Closet War Mongers

Recently, I was scraping the mildew-ridden caulk from the Official Bathtub of I Tell You What to prepare for a new bead of sparkling sealant. Through my overly vigorous efforts, I snapped a blade. I went to a new box of single-edge razors for the scraper, and was enamored with what I found. There was a plastic casing, with a channel open to a single side to allow the razors to slide out 1 at a time. On the underside, there were two plastic leaf springs that would automatically slide the next razor into the channel, ready to unload.

For those of you from the military, law enforcement, or a household where there is room for all of God's creatures at the table, this simple casing is known as a "magazine". This is because it reminds one fundamentally of this:

That's right, this principle is how almost every non-revolver repeating firearm cycles fresh rounds into the chamber after the previous round is discharged. Some, like our razor dispenser, require an independent mechanical means (the thumb) like a pump slide, a lever, or a bolt mechanism as shown above. Semi- and fully automatic firearms use the leftover pressurized gases from the previous round (bullet) to do the job, but it's all the same concept. This leaves us with 3 possibilities:

1. The United States is operating a covert weapons design base to support continued growth of the military-industrial-congressional complex.
2. It's really just a convenient way to package razor blades and it minimizes emergency room visits.
3. Mechanical Engineers boil all physical systems and components down to their most fundamental level, which makes everything relate to something else on some level or another.

My vote is Number 1 because, as www.defensetech.org informs us, the US has surpassed THE REST OF THE WORLD COMBINED for defense expenditures. Wifey would likely vote for Number 3, as she has to endure my little exercises like this on a regular, nay, constant basis. What do you think?

See You On Down the Oregon Trail

My mother and grandmother spent the last week or so at the I Tell You What residence. It was a great visit. We normally drive out to Michigan to visit them, and the simple act of traveling 900+ miles in a car seat leaves our daughter ragged before we even arrive. Then throw in excited relatives, sleeping in unfamiliar beds, and the occasional travel sickness, and it can be wearying. In other words, it was very convenient for us to be the hosts this time around. Sweetness slept well every night, didn't have eat a single happy meal, and got her naps in. Her personality has really developed, and it was great to see her interact with her grandmother and great-grandmother. Except for her pleading with them to stay up later when her evil father was putting her to bed. Of course, it was also the first time anybody from my extended family met Sarah Joy. This was also great, because she's a very happy baby, and looks eerily like my father. My grandmother also had time to tell a lot of stories from when she was younger. I heard a lot of stories about family members who I never even met, and a few about family members that I am familiar with. I was dismayed to discover that my ancestors from that side of the family came from... (sob)... Canada. I'm still not over that one. I like to pretend that they headed straight to Buffalo, NY, from Ellis Island, then marched through Ontario before realizing they had committed a navigational error, and crossing back to Detroit. One thing that was abundantly clear: life in rural places was hard work. If a person lectures you about how easy you've got it, they are simply a scold and you wish they would leave. If you ask them to tell you, it's enriching. These people lived an existence that was a struggle to keep your head above water, but every action toward preparing for the next season was a fruitful one. You busted your tail, hopefully avoided disasters beyond your control, harvested, and prepared for the next planting season. A trivial comparison that keeps coming to mind is Oregon Trail. You get cholera, the kids get dysentery or break legs, and your wagon wheel falls off. Then you spend 3 days hunting and only get some rabbits and squirrels. And all that is just to have the chance... to bust your tail farming on the West Coast instead of in Missouri.
I think there are still plenty of pitfalls in modern life. It's just that those pitfalls can not be avoided or overcome through physical vitality and work ethic. Is your 401K money invested prudently? Is your home worth less than you bought it for? Is the cost of living overwhelming your stagnant wages, in addition to having added children to your family? Do you work year-round, when even a farmer could cool his heels during winter? At times, it can seem preferable to take your chances going to bed exhausted from outdoor work, free from concerns about your child's down-the-road college education, and thankful that nobody has fallen sick that day.

A Kevin Jones-like Substance

This is a picture of Sweetness decked out in her official NFL apparel:The jersey is a replica (not actual size) of Kevin Jones, Detroit Lions running back. She loves the shirt, looks gorgeous in it, and is not aware of the utter mediocrity of the team the shirt represents. It is the team I cheer for, and will continue to do so loyally. This is a painful practice, cheering for a doomed squad, but it pays huge dividends, as it allows you to stake your claim proudly when the team finally achieves success. Like the Detroit Tigers of 2 years ago reaching the World Series. Anyway, Sweetness doesn't get farther than asking what the different teams are called when they're on TV, or getting excited when somebody gets their clock cleaned, so we're all winners to this point. I give credit to Wifey for the good idea, who also got a Tom Brady onesie for Sarah Joy. One child for each of our teams, this is how marriage works out.
Anyway, with much less time to exercise with the arrival of a second child, one of my outlet activities right now is Madden Football '08 on Playstation 2. My pretend-Lions (we'll call them the Peugeots) won the Superbowl, and are on a huge run in their pretend 3rd year of existence. On the second hardest difficulty level. I am marginally proud of this. Anyway, I was scrolling through the season 3 stats (shut up! It does not make me a dork) the other night, and I came across... Kevin Jones, my former star running back. I say "former", because the evil New England Patriots scooped him up in the off season because I didn't offer him enough pretend money (shut up!). I saw that the turncoat had suffered a season ending injury. I actually felt good inside, in a very smug way (shut up!). That was before I realized that I was experiencing actual human emotions for a video game, with pretend people, on pretend football teams that I don't actually play for, in a pretend future. SHUT UP!
Let's wrap this up with a gratuitous cute picture.

