When I was young and stupid, a friend and I decided to stay up for 48 hours. I only made it to 42 hours, and even in my sleep deprived state I realized that it was a stupid idea and finally went to bed.
These days, I do stuff like that professionally.
Sapphire crystals wait for no man, which means my work schedule revolves around big furnaces and I get to go nocturnal for a few days on occasion. Sadly, the rest of life also waits for no man. Being not quite as young, but still mostly as stupid, I once again find myself scheduling things that make me question my sanity. I'll be at work until a touch after 8am this morning, which gets me home around 8:30, and we don't have to leave for church until 10:45, so I should be able to squeeze in about 90 minutes of sleep in there, before it's off to church, a home teaching appointment, a birthday party, a dinner party and then home.
I can't say it's my preferred schedule, but, it's just how things come out sometimes. Evidently sleep management is not one of the things that I learned in college.
Showing posts with label Work. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Work. Show all posts
Sunday, July 26
Tuesday, June 24
Sleepless Nights
I am an expert sleeper.
For as long as I can remember, I've been good - no, better than that - I've been excellent at sleeping. It's really one of my foremost skills. I can sleep in. I can nap. I fall asleep quickly, and a small to moderate sized armed conflict is required to wake me up.
But this is a week of sleepless nights, because I'm at work. It's a crazy week. One of the perks* of my job is occasional long night shifts. Apparently I didn't think things through properly when choosing a career path, but this is an occupational hazard that I just have to live with. (Maybe this is what happens when you don't do a good job of ever actually sitting down and choosing a career path!) But, because I have a profession where the people work when the machines tell them to work, I'm up all night this week.
And it's ruined my groove.
Somehow, I can't sleep. Last night I stayed up all night, got home around 8:30, went to bed, and woke up . . . at about 12:30. Hmmm . . . 4 hours of sleep isn't going to cut it. This same thing happened last time I did this. So then I'm up, and I end up trying to take a nap just before work, but it doesn't work out so well and, yeah, tiredness ensues. This schedule also messes up my eating patterns, which can't be helping. For night number two, I'm contemplating going home and eating something, because maybe I'm waking up because I don't have enough energy to keep sleeping? It's a rough life I live. This week in particular.
Not only do I have the 12 hour over-night shifts (to be fair, I volunteered for the over night, for reasons that do make sense) but this week we're singing in the Joseph Smith Oratorio that our stake is putting on. This Friday is the 170th anniversary of the martyrdom, and a guy named Rob Gardner wrote a nice collection of songs and narration. It's been a lot of practicing, and this Friday and Saturday we're finally performing it. I think we sound pretty good, though for a while I was worried about the orchestra. Yes, there's a 25 or 30 person orchestra to go with our 40ish person choir. It's all pretty impressive, I think, when you remember that we're all doing this in our spare time. So, my last night shift at work will be Thursday night to Friday morning, which lets me go to the performance on Friday night. But we're skipping the Saturday performance.
Because we're doing the oratorio, then going home, jumping in bed (who knows what my sleeping situation will have devolved to by that point) and then getting up not-too-many hours later to drive across the country. So there's that to get ready for this week. Packing, laundry, scheduling stops at the Spam Museum, loading up the car, prepping snacks, you know the drill. And because Utah isn't far enough away, we're taking the scenic route there.
Mostly, this is just to say that it's a busy week. Followed by a vacation which will be crazier than normal life, because that's how vacations are. I just figured I should keep you all updated a bit on our insanity. If my wife's reading this, I'll be coming straight home after the meeting, and for the rest of you, thanks for reading . . and keep your stick on the ice.
* Not a perk
For as long as I can remember, I've been good - no, better than that - I've been excellent at sleeping. It's really one of my foremost skills. I can sleep in. I can nap. I fall asleep quickly, and a small to moderate sized armed conflict is required to wake me up.
But this is a week of sleepless nights, because I'm at work. It's a crazy week. One of the perks* of my job is occasional long night shifts. Apparently I didn't think things through properly when choosing a career path, but this is an occupational hazard that I just have to live with. (Maybe this is what happens when you don't do a good job of ever actually sitting down and choosing a career path!) But, because I have a profession where the people work when the machines tell them to work, I'm up all night this week.
And it's ruined my groove.
Somehow, I can't sleep. Last night I stayed up all night, got home around 8:30, went to bed, and woke up . . . at about 12:30. Hmmm . . . 4 hours of sleep isn't going to cut it. This same thing happened last time I did this. So then I'm up, and I end up trying to take a nap just before work, but it doesn't work out so well and, yeah, tiredness ensues. This schedule also messes up my eating patterns, which can't be helping. For night number two, I'm contemplating going home and eating something, because maybe I'm waking up because I don't have enough energy to keep sleeping? It's a rough life I live. This week in particular.
Not only do I have the 12 hour over-night shifts (to be fair, I volunteered for the over night, for reasons that do make sense) but this week we're singing in the Joseph Smith Oratorio that our stake is putting on. This Friday is the 170th anniversary of the martyrdom, and a guy named Rob Gardner wrote a nice collection of songs and narration. It's been a lot of practicing, and this Friday and Saturday we're finally performing it. I think we sound pretty good, though for a while I was worried about the orchestra. Yes, there's a 25 or 30 person orchestra to go with our 40ish person choir. It's all pretty impressive, I think, when you remember that we're all doing this in our spare time. So, my last night shift at work will be Thursday night to Friday morning, which lets me go to the performance on Friday night. But we're skipping the Saturday performance.
