Its your turn!

Okay, So i know i have some avid readers of this site, or maybe you are just discovering me, but I want to know what you think or what you would like to see more of in this blog. I am enjoying hte heck out of writing these entries, but would like to have a bit more feedback, so perhaps I can make your stay here on my site more enjoyable. So drop me a line on the comment bar, and let me know what you think of this page, or what you would like to see.

Thanks,
J

The Men of Summer Return...

Ah once again we have reached that glorious time of the year when the Men of Summer return. Yes it is the season of stiff backs, sore legs, scraped up legs, aching shoulders, and realizing that muscles should actually be used over those long winter months for something other then lifting the TV remote and 12 oz curls. It is the time of the year where on Mondays, guys gather around the water cooler to admire each others newly acquired limp, raspberry, or pulled muscle. Summer softball leagues began play this last weekend.

Of course for many of us, the only clue the season had started was getting a phone call or email the morning of the game, asking if we would be willing to play. Of course most of us immediately get visions (or illusions depending on how you look at it) of grandeur and jump at the opportunity to go out and achieve athletic glory similar to what we thought we experienced in high school/college. The next step in the whole process is to frantically start looking around for our equipment which we ever so carefully stored in multiple locations around the garage/basement. In my case, I had gotten married, and moved into a new house over the off season, so I had to go dig thru boxes of stuff stored in the basement looking for my glove and cleats. Thankfully the wife had already pointed out where my jersey from last year was hanging, so I didn’t have to go looking to far to find the well worn garment (which has mysteriously shrunk from the size it was last year, must be all that hanging up in the closet.)

So I get to the field, only to find as usual my team is late arriving, so I wander around the fields looking for someone I recognize, or at least someone wearing the same jersey as me. Finally I see the usual suspects trudging up from the parking lot, all of us looking older and fatter than last season (maybe that’s why the damn jersey shrunk!) We all get out our gear and start stretching, listening to the usual pops and creaks from the older guys, and hoping that maybe I don’t sound like that to the high school seniors and college kids that are playing with us. Sadly, we only have 2 of those young guys with us this year (although school is not out for the summer so there is still hope) so it looks like our team will be one of the slower ones in the league. The team I play for is an older parrish, and doesn’t have a real big group of young guys just out of high school/college in the men’s club to play yet. So its pretty sad when I am one of the faster guys on the team, as I am by no means a speed demon!

We finally get stretched out and our arms loosened up, and start inspecting our opponent for today’s double header. We realize that this was the team that placed 2^nd in the league last year, only losing to the team that had 4 ex college baseball players and a few Open league (semi pro softball guys) players. Great, no really, absolutely wonderful. What a way to start the season! This only means we should get drilled by oh… 50 runs or so.

The first game started off looking good, we sat their top 3 hitters down 1-2-3 and I managed to not boot the first fielding opportunity I had. We went up to bat, and managed to actually hit the ball to places where they weren’t and got a few base runners around to score. Little did we realize that this pretty much would be the highlight of the afternoon, as our opponents must have gotten the rust flaked off chasing our bloopers and shut us down from that point on. Our next few innings were basically a series of comedic errors, mostly consisting of us booting the ball around the infield (yes I think there were one or two E4’s in there for those of you keeping score) and chasing balls that they somehow hit over our heads despite our fielders playing 2 steps off the fence! Thankfully our games were both over quickly due to the wonderful 10 run rule and we were able to retire to the parking lot quickly to enjoy our hard won (lost?) beers.

Ah sweet release!

Its amazing how when you finish a project, you have this almost euphoric feeling, a huge weight comes off your shoulders, and your outlook on life changes in almost an instant. This feeling comes even after a project which you enjoy, but is magnified ten fold when you have a project that has been literally sucking the life out of you.

The last few weeks I have been working on a project which I like very much, but is very demanding. I didn't realize how much time and energy it has taken until I finished the project this afternoon. The project i was working on was to develop an outdoor laser tag system for a guy who has no experience manufacturing a product. We took a very crude prototype and some drawings, and developed the system into a viable project. Little did I know when I got roped into this project ( I happened to be a wandering engineer who stuck his head into the coference room when I was messing around instead of working) that I would be stepping into a project with nearly impossible timelines, and a very fluid design. Somehow i managed to get a circuit designed, debugged and working and in a prototype gu that was to be demoed to customers in around 3 weeks. I thought then we would go to a much more realistic design cycle, but as luck would have it, the customers loved the prototype demo, and wanted production units as soon as possible. We worked many long hours, and many long nights and got a product that could go to production.

