From the Doghouse
A look at dogs having fun
Poser Gallery
My gallery of pictures I’ve created in Poser
My Science Fiction and Fantasy stories
Stories I’ve written
Nature by Carol
A look at the less technical side of life
Why is An Engineer So Brutally Honest But Still Can’t Read A Schedule?
For a marketing person, introducing a potential customer to an engineer is the stuff nightmares are made from. Engineers can be brutally honest about technology. Note I said technology. We're perfectly capable of lying. Ask us about schedule, percent complete, does...
Cooped Up With An Engineer For A While? Maybe This Will Help.
In these times of uncertainty and outright panic, it seems almost irresponsible to publish a post on living with an engineer. I certainly can’t argue the logic behind that line of thinking. On the other hand, the prospect of being cooped up with an engineer for an...
The Eternal Conflict Between Human Behavior And Engineering Logic
The popularity of my Married to an Engineer posts tells me that most of you have difficulty understanding how engineers think. As an engineer, I can tell you that difficulty is mutual. We try to design based on rational human beings and the truth is most of you are...
Time Travel As Viewed By Einstein. A Simplified Discussion
Time travel, I don’t know of any other concept so used and misused in Science Fiction. Although judging from Avengers Endgame, a lot of writers have problems with the concept. Still, despite the inherent paradoxes, from the time I was first introduced to the concept,...
Companies Not Reading Your Complaints? You’re Probably Dealing With A Chatbot
Ever write to a company about a problem and their response made it obvious they weren't reading your message? No, it's not your spouse moonlighting as customer support. Odds are, you've just encountered a chatbot. Chatbots have been around as long as I've been...
Closing Out 2019 In Bits And Pieces
I admit it. Sometimes very logical conclusions completely escape me. I started Opinionbypen because I realized I was too isolated. At the time it never occurred to me that nobody cared. In order to people to take time out of their life and read my blog, they have to...
Random Posts
Saying Thank You, It’s Not That HardThe first time I entered a library I was overwhelmed by all the information. At the time I was more interested in all the science fiction but I soon learned that there was much more than just fiction. I never considered how much work went into putting that repository of knowledge together for my benefit. […]
Writers In The Field, I Wish I Had Known About This EarlierIt was a dark and stormy morning. No really, despite sounding like the start to a bad novel, it’s extremely appropriate given where I was headed and what I was facing. I was supposed to be one of many lecturers at an event aptly called “Writers in the Field,” a massive rainstorm was rolling in […]
FocusIn gaming, you get to pick specific attributes that contribute to your characters success. Real life is similar, but we don’t get to choose our attributes. In a way I was lucky, one of my strongest attributes is focus. For an engineer, the ability to focus on a problem is crucial. When I focus on […]
Random Posts
Married To An Engineer: When Does Repair Become Replace?“I know engineers better than that! They would never throw away a 3D printer that quit working without trying to repair it first.” These words were exclaimed by my wife as she watched a credit card commercial showing engineers trashing a malfunctioning printer and using a credit card to order a new printer. She was […]
A Milestone?Friday the 13th was an auspicious day for this blog. If you’ve read any of my posts, it should come as no surprise that I love numbers. I also want to know what the numbers represent. WordPress, the framework for this blog, provides a very nice app that lets me know how many people have […]
Spam, Spam and More Spam, A Closer Look At The DetailsReceiving more spam than email? Drowning in Amazon order cancellations? Wondering why your spam filter is so inefficient? I still believe I had the perfect solution when I suggested taxing email but no one seemed to like that idea. If you consider knowledge as power, I’m going to give you some power over these spammers. […]
Random Posts
The Law of ResonanceThe Law of Resonance by Jeff Scholl The Law of Resonance is defined as, “Our life force will react to adjust on every stimulus or force that it is being exposed to within the body, mind, emotions or spirit. If the force of stimulus is stronger than the inner life force present, the bodies are […]
WaitingJust 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 […]
Quitting Doesn’t Always Mean FailureI spent a lot of time thinking of ways to say I was not finishing Udacity’s Interactive 3D Graphics course without sounding like a quitter. I even wrote a post on the difference between failure and quitting. The funny thing is that I’m probably the only one that cares. It’s not like Udacity is going […]
From the Doghouse -It’s all about them
A look at dogs having fun!
Short Stories
With posts like these, ever wonder what kind of fiction I would write?
Random Posts
Married To An Engineer – Part 2It’s happened again this year, once again I’ve forgotten my anniversary. Every year that it happens, I swear it won’t happen again. I’ve set alarms on watches, PDAs and smartphones. I went so far as to enlist my Mother-In-Law’s help but every once in a while all those mechanisms fail …
Pepper, Someone Else’s ProblemI’m mad and worse I find myself exceedingly frustrated because I can’t express the full depth of my anger. All my life has been suppressing anger in favor of calm rational analysis. No, I don’t pretend to be Spock but I do believe anger can distract from the message. Wanting …
Fourth of July, Sleepless Nights and ThundershirtsI absolutely hate the Fourth of July. Don’t get me wrong, I’m proud to be an American and the Fourth of July used to be my favorite holiday but living in the country has caused a major shift in my perspective. When I was younger and living in the city, the …
Engineers From Technicians, A PerspectiveIn electronics you have two classes of knowledge experts, Engineers and Technicians. I’m ignoring the programmers for the moment because they only complicate this discussion. The distinction between the two classes can become very blurred but Engineers are expected to create designs, while Technicians implement and troubleshoot those designs. At …
What’s The Bottom Line On Tariffs? How Much Will They Cost Me?Tariffs are a tax nations charge on imported or exported goods. The importer always pays the tax, and the money always goes straight into the pockets of the country imposing the tariff. But don’t be fooled—while the importer technically pays the tax, the cost always gets passed down to you, …