Randomness

It appears as though the neighbor kid is old enough to be in Junior High now.  I know this because he apparently also wants to be on the football team.  He was in his front yard doing push-ups sans shirt today when I came home from work.  And, he had a bunch of orange cones set up in the yard.

The new bicycle is on back order and won't be here for a couple more weeks, which is a bummer.  My current bike is on its last legs - the bearings in the pedal assembly thing do a lot of crunching and cracking.

The annual half ironman triathlon is tomorrow.  I'm looking forward to handing out some gel packs, water, and Gatorade.  Plus, I get a free T-shirt for volunteering.  The weather is threatening rain, just like last year at this time.  I'm sensing a pattern.  If only I didn't have to be there so early.

I had a couple other really good contemplations, but they escape me now.  That's what happens when so many thoughts pass through your mind.  Latron gatron.

Mein Vater

Tribute to dad......late just like mom's was.

My dad gets some of the same kudos as Mom.  Teaching me what's important, teaching me discipline, caring about people, how to do your civic duty, and how to stand back and let your kids make their own decisions sometimes.

I think you can certainly blame (or credit) my dad for my sense of humor.  Like my mom, he's not particularly loud and obnoxious, but out of the two of them he is the one more likely to take over the microphone and be the MC at the family reunion.  He can be a smart alec sometimes (sound familiar?).  If you want to see a tender heart, he certainly has one.  He's also very passionate about helping people become better people.  He tries to help them feel welcome, come out of their shell, or learn a new skill (swimming lessons, piano lessons, ice skating lessons).  If I gained my math skills from Mom, Dad gave me the desire to learn about how things work; making the perfect combination for an engineer.  In fact, one of his nicknames is "Mr. Technical."  Through Dad I learned about the importance of talk radio and Rush Limbaugh, and Dad has the spirit of an entrepreneur.  When Dad took us to the grocery store, we always got to buy a couple extra candy bars.

And now, a few words of wisdom from Dad will follow.  I'm sure there are many more I've forgotten, but here is a small sampling:

• Don't run the garbage disposal without running the water in the sink.
• Don't step on the brakes when you're going over the railroad tracks (I still don't fully understand this, but I do know you're not supposed to do it).
• It's a crime to overcook corn on the cob, and you must plant the correct version of corn on the cob so that it's nice and sweet and not too starchy.
• If the snowmobile won't start, open up the hood and put your glove over the carburetor while someone else pulls the rope.
• Don't ride the snowmobile any farther from the house than you're willing to walk.
• Splitting wood warms you twice, sometimes three times.
• Oak has way more BTUs per unit of volume than Cottonwood.
• Driving an hour one way for extra bible study on a weeknight is worth it if it has the chance of saving someone's soul.
• The only one you can completely trust is God.
• Dads will milk the goat for you when you get home at midnight and don't feel like doing it yourself.
• The Statler Brothers, Bill Cosby, and Garrison Keillor.  What else do you need?

Love you, Dad!

Summertime

Aaaahahhh.....summer.  This evening I rode my bike to the beach, played sand volleyball, and ate some watermelon.  What could be more summer-like than that?  I'm getting a little bit impatient for my new bike to come in.  The old one is on its last legs, and the new one was supposed to be in by now, but then it got put on back order.  It's supposed to be the new model that's just coming out, which I'm  not very excited about.  Supposedly they're only changing a couple decals on the new model.  Hopefully that's it because it's never very smart to get the first bike (or anything else) that comes off the assembly line after they've made model line changes.

We had some strong thunderstorms come through here over the weekend, which usually means some big waves and strong rip currents.  This resulted in someone drowning at the main beach yesterday.  I attempted to kayak on the lake on Saturday, and I do mean attempt.  The waves were too big and resulted in capsization.  Twice.  Again, I'm anxious to get the new bike because what else am I supposed to do when I can't kayak?  What?  I should finish painting what?  OK, right arm people.  Latah.

