I just finished deleting Opinionbypen. No, not this version of my blog obviously. I’m talking about the version hosted at GoDaddy. This year when my renewal rolled around, GoDaddy rewarded my tenure with a rate increase. Having been with then for five years, they could have rewarded my customer loyalty with a discount.  Instead they […]

I’m writing this post for all the other bewildered engineers out there. You’re welcome to read on if you’re not an engineer but I’m not sure what you’ll glean from it. If you’re familiar with communication theory you’ve already been introduced to the Nyquist theorem and understand that the maximum rate of communication is limited […]

A few months ago, I got a suggestion on posting how to flirt with an engineer. The more I considered it the more I questioned the wisdom of such a post. It’s not that I don’t believe you should engage in a relationship with an engineer but until you understand your engineer, mixed signals will occur. […]

Our first and oldest Australian Shepherd, Shelby, died early Monday morning. Her death was a natural one brought about by old age. We knew it was coming but the knowledge did little to soften the loss. She spent fifteen too short years with us, having joined our family as a rescue at the approximate age of two. […]

Just as I feared, I got the wrong name for my website. It’s a very small thing but still annoying. I had selected OpinionByPen.com and then realized I might want more than one opinion. Easily fixed or so I thought. I then registered OpinionsByPen.com but my hosting account was still under the previous name. As […]

I’ve always liked the mystique of being a Texan. While I miss that six foot plus ruggedly handsome stereotype by several inches and …on second thought, several inches is as far as I will admit.  Every country I’ve been to fully expected to see me wearing boots, six gun and a ten gallon hat.  I […]

When faced with a problem, engineers tend to fixate on solving the problem. Often we’re still looking for a solution when others would have given up long ago. It could be that I’m too stubborn to admit defeat but there’s nothing more satisfying than solving a difficult problem. I don’t get frustrated by failure, I […]

Put a group of engineers together discussing projects and sooner or later the discussion will turn to beancounters. No, beancounters aren’t an apparatus for counting individual beans, we use the term to refer to the accounting department. As you might guess, this is not a term of high regard. There’s no denying that most engineers […]

This is not something I wanted to write about but as I said in Questing, I’m trying to be more open and share my experiences. I told myself that once this was not a major factor in my life I would write about it. About 8 weeks ago I had a slight earache. Well, not […]