lamp fun

an oil lamp that mom got jen and I awhile ago. its lotsa fun. see it normal, with an 8second shutter, and then what my computer can pull out of the blackness.

knoppix rules

ok.. i'm just dinking around cause i got nothing better to do, so I put knoppix 3.3 in the dead laptop and fired it up. it connects to the net, and even connects to blogger and I didn't do anything! nothing to configure, nothing.

totaly remarkable. I love this, so next time windows goes down I don't have to reinstall it to fix it. i just throw in knoppix and i'm good to go.

i dl'd knoppix 3.6 the other night. i'll have to load that up and compare. but if its half as good as 3.3 i might jus have to throw my HD away and run off a cd cause it seems to do what need.

nevada day / halloween

this friday is a waste of time. half of the company is gone for NEVADA day, the funny thing is we don't even get it off, so people took personal vacation to take it off. most likely because a spouse has it off or something

to compound the problem half of the remaining people are 'dressed up for halloween'. now if you know engineers and i think you do you'd know such a nerd would never bother him/herself with such a pointless endeavor. well, you are correct, but we have tons of assembly people that feel the need to dress up like various things. in less than 20 minutes I have seen the following
sailer
clown
darth vador
women dressed up like suckers that ask people if they want a lick
prisoner
purple head lady with a sign on the back that says SINGLE

this is going to be ONE POINTLESS DAY.

shed

so I have almost all of my materials to get started. the plan? an 8x16 'storage' shed located on the side of my house. it will be apprximatly 4 feet from the house and at the other end 5 feet from my lot line (a street). i'm kinda pushing the code. the code is pretty vague here so I'm taking advantage of that. if no one complains i'll be set. if they complain, i'll just have to get a winch and move it, that or a chainsaw to cut 8 foot off of it, or whatever else the neighbors decide to complain about.

total cost? i'm hopeing less than 500$. now at first glance that sounds expensive doesn it? well add up the cost and you'll find that is about 1/4 the price that you can find at homedepot. i've got lotsa lumber from a friend.

things left to by
siding: (13) 4x8 sheets @ $17/ea
roof sheeting: (6?) 4x8 sheets 7/16in $ 14/ea
shingles: 2 squares, cost not estimated yet
tarpaper/roofpaper stuff: cost not estimated
floor hangers / misc. hardware $50
screws / fasteners $75 ( purchased a 25lb bucket of 2 1/2 inch screws, i'm looking forward to using them

This county seems very specific. i kinda like it all spelled out yet with those rules i'd be in violation on several counts.

recognition

in todays staff meeting they gave out some awards. I couldn't belive it, I actually got some! (kev, don't read into that last line)

Awhile ago I told the boss 2 levels up that don't waste my time with an award that is valued at less than 1,000 dollars. its more papework than its worth, and if you really appreciate something I do then show that you REALLY appreciate it. I said that a few years ago, and until this year I didn't get anything.

earlier this year I got a 25$ certificate to best buy for helping find a fundamental design problem, and saved potentially hundreds of thousands of dolllars worth of damage in the field. ah yea... that was worth 25$ to the company.

The other day I helped one of my coworkers test something. his method took two days. I took a few hours and worked up a test that does it in a bout 3 seconds. that earned me ANOTHER 25$ gift card, this time to chilees (i think i'm gonna trade it for a homedepot card)

then my boss gives me ANOTHER award for some work I did on saving the company money. I saved the company around $20k. really pretty small, but they gave me an ward for $150 'night on the town'. now, you might ask, what is a night on the town? I'll give you my rough translation, but you can make the call for yourself. I think it is spend this money on some entertainment I wouldn't usually do and HOPE it qualifies for reimbursment, but you make the call

You are granted up to $150 to be used for a special event of your choosing. Reimbursable expnses may include dinner, entertainment, and expenses direclty related to the outing, such as childcare and othe rsimilar expenses. simply remit the receipts along wtih a copy of this memo to human resources for reimbursement. this award does not have to be used in a single evening, but you must submit all of your receipts at the same time to ensure proper reimbursement. expenses for durable goods (dvd players, grills, books, etc), services not related to the outing (car repairs, home improvements, etc.), bill and atm withdrawls.

