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
Writers In The Field, I Wish I Had Known About This Earlier
It 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...
The Solar Fountain, A Case Study In Poor Planning
Ask anyone in the engineering profession what the most important phase of a project is and they will tell you planning. Okay, a few of the engineers already embarking on a career of management will say funding but they’ve already gone over to the dark side. I can...
The Art Of Communication, Let Your Audience Dictate How You Say It
There are times when my wife is so frustrated from trying to talk to me that she wonders if I’m an idiot savant with the emphasis on idiot. Why? Communication. Exchanging concepts between two people is difficult. Throw an engineer into the mix and it's almost...
An Opinion On Opinions. Why The Other Guy Isn’t Always Wrong
With all the freedom and enlightenment our society is supposed to have, I find it amazing how little tolerance we have for someone with an opinion that differs from ours. Maybe the anonymity provided by the Internet reinforces this behavior, Twitter certainly seems to...
How To Torture An Engineer, An Engineer’s Wife Shows You The Way
Ever wonder how to torture an engineer? You know you want to get rid of that smug know it all attitude. No, I'm not talking about staking us to an antbed. Over the years, my wife has developed some very effective techniques. Let me share an example with you. Last week...
The Solar Powered Chicken Coop Fan Project
Summers in Texas are brutal, especially if you’re a chicken locked up in your coop every evening. Sure, it’s for their own protection but on those evenings with little or no breeze, it can get very stuffy. Adding an electric fan would help but running a 200 foot...
Random Posts
A Very Personal Look At The Engineering Decision Making ProcessI’ve written a number of posts about how engineers think and make decisions, so I was stunned when my Wife questioned my decision making process and demanded details. My first response was to deny any malfeasance on my part but when I recovered my composure I realized she might have a point. Having admitted that […]
Udacity RevisitedIt’s Thursday night and I’m doing my homework for week two of Udacity CS253 Web Application Engineering. I haven’t even started doing CS387 Applied Cryptography content for this week. I may have bitten off a little more than I can chew for this run. My struggles cause me to think a lot about learning. This […]
A Followup to Amazon Polly and My Solar FountainI live in Texas because I enjoy the hot summers, mild winters and the food. Well, also because my wife has told me she’s not moving out of Texas. What I really dread is springtime when my allergies kick into overtime and I feel like a druggie looking for my next Claritin fix. The majority […]
Random Posts
A Proposal For Developing Engineering SynergyIf you work in a factory you’re used to hearing management babble, just think about your mission statement. If it’s like most mission statements out there, it’s a collection of meaningless phrases. Take this for example, “Utilizing our engineering synergy, we will develop a paradigm of waste cutting and improved production, allowing us to totally […]
Why Does the Net Neutrality Fight Look Like A 1970’s Wrestling Script?It’s times like this that I feel fortunate to only have ten loyal readers. You see, much to my eternal embarrassment, I used to spend my Sunday mornings watching wrestling. That was a long time ago and I was fairly sure it was fake staged but the constant battle of good versus evil always seemed […]
First ImpressionsWhen something irritates me, I tend to remember it a long time. Many, many years ago I applied for a summer job at Six Flags Over Texas. After filling out the resume and waiting for the interview I was told that they would not even interview me until I cut off my mustache. If they […]
Random Posts
Making Decisions Based On Website DataIf there’s an engineer in your life, you know how utterly fascinated we are by data. We use data to make purchases, to troubleshoot and to make important decisions. In How to Argue with an Engineer, I told you how engineers use data to support our arguments. It should come as no surprise to you that […]
I’m Not Insulting You, That’s My Aspect Starting UpI want you to take a simple test for me. Look at the picture below and identify the engineer. Not too hard was it? All of you got it. Well, all except for the person reading this that said they’re just Poser characters, none of them are engineers. Must be an engineer. You’re looking at […]
I’m Sick And Tired Of Hearing Politicians Say Follow The DataI’m fairly sure it’s a conspiracy but since no one else is warning you, I feel that it’s my duty to warn you about the highly toxic nature of tomatoes. We’re all fortunate that tomatoes are becoming less toxic over time but their deadly nature cannot be denied. Of course, I don’t expect you to […]
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
501(c)(4), Which Part Is The IRS Violating?It was with surprise and horror that I, along with 20 million other Americans, first learned that the IRS was targeting specific groups for their in-depth investigations into tax exempt status. How did they possibly believe such a travesty would go undetected? I’ve only got one question, why is the …
Language and CultureI read a lot of Science Fiction and Fantasy. I enjoy the way it gives the author the freedom to explore different concepts, different rules of physics, different societies. I also don’t have to look for a deeper meaning. One of the books that really made me think was “The …
My Approach To Identifying And Eliminating Email SpamI don’t know about you but I’ve completely stopped answering my phone. If you want to talk to me, leave a message. I’m guessing you already know why I made that decision; 99.9 percent of the calls are someone trying to sell me something or to scam me. In case …
Symbols Of Power, The Exclamation PointThey say symbols have power. My first response as an engineer is to deny that. Symbols don’t have any power, the power of a symbol is based only on our perception of the symbol. You could say symbols represent power. If we’ve never seen the symbol or don’t recognize it, …
Married To An Engineer – The AI VersionI’m going to be up front about this post, I did not write or modify any of the text. All I did was give a word limit, a tone (snarky) and a subject (married to an engineer), the AI behind ChatGPT did the rest. After reading this, I’m both amazed …