Our production schedule was insane. Thats the best way to describe it. The customer (who had no experience in manufacturing a product) had made some promises that were very difficult to keep, such as unrealistic delivery times (lead time of all parts: 6 weeks. Delivery date: 3 weeks!) and unfinalized metal work. I also realized at this point I was working for a maniac who had ADD, and I feel a touch of obsessive compulsive behavior. You know the type, the ultra successful person who tears through life, jumping from project to project, and somehow managing to use his charm and charisma to manage to make a living. Amazingly enough I actually found myself liking the guy despite his talent for sucking minutes out of your life, pushing you to do things outside the box, and managing to always make you run late.

I guess I should give you some background about what I do in life. I work for an electronics contract manufacturer as a production engineer. Basically I get to try to come up with ways to manufacture stuff, figure out ways to make designs that really smart people have come up with work on our manufacturing shop floor, and manage at least one crisis a day. My working life essentially boils down to bringing order out of chaos (also know as people who have never stepped out from behind their computer screen and actually checked how the part fits in real life!) and trying to help my production supervisors meet our sales guy's fantasy land delivery dates!

Now that you have an idea of what I do, imagine what happened to my life when suddenly a project with a custmer who is demanding, and who know little about how products get made is suddenly dropped into my lap. I spend 90% of my time not on designing the details that make the project successful, but instead trying to get the customer organized enough to tell me what it is he really wants. Around 5% of my time is spent waiting for him to arrive at the specified time of the meeting, and 3 to 4 % is spent repeating and defending what decisions I made to the customer. The final 1% of my time is spent actually engineering. Thankfully I have excellent coworkers who were able to help me get the details straight enough that we could actually make the project start to work the way it was supposed to. I truly think that my customer who is excellent at managing crisis, has to invent crisis to find solution to a problem. This to me seems a rather backwards way of doing business, but for him it works, and I had to adapt to his style if we were going to make this project work.

I didn't realize that i was bringing work home with me, until one night at dinner, the wife (loveley as always!) asked me what I was thinking about, because obviously I had not heard a word she had been saying for the last few minutes. She said that I had completely spaced off, and while she understands that guys sometimes do that when women are talking, this was an abnormally long time for me. I wasn't real sure of what i had been thinking about but just that my thoughts were someplace else. A few nights later, I slept quite poorly, and the realization hit me... I was dreaming about the sounds the laser tag guns make when they are working. I was waking up in the morning, feeling like I had been at work for a full 8 hours, as I had been having work dreams the whole night. You know the kind, the one where you do exactly what you do every day at work, just in your dream, and you never really get any of that big pile of disorganized junk off of your desk. I had dreams like this for around 3 weeks, when we were getting the whole project into production, and then I started to have dreams about getting the parts to our production people! Needless to say, this was very taxing on me, and my wife was getting fed up with it.

The odd thing about this whole situation, is that I fully enjoyed this project, troubles and all, and felt that it taught me a great deal about how to better manage a project, and to become a better engineer. It is amazing to me that something that can be so taxing can also be so rewarding and enjoyable. Either way, I am glad that this project is over for the time being and I can get back to being my normal old self at work. I also think that the wife will like this project being over, as I will no longer just space out for 5 mnutes streches, well at least thats what I will tell her.

Anyway, this was probably not as humorous as most of my posts, but sometimes you need to get a little perspective, you now a little fiber to go with all the pablum. I will now go off to completely enjoy my weekend, and taming the jungle that my lawn has become.

j

The jungle...

My lawn is offically out of control. So if you recall a few posts back I wrote about how I wanted to be that guy whose lawn looked like the green at the 18th hole at Pebble Beach. I can safely say that dream is slipping away, as my lawn is now looking like it has aspirations to become a jungle. The last week has consisted mainly of rain pouring down on , with mother nature doing her best impression of a drunk guy who has broken the seal and can't hit the can to save his life. Needless to say, while we have been cowing in our house trying to stay dry, the grass has been drinking up the rain, and growing like crazy. I needed to mow all week, but with the rain arriving every day around 4, I can now easily see how explorers in the rain forest could have gotten lost, because if my grass can grow as fast as it is, I can only imagine what a real jungle would do. I think it is offically 9 inches tall, but you know how us guys are, we aren't ever really sure how big an inch is any way.

