Free Association Friday

Have you ever checked or reviewed a 700 page engineering calculation package? Neither have I, but hopefully in a few months I'll be able to say I have finished doing just that. I'm just over 300 pages into the job. A lot of the pages are repeats of previous sections, but with just a few changes that can devilishly throw your answer off. Are these vectors really perpendicular? Are these dimensions correct for the position of the mechanism? Does this negative sign need to be changed on page 65, when it was definitely positive on page 15? The real shame is, after I certify each page with my initials, and we finally send the thing to the Navy for their review, I will have missed something. Hopefully something small, but I will inevitably make an error. All this gives you a lot of time to think, and your consciousness sort of oozes all over as the pages blend together. Thus, we begin with some Morphine:

My whole brain was out of tune I don't know how to tune a brain, do you? Went into a brain shop
They said they'd have to rebuild the whole head
I said "Well, do what you gotta do"
I don't know how to fix a brain, do you?
When I got my brain back, it didn't work right
Didn't have as many good ideas
Haven't really had a good idea since I got it fixed...

I always loved Morphine. Perpetually underrated. Not by me, apparently.

• Here's somebody who strikes me as a genius, but not in a math sort of way. Seriously, that's impressive. Now would somebody please tell the guy to breathe!
• For those who are more into the whole "math" thing. Scientists really don't know what's going on. Hey, neither do I. But I recognize that fact, and allow God all the room He needs to fill in the gaps.
• To the two kids who wanted to join my coworkers and I in our ongoing game of football at the park the other day: I appreciate your commitment to the great sport of football, and your confidence in asserting you could add value to our game of two hand touch. However, you couldn't have been a day over 12 years old, and we'd already had some accidental full speed collisions. Nothing that damages adult 185 pound bodies, but I'm pretty sure all the king's horses and all the king's men would have been unable to get you back in the game if you were accidentally steamrolled. Finally, while I think a man should welcome the opportunity to act kindly to the young, we all knew you were really just trying to play to impress the 3 girls who were standing 10 feet behind you.