I Tell You What

Night Transit

2011-02-10T15:14:00.003-05:00

I awoke very early this morning. The ship was really rocking and rolling, apparently a staff officer on shore had botched the ship's orders and exposed it to a lengthy surface transit in rough seas. The biggest factor, though, was that my body knew it was time to end this ride. I had packed the night before, so by 04:15 I was in the ward room drinking coffee. By the end of the week, my co-worker and I were spending a solid majority of our office/lounge time in the crew's mess rather than the ward room. The crew's mess was more spacious, but as important was the insularity of the officers. The enlisted men, while crude and unrestrained in the crew's mess, at least accepted our presence without question. But this morning, the coffee in the crew's mess was out, driving me to the haven of the officers.

The Captain entered, also for coffee. We chatted about weather (He was from Buffalo, NY, I from northern Michigan), about Hawaii, about his ship, about the places he's been. He was an aide to President George W. Bush. He told a few stories, at my request, that made the President much more human. Much more importantly, he suggested that I head to the bridge (up in the sail again) once the maneuvering watch was set and secured.

This endorsement gave me, for the only time as a guest on the ship, the courage to enforce my will. The executive officer (XO) had the conn (was in control of the ship) as we approached Oahu. I watched the ranges to the island decrease steadily, sitting in the corner of command and control, out of the way, patiently awaiting the XO's word that I was clear to climb to the bridge. Once we got within a few miles of shore, I recognized that this opportunity would slip away if I didn't act. When I saw a clear path open up in the crowded room between the XO and I, I took a few steps to the XO and asked if "now would be a good tim". He barely restrained an eye roll and said "sure, just check in with the pilot". I'll let his attitude slide, his wife gave birth less than 24 hours before, while he was at sea.

I let the pilot know what was going on, then took on the Grand Ladder (my phrase). The beauty of the use of a photonics mast in lieu of a periscope on the ship is that command and control can be deep inside the ship, instead of up top on the first deck like all past submarine designs. A lot of good things result from that, but the downside is a 30' ladder, on a rolling ship, to reach the top of the sail. Up I go, knees occasionally knocking steps as I clamber up. Even the now slight rolls of the ship are a curse, a slip will send me straight down into the bowels of the ship.

I reach the sail and realize it is still quite dark at about 6:30 in Hawaii. We are over Penguin Bank and about to enter Pearl Harbor itself. The lights of the city are stupefying once you try to train your eyes back to sea or into the dark regions of the ship. In fact, it is only after 5 or 10 minutes that I realize a fifth sailor is right behind me, crouched in a recessed cubby hole of the sail structure. Two officers and a radioman stand atop the flying bridge, while at my side is a second class who communicates to the rest of the ship below. "TM" I ask the man backed into a nook (I knew he was a torpedoman=TM) "what are you doing back there?"

He matter-of-factly replied "I'm the gunner".

"Going to be tough to get a good shot off from in there" I noted.

"Dat's what I said." he replied with a shrug. It is at this point I realize my arrival pushed him out of his usual station into the nook.

We are as secure as a submarine can be on the surface. Two small patrol boats flank us on our transit, and our ship carries a slew of small arms. That, naturally, is aside from the ship's high strength steel exoskeleton, suite of sensors, countermeasures, and whatever is available in the torpedo tubes. Additionally, we are not only entering one of the largest naval installations in the United States, but also one of the larges air fields, Hickham Air Base. Squads of airmen can be heard on shore doing morning PT, calling out the cadence with chants indecipherable from our distance. It sounded like a scene from Blues Brothers.

We were traveling slower than during my previous visit to the bridge. Gone was the throbbing power and roiling spray and brilliant sunshine of our outbound transit. We were gliding smoothly, the wave of water standing on the bow was tame, not even approaching the sail, and made of smooth, foamless water. The moon was very high in the sky directly to port. It was only a night or so to either side of a full moon, and its white light was firm and pure. The reflection of it on the river drew a smooth line right toward us. I said nothing, amid the constant chatter of the maneuvering party I would find no audience, regardless. The end of the lunar reign was soon announced by a lightening of the sky directly to starboard. By the time we entered the channel, the moon's influence had receded to the perimeter of its body, it was besieged by light blue sky. Soon the sun had fully risen and asserted its supremacy.

The Captain brought the ship to a bulge in the channel, then used the secondary motor to turn the ship around. He reached down, slapped my shoulder, and said I should go back down below and get my bag, since the Harrier ( the shuttle boat) would arrive within 10 minutes. We shook hands, and I ambled as quickly as one can amble back down below. It took me a while to get back to my bunk, because I had worked hard with the crew and wanted to thank those I bumped into on the way out. It is easy to bump into people in such tight spaces. While I always respected our submarine crews, I now have developed a new appreciation for their commitment to their ship and missions by sharing a week in their world. Earlier, I threw $20 into the crew's slush fund, and the way they reacted you would have thought it was $2,000.

I hastily turned in my dosimeter (measures how much radiation your body is exposed to) to the Doc and signed a form, grabbed my duffle bag, and headed to the lock out trunk (LOT). The LOT is intended for quickly deploying teams of Navy SEALS, but today it will transfer Navy civilian VIPs onboard for a day cruise and non-Navy civilian non-VIPs to the Harrier. In the blink of an eye we were topside, on the Harrier, and heading back towards solid ground.

Steel Beach

2011-02-07T20:30:00.007-05:00

1/20/11

Whales. I mean, 30'-50' long, black, tail slapping, spout blowing whales. Of all the things on this voyage I didn't expect to see, but experienced nonetheless, this one takes the cake. Somewhere between Maui and Lanai we surfaced and came to a stop. The Captain (actually a Commander in rank, but it is his ship) announced over the communication system that the seas were a little rough, so men could go topside in a few minutes and make cell phone calls, but swimming was not allowed until the ship's divers made an assessment. I never doubted for a moment that the swim call was going to happen, and it did after about 5 minutes. While I did have some shorts, I took one look at the frenzied sailors thrashing in the water, trying to play King of the Submarine and throw each other off the boat, and figured it would be best to play the well-mannered engineer. Hurting or getting hurt by sailors, accidental or not, is not good for relations between the Navy and its contractors. Accordingly, I soaked in some sun and called Wifey. So good to hear her voice and get a positive report of happenings back home!

That's when the whales arrived (it was only well after my return to shore that I determined they were humpback whales). They lazily breached the surface, occasionally spouting off air, to the starboard side of the ship at least 200 yards away. This while I was on the phone, so I got to describe it to my wife as it happened. After I hung up, the whales circled the boat a few times, spiraling nearer. Their curved black bodies slowly arched over the water's surface, with only the sight of the stubby dorsal fin indicating that there would ever be an end to the beast. There was a pair of the brutes, and they easily came within 30 yards as the took turns spouting, now circling to the port side of the ship. The shouting, swimming, and general horseplay of the sailors did not disturb the whales in the slightest, which was remarkable. Many of the crew were trying to photograph or video the event, and the whales seemed to make great sport of surfacing when everybody had just lowered and turned off their camera. After 25-30 minutes, the whales slowly began moving away, lumbering off to the port side of the ship. As a final display, when they had reached a distance of 200-300 yards, the whales began to finish each breach of the surface with a mighty tail slap. I said to myself "I think you're gonna need a bigger boat."

Even if there were no whales, the scene would have been breathtaking. The nearest island (Maui, I reckon) was lush and green with soaring slopes rising nearly straight up from the ocean. The mountains rippled with valleys, and even richer land nestled in these nooks Along a thin strip of flat coast a few small towns clung precariously, unable to build any meaningful distance up the slopes, yet unwilling to surrender to the ocean below. A small island nearby (Kahoolawe or Lanai, not sure) consisted of a single peak, and it was perfectly wreathed by cloud. Only the highest and lowest elevations were in view, the clouds obscured the mighty waist of the hill.

The water was blue. And, sweet sassy molassey, was it ever still. It was obvious to me that the Captain was just messing with the crew, building the suspense for them, making the swim call an even more special event through sweet anticipation. As a 32 year old parent, I also spotted an example of this earlier in the week. The crew had been doing drills for days, preparing for a very major inspection. On Thursday, there were a crushing 5 major drills scheduled (they take about an hour apiece, plus there is a meeting afterward). After completing the fourth drill, the fifth was abruptly cancelled for reasons of great performance and exhaustion on the part of the sailors. I knew darn well the Cap'n never intended to conduct the fifth drill, just like I don't intend to actually implement The Worst Case Scenario with my children. This is one way a man can motivate 120 young men going on four hours of sleep nightly. In the same way, it was determined that a $2.5 billion warship can spare an hour to keep its crew in peak operating condition.

The Blessed Release of Sleep

2011-02-06T20:24:00.000-05:00

1/18/11

For the record, it just took me 4 minutes to figure out how to arrange the freshly filled coffee thermos (with pump action handle!) and the coffee maker without spilling coffee or coffee grains everywhere. That's two minutes for each of my engineering degrees. My effort was complicated by the rocking of the ship, which has been going on all morning because we've been pretty shallow. The incessant rocking has a surprisingly sedative effect. Twice now at mid-morning (different days), I have had to lay down and nap because the steady motion made me so groggy. This was compounded by not sleeping very well the first few nights. The berthing accommodations are great, far exceeding my expectations, so I do not lack for comfort. The crew, though , has been so eager to show me the bad (as well as good) things about their ship that we are looking at installations, discussing upgrades, and commiserating about the Navy logistic and design infrastructure well into the dark watches of the night. Combine that with waking up at 4:30 or 5:30 each morning, and the nap does not seem like a luxury.

Flank Speed Ahead

2011-02-04T20:17:00.000-05:00

1/17/11

These sailors move fast Fast is perhaps the wrong word, efficiently better describes it. Up and down ladders and stairways, rounding corners, through hatches, these men are moving with a purpose. I am, too, as I try to follow them to whatever they want to show me about their ship. But I keep falling behind like I'm trying to chase Forrest Gump or Carl Lewis. It takes a lot of experience to do something by reflex, and that is exactly how the crew moves around the ship. Thousands of repetitions, some doubtless in the dark, have conditioned each man to move around their work areas on muscle memory. And I lurch and stagger in pursuit, collecting bruises, like one of the burglars from Home Alone.

My Darkest Hour

2011-02-03T20:05:00.002-05:00

1/17/11

It is not easy to completely shake the sensation of being completely surrounded by water, lots of water, to the point of little or no sunlight reaching the depths It's not scary, there is no creaking or groaning of the ship's hull. Sometimes, though, the boat rolls slightly, and I remember that could not have been a wave because there is a whole lot of overhead water insulating us from the swells.

The darkness that surrounds the hull permeates areas of the ship, as well. There are so many computer monitors on modern submarines that work station lights are dimmed intentionally. The command and control room is blacked out, yet still glows from over a dozen screens. Nothing competes with the blackness of the crew's berthing area. Exposed to full light for only an hour daily to allow cleaning, these areas are always dark to allow various shifts ("watches") of sailors to sleep comfortably at all times. There is a light in each individual bunk area ("rack"), but once that is off it is darker than the inside of a cow. This is the sort of dark where your eyes capitulate and don't bother to squint, but just relax. Think of being wrapped in a blanket wrapped in a curtain wrapped in steel wrapped in the ocean. Glad I brought an LED flashlight.

Shallow Impressions

2011-02-01T20:17:00.002-05:00

(I only wish this picture was mine, this is from the Wikipedia Commons... but I stood where the sailor in the photo is standing)

1/14/11

After almost 3 days, the sun has come out and the clouds are in rapid retreat. The island of Oahu is passing to the north at my left hand, and the light breeze is being amplified by the steady speed of the warship I am riding. I am untethered, so I remain safely in the sheltered bridge while younger, trained men crouch alertly atop the sail in harnesses. There is only a railing around their perch to define their post as the "flying bridge". The photonics mast, one of the feathers in this ship's cap, stands overwatch several feet above their heads. I ask the young lieutenant with binoculars whether he or the remotely controlled cyclops locates contacts first. "Sometimes I get it first" he says casually, modestly, not hiding that "sometimes" are to be enjoyed with pride. Motivation and enthusiasm have run high so far.

None can match my enthusiasm, though. I have been permitted a rare opportunity; riding in the bridge of a submarine. I am over 20' above the water, and the only things obscuring my view of the horizon are a small radar mast and Oahu's volcanoes. The sea continually surges up the bow, then is sundered by it. The ship is indifferent to the small swells accosting it, but even the thousands of tons of steel I stand on shudder occasionally under the beating. Each wave eventually exhausts itself into a protesting foam scattered into a defeated wedge in the ship's wake. The colors of the water are amazing: blue, green, and white with no mixing somehow. It is stupefying that a machine so complex can only be described in the simplest of terms. Awesome.

The Shuttle Endeavor

2011-01-31T15:19:00.002-05:00

1/14/11

Being appropriately intense and uptight and engineerish, we arrived at the boat launch in Naval Station Pearl Harbor an hour early to catch the shuttle (similar to the vessel above). Of course, late is left in the military, so this is the smart approach. We board the shuttle, followed by sailors and a few dozen boxes of supplies for the ship. Lines are cast off, and we begin chugging towards our rendezvous. We pass ton after ton of floating American Might (see below). Nimble frigates, angular and menacing destroyers, towering cruisers, and sleek submarines line the piers, with very few berths empty. This is no coastal patrol force, these ships carry a strong musk of power projection. At the top of that food chain was an SSGN we puttered by. It's long, humped back gave it a whalish appearance, apt for its payload of over 100 lethal cruise missiles and dozens of even more lethal special operations soldiers.

But we left the whale behind for the dolphin that waited. We rounded a bend and there, patiently, sat the USS Texas. Fast, flexible, and smart-smart-smart as one of the Navy's newest ships. We walked across a portable gang plank that the shuttle boat lowered, along the narrow deck just above the water, and down the nearest hatch. It all went very smoothly, but well-trained men spoke a language I barely understood. That is, I would barely understand if the spoke slowly, and they were not, so it seemed like bedlam to me. Well, if they won't be speaking slowly, this engineer is going to need to ask an awful lot of questions.

Last Flight Out

2011-01-29T08:56:00.005-05:00

1/11/11

To my enduring surprise, our undersea excursion is rescheduled. I figured the initial postponement of our trip indicated a lack of enthusiasm or sincerity on behalf of the Navy. However, I received an e-mail a few days ago that the ship will be ready for us January 14, and the we would be accompanying her for an entire week, double the length of our initial cruise plans. We scheduled our departure from Providence airport (T.F. Green) at 7:00 A.M. January 12. The only thing remaining was to catch a flight.

DAMNATION, I already know better than to use that phrase. Winter weather now assails the U.S. east of the Mississippi River. Let's bullet list this travel catastrophe chronologically to move through the day briskly.

