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
The SainSmart Jinsoku LC-40 Laser Engraver, A Review
I’ve always been fascinated by lasers. When I was much younger, I tried to make one using an LED and a transistor for amplification. Fortunately physics was against me and I think we’re all happy my attempt was a failure. That failure did nothing to diminish my...
Why Can’t I Find A Good Book, The Evolving Nature Of Literature
There's nothing as wonderful as starting a new book and finding yourself totally immersed within the first chapter. Sadly, such books are becoming scarcer than finding a worthy political candidate. I find myself reading more books and enjoying far fewer of them. I...
Married to an Engineer, It’s More Complicated Than You Think
Unless you’re also an engineer, living with an engineer is an exercise in controlled frustration. Engineers live so closely tied to technology that we automatically assume everyone else has the same love and understanding of technology we do. My house is filled with...
How To Be A Successful Mass Murderer
I’m not going to ask why you’re here. We've all thought about it. The jerk cutting you off on the freeway, the traffic jam you were stuck in because you were cut off or maybe it’s just the people you have to work with. You know, the ones demanding you honor their...
Why Can’t I get The Internet Speed I’m Paying For?
This year my electric company made me a deal I couldn’t refuse, 1000 Mbps Internet. Only two years ago, I was still living with two very questionable ADSL lines from AT&T. On a good day I might get 1.2 Mbps. Last year T-Mobile Home offered service in my area and I...
Duolingo, How To Enjoy Learning A Language
Today I completed my 76th consecutive Spanish lesson with Duolingo. Why Spanish? Why Duolingo and why is the number of days important? This isn’t my first attempt to learn a new language. My work brings me in contact with a number of different languages and while I...
Random Posts
Where I Admit I Made A Mistake About CongressSpend enough time doing anything and sooner or later you’ll make a mistake. Some mistakes are unavoidable. You might say those are the cost of making decisions and although some of us never do, we’re expected to learn from our mistakes. In electronics it’s almost a given that your first prototype will have problems. That’s […]
An Engineer Muses On Fictional WritingIf you’ve seen the movie, Apollo 13, you remember the scene where the mission director comes in with a box of stuff dumps it on the desk and says this is what we’ve got, make it work. I don’t think there’s an engineer out there who wouldn’t love to have that challenge. Just watching the […]
After The Crash, Comparing Backup Software, Acronis, Aomei and ParagonThe idea behind a software review is to give an unbiased appraisal of the program. Unfortunately most reviews are anything but unbiased. As hard as I tried, this review is no exception. After my experiences last month, I decided to see what else was out there for backup software. Given my love hate relationship with […]
Random Posts
A Caution On Considering An Engineer As a CompanionLike many other bloggers, I check my logs frequently. I love seeing what articles people find interesting, what search terms they used to find me, and of course, did they find me interesting enough to read another post. I have two posts that always make me feel concern for the people reading them. When I […]
Married To A Systems Engineer, Why Do Engineers Ask So Many QuestionsI really don’t think it’s fair for my wife to break into uncontrollable laughter every time I explain that as a systems engineer, most of my job involves facilitating communications. I understand why she starts laughing, despite speaking a common language, communication between the two of us is difficult but that’s still no excuse. She […]
Driving Change With Comments – Force MultipliersI had barely hit “send” on my last post when Zee, ever the critic, called me on it. I mean, she’s penned a gallery of fire-breathing missives about shoddy products, clueless congressmen, and writers who wouldn’t recognize a plot if it slapped them in the face. What did she get for her literary fireworks? Coupons, […]
Random Posts
Handwriting as a training method?There are a number of people that would describe my personality as a tightly closed book, written in small font, in code. I wasn’t always this open. When I still lived in the city I had a ritual for starting my weekend. On Saturday morning I would walk to a used bookstore to pick out […]
Wilson Cellular Signal Booster, a ReviewI’ve been impressed by how well the Wilson Cellular Signal Booster does what it promises but there are a few caveats in using it. It doesn’t amplify your cell phone signal so much as it enables you to take advantage of a better signal if it’s available outside your house. If you don’t have a […]
Small Talk, How This Engineer Learned To Enjoy ItIt should come as no surprise that I regard social get togethers as a form of state sanctioned torture. There’s multiple reasons but the main issue is small talk. There’s no polite way to say how much I suck at small talk. At first mention of the train wreck to be of the current Bachelor […]
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
Retirement, A Very Personal FearFear is a funny thing. I’ve seen grown men injure themselves to escape a common garden spider. Personally, I’m petrified when I have to climb higher than 3 feet on a ladder. They’ve never been bitten by a spider, I’ve never fallen off a ladder, so why the paralyzing fear? …
Gamification, Another Management Fad?I like my job, I really do. In order to ensure I continue to like my job I avoid a lot of topics that I would like to write about because my management might not see my point. This is one of those topics. One of the stronger engineering traits …
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 …
Ego, It Doesn’t Improve Your Homelife EitherA very long time ago I was a manager of the small group of electronic designers. Like many engineering managers I had been a very good designer and I’d been promoted to the position of manager without knowing what it took to become a manager. The way I saw it, …
What Idiot Designed This? In Defense Of EngineersEver try to fix something and ask yourself, “what idiot designed this?” It’s certainly happened to me often enough. Yeah, a few of those times it was one of my own designs but we’re not going to discuss those today. Before I get too far into this post let me …