Dressing Like an Engineer

When I think about what Engineer's dress like I have a few mental images that pop into my head of typical garb.

First and for most I look towards my university Professors for the latest in post 1970’s engineering fashion. This dress typically includes a flannel patterned button shirt, kaki slacks, dress-up-black belt, and some light colored Nike® kicks. This type of dress seems fairly typical of other engineering professionals I’ve seen with the exception of the ever-popular Polo® t-shirt, often adorned by a company logo of sorts. This seems to be widely accepted as proper business attire and although I’d much rather wear a pair of jeans; it beats the hell out of having to wear a suit and tie.

Second, I look up to my current boss, a certified PE, and technical field engineer. His dress is similar with only a single exception. In place of the minimalist type dress-up belt previously mentioned he sports a rather hefty utility belt. He tots all sorts of things along thoughout the day by means of affixing them to various clips and holsters on said belt. Despite the batman-esque look and uber *$_&/#(! tendency of such an appliance, I have to admit the preparedness and utility of always having small tools and a flash light on hand does have its benefits.

I cant really remember where I was going with this anymore… I'm sure there was some point in bringing this up.

Insert random conclusion here.

FIN

What is it about the people's car?

In this short our boy Adolph is informed his car has been stolen, and recovered - stripped to the bare shell. Watch the video for a very decent rant about why any other car is just a piece of shit.

I wont ruin the ending, but if you're fluent in German you'll want to pretend you're not and just read the english subtitles.

Miscellany

Just a few head lines and updates...

Turbo Install
I've been hesitant to post up about this mostly because I don’t have any pictures of it yet. But it's done, its running - its boosting - it's quick. Basically it is the same car till about 3k rpm, the turbo kicks in like a ton of bricks and the tach races to redline. Under boost it sounds like a lion, then the measly 6psi of intake pressure blows off with the sound of a small mouse pissing in a puddle.

The install was straight forward as can be. We (Cisco and I) got started at ~5pm on Friday afternoon and worked through the night to make the inogeral test drive at ~8am on Saturday.

So far no leaks, no surging, no problems.

School
They say grad school isnt for everyone. I dont see why, it's not so bad. It's a good chance I might get straight A's (for the first time in my life), I'm making bank as a TA, and I'm not stressed at all.

Favorite class so far is ME 570 (Analysis I) - not sure why though. Actually now that I think about my favorite class being Fouier Series and Eigan value problems I'm starting to worry about myself as a human being. Can I have my soul back now?

This Weekend
I'm going home to Santa Fe this weekend for two main reasons. One, bring Muffin home. Two, attend a "Cigar and Car Bomb, Cape Party." If you're not in the know on either of those two points dont fell bad - I'm not even sure why or what I'm doing on the subject(s).

It'll be the first time driving the Corrado on a long trip since the install. Also, the first chance that I might have to tell my parents that there's a turbo in my car now (I'm not of the impression that they'll understand why I would do such a thing).

Planning to be back for the Aggie Football game on Sunday. Might join the body painters. As seen at the last home game, pictured right.





Edit: It was cold as fuck.

The Good Humor Co.

Back by popular demand, Brought to you by the Good Humor Company; It's Popcicle Stick Jokes!

Q: What kind of License does a refigerator have?

A: A license to chill.


ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!11!

Boost’n

In the past I’ve posted about going turbo with the Corrado. So this time… I’m serious!

On Friday afternoon I called up Kinetic Motorsport and ordered Stage1.

The various boxes of goodies should start showing up from Canada late next week (or so). I’m pretty extremely excited.

Edit: This morning when I woke up I went out to the car, sat behind the wheel in the parking lot and just thought about what an extra 100 hp is going to feel like.

You know what really grinds my gears?

There is a group of students in my classes that are starting to piss me off. Each one in this particular group behaves in the same manner (hence referring to them as a “group”) – each of them have the same frustrating social dyscrasia that makes them similar to each other. They dress exactly the same in one of two outfits that the group seems to coordinate between days. On Monday-Wednesday-Friday it’s a dress shirt and tight – look at me, I can show you what my balls look like with out dropping my pants – slacks. On Tuesday-Thursday it’s a WWF tee shirt with stone washed jeans circa 1984.

I can get past 10 guys walking, talking and dressing alike; I can even see humor in it (believe me I’ve laughed). It does bother me however, when they disrupt class by talking to them selves and then blurting out wrong answers. Its even worse when they give wrong answers in unison – it sounds like an auditorium right before they tell everyone to be quite and pay attention... murmmor, murmomor, mmmmurmorrr.

In contrast, when you have a one-on-one conversation with them they stand to close and (take into consideration how close they’re standing when I say this) talk below the audible decibel range.

Obviously if there were such a group of people that you had to deal with everyday you’d have come up with a nick name for them. If anything just to make referencing their actions to others easier. It makes sense. Moreover you’d pick a name that highlighted their similarities as a single entity. Basically, something like: “The Wrestling Fans” or “Team Tight Pants.” Shame on you.

I lovingly refer to them as “The Indians.” It was a natural choice for me as in addition to their aforementioned parallelisms they are all of Indian nationality.