Approaching snowstorm (10-18" forecast) will ensure no January 12 flights from Providence, along with other regional airports. That's tomorrow.
Atlanta airport has been completely shut down by the southern approach of the very same snowstorm from Jan. 9 onward.
Delta Airlines is perfectly happy to sell tickets for flights connecting through Atlanta on Jan. 11, as late as Jan. 10, to those who might naively think the airport is cleaned up by now
Jan. 11 3:55 A.M realization is made that today's 7:10 A.M. flight from Providence to Atlanta is now officially canceled.
4:15 A.M Company travel services find a promising rout Providence/Philly/San Fran/Honolulu. Requires an unplanned overnight stay in San Fran.
4:20 A.M Wait, same snowstorm will reach Philly before we depart for San Fran
4:30 A.M. Discuss this with travel companion. He gives me carte blanche to do what we need to so that this trip will happen. Remember, he still wants to parlay this work trip into an extended vacation in Hawaii with his wife.
If we don't leave today, we won't catch the boat, and the sea trial may never happen.
4:35 A.M. Wifey has brought me a mug of coffee. I'm surging like the Hulkster from a choke hold.
4:35 A.M. Calling travel hotline again, on hold for 20 minutes
4:55 A.M. Shucking and jiving on the phone, almost there...
5:30 A.M. KABOOM! Totally revamped travel plan: fly Boston/San Fran/Honolulu, return Honolulu/Chicago/Boston, same travel dates, no extra overnight layovers
5:31 A.M. I think I just racked up $5,000 in air fees for the two of us.
5:35 A.M Call my comrade, tell him the new plan, and that I'll pick him up in 1/2 hour to account for Boston traffic. He is uncertain, but yields to my onslaught. He gave me the ball, it's time to step aside and watch me go.
6:10 A.M. Comrade picked up. On the road again, going to places that I've never been...
8:00 A.M. Boston traffic crawling
8:15 A.M. ditto
8:30 A.M. ditto
8:45 A.M. ditto
9:00 A.M. Arrival at the airport! Shuttle but is idling in long-term parking and we quickly board and head to the terminal. Check-in and security go very smoothly
10:50 A.M. Airborne! Baby 2 rows back is persistently crying, but I am a veteran parent, and if this is the worst I face before final touchdown, I am golden.
11:00 A.M. Young woman sitting next to me asks the mother of the crying infant if the baby is hungry. I'm sure she didn't think of that. I may be breaking up a fight later.

You must understand that I am no world traveler. I would far prefer to march slow and steady across vast wilderness than navigate the modern travel landscape. The number of airports, airlines, gridlocked traffic, ineffective and time-consuming security processes, all are plagues to me. Additionally, the electronic nature of the system means you simply hand your decisions off to the Internet and pray everything is in order at crunch time. Throw in company travel personnel with poor English speaking skills, and it's a stressful experience for me.

Sub Interruptus

2011-01-28T17:23:00.000-05:00

11/28/10

In a single week, I and another engineer (much more senior than I) prepared for this trip. As soon as dates and places were given, we conducted a flurry of meetings. Our purpose was to observe the day-to-day activities of sailors (customers, really), get information on various aspects of ship performance for our engineers to use, and solicit general input from the crew to get their direct feedback on our designs. That last bit may not be pretty, but I'm ready. In between meetings, we completed the training I've already described. Free of charge, we got to have a physical exam. For some reason, medical professionals never believe it when you tell them you are as healthy as a horse. Not as chiseled as I once was, I still sailed through with no problems. Maybe no longer a horse, but perhaps a Shetland pony. The only thing remaining was to catch a flight.

That's when we got Navy'ed. Problems on the boat. No extra riders will be brought on board until the new year. Cancelled with less than 24 hours notice, barely enough time to void my flight and hotel reservations. "So it goes" is likely what Kurt Vonnegut would say about this, if he could focus on anything other than escape training and its absurdity. Of course, he was a veteran, so the concept of getting Navy'ed would be all too familiar. Despite all this, here I count my blessings. My traveling comrade had already bought tickets to fly his wife out to join him after our work was complete. It made sense, because he had no young children and our destination was Hawaii.

In Case Of Emergency

2011-01-27T17:57:00.000-05:00

11/20/10

Ignorance is bliss. To minimize bliss, the military and its contractors want to highlight the risks of operating, repairing, boarding, looking at, or thinking about nuclear submarines. First, of course, is the cancer. I only need limited radiation worker training so that I can go into the engine room while the boat is underway. All I really need to do is be wary of posted signs, NEVER touch ANYTHING, and rely on the real professionals to keep me safe. But first... a few hours of hurriedly cramming with an exam to follow the next day. . Not one of those lightweight multiple choice quizzes where "None/all of the above" is the default choice. No, this was an 8 page monster with essay, fill in the blink, and scenario questions. Want to know a secret? I passed, and all I really know is to look out for yellow and magenta signs. Want to know another secret? I dominate exams, so no problem.

Next up was Emergency Air Breathing (EAB) training. Combine the masks fire fighters wear with a manifold supply system like the emergency breathing systems on commercial aircraft, and you're pretty close. Nifty concept, and truly handy in a pinch. Much less than nifty trivia: the genesis of this training was our company president becoming aware of a recent fatal accident on the Russian nuclear attack submarine Nerpa. Around 20 men died when the firefighting system malfunctioned and utilized Halon (or a similar suppressant) to turn a perfectly good berthing area in the torpedo room into a crypt. Most of the dead were (here it comes) contractors. Right, the shipbuilder/design guys. This information was tactfully and tactically withheld from Wifey until... she reads this. Yeah, I paid close attention to the EAB training.

That left only escape suit training. This was really too much. So, the boat is floundering or stuck on the bottom. Correct, the bottom of the ocean. There is an escape chamber on the boat which, when filled with seawater and equalized to ambient pressure, allows the stout crew to exit a hatch by two's in a sick reverse mimicry of Noah's ark. Wait, you can't go into that chamber without your escape suit on, you'll freeze, drown, and be crushed by sea pressure. All at the same time! To don your escape suit, follow several dozen steps that I don't remember. If you look like one of the contamination response guys from Monsters Inc., you've done well. Enter the chamber. Pray your escape partner is a master chief or commander and knows what they are doing. Plug your air hose into the breathing manifold. DON'T LET GO, or the air pressure will break the connection. Grab the handhold and wait for the tank to flood. DON'T LET GO, your suit is buoyant and you will float to the top of the chamber, breaking your air connection if you are careless. Is the water making you cold? Don't worry, you're probably still seating! When pressure is equalized, the hatch opens. FOR GOD'S SAKE, LET GO! You rocket to the surface (watch your head on the way out), and are now ready to begin Phase II. Another dozen steps will inflate your internal life jacket, deploy a small raft, and put you in it, ready for rescue.

Did I mention that I'm not even qualified to wear a lifeline harness in my own shipyard?

Yes Man

2011-01-26T17:34:00.004-05:00

11/1/10

A simple question was the origin of a 5,000 mile trip. "Would you like to go on a sea trial?" Sea trials mean spending time on operational submarines, under the water, instead of crawling around the hulls in dry-dock like gulls on a beached whale. Or the placidly tethered beasts held captive to the pier by a few ropes, like a circus elephant. This time on a free-range boat, a ship of war manned by technicians that are at the top their field.

"When", I asked

"Don't know" was my boss's reply.

The queries "where", "which boat", and "to do what" received the same response. That is an awful lot of uncertainty when a young family is involved. I conferred with the top expert on my young family, Wifey. I expressed a lot of reservations. She said it was a rare opportunity, which it was. I didn't say I really wanted to go, but she knew. It would mean more effort for her to lose my help at home, but she would never admit that. Too sweet, too selfless. How could I say no? In almost 10 years as an engineer, I've been like an architect who always lived in a tent, or a saddle maker who's never been on a horse. I returned to work the following day, I said "yes".

Journal Almost Rhymes With Urinal, Infernal, and Diurnal

2011-01-25T18:29:00.002-05:00

I have just returned from a work trip that took me to the middle of the Pacific Ocean, in and around Hawaii. Taking a tactic from my friend Abby, I kept a sort-of daily journal of key events during my 5,000 mile commutes (each way) and the week on a nuclear submarine that punctuated the travel. I'll be posting entries as I retype them.

Spinal Staircase

2010-12-30T21:59:00.000-05:00

Parenthood is an aching back from shoveling snow for hours coupled with a sincere and gentle request from over 80 pounds of daughters to be carried up the stairs to be put to bed. Something's gotta give, and it's gotta be the back.

Reinforcements Have Arrived

2010-12-18T13:48:00.004-05:00

I was recently supplanted as the most experienced member of my engineering group. Not by just a little bit, either, we got a new worker who has been with the company twice as long as me. The department lost work on one project, so we gained him on another. The fellow knows a great deal more about specific systems than I do, and at least as much about things in general. In other words, I'm no longer the sole go-to guy for the project we are working on. I normally flourish as the one source of information, and even leading the group. As I thought this through, it seemed like the addition of this guy should, on some level, be a struggle for me. Nobody, least of all me, likes to be demoted in any sense. The reality is that this whole affair couldn't have turned out better. I have somebody to help do homework, to answer questions with confidence that I would have had to issue an I.O.U. on, and to bounce ideas off of. I am responsible for less, I am not front and center taking all the stressful questions, and with all that I end up looking better. Now this is a great turn of events, the additional help is probably helping me get home just a little bit soon. I'm just glad I didn't let my pride get in the way.

Walking Small

2010-12-05T14:17:00.005-05:00

There was a movie release a few years ago named Walking Tall. It stars Dwayne Johnson. I never saw it, but I have heard that the premise is a man returns to his home town and it has been overrun by criminals. He somehow becomes sheriff and begins to dispense justice via a 4" x 4" cut of lumber. The picture above is the poster for the movie. The recent release is a remake of an older movie, same premise, very similar picture shown below:

Fast forward to last month. Samnation toddled down the stairs from my bedroom, carrying around a loose piece of trim he found. The only thing that I could think of was little Sam running around the house dispensing justice for leaving toys out or moving his sippy cup. I fear there is a new sheriff in town, and I've got pictures to prove it. Fortunately, no busted skulls in the household just yet.

Astuteaphilia

2010-11-17T15:29:00.001-05:00

I love the British Navy. The Royal Navy has a little bit of everything the American Navy has, but on a very scaled-down magnitude. It does not seem likely that this will continue for long, as the proud Royal Navy will be cutting back drastically to save money, alongside the rest of the armed services of Great Britain. Despite that, the Royal Navy has, in my lifetime, become the only Navy to sink a surface ship with a nuclear submarine. They have also been the only post-WWII navy to conduct an amphibious invasion completely unsupported by other land forces.

They also have far superior ship names when compared to our navy. A shining example of this is the Astute class of nuclear attack submarines, pictured above. The names are Astute, Artful, Ambush, Audacious, Agamemnon, Ajax (again with the Greek, but they were mighty kings, at least), and Anson (not intimidating, but the man the boat is named for circumnavigated the globe by sail power, so I think it's fine). We in America are now naming ships after battles, which is mildly OK, and states, which is lame, and every single president, which is really lame. Our lone bright spot is the littoral combat ship, and even that is going sour with the Fort Worth and Coronado.
I found the picture above on Google Images, and is very revealing. The Brits apparently eschew the domes that the United States puts on the bow of its submarines. There are also six torpedo tubes, which is a bunch, and some attempt seems to be made to balance the system pressure, based on the overall layout. The extensive use of superstructure is surely expensive, heavy, and costly to maintain, but it is a great environment for putting large mechanisms such as the bow planes seen in the top pictures. A fine looking ship, but unfortunately for the Brits, submarines are not so great as scotch when on the rocks.

Gum Flappin'

2010-09-30T18:37:00.004-04:00

The one who guards his mouth preserves his life; The one who opens wide his lips comes to ruin. -Proverbs 13:3

So, what are you to do when your job is to keep a room of 40 people talking until problems are solved? It's all well and good for each of them to remain quietly in their chairs until they feel ready to speak, but when you are the team leader it's your job to uncover every nugget of knowledge in the room in order to build a consensus pointing in the best direction. So, half of your questions make you look like an idiot, and the other 40 attendees have a chance to show how smart they are. Properly handled, even the most taciturn of the group contribute their knowledge, which is often substantial. If the guy at the head of the table says nothing, the biggest natural talkers just take over and whatever they want is the outcome (at least in the short term). Of course, being a natural talker is what got me here in the first place. So, I look like a fool crawling through the conversation, we hopefully get to the right answers, the project rolls on, and I get paid every two weeks. It works for now.

Presque Isle River

2010-09-20T20:01:00.003-04:00

The picture above is one of several waterfalls on a stretch of the Presque Isle River in the Porcupine Mountains of Michigan's Upper Peninsula. The circular cutouts in the bedrock are not just from water flowing downstream. Each one has been carved by an eddy of water that appears to the eye to be completely unaffected by the mainstream of the river. Inside the cutout, water just circles inexorably and slowly bores away the stone. These steady, hydraulic drills have bored as deep as 75 feet in an otherwise relatively shallow river, I am told. Walking by rivers like this in the Upper Peninsula, you can stumble upon green rocks, which are laden with copper. Some of them are perfect cylinders, core samples taken by geologists, or mining engineers, or whoever has a drill 1" diameter, 6" deep bit like that.

When I visited the waterfalls with some college classmates in 2000, I mentioned a line my father told me in my own childhood. I had asked him if it would be fun to jump in the water and ride down the waterfalls, and he replied "those rocks would skin a man like a deer". I suddenly recalled, in this young adult excursion perhaps 15 years later, that very thing had almost happened to me at that exact spot. My father and I wandered along the rocky banks of the river, high above its tumult. I don't know what happened, but misty spray on rock is not a safe combination with a child's boots. I slipped, and then I was looking straight up at the edge of the bank, holding on with my hands. My father darted the step or two it took to reach me, then quickly hauled me up. I hadn't though much of it, but I could tell it was a big deal because my father really looked shaken up. That reaction didn't happen again until the day he had to draw his firearm with the intent of shooting a fugitive, so the situation must have been pretty hairy, if one were mature enough to grasp it.. And that whole episode had been shelved in my mind, completely forgotten, until I revisited that exact spot many years later.

Clear As Mud

2010-09-20T19:38:00.004-04:00

Writing is thinking, to write well is to think clearly, that is why it is so difficult

-David McCullough, author

So true, and something that I have had to learn so slowly within the engineering field. I used to think other people were dense when they didn't understand my arguments, until the sun shone through the clouds and I realized that I was doing an AWFUL job of explaining my perfectly reasonable points. So, if my blog does not make sense, read it again. If it still makes no sense, I was not thinking clearly. The quote above comes from a free podcast available on iTunes, APM: Garrison Keillor's Writers' Almanac. Not my favorite, but there are a few gems and each segment runs only 5 minutes. I also listen to APM: A Prairie Home Companion/The News For Lake Wobegon, which is more consistently excellent. There's a lot of great free media out there, if you just poke around a bit.

