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.

Cause For War

This was a classic I Tell You What weekend. Sunny skies, light breezes, high temperatures in the 60's. Saturday I did a bit of work outside, preparing the fire pit for an evening marshmallow roast and clearing the corners of our 1/4 acre lot (or the back 0.05, as I like to call it) of vines and such. As I tugged on the very last vine, its roots gave way surprisingly easy, so easily that a cloud of loose dirt was tossed up in my face as the leaf pile above the vine roots was tossed like a salad. This caused me to remove my glasses and wipe my face. I heard buzzing, and looked down to see a bunch of flies coming out of the leaf pile cruising around my knees. Wait a second, those aren't flies...

THOSE ARE YELLOW JACKETS! THEY'RE MAD AND THEY'RE STING-CRAZY! FIREARMS ARE USELESS AGAINST THEM! SAVE YOURSELVES!

I beat a retreat that was beyond hasty. The phrase "asses and elbows" comes to mind. I was stung twice, in the back and on the ear. That being said, I was very fortunate. I had decided to wear blue jeans instead of shorts. I had hiking boots instead of sneakers. I had kept my shirt on through the laborious effort. I picked a bunch of yellow jackets off my pants that could easily have stung me had I worn shorts.

This is why today's entry is under "What's The Good Word". Today's phrase is casus belli. It is a key event that justifies war. It's one of those neat Latin phrases, and fit just that neatly into my frame of mind at the moment. I had all the justification I needed.

Oh, and one other thing turned out in my favor. I had TWO cans of hornet spray in my backyard shed. I got to roll back in, heavy, with twin cannons. Many hornets fell, and I figured I got the entrance to they're little hornet Hades inside my leaf pile pretty good. Nonetheless, I was forced to beat a hasty retreat a few more times due to the hostile vigilance of the beefed up security perimeter.
I backed off from the wasptropolis and finished the rest of my outdoor chores and let the angry insects simmer down a bit. After about an hour, I returned (only one can of insecticide, the other was newly empty) and shook a stick into the leaf pile. A beautiful column of yellow jackets, one after the other, began erupting from the hole in the pile. And they met a sublimely foamy stream of invertebrate death sentence in midair, every last one of them. I must have dropped 50 of those suckers during that little skirmish. It was our Turkey Shoot to the preceding and more close-run Midway, if you will.
I am not foolish. They survive, perhaps even survive under that leaf pile. They may even bee (get it?) subterranean. I could have left them alone, but this aggression will not stand. In the bleak darkness of winter, I will scatter that leaf pile into nothingness when it is so cold that their blood runs like motor oil. They will die, separated, alone, and frozen into little waspbergs of ice. And my heart will be just as bitter.
"...and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, AND SUBDUE IT: and have DOMINION over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth." -Genesis 1:28
Dominioning complete.

iNDIAn Summer

I recently had the rare opportunity of attending a major military-industrial-congressional complex conference. An ironic type would have noted the projector screen background with the header "STRENGTH THROUGH INDUSTRY AND TECHNOLOGY" looking like it was stamped into steel. It was quite a scene to take in, something straight out of Vonnegut (I'm thinking Player Piano) {as a further aside, can you believe that this particular Vonnegut society allowed engineers to be elevated to the uppermost levels of society? Herbert Hoover and Jimmy Carter showed how that little fantasy ends}). The hosting organization was the NDIA (get it? iNDIAn Summer!) which acts as sort of a lubricant between the military and its suppliers, the better for the wheels of the m-i-c complex to turn smoothly.
It was a fascinating experience. The people-watching opportunities were priceless. The admirals cut through the crowds in scythe-like fashion, polite but unconcerned and accustomed to deference. Captains swirled about the admirals like pilot fish or remoras. Industry executives flittered about, landing on whatever flower offered potential for self-endorsement or improved networking. The scientists lingered on the fringes, disheveled and confused by their inability to penetrate the culture of "normal people". The engineers paraded around in uncoordinated outfits and hammered, simply hammered the free food. There was a dinner the first night that featured so much meat that I think my kidneys and liver have accumulated protein crystals that they don't know how to dispose of. In order to NewEngland the bejesus out of the festivities, dinner was:

• clam chowder
• steamers (a small clam)
• shrimp
• 3/4 pound of spicy sausage
• 1 1/2 pound lobster

Seriously. I didn't even bother with dessert, and I only had 3 beers. That's right only 3 FREE beers. That, I think, conveys what happens when you feast on crustaceans until you hate yourself. Let's move on.