Because we're doing the oratorio, then going home, jumping in bed (who knows what my sleeping situation will have devolved to by that point) and then getting up not-too-many hours later to drive across the country. So there's that to get ready for this week. Packing, laundry, scheduling stops at the Spam Museum, loading up the car, prepping snacks, you know the drill. And because Utah isn't far enough away, we're taking the scenic route there.
Mostly, this is just to say that it's a busy week. Followed by a vacation which will be crazier than normal life, because that's how vacations are. I just figured I should keep you all updated a bit on our insanity. If my wife's reading this, I'll be coming straight home after the meeting, and for the rest of you, thanks for reading . . and keep your stick on the ice.
* Not a perk
Monday, March 10
Working on the Weekend
It's the sabbath, and today I'll spend part of the day at work. Of course, I'd rather observe today as a day of rest, but it hasn't worked out that way this week. It's not all that bad (sabbath wise) as I won't be going in to work until 8pm, so I can still get in the important things like church and the Sunday Afternoon Nap. The nap is particularly important, as I'll be staying up all night babysitting a furnace, because that's part of life doing R&D on a process that takes multiple days.
We could pretend that this is going to be some weighty discussion of the balance between keeping the sabbath day holy and dealing with the realities of employment, but it's not. Really, my whole purpose here is to get to the story of the last time I had to work on Sunday. It's been about 14 years since I got my paychecks from the most anti-sabbath employer of them all: BYU.
I spent a year at BYU washing dishes in the Morris Center, which fed all the residents of Deseret Towers, you know, back when that still existed. (DT is gone, but I believe the Morris Center is still there.) As those DTers still needed to eat on Sunday (man cannot live on vending services alone) we were obliged to put in some 4th-commandment-breaking hours. The dishroom scheduling policy seemed to have the motto that once you've broken the sabbath, you might as well go all out, so when you were scheduled on a Sunday, you worked pretty much all day. As I recall, once a month or so I have to skip out of church early to head over there and deal with the onslaught of DT eaters. We'd be minimally staffed, and the hours were limited a bit which guaranteed a steady flow of work hour after hour. On the upside, I think the students were all a little nicer on Sunday, and we probably had an increase in nice notes that would come down our little conveyor belt thanking us for our efforts.
So, there you have it. Working on Sunday, even at the "Lord's University". Ah, the crazy things you do in college.
We could pretend that this is going to be some weighty discussion of the balance between keeping the sabbath day holy and dealing with the realities of employment, but it's not. Really, my whole purpose here is to get to the story of the last time I had to work on Sunday. It's been about 14 years since I got my paychecks from the most anti-sabbath employer of them all: BYU.
I spent a year at BYU washing dishes in the Morris Center, which fed all the residents of Deseret Towers, you know, back when that still existed. (DT is gone, but I believe the Morris Center is still there.) As those DTers still needed to eat on Sunday (man cannot live on vending services alone) we were obliged to put in some 4th-commandment-breaking hours. The dishroom scheduling policy seemed to have the motto that once you've broken the sabbath, you might as well go all out, so when you were scheduled on a Sunday, you worked pretty much all day. As I recall, once a month or so I have to skip out of church early to head over there and deal with the onslaught of DT eaters. We'd be minimally staffed, and the hours were limited a bit which guaranteed a steady flow of work hour after hour. On the upside, I think the students were all a little nicer on Sunday, and we probably had an increase in nice notes that would come down our little conveyor belt thanking us for our efforts.
So, there you have it. Working on Sunday, even at the "Lord's University". Ah, the crazy things you do in college.
Friday, January 31
Still Employed
Well folks, it looks like I've made it through the month of January without losing my job. Good job me!
On the one hand, that doesn't seem like such an accomplishment. Nearly every person who reads this (and is employed) will be able to say the same thing. On the other hand, I couldn't say the same thing last year. Yes, we just passed the one year anniversary of me getting laid off. I think it was the 29th of last year.
It's been an interesting year. When I went to work on that fateful day, I was generally aware that there would be layoffs any day, and that day was particularly likely. From the information that had been announced, I probably had something like an 8% chance of being laid off, but, for various business reasons, I rationalized that number down considerably, to somewhere under 5%. (I was mostly right about that; as far as I know, less than 5% of the people in my group were let go.) Of course, calculating things correctly isn't much fun when you find yourself on the wrong side of that 5% line. So, I find myself returning home with bad news at about 9:30 that morning. Sad day.
It's had some lasting effects. A month or two ago Shannon was at home and had the garage door remote in her pocket, left there from when she went to check the mail, or go to the bus stop. She managed to accidentally bump it and the door started opening. Her first instinct was that it was me returning home from work unexpectedly as a result of getting laid off again. I've had to promise that if I do get laid off again, I'll go see movies all day and come home at a regular time, at least. If I do come home early for some reason, I make sure and call or text to let her know that all is well.
The lasting effects aren't all bad. While it takes a long time to train little kids to do anything, once you've got them trained, they stick with it pretty well. We've managed to get the girls to stop praying for me to get a new job, so now they are thankful for my job on a very regular basis.
We've also been humbled financially (once again). Sure, it's stress inducing when your bank account is headed the wrong way, but at the same time, it's nice to be reminded of the true differences between wants and needs. (For those scoring at home, DVDs from Netflix are a want, but Netflix streaming is still a need.) Even at our most poor, we still have a lot of stuff.