Thunderstorms, Homeownership, and Random Musings

I used to really like thunderstorms, the majestic yet ominous clouds, the powerful crack of lightning and thunder, and the staccato of the rain pounding on the roof. I used to love seeing tornados and hail and massive amounts of rain. Of course this is before I became a homeowner. Now I watch the weather with significantly less morbid fascination, and more and more I find myself rooting for the severe weather to go elsewhere.

Take for example tonight: Here in lovely Omaha, there are severe thunderstorms and high winds and storms producing 1-inch hail. I used to be like “Cool lets see what Mother Nature can do!” I now find myself thinking “Man you know if that comes down here I am going to have to check the shingles of the house, and those winds aren’t good for the trees and…. “

Well tonight I found out first hand that I am right to be rooting the storms away. The wind and rain were bad enough that it was actually blowing the rain up under the windowpanes and down into our beautiful sun room the water came. Of course my wife and I quickly grabbed towels to try to soak up what was coming in, but more leaks kept springing up along the whole window frame. Now needless to say, I think I have a new honey do project for the weekend.

On another note: It was overall quite an enjoyable weekend, despite it being only one day (working all day Saturday makes for a very short Sunday.) I managed to get the grill together and will be sharing pics of the first masterpiece to be cooked on my new fire breathing monster! I had a great time out at Chili's with Vinny and the crew there ( keep up the spirit guys and gals, it will get better!) and did my best to further the margarita contest cause! Leah and I also had a great time out at Old Chicago, esp when people just happened to show up in the same area where we were eating! Its great to have friends who keep her and I from turning into a middle aged couple before we are supposed to!

Well enough rambling, I must go watch the radar, and help my wife overcome her phobia of thuderstorms!

J

MMMM... Fire Grilled Goodness

Hmm Fire Grilled Goodness!

Well we have finally done it. I am now the proud owner of a fine piece of fossil fuel burning, green house gas producing, red meat cooking stainless steel beauty! We finally went out and after much dickering and much pondering and dreaming, I went out and purchased a shiny new grill! (insert some manly grunting sounds, cases of beer and big juicy steaks here!)

So there I am standing at my local home improvement super center (aka the store for boys who finally have some responsibility and need special toys called tools) staring longingly at all the radiant, shimmering metal, visions of BBQ greatness playing like the latest summer blockbuster. I stare longingly at the huge monstrosity they have prominently displayed, you know the one I am talking about, the one with 8 control knobs, side burners enough to rival a jet engine afterburner, insulated sinks, integrated smoker, drawers, and cabinets enough to hold a midget chef, side shelves, and integrated keggerator with the busty Swedish serving wench! My wife elbows me in the ribs saying "Yeah right...You are not going to get to keep that Swedish beer serving wench thats only a marketing ploy. Oh yeah and if you want that grill you better get off your butt and invent something that makes us really really rich, so I can hire Vin Diesel as our pool boy!"

Sadly i return from my momentary lapse of reason (and dreams of a a Swedish beer serving wench and a midget chef serving us <- I did say US honey!) and started to look at other fine grilling appliances. Of course the bright shiny allure of the stainless steel grills called to me like a siren song, and before long visions of perfectly grill marked ribs and steaks started to float in front of my eyes. Of course the options presented were almost too much to handle. Rotisseries, side burners, stinless steel cabinets, digital thermometers... where to begin?? Well of course as my wife stood there occasionally rolling her eyes, I decided that I would only be able to decide by looking under the hood on each grill, turning knobs and all but pretending to grill for a huge party. Thankfully, she has gotten used to my enthusiasm for occasions such as these, and humored me. She probably figures its payback for all those times I get to wait for her to decide which pair of black shoes looks better.

Finally I reach my decision. I select a fine stainless steel grill, and of course my luck runs true to form. Our local home improvment super bonanza center does not have any of the particular model avaliable and readily assembled. Of course by this time I am determined to not let this issue bother me. Despite the sales man's protests that assembly is free, and if i come back tommorow they will have another model assembled and ready to sell me, I must have this grill today! Grill fever had set in and I by gosh was going to have my grill today!

Thankfully, I prevailed, and as this post alludes, I now am the proud owner of a new grill... granted it is a completely unassembled gill, but it is mine. Of course assembling the grill mght be a story for a later post, but we shall see.

The Deep Dark Secrets of Spring

Yep it’s officially spring. Birds and high school students are all twitter patted, pollen is filling the air, attention spans are next to nothing, and thunderstorms keep you up all night. Man I love spring!