More Changes

Some DJ on the radio a week or so ago said that supposedly every seven years you have a major life event or something like that.  For me, that means I'm about six months overdue.  Is there a tolerance on that seven years?  Plus or minus one  year?  Of course, that's assuming that theory is to be believed.  Maybe it's just the power of suggestion and the fact that there are many significant life events, and there are enough that you can make yourself believe they coincide with seven year marks.

Now that I mention change and life events.....work-wise, my project leader is moving on.  Her husband took a position in China for two years, so she's moving with him.  It's also kind of ironic because both she and her husband are originally from China but are now U.S. citizens.  I taught her a lot of what she knows about refrigerators (but not much about project management and writing software - she learned that somewhere else).  She started with the company about six years ago, and we worked together on projects (me doing hardware, her doing software) for about five years, and for the last year or so she's been my project leader.  During two of those five years we shared a cubicle, and I would consider her a friend.  Speaking of people moving up in the world, one of the hardware engineers I've worked closely with for the last two years will be taking the project leader role.  Sometimes it's a bit weird when people who were your peers become your dotted line boss, but you learn to adjust.  If I had wanted to, I could have interviewed for the project leader job myself, but I decided to let that opportunity pass by me for the moment.  I'm not sure if that was wise or not.  Time may tell, but I may never know.  My challenge now is trying to learn to delegate tasks to other hardware engineers as I am now the assigned lead hardware engineer for some projects.

Question:  In your opinion, do I deal well with change AND/OR do I desire change in my life?  Support your answer with one example.....

On Deck

My project for the last couple of weekends has been power washing and then putting a new coat of sealer on my deck.  I'm guessing it had about 10 years (maybe more) of mildew and dirt build-up on it.  Getting everything done took way longer than expected, but it turned out really nice.  The wood lightened up a lot when I power washed it, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.  My hamstrings hurt like crazy after spending many hours bent over with a paint brush in hand applying the sealer.

This is the deck a couple years before I started power washing.  Its look did not improve with age as the mildew kept creeping forward.  Ignore the hot tub and focus on the deck - as previously mentioned, the hot tub is history.  I still haven't decided what to do with that vacant space.  I'm waiting for the complete vision to appear of what should go there.

The deck now cleaned and sealed.

Thought Collection

I forgot to mention a couple other things from my trip last week.  The rental car was a Dodge Avenger, and I must say it was pretty nice.  I'm still glad I went with the Herman model, but an Avenger wouldn't have been a bad choice either.  Then I could have named the car Avis.  You would think that living near a body of water would make the air here very humid and it is, but I think southern IN was even more humid than here surprisingly.  Maybe it's just the lethal combination of the blazing heat and the humidity.

I was thinking the other day about people, and engineers in particular.  I would say that probably the coolest, hippest engineer around is still not as hip as the nerdiest human resources or marketing person who walks the earth.  There is the rare engineer that crosses over into the marketing group, but like I said, it's not real common.  And, they're likely not the most popular person in marketing.  Then I was thinking about the building I work in and how there are several hundred engineers grouped in one area.  This kind of creates an illusion that there are "cool" engineers and "nerdy" engineers because there is likely a normal distribution of nerdiness among the engineers.  Having that many engineers grouped together for so many hours every day creates a subculture and starts to make you feel like it's normal to make jokes about units of measure (the Melometer) and other stuff like that.  Then, you add in the fact that most people also work with engineers from other countries.  You assume people from other countries are "normal", but they're probably normal for engineers, not normal for the general population of that country.  So, how do I know if my impression of their country and culture is accurate if I'm getting enginerd skewed data points?

On to another personality contemplation.  I booked a ten day overseas trip with a friend.  On a familiarity scale from 1 to 10 with 1 being someone I met 10 seconds ago and 10 being an immediate family member, I would say this friend would be about a 6.5 +/-1.  I haven't known her real long, but we have some common interests and have taken a couple shorter trips together and gotten along fine.  We bought our airline tickets a couple months ago, and until about a week ago I hadn't thought too much about it.  But, since it's only the two of us, what if we start getting on each other's nerves?  It's not like you can start hanging out with somebody else on the trip.  I'm sure we'll manage and it'll be fine - I'm not actually very worried about it, but it was a thought that crossed my mind.  Maybe going with someone you don't know as well would be better than going with a family member?  I dunno.