The Holy Spirit Indwells the Big 10

2010-09-19T08:03:00.005-04:00

From an article on AOL:

In South Bend, Ind., plans should be underway to replace the mural of Jesus on the south wall of the Hesburgh Library with one of Job.

Right on. This was after the delightful overtime win over Notre Dame by Michigan State on a fake field goal. We all know Jesus does NOT cheer for independent NCAA programs. Or the SEC, for that matter.

March to the Sound of Nones

2010-09-13T20:24:00.004-04:00

I got home today and immediately had a sense something was wrong. The sort of sense that something is out of place, or that something imminent was loitering in the air, or, that's it, something is missing. I stood for a moment, and I could hear myself breathing. That was it, I could hear myself breathing. The house was still, somehow even more still than when I awaken at 5:30'ish in the dark hours of the morning. Maybe it was the contrast of coming back home from a hectic day at work as opposed to coming downstairs right after waking up, but it was the most still sensation I have had in a long, long time. Five seconds after closing the door, I knew with complete confidence that Wifey and the children were out of the house running errands, which was perfectly fine. If they were not coming back, that would not be fine.

Having adjusted (more or less) to the daily pace of a young family and the centrifugal struggle of having three children and their energy flowing through our home, this one moment was positively shocking. And, cosmetically, I would expect to treasure any moment of peace. Surprisingly, I missed the energy, I missed the focus, I missed the purpose of having every second balanced on a knife's edge of joy and exhaustion.

The thought of living without children, maybe even combined with retirement down the road, seems like a husk or cruel facade of a life. This is enjoyable, so long as my youthful strength and vigor hold up.

Root Is Loot

2010-08-16T20:16:00.004-04:00

1 Timothy Chapter 6:6-11: But godliness actually is a means of great gain when accompanied by contentment. For we have brought nothing into the world, so we cannot take anything out of it either. If we have food and covering, with these we shall be content. But those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a snare and many foolish and harmful desires which plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil, and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. But flee from these things, you man of God, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, perseverance and gentleness.

One thing of great interest to me here is the distinction between the root of all sorts of evil from the American/New American Standard translations of the bible and the root of all evil from the King James translation. I have long thought that people have a great capacity for evil in their hearts, one that ranges from mundane to truly monstrous. Mere money, even to include the thought of how to jealously horde the money one already has at the expense of others in addition to the typical greed of getting more, just doesn't cover all this. Crimes of passion, hatred of those who are different, lashing out at others due to self-loathing, plain old sadism... these things all exist, and certainly don't require money as an inspiration or 'root'. If one were able to read Greek (I cannot) or truly devote time to studying the differences in translation (I have not), I would be curious to know further why the translations differ. By my reckoning, the correct one is obvious.

Push The Tempo

2010-08-16T20:08:00.003-04:00

Recently rediscovered an oldie (2001) but goodie in the archives. Always loved it, found that whatever I was doing when the track started was being done a breakneck speed by the time the track ended. And then, I found this by accident. Rednecks, a banana republic, a black market economy, broken eggs/pottery, a marketplace riot, and a little bit of a story. It's got it all.

A la commode

2010-08-09T21:15:00.003-04:00

Sirs,

I know that everybody's job in any sort of large team is of some import. And I also know that everybody feels a natural bias that there own job is really more important, and, if asked after a few cocktails, would admit that they believe their job is also more difficult than the jobs of others on the same team. That being said... if I have to sit again for two hours while people argue about where to locate bunks, toilets, and freezers while I sit patiently waiting to discuss details of weapon launchers, it's not going to be pretty. The hurt locker has a busy agenda, and does not like to be left waiting.

Framework

2010-07-19T15:58:00.000-04:00

While spending some quality time in Michigan I had time to take in the following:

Miles and miles of roads ranging from interstate to unpaved, toll road and public alike
The Great Lakes and their natural waterways as well as freighters churning up man-made channels; I guess the channels were there before but they were dredged and widened so man-improved is more appropriate
Railways for freight and commuters alike
Airports
Oil pipelines

Some of this was during the 1000 miles each way on the trip, but a surprising amount of this could be seen within perhaps 10 miles of the small farm we stayed at. This brought something to mind that is of great significance to me:

For all that we debate as to the role of government and how it should focus its limited resources, we are foolish to ever ignore our fundamental physical infrastructure.

This means that while we as a society debate foreign aid, defense, health care, and social policy, we still rely on immense public works to support our livelihoods. It is our nation's throbbing vascular network for people and services to travel that allows America to be awesome. It is seductively simple to hop in the car, run a few errands, and go home without thinking twice about the road we and our purchases traveled, literally and figuratively. So many products go from raw form in the United States or elsewhere on this infrastructure to places where they are processed in one or more ways, then redistributed to warehouses or wholesalers who in turn pass the products down to retailers. Which is where we drive to pick things up. Roads, rail, runways, ports, rivers, pipelines... all these critical elements have been built up to support our insatiable desire to consume, most within the last 50 years or so. Even those means of transit that have been around for over a century, like some highways or railroads, have been rebuilt much more recently.

If we didn't have reliable roads to drive from Chicago to San Antonio, or open sea lanes from Duluth to San Francisco, or (reasonably) reliable cargo and passenger flights from Orlando to Denver, much of what we take for granted in our daily lives would vanish or become unaffordable to all but the most obscenely rich. While our leaders wave flags and posture over things are primarily ideologically driven, let's hope they recognize this, as well.

The View From The Top

2010-07-09T21:39:00.006-04:00

I have flown to Virginia a few times lately for work. Some great scenery, some disappointing cloudy days, lots of good time for thoughts, not enough time to collect them. One thing that is interesting to note is how much of our landscape is occupied by fields for athletics. All manner can be found, but primarily football, soccer, and baseball. One thing is clear, though: baseball is king.

Prior to making these flights, I would have hypothesized our nation's societal passion from a community investment standpoint would be soccer for our youth, with football holding reign for adult entertainment. Soccer draws in bazillions of youth whose parents want them to play a sport that requires virtually no training to get started, hardly anybody gets their self-esteem ruffled; while fields require grass, a few pipes, and not much seating because nobody watches the games. Football probably draws the biggest revenues and biggest crowds for its less frequent games, but not everybody can play, and few can play for long or beyond a certain age. Basketball is ubiquitous, as every city park, suburban driveway, and barn have a hoop hanging. But for number of sanctioned playing fields, where communities show where their hearts lie by slapping down funds, nothing comes close to baseball fields. Of course, from thousands of feet one cannot differentiate between baseball and softball fields, but since they are just gender-specific cousins of the same sport, I'm grouping them together. It is clear, as one surveys our countryside that for all our talk of other endeavors, from team-based battle simulators like football and basketball to the more recent, individual-is-king interlopers such as skate parks, that the position of baseball as our nation's pastime remains concrete.

Let's hope that some of baseball's virtues that develop patience, decisive-almost-reflexive response, and a respect for the archaic (oh, those rules are more perplexing than the English language!) can continue to develop our youth. It is a blessing in a society where our activities are timed to the nearest minute a game thrives that only acknowledges the number of 'outs', not the clock.

Fresh Produce

2010-07-05T15:11:00.001-04:00

Our clan recently spent some time in northern Michigan, relaxing, spending time with extended family, and doing outdoors summer-type things. Saw a lot of farms; hay, corn, and fruit of all fashions. Spent a lot time watching tractors, patrolling acreage like sentinels, really more like drones, with their circuitous patterns, sometimes giving to the soil, sometimes taking away from it, always plodding and always wringing a crop from the land. This farming toil was not the slightest bit glamorous, is not likely to make one wealthy, and requires knowledge of the craft to be successful. And it is a classic example of the dwindling portion of our population that actually produce things.

So few of us now directly manufacture or otherwise produce things that people use. By "use", I'm excluding things such as food handed out at a drive-through, because that's just repackaging of food other people made; and things like newspapers, because that is the circulation of an idea that could come across through primitive means like face-to-face conversation. There is still a contingent of men & women in the United States with leathery skin, gnarled hands, stooped backs, bad knees, and all manner of scars and illnesses from the time they spent or are spending making things. I think this is an easy thing for many of us to forget if our days consist of writing traffic tickets, administering vaccinations, pumping gas, flipping burgers, tracking corporate accounts, writing legal documents, setting up computer networks... or any of the other trades the service-based economy we live in requires to keep growing, or even surviving. All of these service-based jobs function to improve the efficiency of fundamental production trades, like the corporate accountant who tracks expenditure on a factory floor or the computer ace who facilitates online ordering. But our lives, generally speaking, are growing more remote from the mining, farming, and building of things. There is a chicken and egg riddle about this and the outsourcing of so much of our nation's manufacturing capacity to other nations. Have we become the way we are as a society because we outsourced, or was outsourcing possible because we had already turned in the direction of not making things?

Consider the things we attend college for, or what the college students we know may be studying at this moment. How many college study disciplines can even remotely be considered to be involved in the production of things? I say this knowing that, as a mechanical engineer, I am surely near the top of that list, but I am still only tangentially a part of the manufacturing and installation of parts for ships. I make decisions about what is acceptable and what is not on the shop floor on on the boat, but I certainly cannot say I am making things.

If you get the chance, make something. Grow a garden. Make a bookshelf. Build a go-cart. Whatever it is, you have my applause.

Let Freedom Ring

2010-07-03T14:17:00.002-04:00

Please spend a minute of your life to watch THIS. It is truly epic, and made me laugh out loud the first time I saw it. I think there are a couple of spin-offs that need to be made from this:

King Theoden at the Battle of Pelennor Fields

King Leonidas at Thermopylae

William Wallace (Braveheart) just about any time he unsheathed his sword

I'm sure there are some other good ones. Any suggestions?

Can't Touch This

2010-06-25T21:37:00.000-04:00

I recently broke my little baby 3 lb. sledgehammer while splitting wood. This was unfortunate, but the hammer was over 6 years old, so not entirely unexpected. I did a little shopping, and look... at what... I... found:

When you've got something as awesome as a mid-size, fiberglass handle sledge, you've got to name it something awesome...

...by combining two of the greatest words in the english language into what is now the greatest single phrase in the english language.

That's right, there is an "official" Engineer Hammer. I love this thing. This is just another reason that engineering is awesome. There are no banker hammers or teacher hammers or or landscaper hammers. While we're at it, let's be honest that things like farmer's tan, baker's dozen, or tennis elbow are nothing to get excited about. As far as I can tell, the only thing that comes even close is a fireman's axe.

Any other specific tools or other implements named after occupations?

Lumberjack of All Trades

2010-06-20T20:40:00.000-04:00

Part of clearing the new I Tell You What estate has involved two projects that I highly recommend to any red-blooded 'merican male. We are talking serious exercise of dominion. One is to cut down a mighty tree, definitely big enough to wreak havoc (see below). The other is to harken back to days of wooden axe handles and iron... axe heads, I guess. Yes, chopping down somewhat smaller trees with axes. It is a good kind of feeling to hack away at the base until you know one final swing is about to fell the tree. I have stolen a sports phrase to describe this: the walk-off swing. Just like a baseball player knows when his swing has driven in the winning run late in a game, you know that one more swing of the axe will topple the tree, bringing a satisfying groan as the tree leans, then a thump as it lands on the ground. Great times, and my hands are getting to where they've stopped complaining about blisters and just deal with it. Of course, even on axe days I am using a chainsaw for clean-up because, well, I do have other things to do and I AM a big fan of 2-cycle mo-chines.

The first tree we dropped was really just a warm-up, nothing nearby to damage

And there she goes

And now for the more precarious poplar; note the nearby garden fence

Yours truly sawing away; note the lean as things get exciting

The apple tree calls for a fair catch, but is going to take a hit either way

So... if neither end of the tree is on the ground, have we truly cut it down? Note the steep angle on the back-cut. My bad.

The intrepid crew of engineering lumberjacks who risked life & limb to help out, I Tell You What. The orange hardhat (yup, from Home Depot) is just an example of how dorks have fun. Hard workers with solid backs and shoulders all.

Lessons learned: keep your axe and chainsaw sharp, Sharp, SHARP. Keep your backcuts with the chainsaw flat, even if your experienced friends advise otherwise. Keep family members clear of the area (let's just say the apple tree was not our target)

Shady 3/2 Acres

2010-06-10T20:38:00.002-04:00

It was a nice day to read books in the shade.

Packaged By Quantity, Not Volume

2010-06-02T15:56:00.000-04:00

Last summer we moved into our new house. The first project I took on was cleaning and sealing the deck on the east side of the house. For that work I needed (not needed, strictly speaking, but found useful) a power washer. It's a pretty low pressure, cheaply made electric unit, which meets my needs. Until, that is, this Spring, when I pulled the trigger halfway through cleaning windows and the outlet hose blew clean off the front of the washer. The outlet T fitting, looking like it was made of cast iron, had blown completely in two pieces right across one of the threaded sections. A quick call to the Lowe's Task Force power washer hotline arranged for a replacement part to be shipped to me (being within the warranty period) free of charge. Excellent. Six weeks later, a second phone call to follow up and ask why I had not received the part resulted in the realization on the vendor's part that the replacement fitting had never been shipped. Four days after that...

...the box in the picture above had arrived. That box contained a replacement fitting, shown at the top of the box, and a bunch of crumpled brown paper. The picture also includes a can of Campbell's soup, which I included to provide scale. That's right, the vendor shipped the part in a box that could have held several hundred of those fittings. What could they possibly have been thinking at whatever warehouse they shipped that thing from? Consumer Reports often publishes pictures of gross waste in packaging, maybe I'll send this one in as a candidate.

Stay Classy, Shipyard

2010-05-29T15:45:00.004-04:00

The other night, I pitched for a team some of my co-workers have put together in my employer's most competitive softball division. My co-workers are seriously talented, my hitting power is declining sharply with age and my legs are slowing. My contributions are definitely only part-time this year, there is a lot else going on right now that's more important than softball. That's not the point, though. The game went fine enough, we were generally outclassed by a team that, from top to bottom on the roster, featured guys bigger than me, which is a first. That's not the point either.

They were sponsored by a strip club. This group of lunks decided to do there part in the further disintegration of Western Civilization, and probably get their league fees paid for them in the process. Even in this day and age, this was a bit of a surprise. This particular crew was exclusively guys from the shipyard, and I am well aware that is a rough place. Nonetheless, didn't they feel any sort of moral conflict with wearing uniforms featuring a strip club's logo? After all, some of the guys have children, what is the message they want to send them?

While surprising, that a group of meat-heads might make this decision does not rock my concept of reality. What does rock my concept of reality, though, is that a major corporation, part of the military-industrial-congressional complex, functioning in an excruciatingly politically correct society, would allow a team in one of its athletic leagues to do this. I know less each day.

