aneurysm

As the title suggests, I just found out I have an aneurysm... It sucks. The good news is that I caught it early. Its only 3mm (less than 1/8 inch), and its near the front of my head. Each of those facts means that it is less likely to rupture. Now, I just need to sit tight and wait for a doctor's appointment with a specialist.

My diet is now being heavily controled for sodium, and most things I like to eat are high in sodium. Trips to the grocery store are more than an hour just so we can go through the labels.

I am continuing my excercise because it will help my blood pressure. Perhaps the triathalon is still a possibility. Well, enough for now...

Fat man running

Well, it was daily, then every other day, then weekly, and now its been a month. So much for my initial energy for blogging. But now I got something else to keep posting... I was at the CHOP (Children's Hospital of Philadelphia) Triathalon yesterday and got the odd notion that my wife, my father in-law, and myself could do a triathalon relay team. Unfortunately, I would end up getting the running leg of the triathalon. My wife is an excellent swimmer, and my father inlaw bikes year round.

Well, I have a year to prepare... which begs the question, can a 240+ lb man who has not been physically active in the past several years get himself up to running a 5k run leg of a triathalon within a year?

Yesterday, I walked with my dog around the block (0.6mi total) and ran the last 0.3 miles. I was winded but not exausted. Hopefully this blog will help me keep my running up and (if anyone sees this) perhaps get some advice.

Well, its been a nother stretch between posts. Today was not good. The best part though was cutting up some harddrives on the waterjet. Other than that, it stunk. I didnt get the five specimen run that I wanted to get done. Instead my entire afternoon was spent cleaning up the warehouse and the clean room in the lab. Now, I'm going to need to get someone else to run the waterjet tomorrow....

And now after being good, my family is just driving me mad, asking me when I'm going to have some kids... I mean weve been over this several times and we were told that it was completely our decision when and if we do, but wow this was a very abrupt change!

I really need to find some way out of this one...

Well, I'm still trying to keep this up. I've been able to sit at my desk for a lot more than normal. The lab is just packed with people. Two new hires, the boss's son for summer work, and more people from the design side are back laying up fabric. With the extra manpower, I've been able to do some programming for the WJ, as well as some other administrative efforts.

This morning, my back is just throbbing. I'm not sure what I did to cause this, so I'm wondering if I'm sleep walking again... Well, time to get started.

Well, its been half a month since my last post... really slipping here... so much for daily. Maybe I can kick start myself back into this...

The last several weeks have been bad. Extra assignments pusing back what I really needed to take care of, phone tag with multiple people for multiple things, getting the exterior of the chimney refaced, and lots more.

The desk is assembled and has a nice plexiglass cover for it. Next is the hutch, but I got too much on my plate to worry about that yet... then onto a table for the living room to cleanup and organize the daily clutter that we take back and forth to work, church, and elsewhere.

enough for now, I need to get home and get ready for a yard sale.

Well, about a week since last... I seem to be slipping a bit here and I think I can tell that I'm not as focused. The writing seems to help me remember and keep everything together.

Last Friday's work was pretty normal as far as I remember. That evening I met dad over in Jersey for a quick chat, then stopped by my sisters to fix her lawnmower.

Saturday was good. We went out in the morning and ended up sleeping through part of the mid-day. We also put the finish coat on the one desk section.

Sunday went pretty well. Went to church and came home to do some cleaning. Then we went over to my parents to do some "work" for my sisters wedding stuff. Another arguement with dad over nothing and came home.

Monday was a quick, long day. The morning nearly blew by and I got some compression done. The afternoon, I was cutting moisture travellers and sorting out some chaos with raw material that seemed to be missing. I ended up working for 9.5 hr to help out with some custom testing where we looked at fiber orientation under the microscope.

Tuesday was ok, but hot. The exterior chiller was off all day so the indoor chiller was on all the previous evening and all day. it was 77 and noisy inside. I ran two tensiles and shipped out the missing material that I found Monday. Also, I ran some fiber volumes with the new guy.