Calculators

for an engineer a calculator seems to be some type of status symbol. It is much comparable to how a jock needs to drive the biggest truck, or fastest car to make up for his inadequiasies. (bad spelling day). such it is with the engineer and his calculator. Many prefer the TI89, or one with a keyboard the TI92. then those that are stuck in the ancient HP camp like me, owning an HP48 or the more modern HP49 that seems to be the exact same thing with 2 lines of the OS updated. so while these calculators can cost around $150 they don't really make you smarter.

I'll give you an example. I took and passed my professional engineering exam from the state of california with a $15 walmart calculator, the Casio FX-1115MS. any where in the the entire US you are not allowed to use ANY of the name brand calculators found above to take the exam. (except for the 15$ one).

Why you ask? does it make the work easier, does it make me smarter? none of these are the issue. with a modern calculator it is possible to COPY the exam questions and then take them with you when you leave (a serious offense). you see the brain dead people that come up with the questions spend much time on them they don't want to repeat the same amount of work next year so they RECYCLE questions. if people took the questions, then they couldn't reuse them without the test being unfare to those that just took it because next years attendees would know what the questions are.

The ironic thing is that engineering is one of the most ethical professions yet they STILL have to guard against giving someone a certification that isn't ethical. how about we just allow normal calucators and at the end of the exam the final step is to take a polygraph test, after all, if your that unethical we don't want you in the field anyway.

The exam was great. I now own a 15$ calculator that I like better than my 150$ one. why? because its cheep and does all I need for day to day work. If I have somthing big to solve I use a COMPUTER. with the advancements in microelectronics I doubt theres any reason to continue on with the whole advanced calculator idea. the next generation will probalby just be a PDA running maple, matlab, and spice. why do crap approximations when you can just punch your variables in and let it simulate the whole thing. and you get to learn the tools you'll be using in industry instead of how to punch numbers in 'normal' or RPN style.

Its probably the calulator industry that is responsible for myopicness in the engineers.

To actually learn how to do math a calculator is about as worthless as it comes. it does not reinforce key concepts, or memorizaton of fast apprximations, it reinforces ASKING for the answer. there isn't always an answer! at times a crap approximation is all that is needed or possible. yeah yeah.. you super geeks out there will say there is ALWAYS an answer. yeah, there is, but yours will probably be way different than mine. we all make approximations and assumptions about a problem. if you dont' believe me then you have never tried to get $ values signed off by managment or finance. they can come up with the screwiest math to justify a $5 purchase I have ever seen.

keep on calcin

T H L

I'm sure theres alot of things one could think up what THL means. like:

Totally Horendous Loss
Tom hugs lisa
Two Hours Lost
Thumble hitting loser

but what it really is is the ranking system. You see T is Top Talen, H is Highly valued, and L stands for LEP, least effective performer, or rather it did. I"ve heard that now it stands for LESS effective performer because LEAST was not politically correct.

how is calling someone a LOSER ever politically correct? gotta love this place.

Wad or not

Our trash can in the bathroom is constantly full. most often do to the fact
that no on actually makes good use of the space. you see I actually
compoletely wad up my paper towl. I want to reap the complete beneifits of
its moisture capturing capabilities instead of wasting yet another sheet or
rough cat tounge. I must be the only guy to wad up my papertowl, either
that or they expand once thrown in.

