I'm (mostly) done unpacking...

These first three are what you would see when you walk in the front door. Here's my beer mirrors. Anybody else remember the Hamm's beer commercials growing up?



You probably can't see my prints very well, but the one on the dining room wall on the right in the first photo is one of 2 rooster and one hen pheasant taking off in an Amish/Mennonite field (not too many people stack hay like that anymore, so the Amish/Mennonite comment is a generalization).



The other print is above my couch and is of a large buck (10 pointer, really nice heavy tines and very wide) and 3 does that he is wondering about.



This next one is what it looks like walking into my kitchen from my garage. Very small kitchen, that's the living room kind of left and straight through.



Here's the living room - fireplace and my little tv.



From my living room back into my kitchen and dining room (my new dining room table, well, not new but new to me, well, hand me down to me! :) )



And, if you can see it, there is the berm outside my back windows. Just over that berm is the railroad track. Motherf-ing conductor just blew his horn for the last 1/2 mile! Need to put my skin back on.

Anyhow, that's the new place! Those who know me, you're welcome anytime, just try to give me a day's notice. I don't have a second bed, but I do have an air mattress and a couch.

Oh, the bedrooms and bathroom I did not include pictures of because, well, they are a typical bachelor pad. 2nd bedroom - filled with bookcases and books and games. Master bedroom - a bed and a dresser (yes, there is plenty of room in there for the right woman...anyone? Bueller? Bueller? anyone? anyone? :) ). And the bathroom is actually good sized - has the laundry in it too.

I thought this was cool...

This happened last February, no the pictures are not doctored. Even though it's old news, it's the kind of news that interests me. See, we really do engineer bridges for safety!!!

An Engineer's Story Problem



A Backhoe weighing 8 tons is on top of a flatbed trailer and heading east on Interstate 70 near Hays, Kansas. The extended shovel arm is made of hardened refined steel and the approaching overpass is made of commercial-grade concrete, reinforced with 1 ½ inch steel rebar spaced at 6 inch intervals in a criss-cross pattern layered at 1 foot vertical spacing.

Solve: When the shovel arm hits the overpass, how fast do you have to be going to slice the bridge in half? (Assume no effect for headwind and no braking by the driver...)

Extra Credit: Solve for the time and distance required for the entire rig to come to a complete stop after hitting the overpass at the speed calculated above. Yes, you can neglect friction...

Demonstrative Solution: (Doesn't look as though he could get up enough speed to make it all the way...)

1st week on the new job...

was an absolute joy!

Now, many of you will probably think to yourself "hmm, sounds really, really boring", but to me, this stuff is awesome.

I spent my first week almost completely immersed in a project. I did ring wall foundation calculations for an ethanol plant (if you don't know what a ring wall is, think of the ring on your hand, and think of a 10 foot tall wall shaped like said ring buried in the ground to carry a round tank).

Most foundation calculations are really pretty easy, and these are no exception (although I hadn't dealt with hoop stresses in a while and had to do a little refreshing from my basic mechanics book :) ). And, I can see myself being very tired of doing these calculations in a couple few months (they will be nearly identical on every job we do, but they have to be done on nearly every job we do). But they are new to me right now, therefore, fun. And honestly, for me, let me sink into a couple of equations and figure how loads are getting to ground, and I'm gonna be happy. Seriously, folks, I can't think of anything better to do on a work day.

And, the really huge thing, the guys who hired me did exactly what they said they were going to do: "We're buried in work. We need help. You'll start your first project the day you show up." How amazingly refreshing - a boss who's honest (my new boss also said "These will probably get a little tedious after a while, but they have to be done." when he gave me the ring wall foundations to design :) ).

And another hidden plus - you are typically paid a bonus based on the work you do. Well, the part of the company I am working in is the biggest money maker in the company - YAY!!!

I'm so tired from the move, new job excitement, restarting working out, etc. But I'm so excited I can hardly wait for Monday to get here!

Discussions from the early morn'

As some of you know, I've been working overnights for the last 3 weeks. And REALLY long hours (I logged 222.5 hours over the last 3 weeks - that covers 15 actual days of work).