Today was definately noteworthy. I've been trying to run tensiles all day, but keep getting interrupted. The biggest event is that the torsion system is now going to be a priority to get fatigue running. (Just for the ones of my fans... I designed and assembled the torsion system capable of enormous load and destructive capability using 3000 psi hydraulics) Of everything in the lab and shop, including having specimen fail catastophicly within inches of my nose, this is the only piece of equipment that freightens me.

The torsion system is menacing enough when I had direct control of the valve at my fingertips to run static testing. Fatigue testing needs to run automatically unattended for extended periods of time. I've redesigned the control system from the ground up to correct the original design problems that plagued me before from trusting the system. So, I'm going to take a week and tweek up the software to be compatable with the new electronics and let it rip. This is either going to end beautifly or horribly, but at least then we will know.

Wednesday was quite productive. I got all of the squares sliced off for shipment. Then I continued on the WJ and with some help finished blaning the OHT/OHC specimen. I got just a little testing in with the DCB fatigue, but the hinges popped off both sides.

Today was OK. I realized that some specimen were incorrect and spent quite a bit of my morning searching for the panels to get them remade. I think the machinist might still have them, but apparently they are going to be shut down until Monday. I helped setup the mill for processing the blanks we finished yesterday into specimen. The glass ones machined quite well, but the LIL was just a mess. After all that, I got some ILS testing done for a program, realized that we need to order some material from McMaster, and discussed automated chiller changeover operations with someone.

Well, this weekend went pretty much as planned, except I got the date wrong for the pot luck dinner. Instead we stained the straight side of the desk. One coat down, one to go. Unfortunately its been rainy and I've been busy the reamaining portion of this week to date, and have not gotten to the second coat.

Monday went fairly well, and the new hire is off to a good start. I showed him how to operate the WJ and how to do moisture travellers. I was able to get to break some compressions and slice up another balsa panel by hand.

Tuesday was also good. I showed the new guy how to run compression, apply a strain gauge, soldering leads, and running a gauged compression. I was able to knock off some other ungauged testing in the 22 kip frame.

Today's objective is to knock out making 4"x4" squares to be shipped for fire testing, and keep instructing the new guy on procedures. Let's see how well this goes...

Well, yet another plorethera of activities. Ran the WJ to make a single specimen out of a ceramic material, ran the DCB fatigue with more hinge pops, sliced up another balsa sandwich panel, and post-cured some materials. Only one more balsa panel to cut up and I can at least be rid of that pain. Then it will be the other pains for that program.

At least Monday will be the start of a new person to help us out. I can get him to knock off some of the WJ work I have not been able to get to.

This should be a busy weekend. Saturday has a mens breakfast, a trip the the battle of neshaminy, dinner with my family, and a trip to a carnival. Sunday is running the sound board, the youth sunday school, and a pot luck dinner at the church for new members (to again run the sound board). Well, I'll just hpe everything goes smoothly...

Tuesday was a day of interruption. I was post curing a panel in the oven and so I had to check and record the temperature every 5 minutes of ramp up and every half hour or so thereafter. The time between checking I was trying to run some compressions and program Type I ASTM D638 specimens into the waterjet. The day ended with statically failing the last bladder panel. (My bladder problems have now been resolved).

Wednesday, I spent more time with the waterjet and the Type I ASTM D638 in addition to sawing and shipping a panel. I prepared two DCB fatigues, and ran one. On top of that, I spent 4 hours using the wet saws (a large 14" blade wet saw and a small tile saw) just to make a dozen specimen.

Today was spent finding the crack on some of those dozen specimen, preparing the hinges and putting the crack gauges on. I was able to at least witness the fruits of this labor prove what we already knew: the test yeilds poor results that are difficult to interpret into any meaningful result. So, we will keep running them in futility because of contractual obligations. This was interrupted occasionally with DCB fatigue efforts and faulty hinge work. Now to finish the day, I get to sit down and run some compressions.