Column of Smoke II

an update on the column of smoke (remember I can't write comments, just posts cause of the firewall). it turned out to be the power supply in the dell desktop. the guy was frantically saving all of the stuff he was working on and was successful!

as for the fire extingiusher (sp?) yeah.. that was the first thing one of the other enginerds sayed was "do i need to go get the fire extingiusher". we just got our VPP star certification so that'd be pretty funny if we caught the place on fire.

no fire extinguisher needed. just alot of smoke. later I returned to the cube to see how it was going and these guys were disecting the power supply. I'm sure they'll pull parts out of stock and try to get it running again.. after all, with the management around here it'll take weeks to order him a new desktop and if we need IS to transfer data or the HD that'll be about 6 months in addition.

Column of Smoke

I'm was returning to my desk from a trip I just made to the other side of the building and I smell the Spicy Mustard! I look everywhere and cant find, so I continue on my merry way. halfway through the rat maze of cubicles I see a column of smoke coming up over the wall. I look over and POORING out out of the top of someones monitor is smoke! in about 5 seconds a ton of people join me in our forensic analysis of the stink. The poor guy shuts the monitor off, and moves it a little on his desk. (it is a 19 or 21 inch, so a bit of a beast). I reminded him to also UNPLUG the monitor, as it does no good if the power switch/relay is fried and current is still applied. [ah, another rhyme]

Go ahead, Quote Me!

I just wrote this in an email. I'm very proud of the wording. Its too much work to go into the history, but I'll post it anyway. The rest of you enginerds can cut and paste it in your next rant to a co-worker.

I have a concern that without proper data analysis the full benefits of the process may not be realized.

Cube Walls

Cube Walls are great, or rather the stories that come over them. as I type this my coworker is talking about his childhood in the swamps of Georgia and how him and his friend both got M-16's and went hunting. He got a regular M16 and his friend go the partrooper variety. They did deer hunting with full auto. his friend almost cut the telephone pole down with full auto.

ahh.. how times have changed. when we get invaded by iraq I think I'd want the 'troops' of georgia to have full auto.

wheres an NRA representative when I have something to say....

1985

again, blogthis ate my post, so I do it yet again....

It happened in 1985:

Nintendo enters home video game market.
Cray-2 supercomputer does 1.2 billion calculations per second.
Hollywood amends ratings; now G, PG, PG-13, R, NC-17, X.
U.S. household ownership of VCRs rises rapidly to 20%.
Cellphones go into cars.
Images can be broken into digital bits.
Microsoft ships the Windows 1.0 operating system.
Synthetic text-to-speech computer pronounces 20,000 words.
Television broadcasts can be heard in stereo.
U.S. TV networks begin satellite distribution to affiliates.
Typical modem speed now 2400 bits/second.
America Online founded as Quantum Computer Services.
Pay-per-view channels open for business.
Kids can't get enough of Super Mario Brothers computer game.
New videotape formats: 8 mm and VHS-C.

AND it was sometime around 1985 that Teradyne released the Z1860, and ICT [in circuit tester] machine. it was large, expensive, and clunky. It is still Large, clunky, but is now cheep. It seems to cost of maintance is inversely proportional to the lifecycle. (duh) as it gets older we spend more and more to maintain it. this will be the second time in a few years that we have had a catastrophe and i am on the support team so i gotta help fix it. its actually not that bad of a machine except teradyne will stop supporting it soon and we will have to move to a machine that is more reliable, more expensive, much smaller, harder to work on, and incompatible with our multi million dollar fixturing for the old machine. oh well.

Wormy

I found it.

Mormon Friends

I posted this to Lizzy. I hope the rest of you can get something from it.

About half of the department I work in is Mormon, My boss is even Mormon. I'm a member of a different protestant Christian religions (born and raised) and surprisingly enough interpret the bible and the basic call of morality in basically the same way that my Mormon friends do.

In talking with my friends at work it seems Mormons have some unpardonable sin categories. things that once done, or never done, or something, can result in a lesser heaven.

I for one, believe in only one God, only one heaven, and only one unpardonable (eternal) sin. That sin is turning your back on your savior. This sin can even be redeemed (read Job). thus leaving the only true unredeemable sin to be turning your back on God forever.

