak in the rack. But maybe I'll get a small stool just to make it a little easier. I'll see what stores have that might be convenient.
I was assuming the car was male because my previous two cars have been male. But my one friend thought it was female. What do you think? Male or female? Like usual, name suggestions are welcome. When I looked at the previous suggestions, a few favorites have been put on the list as a starting point:
It's been a big week. A new car was purchased. And I sold my old car (Herman) after driving it for a little over 11 years and 212,000 miles. Remember when I bought Herman? A few memorable times we had were:
The fun naming process (and the interesting suggestions)
Getting his first big dent from a giant cottonwood limb during a wind storm at Mom and Dad's when he was less than six months old. I never had that one fixed - he left today with that first dent still there.
Driving to the Cheesy and Corny states countless times
Hitting a deer once (just a small flesh wound - only body work was needed)
Carrying 3 kayaks home from the store (not all at the same time)
Many hours of contemplation about emotions and life. There were some good hours and some dark hours. Like this.
Like Reggie, Herman was sold to a good home. He's going to a single mom in her late 20's or early 30's who needs a "slightly" newer car than she has right now. It would be cool if she could get him to 300,000 miles, but we'll see. There were no tears for Herman's departure today. When I cleaned him out on Sunday I did pause for a few moments to feel nostalgic. It's easier when you know he's going to someone who needs him. And, having a new car helps numb the pain.
Here's Herman a few hours before leaving today. He aged fairly well, although as I gave him a car wash today I noticed how many paint chips he had and even *gasp* a couple small rusty spots. Given how old he is, he still doesn't look too outdated. I chose well if I do say so myself.
I was paid in cash. I think this is the most cash I've ever held in my hand at one time. All of this cash was less than half an inch thick. Imagine how much money is in those bags full of money that you see in the movies!
Tomorrow or Friday I'll post a picture of my new ride once I remember to take a picture out in the sunlight and not in my cramped garage.
Toward the beginning of March, I spent the weekend in the cheesey state scrapbooking with Uncle Bex and Cousin Mowla. It was a good, relaxing weekend with progress made on scrapbooks of course.
As part of that weekend, here are a couple of the interesting videos I saw. This one came from facebook. In the last six months I've learned from my sheepish friends that shearing normally occurs in early spring right before lambing starts. This video caught my emotions because of the lesson, "Now sometimes you're up and sometimes you're down. When you find that you're down, well just look around. You're still got a body, good legs, and fine feet. Get your head in the right place, and hey, you're complete."
This other video is more for entertainment value. It's one of those that is so ridiculous it's funny. Marcel the Shell - "For adventure, I hang glide on a Dorito."
Have a good week! Ours started here with rain, snow, and high winds today, but I think we can recover. I spent today taking a long nap as part of recovering from being sick last week.
Over the last 4-6 weeks I've been reading a couple books related to work and research on females in the workplace. And how we all have unconscious bias (we're all a little bit sexist, even females themselves, and we're all a little bit racist, even black people themselves). Someone at work e-mailed me this short Pixar video (see below). It seems related, at least in my mind.
Since I work in a male-dominated profession (engineering), this video has some resonating points for me. And it reminds me of a time in January in the late evening when I was driving and happened upon some conservative talk radio. I didn't recognize the talk show host - it wasn't Rush or Sean Hannity or Mark Levin. It was soon after the State of the Union address, and the host was giving some analysis of that. He was talking about how Nancy Pelosi (and other democrats) didn't applaud and give a standing ovation when President Trump said unemployment for African Americans was down. And that unemployment for other minorities was down. What they did give a standing ovation for was a statistic related to women (can't remember what the exact statistic was). One of the host's points was Nancy and friends were being a bit hypocritical in only cheering for a good statistic for women and not for other minorities. Which I think is a fair point.
The next statement the radio show host made I completely disagreed with. He said that women have already won equality, so nothing more needs to be done. Why are they still fighting? Nancy Pelosi has already been Speaker of the House in the past, so the battle has already been won. Everything is equal now. That is where I disagree. That's like saying "we've had a black president now, so racism no longer exists and we don't need to do anything." Not true - there are many people and pockets of places where there is not racism. However, ask any black person if they have felt discriminated against in the last 2-3 years, and I'm fairly certain they will tell you they have been. Sometimes very openly by people calling them names or threatening them, but often it may be subtle, kind of like in the video of Purl. Often it wasn't anything they said, it was the body language, what they didn't say, what they would stop saying when a certain person walked by, or what they didn't invite you to participate in. Or their insistence on conformance to be accepted rather than appreciating you for your differences. For example, I have black friends (respectable engineers) who say sometimes security follows them through a store.
Is it really "equal" if we've had 230 years of Congress existing, and a little over 4 of those years have had a female as the speaker of the house? Would it become equal if for the next 222 years we have a female as the Speaker of the House? Is it equal now when women make up 25 percent of the Senate and 23 percent of the House, though they comprise almost 51 percent of the U.S. population?