So, I'm grateful that we're here in Illinois. And I'm more grateful today than I was a year ago that I can go to work, get messy and come home tired. (And hungry. I'm always hungry. Why?)
On the one hand, that doesn't seem like such an accomplishment. Nearly every person who reads this (and is employed) will be able to say the same thing. On the other hand, I couldn't say the same thing last year. Yes, we just passed the one year anniversary of me getting laid off. I think it was the 29th of last year.
It's been an interesting year. When I went to work on that fateful day, I was generally aware that there would be layoffs any day, and that day was particularly likely. From the information that had been announced, I probably had something like an 8% chance of being laid off, but, for various business reasons, I rationalized that number down considerably, to somewhere under 5%. (I was mostly right about that; as far as I know, less than 5% of the people in my group were let go.) Of course, calculating things correctly isn't much fun when you find yourself on the wrong side of that 5% line. So, I find myself returning home with bad news at about 9:30 that morning. Sad day.
It's had some lasting effects. A month or two ago Shannon was at home and had the garage door remote in her pocket, left there from when she went to check the mail, or go to the bus stop. She managed to accidentally bump it and the door started opening. Her first instinct was that it was me returning home from work unexpectedly as a result of getting laid off again. I've had to promise that if I do get laid off again, I'll go see movies all day and come home at a regular time, at least. If I do come home early for some reason, I make sure and call or text to let her know that all is well.
The lasting effects aren't all bad. While it takes a long time to train little kids to do anything, once you've got them trained, they stick with it pretty well. We've managed to get the girls to stop praying for me to get a new job, so now they are thankful for my job on a very regular basis.
We've also been humbled financially (once again). Sure, it's stress inducing when your bank account is headed the wrong way, but at the same time, it's nice to be reminded of the true differences between wants and needs. (For those scoring at home, DVDs from Netflix are a want, but Netflix streaming is still a need.) Even at our most poor, we still have a lot of stuff.
So, I'm grateful that we're here in Illinois. And I'm more grateful today than I was a year ago that I can go to work, get messy and come home tired. (And hungry. I'm always hungry. Why?)
Sunday, December 29
2013 Year in Review - Good Parts Version
I started writing up 'Year In Review' post, and you know what, it was a total drag. Unemployment tried its best to ruin our year, and typing up a full year in review sucked - depressing to type, depressing to read. So I'm packing it all into one sentence and moving on. I lost my job, it sucked, it was stressful, it was depressing, our finances are in shambles and we moved away from many of our friends.
And now, I am happy to welcome you to the good parts version of the 2013 year in review. Rather than some sort of chronological listing, we're going through the year topically, in the order that stuff comes spurting out of my brain.
Travels:
It was a light year for traveling. In April we made the 5 hour trip to Kirtland, OH to see the church history sites there. Beingunself-employed, we went in the middle of a week so we could avoid people (not that April is peak tourist season), and so we could go see the Kirtland Temple on April 3rd. Rather than re-invent the wheel, I'll point you to Shannon's blog post for more details.
We also made the 1,685 mile trip (each way!) from Michigan to Utah for my little sister's wedding. I'll try not to get too judge-y about Jessica getting married in the middle of a day that was like 102°. I'll leave that for my sister who was like 8 months pregnant at the time. Being the lame people that we are, we produced two blog posts on the traveling. But only one on the month we spent in Utah. So what did we do? The wedding went well, and more importantly, Jessica picked a good guy. (Jess: Have we fully explained how much better Tyler is than pretty much every other guy you ever hung out with? Not like the other guys were bad people or anything, but . . . well done.) We did the standard Utah things: hike the Y, drink BYU chocolate milk, ride the train, see downtown and temple square, weenie roast in the canyon. Some of our favorites were probably kayaking in Oquirrh Lake (Daybreak) with Shannon's parents and I really enjoyed my hike (with Stewart) from Lamb's canyon to Little Cottonwood Canyon (via Millcreek and Big Cottonwood). It was about 17 miles, and we never got seriously lost, despite heading onto some trails that we were probably the first people that year to hike. Even thinking about that hike makes me miss Utah.
Running:
This year was a banner year for running for me. This was partly made possible by slacking off sufficiently in all other years that the bar was set reasonably low. I ran only a single race, the Dow Run 10k, in which I got a medal for taking 2nd place in my age group. I ran it in a personal best 43:08. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't checking the mail every day for weeks waiting for the silly thing to arrive. I'm going to end up with new records for number of runs in a year (96) and miles (452). I struggle a lot with running consistency; every month this year I've either run more than 40 miles (6 times), or less than 20 (6 times). I have hopes of run a lot more next year, provided it quits being so freaking cold. (High of 6 °F on Monday)
Blog:
blogger doesn't let me look at yearly stats (day, week, month, and all time are the options), and I don't want to bother to add up page views or anything. But, I can say that the two most popular blog posts of the year have been Enders Game, the Movie and I like big Books (and I can not lie). Those had 99 and 76 page views, while nothing else I've written this year had more than 40. Ender's Game also won with 6 comments. (2 of which were me.)
Reading:
At the start of the year, Shannon and I set out to record every book we read for the year. We gave up on the children's books after a month or two. It was just too much work. By the time we quit we had amassed 97 unique books, which we had read 227 times. We did keep up with our adult reading lists though. Currently, I'm at 10,937 pages from 29 books and Shannon is at 9790 pages from 35 books. (Don't worry, Shannon will get to 10,000 before the end of the year!) My top five books for the year are:
Julia reads all the time now. We never really taught her how to read, but at the age of 5 1/2 she's pretty much an expert reader. We went to the library the other day and got her two Junie B. Jones books. Both done by the end of the day. We're pretty sure she understands everything in the books - I mean, who would sit there hour after hour reading if they didn't grasp the story? It's been amazing to see Julia learn manners and to pay attention to other people over this year. She long ago learned that we demanded the use of words like 'please' and 'thank you', but now she's actually learned to mean them, and to go out of her way to use them. On the other side of that, she's also developing an attitude sometimes. If we ask her to share a toy with Ella her response is often something like, "Fine! I'll just never play with any toys again, and Ella can keep it forever!!!"
Ella is goofy. She has the most toned legs of any little kid I've ever seen. I don't think toned is the right word. They're muscular. She can't walk, she only skips, hops and twirls. Just this morning she was laying in bed at 6-something in the morning singing jingle bells. Not just jingle bells though, the Barenaked Ladies version, which means that it starts out slowly, then she does the swirling interlude between verses where it picks up energy and roars into a raucous double-time chorus. Julia, meanwhile, was sawing logs on the other side of the room. Neither of my girls have ever been snugly, but we went and saw Frozen the other day, and Ella cuddled right up to me for much of the film. It was heavenly.
Achievements:
There weren't any round numbers this year, but we did manage to turn 32, 31, 5 and 3. Unemployment did manage to come to an end, finally, and in September I started working at a place called Rubicon Technology. I do roughly what I've always done, and by this point, you either have an idea what it means to grow crystals or you don't. With the new job, oh hey, we moved. We've still got a house for sale back in Michigan, because selling empty homes is a hobby of ours. Julia is doing great in Kindergarten, though it's eye-opening how little we really know about her life at school - and it's only half day kindergarten. It's a mystical world full of kids and teachers that we don't really know. We finally got to see Ben Folds Five in person, along with Guster and BNL. For about 15 years I've been bummed that I missed BFF and Cake at the Big ___ Show in SLC. It was the same night as the priesthood session of General Conference. I don't regret my decision, but I was disappointed that I could see them.
And now, I am happy to welcome you to the good parts version of the 2013 year in review. Rather than some sort of chronological listing, we're going through the year topically, in the order that stuff comes spurting out of my brain.
Travels:
It was a light year for traveling. In April we made the 5 hour trip to Kirtland, OH to see the church history sites there. Being
We also made the 1,685 mile trip (each way!) from Michigan to Utah for my little sister's wedding. I'll try not to get too judge-y about Jessica getting married in the middle of a day that was like 102°. I'll leave that for my sister who was like 8 months pregnant at the time. Being the lame people that we are, we produced two blog posts on the traveling. But only one on the month we spent in Utah. So what did we do? The wedding went well, and more importantly, Jessica picked a good guy. (Jess: Have we fully explained how much better Tyler is than pretty much every other guy you ever hung out with? Not like the other guys were bad people or anything, but . . . well done.) We did the standard Utah things: hike the Y, drink BYU chocolate milk, ride the train, see downtown and temple square, weenie roast in the canyon. Some of our favorites were probably kayaking in Oquirrh Lake (Daybreak) with Shannon's parents and I really enjoyed my hike (with Stewart) from Lamb's canyon to Little Cottonwood Canyon (via Millcreek and Big Cottonwood). It was about 17 miles, and we never got seriously lost, despite heading onto some trails that we were probably the first people that year to hike. Even thinking about that hike makes me miss Utah.
Running:
This year was a banner year for running for me. This was partly made possible by slacking off sufficiently in all other years that the bar was set reasonably low. I ran only a single race, the Dow Run 10k, in which I got a medal for taking 2nd place in my age group. I ran it in a personal best 43:08. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't checking the mail every day for weeks waiting for the silly thing to arrive. I'm going to end up with new records for number of runs in a year (96) and miles (452). I struggle a lot with running consistency; every month this year I've either run more than 40 miles (6 times), or less than 20 (6 times). I have hopes of run a lot more next year, provided it quits being so freaking cold. (High of 6 °F on Monday)
Blog:
blogger doesn't let me look at yearly stats (day, week, month, and all time are the options), and I don't want to bother to add up page views or anything. But, I can say that the two most popular blog posts of the year have been Enders Game, the Movie and I like big Books (and I can not lie). Those had 99 and 76 page views, while nothing else I've written this year had more than 40. Ender's Game also won with 6 comments. (2 of which were me.)
Reading:
At the start of the year, Shannon and I set out to record every book we read for the year. We gave up on the children's books after a month or two. It was just too much work. By the time we quit we had amassed 97 unique books, which we had read 227 times. We did keep up with our adult reading lists though. Currently, I'm at 10,937 pages from 29 books and Shannon is at 9790 pages from 35 books. (Don't worry, Shannon will get to 10,000 before the end of the year!) My top five books for the year are:
- "Moonwalking with Einstein" a book about memorization
- "Born to Run" perhaps you've heard about people running in silly footwear?
- "Signal and the Noise" by Nate Silver explaining how predicting stuff is really hard.
- "Mistborn" I'm currently reading the second book in this fantasy series.
- Wheel of Time #14 was an excellent conclusion to a very long series.
Julia reads all the time now. We never really taught her how to read, but at the age of 5 1/2 she's pretty much an expert reader. We went to the library the other day and got her two Junie B. Jones books. Both done by the end of the day. We're pretty sure she understands everything in the books - I mean, who would sit there hour after hour reading if they didn't grasp the story? It's been amazing to see Julia learn manners and to pay attention to other people over this year. She long ago learned that we demanded the use of words like 'please' and 'thank you', but now she's actually learned to mean them, and to go out of her way to use them. On the other side of that, she's also developing an attitude sometimes. If we ask her to share a toy with Ella her response is often something like, "Fine! I'll just never play with any toys again, and Ella can keep it forever!!!"
Ella is goofy. She has the most toned legs of any little kid I've ever seen. I don't think toned is the right word. They're muscular. She can't walk, she only skips, hops and twirls. Just this morning she was laying in bed at 6-something in the morning singing jingle bells. Not just jingle bells though, the Barenaked Ladies version, which means that it starts out slowly, then she does the swirling interlude between verses where it picks up energy and roars into a raucous double-time chorus. Julia, meanwhile, was sawing logs on the other side of the room. Neither of my girls have ever been snugly, but we went and saw Frozen the other day, and Ella cuddled right up to me for much of the film. It was heavenly.
Achievements:
There weren't any round numbers this year, but we did manage to turn 32, 31, 5 and 3. Unemployment did manage to come to an end, finally, and in September I started working at a place called Rubicon Technology. I do roughly what I've always done, and by this point, you either have an idea what it means to grow crystals or you don't. With the new job, oh hey, we moved. We've still got a house for sale back in Michigan, because selling empty homes is a hobby of ours. Julia is doing great in Kindergarten, though it's eye-opening how little we really know about her life at school - and it's only half day kindergarten. It's a mystical world full of kids and teachers that we don't really know. We finally got to see Ben Folds Five in person, along with Guster and BNL. For about 15 years I've been bummed that I missed BFF and Cake at the Big ___ Show in SLC. It was the same night as the priesthood session of General Conference. I don't regret my decision, but I was disappointed that I could see them.
Friday, December 13
Stream of Unconsiousness
It's been 5 or 6 years since I've pulled an all-nighter, but for the last 2 nights, I've been nocturnal. See, in my career, I've gone from making germanium crystals in about 3 days, to making silicon carbide crystals in a bit under a week, to making sapphire crystals that take 2 or 3 weeks. And that means sometimes equipment needs someone to keep an eye on it over night. I never had to do that at DC (mostly because you couldn't see anything while it was growing - you just put everything together, hit go, and then come back days later and see if it worked). But now I'm in much more of an R&D role, and we've got a big (really big) new furnace, and it needs some baby sitting. Luckily, tonight is my last night of hanging around here. I've done reasonably well with this whole staying up late thing, which isn't to say that when 5:30am rolls around I'm not ready to pass out anyway.
So, from my sleep deprived brain, some stories about the girls.
Julia is growing up and has recently learned how to think about other people. In a way, it's amazing to see little kids and realize that they really no notion of how much of an imposition they are nearly every moment of their lives. Ella really just doesn't understand that I'm not waiting around all day to go wipe her bum at a moments notice. But Julia is figuring things out more and more, and as the sensitive soul that she is, trying to make people feel better. So, if she sees me or Shannon stressed out (usually because of Ella) she'll come over and gently stroke my hand, or give me a hug or something. It's very sweet.
Ella, on the other hand, just gets goofier every day. The girls usually take showers, not baths, these days. I'm not entirely clear why, since they seem to want to stay out of the shower stream as possible, but that's what they pick. Anyway, while in the shower the other day, Ella declared that she was having a "bum party" and starts doing her little booty shake dance. Which brings us back to one of the rules we have to go over and over at our house: no dancing in the shower.
So, from my sleep deprived brain, some stories about the girls.
Julia is growing up and has recently learned how to think about other people. In a way, it's amazing to see little kids and realize that they really no notion of how much of an imposition they are nearly every moment of their lives. Ella really just doesn't understand that I'm not waiting around all day to go wipe her bum at a moments notice. But Julia is figuring things out more and more, and as the sensitive soul that she is, trying to make people feel better. So, if she sees me or Shannon stressed out (usually because of Ella) she'll come over and gently stroke my hand, or give me a hug or something. It's very sweet.
Ella, on the other hand, just gets goofier every day. The girls usually take showers, not baths, these days. I'm not entirely clear why, since they seem to want to stay out of the shower stream as possible, but that's what they pick. Anyway, while in the shower the other day, Ella declared that she was having a "bum party" and starts doing her little booty shake dance. Which brings us back to one of the rules we have to go over and over at our house: no dancing in the shower.
Friday, June 29
Physics 105 Problems in Real Life
I spent many years helping physics 105 students work problems about someone throwing a ball off a hill with some sort of initial velocity where they have to figure out what the time of flight is, or the final distance or something like that. A common comment is that no one does this in real life. I've said it myself many times.
This week at work, we had something break. It sits up fairly high off the floor, and threw some broken pieces across the room. The details aren't important, but this was a bit of a safety hazard, as things aren't supposed to fly across the room. As part of the report on what happened, they wanted to come up with an estimate of how fast the pieces were moving across the room, as a gauge of how dangerous the event really was. So they came to me. Finally, my skills are fully utilized! With a few simple formulas I was able to calculate the initial velocity of the objects based on their final location, initial height and initial angle. Sure, the calculation isn't perfect. I can only guess a reasonable range of angles (though, because of other things in the room, and, you know, the ceiling, I can do pretty good on that) and we're neglecting friction (as always!), but the point is, I was finally able to use those very basic equations for motion in two dimensions to solve a real problem at work!
This week at work, we had something break. It sits up fairly high off the floor, and threw some broken pieces across the room. The details aren't important, but this was a bit of a safety hazard, as things aren't supposed to fly across the room. As part of the report on what happened, they wanted to come up with an estimate of how fast the pieces were moving across the room, as a gauge of how dangerous the event really was. So they came to me. Finally, my skills are fully utilized! With a few simple formulas I was able to calculate the initial velocity of the objects based on their final location, initial height and initial angle. Sure, the calculation isn't perfect. I can only guess a reasonable range of angles (though, because of other things in the room, and, you know, the ceiling, I can do pretty good on that) and we're neglecting friction (as always!), but the point is, I was finally able to use those very basic equations for motion in two dimensions to solve a real problem at work!
Monday, January 23
Working Girl
Julia recently got a job. She'll be 4 in April, so we figured it was about time to get her to work and become a contributing member of the family. A friend of ours works for a professor at a local university who is doing some sort of study on young children learning or test taking or something like that. (This is clearly a friend that Shannon knows better that I do.) So, she has come over a few times and spends an hour or so with Julia asking her questions, doing puzzles, and testing short term memory. So far, she's earned 40 bucks! (I wish I could get paid to take tests. Especially since taking tests is one of my best skills in life.) Julia has used some of her money to buy a cash register, which is her new favorite toy.
But things really got interesting when I related all of this to my parents, who asked, "Did she pay tithing?" Oh. Yeah. Tithing. I remember that. And we pay it when we earn money. But for some reason it never occurred to us that Julia should pay tithing, too. The trick, however, is to explain tithing to a 3 year old who barely even understands what money is at all. Or fractions. Let alone making a connection between God granting us abilities to earn money and pay checks and funds for running the church and other related issues. To further drive home the point that this is above age level for her, there is no tithing lesson in the nursery manual, nor the Sunbeams manual. So we made it up ourselves. Hopefully it worked. At the root of it all, we decided, "When you earn some money, we give a little bit of it to the Bishop, because it's a commandment." And really, what else is there?
But things really got interesting when I related all of this to my parents, who asked, "Did she pay tithing?" Oh. Yeah. Tithing. I remember that. And we pay it when we earn money. But for some reason it never occurred to us that Julia should pay tithing, too. The trick, however, is to explain tithing to a 3 year old who barely even understands what money is at all. Or fractions. Let alone making a connection between God granting us abilities to earn money and pay checks and funds for running the church and other related issues. To further drive home the point that this is above age level for her, there is no tithing lesson in the nursery manual, nor the Sunbeams manual. So we made it up ourselves. Hopefully it worked. At the root of it all, we decided, "When you earn some money, we give a little bit of it to the Bishop, because it's a commandment." And really, what else is there?
Tuesday, January 17
Classical music requests
At work, I've decided to listen to more music while I work, in an effort to muffle the noises from my co-workers. I love the guys I sit by, but we can get chatty sometimes, and that doesn't make for a productive day. They'll start talking about something (NFL fumble rates, rate of change of daylight, deepest point in the ocean, how far you can jump a snowmobile, the size of the Chinese navy, weather in Sweden, etc.*) and suddenly you're sucked into their conversation. For some reason, I'm the guy who always just has to google it in an effort to settle the matter.
Anyway, I'm combating this with music. Specifically, classical music. You can find just about anything on youtube, so I'm asking you: what should I be listening to? Composers are nice, but specific pieces are better. I prefer long pieces (>20 minutes), other wise I listen to a song for 5 minutes and spend the next 5 trying to pick the next piece; that's not much of a productivity boost.
*Yes, those are all real topics we've discussed. At length. I'd say I would keep track for a month and report back on the results, but would probably be ashamed at the length of the list.
Anyway, I'm combating this with music. Specifically, classical music. You can find just about anything on youtube, so I'm asking you: what should I be listening to? Composers are nice, but specific pieces are better. I prefer long pieces (>20 minutes), other wise I listen to a song for 5 minutes and spend the next 5 trying to pick the next piece; that's not much of a productivity boost.
*Yes, those are all real topics we've discussed. At length. I'd say I would keep track for a month and report back on the results, but would probably be ashamed at the length of the list.
Monday, June 6
Do as I'm Doing
So, it was probably sub-optimal that I moved to the other side of the country, and then quit blogging. But, amazingly, only a week or two ago I had an actual request from someone that I update my blog. So, my adoring fan, this one's for you. (If you even remember who you are.)
I've been thinking lately about the difficulty in keeping in touch with my sisters. (Not doing anything about it, mind you. Just thinking about it.) Over the last few months we've been busy with moving and kids and life in general. And my sisters have been busy with moving and kids and more kids, and jobs and college and life in general. (Aside: I seriously don't understand how people survive with more than 2 kids. My house is about a foot deep in toys and blankets and clothes and mess. Is my sister's house 2 feet deep?) The specific thing that stuck out in my mind was that I'm really not sure that any of my sisters could give a description of what I do for a living these days. (Whether they could do that before I got a new job, we may never know.) So, for my sisters, and anyone else who is tagging along on this adventure, here is what Clark does at work now.
Hi, I'm Clark, and I'm a Process Engineer. My business card says that I'm a "Bulk Growth Process Engineer". Let's look at that title one piece at a time. "Bulk Growth" describes the fact that I grow big things. "Big" is relative, and in this case it means something you can hold in your hand. Our finished product is silicon carbide wafers. (see picture below) The bulk growth step is first, in which we grow crystals which are then sliced into wafers. One of the last steps that we do is to grow an epitaxial layer on top of the wafer. The epi growth is very thin, only a few thousandths of an inch. Which is why we get to describe our growth as "bulk". My dad gave me a hard time about the "Bulk Growth" part. I guess it sounds less than flattering.