Serial Tiller

2010-05-18T20:32:00.008-04:00

What a great weekend! After working a few small jobs in the wonderful Spring weather I to have some man-time, sweating in a shirtless toil as my skin slowly browns. Well, in the name of full disclosure it must be noted I'm redding, then browning. Full disclosure-plus mandates I note that laying down on a bench and lifting when reddened/browned is very uncomfortable, to boot.

But I digress... I found myself clinging desperately to a 100 pound, iron oxide coated monster augering its way through my garden. A kind friend loaned me a rototiller, all the better to engage in dominion over the wilderness that is (has been, really) my modest garden. The beast is about the same age I am, was clearly built before aluminum or stainless steel were commercially available, and was quite a handful to control. Knowing that, it was all the more remarkable that the machine, which I dubbed Tirpitz, started on the second pull and ran without fault for the whole morning. And that thing could chew up some dirt, I tell you what! The rototilling was preceded by extensive slashing, clipping, sawing, and digging to clear the lot, then burning all the debris along with extra piles of branches from the pear and apple trees (shown above with Sarah Joy).

This is all good news. Wifey has seedlings coming up (including about 1/2 dozen chestnut trees), the blueberry bushes are no longer choked out, and all the derelict trees that threaten structures or safety are down. And we have a tire swing up for Sweetness and Sarah Joy! Our property is slowly, painstakingly, taking shape. There will be work to do as long as we live in this blessed house, but it's starting to look less like a wildlife preserve and more like Eden. Or, at least our little slice of it.

Some-acious

2010-05-10T19:37:00.003-04:00

We've all known somebody who is tenacious. Strong-willed, confident, well versed in their beliefs and ready for action. Willing to go the distance. Well, some are not like that. Some are, well, a little less persuasive and a little more persuadable. A little less dogged, and a little more lap-dog. I have coined a word for these types, the easily discouraged. What is less than tenacious?

Nineacious

Get it? Because nine is less than ten! Anybody at work who isn't willing to see a job through is tagged as nineacious. Of course, there is an antonym for the nineacious of the world.

Elevenacious

If you are elevenacious, you are, naturally, more than tenacious. You overflow with tenacity. You are a wolverine.

While we are talking about new words, I have come up with still another new word. It's really just a new term for a phrase I once heard elsewhere. Decorum prohibits me from getting too graphic, but it should suffice to explain that it describes talking too much about things one does not understand.

Moutharrhea

Aftermarket

2010-04-29T19:00:00.002-04:00

When you have a helicopter, which is awesome, you still may wish to make it still more awesome. But, perhaps you had in mind the ability to fire air to air missiles and a serious radar, which the helicopter manufacturer assures you is not in the cards for the Chinook helicopter. Well, you say, if I cannot bolt missiles and radar to my massive helicopter, I shall strap on to something that can do it for me.

Ours Is Not To Question Why...

2010-04-02T22:12:00.001-04:00

The other night Wifey nonchalantly passed me a grenade and inadvertently pulled the pin. There was no indication, no sound, heat, or vibration to indicate a fuse had been energized. One moment, all was peaceful and happy in our household. Then, the grenade blasted and spewed it's violence. I was immediately immobilized, unable to do anything other than clutch the bomb while it belched its hot fury all around. As I took the full brunt of the explosion, I could only wonder what went wrong, and my last coherent thought was what would happen to my loving children, beautiful wife, even the home and furnishing surrounding me. Then, the cleanup began. As for me and my outfit, both were a complete loss. That's right, substitute "baby" for "grenade", and that definitely happened a few nights ago.

It's a Goodyear

2010-03-31T10:06:00.001-04:00

I saw two immature squirrels the other day, both dead while apparently playing chase. Their bodies were only a few feet apart. I'm sure there are about a thousand witty or funny or deep or insightful things you could say about their plight and the nature of life. Mine was "one was too fast, one was too slow". Any other good ones?

Multilateral Arms Race

2010-03-29T22:02:00.002-04:00

I may have overstepped my strength this time. Being accustomed to being one of the strongest of the geeks in my engineering group for some years, I challenged some of my younger colleagues to a quest of sorts. We are in a competition to see who can be the first one to bench press 135 pounds (easy) 40 repetitions at one go (much tougher). It's great motivation for all of us to work hard to stay/get in shape. I started with a decent lead, based mostly on gristle and Old Man Strength. However, the race has really tightened up, with my two competitors hitting the gym daily at the obscene time of 5:30 A.M. It's tough for me to match that schedule. Now my lead is slim, 35 reps to 32 and 29 for my opposition. I love doing these sorts of meaningless, yet committed guy things. I do not love losing.

Lun-acy

2010-03-12T19:39:00.010-05:00

The picture above is not the scheme of some half-educated warfreak engineer (ahem). Well, it's not just that. It's a real machine! The Lun is a Russian.. umm, I guess the phrase is "ground effect vehicle", which uses wings to create a cushion of air that lifts it above the water, drastically reducing drag. The end result, in the case of the Lun, is a 300 ton vehicle that can travel at almost 350 miles an hour! Beter than just dreaming up such a monstrosity, the Soviet Union (not Russian, stricly speaking) built one of these vehicles. Proof is found below:

Notice the 6 Sunburn anti-ship missiles (Moskit variant)carried atop the fuselage. I totally dig the blast deflectors and the cabin directly beneath the muzzle of the two forward canisters. I'll bet the most junior crew members ride in there! To quote Skipper the Penguin from Madagascar: "We'll need special tactical equipment. We're gonna face extreme peril. Private probably won't survive. "

I cannot believe the entire vehicle was airborne, as evidenced in this picture of a launch. I can only wonder how it would handle heavy surf. Both the above pictures reveal search radars, and possible communication equipment, in the tail. Judging by the sensors, gross speed and heavy armament (almost 10,000 pounds of weight per missile!), this thing must have been intended to independently seek and destroy heavily defended targets. Against most anti-ship cruise missiles, the Lun's high speed would have made interception very difficult, and higher velocity anti-aircraft missiles may have struggle at making such low-altitude attacks. Plus, the small warheads on most anti-aircraft missiles might have been insufficient to down such a hog before it completed its attack run. I can only imagine what difficulties the designers faced trying maintain vehicle balance and trim with a mere several meter margin of error when discharging 5 tons of payload almost instantaneously.

The Soviets only built a single prototype. Perhaps there were too many technical limitations. Perhaps coordinating with other elements of a strike force (submarines, aircraft, conventional surface ships) proved too unwieldy. Perhaps the turn radius was 10 miles! I can only wonder. Nonetheless, the Lun, dubbed the "Caspian Sea Monster" by Western observers, is... something else.

May Your Paths Be Straight

2010-03-07T20:35:00.005-05:00

I recall that in December of 2008, one of our engineers left our group to take another position. He felt engineering wasn't for him, and it's certainly not for most people. Some days, I don't know WHO it could possibly be for, in fact. He ended up taking a position where his primary responsibility is training our workers on all manner of procedures, and there he remains.

In July of 2009 I ended up being asked to prepare a "combat systems for not-quite dummies" to educate a few customers on how we work. It was a good time. A few weeks later, I was asked to remove the "not-quite" and make it a lecture for anybody in the company who had an hour to waste. By November I was lecturing a packed auditorium, with geeked-ness only slightly exceeding nervousness, with cameras rolling. Now that lecture is on our company intranet which means I will get teased for years to come over this. Things went well enough that I've been tasked with turning the "not-quite" into "brand new" and making it a regular training presentation for new hires. In this roundabout way I have now gained a surprising amount of responsibility for... training, without so much as changing my desk.

Sometimes, it's not about finding the right road to get where you want to go, but remaining on the road you are on until it takes you where you need to go.

Dorkter Knows Best

2010-02-25T20:27:00.003-05:00

Woot woot.

That is all.

The Fire Outside

2010-02-08T19:45:00.006-05:00

We recently burned all the brush I cleared from the blueberry patch and the "garden". Most of the brush was vines and sticks, but there were perhaps a dozen small trees in the mix. Everything had a long time to dry out, and there were some leaf piles underneath the sticks. I had some friends over to carry shovels and rakes for tending the fire, set a few newspaper pages in strategic places, and got things started. I wasn't even sure if we would be able to get a good flame going, but the flames popped up nicely within a minute or two. Another minute after that, and we had a complete firestorm on our hands. I'm talking about flames reaching 12-15 feet into the air, with wood crackling electrically over the roaring maelstrom that created an actual wind that mocked the light breeze that was already blowing. The heat and sound were incredible, and it was a good thing that I had already raked most of the surrounding fuel into the pile, so the fire had nowhere to spread. After 10 minutes or so, the blaze had subsided into something more like what you would expect from a medium size brush fire.
It was clear, though, how powerless we are when confronted by the forces of the natural world around us. The fire was unable to spread, but there was nothing I could do to put those flames down, the combustion was simply out of control. We have become increasingly insulated not just from the elements, but even the humanity of our neighbors as we retreat to the Internet. That insulation allows us to build a false image of our own importance. Standing next to a howling fire, which was itself nothing compared to a 100 acre fire advancing at 15 m.p.h., clearly illustrated my own impotence.

Days of The Late 90's

2010-01-28T20:17:00.002-05:00

Of late, I've been completely hung up on a little alternative ditty known as Enemy (click on the link, then press 'play' on the upper right corner) by Days of The New. Check it out, if you like a blend of music that, according to Wikipedia, spans "post-grunge, acoustic rock, and electronic" genres. I've not listened to the remainder of that particular album, I must confess.

I've long enjoyed the band Days of The New's first album (self-titled), and only major hit. That release is more stark and stripped down than Enemy, but if you enjoy acoustic guitar, there is at least something in it for you, and I recommend you look into this album as well, online or elsewhere.

Sacrifice

2010-01-26T20:55:00.000-05:00

During my 2+ hour class on Monday nights, my mind often wanders far afield. What occurred to me last night:

Love, to be anything more than simple adoration, must involve sacrifice
God showed his love through the sacrifice of His Son
That sacrifice would have meant nothing were it not for our own sin
Our own sin, although not desirable, is necessary for God to show us the magnitude of His love for us.

Perhaps, just perhaps, this is part of the reason for us to have free will, with the capacity to sin. Were it not for our own imperfection, God's love could only be adoration. John 3:16.

Just Because

2010-01-17T08:45:00.000-05:00

Wifey took this photo. It reminds me of Michigan.

The Better Mousetrap (Bumped for Medieval Rodent Domination)

2010-01-14T07:40:00.002-05:00

UPDATE: Two days ago I went downstairs as I prepared for work. I found this.

Somehow the rodent is suspended by its face over the edge of the beam. Just when you thought Glamdring's creativity had run its course, this mouse gets it IN THAA FAAACE.

I would not go so far as to say that we have a mouse problem at our new house. What is beyond debate, however, is that we have a legion of mice living in our basement. Accordingly, I have deployed 4 of the old-fashioned mousetraps in our basement and garage. All the traps in the basement have turned up a mouse or two. One of them, however, is a cut apart. I refer to it as Glamdring, the sword known as "foe-hammer" in J.R.R Tolkien's Hobbit. It has killed mice in almost every way imaginable. I have found mice trapped in it in the usual fashion. I have found them completely decapitated. I have found a dead mouse down on the concrete floor (Glamdring is best placed on a certain beam that is evidently a high-traffic area), with the trap lying four feet away. I have no explanation. It also hungers for human flesh, as it is very tempermental to set, and has come close to pinching my fingers on several occasions.

As an engineer, I know that any time you use a torsion spring you are assuming a 20-30% variability in its stiffness. Also, using a piece of slippery plastic to place your bait (which must include peanut butter by my reckoning, if you want to bring the mice in) and also serve as the catch for the bar is going to produce a different resistance to disturbance before release for each trap. Therefore, a given mouse trap may be nastier than another. That aside, there is something especially devilish about this particular mousetrap. It leaves me certain that it was forged in some work shop on one of the lowest levels of mouse Hell.

Here Comes The BOOM, Ready or Not

2010-01-09T22:39:00.017-05:00

In early autumn, there were 2 days of very high winds. One of those days the long-dead tree on our property came down. Hard. Wifey and I looked into our backyard to discover the tree, which was easily big enough to wipe out the deck and part of the house, fell lying almost perfectly north-south. No structural damage to our house OR the kindly 75 year old lady who lives next door. Very fortunate we are. To sweeten the deal even more, I was able to parlay this event into the purchase of a chainsaw and a maul for the clean-up. Let's just say we have ample firewood.

Rotted out completely at the base

One foot, two foot, cut right through foot

The beautiful looks & cute outfit are from Mommy, the mug of coffee on the job is all Daddy

First fire at the new house!

2010: Bring The Acceleration

2010-01-03T19:30:00.004-05:00

In 2002 an obscure book titled Thinking Geometrically was published. In the forward, Professor Jennifer Slack wrote (page xxvi-xxvii of the forward. That's right, the forward was almost 30 pages long, the rest of the book 185 pages!):

"I cannot imagine a more powerfully frightening despot than the one who can think geometrically. And where in the training to think geometrically do we train people to be ethical? In the "Philosophy of Technology" class I am currently teaching, one of the very best "thinkers" in the class, one of those who does indeed seem to grasp and hold in his mind's eye the work of multiple views, still plans to design war ships. I must admit to not understanding why. And I'm not sure that skill at geometrical thinking is enough to overcome the violence in war and in everyday life. I fear, in fact that it is quite capable of accelerating it, just as Waisanen suggests."

Yeah, I took Philosophy of Technology in 2001, and despite thoroughly perplexing the instructor, I loved it.

I'll do my best to steer clear of "despot", but no promises about, perhaps, "tyrant", or, some of my favorite words, "warmonger" and "ironmonger". Here's to another year of acceleration, in submarine firepower and every other aspect of life. Buckle up.

A Talk To Remember

2009-12-29T10:34:00.000-05:00

I was having a marginally work-related conversation with an older gentleman at the office the other day. He was discussing the background to a horseback riding trip in Hawaii. He casually dropped this line about his travel companions:
"They were from my first wife's family. She was from Indonesia, and she died young."
He quickly moved on to the rest of his story of riding horses up mountainsides, but I couldn't shake that sentence. It's one of the most compelling I've ever heard. He was from New England, went into the Navy and served in special forces (all history I already knew). Somehow he met a young woman from Indonesia, fell in love, was married, then lost her. Entire novels are written on thinner foundations, but he summed up perhaps 5 years of his life in a single sentence. And I will never get to hear the remainder of the story, for there is no polite way to ask.

Christmas

2009-12-27T10:43:00.007-05:00

Do you remember when Christmas was THIS awesome? I don't just mean getting this fired up over some long-coveted gift. I mean getting this fired up over finding things like Tic-Tacs in your stocking.

