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
Class Action Suits, A Way To Balance The Budget?
The odds are strong you’ve been a client in a class action suit. You might never know you were involved in one. Maybe more than one, I know I’ve been represented in several. It seems the moment you buy something, you’re automatically included in a class action suit....
One Year In The Making, A Blogging Quest
One year in the making...that's how long this post has taken me. Exactly one year ago I started this blog with my first post, Beginning, embarking on this quest. Since then I've written 95 posts on a variety of topics. In response to those posts, Opinionbypen.com has...
ESD Training, A Poser Opportunity
Almost everyone has heard the term ESD, ElectroStatic Discharge. It’s the little shock you get on a cold dry morning as you touch the doorknob. It’s seldom fatal to us unless it comes in the form of lightning, also a form of ESD. Fifty years ago, unless you were...
Daylight Savings Time, A Tale Of Two Time Zones
It's official, I hate Daylight Savings Time. I know several hundred blogs were written on the subject this year and I saw no reason to add my voice then I started thinking about my post on apathy and realized I have to add my voice to the crowd. I've always wondered...
Apathy, How To Waste Your Vote
Over the last few months I've had some very harsh words for our politicians in Washington. My Mother-in-law pointed out that the politicians really aren't to blame for our current situation. They may be totally incompetent and dysfunctional but it's not their fault...
Color, Fashion and an Engineer
Have you ever considered what a wondrous thing it is to see color? In spring I get to enjoy the vivid green of my pasture, the bright red of the cardinals as they feast on the insects trying to eat my pasture, the mixed reds and yellows of my wife's roses, even the...
Random Posts
An Engineer’s Dilemma, Beware The Time TeamWhen I got married, I knew my wife did not share my fascination with technology. She wouldn’t understand what I do on a daily basis and there would be communication problems. The trade-off was her love of history and her knowledge of animals. These were skills I lacked. To say I did not fully comprehend […]
What Are The Odds? You’ll Enjoy Udacity StatisticsDuring the Christmas and New Year’s holiday’s I was doing research on hard drive failures when I came across the white paper by Google on hard drive failures. It’s a really nice breakdown of hard drive failure statistics. A few caveats before I get into the details, the paper was presented in 2007, based on […]
Know When to Say Goodby to Your AppliancesWhen I make a mistake I try to admit it. If I can turn it into something positive it helps reinforce this behavior. Writing this post is about as good as it gets for this one. From my wife’s point of view I have a very bad habit of maintaining our appliances well past their […]
Random Posts
It’s Absolutely Impossible For Us To Stop Being An EngineerWe all do it. When we’re reading a book or watching a movie containing elements of our expertise and the story does something so ridiculous that we find it impossible to enjoy the story. Even worse we find ourselves sharing our disgust with anyone willing to listen. My wife finally told me to shut up […]
News Reporters Or News Fabricators?News Reporters Or News Fabricators? by –Zee– The “takedown” in McKinney Texas of a young lady by a police officer at a party held in a private neighborhood pool was vulgar, perhaps unnecessary, but it belonged to McKinney, not the world. The […]
Married To An Engineer: We See Problems DifferentlySeveral years ago, there was a study on the differences in the way dogs and wolves interacted with people. Now I’m not going to insult your intelligence by comparing engineers to wolves but the study did reveal an intriguing similarity. Like wolves, Engineers see problems differently than our counterparts. When the wolf was confronted with […]
Random Posts
Common Designs, Industrial Spies Or Technology, A PerspectiveAlexander Graham Bell invented the telephone, or did he? The truth isn’t nearly as clear as we’ve been taught. In fact, in America, it was a dead heat to the patent office. The telephone isn’t the only invention with murky origins. Consider wireless, the light bulb, flying machines and the list goes on. Why is […]
Dragon Naturally Speaking , a User’s ReviewThis post is going to represent an experiment. I’ve recently acquired Dragon naturally speaking . For some reason every time I start writing I think how much better it would be if I could dictate rather than type. I’ve actually bought Dragon speaking naturally three times in my lifetime and each time it was slightly […]
The Demise of the PC, Where I Blame EverbodyWriting this post took a lot longer than usual. It wasn’t all the additional research, the facts are staring us in the face. This post depressed me because it was so obvious. Building your own PC is about to go the way of the 70’s muscle cars, suddenly the entire industry is focused on tablets. […]
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
What Happened To Conversation?I remember the day I made my first and last comment on LinkedIn. It was a discussion on a manned Mars mission and how it should be abandoned because the odds against the voyagers surviving were high. I remarked that Columbus’ crew probably faced the same fears. Boy, did I …
Heidi’s Heavenly Cookies, WowI enjoy writing this blog because I’m not constrained to a single topic. Today is all about cookies. Let me set the background. I love cookies. Everyone who knows me knows I love cookies. The only thing that lured me off my Atkins diet was cookies. My Food Scout quickly …
Email Scam or Luckiest Man Alive?I must be the luckiest man alive. Three weeks ago when I was looking at my bills and wondering how I was going to pay them, I got an email from an attorney in England. Some wealthy relative I didn’t even know about had died and left me his fortune. …
Bounce Rate, What It Means To Your Favorite SiteIn America we’re taught to tell someone something nice before we criticize them. I’ve never understood if this is supposed to soften the blow or if it’s a tool to boost their ego before it gets completely crushed. I’ve also been told by a few other cultures I work with …
How To Talk With An EngineerLast week when I described my current systems engineer position as being all about communications, I almost lost my wife to uncontrollable laughter. When she finally recovered, all she said, while still trying to catch her breath was, “how do you stay employed?” She has a point. If you have an …