2. We were there to hold a short service and consign my uncle’s ashes to the sea. More on that later, or not, but not now anyway. While family was gathered, someone observed that all the youngsters save one who are currently dating anyone are dating Asians. In other words, three out of four girlfriends are Asians right now. My cousin’s son, who is starting a PhD program next year, is dating a woman whose family owns a factory in Taiwan (or Thailand, or both, I never got that straight); his sister, who just got accepted into a law school at Yale, is virtually married to a woman who’s I think Filipina (and a lawyer); my son’s girlfriend is Vietnamese; while my other son’s is some white chick. No one sought meaning in this meaningless statistic but I did notice that my mother was perhaps most self-consciously non-chalant about it. “Doesn’t mean anything to me,” and I know it doesn’t, but she did say so.
3. Speaking of Asians, it is no exaggeration that about ninety percent of the engineers in the lab working on the current projects are from either India or China. This is huge to me, and not because of “race” (fairly meaningless concept) but because a) this isn’t just a next-gen spin of the same old architecture, this is a major strategic change in direction for the company as big as any taken in forty years hence a shitload is riding on it, and b) it is being implemented by people who are immigrants to this country, many of them under H1B, and do not necessarily have significant ties to this place. Land of opportunity, raising their kids here, all that; but there is also a steady stream of individuals who take their acquired skills and contacts and return home to build up our international competition. I have no problem with that. The problem I have is with the fact that home-grown Americans are too fucking lazy to put themselves through American engineering schools and take these jobs. I’m not kidding about that. I was hearing just yesterday about a newly-funded graduate engineering program that is having trouble finding home-grown candidates. And if this top-notch employer can’t find people with a clear commitment to the country’s future, then who can? We’re fucked.
4. And don’t get me wrong about “home-grown”: It means exactly that. A flock of “home-grown” engineers who are all Japanese- and Chinese-American are exactly the same to me as any of them other types; though I am concerned that there is a paucity of blacks and Hispanics in the biz, and always has been. I’ve been unable to grasp why that is since I was an undergrad surrounded by whites and (back then) Iranians and Vietnamese, and noticing that two of the four races that CA was divided into when I was growing up never came to college. WTF? There’s a message in there somewhere, a message about how we fucked things up such that it’s a lot easier to succeed as a child of immigrants than of farm workers. (Notwithstanding the fact that three of my colleagues in this here engineering pressure cooker worked in the fields when they were pre-college.)
5. Owie whine: Yesterday I manhandled a bunch of 4x8 OSB around so I could cut them with the patterns that turn them into an octahut. What is an octahut? It’s a pile of plywood when stacked in the trailer for transport, but when out on the playa can be assembled into a wind-resistant domicile in the shape of an octagon. Sort of a big 3D puzzle. It will be cool. But either that or a bad choice of back exercises while at the gym (or both) have conspired to remind me I have a mild touch of sciatica back there and whatever I’ve been doing, it’s been the wrong thing to do. It’s okay when I’m sitting but when upright, I pretty much have to suck up the pain to consciously avoid slouching. I don’t want to become one of those old men who slouch. I’m tall, and I’m going to frickin’ stay tall. (Sort of. Six one is not exactly altitudinous.)
6. Okay, enough of this. Time for a coffee run and aw shit, I forgot to bring in my bagel and oatmeal. I always bring instant oatmeal, pour in some hot tea-water, mix it and eat it out of the bag. People always remark, “Oh, I didn’t know you could do that!” Geniuses we have around here. I learned it from a fifteen year old Boy Scout while up on the PCT. Anyway I forgot and am going to have to buy some horrible greasy muffin. Crap.
The plans, such as they are, as seen in Adobe. I don't actually use them. The guy who made them (also an engineer) doesn't either. But I am totally behind drawing up plans. It's an engineer thing.
5 comments:
This post was quite entertaining.
Maybe I read a cheery vibe into it because I'm feeling kinda cheery m'self.
(Half-Japanese girl dons cheerleader outfit)
WE'RE NUMBER ONE! WE'RE NUMBER ONE!
And Don, you've got to stop writing about tools and building things and having useful skills. It gives me the vapors.
6'1" is just tall enough.
And I can't wait to try that oatmeal thing.
My comment never showed up! :-(
#1. I don't remember what I wrote for #1
#2. It seems to me, based on reading this, that you've been batted about a bit too much by the likes of Zen and A. Hope.
#3. I have a workbench I bought from Harbor Freight. Trouble is, I need a workbench so I can assemble the workbench I bought. Advice?
#4. Take care of your back. It's the only one you get until they invent a $6,000,000 one and even then you have to be a test pilot to get one of those.
This was a fun posty. I would've guessed you were 5'11" or 6' even. Have you considered the reasons why there aren't home grown kids going into the whateverprogramyouweretalkingabout? Mayhaps there's a generation or two of people who have had so many doors slammed in their faces, so many work 40-60 hours a week but still can't pay the bills jobs, so many fucked up situations that the idea of kicking back and learning stuff in school just doesn't seem a reasonable option. At all.
:-)
On that eating oatmeal out of the bag thing, does the bag have a kind of waxy liner? If so, you should stop doing that right now. It likely contains Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) which is implicated in some major league problems like liver, testicular and pancreatic cancer. It alters lipid metabolism, messes withyour thyroid, disrupts your endocrine system and is just generally awful. Of course, it may be unavoidable stuff, but heat releases it straight into your oatmeal, or if you eat microwaveable popcorn, same thing. It's a byproduct of fluorotelomer production. Fluorotelomers are applied to food contact papers because they prevent oil from soaking into paper.
Basically, we're doomed. Happy birthday!
What do people mean when they say they use Adobe? or as you put it, as seen in Adobe? Adobe what? That's like saying you use Microsoft on your computer.
;-)
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