Merry Christmas from our family.

Merry Christmas from the military-industrial-congressional complex

No Trophy For #2

2009-10-04T18:33:00.004-04:00

Purely academic question: what was the second sin committed by Adam and Eve? They may well have committed different sins for their encore, or maybe the same one. In either case, we will never know because it is not written. Why not? Why couldn't we have a running diary for their first year out of the Garden of Eden? Wouldn't their continued fall from Grace be informative for the rest of us?
I think we can infer from the Old Testament focus on Cain and Abel that Adam and Eve committed no murder, from the focus on the Tower of Babel that there were no pride issues, and from The Flood that they did not have any tendencies toward wickedness in a general sort of way. We can hopefully rule out adultery and covetousness, as well. Therefore, it was probably something we would consider hopelessly mundane and uninteresting.
I like to imagine that any further sin was an echo of sinning at the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (a very long name, why not just use a maple or chestnut or cedar?). Based on their specific genders, I imagine Adam would have dealt with a great deal of anger, every time a thorn ripped his flesh or he tripped on a tree root while gathering/growing food. I think Eve would have wallowed in bitterness and resentment, every time she labored to deliver a child or noticed her uncomfortable, primitive clothing that gathered bugs and would not dry off. Almost every day would be a constant reminder of a single, epic failure on their part. I think they likely would have blamed Satan, blamed God, and blamed each other. Blaming themselves for their own plight likely did not come to mind.

The Front Fell Off

2009-09-29T07:15:00.002-04:00

You have got to be kidding me. This was formerly the Russian guided missile attack submarine Kursk, of latter days a mausoleum housing the bodies of over 100 men. Rumors have the cause of the boat's sinking as a faultyweapon, probably one propelled by a fickle hydrogen peroxide system. It's no surprise to a ship designer that the weapon guys would be to blame. The weapon designers are darlings to naval officials because their product is sexier than the giant chunks of steel that ship designers use, so the weapons are allowed a much narrower safety margin than the boats they are carride on. This brings us to a famous tenet of naval architecture

(narrow safety margin)=(resting on bottom)

I did find a few things interesting from the top picture, especially. Note the monstrous size of the boat, second only to the American Ohio and Soviet Typhoon Classes of submarine for length and displacement. Despite that, the drydock in turn dwarfs the submarine. What a facility! Note that the missile tubes straddle the central pressure hull on both port and starboard. The pressure hull itself actually appears elliptical, but that could just be due to the perspective of the photograph. The missile tube fairings are decoupled from the missile tube hatches themselves, and each fairing covers two hatches. There could be a separate hydraulic or electrical interlock, but there appears to be no mechanical link between the two. The fairings seem to have a couple of linear hydraulic actuators apiece, but with a very precarious alignment in the full open position. In other words, they look like a wave or missile launch wouldn't have a tough time breaking them. From the picture, there is no sign of the hatch operating linkage at all, so it must be pretty flimsy. As for the sail, it looks bigger than a double-decker bus. I wonder what they put in that thing.

On a lighter note, here is more lighthearted case of the front falling off.

My Fair Ladies

2009-09-17T20:47:00.005-04:00

The family recently spent an evening taking in a local fair. Where else can you:

watch riding lawnmowers belch white smoke and take corners at 25 mph
spend $23 for a greasy (albeit tasty) dinner and walk away thankful that the lady didn't charge for the bottle of water
see your child defy gravity
think it's OK that half of the teenage boys are wearing their high school football jersey
spend some quality time with livestock

The ladies are pumped for the carousel

Good looking? Yes. Resembling her father? No.

Sarah Joy momentarily decides the fair is overrated. Wifey momentarily decides Sarah Joy is overrated

Radial acceleration=(velocity^2)/(radius of rotation)

Daddy, the #4 tractor is running a little rich

Where's my soundtrack? I wanted 'Ride of the Valkyries'!

Raise Snorkel

2009-09-11T21:29:00.003-04:00

Raising snorkel; it's what most of the world's submarines still do every so often as a way of getting a breath of fresh air. We have been beyond busy the past month or so. Bulletized rundown:

Samuel is doing GREAT. He has yet to catch up to his sister's for weight at 8 weeks of age, but he's smiling, and even laughing now. Very jovial, borderline jolly, he may be destined to be a gregarious fat man.
Sweetness just started her second year of preschool. The socialization is good, but the academics of Pre-Kindergarten aren't going to benefit her much, since she now reads letters & cards she gets in the mail on her own.
Sarah Joy is now talking, combining words and getting clearer by the day. Her feats of strength are already legendary in the toddler community. Seriously, she's BOSS, I'm afraid her build will be more like mine than Wifey's
Wifey has really bounced back well from the delivery of Samurai. In the past few weeks she has absolutely slaughtered the furniture & appliance market (see next item)
On the home front, I've cleared many vines, with more to go, prepared & sealed the deck, we're getting cable TV Sunday, have hosted many friends, purchased a used 21+ cubic foot freezer (like new, from acquaintances, $125!), Two wingback chairs (about $800, after an extended warranty), a futon for guests to sleep on (less than 1/2 price, $115!), and a patio set (couch, 2 large chairs, coffee table, originally $800, today only for $250!!!)
Think about this: we've been in this house for about 12 weeks, and have only had DVDs to watch, and not really missed a thing. Only football convinced us to get cable.
I've averaged 50 hours a week at work the past few weeks, and next week promises more of the same. Great timing! The gremlins have been at work again at our companion shipyard down South. It's worse than the papers let on. The best day had me at work at 5:00 A.M., leaving for 2 hours to pitch a softball game that went an unheard of (for that league) 90 minutes (we rallied from down 14-2 to win 22-21!), then back to work until 11:30 P.M. Wifey has been very supportive, but it's tough on the kids.
...and Paul K. finally retired at work. The last guy with more experience than me at work. A 70 year old Vietnam Vet (USMC). I will miss that man. Not just for the extra burden I now have on the job, but for a little perspective.
Fantasy football starts in earnest on Sunday. I got Drew Brees as my QB... but I had Tom Brady last year.
Go Lions
Go Tigers
I bought a chainsaw, hope to break that out in a little over a week. Pray for my fingers.
I listened to the Neil Young album Harvest Moon last night, it was the first time I've had the time to enjoy an entire album at home in some time. I cannot recommend it highly enough. It's a warm campfire, throwing off gentle light that somehow just makes the surrounding darkness even more overwhelming and oppressive.

Hopefully I won't go 6 weeks before posting again

Warning: Gratuitous Submarine Plug Ahead

2009-08-04T22:51:00.003-04:00

The Providence Journal recently printed a pretty lengthy article on how we build nuclear submarines. I recommend it, if you have a little spare time. I haven't made it through the whole thing yet, but what I've read so far has been pretty good.

Pass Go, Net $200

2009-07-25T20:34:00.003-04:00

I moseyed out of the bank this morning quite pleased. After hunkering down with a limited bank account due to closing costs on our home sale/purchase, all of the checks due from various agencies came in over the following weeks, and today I deposited them in one sweep. Two thousand five hundred dollars in a single, fat deposit! Before I even reached the car, though, I recalled that last night I had paid bills, to include our new mortgage and vehicle taxes. How much did I dispense from the very same checking account? Oh, I remember now, two thousand three hundred dollars.

Running as fast as I can, just to stay in one place, just like the Red Queen. At least I have good employment to be thankful for.

Receiving to Ourselves Samnation

2009-07-19T21:08:00.006-04:00

Samuel Stewart
Sarah Joy greeting in the way of her people

The lesson, as always: Don't leave you sunglasses behind when visiting the hospital, because sick people will find them

More syrupy sweetness

We have met our newest family member, all 7#, 7 ozs. of him. Samuel Stewart arrived at 11:07 P.M. Thursday night, after Wifey labored for 15 hours. She managed to hammer out the delivery in only 2 pushes once the time came, which was most impressive. That all the more so, since there were no pain meds whatsoever in Wifey's body when the active labor began. An impressive performance, and she and our new son are both flourishing. The staff and facilities at the hospital were great. Best of all, Sweetness and Sarah Joy both really took a liking to their baby brother. We kind of expected Sweetness to enjoy him, because she was very excited during the pregnancy, but we were completely blown away that Sarah Joy was so enthusiastic to hold the newest member of the family. I'll save the syrupy details, but it's been great. The icing on the cake is that Samnation slept great the first night here. That is likely to change as time goes on (like tonight, maybe), but it made for a nice first night home.

We were fortunate enough to receive a dinner provided by another young family from the church, which is part of a ritual I like to call Fellowship By Carbohydrates or The Great Casserole Siege. It's awesome, especially if you like to eat, as I do.

Something Has Changed

2009-07-15T20:27:00.002-04:00

In the six months Barack Obama has been president, nothing of significance has changed. The good news is that in our family, big change has been brewing. We're going to the hospital tomorrow morning for the birth of I Tell You What scion #3, our first son. Hopefully I'll get some pictures up soon!

Nothing New Under The Sun

2009-07-07T20:18:00.005-04:00

I kept everything inside and even though I tried
it all fell apart
What it meant to me
will eventually
be a memory
of a time when I tried so hard
And got so far
But in the end
It doesn't even matter
-Linkin Park

17 So I hated life, for the work which had been done under the sun was grievous to me; because everything is futility and striving after wind.

18 Thus I hated all the fruit of my labor for which I had labored under he sun, for I must leave it to the man who will come after me.

19 And who knows whether he will be a wise man or a fool? Yet he will have control over all the fruit of my labor for which I have labored by acting wisely under the sun. This too is vanity.

-Ecclesiastes 2: 17-19

All I'm saying is that I heard one on the radio on the drive home from work, and read the other last night, and that things simply don't change very much.

Coming Up For Air

2009-07-02T21:58:00.003-04:00

Wow, talk about some craziness. Spent June 8-12 in Boston, taking in a course on submarine combat systems. Had just over one week to complete preparations to move out of our house and into a different one (only about 8 miles away, fortunately). Wifey really put in a yeoman's effort packing, and then unpacking later. Rented and drove a 22' Penske moving truck (diesel, as if you have to ask) with a sweet hydraulic lift gate in the back. Had help at all steps from friends young and hale. Closed on both houses on the same day. Still unpacking, but mostly done. Looks like we squeaked in under the deadline of the arrival of our son. The growth of the baby beard (like a playoff beard, but not best-of-seven) is in full swing. I could write a full entry about any of these things, but doubt I'll get around to it.

Is Their Crew Team Violent?

2009-06-07T18:54:00.000-04:00

I'm going to be away on travel this week. I'm heading to Boston to attend a seminar on submarine combat systems. It's hosted by MIT, and run by the Naval War College (Motto: "Go forth and sinketh"). The whole thought of a war college is mind-boggling to me. Do they have a fight song, or is that unnecessary since they actually fight? Instead of peace rallies, do they have war rallies? Because of the sensitive nature of some of the topics, I cannot bring so much as a notepad into class. How much will I possibly remember out of 30+ hours of lectures? We'll see

This link is the perfect confluence of some of my favorite pop culture. I leave it to provide a smile while I am away.

It Depends On Who You Talk To

2009-05-30T21:13:00.000-04:00

My boss is sharp. Really, he knows what he's doing. For the first time in some years, I have felt for the past 24 months like I had a bit of a safety net if I made a mistake. He's an unashamed ladder-climber, but I can live with that. He's enrolled in some developmental program for potential directors or even executive officers, very prestigious. The program includes all sorts of personality profiling to determine an individual's strengths and weakness, as well as an awareness of the personality types of others they work with. The benefits of this sort of training for a reasonably young but skilled worker can be enormous.

There's one thing the program never does: talk to any of the people who work for the corporate shooting star. All the input that could be gained, valuable feedback over the real difficulties and frailties of the someday executive... nobody knows those warts better than the grunts who have to do the front line tasks. Sure, you have to watch out for disgruntled types who have an axe to grind, but isn't it possible that if you go back far enough you'd find that there is a reason for the axe grinding?

It Needed To Be Said

2009-05-28T19:58:00.001-04:00

Let's give it up for Sub_Eng, May 28, 2009.

Memorial Two-fer

2009-05-23T20:26:00.003-04:00

Has anybody else noticed that gasoline prices at the pump have increased by about 25% in less than a month? You would expect some sort of media attention to this, since it affects everybody. Anticipation of increased demand for Memorial Weekend would be a suspect, but this started a little too early. It could be that this is caused by the biannual re-tooling at refineries to shift some of their processing from heating oil (winter product) to more gasoline (more in demand during summer). I can't say for sure, though, because exactly zero journalists in the major media outlets have addressed this.

This brings me to my second topic: the word "biannual" means twice every year, as I just used it. EXCEPT when it doesn't, and instead means once every two years. Wait, you mean the same word, in the same context, can have a meaning that cannot necessarily be distinguished from the other meaning based strictly by the surrounding words? Exactly right. www.m-w.com and www.dictionary.com both allow this crap to propagate through our English language. I know it's cobbled together, and very difficult to learn, but it's the language that we've got, and is the language of business, engineering, and commerce! Who are the gatekeepers of dictionaries, and why can't the definition of biannual be changed to "BIANNUAL, adjective, declared obsolete in 2009. See instead biennial or semiannual"?

Young Turks

2009-05-18T15:23:00.002-04:00

I recently filled in as a substitute pitcher for a softball team that a few of my co-workers put together (not the same ones who have the 4 miles/dozen doughnuts race from my previous post). We got a few lucky breaks and ended up doing really well. The team was basically me and 10 22-23 year old engineers. Afterwards, they went to the pizza joint that is sponsoring the team, while I hopped on my bicycle and pedaled the 2 miles home. One of the team, who I do not know well at all, asked Joe, who I'm pretty familiar with, where I was.
Joe: "Oh, he went home to see his wife"
Other Guy: "He's married?"
Joe: "Yeah. I mean, he's got 2 kids and is expecting a third."
Other Guy: "He's got kids? How old is that guy."
Joe: "Thirty."
Other Guy: "THIRTY!!!??? You've got to be kidding."
It could be a long season as Father Time on that team.

Coolest. Race. Ever

2009-05-16T09:27:00.002-04:00

A few of my co-workers shared an absolutely inspired idea with me. A half-dozen or so of them are going to run a four mile race. This race will consist of two equal segments separated by a dozen doughnuts that must be consumed before running the second segment. What an ingenious idea! I don't even know if I can eat a dozen doughnuts. I think a competitor's best bet is to come as close as possible to sprinting the first two miles, eat the fat pills, then walk/jog the second segment of the race as best as possible. I'm not stupid enough to try my idea, I declined to participate. Maybe next year.