All racism aside about the way they smell (even though the stereotype holds), I wouldn’t label them as “The Indians” if they all were not of the same nationality, and I wouldn’t be writing this rant if there wasn’t something they did as individuals that pissed me off.

Today we had a quiz. I was done quickly – not the first done but nonetheless admittedly fast. So I had a chance to sit around with nothing to do but observe those who were still working. When the professor called time and picked up the remaining quizzes it appeared as though most students stopped on queue and handed 'em in, some even uncompleted. The Indians kept working.

The prof asked again, “Quizzes? Hand them in.” He paused. “Ok, I have all the quizzes?” He then began to go over the solution on the chalkboard. At this point, one by one, the Indians would stand up and sneak in their quiz papers into the pile at the front of the room or something to the effect of working on it some more and then trying to hand it in after the solution had been posted. Point being they knew they were in the wrong they were sneaking. Sneaking!

Finally, the prof who now seemed upset (and rightly so), flat out stated he was NOT going to accept ANY more. And at the brink of yelling he said: “I realize there’s a language barrier here but you guys need to be way more responsive to the things I ask. When I say turn them in now, I mean NOW.”

A good 2 minutes later the last one turns one in.

To conclude this rant I’ve got some anonymous comments I received after doing some pre-blog venting:

Sent at 4:59 PM on Wednesday
********: Well, don't call Dell for help, they'll send you to a call station in India where the mother fucker on the phone knows so little English its really just to piss you off to the point that whatever was wrong with the machine seems moot.


Sent at 10:44 AM on Wednesday
******** ******: Yeah, there were tons at my school. They used to hang out all night in the computer lab and the whole place reeked of ass and curry.
They changed the chairs out my senior year, and suddenly the computer lab didn't stink. It was real gross, those chairs were vile.

Street Legal Sofas

Say it with me now... "I Am Sofa King We Todd Did." But seriously did you know the current Guiness world record for top speed on furniture is on a street legal sofa? An impressive 87 mph at that - thats almost fast enough for time travel ladies and gentalmen.

Right now you're thinking, alright then - good to know. But wait there's more! "The wonks" at www.sofa.com, a British based online sofa retailer, are building a sofa to beat the existing Furniture Land Speed Record. Reportedly all they need is "someone brave enough, fast enough, daft enough... They need a driver." The best part is you can head over to www.sofa.com, take a guess at how much change they found between the sofa coushions and are keeping inside a glass jar pictured on thier website, and enter to win a weekend of racecar driving, followed by the ultimate prize - drive the sofa for the win!

Semester Beer Fund

So this morning I received an email from my brother. For the full effect I've included it below in its original form:


Dude, Leif, I'm speechless.

Indiana vs. Belgium

I just got back from Columbus, Indiana. I was there for about a day and a half on an interview for a full time engineering job with Cummins. The interview went well in my opinion and I should here back from them with an offer by next week.

One of the things that stayed with me the most was the similarity in landscape of Columbus and Belgium. I’ve provided some quick google-image-search results. Like I said, the likeness is incredible.

INDIANA:

BELGIUM:

INDIANA:

BELGIUM:

INDIANA:

BELGIUM:

INDIANA:

BELGIUM:

Una conversación muy extraña con Borracho Brooks

Today I recieved an email from John. Here's what it said:

hheeeyyy raven. I was wondering if it'd be possible to swing by later and pick up the remaining cake from your chante?

So I replied:

mi torta es tu torta. confieso, yo no tengo gusto chocolate.

To which I recieved:

hahaha. por que no? y por que you tengo chocolate at your house for soo long and no say nothing?

And so I sent:

eeee, no se. is probablemente porque una muchacha asked me to keep it there.

The converstaion then ended with:

aye es funny por que this muchacha and myself had a convo and she said that its probably todo seca ahora porque ella no put a cover on it..so its most likely dry. i ella quire her plate as well. bien? no bien? what are you up to tonight? I dunno if i am going to go tomorrow bc i think that I will be picking up my car...hopefully anyway.

My 3rd grade spanish teacher (Senora Perez) would be proud!

Nurburgring Webcam

I just found a great new way to waste time!

http://www.nurburgring.org.uk/webcams.html

It refreshes every minute. Here's a good one:



Also, this one looks just like New Mexico at night:



Heres a few more links that could be of interest:
Google Satelite Map
The Official Website
Wikipedia Entry

Symposium 2006: Highlighting Student and Postdoctoral Research

Every year I’m asked as an intern to participate in the Annual Student Symposium. I had a choice between a poster presentation or a technical talk. Unlike years past, this summer I’ve opted to go for the technical talk.

Upon submitting my registration I received a phone call. The caller informed me that he’d received my registration. He then told me:

“The objective of a technical talk is to communicate information to other scientists.”

I was also instructed that mumbling, monotone speech and use of obscure terminology are not effective methods of communication.

This brings up the question: Does this guy say this to every one? What the hell!

Further more now that mumbling and monotone speech are out I have no idea what I’m going to talk about. Any one got any good ideas?

