Lip-Sync Bragging

You may have heard about the lip-sync challenge that's going around. The Gretna Police Department got my son, who has an advertising agency, to write and produce their video. He had a ball doing it and got to play with the SWAT vehicle. Here's a link:

Gretna PD Lip-Sync

Project Creep

Most managers know project creep. I am dealing with it now. It started when our 34 year old electric, downdraft cook top died. Dead short in the electrical system. Of course there was no way a current cook top was going to drop into the same space. That lead to the decision to pull the base cabinet and replace it with a gas range. Problem is there was no gas line or a vent hood.

We ended up having to run a dedicated circuit for the vent hood. Luckily, we were able to use an existing air conditioning fir down to put the vent piping in next to the air con duct. Luck number 2 was being able to use the old chase for the downdraft vent for the new gas feed. The house was pretty crazy for a few days while workmen cut and banged away to bring in the new hook ups while we waited for delivery of the new range. My big concern was getting it into the kitchen as we needed to make two 90 degree turns around the center island to get it into place. I made a cardboard cut out of the range and made several dry runs with my paper doll cut out testing how it could make the turns.

Short story is that, although the delivery guys were inexperienced, my contractor arrived with some moving dollys and we successfully negotiated the turns to get it in place.

Now this work, triggered by a necessity, is leading to a kitchen remodel including new cabinet doors and counter tops.

Sidebar Stuff

I added a new blog to my sidebar. It is called "The Military Nomad" and is written by a woman whose family lived next door to me. I watched her grow up and marry an Army officer. Since then she has traveled the world and some of those postings were not in the best of places. When she arrives in one of these third world postings she usually finds and adopts an orphanage and starts a campaign to raise donations to support them. She has started a blog to  document her experiences. Go and give her a read.

Unskilled and Unaware

I'm sure you've run across people who just seem to keep making really dumb mistakes. We even have phrases to describe them like "He's as dumb as a hoe" or "He'd tear up an anvil". Well now there is scientific evidence that this trait is a recognized characteristic. Back in my day, we had the "Peter Principle" which said that within any organization, people would be promoted to their level of incompetence. The situation where someone is unaware of their own incompetence is called the "Dunning - Kruger Effect". HERE is a link to some of their original research.

So, the next time you run across someone who seems to always make the wrong decision, you will be able to describe his condition.

Saved by Technology

My rental property went vacant recently so I had to change the utilities into my name until it rented again. The gas and electricity I could do over the internet but I had to go in person for the water. When I got there, I had to prove that I owned the house by showing a property tax bill. Luckily, I remembered that I had taken a picture of my most recent tax bill for another reason and it was still in my phone. The clerk gave me her email and I attached the picture to an email and sent it from my Android phone. Thirty seconds later....problem fixed.... and I saved about 1 hour in wasted time going home to get the documents.

This old dog can learn new tricks.

Ramadan Mubarak!

Yes, it's that time of year again. Ramadan began yesterday. This means either a cessation of Radical Islamic Terrorism or an increase in the same, depending upon who you listen to. This month of charity and introspection in the Islamic calendar could go either way. Be alert and be safe.

Ramadan will end on July 5.

Words Have Meanings

We were again pushing the deadline to get a design package out the door and I was monitoring our designers to make sure they were on track and had no distractions. Our young Process Engineer walks in and announces, "I have some changes that need to be made."

He was totally surprised when the grenade went off in his face!

Eventually he was able to explain that what he really had were some minor corrections and he was allowed to depart with his head intact. I bet next time he will choose his words more carefully.

Up Scope!

Yesterday was colonoscopy day. I put it off as long as I could but the doctor has me on a 3 year recall schedule so I could delay it no longer.

The worst part of the test is the prep. One day of a liquid diet finished off with the forced feeding of a gallon of foul tasting liquid designed to return your colon to the state it was when you were a new born baby. When you start drinking that stuff, you can't be too far from the head. The procedure itself is easy because my guy likes to put you under with propofol. The last thing I remember is the RNA injecting the stuff into my IV and then I woke up in the recovery room.

As much of a nuisance as this test can be it is essential to get because colon cancer is worse.

Nerd Christmas

College Campus Demonstrations

I attended college during the Vietnam Era. It was common to have anti war demonstrations on campus (I attended an urban private university in Boston - no, not Hahvahd). We also got the occasional bomb threat.