Next post, we will discuss my deck project.  Latron.

hEvansville

Miss me?  I was kind of busy traveling for work this week, which is why it was quiet around here.  There weren't any emergencies at work, just some routine data collection to avoid issues in the future.  I was way down in souf' Indiana.  It's kind of a nice town.  Far enough south and a bigger town than here, so they have some different restaurants.  Yet, it's still a small enough town that it's not too frustrating to drive in.  Have you ever noticed how it's the less populated areas that have some of the best radio stations?  We're talking legendary country - Dolly Parton, Highway 101, Kenny Rogers, Willie Nelson, etc.  And.....they had some roadside veggie stands, so I have some fresh sweet corn, watermelon, and cucumbers to eat.  It was a bit depressing to see a fresh refrigerator plant graveyard - the jobs just recently moved to Mexico.  Part of it is the cheap labor available in Mexico, but part of it I also blame on the union - they tend to get greedy and lazy and shoot themselves in the foot.  The design engineers I work with down there are still employed.  So that's a plus.  That's all I've got for now.  I think I hear my mattress calling.

Uffda - Das A Lot Uf Vork

When you've never done something before, it always seems to take longer than expected to accomplish it, doesn't it?  Case in point - washing my deck in preparation for giving it a new coat.  First I had to kill a whole bunch of rabbits, skin them, tan the hides, and then......wait.  Wrong kind of coat.  That was a different project.  Actually, it felt like I spent all day power washing.  First though I had to put stuff on the deck to get the seven-year coat of mildew off there.  I ran out of stuff in the middle of that, so had to go to the store.  Then the power washer ran out of gas, so I made a trip to the gas station.  The prep work is done - now I have to get the new coat on.  That will be an adventure in and of itself too.

The grocery store now has fresh corn on the cob from the state to the south of us, and fresh blueberries are in the store now.  Deeee--lish---us.

How is it that I can spend more than an hour in Lowe's wandering around looking at/for stuff?  FYI, my most recent design at work can now be seen at Lowe's under two different brands (with blue LEDs).  They also had some older products on display too, so that was pretty cool to see two generations of my designs there simultaneously.  Why are movies one of the few things where they list everybody who contributed to the making of it?  It's probably a good thing that every refrigerator doesn't state in the user manual that MelBMarvis did the user interface control, but why do movies get to be special that way?

Potluck

You can't even stop dumpster diving inside corporate America.  We are having to clean up some of the halls and cabinets in our area at work because they have been deemed a fire hazard.  This means lots of boxes thrown in the trash, and my cube mate has been "rescuing" a few of them to take home.  He has an online business at home that involves shipping stuff, so he's always on the lookout for nice boxes.

It has been H. O. T. here the last couple of days.  At least outside - inside at work it's the normal ice box.  This weather has really been making me a wimp.  Can you believe that I used my air conditioning already in June?  How pathetic is that?  Usually I can make it to the middle of July or early August before I cry uncle.  But, I guess that's why I pay to have it serviced once a year.  The temperature was still about 85 degrees here at 9:00 PM tonight.

Yesterday was kind of a bummer of a day.  First it was virtual Monday, but I really can't complain about that too much - work went fairly smooth.  I found out through Facebook that I missed watching the fireworks with some of my friends from town here, partly because I was stupid and didn't leave a phone message.  We got beaten soundly in our softball game, and to add insult to injury we got rained on and thoroughly soaked during the bottom half of the last inning.  There was some consolation at the end of the day.....winning at euchre, and indulging at Chili's with some strawberry lemonade and a Southern Smokehouse burger.

Does anybody have a favorite salmon marinade/recipe they want to share?  That's hopefully on the supper agenda for tomorrow.

I cashed in my pocket change today, and the total was $120 - from two medium sized glass jars.  Can you believe that?  So, don't be turning up your nose if someone says it's just pocket change.

Another 7:30 AM meeting at work tomorrow.....I best get moving and finish the rest of my web surfing before bed.

