Along the Same Lines as the Darwin Awards...

There are the IgNobel Awards

And in other news...

I brought a rolling pin to work the other day. When was the last time you got to do that? I was out in the shop area with it and one of the guys asked, “Are you gonna make me a pie? I can’t remember the last time I saw a rolling pin…” I thought that was damned funny. I needed it for a crazy special cool project that I’m working on. But it’s over for now (I delivered a day ahead of time!) so the rolling pin will return to one of my bottom kitchen cabinets to sit alone and unused (not unlike its owner). Speaking of other girly things like rolling pins…

About a month after I moved into my condo, the caulking in my shower needed to be fortified. (I like that word.) The directions on my caulk said to use a hairdryer to dry out the area to be caulked. I did not own a hairdryer. So I went out and got one and used it for my caulking job. And it’s sat untouched for almost 2 years in my bathroom cabinet. I think I’m going to bust it out again soon though, to shrink wrap saran wrap from a window kit to keep winter drafts from sneaking through cracks around my windows. What does it say about me that I see a hair dryer as more of a home improvement tool than a beauty tool?

The company I work for acquired some pedometers and they want us to live a healthier more active life. They told us we could have one if we’d participate in a contest. I am soooo excited about my pedometer. I talked before about being a burrito slut (what wouldn’t I do for Chipotle?). I think I’m also a slut for a pedometer. I walked a mile, ran for almost 2, did the elliptical for over 3, and that put me around 10000 steps for the day. When I found out that 12500 is the benchmark for what is considered “highly active,” I was disappointed with my 10K mark. I think I’m most excited about the pedometer because it’s a new way for me to evaluate my workouts/activity/fitness. Always looking for something to freshen up my trips to the gym…

My brother was an engineer but is working as an engineering teacher and wants to be able to teach math and science too. So he is taking classes to get a masters degree. He’s currently taking a physics class and a math class. We’re playing sand volleyball together once a week this fall and he mentioned that he was going to have to do a crazy derivation or integration with a radiation equation for an upcoming test and he had no idea how to do it. I’ve done some insane derivations and batty integrations (reminds me of a classmate’s quote at Case during EMAE 350. “We must explore all other options before resorting to integration.”) and I was pretty sure I had enough of my old texts that I could reference to take a stab at it. So because I am the sickest form of sick, I called my brother after volleyball, got the details of what I needed to do, pranced over to the bookshelf in my basement with my old texts, selected the ones I thought could help, went back upstairs, turned on some baseball, surrounded myself with 5 open textbooks, cuddled up under a flannel blanket on my couch, and wrote out the steps of the integration on a pad of yellow engineering paper. Now I’d be lying if I said that I plowed through it and was able to get through all the steps of the integration to get to the correct answer. Instead, I toiled for about an hour and a half, ended up waving my hands and making up some math, and still got to a roadblock where I could go no further. Then I remembered that I (thankfully) am not in school anymore and went to bed. I still thought about the problem as I was falling asleep though. It brought back bittersweet memories of college. I remembered the joy of the challenge of attacking difficult problems and the camaraderie when we did it as a group. But I also remembered that feeling of a heavy weight always on my shoulders. Never being able to get ahead on my school work. Always having something hanging over my head. Never feeling like I was doing enough. It’s been nice to be away from that for awhile.