NOTE: after this post, waterjet will be replaced with WJ so I stop getting waterjet ads on the side of my blog.

Long weekend

Well, Thursday I didn't put anything up and it was not a good day. Mostly I remember a DCB fatigue running 800 cycles, popping a hinge, reworking the specimen, restarting it, running an additional 900 cycles, popping the other hinge, reworking teh specimen, and restarting it. All for one data point -ahhhhh! After that, it was inspecting panels that I failed. They looked ok, but It needed a closer look and it turns out that I was right -- and now I have more work to do because of it.

Friday, I took off and did some stuff around the house. I did some work on the desk construction, and finished the assembly Saturday. All thats left is the staining, which will be a full days work. I fixed the main toilet - always fun.

Saturday - More of the same and went to the grocery store.

Sunday, get up early for 7AM sunrise service to run the audio mixer. The service went well, and there was a breakfast afterwards. Then, did some cleaning at home, and changed the oil in my car. I decided to check tire pressures while I was at it. My wife's car was 5 psi short all around and I was missing around 10 psi all around. So I inflated the 8 tires and then went down to the in-laws. Good turkey and stuffing... and mashed potatoes... and everything else.

After I got home, I got some dinner together and my sister stopped by with some of her leftovers since she wouldn't be able to finish them... and I have no issue finishing leftovers. Had dinner, and chilled out the rest of the evening.

Today, I got to do some microscopy to prove that I was right about some issues (see Thursday), then I got deligated to cut panels in the shop. Cut panels til the saw overheated, then did some compressions. Then I cut panels til the saw overheated, then I did some compressions. Then I made the final saw cuts. I had to send out some material because a batch of specimens didn't get cut properly, and clear out some paperwork. Not a great day, but could have been worse.

The slumps

Wow, I just can't seem to get things going. I started by getting the next DCB fatigue preped and loaded, and the hinge popped off in 21 cycles. The hinges I sanded yesterday apparently get roughed up enough and needed to be redone. The reports I sent out last week included panels that failed, and so now I need to determine why. At least that will be interesting when they arrive.

I finished the morning by locating crack tips for some static DCBs.

So, I took care of some odds and ends then started gauging compression specimen. Apparently, I cantt do that right today either. The glue wasn't adhering properly, I had one lay down incorrectly and of course that one adhered instantly and could not be repositioned.

Lastly, I decided that I need to do something that is nearly impossible to do incorrectly. I'm testing some of the ungauged compression specimen. The first one I did just mushroomed the bottom of the specimen (improper failure mode). The next 9 were specimen that really should not be considered real tests, but that is not my decision - they just need to get run for the sake of the contract. And now I need to get out of here.

Monday went well. I sat and ran tensile coupons all day. I also started a new DCB fatigue level, so that is going to require more of my attention on a regular basis. We got the details of a new test program that we have yet to receive the material to test, and we are already unable to complete the testing by the deadline!

Tuesday just started off wrong. The prep work I did for tabbed tensiles didn't work, and I could not do anything right. I spent the rest of the day sanding DCB hinges.

Burrito Trifecta

So, Saturday was just one big annoyance. The only high point was that I stopped at Taco Bell for some burritos. So to explain the burrito trifecta: Friday lunch: Burrito Mexicana from Baja Fresh, Saturday Lunch: 3 Taco Bell Cheesy Double Beef Burritos, Sunday Lunch: 2 frozen Burritos.

Sunday was pretty good. We went to the early service since the 9:15 was cancelled for Palm Sunday. Got home, and cleaned up. I did some quick research about antennas and then went to the bank and ACE hardware to pick up some odds and ends for the antenna work I wanted to do.

I started work on the antenna just after lunch. I put the new section of mast in and moved the grounding wire from the previous antenna location to the antenna mast mount on the house. The Old section of mast was attached to the first, and I sanded the metal to provide a better ground connection between the mast sections. The ground wire extended up the new mast section and terminated at a grounding block for the coax signal wire. I ran an extra ground wire from the antenna mast mount up to the antenna u-bolt just to make sure that the upper mast section has a clean ground even though it is extraneous.