Read'em & Reap

2009-05-10T08:26:00.000-04:00

I recently had to prepare this lesson outline for a class I am taking, thought I would post it, for what it's worth, hopefully the actual delivery was more insightful:

Project
5/2/09
Galatians 6:7-10
Who- Paul is writing to the churches of Galatia
What- The overall theme of the Book of Galatians is justification of a man by faith
Where- Central Asia Minor
When- 49 or 55 A.D.
Why- Some members of the early church falsely believed in merit/works-based salvation
How- To expound on the basic theme, Paul uses the audience’s experience (3:1-5), Abraham’s example (3:6-9), Christ vs. Law (3:10-4:11), his personal testimony (4:12-20), using Abraham illustratively (4:12-31), and Application of faith (5:1-6:10)

Context of Galatians 5:2-6:10
5:2-12 Liberation from the Law by Christ’s sacrifice
5:13-15 Loving others in freedom from the law
5:16-24 Freedom from fleshly weakness
5:25-6:5 Freedom from pride
6:6-6:10 Works from faith

READ Galatians 6:6-10

Key words identified
Flesh-as human nature, see Gal 5:19-21
Spirit-the Holy Spirit
Good- see Gal 5:22-23
Faith- (from earlier context)
Sow- to scatter seed. It is likely viewed by this audience as an ongoing, rather than discrete, event (see picture below)
Prov. 11:18, Hos 10:12, James 3:18
Reap- harvest what is sown
Jer 12:13, Hos 10:13

http://www.wcg.org/lit/law/festivals/harvest.htm

Literal interpretation
V7- God knows the balance of all men’s lives, and they will receive according to their behavior
V8- If we live for our own corrupt desires, our reward will be spiritual corruption, but living for closeness to the Holy Spirit will yield eternal rewards
V9-Our rewards will be eternal, but perhaps not immediate
V10- Let us live (as Jesus lived) driven by concern for others

Contextual interpretation

Gal 2:16- Faith, not works, justifies a man
Gal 5:4-6- Confirms Gal 2:16, plus v6 shows faith working through love
Gal 5:13-14- Freedom from the Law should not turn the flesh loose, but be an opportunity to serve each other

James 2:21-26
Correlates precisely to Galatians Ch 5 & 6
V26 reasserts faith as salvation and declares the necessity of a manifestation of faith

Acts Ch. 6 & 7 provide a clear illustration of the power of one who sows to the Spirit in Stephen, who in turn influenced the author of Galatians in a remarkable way. See also 1 Cor 3:6-9 for explanation.

The Book of Proverbs asserts in numerous locations that the good in heart and deed will reap rewards as called for by Gal 6:7-8, exemplified by Prov 10:22-25. But where are the eternal rewards of Gal 6:9-10 specified. 1 Cor 3:10-15 describes this at the Judgment Seat of Christ.

Application
The purpose of Paul’s letter to the Galatian church is to assert the supremacy of faith over legalism. However, chapter 6 clarifies that a life driven by faith will manifest itself in the fruit of the Spirit, which is described in Gal 5:22-23. This is the faith that is also described by James, one that justifies a man and glorifies God by his words and actions for all to see.
Just as Abraham was justified by faith, so can we be also. We can also observe the heart of the Law by loving our neighbor as an exercise or manifestation of that faith
Additional study needed: How does v6 fit in with the rest of the text?

Steely Skies

2009-05-05T20:42:00.005-04:00

My engineering group has made our long-anticipated move across the shipyard to the nice, relatively new high rise that serves as a sort of headquarters for design work. The view of the river and seaside is quite serene, even from the lowly fourth floor (really ground floor, but we're on a hillside sloping down to the water) of ten. A few of our guys have been disappointed by the generally rainy/foggy weather since we arrived, and I can see their point, since the sunny days are as colorful and uplifting as can be, with the sweeping horizon and gem-like reflections off the choppy waves. However, I am partial to the steely grays of the overcast day, with the far more subtle shifts of shade and more immediate feel to everything you see. To each his own, but I see nothing inherently worse about a day more suited to contemplation and coolheaded thoughts than idyllic whimsy and soaring fancy.

Featherbuster

2009-04-30T09:24:00.001-04:00

Went for a walk with the family recently to enjoy the improving weather. I heard a flurry of wing beats, and across my vision I saw a mourning dove dart, frantically accelerating against the measured, yet lethal, pursuit of a hawk. The erratic gyrations of the dove succeeded in sending the hawk on a bad bearing, allowing the dove to reach top speed and find cover. On our next lap through the neighborhood, I saw a clump of dove feathers on the ground where the strike presumably occurred. The lesson, as always: Be the hawk.

The Coolest Three Word Conversation Ever

2009-04-28T21:09:00.007-04:00

I went down to the shipyard today, with every other engineer from my group in tow, to check out a giant test fixture that had just returned from shock testing in Virginia. It was a great trip. On the return to our building, we walked by a few conex boxes (the size of a mobile home) that some crews were working out of. One had a painter (judging by his coveralls) sitting in the doorway in a folding chair, soaking up the gorgeous sunshine. Being the point man (or mother goose for the goslings that followed my steps to avoid getting lost or into trouble), I threw a quick wave and a disarming smile to the gentleman, a dignified, middle-aged black man. This is a quick signal that "We engineers are frightened and confused by the primitive ways of the shipyard, and are only moving through peacefully in search of air conditioned offices with coffee makers.". The painter, obviously gathering my meaning, nodded behind his reflective sunglasses and simply said with a deliberate, basso profundo:
"What it is."
Seriously. I haven't heard that phrase uttered un-ironically in decades. Not only that, it perfectly summed up this individual's all-out lounging and laissez-faire attitude toward our band of interlopers in his world. No further conversation was helpful, desired, or necessary. Indeed.

Mess With The Bull...

2009-04-19T14:58:00.011-04:00

I am a huge fan of horns. Not all of them. Saxophones, for instance, are the coolest thing going, especially when coupled with a sharp suit jacket and sunglasses at night, but I'm not much for most brass or woodwinds. I refer primarily to signal horns of days gone by. Most of them I imagine to look something like this:

This whole fascination was kicked off in my work cubicle about 2 years ago when this commercial for Snickers came out. Pure genius. Of course, every time somebody sat down to eat lunch or drink a caffeinated beverage, and imaginary feast horn was sounded. We actually got pretty good at imitating it. Well, turnover at work being what it is (or was, I should say, since attrition has dropped virtually to zero in the current economy), I found myself surrounded at work by new guys who didn't have the proper knowledge or respect for the significance of the horn's call. That's where the brilliance of the Internet ("now on computers!") came in. Check this out (sorry, you have to cut & past into your browser, no linking):

http://www.audiblebeauty.net/do-not-link/king/hardhrim_horn.wav
http://www.audiblebeauty.net/do-not-link/fellowship/horngondor.wav
http://www.audiblebeauty.net/do-not-link/king/rohan_horn.wav
http://www.audiblebeauty.net/do-not-link/towers/eldarhorn.wav

All the guys I sit with are now on board, now that I have these files to play at-will while working, and often when somebody enters or exits our cubicle an appropriate horn is sounded.

Oh, and did I mention that Warhammer: Dark Omen has a horn as a butt-kicking item for your armies to use? I still have to write about that game. One day soon...

The Lesson, As Always...

2009-04-18T21:56:00.006-04:00

Lifting weights is good. The zoo is good. But combining the two by carrying 70 lbs of kids at the giraffe exhibit is exhausting.
Committing yourself to work through diligence, education, and humility brings crushing workloads and frustration.
Committing yourself to work through diligence, education, and humility brings recognition and personal satisfaction.
Reconciling the previous two points is a daunting endeavor, to say the least.
Selling your house is much easier when you pick a realtor who is familiar with your segment of the market, you have put some effort into the house, and your Wifey is able to commit copious amounts of time making it sparkle for showing it to prospective buyers.
Through either age, lack of other talent, or some other sort of doom, it's inevitable that I will be a softball pitcher (slow-pitch).
The Office is still just about the best thing going on television.
When holding hostages, the Naval warship is not really offering to throw you a line to help you weather high seas.
And the flashes in the sunlight are not from men holding binoculars, but rifle scopes.
Our latest word of the day at work: chicanery
Just because: Turtle Man. I heart the Rebel Yell. Closing word to the wise: don't choose ponds on farms to hunt snappers, you don't want to know what rinses into them.

Not Even Disappointed

2009-04-10T19:14:00.006-04:00

At least the MSU Spartan b-ball team were gracious hosts, allowing the UNC Tar Heels to put up 55 points in the first half. After about 10 minutes, the Spartan players looked like extras from the Omaha Beach scene of Saving Private Ryan. UNC deserved it, what a juggernaut!

Now it's time to contemplate the overrated, overhyped, yet still intriguing NFL draft and the beginning of the church softball season.

Men Of Sparta!

2009-04-04T21:09:00.003-04:00

I live in UConn Huskie turf, no doubt about it. But tonight, compliments of the Michigan State Spartans basketball team, there is no doubt who is top dog. No, I did not attend MSU, and I do not regret that decision. But I did get accepted there during high school to study chemical engineering, and I watched many Spartan games as a child to cheer them on, so I can claim a connection. Bravo, Spartans, bravo.

Things That Make You Go Boom

2009-03-28T14:49:00.005-04:00

If you like things that are awesome, click here. Right this moment. I'll tell you why things like this happen. Sometimes mankind emerges from the dark forest of daily life, to emerge upon a rolling plain of grass and clover, with the sun shining and a light breeze blowing. At that moment mankind realizes "hey, the company executives are on vacation for a month, and we have two train engines that are scheduled to be cut up for scrap, let's be awesome!".

I don't know, maybe that kind of epic dudeness only happens in Texas. Or does it...

Overhaul Complete

2009-03-26T19:41:00.004-04:00

My apologies for stepping away yet again. More technical issues, this time on our computer's end. Some of the files in our operating system were corrupt, so I enlisted some help in repairing it. NOW I understand why my college buddies who were into electrical engineering used LINUX. Our biggest highlight during the long moment of silence: we sold our house again, this time for more money than the first. Sadly, we again unsold our house within a week. Yet again, the buyer was financing 100% of the purchase and, despite being pre-approved, was denied at the final loan application. At least we found out when we did, since Wifey and I were going to put a bid on a sweet little property that very evening.

Good To Be Back

2009-03-13T19:48:00.006-04:00

Sorry about the absence. A combination of technical difficulties and rough schedule have conspired to keep me away for some time. An update of what's been going on:

Our house sold, then, due to the buyer's credit record, unsold. A word to the wise: If you're financing 100% of the purchase of a home (haven't we learned that's not so wise?), make sure to keep up your student loan payments.
Sarah Joy has begun using words. This is a serious upgrade from grunting and screaming.
Sweetness turns 4 years old Sunday. We took her to the doctor to get a vaccination, she stared at the needle the whole time it was in her arm, and she didn't even whimper. Impressive. I have lately found myself doing foolish things and internally saying "my 4 year old daughter is better than that. This provides some parenting insight: we are more intelligent, faster, stronger, more mature, and more experienced than our children. We are not better, and to think otherwise is to become a stumbling block to raising our children into upstanding adults.
We discovered that the baby Wifey is carrying, due mid-July, is a boy. Could not be more excited, so to explain any more would just fail to convey.
My job has shifted, for the moment, from checking calculations and putting out fires to acting as a sort of iron-mongering interior decorator for submarines. Want a giant hatch? Need some motion synthesis for a linkage? Will that be a power screw or a hydraulic cylinder? For a dork, this is a breath of fresh air after rooting out old mistakes on drawings and new mistakes on 400 page calculations for over a year. One thousand, one hundred, fifty pages and counting in the past 9 months.
I was just patting myself on the back for pioneering the use of "monger" as a verb. Alas, a quick self-check of Merriam-Webster (who needs editors if you proof read?) showed that I am no pioneer, after all. Ergo, mongering is the word of the day.
Started playing Warhammer: Dark Omen for original PlayStation on my PS2. Awesome game, makes me want to bring back words like "stoked". I'm sure I'll follow up with an entry on this gem.
Wifey and I watched Stranger Than Fiction a few weeks ago. Strange, but very sweet movie. It really drew me in, and I loved it.

That's enough for now. More to follow, hopefully soon.

Not A Week For The Weak

2009-02-17T19:45:00.005-05:00

Take heed, fair citizens. This is National Engineers Week! U.S. presidents get a day. Workers get their own day. The nation gets an independence day. Football and turkey get a day. Jesus gets his birthday. Love just had a day. Somebody, who was very smart, recognized that engineers deserve AN ENTIRE WEEK! Engineers are so awesome that they, like an ideal gas, can expand to fill whatever time period they are allotted. I recommend some activities that everybody can enjoy to celebrate the week:

Hug an engineer. He will not respond, because he has no emotions, but he probably appreciates it. Or at least doesn't resent it.
Take something apart. Then put it back together...
... if it still works, disassemble it again, modify that something to make it perform better, and reassemble. Repeat until it ceases to work.
Read some instructions, and follow most of them.
Watch the History Channel
Learn the binary number system
Make observations of the things around you that have no significant impact on anything
Read J.R.R. Tolkien

My favorite part about the official National Engineers Week web site hyperlinked above is the "introduce a girl to engineering" section. I introduced Wifey to engineering, and continue to introduce her to it every day after I return from work, and... it's not winning her over.

This is but a brief sample of the awesomeness that you can enjoy this week. I just feel bad for the people who only get to feel like engineers for a single week out of the year.

Tolkien In The Boys' Room

2009-02-15T20:56:00.006-05:00

I'm working on a pseudo-Tolkien trifecta right now, a work several months in progress. I finished reading The Hobbit to Sweetness (yes, she followed most of it, which I can scarcely fathom at age 3), watched the The Lord of The Rings movie trilogy with Wifey, and I have now been provoked to re-read The Silmarillion. Of all this, one thing came to mind: In the movie trilogy (and books, for the typographically inclined), why are the only truly interesting characters Faramir and, especially, Boromir?
The writing of Tolkien is engrossing, it really defines the term "epic" for other fiction writers to follow. And so many other writers, particularly fantasy and sci-fi, have attempted to do just that. One thing that Tolkien's writings do not have in abundance, though, is characters cast in gray scale. Absolute, selfless, divine good clashes with almost comically wicked evil. Iron-clad courage pursues yellow-bellied cowardice. Self-sacrifice envelopes self-serving avarice. But characters with true weakness to offset some decent qualities are rare. Some of the prequel writings for the Lord of The Ring trilogy do include great heroes overcome by greed or corrupted by power or blinded by rage. But these are stories told at a great distance of mighty figures and great kingdoms in Paradise Lost (see previous blog), not characters that you get to know intimately or see develop much over time. Very much of the Greek Tragedy vein.
But with Faramir and Boromir, you see the struggle between honor and arrogance, obedience and greed, and those conflicts more than any of the (admittedly awesome) special effects are what make repeated viewings or readings of the trilogy worthwhile. While Faramir struggles with Doing The Right Thing at a key juncture of the story, it never seems likely that he will falter. Once he Sets Things Straight, he gets injured and fades out of relevance. Boromir, though, is portrayed as mighty and valiant, a born leader. He only sets out on the great journey of the story at the behest of his father, who is already corroded away to rottenness. He has endured the suffering of his people for his lifetime while striving endlessly for their protection and freedom. In the ring he sees a resolution to every problem he has ever faced, that his whole land has ever faced. And he finally folds. Neither bravery, nor experience, nor strength can prevent him from cracking and committing foul acts. But even through that, he is able to recover, and repenting from his evil ways he commits a last courageous act of sacrifice, selling his life dearly for his comrades. In the movie (I cannot recall if this is true in the book) he even plays a role with his dying words in developing the main character, Aragorn, whose victory is never really in doubt but at least matures in character during the story.
Who can't get behind characters like that?

