Holy Snow, Batman!!!

Last night I could still see the grass. This morning, I could barely see our house.

The southern part of Indiana starting right around downtown Indianapolis, got 6 or 8 inches of snow yesterday during the day. Amazingly, we got absolutely nothing where we live. There was a slight dusting in the evening but when we went to bed I could still see the grass.

This morning, as Jen was first to notice, we had about 8 or 10 inches outside. Just imagine what the South side looks like now! Jen had a little trouble getting her car out of the garage. Our road had not been plowed yet, but there were some tracks you could run in. Jen just got stuck a little bit near the end of the driveway. It was nothing a couple reverse-drive-reverse rocks couldn't take care of.

I was about ready to go too, so I had her wait a little bit down the road so we could drive out together. When I got my car out of the garage I just hammered it backwards. Near the end of the driveway I cranked the wheel and did a sweet little spin right into the existing tiretracks. It was like one of those movies where the car slides sideways right into a parking spot. Yeah, I was proud. It was awesome. (As you may or may not know, driving in snow is one of the most highly testosterone producing activities a man can do)

Well, we didn't make it 75 feet around the curve before we came upon an SUV in distress. Apparently the 4WD was out and he was running only on rear-wheel drive. He was fishtailing all over the place and I could see that he was quickly going to wedge his "truck" sideways in the road and be stuck for good. So I got out and ran up to help. I ended up having to push directly sideways on the truck at the back-right corner. He kept fishtailing right and it didn't do any good to push forward. So I ran along the side of the truck pushing sideways as hard as I could. After 20 minutes of pushing, shoveling, and grunting we finally got his "truck" onto the main road.

I find it somewhat amusing that Jen's Cavalier and my Toyota Matrix, both of which are tiny little rice burners, made it out just fine while that guy's SUV couldn't get 10 feet without somebody pushing like crazy. So not only do SUV's hog all the gas, kill more people, and cost twice as much, but they also can't drive for crap in the snow. Great! Let's all buy two! I realize that if the 4WD had been working it may have been a different story, but come on. Don't mind me, I'm just bitter from the frost bite on my toes. I really do hate stupid city people who drive SUVs because they think they're cool or they "need" them, though. I wish they'd just burn their money instead.

Anyway, Jen and I made it to work safe and sound. I followed a Hummer into work. Not one of those toy Hummer H2s you see all the time now, but one of the real honest-to-goodness Hummers of old. My previous tirade about SUVs aside, that thing was absolutely awesome in the snow. It was barreling through everything in its path. I'm just glad I was behind it instead of in front of it! My entire car isn't even as big as one of it's tires. :^)

So I guess we're going to have a white Christmas. Yeah! I've always had a better time on Christmas when there's snow around. I'll talk to you all soon. Merry Christmas!

The Seven Days of Jen

Well, Jen's birthday has come and gone this year. I think she had a pretty good time. Her parents came up earlier in the week for dinner and some cake. That was fun. We drove to Michigan on her birthday (17th) for some more cake.

Since Jen was so nice to me on my birthday this year (she got me a laptop) I decided to do something extra for her this year. I decided on something I deemed the "Seven Days of Jen". I gave her presents for the 7 days leading up to her birthday. Here's what she got:

Day 1: "The Elf" DVD and "The Best of Will Farrel: SNL" DVD
Day 2: New Cell Phone
Day 3: Clothes
Day 4: A $150 shopping spree with her best friend Kim.
Day 5: An MP3 player with an FM tuner for working out.
Day 6: Still hasn't come in the mail. Stupid holidays.
Day 7: Leather jacket with matching leather gloves.

I think she did pretty well. That new cell phone is awesome. It has a camera, video recorder, voice recorder, email, text-messaging, internet browser, games, & more. It's a whole bunch of fun to use. I kind of want to get one now, and I usually hate cell phones.

Now I just have to convince her to get me an HDTV for Christmas....

Rose-Hulman

I had the neat experience this week of giving some lectures at Rose-Hulman. There are 8 sections of ES202 that combine into 4 sections for a two-hour lab. ES202 is the "Introduction to Thermodynamics and Fluids" class for sophomores at Rose. It's made up of 200+ students, mostly mechanical engineers, but also some computer engineers, electrical engineers, and biomedical engineers. I got to give a lecture during the lab period to three of the four groups. Some of the students during the other lab period came to a different lab time, so I almost had 200 students all together.

I spoke to the students about Rolls-Royce and what we do. I introduced them to jet engines, the different parts of the engine, and how those parts work together to create power for different types of situations. Then I described how we go about designing a new engine and gave them some examples of what I have seen on the military side of things. I showed them some videos and some really neat pictures of upcoming technology like the Joint Strike Fighter, V22 Osprey, and Predator drone. Basically, I just gave them an overview of the jet engine and the engineering concepts and methods that go into it.

The students had a great time. The professors told me that they had students come to their office after the sessions to say how much they liked it. That made me feel good. I could tell they were interested, because they paid attention and asked some really good questions, but it's nice to hear that they weren't just faking it. I tend to get pretty excited about this kind of stuff, so I think my enthusiasm probably rubbed off on them a little bit.

I'll tell you what, doing stuff like this makes me realize how much I want to be a professor someday. I can't wait to get a PhD and go back to some engineering college. Rose-Hulman would be a great choice, too. On the other hand, I also realized how valuable real-world experience is when you're presenting this kind of thing. The students were really interested to hear about what the engineering world is really like. Having experience gives you a certain amount of credibility to work with.

I had some professors ask me to do similar things for other classes, like Propulsion Systems, so hopefully I'll get the chance to do this again. Now all I need to do is fanagle a speaking fee out of them. :^) Just kidding!

Christmas List

Folks have been waiting for our Christmas list, so here it is. You might have to check with Jen or I to make sure we aren't getting any of this stuff for each other. Although, I guess we could just return it so it's not a big deal.

I've tried to include some links to examples of the stuff. We'll keep updating this post as we think of stuff, so feel free to check back.

Mark's List:
Lord of the Rings, Return of the King - Extended Edition DVD
Knights of the Old Republic 2 - Xbox Video Game
Fable - Xbox Video Game
Lord of the Rings, Return of the King - Xbox Video Game
Lord of the Rings, The Third Age - Xbox Video Game
Brown dress belt (preferably with a silver buckle) 34-36 waist
Table Saw (Something like this or this)
30" or larger wood clamps
Cheap multimeter
Wok (a nice one because we've trashed ours already)
Wireless headphones (900 MHz) something like this.

Jen's List:
Coffee maker with a wake-up timer (makes coffee in the morning)
Whole coffee beans, different fun kinds.
Black knee-high boots. You'll have to ask her.
Colorwave green pasta dishes, gravy bowl, or anything else fun.
Framed art (Ansel Adams & Monet are her favorites)
Fleeces (size medium) something like this, preferably full-zip though.
Plain long sleeve t-shirts. All different colors, size medium.
Work out clothes.
Burgundy or light tan throw pillows to match our new couch (Fabric #C845132, I think).
Christmas decor, we've got nothin'.
Walkman with a radio.

The Christmas Season Is Here

Well, we've put up a Christmas tree and that means that the Christmas season must officially be here. Of course, that's means I have to go shopping. Ugh. That's okay though, at least I know Jen will like her present of a big screen TV that I'm getting her. I'm sure I'll... oops, I mean she'll love it.


Our Christmas Tree

In years past we've driven to Michigan in a blizzard. We're hoping this year that won't happen. We're not driving up on Christmas Eve, but we are going up next weekend. We apologize in advance if our presence brings about the next ice age.

Mosby is starting to show signs of getting bigger. He's getting a little longer and less rotund. Although if he keeps eating the way he has been he ought to get back to his regular rotund self rather quickly. He's finally figured out that meowing by the food bowl pretty much guarantees getting some grub. He's also figured out that meowing separately for Jen and I will get him grub twice. We rarely are home at the same time so we never know who's fed him yet. He's lovin' it. Here's an updated pic for those of you keeping a picture of the (great)grandchild in your wallet. :^)


Mosby in December 2004

The Battle Ends

After 1250 tiny-print pages and more than 6 months of lunch-time reading I've finally finished War & Peace. It was definitely an interesting book. The story line seemed somewhat drab, at least from the standpoint of what happened to the characters, but the history in the book was really neat. I read a Napolean biography just before starting this book so it was neat to see the view of Napolean's Russian campaign from a Russian viewpoint. The descriptions of Russian culture around 1812 were also pretty interesting.

Aside from the history, the best part about the book had to be the analysis of the human psyche that Tolstoy put into the book. Most of the story consists of describing the thoughts and feelings of the characters. Tolstoy doesn't describe the feelings as an outsider looking in though. He describes feelings and thoughts just as they would occur to the character. It makes for some neat insights into how & why people think the way they do. It's fun to see the thoughts of the characters develop though the story.

It was long but I think worth it. If nothing else at least I can say that I've read War & Peace. You'll have to decide for yourself if that makes me an intelligent person or a glutton for punishment.

Nothing to see here.

Just checking in to report that.... well, there's nothing to report. Not much has been going on lately. Jen started her new rotation today. She's on call tonight, too. What fun! I've been nice and busy at work. Thank goodness other folks are as slow as I am because I feel like everything is taking twice as long as it should. Ugh!

Oh yeah, we did get some free grub last night. Jen's residency program is trying to get new recruits right now. They take the applicants out to dinner and the current residents (and their husbands) get the very difficult task of eating the free food right along with them. We went to a nice little place called Bertollini's downtown. It's a fancy italian joint. We probably spent $80 between the two of us. Of course, it's hard to feel guilty when they're using Jen for slave labor. About 3 of those meals a week and she might just be making minimum wage. Yeah, we're not bitter. :^)