The First section I had of antenna wire was a homemade length with twist on connectors. I don't like the twist on connectors, but I tried it anyway. I had no signal. I tried rotating the antenna a little bit with no change. So, I ran out and got a 12' coax cable just to make sure it wasn't a faulty section of wire. After stopping at Lowes, we took the dog to Playwiki Park for a walk. More on that later. I got back swapped the wire, and nothing. Rotated the antenna AWAY from the boradcast antennas, and it got better. Then I spun the antenna back to where the antennas should be (original direction with the homemade cable) and I got the basic channels. I'm getting fed up with this. I called it a night and plugged the TV back into the rabbit ears.

So, Playwiki Park was a nice distraction. I had driven past it a long time ago, but this was the first time I stopped. We took a nice long hike through the trails and saw some wildlife and a limestone quarry that apparently had signifigant historical value due to the quality of the ore and that it wasn't located adjacent to any nearby quarrys. We met a few other dogs, including a 3 month old german sheppard puppy that was behaving very nicely off-leash. I was surprised how well this 3 month old was behaved.

Sunday, we had dinner at Appleby's just because I didn't feel like cooking after all the antenna work of the day.

Filling the shoes of the missing

Well, I spent pretty much the entire day in the shop. I don't mind working in the shop, but I prefer testing. I started by taking an 8 year old scrap panel and dicing it into 3" wide lengths. Then I milled a 15° edge down the one side leaving roughly 1/16" of blunt edge of the 1/4" thick piece. Then I degreased, dried and sandblasted it to get it ready to adhere to the panel that will be tested (Switching to ASTM D3039 from dog-bone shaped coupons) The afternoon, I spent waterjetting a panel while assembling the two new chairs for the lab. Lastly I pitched in with the DCB-prep. All of this while the outside chiller is not operational (it died late yesterday, but the reset for the thermal overload was easily reset after some research by my coworker).

Saturday want too useful. I assembled one lef of the desk, but there are three more to go. Sunday, I went to church from 8:00 to noon for praise band practice, worship service, followed by teaching a lesson to the youth. The lesson was "slacker's anonymous". I taught them that slacker, as a bad term can also be used to make life better. I introduced myself as an expert slacker and listed computer programming as being the ultimate slacker. I don't want to do work, so I'll have the computer do it for me.

Following teaching the youth about making good use of your slack time, I spent around 6 hours straight of watching TV and playing video games!

So, Monday, I ran the slew of tensions and the last fiber volumes to wrap up the tag end testing. On top of that, I put a temperature sensor in the shed to keep track of the temperature generated by the chiller. The unit from http://www.etherstuff.com/ ET-2 ($250) allows us a four hour history of the temperature in the shed from any computer on the network. Its pretty neat, but pretty pricy too.

The shed nearly gets up to 110°F, but there is a malfunctioning exaust fan, so we'll see if that will continue to be the case once it gets fixed.

Today is pin bearings and getting the tag end report out. The pin bearings are going quick and should be done by mid afternoon. Then I'll round out the day with the report and possibly get to writing the code for the new waterjet panels.

Thursday I wrapped up the ILS anc compression tag-end pieces, which took most of the day. Other than that it was taking care of chiiler details like the remote operation box.

Today was all about finializing the chiller setup, rehooking the chiller back into the disconnect box, filling the chillers (both) with the 50/50 antifreeze mix. I managed to break one tensile bar and I am getting frustrated with these remaining tag end specimen. Well today has been long enough and I dont want to sit here getting my recap detailed anymore.

Well, I found out Tuesday that the person who left didn't run the fiber volume fractions that I asked him to do over two weeks ago. So, now I'm taking up that task.Other than taht, my day went mostly as planned. I stuck to running compressions and came clost to my objective of finishing off the batch. I probably would have made it, but I kept letting myself get pulled off target. Around 4:00 a shipment came in, so I volunteered myself to run the forklift. The end of the story is that I left with one specimen left to go, even though I worked an extra hour off the clock to accomplish that much.