Mental notes about working such hours (both the number and the actual timing) when you aren't used to them:

1. People that are "day" people get really weird come 3 am.
2. People who are "nice" people typically - can get really mean sometimes at 3 am.
3. People can work 15 hours a day for an incredibly short period of time before they become really cranky all the time and take it out on anyone within earshot. (I apologize to anyone I might have blasted in the last 2 weeks)
4. People who are super close to their children should not take jobs that might keep them away from their kids for more than a day or two.
5. I didn't like fast food before - and after the last 3 weeks, if I ever eat at Taco Bell, McDonald's, Arby's or Wendy's again, it will be too soon. They were the only places you could get a quick and hot meal at 2 in the morning.
6. My eyes actually do turn black when I get really tired - I don't really ever remember that happening before - I look like I got in a fight right now.
7. This is a guess, but I bet that my body is typically in deep REM sleep from about 2:30 am to 3:00 am and from 4:00 am to 4:30 am during my normal sleep patterns. I say this because those two half hours, no matter how much sleep I got during the day before, were darn near impossible to stay awake. I'll admit that I napped at least 3 times during the 4 to 4:30 hour during my 3 weeks doing those hours.
8. Cell phones have off buttons, USE THEM!!! We don't need to be connected continuously to the rest of the world...really, none of us are that important. Plus, people who aren't on your sleep schedule tend to call you at 8 am... :)

Is this the beginning of a GREAT trend?

Oh, please, please, please, say that it might be - I have 9 "nieces" and I always worry about what our society's view on weight and good looks might convince them to try to be. Maybe more people and places will jump on this band wagon - we can only hope (and I guess try to educate our family and friends as best we can).

Yes, this is an incredibly small step, but I feel like it's at least in the right direction.

Spanish models rejected for being too thin

My new home

I am in my new home in Appleton.

It's pretty cool. There are always some downsides, but this one has very few.

1. The trains - well, with the windows closed in the apartment, it really isn't that bad. You can hear the whistle pretty loud, but if you are a fairly heavy sleeper like me, you kind of wake up and do the "wha? huh? oh, tra-snore" routine when it goes by. Windows open, totally different story. I damn near jumped out of my skin when one went by today.

2. Dirty - unfortunately, I think this apartment has been vacant for a while (probably 1. above). So it has basically collected dust and grime for the last few months. All of the vinyl floors and countertops need to be re-cleaned, and I don't think the carpet has ever been cleaned (it's filthy - I like to go barefoot, and, well, the bottoms of my feet have been black the last couple of days). I have my parents carpet steamer, so I've been cleaning rooms as they get cleared of stuff.

Outside of those, everything is good. The building is very new (something like 2 years old), so all of the appliances are new and work well. The walls don't have the typical scars in them yet. It has to be the nicest place I've ever lived in outside of my parent's homes.

It feels like it is going to take me a year just to un-pack. Between working all the time this week and being gassed when I'm not working, well, it is very depressing looking at the pile of stuff that is still in boxes. Oh, well, it'll get there - I have the vitals done. I can sleep (bedroom is basically unpacked), I can safely and cleanly do the other of the 3 s's in the morning (bathroom is basically unpacked). And I can eat (outside of non-essential utensils, such as deep fryer, etc - kitchen is unpacked).

When I get done, maybe I'll post some photos for laughs - I'm a stereotypical bachelor when it comes to decorating a home - incredibly spartan, and yet cluttered (no "trinkets and junk/knick knacks and crap", just lots of stuff scattered about).

Moving on up...

Tomorrow, I move. Thanks to an insane effort from my parents, my sister and her boyfriend, I did very little to get ready and they took the ball and ran with it.

I moved my TV today. Yes, you read that right, I moved my TV. That's all I moved. The folks I listed above moved all of the rest of my shit into a trailer that my dad will be towing on his truck tomorrow (his truck is more suited to towing than mine). The TV does weigh approximately 175 pounds and is incredibly top heavy making it a pain to move, but that is such a small portion of my shit...well, I was stunned.

Of course, it will be a little bit like Christmas getting unpacked - HMMM, What's in this box? Oh, look, my DVD's! Yay!

I am a very lucky person to have folks like that in my life that are willing to help me so much. Again, I must say that I am truly blessed with friends and family in this world.

I will only have dial up at work for the next few days, so those of you that email me on occasion, try to avoid the large files and such as I will not be able to open them until Wednesday at the earliest. I believe I get my cable and ISP setup on Wednesday (sometime between 9 and 11...I can't complain, the time frame has lowered some, at least, it used to be 4 hour blocks).