This year at robotics I've also been mulling over what it is I bring to the robotics team as a mentor. I'm the only female technical mentor on the team. There are 2 or 3 moms who help with administrative things or "craft/advertising" things, but I'm the only female mentor helping to work directly on the robot. All the other mentors are white, and many of them are middle-aged. Some of them have talents I admire. One guy is a highly engaging person who makes everything fun and teaches in a very fun style while still being very clear about the technical concepts or goals for a project. He's always dreaming up fun "extra" projects. Another guy brings more of a take charge approach. If kids are wandering around without something to do, he gives them something to do. He has a loud voice and is OK with telling others what to do frequently, so at competitions he can tell the kids to "clean up your trash" in the bleachers before leaving, and they do.
What do I bring? I'm not loud. I don't have the voice to be loud even if I wanted to be. I have a bit of a monotone and tend to be serious if I don't know someone well, so I'm not making every activity "fun". I'm not bossy and I'm not telling the kids what they need to do all the time (although occasionally I will if the situation warrants it). After reflection this season, the conclusion I've come to is I bring diversity and a role model to the team. How will girls on the team aspire to work on the robot if they don't see other women or girls working on the robot? How will girls aspire to become an engineer if they don't know any women engineers? Less than 20% of engineers in the workplace are female. If we ever want to improve that number, I think part of that is to have role models.
When I was younger and growing up in a state that is used to strong pioneer women and has a relatively homogeneous (probably >90% white) culture, I didn't really think about this type of stuff, and I probably didn't believe issues with race and gender still existed. And now I'm approaching middle age. Or you could maybe say I've reached middle age. So this is what middle age is.....realizing you're old and are now the role model rather than the one looking at role models. Middle age is realizing that things are more complicated than you used to think they were. And yet they aren't more complicated. Sure, every story has two (or more) sides, and often the truth is somewhere in the middle between the stories. But it still comes back to understanding that all people have three very basic emotional needs:
I just finished reading "Hot Air Rises and Heat Sinks: Everything You Know About Cooling Electronics is Wrong" by Tony Kordyban. You may be thinking, "That sounds kind of nerdy." You would be correct. It is nerdy - because it's about the thermodynamics and heat transfer of electronics. But I think even a non-engineer could enjoy it if you have some basic interest in heat transfer principles. It's written to be a bit Dilbert-esque and has lots of funny jokes and makes tongue-in-cheek jokes about corporate America. At least I thought the jokes were funny.
The examples and advice given in the book are very real-world scenarios and examples, and the author does a good job of relating heat and electronics to real life. The book illustrates well the typical dilemmas in a day (or year) in the life of an electrical hardware design engineer.
For my fellow engineers and science lovers, I recommend this book. For those not deeply interested in science, you may want to give this one a pass. Even though the writing is funny, that may not compensate enough for the technical lessons and details in the book.
As I was driving home from robotics today and was scanning through the radio channels, I heard two older but good songs that I had never really focused on the words before. One was Michael Jackson's "Man In the Mirror". I think lots of times I picture him singing silly songs or singing songs with somewhat obscure lyrics and making strange music videos. This one has one of those classic messages like "Be the change you wish to see in the world."
The other song was "Try" by Pink. Now THAT is a funky music video. But the chorus has some interesting lyrics. Maybe I was just feeling philosophical tonight and I would have thought anything was interesting. "Where there is desire there is going to be a flame. Where there's a flame someone's bound to get burned. Just because it burns doesn't mean you're going to die - you gotta get up and try, try, try."
I thought I'd start by stating the obvious - it's a new year! You may have noticed my thankfulness posts got seriously behind last year. I've still been faithfully keeping my log for the whole year so will try to slowly finish out 2018.
The question becomes then what to do about 2019. I'm still planning to keep my own personal thankfulness log, but I think I might not log it here on my blog on a weekly basis like before. I'd prefer to leave more blogging time for whatever comes to my mind. Maybe on a monthly basis I'll talk about a few things that I was especially thankful for.
In 2018 I fell behind on my blogging for a couple reasons. At the end of the year I was trying to do less stuff on the computer to take a break from the screens after spending all day at work. And part of the year I just wasn't feeling up to blogging and work was quite busy and taking a lot of time.
I won't promise I'll be super faithful in blogging in 2019 either, but we'll see what happens.
2018 was a chaotic and tough year. In some ways it was easier than 2017, but in some ways it was harder than 2017. The end was better than the beginning for sure. I spent two weeks of vacation in New Zealand, traveled to China for a week for work, spent a week in Barbados for vacation, went to ND to visit my parents five times, kayaked a whole bunch including joining a local kayaking group, joined a couple three-week exercise and healthy eating support groups, had three different bosses, sat in three different cubicles, worked on 3 different circuit boards plus solved 2 quality issues on 2 other circuit boards, and made progress on resolving some personal emotional stuff.
Oh, and a new year usually means a new robotics challenge. Destination Deep Space. Check it out:
