To All my Nerdy Friends...

Today,
at work,
I busted out (are you ready for this?) THE QUADRATIC EQUATION. (I guess I have to do calculations at work every once in awhile but I don't think I've ever used the quadratic at work before. The last calculation I did was 2 months ago. I spent a whole Friday doing it and then sent it off to my boss and he said, "I really like the approach you took in estimating... It shows a lot of creativity and initiative." I glowed all weekend and then after more careful consideration, realized I did it wrong and would have to do it over. Oops.)

To all of you high school kids, one day, you too can be an airbag researcher and developer and be able to spit out the quadratic equation from memory. It's funny how without blinking I can recite "the opposite of b plus or minus the square root of the quantity b squared minus 4ac divided by 2a" but I can't remember if I locked my front door after I watered my flowers this morning :-(

To quote Vida, "As engineers, we are so brilliant but so useless!"

Rise and Shine!

Last night I met up with a friend I’ve known since we were 2 or 3. We went to grades 1-12 together and though we’ve seen each other from time to time, this is the first long talk we’ve had in many years. We talked for over 3 hours and I felt like there was so much more to cover. I’m so excited to have reconnected with her.

The corollary of this is that we were out at the bar until about 10:30 last night so I didn’t get to bed until a little before midnight and when my alarm went off at 6:40 this morning, I did not want to get out of bed. I went to hit the snooze for the 4th time around 7am and I cracked my eyes open and there was a bug crawling on my pillow right by my face! ARGH! That got me out of bed in a hurry.

What Did You Do at Work Today?

When I tell people about my occupation (research and development in airbags), more than one smart aleck has sarcastically asked, “Do you ever get to ride in the cars they crash?” I don’t have a witty comeback. (I’m open to suggestions though.) Usually I launch into some trivia about crash test dummies. (The infant dummy’s name is CRABI.)

Yesterday I was reminded of how fun my job can be. I was walking into a building I don’t usually have much reason to be in but I did in fact have a project to work on. I walked into the shop area and this guy from my group (who I don’t directly work with) calls me over and asks if I want to go for a ride. Intrigued, I walked over to him and his apparatus. It seems that my company had acquired a carnival ride. Or maybe it was just a trendy car modified into a 6.5mph crash simulator. So I got into the car with my coworker and we “crashed” twice. The first time we wore regular seatbelts and in the second, we wore seatbelts that eliminated the slack during the crash. Very very cool.

When I was a freshman in high school, I took about 8 months of violin lessons. (At that point, I had already taken 7 years of piano lessons.) I was not very good at the violin but I sure enjoyed it. One of my favorite hobbies later on was to turn on some popular music and try to play along. Sooooo fun. I would entertain myself for hours, until my fingers hurt. I knew I sounded bad but it made me happy. Yesterday, I was driving home after work and one of the DJs on this afternoon talk show was trying to play a saxophone along with popular music. I had a goofy grin on my face the whole way home. It was just so funny! And I guess it reminded me of happier times.

Lip Gloss, Wood, Patent, and Polish Fantasy Football

People have commented to me that I seem to be interested in a lot of different things. I don’t know – that’s just how I’ve always lived my life. This came to mind in the last 24 hours as I reviewed my weekly to-do list. Here are some highlights.

I started doing fantasy football research for this season. E-mails about the Polish Football League were floating around yesterday and the commish suggested a date for the draft. I politely asked them to change the date because it would conflict with my bridesmaid duties for my friend Jenny.

In preparation for the wedding, I decided I need to even out my tan and would like to explore a professional spray on tan option, well before the wedding in case there are any mishaps. So I called about 15 places to get pricing and availability information.

This morning, I went to the alternate campus for work to get my very first patent application notarized (!!!). My boss’s boss is a secondary inventor and he and I were chatting while we waited for notarization. He’s a pretty handy guy so I mentioned the project I have planned for my basement – removing yucky adhesive from my basement’s wood paneling, painting the paneling, and installing wood trim. He gave me pointers and told me to check out Home Depot on my drive back to my real office.

I went into HD, and daydreamed in the lumber aisle for about 20 minutes, got some pricing info and mulled over trim options for my project.

After Home Depot, I heeded my sister-in-law Michele’s advice about lip gloss therapy. She thinks it cures all ills. I’ve been in need of some consolation and purchased a new minty clear variety from Bath and Body Works (recommended by friends Laura and Jess), which ironically, is next door to the HD.

This is the juxtaposition of my life – fantasy football and bridesmaid dresses, Home Depot and lip gloss. Any questions?

Bowl Games

I know it's a little early to be thinking about the BCS, but John and I had a lengthy discussion about bowl games and the college football postseason. This devolved into a "how many bowl names can you name?" and "No way! That's not a real bowl game name!" conversation. A simple trip to wikipedia solved our argument. It posts both a list of current bowl games, and a list of past bowl games. I noted my favorite defunct bowls and who I think should play in them if they ever are revived...

Raisin Bowl - The two teams with the highest percentage of players in the nation who fake bake

Bluebonnet Bowl - all players on both teams grease themselves up right before the game, by taking a bath in a bowl full of Bluebonnet butter

Salad Bowl - The two teams with the highest combined average weight of defensive and offensive linemen in the nation

Mercy Bowl - Shouldn't that be the name for all the games that aren't the national championship?

Dixie Bowl - First, change name to "Dixie Cup". Two teams with the highest number of positive drug tests in the nation

Cherry Bowl - Two teams are picked because they have the most virginal-looking cheerleaders in the nation. No way that game ever gets revived...

Has Salsa Ever Beaten You Into Submission?

Last Wednesday, I got around to making the fresh salsa that I had been dreaming about for like 5 days. The corn on the cobs were cooking and I was using a hand held chopper to finely mince the garlic, onion, and hot pepper. The chopper wasn’t doing such a great job so I carefully propped the mixer up so that it wouldn’t tip over and reached into my cabinet for a different cutting attachment. The alternate attachment sliced my thumb open. I ran to the bathroom to wash my wound, apply Neosporin, and bandage my wound when I heard the mixer tip over and fall onto the floor. Surprisingly, the mess wasn’t too bad – most of the minced mixture remained in the cup. I cleaned up the minimal mess and finished mincing. The corn was done but still hot so I was carefully holding the cobs and shaving the kernels off (the last thing I needed was another bloody wound). I was shaving the third cob when the plate flew off the counter and landed directly on my big toe, at which point I cried and admitted defeat. I cleaned up all the corn, sampled the corn and minced mixture and realized the hot pepper was REALLY hot. I could feel my mouth and lips burning. I washed my hands and face like 10 times and then called it a night and went to bed early, with my tail between my legs. At 10pm, I had 2 injuries (and a burned mouth) and no salsa. The next day, I chopped all the tomatoes and after sitting overnight, it was actually a darned good batch of salsa. I guess the hot pepper just needed some time to mellow.

The bruise on my toe and the cut on my thumb remain as painful reminders of the night a batch of salsa beat me into submission…