Last Man Standing

I apologize for the break in posts, but it has been a tough few weeks, with the return to full-time work and Sarah Joy's failure to understand the night is for sleeping while the day is for exploring the world around her. Wifey (see Heart Matters link on the left side of this page) has been doing a fantastic job, and last night was one of the most peaceful yet, so I still hold out hope that we can make this work. Speaking of work, there have been developments. I have been at my employer for 6.5 years now, and have learned a lot. As I am fond of saying, you learn something new every day if you are not careful. I've been shuffled between a few different mechanical systems, and, through focus and a few errors, have picked up valuable lessons about how to analyze, troubleshoot, and even how the industry works. This is a great thing, except this works best when you have somebody more experienced to shelter you from the big mistakes. The highest form of this art is becoming the Old Man In The Back (OMIT-B), the guy who always knows what questions to ask to come to a quick resolution of any problem, and who is really just killing time until somebody approaches him with something novel or new for him to entertain him. Well, my engineering group has had such severe attrition over the past year that the only person remaining for me to lean on for help was the OMIT-B. My group went from something like 12 to 6 people in that time, but as long as the OMIT-B was around I could hold my own. Now the company is reassigning the OMIT-B to work on another project. Yes, the move is for the greater good of the company. Yes, he'll still work for the same company, but he's being physically moved to another location, and will certainly be too busy to spend much time helping my group out. That means that over a period of just over 6 years, I am the Last Man Standing working on the mechanical portions of the weapon systems of our... ahem, product. Not through guts, guile, or gumption, but simply staying in the same place long enough to learn a few things and for everybody else to just... go away. I guess life really is mostly just showing up.

By the way, that picture up top is Arnold Schwarzennegger as Dutch in the movie Predator. After defeating a 7' tall intergalactic hunter in man-to-whatever combat, he truly was the last man standing. That may be a worthwhile post in the near future right there!

Been A While

Sorry, I've been out of touch for a bit. Sarah Joy decided that sleeping at night is for quitters. While I would have agreed during college, I'm older now and can't keep up with blogging and 6 hours of sleep a night. My goal for the weekend is to get some sleep and throw a few posts up as I go. Fare thee well.

A Gulp of Fresh Air

Imagine that you're in dire straights. You are drowning. You body is convulsing, lungs feel aflame from the lack of oxygen. Then, with a spasm, you gasp and liquid rushes in to kill you.
Except, it does not kill you. Your body is doing just fine. That is because the liquid is not water, but perfluorohexane. The human body is actually capable of liquid breathing!
In this scenario, you would still die a little later rather than sooner, because fresh liquid needs to be circulated in constantly by external means, as God decided not to include "extracts oxygen from gaseous and liquid media effectively for prolonged periods" when writing the specifications for Human 1.0. The little bags that serve for our lungs and the supporting musculature just aren't up to the task of moving such a high density fluid, and the sorts of fluids that permit liquid breathing are more dense than water. Not to mention that it's really probably the viscosity that really kills you. No pun intended. According to the Wikipedia link above, this technology is in use already for treating premature births, because fetal lungs don't develop the ability to breath air properly until almost 2 weeks before delivery.
I became aware of the possibility of liquid breathing by watching the movie The Abyss. What a great film! Aside from the groundbreaking special effects that were used second to a plot that you couldn't stop watching, the movie starred Ed Harris (see above). He's been fantastic in many roles, and I defy anybody to claim with a straight face that they weren't cheering for him to gun down sissy Jude Law in Enemy at the Gates. A buddy (yes, another engineer) and I discussed that movie recently (I don't care if it is 18 years old!), and both wondered if liquid breathing is real. It is my friends, and what a crazy thing it is. Meditate on it.

Hail to the 2nd-Best Engineering School in Michigan

Yesterday's Outback Bowl in Orlando, Florida, brought a badly needed victory for the University of Michigan Wolverines, and also ended the coaching career of Lloyd Carr. It's not often that a coach stays with a single school for almost 30 years, but Carr did. This past season has not been a particularly good one by the lofty standards of the Wolverines, but an 8 game winning streak and an upset victory in a New Year's Day bowl game that one could argue Michigan had no right being invited to provided some value to an otherwise grim season. The Wolverines largely ran an offense with 4 wide receivers and a single running back yesterday, which is a refreshing contrast to Carr's steadfast faith in a more conservative offense that had critics claiming the game had passed him by. For most of the past 13 years he could have been known as counter-trey Carr after his predictable, if mostly successful, reliance on a conservative approach of relying on athletic, bone-crunching giants (Jon Runyan, Jon Jansen, Steve Hutchinson, Jeff Backus, David Baas, Jake Long...) on the offensive line. Even sweeter, Michigan's opponent, Florida, featured the Heisman trophy winner Tim Tebow, a quarterback who is a bruising runner to boot. Mobile quarterbacks have historically trashed Carr's defenses, but yesterday Michigan's defense overcame one of the best while winning the game. In fact, if Mike Hart (don't look for him to do much in the NFL) hadn't fumbled twice inside the 5-yard line, there wouldn't have been any doubt to the outcome of what became a nail-biter of a game.
Well done, Mr. Carr. Not many coaches leave NCAA big-time college football with their reputations and dignity intact, and you have done so!