We are still called to uphold the law (exodus 20, the 10 commandmends) and to the new law of love (new testament theme) but it is the grace of God that frees us from our just punishment of death (The wages of sin is death), and through Jesus's death on the cross we are given the GIFT of eternal life. All we must do to be saved is ask. Thus explains how there is only one unpardonable sin.

Every person has their own believe. Most share their core belief with a group of believers (church or sect) but deep down every person does have their own individual belief.

I truly hope for you that you can be convinced of the saving grace of God so you don't have the feel the shame of leading a sinful life. No one on earth with the exception of one man (the perfect sacrafice, Jesus) has lead a perfect life. We are called to do the best we can, and through the sacrafice of Christ we are all made perfect.

~keith

poking

I was reading random blogs and ran across the following saying on GunderBlog

Maybe you should climb up there with a stick and a cake pan and poke at it for a while.

That SO reminds me of something kev would say or actually do!

sick of picture

i'm already sick of my picture. i'm removing it from my profile. if you really wnt to see me look here http://img73.exs.cx/img73/4036/482087.jpg

who reads this?

so.. the question was posed do people at work read this. well.. I highly doubt it. I haven't given but one person the link and I really don't think he'll ever read it. on the off chance someone from work does end up reading It i've made the attempt to not use real or specific names, and you may have noticed that I haven't referenced my company name, location, etc at all.. in the off chance someone thinks I'm talking bad/good about the company.. thus I hope i have my basis coverd.

Social Skills

I posted this as a response to marys post here. I liked it so much I'm putting it here for the rest of you.

Social skill is most definatly a SKILL. I think it can be learned. one example of this is etiquite [sp?]. this can be learned. it is one suggestion for proper public methods. I don't think this exists anymore, I Just use it as an example.

in the same sense, social skills can be learned. people that are natural leaders have more attempts to hone this skill and their failure is hidden in the early depths of childhood instead of the visible spectrum of adulthood.

people that are NOT leaders even when given attempts to hone their social skills usually pass up the opportuinity because they are to intravert. social skill takes a certain boldness.. and last of not least TIMELINESS.

you see, once you are in a group you have a very limited time to prove your social skill. if others learn you have none, then you have lost all oportunity to prove you ever will. one of my coworkers transfered jobs because he screwed up his social skill. he had plenty, but he wasn't very timele with it.

so.. to hone a social skill
BE CONFIDENT
BE BOLD
BE COCKY
BE FAST [don't wait for them to learn otherwise]
BE FUN [everyone likes to be around someone fun]

ok.. my 2 cents. I'm at tims a social failure so they may not all be good tips.

Company Jeopardy

The other day we had a small quiz on company policy, if you filled it out you got a ticket for $5 in the lunch room. I actually did my quiz, most everyone else just copied off of others.

my $5 got me 1 personal pizza, 1 small bag of cheotos, 2 SOBE drinks (Fuerte and Courage). it came to $5.10, so I owed 10 cents.

now you'd think that since it took over 1/2 hour of work time to fill out the survey the company would just leave it at that, but no, in fine print at the bottom of the survey it said you could be called for the Jeopardy game on friday [today]. so, not wanting to waste even more time and get up and make a complete fool of myself I sat in ate breakfast in the break room instead of going to this game show thinggy. wouldn't you know it. i was the about the 10'th person to be called up. luckily they only had about 25% turnout. I got a big kick outa that. I told the guy eating breakfast with me that his name was probably coming up and as soon as I said it they read his name.