Next comes "Process Engineer". The engineers are divided into three groups: Manufacturing Engineers, Process Engineers and R&D. I haven't used an analogy yet, so it's about time. If we were in charge of a fleet of cars, the MEs would be in charge of all the many day to day things. Oil changes, tires, fuel grades, tune-ups, that sort of thing. R&D people are at the extreme other end. They're in the back room drawing up some wild ideas for building a completely better car. You know, put the engine in the back, headlight that turns with the wheels, 6 wheels, fins, wankel engines, and all that good stuff. A lot of their ideas are probably going to fail miserably, but that's ok, provided that stumble into some really good stuff once in a while. In the middle are the PEs. PEs take something that is already working, and make a significant change, but without completely starting from scratch. The analogy here would be to re-build an engine, but leave the rest of things alone. (You like the car analogy? I'm trying hard to fit in in Michigan.)
So, before this gets any longer, what do I actually do? Well, today, I sat at a computer all day and drew pictures. (That's what I told Julia. And it's true.) We grow our crystals inside what is basically an intricate little graphite bucket. We put a wafer in there, along with a bunch of silicon and carbon, heat it all up until it's glowing and the silicon carbide vaporizes (it's like 2000 °C in there) and then condenses on the wafer, which slowly grows. Once it has grown big enough we let it cool down, take it out and slice it into lots of wafers. (We save some to repeat the process.) These graphite buckets are a bit more complicated than your average bucket, and we're regularly trying out minor modifications. One of my jobs is to produce the drawings that we send out to get the parts manufactured. Then, I set up experiments where I vary a few parameters, throw everything in the furnace and let it run for a few days and see if it worked or not. I collect up all the data and eventually get around to writing up a report detailing the findings. Is it better? Is it worse? (Or, better in some ways but worse in others.) And what have we learned in general about the whole process?
So, I feel like this has turned out both very generic and simplistic, but way to long at the same time. That's what you get for asking an engineer what he does.
Tuesday, September 28
Onward and Eastward
Shannon broke the news on Facebook already, but if you haven't heard yet:
We'll be heading out there in late October, and I'll start work on Nov 1st.
WE ARE MOVING! TO MICHIGAN!!!!!
I have a new job out there, and it is time for us to say farewell to St. George. We'll miss a lot of things here, but we're excited for a new adventure, a new job and everything else that goes along with it.
We'll be heading out there in late October, and I'll start work on Nov 1st.
To help get everyone excited, we've got this musical selection:
Sunday, March 14
inFAQ
One of my faithful readers asks: "Did you quit blogging because everyone else did, too?"
Well, here at Bethletard Blogs, we care about our reader(s), so I'm here to answer the question.
Answer: No. I did pretty much quit blogging, but not just to fit in with the rest of the quit-blogging crowd. I'm my own man. I quit blogging because:
- December, January and the first part of February were a pukey ordeal at our house.
- January, February, March and the immediate future have been a worky ordeal at work. I've been working a lot more, at home a lot less, and blogging time has been hit hard. As has cleaning time, playing with Julia time, and just about everything else. The most discouraging part is that many days I get up and leave for work before anyone else is up, and then I get home an hour before Julia goes to bed. And even with all the work, it doesn't feel like much is getting done at work. But I'd like to get off that topic now.
This weekend we went up to the Wasatch front to do the Rex Lee Run. As I haven't been running (or exercising in any other way. remember that bit about working too much?) it was an accomplishment that I finished, didn't die and never had to stop and walk. The race results aren't up yet, but my watch put me at about 27:30. We barely got there before the race started, so we were way in the back. That isn't a huge problem because each runner has a chip on their shoe to individually track their time. I didn't cross the start line until several minutes after the race had started. But that means I did get to spend the first mile weaving amid the slower runners. I probably passed up about 1,000 people! So, at least I got to feel like I was really, really fast when in reality, I never even saw the fastest third of the field. Shannon walked the 5k with her mom and pushed Julia in the stroller. Shannon's dad also ran the 5k.
We've been doing the Rex Lee Run for a long time now and have quite the collection of t-shirts. So last year I started a new tradition which frankly isn't getting the attention that it should be. Those familiar with the run know that the t-shirts are almost the same every year, generally only changing the color scheme. But I've got enough shirts now that whatever color they pick, I already have a shirt of that color. Last year they did orange, so I wore the orange shirt from 2001(?). This year was blue, so I wore my blue shirt from 2000. (2010 was a royal blue, 2000 was a much darker blue, almost a little bit purple-ish.) Anyway, no one is observant enough at the race to notice that I'm the only person there wearing a shirt that is almost the right color, but slightly different. So, if you're at the race next year, look for me. I'll be the guy wearing the shirt that is very slightly different than everyone else's.
sdf
Did you quit blogging because everyone else did, too?
Wednesday, April 29
0-1
I just went to a meeting. I walked in with 1 piece of paper. I walked out with 4.
That, my friends, is what we call losing a meeting.
That, my friends, is what we call losing a meeting.