German Humor

The company that manufactures some of our electrical equipment is based out of Germany. After some repeat reliability issues and unacceptable service from the American based support team the company has sent in an “expert.” I’m a little confused as to why the American support team does not include any of these so called “experts.”

As such I spent most of today with a technician from Germany. He never mentioned his name and from the paper work it seems mostly unpronounceable, I’ve been calling him Expert (he seemed to like it). There was a lot of red tape that I had to cut though in order to get Expert into the facility – a process that could have been made easier in my opinion had any member of my team ever escorted a foreign nation into the building before. I can just see it, this is what all of them were thinking: “Just let that summer student figure it out, if he gets a security infraction it’ll matter less.”

Throughout the day I learned a bunch of cool stuff about Expert.
1. He speaks three forms of German – Regular conversational, formal written, and technical.
2. He has a daughter my age that is much better looking than any of the girls we ran into today.
3. His wife is over-weight, the diet pills don’t work for her.
4. His first car was a Renault (french - what the hell, wheres the german pride), now he drives a Passat TDi.
5. He becomes upset if a restaurant (Quizno’s) doesn’t serve beer.
6. He carries a book in his tool box entitled “German Humor” all pages of which are blank.

In the end he did not have the right tool with him to finish the job and it will have to be over-nighted from the American support company.

I was afraid to ask but I speculate that the reason he did not have the particular tool with him was because the required storage space was taken by the blank joke book.

Looking to be getting busy, I think… well, maybe.

I spend a lot of time at work with nothing to do. There is a specific reason for this. The reason is most of the work I’m assigned to are design improvement projects that hinge entirely on the contractor that’s scheduled to come in and make measurements or do work. These are by no means small projects and most times involve operation critical equipment. They should keep me busy except the problems are the gaps between projects that are too large and thus leave me with nothing to do between them. I’ve done every thing in my power to expedite the arrival of these contractors and schedule the next project just within completion of the last but it continues to be an unsolvable problem.

During these periods of nothing I’m still required to look busy and put in my time at the office. This is especially the case as I share an office with my Mentor/Supervisor/Boss Man and when we’re both present I feel the need to appear like I’m doing something I’m supposed to – something important. I like to call these periods of looking busy Interim Project Preparation Engineering Analysis and Planning (IPPEAP).

Although I receive nothing but praise from my current Mentor my previous Mentor and now good friend was outraged upon hearing about IPPEAP. He insists I ask for more work to do when I have nothing going on between projects. It seemed like a good, honest suggestion, plus if it worked it would relive the boredom and the stress of being caught just looking busy. So I did.

I then had “escort responsibilities” which is far worse than IPPEAP. I actually had trouble staying awake. I’d escort workers into basements and other mechanical/electrical rooms where they them selves do not have access. Then I’d sit around (there’d be a chair if I was lucky) and wait for them to be done. I’ve since complained about this enough that I’ve been relieved of these duties as they did not contribute to the educational goals of my engineering internship. It was back to good ol’ IPPEAP until I could come up with a better way of telling my Mentor I needed something to do.

Yesterday I thought I had the answer. I made the proposal to my mentor and received an entire list of things to do! Half the items on the list looked extremely difficult and like they’d suck unless I got some help. I thought: “this u’ll take me forever to do.” Boy was I excited (and wrong).

As of 2pm today I’ve completed everything on the list and then some. I feel really good about these accomplishments and the timely manner in which they were completed, yet part of me thinks I shouldn’t have worked so fast cause you know… now what?

I’ll think of something to do I’m sure of it. I know I’ll write a blog entry.

Ok that’s done.

The return of the Tri-pod

The last time I went auto-crossing was in El Paso. I took the Corrado out and had an unfortunate run in with a very pissy individual in a Grand Am. I’ve kept track of his participation with the pan am region; in general he continues to suck and I never should have relinquished those points. What an ass.

This last Sunday the Rio Grande region hosted an event in Santa Fe. A load of Volkswagens were in attendance. As far as I can remember there were: two R32’s (one red one blue), a 1.8t Jetta with NMTARC (hey, I started that club) badging, a grip of mkII GTI’s, a 4 door Rabbit with an 8v turbo, and everyone’s favorite 1983 bone-stock diamond silver Rabbit GTI.

When I walked up to the registration desk I was greeted by a few familiar faces, one of which said: “ahh, the return of the Tri-pod.” (For those of you that don’t get the joke, this is in reference to the rabbits tendency to lift its inside rear wheel when cornering.) Another guy said: “What no rental car?” (I went almost an entire year racing Enterprise rental cars) Next, Tom asked me if I wanted to be a Novice director – to which I answered: “Hell, yes!” What a way to make an entrance, I love racing with the Rio Grande region.

I had a blast being a novice instructor. Basically, you sit in the passenger seat of a sports car with someone who has either little or no idea what they’re doing and hold on for the ride of your life. Afterwards you suggest areas/methods for improvement. It’s everything I love all rolled up into one (squealing tires, roller coaster rides, and pointing out peoples flaws).

Over all I did very well. I got a few comments along the lines of: "Good run!" Results here.