So we just sat in the cafe for a few more minutes watching it on TV.... very amusing.

the history of k2h

So, some may wonder why I have used k2h for the name of this thing. probably about the only person to remember why is Kev and Dan. You see it all started in highschool when we needed a way to indetify the students. way back then the school just used some form of initials and since my initials are kh and my twins initials are kh that posed a bit of a prolbem. I was blessed with the name of k2h in the system and I have used it ever since.

ahhh.. those were the good old days. I actually got a job as the computer/typing lab maintance, admin, grader type guy. it really sucked. the novell network was run with RG-58? cable. that old point to point crap. I think it even had marks on the cable where you were to cut and add connection so you wouldn't mess up the wave form. hmm.. not much to mess up at 10mbits. but I digress.....

the printer was always going offline and the only way to get it online was to get the lab instructor back to logon to novell and reset the print server. what a crappy system it was. I was totally sick of always calling because this happened on a daily basis and I WAS THE LAB GUY. so.. i loaded up my trusty keyboard logger TSR program and got the password to the system (banana).

Kev.. tell us the story of how you used that against her later!

Plant

Blogger.com ate my post, so I'm reposting. I Hope its as good as the origional one. if the origional one shows up you can compare for yourself. until then I'll recap.

It seems every engineer wants something green around. If you've been following my earlier posts you'll now my form of green appears to be algea [mold, thanks janell]. You may be surprised to learn that I also have a PLANT. yes, my very own plant. one of my coworkers has 11 potted plants in/on/and around his desk. including 2 empty pots. his desk looks more like somekinda zen sanctuary than the desk of an engineer. another coworker has i think 4 plants. he optained one from someone that strated 15 years ago [and then quit] so its rumored it is the oldes plant in the building. the only problem i have with his plant is that it does not keep to itself. it insists on crawling down MY SIDE of the cube wall. most of my coworkers have either NO Plants, or multiple plants. I fall right in the middle with a single loanly plant.

Don't be fooled, my plant actually has a history. Andy brought it in when he was here. Andy was a good guy. he got the bosses to sign up for letting him have EVERY friday off during the winter so he could go skiing. it wasn't until after he purchased his season pass that they revoked the request. I think it had something to do with the fact that even if he worked 4 10 hour days, he was still physicall absent on one day and someone would have to cover his responsbilities. so that made it more of a vacation type thing since he wasnt even coming in.. but anyway.. Andy quit to go to law school to be with his girlfriend. somewhere in seattle or something.

The plant was donated to Shawn. Shawn was a good guy. he was actually my manager for awhile and I enjoyed working with/under him. Shawn had some interesting history with the company.. in his time here [5-7 year?] he managed to quit the department several times but the bosses let him come back. well shawn got fed up and quit for the 3rd and most likely final time. I 'won' the raffel at the going away lunch for shawn and received the plant. Shawn made some kinda speach about how when you leave the plant, you have to leave the plant.

thus begins my life with my very own plant. The first thing I did was put Leave the PLANT plant on it. its own little plaque taped to the front of its pot. This has blessed me with multiple inquiries about what exactly that means. Most of my coworkers harass me and ask when i'll be quiting since I do have the cursed plant. I have voed to let it die before I leave.. and to my surprise no one has sabatoged it yet, despite the office hick threating to urinate [water] it for me.

The latest addition was a jack in the box head to one of the unopened frond leave things. its a palm looking plant about 3 foot high, 7 open leaves/limbs and 2 stems starting. a very nice looking subject if I do say so myself. I water it 1-2 times a month, whenever I run out of 'productive' things to do.

leave the plant

I did a writup about my plant. the post keeps coming and going. I dont understand!

my picture

One day we got an email from corporate. we were all to report to some odd conference room to get our picture taken for the online system. so I showed up and got my picture taken. then, a few days after the event we got an email that said it was just for MANAGEMENT because it cost to much money to take everyones picture and publish it online. welp.. to late. my picture was taken and i actually exist with a real head in the online who's who database. it is that picture that I have chosen to attach to the blog. if it uglies me out i'll remove it.

i'm so cheep I had to use a FREE hosting for my picture. i finally settled on www.imageshack.us. we shall see how long the link lasts.

kevs blog

has anyone seen kevs blog? me? nah. I have yet to find it in the depths of cyberspace. maybe I should just start reposting his emails. they are usually pretty interesting and then at least we'd get something from him firsthand instead of getting his posts as a rebutal to an origional idea.