As engineering students, we didn't cut class. Trying to catch up from missing even one lecture was not worth the trouble. One day we were all in a Fluid Statics and Dynamics lecture when the word was passed that the building had received a bomb threat. The professor stopped the lecture, looked around the room and said, "The walls here look pretty substantial. I am going to continue the lecture, but feel free to leave if you want to." Everybody stayed.

STEM students don't have time to demonstrate.

How to Deal with Phone Zombies

If you fly in or out of Atlanta you will be familiar with the "Plane Train", an automate people mover that moves you from where you are to the terminal you want to be at. It's fast and efficient but the doors don't stay open too long so you have to be ready to go when it stops.

My wife and I were connecting to the final leg of our trans Atlantic return trip and we were feeling the effects of almost 24 hours without sleep. We jumped on the Plane Train to get from the international terminal and go all the way to the other end. At some point a young man got on the train and started talking on his mobile phone. He was parked directly in front of the doors but we didn't give it a thought as most people will check for departing passengers and move out of the way. We arrived at our station and stood up to jockey for position at the door. He was so intent on his conversation that he didn't even look up to see if someone wanted to pass. My wife politely said "excuse me" but he still didn't move. At this point, I used my "command voice" and called out MOVE! He looked up in shock and whimpered, "You didn't have to yell at me."

The walking dead are among us.......they all have mobile phones attached to their skulls.

Praise for OtterBox

I appreciate good customer service and like to spread the word about companies that practice it. Amazon is one such company. Another is OtterBox.

OtterBox makes protective cases for cell phones. And they are good. I dropped previous phone on the drive way and the OtterBox did what it was supposed to do. It sacrificed itself but protected the phone. Even though it was technically out of warranty, Otterbox replaced it free of charge. Then the clip that held the phone in my holster broke. Since the case was now several years old, I ordered a replacement.but, as luck would have it, I ordered the wrong one. I called OtterBox and they cheerfully sent the correct one....free of charge. And they did not want the other one back.

Last year I upgraded to a Galaxy 3 and bought an OtterBox case and holster for it. Yesterday the clip on the holster broke again. OtterBox has a place on their website where you can send them a picture of your damaged case and they will replace it under warranty. I did that this morning and within 10 minutes I had an email back that a replacement was on the way.

I know it's only a cell phone case, but I wish more companies had the same dedication to customer service that they do.

Bonne Annee

Here's hoping that 2015 brings you health, wealth and happiness.

Happy Pi Day

Today is Pi Day. 3.14

Pi is the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. The number is always the same regardless of the size of the circle. While the first people to recognize this ratio is lost to history, there is evidence that this relationship was known over 4000 years ago by the ancient Babylonians. Archimedes made the first best attempt to calculate the value of pi using polygons and the Pythagorean Theorem. Pi is an irrational number. That is, it cannot be expresses by a common fraction and the decimal never settles into a repetitive pattern. Modern computers have calculated the value out to over one trillion decimal places and have not seen a repeating pattern. The Greek letter, Pi, was first used to represent the number in the 1700s. I use the Engineer's Cheer to remember the value of Pi:

e to the x
e to the x
e to the x, dx
cosine, secant, tangent, sine
3.14159

PSA

If you have been in Kennebunk, Maine any time during the past few years AND have frequented the Zumba fitness studio there, you need to check the local papers. It seems the owner of said fitness studio had an ongoing criminal enterprise which involved the trading of sex for money. She also surreptitiously made videos of some of these encounters and kept a list of clients. She was arraigned this week on 106 counts of prostitution. The local constabulary is assessing her client list and will arrest them in groups as they develop the legal cases against them. Their names will then become public record.

Needless to say, this is big news for the coast of SE Maine.

Eid Mubarak

If you can see a crescent moon tonight, then Ramadan will have ended. If you can't see it, you've got to wait one more day. (It's kinda like Groundhog Day)

Maintenance

I did a little maintenance on the blog roll. I cleaned up a few links and added two interesting blogs. Go take a look at Improbable Research and Retro Things.

On Wisconsin

On, Wisconsin! On, Wisconsin!
Grand old Badger State!
We, your loyal sons and daughters,
Hail thee, good and great.
On, Wisconsin! On, Wisconsin!
Champion of the right,
"Forward", our motto,
God will give thee might!

Perhaps Obama might want to re-think his new "Forward" slogan based upon yesterdays recall election results and the state song lyrics.

Blog Maintenance

I made a few updates to the blog list.

North added me to the Gun Bloggers Black List so they are both now listed.

I added Brigid's Home on the Range and through her links I discovered Engineering Johnson who is now on the list as well.