So, today I started by knocking off that last specimen. Then the majority of my day was getting the chiller out in its new home. The morning was all about draining the water out so it would be easier to move and getting the old forklift up and running. It all came together and the battery on the old forklift finished charging by the end of lunch. So the three of us got together and moved the chiller with the forklift. It took some thought and strength, but only about an hour to actually move it. After that I got to settle into a chair and run some tests.

Then I cut the table tops for the desk on the table saw. The cuts came out pretty well, but will need a little sanding to clean them up.

Weekend of food

Wow, I'm really going to test my memory now...

Saturday was all about food.

Wakeup and go to the men's breakfast at church: eggs, bacon, sausage, hash browns, and biscuits. Presentation was about the Youth Aid Panel, which is an alternate to juvinile court for first offenders.

Get back home and I played PS2 until my inlaws showed up. Sat and chatted for a bit, and then off to Tony's in Ivyland. Great thin crust pizza for lunch. When we got back from lunch, a static shock killed my PS2. Hung out for a bit and they headed out after a little while.

Dinner was back at the church. It was a pot luck dinner followed by Irish dancers. I had quite a variety of stuff including meatloaf, green bean casarole, and much more. The Irish dancers were good, but I ended up front row center and at one point, I thought I was going to be kicked in the face.

Sunday was good. Went to church, took the dog for a long walk, got some new shoes, and worked on the desk. I went and got my mother her Mothers day present (yes, extremely early this year), but to do so, we parked the car in Tyler State Park and hiked into Newtown to do the purchase, stopped by PetsMart and got a spill mat for our dog, and hiked back. In all a 3.2 mile, nearly 2 hour hike.

Sunday night, I sanded down the straight section of the desk, and I was impressed in how well it looked. For dinner, we had some of the pizza left over from Tony's.

Monday was a new shock, as the technician who was leaving decided not to go with his initial statement of Thursday being his last day, but came in early just to fill out his paperwork and get it over with. He still hasnt said where he is going to go. So instead of moving the chiller outside with him as we had planned, I disconnected it just to let it wait. We are running the backup unit, so it doesn't cause any real down time outside of me accidentally causing a system alarm. I had to leave the hydraulics off overnight.

So monday continued with 6 gauged compressions in the morning and waterjetting in the afternoon.

That brings everything up to date. Maybe tomorrow I'll post after work and get back to daily posts... we'll see.

Shockers

Well, this was just the day for surprises. A surprise that just made me scratch my head was a printout of a picture of a football. After a few hours, my co-worker who was in a meeting yesterday for a few hours explained to me what it was. Yesterday's meeting was planning the activities in the lab. Now, we in the lab generally do a good job of coordinating work to make all of our deadlines even when they are difficult. We refer to these extra meetings "defensive huddles" because they end exactly where we started: get the guy with the ball. We already know what to do, but every now and then we stop to be told to do what we already know is needed.

The good surprise was that the waterjet made it through the night without dying (it had a habbit of throwing a fatal error in the software whenever the antivirus decided to perform an update). This will save me some headaches.

The big surprise, for better or worse, is that our technican is leaving. He does the work that nobody really want to do nor has time for. It typically took some time for him to get to it and you needed to stay on top of him to make sure it got done and done exactly, but it definatly freed up hours that I and others just could not afford to lose.

With that on the near horizon, there has been some shifting going around and planning changes. I think that I am going to be sucked into more shop work since I know more about the machinery and been putting extra hours in the shop due to the waterjet. I really want to get back to testing.

So, today was good other than the surprises. I got 18 compression specimen cranked out (6 ungaged, and I gaged 3) in addition to three hours of waterjet work and running the oven.