best weasel

Jen said no one would click all my links but i'm just betting that some of you are tired of working on your thesis and may just click them all. Vote for you favorite weasel.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

inline images kill

OK. I removed an inline image cause it killed my sidebar. I've learned my lesson. from now on you guys will have to click to view.

on a side note I see that simple ramblings is online. your now on my link list.

rebuttal to ASCII

welp. I'm glad to see that I was right. Jen had a very good writeup in her ASCII article. I would like to point out that windows for quite some time has come with the very table you have been looking for. It is called CHARACTER MAP. in WINNT it is an optional install and if installed is usually in Start \ Programs \ Accessories \ System Tools \ Character Map.

If I do Start \ Run \ Charmap that seems to get it up and running as well.

Now if you look very carefuly you will see that at the bottom of the program it gives the character code, and most often the shortcut keystroke (ALT+0123) The interesting thing is the shortcut keystroke is not listed for all characters that you can see.

Open up word and select ARIAL font. ALT+0247 gives me a ÷ simbol. in fact I used the shortcut to put it in here. BUT if i use something like SYMBOL font it gives me a . now this was the exact same shortcut. I changed the font. the font is mearly a collection of vector images that is mapped to codes. any font could use any code to map to any symbol.

conclusion: the shortcut method in windows ONLY WORKS IF YOU KNOW YOUR TARGET FONT. Maybe sarah can tell us what the standard font browsers use to render web pages?

VPP Star

our facility just got VPP Star certified. as a reward the employees got to 3 gifts from a selectin of 5. our choices were between 1 of two clocks, a 6 pack cooler, a hat, car sun visor thing, or a mug? I can't remember what the last choice was. but check out the pictures i found.

one of the clocks. it has indigo backlight, alarm, and it came with the single AA battery. The other clock we got is very small. pewter type thing with the face of a wrist watch inlayed in it. one of my coworkers refered to it as 'a weapon'. I'm very dissapointed that I can't find a picture of it.


the 6 pack cooler thing, of course it has VPP STAR on it instead and ours is blue.

www.cookingforengineers.com

by the suggestion of sarah I have visited Cooking for Engineers. It is indeed interesting. I was very entertained by Surprise in SnacksIt reminded me of the time that jen and I got snow peas mixed vegetables and the package only had two snow peas in it. we called up the manufacture and said how can you label this as snow peas if there are only two! they sent us coupons.

Office Algea part II

thanks to feed back from janelle (sp? you'll have to post so I know how to spell your name) it turns out my cup/bottle is probably growing MOLD not algea. somehow I like the idea of seaweed better than condemned house. I attended a free lunch today have added one more bottle as backup in the event the current water carrier gets moldy. see origional article here

Big Win

In the business I work in they have been throwing around the term 'Big Win' for way to long. It only took about a year for the term 'digital cockpit' to die [don't ask]. Every time the department gets something done we get an email from the big boss dude and it says 'this was a BIG WIN for the department'. what exactly does that mean? who were we fighting anyway? the other department? Its high time we kill this saying. I post it here not for you to use, but for you to avoid. every time I hear it i think of The big L.

stolen ideas

So the other day I was in a meeting with one of my co-workers. the only other person in the group [besides me] to pass the California Professional engineering exam. now he was presenting some ideas for a circuit design and I piped up with some suggestions. he right away said he didn't like the idea. so hey.. brainstorming, no big deal. it was just an idea.

then TODAY, i pass the interns desk and see my circuit on his screen! My coworker took my idea and then made the intern build it [of course he had to bad mouth my idea first, and then never tell me he liked it]. I sat down with the intern and had a second look at it at we reduced the parts count by about 50%.

what a joke! my coworker, the one with the PE should be DESIGNING the circuit, don't send it to the intern!! on top of that, how about he design it himself instead of stealing my idea without credit.