Tuesday, February 17
Wild Ride
About 10 days ago, someone in St. George who works at the Blue Bunny Ice Cream plant was late to work. So he raced down the road at approximately 70 miles per hour. And apparently tried to take the final corner before arriving at work at about that speed. The road he was turning on to is a nice wide road, but not wide enough for those speeds. So, he got sideways, and hit the curb, taking chunks out of it with 3 of his 4 rims, and headed into the gravel landscaping. He managed to miss the large rocks (large suitcase size) in the landscaping, mowing through about 20 feet of gravel and up a 5 foot rise, throwing the rocks across the parking lot. He then left the gravel, and went out of control another 30 or 40 feet across the parking lot, before coming to a resounding stop when he crashed into the building I work in. His Honda Passport was totaled, and his un-seatbelted self we probably lucky to escape with nothing worse than a big cut on his head. First aid was administered by one of my coworkers who heard a noise and stuck his head outside to discover a car wrecked into the wall. If he had hit the building 5 feet over, he would have gone right through a big roll up door and started taking out equipment.
Moral of the story: slow down, wear your seat belt, and if you're not going to do to that, at least do it somewhere that I won't have to spend a bunch of time sweeping up rocks from the parking lot!
Moral of the story: slow down, wear your seat belt, and if you're not going to do to that, at least do it somewhere that I won't have to spend a bunch of time sweeping up rocks from the parking lot!
Friday, May 16
D.C.
Not that I've been posting a ton lately anyway . . . but it might get even more sparse. Next week I am going on my very first real business trip. It involves flying, staying in a hotel, and going to a training course on AS9100. (If you don't know what AS9100 is, it's kinda like ISO9000. If you don't know what ISO9000 is, they're both quality systems standards. If you're still lost, count yourself lucky.)
So, Monday I'll be flying off to the Washington D.C. area. I've never been out there, so it should be exciting. Don't worry though, I'll be dropping Shannon and Julia off at the Andersons for the week, so they won't be left alone. Also, they can visit all the grandma's and great-grandma's and friends who haven't seen Julia yet. It's sort of a 'win-win-win' situation.
So, Monday I'll be flying off to the Washington D.C. area. I've never been out there, so it should be exciting. Don't worry though, I'll be dropping Shannon and Julia off at the Andersons for the week, so they won't be left alone. Also, they can visit all the grandma's and great-grandma's and friends who haven't seen Julia yet. It's sort of a 'win-win-win' situation.
Thursday, May 1
More Biking
The first day of May seemed to be a good day for the first bike ride to work of the year. It really is tricky riding to work, because it was still fairly cool this morning at 8am (cool enough that I wished I had gloves) but it'll be plenty warm this afternoon. Before too long, it'll be way too hot in the afternoons to go home. The ride went well, and a co-worker rode in with me. He only lives a few blocks away, so we met about a half mile from our homes and rode the rest of the way in together.
Friday, March 21
It's all Greek to me
So I discovered at work today that whenever I attempt to forward email from my boss, my computer translates it into Greek, but then when I send it, it gets sent in English. I can't figure out why outlook would be doing this to me, or why it happens with one person and not another. But somehow the forward button has the power to turn "We have revised" to "Ωε ηαωε ρεωισεδ".
Thursday, February 28
JMP!
I got a new piece of software at work today. It's for doing all manner of statistical manipulations with data, plus who knows what else. All I know is, it sure better do everything I want and then some. I'm not sure how much it cost, but it certainly cost a bundle. Oh, and it comes with manuals.
It's been a long time since I saw a piece of software come with printed manuals. (It's been a long time since I bought any software, too.) But I've got my 138 page introductory guide, a 487 page user guide, a 239 page design of experiments guide, a 585 page scripting guide and a 1035 page statistics and graphics guide.
It's been a long time since I saw a piece of software come with printed manuals. (It's been a long time since I bought any software, too.) But I've got my 138 page introductory guide, a 487 page user guide, a 239 page design of experiments guide, a 585 page scripting guide and a 1035 page statistics and graphics guide.
Thursday, February 14
Technical Theatre
We've got a new employee at work who is also completing a degree at SUU this year in Technical Theatre. Short and simple version: it's a 4 year degree in stage crew. Obviously there's quite a bit to cover when it comes to lighting, sound, sets, props and stuff like that, so I don't want anyone out there thinking I'm belittling the program or something. Mostly, I just mention it because I'd never really thought of anyone getting a degree in that before. If only I could go back . . . .
Wednesday, October 3
- We have cylinders of liquid nitrogen here at work that are the brand name "dura-cyl". Cute.
- Bean counters are . . . so much fun to work with. I have to do a limited amount of bean counting here at work, and it's always a bit of a trial. It's not that bean counters are necessary or are deliberately difficult or something, it's that we speak such different languages. They view their bean counting as super important, while I don't. Deep down I know it is important, but I have such a hard time caring. Mostly, it's not too bad, once we've spent half an hour trying to figure out what the other person is even talking about.
- Yesterday I got to teach a Ph.D. from the U of U how to lock and unlock the front door here at work. Yes, I'll be using this for material for months to come.
- Bean counters are . . . so much fun to work with. I have to do a limited amount of bean counting here at work, and it's always a bit of a trial. It's not that bean counters are necessary or are deliberately difficult or something, it's that we speak such different languages. They view their bean counting as super important, while I don't. Deep down I know it is important, but I have such a hard time caring. Mostly, it's not too bad, once we've spent half an hour trying to figure out what the other person is even talking about.
- Yesterday I got to teach a Ph.D. from the U of U how to lock and unlock the front door here at work. Yes, I'll be using this for material for months to come.
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