I'm pondering setting up a work ticket system to better coordinate activites now that we are one person down. I'll have to see about editing my old (and very crude) system (PHP and MySQL based) I built last year for task management.

Just another average day of what can go wrong will. I started with something simple, and it was good. I straightened up the scrap pieces around the waterjet and it looked much better.

Then I decided to run the waterjet, but I must have been rushing myself too much. I put the workpiece on backwards and started cutting. Fortunately I realized the error before I lost too much raw material to restart the part in the right orientation.

On restart, the abrasive feed started acting up again, belching large blasts of abrasive out the top of the hopper. So, pause the cutting and bleed the feed line of air. Then restart. Amazingly, the point at which I stopped the first time was within a couple hundredths of an inch from being wrong. What luck (which didn't last). I setup the next panel that I needed to cut the identical pattern and zeroed the machine in for its next run.

Then I found out that I needed to send some material out to another lab for testing. So, I prepare the documentation, carefully pack the boxes, weigh them and put them on the PM's desk so he could review the paperwork before sending them out. Well, instead of reading the paperwork first, he jumped straight to the boxes and opened and unpacked them. He happily came back to me exclaiming that "hey, we got the leftover material back from the other lab". You can guess how the rest played out, ending with me (voluntarily) repacking the boxes.

When I got back to the waterjet, it turns out that the software decided to do its funny trick of dying, which destroyed my setup work. After several hours of IT work, we are going to see if its stable overnight before I fire it back up again. At least in the mean time, I got to do some strain gauging work to help out the testing efforts. Well, thats the day it been.

People, do a better job of doing your job!

So as the title implies, I was frustrated of people not doing their job correctly. I decided to start my day off slow and break some tensile bars until I was ready for bigger issues. After some of the easy work, I was going to start cutting a panel on the waterjet, but realized that there was no identification number for any of the panels I was going to work on.

So I sent off a message to inform the PM that there were some issues and found something else to tackle. I started gaugeing some compression samples and then got pulled away to instruct the PM how to input panels and tests into the system. Its something that everyone needs a tutorial on, but somehow it seems that I am always the one giving the tutorial. After he got that underway, I went back to the gauging work. Between the tutorial and gauging, my morning blew by.

So, the afternoon just would not go well. I ended up working an extra half hour for the sake of knowing that panel would be cut. The panel markings from the manufacturer didn't match our drawings... or the manufacturer's drawings. It took most of my afternoon to decypher the problem with two other people. So this is my message for the day: do a better job of doing your job! Alright, now thats off my chest.

(private message for self: M4AK04-081M1AB51-081M3GG01T4GG01T1AK04-081T3IM34)

Weekend of eh

Saturday was just a wash. I ended up sleeping most of the afternoon just because I couldn't get myself going. I did get to talk to my sister which yielded the remedy for my sickness: Claritin, Sudafed, Tylenol, and Halls (which reminds me, time for another Halls...)

Sunday was better. Got up feeling better, went to church, finished the meetball stew made the previous saturday. All in all I felt much better. I didn't do any work on the desk project, but I wasn't going to push myself yet.

Now its back to work... Testing, waterjet(ing?) and everything else to do.

Pushing through

Well, still feeling ill. I got up and got some "breakfast" (the remainder of the pistashio pudding from last night). I put on some more Vicks vapo-rub and went back to bed cuz I still wasn't up to snuff. The extra rest really paid off - the warm dog in the bed doesnt hurt either. I got up around 8:15, took some day-quill and off I went!

Still blowing my nose regularly, but not quite as frequent. Getting into work, I felt slightly worse but still ok. I helped prep the last of the DCBs for my coworker and then started measuring moisture travellers. I got through the first batch of travellers that really are not of great importance since theyve been around for years now.

Then I ran some other travellers and they just kept reading higher and I'm not sure why they seem to be behaving like they are, but as we always say in the lab "it is what it is".