We received 3.5 inches of rain the last few days, both in big thunderstorms with hail, and lots of steady rain, the kind of rain that washes all the dust, smog and pollen out of the air and leaves nothing but the feeling the world around you just took a huge deep breath. Its almost like the world is just getting ready to explode into action. I love the way the world looks the morning after a long rain, green, clean and fresh. It’s amazing that you literally can see the grass growing. Of course having the grass starting to grow means I will soon be hitched up to the modern equivalent of the old yoke… the lawn mower.

As soon as the grass begins to start growing, a sudden urge begins to over take suburban males… The quest for the perfect lawn begins to fill the hearts of homeowners all across this great nation of ours. Guys begin to scout out our competition, (that damn neighbor who always has the lawn that looks like it’s the 18th green at Pebble Beach!) and start looking to find the edge that will catapult us ahead of that damn guy who everyone knows has to cheat and get professionals to come in and make that lawn look so perfect. We all know him… he is the guy who is out early on Saturday morning, double cutting his lawn to make that perfect pattern, and to make sure he doesn’t leave any stray blades of grass trailing in the wind. He is the neighbor who always manages to get the border between his concrete and lawn to look like someone drew the edge with a ruler. He is the guy that never gets any of those special splashes of yellow in his yard, while the rest of us battle to keep those little yellow bastards from turning into windborne WMDs! How does he do it? Well my deep dark secret is I want to be that guy! I secretly yearn to be the guy all the neighbors cuss at when they see me out there enjoying the fruits of my labors, standing on my driveway with a cold Shiner Bock with a smirk on my face.

Is this to much to ask?

Life after... Nesting

So well here we go.. Post number 2. So have any of you ever realized that you change drammatically after you get married? Yeah sure there is the whole getting used to living with someone, learning to not leave your stinky socks in the middle of your room, or picking up after yourself cause you aren't living at home with your parents any more. While these are all drastic changes, it is nothing like what i am experiencing and even for that matter embracing...

Nesting. I am sure you have heard other terms for it, home improvment, honey dos, landscaping... Well I term it: Nesting. To define nesting is to come to a sudden realization that you are making your home into something that you and your significant other are planning on staying.. for a very long time! It is a different feel then going out and decorating an apartment. No this is the behavior where for no reason you completely understand, you are suddenly going thru the Home Depot, Lowes, and Menard's ads with a gusto, looking for that one porch swing or patio set... Its the urge to get up on a Saturday morning early and fight thru hordes of other couples for the best deal on potting soil, or edging stones. Remember weekend days where you would get up at 10 in the morning, yawn, sratch yourself, and then roll back over for another 30 minutes to 4 hours??? Or how about those wonderful saturday mornings spent trying to chase the remains of some evil liquid that flowed in far to great of quantities? Nope... instead you are up at the crack of 8 (yes that number does appear on an alarm clock on Saturdays despite rumors to the contrary) chasing down the latest home improvement project.

This nesting subject is dear to my heart, as my wonderful wife and i spent a romantic evening at the home improvment store. I never thought that going and buying patio furnature could be so romantic, or lead to such simple joys... I guess this is Life after... What?

The Begining...

Well here we are... My first crack at hooking myself up with a blog. I guess I want to be edgy and out there, sharing my life for all who care (or are bored enough to read about it.) Maybe it’s a place or a way to keep in touch with someone out there who might know me or care to know me. I don’t know yet for sure what this will be, but either way its going to reflect life after getting my blog…

I always have wondered about blogging, and always read on many of the web communities and emails I get about how blogging will change the world... What’s the big commotion about? Why are blogs popular? Who writes these things? Who reads these things? Does anyone really care? How did they decide to start blogging? Am I cool enough to need a blog?

Of course not knowing the answer to any of these questions, and being the inquisitive sort, I decided to go and find out what I could about blogging. So I decide to ask around and see who I know that blogs and if they might be able to answer my queries. Of course my friends mostly being only partially web savvy, or not on the cutting edge of web life, gave me answers like:

“Ummm, A blog? Whats that?”

“Blogging? Isn’t that were you trade songs and stuff?”

So basically I found my friends (and I for that matter) are not part of this world wide phenomenon sweeping the world. So I started reading peoples’ blogs, mostly people from places like Fark.com, Slashdot.com, and other message boards I frequent. As I read these blogs I felt the urge to try this first hand, take my first swing at sharing my views about nothing at all, and see what kind of sweet action I can create off of my blog.

So here it is… Life After…. What??