Paradise Lost

2009-02-11T19:31:00.004-05:00

I have had an idea kicking around my head the past few days. Not anything that coagulated into solid form, but lingering nonetheless.
Why is paradise lost a common belief, or an almost universal longing?
Obviously, the Book of Genesis kicks off and is followed almost immediately by a personal foul on the only two people on the planet. It is certainly not just a biblical theme, though. J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle Earth was full of longing for lost days and great heroes who had fallen in the battle with evil, and majestic cities that no longer stand and who's beauty will never be matched. Tolkien was biblically influenced, but I don't know that we can say the same for Rush. The old rock band wrote the 2112 Overture, which describes at length a single man trying to restore life to the wonder of old days by, naturally, the means of a 'prehistoric' guitar.
I know that, for my own part, I was a little saddened to see that the McDonald's restaurant in my hometown was remodeled. I have no great love for the place, but it's where I worked my first job, and now I can never be in that place with the same atmosphere, whatever it's worth. Going back to the house where you grew up and seeing another family's car parked in the driveway, or other kids playing in the yard, can be downright jarring. It seems as though the plodding of time is acceptable as long as we can restore our present world to a past moment, thus regaining it. Thus, that memory, that time is lost but for the frail thread of our own mind.
Of course, The Ancients who occupied Paradise Lost where also of greater might than can be found today. The Good were great and the Bad were wicked beyond match. I often wonder if the hero worship portion of this phenomenon may even go back to our childhoods. Your father's strength and wisdom were incredible until you became an adolescent, and the devoted selflessness of a mother sets the foundation for your view of love and tenderness. How can anybody you encounter as an adult ever match these outsize traits. Only now as my own family grows can I see any sort of bonds of that magnitude emerging in the all-consuming, hyperbolic EVERYTHING of children and the understated love and care of Wifey.
This entry feels rushed, because it really needs to be about twice as lengthy, but it's time to cut out.

The Menace Within

2009-01-31T21:07:00.004-05:00

What would you think if I described a military with these stats:

2.3 million members (less than 1/2 of them auxiliary)
8,300 bases
At least 8,300 pieces heavy firepower

I'm guessing you'd say "Because I, too, am a dork of history and warfare, I recognize that is approximately the manpower and artillery strength of the Indian Army." To that I would reply "bravo", because that is truth, yet that is not the organization I described. This army exists within the borders of the United States, yet falls outside the control of any U.S. military command, and has infiltrated "posts" into nearly every community in this country. That's right, the VFW. Think about it. They have some sort of combat implement (helicopter, tank, artillery)at every building! They have built up a corps of experienced soldiers from conflicts over the last 60 years, and concentrated the lethal cocktail of manpower, practical combat knowledge, and alcohol serving permits as they marshal their forces for what can be their only purpose: an all out assault on our great nation. Not even the defunct battle tanks sitting outside of National Guard Armories can stop this War Machine once its engine of destruction starts turning over. Yes, these veterans are your neighbors. Yes, they have served with honor. Yes, the can potluck like no others. But do not dare turn your back on them. You have been warned.

Beg Your Paron, But...

2009-01-27T19:16:00.002-05:00

It is a double-edged sword telling your boss "I have been too busy to draft a paper explaining everything I have worked on this year for my annual performance review. When I finish the 3 urgent things I am working on, I will be happy to oblige." Honesty is the best policy, eh?

Michimmigration

2009-01-25T12:11:00.000-05:00

Last Monday another engineer joined our group at work. He is a native of Kalamazoo, MI, and attended the University of Michigan. The flight of college graduates from that state is startling. Of my closest friends at Michigan Tech (the engineering school in the state), not one remained in Michigan after graduation. Vermont, D.C., Massachusetts, Illinois, Texas, and other places all offered better employment opportunities than our home state. I can understand that Michigan, with the industrial and educational infrastructure to historically need and produce engineers, would be creating a glut of technical types who don't find the job they're prepared for near home.

Unfortunately, it goes beyond that. Even some of the education majors that I knew who attended other colleges had to join the exodus. One of my cousins just headed to Indiana to work as a technician at a hospital. Set aside the dorks, if you are no longer hiring teachers and medical types your society is hurting. Michigan is now manning the caboose of the nation's economy.

Free Association Friday (Saturday Edition)

2009-01-24T13:58:00.007-05:00

Forgot to mention that on the drive back from Michigan, having seen far more wildlife than you ever find on the East Coast, we encountered, just a few miles from home, a coyote calmly sitting right in the middle of the road. Had I not come to a complete stop, our car would have plowed right into it.
I Tell You What's sister has lost 65 pounds recently. Wow!
The proliferation of Obama bumper stickers prompted Wifey to come up with a new classification for annoyingly plodding drivers: Slobama.
Speaking of that, can we end the hagiography (word of the day) of our new president? Fortunately, the national news media is now realizing that if it doesn't get out of bed with the Democrats, there will be nothing to report on, especially with things going much better in Iraq.
I knew it, I knew it, I knew it was going to be trouble checking those installation torques on something that's never broken but, you know, what if...? That just landed me a 60 hour week.
A recent conversation (witnessed by Wifey):

Engineer 1: Look at those swans in the ocean. They're probably corroding!

Engineer 2: No, they're fine. They have a higher nickel content than fresh water swans.

Michigan, Again

2009-01-18T19:01:00.000-05:00

We headed across the upper reaches of the U.S. again this year to visit my family for Christmas. We made the veteran parenting move of taking Sarah Joy to the doctor the day before to ensure antibiotics were available to combat her persitent head cold. The I Tell You What family does not advocate antibiotics to counter mild and transient illnesses, but you DO NOT want that spreading into a major respiratory thing as you drive cross country and sleep in unfamiliar surroundings. Just trust me. We were very fortunate on the trip to my grandmother's house, the worst weather we encountered was rain until about 50 miles from her home. Then it was the usual Michigan grind of ridiculously heavy snow.

It's remarkable to span so much distance in a single drive. The beginning is from coastal Connecticut through hilly Massachusetts and eastern New York. The hills fade to pancake-flat western New York and southern Ontario, with raptors (this kind, not this kind) acting as sentinels every mile or two in the treetops. Then it's into the woodlands of Michigan once you exit the Thumb area. There it's forests, forests, and forests. The snow was deep, and the dark nights there mock your car's puny headlights. As we approached our destination we saw deer (naturally), turkeys (a foot from the windshield!), an elk herd (only me, everyone else was napping), a bald eagle, and, once we reached my mother's house, a pileated woodpecker big enough to fly off with one of the children.
The time with family was fantastic. Being in a rural area truly does slow things down. You can wait an entire day for something to happen, and it doesn't feel like you're missing anything else important. It was also an opportunity for Sweetness and Sarah Joy to enjoy some things we don't get much of on the coast.

1. Chickens- My mother has a bootleg-egg production up & running. It's great for the girls (Sweetness, here) to get a look at a small farm. Not many people really get an intimate look at where any sort of food comes from these days. I can't wait to see what else is in store for Grandma T's 20 acres of paradise.

2. Sledding- When snow is abundant, there is one thing that is easy to arrange. This is one of the downhill runs where Sarah did not take out her Grandpa at the knees.

3. Snow machines- My cousin rode her (that's right, her, and she could beat you in a race, I'd wager) snowmobile over to our grandmother's house on Christmas day to join the family celebration. All the great grandchildren were offered rides. Here is Sweetness taking advantage of the offer. This is how we celebrate the birth of Sweet Baby Jesus in the Winter Wonderland.

Drive On

2009-01-03T19:15:00.002-05:00

1 Family
5 States/Provinces
890 Miles
17 Hours

What a drive home from Michigan. We were able to enjoy safety and good roads after the first 60 miles, so we have definitely been blessed. I'll start posting again soon.

Accessorize

2008-12-18T20:46:00.003-05:00

Yes, yes, several thousand times a minute yes. Anybody who has ever watched the movie Predator has surely thought to themselves "I may not be the beefcake that Jessie 'The Body' Ventura is, but I'd still love to pack a minigun. What to do?" The answer, naturally, is let the car carry the load for you. If American automotive management and engineers showed this sort of innovation, we would definitely all have 100 m.p.g. flying cars to take us to work.

The Worst Math Joke You May Just Laugh At

2008-12-13T15:31:00.005-05:00

I was walking to my desk early one morning when I saw the following sketch on a coworker's markerboard:This is just my re-creation, but it's a classic. If you get it, it's at least worth a chuckle. If you don't, you should feel very good about your priorities in life right now.

Pookie Power

2008-12-05T22:00:00.001-05:00

This little buggy, according to http://www.defensetech.org/, was a solution to a problem during the Bush War of Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). It is known as a Pookie. The problem was that rebels were sowing mines along roads, and those roads needed to be cleared quickly to keep supplies and commercial goods flowing. This glorified go-cart uses special tires (racing slicks) to distribute the vehicle and driver weight widely and evenly, reducing the likelihood of detonating a mine under the vehicle, and if a mine did detonate, the relatively light armor was sloped to deflect the blast safely away from the drive. The assembly underneath is a mine detector, which I imagine was just an electromagnet capable of noting the metallic mines of that era. The design located many anti-vehicle mines in service, and is claimed to have never set off a pressure mine. Some were destroyed by electronically (remotely?) detonated mines, but even then only a single driver died due to one of those explosions because of the armor. Not too shabby for a cheap little buggy.

There is another insurgency underway, in case you haven't noticed. While the intensity of the war in Iraq has dropped off, a very similar problem was and is still faced by American forces. While the explosive devices placed by Iraqi insurgents were far more difficult to defeat, here is the American solution:

If that doesn't give you a warm, fuzzy, patriotic feeling I don't know what does. There is a 99% chance that the vehicle (this variant is known as a Cougar) in the picture survived the explosion. It's a mine-resistant ambush-protected vehicle, or MRAP. It's about as traditional of a solution to a tactical military problem as one will find. When the bad guys get bigger guns, upgrade your armor. The armor is now too heavy, so upgrade your suspension. The vehicle is now slow, get a bigger engine. It's a very incremental process, inching along while your opponent is also sharpening his tactics and tools. Oh, and they are horrendously expensive, difficult to maintain, and don't even fit down many streets or across some bridges.

I see a great deal of this in military ship design/building. Don't take any chances. Something that does just a little bit more but is far more expensive is preferable to something that is cheaper and almost performs as well, or is pricey and is going to be either an astronomical success or an utter failure. This mentality does make some sense when soldiers' lives are on the line, which was clearly the case when the U.S. rushed to buy MRAP's. But is it the best mindset to instill in your entire defense infrastructure? Play it safe, and don't ever worry about hitting a home run.

However, that is not the only solution. The British also have soldiers in Iraq, and in their area (which includes the urban hole of Basra), they specialized in precise raids with minimum firepower traded off for speed, speed, speed. This method is not guaranteed to be successful, but it points out that the closed-minded, single solution approach often embraced by the military and defense design establishment is faulty thinking. I watched a series of shock tests this week that brought that lesson home.

It's amazing what a 3000 pound hammer dropped onto a spring loaded fixture can prove. At hand was the question of whether a lightweight, flexible linkage could stop a tremendous load (momentarily up to 15 tons or so) at one end while being held in place by... a 3/8" roller assembly. It survived! How? The heretical use of materials the Navy often holds in disdain (titanium, precipitation hardened stainless steels...) and a willingness to take a little bit of a risk. I had the good fortune of working with the man who conceived of this and numerous other ingenious contraptions. Most involved intentionally stretching a linkage to make it work, and running numerous linkages off a single actuator, and other Swiss-watch mechanisms that others dismissed as "claptrap". Some of the designs even broke, or seized in place, or rusted away in seawater. But none failed so badly that the design couldn't be fixed, and the savings in space, money, and infrastructure compared to more traditional concepts were substantial. In the end, this particular invention of his passed the shock test and operated just fine when the dust settled. A few washers were bent, but what's a little stretching between friends?

It took the absolute mental saturation of gizmos, widgets, and mechanisms for a man to have the vision to create machines like this on a blank sheet of paper. It took the experience of working with his own hands on boats and cars and many hours of applied engineering analysis to know when intuition mattered more than numbers, and when something would just stretch or crack clean through. It took the guts for him to stand before critics and present his vision to others and overcome their stubborn resistance and fear of failure. And it took him being correct time and again before he was trusted with the reigns of multi-million dollar designs and given the chance to prove his mettle. His mind was agile, unbound by convention, and stubbornly entrenched when the Dork-meter was pegged. This is the sort of mind it takes to produce a Pookie, not an MRAP.

Where My Dogs At?

2008-12-02T19:45:00.000-05:00

Barack Obama was not my choice for president. However, he is the man who was elected to be our president for the next 4 years, so I maintain that we need to make the most of what we've got. I already have a great possibility in mind. The First Family will, following tradition, choose a pet. This will most likely be a dog. There is one fantastic option here: One of Michael Vick's dogs! This assumes full rehabilitation and training of one of these mistreated dogs, of course, but out of the forty or so dogs taken into custody it seems certain that at least one could fit the bill. Think of what a strong message that sends about the treatment of animals! It's even the sort of rags to riches story that America prides itself in. Not to mention the ability of a majestic pit bull or other fighting dog to convey great qualities in a nation. Strength, loyalty, doggedness (forgive the pun), and, of course, ferocity towards the wicked. Does the White House need another terrier or spaniel? I think not. As an added bonus, it's one more opportunity to make the animal mistreating, gambling, tax-evading, false stament'ing Mike Vick look like a fool.

Give Thanks

2008-11-26T21:30:00.003-05:00

I'm slowly reading the bible coast-to-coast, and I came across this tonight, of all nights, from Colossians Ch. 4:
"Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with an attitude of thanksgiving... Let your speech always be with grace, as though seasoned with salt, so that you will know how you should respond to each person."
I wish anybody out there a good day. If there is anything in your life discouraging you, take heart, there is an enormous amount of good still to be found.