Independence Post

4th of July Weekend List
Roller coasters at Six Flags:  Check.
Taste of Chicago:  Check.
Navy Pier:  Check.
Chinese acrobatics:  Check.
Power boat extreme thrill ride (which really wasn't all that extreme):  Check.
Hanging out with Shar Squared:  Check.
Awesome fireworks show:  Check.
Kayaking:  Check.
Sunbathing on the beach:  Check.
Beautiful weather all weekend thanks to a high pressure system:  Check.
Racquetball:  Check.
Not getting the closet painted:  Check.
Reading a book or two:  Check.
Not getting enough sleep:  Check.
Sunburn kept to a minimum:  Check (and that's an accomplishment considering how much sun I got).

That pretty much sums it up I think.  Along with large crowds come some interesting (and often inappropriate) clothing.  A few slogans and one bumper sticker I saw this past weekend: 

• "Drunk Chicks Dig Me"  --Really, this one is kind of sad if you think about it.  What is it saying about his self esteem?
• "Blink If You Want Me"  --Tricky.
• "I do what the voices in my wife's head tell me to"  --Can only he hear them, or can she hear them too?
• "Paddle faster - I hear banjo music"  --Now that's funny, no sexual overtones required.
• "Make love not babies"  --Hmmm.....sometimes I hear that's tough to do.
• "I'm the hot friend"  --That girl should find some shade and a fan - or maybe some AC.

She cheated a tiny bit - had a safety wire just in case she fell.  Really, how bad could it hurt if she fell?  It was only like 40 feet in the air.

Now that's goofy!

Modeling for Ocean Spray in Chicago and in front of a fountain there.  Can you believe I didn't put any odd faces on that day?  At least not for the camera....

Staycation

The weekend forecast is for fun in the sun and some other stuff and things.  I'm a bit disappointed at myself for not being on the ball and for being too stingy with my vacation, so I'm not going to MT to 'vention and to hang out with Ananias afterward.  But - all is not lost.  I will get some fun in a little bit closer to home.  It's more of a "staycation", really.  Not all the details are worked out yet, but let's just say there may be some coasters and tastes involved.  Along with some fireworks and some other stuff that is still TBD.

My work calendar for tomorrow had zero meetings scheduled on it when I left work today.  Can you believe it?  Things can change fast and there may be some unscheduled meetings that pop up, but I'm hoping to get some good work time in despite winding down for the weekend.

I'm playing in the beach volleyball league this year, and you know what that means.  Sand.  Drug in on the floor.  Which leads to grittiness with bare feet, resulting in more frequent vacuuming.  Oh drudgery.  It can wait a bit longer I think.

Oddness

Let me tell you a little story here - eventually it will become clear how this relates to my current life.  It was my third year of college, and I was sharing an apartment with Tammy in EGF.  For the first semester I was borrowing Ananias's box spring and mattress.  I can't remember now why she didn't need it at the time.  However, sometime during that year Ananias repossessed her mattress and box spring.  This left me without a bed, so my choices were to sleep on the floor, buy a new bed, or temporarily sleep on the futon in the living room.  I chose the futon at first because it was more comfortable than the floor and I was busy studying, etc. and didn't find the time to purchase a new bed.  Plus, all I had was Reggie, and he wasn't really capable of transporting a bed.  Mostly it was just lack of motivation to buy a new bed - the futon wasn't all that uncomfortable.  When I first started sleeping on the futon I meant for it to be temporary with good intentions of buying a new bed.  But, a week turned into several weeks and perhaps even months.  I don't really remember how long it went on.  I finally bought a new bed, mostly because it was starting to drive my roommate crazy that I was sleeping on her futon in the living room and using my bedroom as a giant closet and dressing room.  I didn't want to live with an insane person if it was easily preventable.  I borrowed Jim's pick-up truck, and Chris and I went to Sam's Club one Saturday and bought a new bed, which I still own by the way.