I ran the waterjet just to do a pair of straight cuts. Its really a waste of the waterjet's capability to just make a single straight cut, but they are done now and I wont be pestered about it anymore. I couldn't run the panels on the waterjet that just came in because I found out they need to be cycled through the oven first, so that went in just before lunch. I still need to program the cut path for them anyway.

Between jumping around, I made up a batch of synthetic ocean water, started the cut path programming for a different batch of panels, and helped when I could with at temperature tests. Lastly, I got a panel set out and broke the 9 specimen to wrap up the day. It was worth pushing through the nose blowing, but barely.

Most importantly of all, I won the last hand of yesterday's card game and the first two of today's! I came clost to winning the last one too. Seems that drout has ended at least.

Well, quitting time has finally arrived. Its time to get home!

Sickness

Wow, today was a big pain. I was blowing my nose every other minute and the minute that I wasn't one co-worker kept implying that my nose was red from doing too much cocaine. Other than that, I tried to keep myself on pace as usual.

More at-temperature tests and waterjet cutting in the afternoon. Help prepare DCBs in the morning, kicked off a fatigue, and aided in some impact testing.

This is going to be a short post, as I need to blow my nose and I'm going to try Linux tonight. I think that it will be an interesting experience and hopefully break my pay-for-OS habbit.

Working Lunch

Well, another day another post. I'm waiting for my at-temperature test to be ready to run and taking a part out of my lunch to do it. They take so long, I'm willing to eat in front of the test frame just to get something accomplished with these darned tests. It also gives me some time to type... one handed of course with lunch in the other.

Ive already jumped across four tasks on three projects this morning, and to top that off while blowing some dust off a temperature gauge I blew the debris into my coffee cup! What flavor (no I didn't drink it). At least this afternoon I have some easy waterjet work to do, and I can assist with the last specimen of my co-worker's testing. After that, I think I can see what I need to get back on and start doing some electrical work for "my beast" (a piece of testing equipment that I designed that is just staggering in scale and is scary to run due to the potential capabilities it has)

Cards at lunch has really not been treating me well, I am at least three days without winning a hand. We have been playing a game called shanghi gin, and you need to get a combination of cards in your hand to lay down and then work off of any patterns that have already been placed on the table to go out. Two are wild, and out of todays and yesterday's hands I have had two out of six hands (its a three deck pile). Other people have been drawing twos all over the place. One guy had four in one hand today!!

Another fine day in late August

Yes, I know its not August, but thats what today felt like (actually its been like this for weeks). The temperature in my workplace is ~83F, and I got to work with a piece of equipment that was running at 165F!. I sick of the heat. It seems that something is finally being done about it, after all, this is not a country club.

Well, I ran two tests of my own and assisted on three of someone else's. On top of that, I ran 18 specimen on the waterjet. Not a great day, but not a bad day of work. Testing specimen at temperature just eats up too much time, and I wish there was a better way.

The other three tests were impressive to hear, but as with most failures there is before and after. The failure occurs in a split second. Ive had things within inches of my face blow apart (not this time). Its somewhat scary, but I have yet to be hurt. Mostly since I know where to stand to minimize the hazard. The most impressive is when a object about the volume of a shoebox was within inches of my nose, and in an instant split in two and ended up a foot or two away. Well, enough for now.

Warm weekend

Wow, that was some weekend. Great to just be outside. I got to do some gardening out back with my wife and it looks a lot nicer. Still more to do, but its a start. With the gardening, I've procrastinated more on the desk construction. That is the best part of working on something that is just for yourselves, there is no schedule or deadline.

The daylight savings time change has really thrown me for a loop. If house wasn't on tonite, I would probably try to catch up on my lost hour of sleep. On the up side, I got to eat lunch before my stomach started wondering if my throat was cut...

Well, now it's back to work. Jumping from project to project, putting out the fires as I go, little work here and a little work there. It wuld be nice to sit down and attack one consistently, but people keep coming to me with their problems and I need to address them to keep them off my back.

I have a bladder problem...

Well, its not the bladder inside my body, its a device. More on that later.