Interstew

2008-11-22T17:03:00.000-05:00

I had to cover for my supervisor recently while he took a week of vacation. I've had quieter weeks, to be sure, but that's not the focus of this entry. Through a series of events that is not likely to happen again for some time, I ended up conducting my first job interview.

I felt badly for the young man before I even met him. The guys I sit with at work all went emphatically on the record as being quite relieved that I did not interview them before they hired in. I obliged them by making up a few sample questions like "Why do you think you're good enough to work for me... I DIDN'T SAY YOU COULD ANSWER YET!" and proposing mind games like shaking my head "no" while he answered or saying "is that all?" at the end of each of his answers. Good fun, that, but it did bring to light that I am about as scary as somebody who stands 5'10" with glasses and no tattoos can be.

I did realize that the young man seeking a job deserves a little better than that, so, lacking any support from my employer on the matter, I hit the world wide interweb (now on computers!) for a few tips on conducting interviews. That was a Godsend. I got my act together, reviewed his resume and I was ready to rock the following morning.

Then I saw his transcript. The Hindenburg was less of a wreck. Heed my words, college and pre-college students; it is folly to claim that certain areas of your studies were your favorite and that you really have a knack for them when your grades in the relevant classes were in the C to D range. It's not in your wheelhouse, it's in your five-hole.

Another tip: If your GPA is below 2.5, don't take 5 months off and THEN start looking for a job. Unless you spent your year off with the Peace Corps or on a foreign mission, you just look desperate.

Additional free advice: If an interviewer notifies you in advance that the following question is a no-bull, honest query, don't throw up a smokescreen answer using a lot of key words like "leadership", "diverse", "core skills", and the like. It will get sniffed out.

Kicking a dead horse: If the interviewer says "Not everybody can be a leader in their first few years of team projects in a field as specialized as maritime defense engineering, so what other roles do you feel you play as a member of a team?", do not present an answer that even sounds remotely like "I am the leader". Bad move.

Hopefully, the next interview I am required to conduct will go more smoothly, especially for the prospective employee. And it will ideally occur far, far in the future.

Did Somebody Leave The Parking Brake On?

2008-11-18T20:02:00.001-05:00

I recently completed the second and final run of the 2008 I Tell You What race circuit. The EBAC Fall Challenge provided a little bit more challenge than the previous weekend's Tarzan Brown run. While the course was shorter, I had a stomach ache so did not eat much breakfast. Also, I am optimized for cold weather running, so low 60's and humid causes me to struggle a little bit. As a result, my pace was notceably slower (6:57 per mile) than the previous weekend. It was still a very nice outing for the family, as the girls were able to play by the beach and were gracious enough to cheer for me as I sputtered my way across the finish line. My time was still OK, better than any year I've participated in the Fall Challenge. Having Wifey prepare me breakfast and being consistent with my training runs (with a 22 year old to pace me) certainly helped. Now that I've had time to recover and rest, my overworked knees are feeling much better, to boot. Here are a few photographs of the morning:

A little time with my ladeez
Relaxed/fatalistic beforehand

My fans, minus Wifey

Gratuitous submarine picture from race morning at Ocean Beach, because that's how we get down on I Tell You What

Wheezing my way across the finish line, ending the 2008 race season

My Brain Hurts (bumped for comments)

2008-11-16T21:00:00.000-05:00

My man Matty commented on one of my recent posts, and it provoked a good bit of thought on my part. The topic was abortion, and the crux (very briefly) of his discussion, as I read it, is as follows:

There are ethical grey areas on abortion regardless of how stridently you oppose or support it
There will be abortions regardless of the laws in place and the severity of the punishment

Both points could not be more true. I have considered both at length, because their implications are significant in a society where morality, law, and science have an intricately interwoven relationship. However, I still conclude that neither one justifies the practice or legalization of abortion. Let's address the lower bullet first, because it's relatively easy, by writing it this way:

There will be (murder/pedophilia/gambling/blackmail/theft) regardless of the laws in place and the severity of the punishment

So, we can see that the simple existence of something should not preclude efforts to eliminate, or at least curb, that something by legislation and vigorous enforcement. So that one is put to bed on a fundamental, philosophical level. Prohibition does not necessarily preclude, but can suppress. Yet, that first bullet continues to bedevil me and anybody else who thinks seriously about abortion.

The first bullet is typically broken into two basic scenarios. 1) A woman is pregnant or in labor, and is in a situation where either she OR the baby can survive, but not both; and 2) A woman is raped and found to be impregnated by her assailant. Wow. You almost can imagine that God would write down an answer to this, erase it, and write it again repeatedly before getting it right. From this point on there are two primary factors driving the decision process. They are how you set moral boundaries and how you could ever write a clear, concise, and enforceable law to affect your policy. Put in other words, how do you define the issue morally, and how do you make it work in a nation of over 300 million citizens. And many millions of non citizens.

As I hope I have shown in past posts, I represent the evangelical Christian moral viewpoint. In the case of mother or baby but not both survive, the overwhelming principle is value of life. Well, there are two lives involved, either one could die tomorrow even if they are chosen to survive the trauma of childbirth, and for all we know either one could cure cancer or waste their lives in trivial pursuits. Not the board game, I mean... never mind. So, this is a rare instance where I think we need to look exclusively at the "how do we write effective law" aspect. Personally, I take the approach of treating it as an organ donor situation. Somebody who is alive at a key moment, although facing imminent death, can save another life by sacrificing their own body. What do you need to make such a sacrifice? Well, donor consent is essential. So, the mother, if conscious, should legally have the right at any time to sacrifice herself for the sake of the child without any other input. Fair enough. As for the child, there are two legal guardians, the mother and father. Therefore, if BOTH mother and father consent to sacrificing the baby for sake of the mother's survival, legally you would have to let it happen (again, using organ donor logic). What if the father is estranged or on work travel or in no state of mind to make any sort of decision (which is very likely)? I cannot say, but that is the issue you would have to reconcile to write effective law.

As for the case of impregnation through rape (let's say "impregnato via enrapo", to feel Latin-y and feel legal), that is the trickiest of all. Wifey has done a bit of research on this topic, and has come up with a solution superior to anything I have thus far. When a woman claims rape, it would be totally justifiable to perform a procedure that cleanses her reproductive organs while obtaining DNA to find and use against the accused offender. Knowing that it takes at least a matter of hours for an egg to implant, it would have no hospitable place to land, so thus is passed along with no consequence. Therefore, effective law should require that any woman should report rape to the proper authorities within 24 hours, and moral issues can be cut to almost none. What this woman waits to report the crime, say for a period to exceed a few days? Well, most likely that is because it is acquaintance rape. Ugh. Note that the unborn baby still has done nothing wrong to deserve death. I think our legal system has actually headed in the right direction by establishing that murdering a pregnant women results in two murder charges. Perhaps to follow that course logically, while maintaining the baby's right to exist, the rapist is charged for his crime twice. He is an immediate repeat offender. Yes, this leaves a woman responsible for dealing with the crime of another, a victim in probably every sense. However, she should receive the full support of the government to assist her. This follows Matty's path to enacting government policies to reduce abortions. This could come in the form of social security payments to the child as though its father had died, in addition to child support to be paid by the rapist.

Whew, that was a long-winded post. In summary: laws to prevent abortion are not fundamentally unsound, babies should be considered for abortion when the mother is in jeopardy only when consistent legal and medical principles are applied (I chose the organ donor scenario), and the baby has still committed no crime in the case of impregnation by rape so the government should double-prosecute the rapist and provide the full weight of society's support for the mother and child who remain.

Comments > Free Time

2008-11-12T19:53:00.004-05:00

I've had good comments to my last post, I regret that I have not yet had time to digest and reply. I leave you tonight with something I saw at work recently in an engineer's cubicle. Know first that CuNi is copper-nickel alloy, and NiCu is nickel-copper alloy, which is stronger. The note said:

NiCu > CuNi > pumperNi

Seriously, if you laughed and snorted, you are a geek. Welcome to the revolution.

The Pain Train

2008-11-06T21:32:00.007-05:00

This week has been tough at work. My supervisor is on vacation, so that requires me to field an awful lot of questions from the other engineers in our group. I basically just try to keep the wheels spinning until the boss gets back, which is very different from actually being in charge.
While the long days have been tough, they have not been nearly so painful as Sunday's second annual (for me) running of the Tarzan Brown Mystic River Run. The weather was gorgeous, and Wifey and Sweetness accompanied me to the starting area to cheer for me at both ends of the race. I even knew a few people who were running as well. Talking while running is not the most efficient way to conduct oneself during a race, but those who know me know that I have been blessed with the gift of gab, so I chat with those I recognize. And a few I don't.
After a gradual start, I picked up the pace a bit to keep stride with my coworker Nick. At mile 1 I heard the watch holder call 7 minutes, which was not bad. After 3 miles I was around 20 minutes 30 seconds, which was even better and made me realize I should coast for a little bit. Sure enough, after cruising to mile 5 I heard that watch holder call just shy of 35 minutes. That was good, because my goal was to beat 40 minutes (7:14/mile pace). It was also a bit agonizing, because I was starting to feel bad. Actually, awful. Actually, thinking death might be a sweet release. I mean, I'm kind of a tractor when it comes to running, a big load, full diesel, pouring out black smoke on the hills, all that jazz. Nonetheless, as I approached the last corner, there was a small group of runners about 20 yards ahead that I just knew I could pass. So I poured it on, black smoke and all, and ripped right by them! No joke, they were actually cursing me as I went by. And then... I realized it wasn't the last corner, and I had about 3 blocks to go. I did make it to the finish line, but my mis-estimation was written all over my face in discomfort, according to Wifey. It was great to see her and Sweetness waving and cheering, but I needed a minute to regain my strength and focus on not puking and stuff.
After that passed I was able to enjoy the fact that I beat my goal. Five and a half miles in 37 minutes, 24 seconds, for a 6:48/mile pace. Huzzah! I've never beaten 7:00 in a race before, so that was nice. Strangely, having handily beaten the goal I set for myself, and facing long hours this week at work, I have not so much as put running shoes on my feet in preparation of next week's EBAC Fall Challenge. I figure my body needs the rest, and let the 4.75 mile chips fall where they may.

Vote John McClane

2008-11-03T19:41:00.002-05:00

Wait, you mean streetwise cop John McClane is not the Republican candidate for president? This is a bit of a disappointment. I mean, who wouldn't want a president who had single handedly put the blunt object of justice upside the head of international crime on multiple occasions? Nonetheless, I will go to the polls tomorrow morning and cast my vote for another high profile Irishman, John McCain. I admit that he is an underwhelming candidate, and is not likely to be victorious. However, he is far preferable to Barack Obama, a windbag with little substance and a viciously liberal candidate. Abortion is important to me, as is defense, and I see little merit for Obama on either topic. Along with what will likely be two compliant houses of legislature, I fear the results by the time we reach 2012.
However you feel, GO AND VOTE! I certainly don't know everybody who reads this blog, I don't even have any idea how many people check it out. I can say with certainty, though, that every one of you has complained about the state of our nation, or even the American state that you live in. If are over 18 years of age and you don't vote tomorrow, then consider that you have no right whatsoever to complain about our leadership, no matter how vile of an act those leaders may perpetrate. The Founding Fathers would have disagreed with many of the cogs of government that have been added in the last 230 years, but they would still, to a man, insist that the populace must vote for our representative republic to thrive.
Get on it!

A'Maize & Blue

2008-10-29T19:58:00.002-04:00

On October 18, I had the fantastic opportunity to watch some Big Ten (11) college football in State College, PA. For this year only, the Penn State football stadium is the largest in the nation, with a capacity over 110,000. After this season, the University of Michigan's home field will be restored to its usual place as America's largest football stadium. Which is coincidental, because the reason I put special emphasis on this particular game is that Penn State was hosting Michigan. To those who are not familiar, Michigan is in the middle of the most precipitous drop in prestige of any college football program in the 25 years that I have been watching the sport. This is at the hands of the slimy new coach, Rich (C'mon & get ethical, ethical!) Rodriguez. Nonetheless, you don't just bail on your team because of the coach. Disclaimer: I do also cheer for Michigan State, but when UM and MSU meet I root for the Wolverines. On the drive to the game, we saw an early morning hot air balloon.

There were, ummm, how do you say, a LOT of people there. This is the pregame student section, all in white.

Let us not forget a fundamental point: F-18 Hornets are always cool.

The band and cheerleaders flanked the Nittany Lions' route onto the field, lest they get confused and wander.

Michigan promptly located Penn State's ass and commenced kicking it. Driving in for an early touchdown.

YEAH, THAT'S RIGHT!

Michigan ran off to a 17-7 lead and was up 17-14 at halftime. Joe, who graciously provided my ticket and was a kicker for Penn State, felt like this:

All of Penn State's fans were terrified of Michigan. Despite UM's poor record, they have always had Penn State's number, so the PSU fans were like an already kicked puppy. I lived up the first half while I could, knowing that Michigan's control of the game was likely to fade. In fact, while cheering loudly and putting an entire section of PSU fans through agony, I was acknowledging the whole time that Michigan was not likely to hold up. Therefore, I didn't get it too bad from the fans around me when the tables turned. Penn State won soundly by the end of the game. What a show, either way!

Free Association Friday

2008-10-24T19:46:00.010-04:00

I was in a meeting where a well-meaning engineer used the words "erroneous modes". I felt a little bit naughty.
(OK, so the phrase really just refers to a computer model falsely showing how a part bends under loading, which I am well aware of... stop judging me!)
At work, I also saw a recently made presentation advertising the construction of the Astute Class submarines in the U.K. It featured this little computer image of a guy in coveralls and a hard hat strutting his way through the gigantic hangar containing the shipbuilding ways while (no joke) 1000 ton hull cylinders zip by at about 50 m.p.h. as a nuclear submarine is constructed in fast-forward. It was OK, as far as these things go. The coup de grace, though, was the fact that Hall and Oates's Maneater was the soundtrack. And you thought early '80's music was dead! The best part is imagining the this-is-so-HOT smirk of the guy dubbing the soundtrack in.
I'm preparing for the annual 5.5 mile run, which is fast approaching at Nov. 2. I clocked in around 7min. 45 sec. a mile for about 5 miles this morning in a practice trial, which I feel good about since it was 6:00 A.M., cold, and dark. And part of it is up a hill I like to call "El Capitan".
Bravo to the Detroit Lions for getting a dime on the nickel for offloading a disgruntled Roy Williams for 3 draft picks next year. Apparently Matt Millen really is gone.
Me: "Sweetness, you are the most beautiful girl in God's creation." Sweetness: "Daddy, you smell like coleslaw."
Wifey prepared steak, squash w/ brown sugar & honey, coleslaw (see above bullet), sauteed onions/mushrooms, and battered fried onions that were 100% awesome for dinner tonight.
Oh, how my co-workers howled when I shifted 1/4 of my 401(k) portfolio to fixed income about a year ago. At least something I have is still making money.