TRW Days (Daze?)

July 05, 2006Well, it was another day at TRW.

The Good:
Got to force a troublesome machine to do my bidding.

The Bad:
Accidently worked through both of my breaks.

The Ugly:
Watched someone pull out a calculator to divide 11.52 by 10.

The 4th of July was neat.  We could see several fireworks displays from our house, and Daniel seemed to enjoy it.  We also had sparklers left over from last year.  They smoked more this year, but they were still fun.  Hopefully Daniel will be able to hold one next year with close supervision, although Liz doesn't think so.  We got to spend the weekend with my parents, and that was a lot of fun.  Unfortunately, now I want a motorcycle.  Again, Liz doesn't think so.  Of course, I don't want one anytime soon, so her opinion may change by then. 

I miss paintball.

Chewing Orbitz Gum will not get you into Heaven

June 26, 2006So what is it like at TRW?

The people are great.  I was shocked when I heard another co-op student curse, and I was even more shocked to realize my surprise came because that was the first curse word I've heard there since I started.  I don't spend my days around cursing, lewd humor, spite, or cigarette smoke.  The guys are friendly, energetic, interesting, and they truly enjoy their jobs.  It's a great environment.

You know what they should emphasize in school?  Rounding.  If you were going to round 4.1978 to three decimal places, how would you do it?  I would write 4.198.  Apparently it is easier to just drop the digits and make it 4.197.  I saw one guy round 5.9 to 5 and 8.9 to 8.  To make things worse, one guy was rounding everything to two decimal places.  He had the number 6.997.  I recommended he just round it to 7.00.  He looked at me, gave me a speech about how important precision is in our work, and then wrote down 6.99.  To make it worse, he then said "See, If I had just written 7, it wouldn't have been as close.

And then there was today's episode where someone was asked how much time a 420ft drop 85-degree drop (roller coaster) would take.  We happened to know the speed at the bottom was 120mph.  How would I do it?  I'd figure that 85 is close to 90, use y=.5*g*t^2 and solve for t.  How'd he do it?  He assumed that the speed was 120mph the entire time, and divided the distance by that speed.  Personally, I find that roller coasters speed up as they go down hills.  He also forgot to convert from mph to ft/s.

Moral of the story?  You don't have to work with the most academic people if you want to enjoy your job, but prepare to face minor frustrations.  :)

Daniel

June 20, 2006Daniel won't stop growing up.  He discovered in the last couple days that he doesn't actually need to hold on to stuff.  He'll stand up, and just stand there.  At first, he started letting go of furniture without falling down immediately.  Now, he can stand up from crawling without anything to balance with, and he's stood unassisted over 15 seconds already!  I have video, but I can't post video here.  If Chris had the file server up, I could post it online, but it's not yet available.  Sorry, all.

I'm working overtime this week.  There's a lot of stuff to do at work, so I'm going in at 6:00am and leaving at 4:15pm.  Since it takes an hour to get to work, that means I'm getting up at 4:00am.  Tiring, but I'll be fine.  I'm getting used to it.

After 2 weeks of work, I finally got my nametag.  I was happy until it suddenly disappeared.  It fled during the whole carpet thing, and I couldn't find it after.  I literally spent 3+ hours looking for it.  I finally gave up, figuring the baby put it somewhere.  I had looked everywhere I thought he might had put it (I had seen him playing with it), and I checked everywhere else it could be.  I thought it had fallen into the trash and been thrown away.  Today, Liz looked up to see Daniel with it in his mouth.  So he took it, hid it, played with it until he was done, and then returned it to us.  I even asked him where he hides things, but he never would tell me.  Sneaky little booger.

Epiphany?

June 19, 2006This was the text from Sunday's service.  It's really interesting, but I had to read it more than once.  ;)

ROMANS 7 --

5 For when we were in the
flesh, the sinful passions which were aroused by the law were at work
in our members to bear fruit to death. 6
But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we
were held by, so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and
not in the oldness of the letter.

Sin's Advantage in the Law

7 What shall we say then? Is
the law sin? Certainly not! On the contrary, I would not have known sin
except through the law. For I would not have known covetousness unless
the law had said, "You shall not covet."^[a] 8 But sin, taking opportunity by the commandment, produced in me all manner of evil desire. For apart from the law sin was dead. 9 I was alive once without the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died. 10 And the commandment, which was to bring life, I found to bring death. 11 For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it killed me. 12 Therefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good.

Law Cannot Save from Sin

   
13
Has then what is good become death to me? Certainly not! But sin, that
it might appear sin, was producing death in me through what is good, so
that sin through the commandment might become exceedingly sinful.

--

After all these years, I think I truly understand "Do not think I have come to destroy the law but to fulfill it."

It's been a hard day's night

June 17, 2006Well, I've been workin' like a dog all week, and am now enjoying a relaxing but productive weekend.  Even with Jonathan's help, it took about 4 hours to get the living room back in order after the carpet guys came and left.  The main problem was the sound system, which take a while to hook up.  It's all back together for now, but since they're gonna have to fix the seam AGAIN we'll be pulling it all apart again.  Alas.

Works this week was fun mostly, but the pace is a little slow.  I wish it felt like I was getting more done.  We spent a lot of time troubleshooting random stuff, but we're slowly moving forward.

The weekend will consist of cleaning, mowing, watching Stargate SG-1, and much sleep.  And walks with the wife and baby, which is where I now go.  Life has become nice and orderly, so there isn't much new to talk about.  Sorry, all.