First, I got to stay in this morning to the late hour of 6:30! (with the dog curled up next to me). Then off to work (and yes this entire paragrahp is dedicated to the fact that the dog was with me, she is that important to mention)

I got to bounce around on a couple different projects as usual, but only one problem arose instead of being blasted with problems everywhere. The waterjet got fixed early in the morning and I got to make sure it is in good order. Now I have a backlog of parts to cut next week.

I started testing the bladder and all was well until it sprung a leak. So a portion of my day was wet-vacing the floor and cleaning up the mess. The solution to the leak is simple and can wait for monday. (and yes, my bladder problem resulted in peeing on the floor)

Between tasks, I cut, sanded, cleaned, and determined the density of some material for someone else to report. Leave a comment if you want to learn how to accurately calculate density (and no it does not involve measuring any dimensions)

Lastly, I cut some steel (1" thick O1 tool steel) on the waterjet. Learned a lesson: never use sharp corners on thick peices on a waterjet. It performs a horrible zig zag on the underside of the part that does not detach the finished piece from the stock material.

Wow, I think thats plenty to daze or intrigue someone who has no idea what I do. (Thats one of the definitions of an engineer btw)

Waterjet woes.

Well another day and I can write.... something....

I wanted to do some machining on the waterjet, but I could not reach the 40ksi on the pressure adjustment knob since it was 'fixed' two days ago by the techs. (back story- slow drip of hot water came from the handle and they added silicone to resolve the problem: drip stopped but lost functionality) So, I put in a call that it was wrong. On his way home one tech came by the office to take a look and now its 'permanantly fixed'! Parts should arrive tomorrow to repair the part that broke and damaged other parts.

So from that end I went and helped a coworker with his testing and things went better for the remainder. I saw some new specimen come in and they are the largest I have ever seen! That is going to be fun to break - and loud.

Well, off to wire up a little device for the church audio system.

Terminology

My life:

• church - United Methodist Church
• home - 1950's era split level

Testing Terminology:

• kip - 1000 pounds force
• psi - pounds per square inch
• DCB - a test that takes enough time to run that it is annoying, but short enough that mandates taht you can't leave it and come back. Also takes a long time to anaylze after the test is complete.
• Cold, Hot, Wet - run test at -20°F to -65°F, run test at 150°F to 175°F, run test after sample has been emersed in water until it saturates or for 2 weeks depending on how people care to define wet in their test plan.

Pseudonyms (and other inside meanings and jokes)

• Diaper - something that has a great common good, sometimes unappreciated, and always something to avoid having to work with or change
• Sandwich - A boss. Like sandwiches, they come in varieties: Good, bad, spicy, ect. Its a good way to cue someone that a boss is coming: that was a spicy sandwich I had for lunch.
• Option 3 - This I learned from a buss driver in Disney World: There are a lot of poor drivers and as a bus driver he warned people standing on the bus to hold onto the randrails in case someone cuts him off. The reasoning was he might need to (Option 1) abrubtply slow down, (Option 2) stop quickly, or in the event that option 1 and option 2 can't suceed, he would need to resort to option #3: Floor It! It now means a dangerous or bold course of action.

Well, thats it for now...

Intro

Well, its time I got to my New Years resolution... from three years ago: keep a daily journal.

Well, journals are boring and not much fun, so I've decided to try a blog.

So, I am going to try to relieve my rants in public. Names and facts have been modified to protect myself!

I am a mechanical test engineer, so for everyone else to read: I break s(tuff) for a living. As fun as that sounds, it deals a lot with paperwork, records, repeating the same task ad nausium for the sake of statistics, and people changing their minds on how to run tests that are in progress.

All in all, I want to know what outside people think of my experiences, especially in this point in my life.

Well, thats it for now. I already have an idea of how future posts will read and that I will need to build a glossary for people to comprehend the specialized language in mechanical testing. Hopefully, this will also serve as a way for people to learn about engineering and all other crazyness.