The first day was all a "plenary" session, which is Latin for "let everybody sit in one lecture hall so that we all feel important in the presence of greatness". It was basically a round robin of peacocks for the powers that be. We met at a local hotel to ride onto the Navy base, and I discovered, to my chagrin, that my khakis and tie were trumped by the full business suit of EVERYBODY ELSE ON THE BUS. The situation once we arrived was a little more business casual (just like we were told it was supposed to be), but you get the idea. Anyway, after that first day and the following dinner, the admirals and executives found more important places to be, and the geeks got down to business. The highlights:

• This country has many very stupid people, but some of the presentations I saw convinced me that the extremely smart people just maybe balance out the many dumb ones. "Wicket smat", in the local vernacular. I was really humbled.
• My approach of not being overly focused on career advancement and being oblivious to other people's feelings leaves me the perfect person for networking at these affairs. I don't think most of the people I met with really cared about me, but they will definitely remember me, because I always speak with nothing to lose.
• The Chinese are evil. Well, except for Jackie Chan, I Tell You What
• Newport News Shipbuilding is evil. No exceptions.
• Ever read The Hunt For Red October or Red Storm Rising? Our Navy is way, way, way past the technology you read about in those books. The funny part, from my perspective, is that all the new technology is being added to platforms (the boats themselves) that are little changed from 40 years ago.
• The best presentation by far was an innovative use of the trash disposal unit. Existing hardware packaged to gain additional capability at very low cost. Bravo.
• I love presentations on war gaming. I would really like to challenge some of the Navy guys, just to see how I'd do
• Who new weather and current simulation were so important?
• If somebody with a 30 minute presentation on computer networks can't make it, and you are selected to do the presentation in their stead, do us all a favor and be either very entertaining/charismatic or a fast reader
• The enlisted personnel I encountered on the Navy base were an absolute pleasure to deal with. Very encouraging to see that our society can still produce 20 year-old men and women with dignity.

The Money Maker

So, how do you hedge against complete failure in a technical field? Look the role, talk the role, live the role. Once you are a consumate dork, They (the global "They", who run everything) will have no choice but to cast you with a brief role in a recruiting video. Have patience, it takes a while to load. I guess my Hollywood destiny was cut short almost 30 years ago with a face that just wasn't Tombradyish enough, but my corporate film roll lived on because I never boxed enough to mash my face. That and the fact that the company apparently feels no obligation to pay me an additional cent for my cameo. That was filmed about 2 years ago with the purpose of being shown at trade shows and conferences and the like for a project we were working on. Instead, every new hire the company brings in will vaguely recognize me... until the lightbulb goes on and WHAMMO!

I KNOW YOU! YOU'RE THE GUY FROM THE RECRUITING VIDEO! I WANT TO BE YOUR DEAR FRIEND...

I'm going to see it coming from a mile away, but I don't know how to respond or, better still, cut off the inevitable "I know and understand you because I've seen your face before." Any thoughts out there?

Incomplete Sentience

Sarah Joy has made remarkable strides in development in the past few weeks. She is pulling up to a standing position, making attempts to speak, and making waving and clapping hand gestures. This is exciting stuff, from a parenting perspective. She is also, as pictured above, showing a trait fundamental to the ability to reason intelligently: being drawn to the game of football. Of course, her path to awareness is not complete, because she hasn't figured out that she can't hold the ball that far from her body for very long without fumbling. I'm excited, as usual, for the start of football this year. As I write, most NFL games from the season's first Sunday have been completed, and NCAA football is 2 weeks into its season. This season holds less promise for me personally for the following reasons:

• The University of Michigan offense is about as consistent as coach Rich Rodriguez's sense of ethics. All I can say to this point is that we are 2 games closer to the end of his tenure.
• The Detroit Lions. In general. Pick your reason. I will cheer because I am beholden by honor, but I am not deceived.

In the meantime, there is a Sunday night game about to get going. I need to watch.

Doints

A continuation of the previous post. A few things I observed from reading Running Critical based on the technical discussions, history, and corporate struggles presented:

• The slapdash manner in which modern weapon systems is designed has not gotten any better, but isn't much worse, either. In the 1970's Adm. Rickover's manic obsession with the nuclear reactor lead to it dominating the boat, all for a few precious knots of speed. In setting the specifications for the new fast attack submarine (now the 688 class), he ended up with a boat that was not very fast, couldn't dive very deep, was heavy because the nuclear reactor had poor power density, and was not as quiet as it could have been. But that was not a big deal, because it was expensive! His power grab in the submarine design community occurred at a time when the last vestiges of WWII combat experience were fading. That knowledge base is now gone, and we can only rely on best guesses as to what will be most critical in the next real naval battle. Submarines have evolved into such complicated monsters that nobody can realistically set specifications and know what it's going to cost to actually attain them. Throw in some feudal spats between segments of the Navy with opposing interests, and what the author accurately termed "ad hocism" reigns. I've seen this firsthand, where answers like, "we're not sure how much Option 1 or Option 2 will cost, but the one with fewer parts should be cheaper" run rampant. This may be unchanged from the beginning of industrialized weaponry (I'm thinking about those beautiful but not entirely useful battleships built in the 1930's), but it is galling to observe.
• I tell you what, those shipyards used to be nasty places. While things have been cleaned up, for the better in my estimation, maritime construction is still hardly a place for those who can't make do with the best the shipfitters can give them. I actually had a request today to install a 20" lever backwards because "it looks like it will work". That was a rare case where I told the shipyard to scrap the part. It is still interesting, though, to work in a place unique enough to have a book written that recognizably describes the buildings, smells, and behaviors of your workplace.
• One of the contributing factors to cost overruns in the late 1970's was an increase in the fundamental costs of doing business. Metals and energy both became significantly more expensive in a very short period of time. Just like 2006-2008!
• Some of the characters that have careers ruined are probably not so bad. In fact, many of the men who were ground into a fine dust while working as shipyard managers or accountants were very intelligent, and had decades of experience to inform their decisions. But that was not enough to save them from external forces (labor unions, politics, bad executive management...) that were overwhelming. This is why, to me, it seems foolish to make many decisions based on how they will affect career advancement. There are just too many men who are willing to go to just about any length to get a leg up on the next promotion, and too many external forces playing a role, to make it worth committing my life to that. As the book showed, even when you get to "the top" you may find yourself miserable. Work hard, show everybody how capable you are, and let the chips fall where they may.

Rick-rolled

As mentioned in a previous post, I plowed through Patrick Tyler's Running Critical. It took almost 2 weeks, which in the life of a parent of 2 young children is a scorching pace. Anyway, the book is probably only marginally interesting to those who neither work in engineering, submarines, the Navy, or other defense contractors. That's still a pretty narrow audience, but the corporate ethical lessons alone are important for college business majors to study. If, that is, they read. The focus of this nonfiction is the struggle between 3 men for domination of the lucrative submarine design and construction industrial base from 1970-1985. This struggle had obvious implications for the national defense and the men who manned those ships as well.

Hyman Rickover (get it? Rick-rolled!) was a technocrat who controlled (by title or force of will) the atomic energy commission and all aspects of nuclear power within the U.S. Navy. It can be hard to judge somebody from a different era using our own generational perspective, but this individual used his clout to manipulate levers far beyond his notional control. And that clout was considerable, as Rickover's agency oversaw the successful design, construction, and service of the USS Nautilus, the first atomic powered warship. His intuition for both the technical, political, and fiscal aspects of nuclear powerplants was amazing. However, he also picked up and discarded men at all levels of the command chain at his whim with no consideration for them. His expansion and consolidation of power actually consumed other men's careers, and rather than gain allies, Rickover's moves were always at the expense of gaining enemies.

Dave Lewis represented every corporate suit you've ever seen in the movies. He gained a lot of attention for himself at an aerospace firm (I think it was McDonnell Douglas), then leveraged that to gain presidency of General Dynamics. At the time, GD was the largest defense contractor in the nation, so this was no small deal. Lewis was always looking over his shoulder, worried about who was after his job or at least looking to undercut him to make themselves look better. This insecurity no doubt has some sound logic behind it, but tends to hinder leadership and forward vision. He also had a focus on one thing: the next upcoming annual financial report. Never once in the book was there an example of long-term decision making, but always the expedient fix that most effectively avoided short-term pain. Of course, when what you are doing is by most definitions "illegal", that philosophy tends to make more sense.

Takis Veliotis was an immigrant shipyard manager who understood his business phenomenally well. He brought Old Word autocracy to mix with New World capitalism. This ultimately resulted in his flight from the United States to avoid federal charges for taking kickbacks. Isn't that the sort of thing a king should be entitled to do? Having acknowledged that, he may have been the only man with the knowledge, strength, and manic devotion to save the Quncy and Groton shipyards from closure.

All 3 of these men abused power, crossed legal and ethical lines, then spent the rest of their otherwise accomplished careers trying to cover their errors in judgement. All 3 put themselves above the rules. They lived only for themselves and their reputations, with no focus other than their own glory. Even the salvation of Electric Boat was simply a feather in the cap for Veliotis, not something he did to help the workers or shareholders or community. In the end, Lewis was disgraced in front of congress, Veliotis was on the run, and Rickover lost his job. They were all extremely competent at what they did, they were all committed beyond reason to achievement, they each had a number of crossroads where they could have changed course, yet they could not defeat their own weaknesses in the end.

The biggest lessons I could pull from this: relying only on yourself (as the 3 subjects of this book) and focusing only on career achievement (as many of those crushed by the main characters) are both roads to personal downfall. There are too many outside factors beyond any one man's control, and two of those factors are his own greed and pride.

I will follow up shortly with another, briefer post on the more interesting doints (dork-points) I gained from the historical and technical aspects of this book.