Path of Least Resistance

Thanks to kev for his comment on the path of least resistance. you have given me yet another topic to ramble about.

I have to agree with you that the path of least resistance often makes good sense from several perspectives but the complicated part is to have the foresight, insight, and wisdom to determine what decisions and outcomes will lead to the simplest solution. I myself often try to go down the path of least resistance but due to circumstances beyond my control often end up going down the more complicated one.

The path of least resistance is a good friend of insight. and its to bad thats not a class in school. it would probably be lectured by the same professor that taught common sense. they would all be highly subjective classes. keith would fail. kev would argue till he got a grade out of beating the teacher and jen would get an A cause she made the professor cry. Dan would Slop through the proof in unreadable gyberish and then make his final line legible, thus fooling the professor into a grade. Sarah would probably do the homework and be the only one of us to get a well deserved grade.

The Power of Symmetry

Dave told me one time that he solved part of his thermodynamics test with ratios instead of the method presented in the text. The instructor gave him a hard time about not using the correct method. Now I'm all for the 'proper' way, but come on, a right answer without cheating is a right answer. If the problem was trivial enough to be solved with an inferior method then it really wasn't a problem was it?


I think that Ratios is outclassed by symmetry. Just the other day I was reviewing some design changes for someone and it was symmetry that told me the person screwed up. Logic dictates conditional outcomes, If -> Then. thats usually not to hard to follow, where most people stop thinking is in the If -> Then -> Applies to ALL OF THIS mentality that symmetry has to offer.


Given my discussion on Symmetry I think I will give you an example of Symmetry mis applied. you see, one day I got a call from the city that said one of the fences that goes around my house was in violation of some building code. Upon close inspection of the code I determined that indeed it may be. The fence existed before I ever moved in and was not erected by my hand or my $. The big question was WHY NOW, why did the city all of a sudden care? well, someone down the way was applying for a permit to build a fence very similar to mine. when the city did not issue a permit (against code) this person walked around the neighborhood and turned in every one that was in 'violation'. This guy tried to use Symmetry to get the permit. the city was bound to code and thus he never got it. an inspecter never showed up to review my fence. The correct application of symmetry would have been to build a fence in violation like the rest of the neighborhood and never apply for a permit. you see logic dictates that if the city turned a blind eye to everyone else, he should have tried without a permit.


Do you have a good application of Symmetry? if so, post.

kittie puffer

The other night fempto [our black and white cat] was going CRAZY at the window. the blinds were closed and she was jumping up, crawling in the blinds and looking outside. she came out about twice the size she went in, and was BY FAR the puffiest I have ever seen her. I opened the front door and ran out to check out what was up. she is after all our only line of defence against attackers. halfway out the door I briefly rethought my actions since we do have a family of skunks that live under the back porch.. but hey.. if I get shot maybe i can use a few sick days to recover.

nope.. wasn't a skunk. instead one of the other neighborhood kitties. its really pretty, black with lots of white on the front half (maybe it fell in the milk). I'm not sure what it is about this little gem, but fempto sure loves/hates it. is there a way to tell the difference?

MBA

so I've started to rethink my schooling position. I currently have a BSEE and everyone else around here is getting their masters in either computer science or EE. I'm thinking an MBA should be pretty easy given my background. kev. you got any input? is business pretty easy, just plain stupid or what? I'm thinking given an undergrad in engineering, an MBA, my PE, and wh at ever else I pick up along the way maybe I can get my own leather chair at work some day. jen. when I get a nice chair i'll let you come sit in it with me.

speaking of two people, a chair, and after hours activities I think that happened not to long ago. I'm still trying to figure out which chair it was. I hope it wasn't mine.

Jeep Door

Last night was interesting. We successfully hauled a 3x7 foot door that weighs a TON in the soft top wrangler. people looked at us funny at the stop lights, but it will make an AWESOME addition to the construction material for the new shed. I think we can fit the motorcycles through it is starting to make me rethink the need to have to 4foot doors on the one end. we'll see.