Anyway, the point of this is: if my living conditions are in disarray, it doesn't really bother me that much as long as it happens gradually or I know the reason they are like that.  For example, my closet.  Events at Christmas time caused me to start a repair on some sheetrock in my closet.  At that time I had to partially empty the shelves in my closet to keep my clothes from getting messed up.  The project went slowly and I finally finished the sheetrock patching in April or March I think.  In May I emptied my whole closet in preparation for painting the ceiling in my closet as part of the patching project.  I'm pretty much at the six month mark of my closet being in disarray.  The end is in sight as the primer went on yesterday.  I just need to slap the paint on, wipe down the shelves, vacuum, and restore my clothes to my closet.  My makeshift closet is now spread out over three different rooms.  Check it out.  And yes, those are all clean clothes, not dirty clothes.  I have a couple laundry bags of dirty clothes around too.  Who knew I had so many clothes?

Green Eyes, or Trying to Learn?

I'm a faithful reader of the blog written by my friend Avis.  (I didn't want to figure out the correct way to make Avis possessive, which is why I wrote that sentence that way.)  As I read her blog today, I was amazed again by her commitment to lifelong learning.  At the ripe age of twenty-*something*, she is learning to play the banjo.  In the past year she has also learned to knit.  She always has a project or two going and mentions baking cookies or bread or muffins frequently.  She also has a full time job (at least during the school year).  She is often training for some kind of running event like a half marathon or a marathon.

How do people like that get so much done?  It seems like all I accomplish most days is to go to work, do some form of exercise, cobble together the most rudimentary of meals, post on this silly blog, check facebook (it's usually a quick check - scout's honor), take a shower, and go to bed.  Once or twice a month I also have to pay some bills.  Where am I wasting my time?  I know it's not good to compare myself to others because we all have our own individual gifts, but it's not bad to learn a few skills from other people either.  Maybe all I need are some lessons in time organization or to learn how not to be a perfectionist.  I could also become less of a workaholic I suppose.

But, speaking of time organization, it's amazing how much you can get done in an evening when you leave work at 5:00.  Yesterday I did that, and I managed to play a softball game, go home, eat supper, spend time on the internet scoping airline tickets, go kayaking, try to do some work that got derailed because a software license expired, and I still was in bed before 11:30.  I was going to try to copy Avis and post an "Aaaaaah, summer" post with a picture of the lake taken from my kayak.  However, that didn't seem like a good idea to try to get my camera out when I had to watch out for the 2 or 3 foot swells.  The water was slightly rough and I capsized on my first launch try yesterday evening.  Good thing it was June and not November, so I was able to attempt a second launch and still go paddling.  Now I must go to bed so that I can get up semi-early and hopefully accomplish something besides doing nothing tomorrow.

Dilemma

Soooo.......facebook is causing social dithering again.  Do you remember how I said it was a social minefield?  I traveled for work to a different location a while back.  Today I received a friend request from a person who works at that location.  That wouldn't be all that odd in itself seeing how I work closely with several people there.  The thing is, I barely know this friend request person at all.  If it's the person I think it is that I vaguely remember meeting while I was there, he stopped me in the hall and introduced himself and we had a brief conversation about what I was working on.  This person is not someone I regularly interact with at work.  He's a mechanical engineer from a department my group doesn't interact with much if at all.  I looked him up in the corporate directory, but both his picture on facebook and his picture in the corporate directory do not give a good look at his face, so I'm not sure I even have the right person's image in my head.

Anyways, we don't have any "official" mutual friends on facebook, although a couple of his facebook friends are people that I regularly work with.  This means that he had to have purposefully searched for me on facebook.  The big question is, what's his angle?  I think I know what it is, but am interested to see what other people think.  The other question is, would it be a bad idea to ask my co-workers I know well from that location what they think of this guy, causing rumors/gossip to possibly fly around the workplace there?  I'm not all that interested in approving him as a friend if he's going to turn out to be a stalker or something, but at the same time it doesn't seem like it would hurt to approve his friend request, seeing how I don't post much stuff on facebook and don't really hear from anybody all that much via facebook.

In other topics, I've been the kind of person in the past who likes to cook meat on "high" - maximum temps, minimum time.  But, I'm learning to have a little more patience and less paranoia about undercooked meat.  Boy, the brats I grilled this evening sure were good when I did more of a slow cook.  Along with them I did asparagus and potatoes on the grill.  Mmmmm......mmmmm.....mmmmm.