Procedures

I'm absolutly SICK of procedures. the other day one of my coworkers got a little upity about me not following the procedure but when pressed he was unable to explain. I then procedeed to find several examples of his incompotence [to his disliking of course]. SO TAKE THE PLANK OUR OF YOUR EYE BEFORE YOU EVEN HINT AT MINE.

i'm still looking for the procedure to find a procedure.

procedures we still need
1) how often is it normal to use the restroom
2) do I call security or not when i see someone leave their lights on in the parking lot? after all, it may be one of those fancy new cars that leaves the lights on for a time even after the person leaves. how do I tell?
3) how often does something have to be performed before it is considered REPETATIVE and in need of the ergonomic teams assistance?

the rest of you can post me your worst procedure related problem, or if you have none (sarah, you got any procedures?) give me one you'd like me to try and release here.. something like how many times to flush the toilet if it just wont go.

gmail no longer hot

Kev sent me a link yesterday to turn your gmail account into a hard drive. yeah.. you've all heard about the linux hack that does this but I think this one may actually work on Win32. check out out HERE.

In my never ending quest to get someone to actually read this I have again posted on geek.com I think I am only 1 of two people that actually read geek.com so its not surprising no one is taking the invites. my post went something like this:

advantage? (12:48pm EST Thu Oct 14 2004)whats the advantage to Wi-Fi VOIP access? does not not use my minutes? will it increase my coverage? I really don't see the point. Liky Scully said the only significants is if I can use it over my own network [not using minutes of course]Somebody PLEASE take my GMAIL invites! - by k2h.blogspot.com

Office Algea

It all started when I first hired on. I got a small bonus, an office cubicle, a hand-me-down computer and my very own welcome pack! It came with things that discussed benefits, a pen, a folder, and A REALLY COOL STEEL MUG.

now I'm not much of a coffee drinker but our break room also contains hot chocolate, tea, and pop [soda if your from the south]. With the plethora of choices my new mug got a work out. It got a workout each and every day and was an excuse to take a break, cross the hall, and refill with some cancer ridden drink that was an excuse to cross the haul. [insert some witty why did the engineer cross the hall joke here]

after several years of leaving my mug on my desk over the weekend not drained it began to grow its own special form of algae. Now a little dish soap [also one of the beverages in the break room] would work wonders on this. But alas. I let it slip one too many times and I wouldn't even trust an hour of boiling water to clean this babby up, so off to the interoffice waste bin it went.

now you wonder.... How am I justified in taking the trip across the haul with no mug to fill? Easy. We also have Styrofoam cups. The smaller the item to fill, the more trips it takes. Filling these small cups is well.. A bit time consuming. I'm spending more of my day crossing the haul than I am working on retarded reports so something had to be done.

we have many optional training classes on site. When you are lucky enough to get enrolled in one of these classes you get breakfast, brunch, lunch, and a snack. During one of these times its simple to retain your bottled water bottle and that is how I got my newest water/beverage carrier.

well.. We are back to the same old problem of algae. After a few months the bottle starts to smell like a well... Less pleasant hole... So it finds it way into the inter office rubbish bin. The other day I was out of bottles, and back to the 'making too many trips across the hall' routine. Lucky for me Pepperl+Fuchs showed up with a seminar to save me. We didn't get breakfast, we didn't get lunch, and we didn't get a snack, but we DID get brunch. I now have two shiny Aquafina16.9 Floz (500ml for you chemists out there) bottles.

and.. Its just a matter of time before they start growing the dreaded algae. I better plan ahead and get signed up for another 'training' [bottle] class.

Google Labs applications

From reutors.com:

Based on Google's share price of around $130, Salary.com senior vice president Bill Coleman estimated that around 60 percent of the 1,900 Google employees with the company at the end of March each now hold stock options worth at least $1 million.

I love mind puzzles.... The Google Labs application is quite fun. now i'm off to figure out how many faces an icosahedron has.