Until this year, I think I didn't fully appreciate summer.  This year, I'm appreciating every hot day and trying to make the most of it.  Well, most of the time anyway.  I am sitting here at my computer as we speak instead of going down to the beach to watch the sunset.  It seems like summer is going way too fast this year.

My first paragraph reminded me of a story that I forgot to tell about Memorial Day.  Ananias and I were at the grocery store looking at all the coffee options (after the hot dog abortion discussion).  Well, she was looking and I was patiently waiting and trying to helpfully point out what different brands were available.  After allowing her five minutes of intense contemplation, I said, "Now I know how other people feel when I sit and dither about a decision forever."  It was kind of a funny incident, and I think Ananias thought it was funny because I used the word dither in normal conversation, but really, who doesn't do that?  Just saying - there's not really a moral to that story.  Later gators.

I smell T-R-O-U-B-L-E

I'm totally going to get into trouble with Gin, but I saw the matching shirt for those Wal-Mart pants today at the beach.  I was down at the beach playing beach volleyball.  We had finished playing (it was blazing hot by the way), and I was walking on the sidewalk toward my bike.  Out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw a lady on the beach headed toward the sidewalk who was topless (the beach is not a nude beach, fyi).  After doing a double-take, I realized that the woman did have a shirt on.  However, the shirt was flesh-colored and tight enough that it didn't leave too much to the imagination.  I briefly wondered if it was part of her bathing suit, but I do believe it was a shirt.  I'm not sure what to say after that other than it happens in places other than Wal-Mart.  Too bad I didn't have my camera with me because on my ride home from the beach I saw a young deer on the side of the road.  He just had small prongs for horns, and they were in velvet.  That would have made an awesome picture.

Winding Down the Weekend

I can't complain about the kind of weekend we had here. It was gorgeous weather with temperatures in the 70's and 80's. It wasn't unbearably humid, and the wind was kept to a minimum. A few highlights:

• A little Saturday evening kayak excursion including another successful beach launch.
• Fellowship on Sunday morning and afternoon.
• A bike excursion around town Sunday evening - I checked out all three public beaches near my house.
• A snack of mulberries fresh off the tree at the beach near my house both after kayaking and biking.
• Finishing off the weekend watching the sunset and hearing Amazing Grace and Taps live on bagpipes. Check it out below. I have no idea who the guy was and why he was at that particular tiny public beach doing that, but it was cool.
  

Momma Always Said.....

....."It won't take very long if we all pitch in and help."  (When she was trying to get us to do our Saturday housework jobs.)  I was going to make a whole bulleted list of sayings from my mom, but this was really the only one I could come up with.  You know that saying about how people won't remember what you said but they will remember how you made them feel?  Well, that's my mom I guess.

She's not flashy or flamboyant.  She's not loud or overly talkative.  She's not a pushover - in fact, she's a pretty tough cookie even though she may not look like one.  Just ask her math students.  She's likely where I got my math skills and my penchant for penny pinching.  I learned from her that four king-size candy bars on sale 4-for-$1 can be the special treat of the month.  She taught me how to shop for groceries, how to pack those groceries into bags at the grocery store, and how to cook those ingredients once you get home (I'm still learning things from her about that last one).  Although I never do this myself, I learned from Mom that some people will read the ending of a book first and then start at the beginning if the ending is good.  Need a helper to install vinyl, install laminate flooring, remove wallpaper, remove wallpaper paste, paint, drive grain truck, drive tractor, or put on a meal for 50 people?  Mom's the one.....

Most importantly, my mom helped teach me what the most important thing in life is - a relationship with God.  She taught me discipline, and I'm still learning from her what it means to care about people.  She also had the strength to stand back and let her kids make some of their own decisions, but she often has the wisdom to offer some good suggestions when it's needed.  Even when it was needed but not appreciated at the time, she offered sage advice.

There is a long list of things I forgot I'm sure, but I figured I better finally post this since I started it more than a month ago.  Thanks Mom, and I love you!  Now I'll need to start on my Father's Day post - look for it in July....

Super Nerd!

It's amazing how soon you forget and how important details are sometimes.  You can take data for an experiment and come back and look at the data half a day later and barely remember all the details of what you did, what the conditions were, etc.  If you don't know the circumstances of how the data was gathered, it basically makes it worthless.  Thus was born the advocacy in six sigma training of copious notes.

And you think it's bad to expound the virtues of copious notes?  You should see the new guy in our group who started working this week.  I look like an amateur engineer next to him.  I mean, how can I compete with an EE who does ham radio, talks about eigenfunctions, and makes units conversion spreadsheets that include units of lengths like a shed, a hand, etc.?  I feel like a blonde next to him.....oh wait, I am!  I'm telling you, I'm a lightweight.

I'm thinking of all those people I know at convention.  I sure wish I could be there too, but unfortunately work and travel arrangements didn't work out to go there this weekend (MT or WY).  That might be just as well - it'll give me time to do a little yard work and go watch a re-enactment of a military operation down at the beach.  Maybe - if I get on the ball tomorrow and don't waste my Saturday.  Why would I want to be gone every weekend in the summer anyway?  Then I don't even get to enjoy the beautiful summer weather here.  Later, peeps.

Changes

For the last six or eight months, I have been seeing a massage therapist (her name is Holly) before my chiropractic appointment.  I would highly recommend doing that.  It makes the adjustment go smoother I think.  Anyway, Holly has made a change in her schedule, so the resident Thursday afternoon person is now Tina.  Today was the first day with Tina.  And it wasn't bad, but she definitely applied more pressure than Holly, which sometimes I do like.  Sometimes it hurt quite a bit too.

Let's do a little massage therapist review just for fun.  First there was Meagan - I think she is actually still my most favoritest one so far.  She applied good pressure and made me feel at ease as a first timer - but maybe they all do that.  I liked her technique too.  Then there was Ashley.  I only saw her a couple times when I couldn't get an appointment with Meagan.  I wouldn't say she was bad, but she is probably my least favorite.  She didn't apply enough pressure and her fingers were too small and pointy.  Then there was Holly.  She was somewhere between Meagan and Ashley.  She had good people skills, and her pressure applying skills were a little bit light, but only slightly.  She had good techniques too (in my opinion, but I'm not an expert).  I got used to her.  Now we have Tina.  Lots of pressure so far - the jury is still out on a final decision.

We solved one thorny issue at work last week, and now I've been working on a second one.  Progress is a bit slow, but I have hopes we'll get it solved in the next day or two.  What else.....the softball team is doing very will this year, sand volleyball has started, and it has been nice and warm the last couple of days.  Summer goes way too fast.

Farm out!

Verbal Summary of Past Week

Here's my attempt to sum up in words the last week or ten days.

• I rode and/or drove in a car at least four hours each day for four days in a row.  I'm pretty sure I get that kind of insanity from my parents.
• Speaking of the 'rents, I saw them the weekend I as in WI.
• I saw my brother and his family also.  As I mentioned, his girls really like the pool.  We swam indoors and outdoors in Door County whether the weather cooperated or not.
• I was at a friend's house when they got the call about a relative dying.  It was an expected death but still hard to see somebody get that kind of news.  I am so not good at knowing what to say or do in those situations.
• Unlike last time I was there, Iowa was bright green.  I would highly recommend the drive across SW WI and NE IA on US Hwy 151 - it really is a beautiful drive this time of year with all those rolling hills and corn fields.
• The circumstances of my being in Iowa were high pressure, but it was still fun in a weird sort of way.  It's energizing to work together with a team where all the team members are pulling their weight and you're able to finally solve the issue you've been working on for several weeks with limited success.  We got to do some "real" engineering work instead of just managing projects!
• Kudos to 3M's adhesive product 7959MP.  
• As mentioned in my previous post, I got to see the most recent project I worked on displayed in Best Buy.
• This isn't related to the past week, but I heard about this on the radio today and wondered how anybody would ever think that would be a good idea.  People wear padded shorts while biking for a reason!