Blinky Lights and Shiny Objects

[Edited between square brackets on 7/9/08] At work on Monday, April 30th, we all got some horrible news. One of our fellow Opto-Mechanical Engineers had been killed in a car accident over the weekend. Myke Minbiole was 29 years old. He had been married less than a year, his wife Julie was also in the car but she was out of the hospital in a day or so. He had been working at [our company] since he graduated from Northwestern. I didn't know him well; I knew of him and he was always friendly. But I am closer friends with several of his close friends. The whole department was affected, and all of the others at work who had spent time with Myke were also touched. We know a few details of the accident. It happened around midnight, as they were driving home from a visiting friends in downtown Chicago. His Pontiac Sunfire was t-boned on the driver's side by a 2007 Cadillac Escalade. Literally a hit-and-run: the occupants of the SUV (some reports said there were four) got out ...

Yesterday was Earth Day. I hadn't planned anything special. But our house decided to celebrate by burning out one of the compact fluorescent bulbs in the kitchen and - this is the fun part - getting a small gas leak going in the dryer! I was late getting laundry started on Sunday (like 8 pm late) and when I took the towels out of the dryer where they had sat overnight, they smelled VERY STRONGLY of gas. We have a gas dryer (and stove, water heater, furnace...) so I was pretty concerned. The smell was really only strong inside of the dryer. I opened the window (at least the weather was nice) to air out the bathroom. Then I called the gas company. It took a few times to get past a busy signal, but then it took a while to get through the voice mail system. (I'm glad it wasn't a dangerous emergency...) In about a half an hour a technician pulled in the driveway. He comes in with a fancy piece of equipment that has a sniffer on the end and sounds like a Geiger counter ...

When life stops changing drastically every four years, time can start slipping by without making much of an impression. Recently I've become aware that going along in my rut (it's a good rut, but still, I'm doing the same thing week after week) isn't letting enough fun into my life. So I'm making an effort to jump at chances to have new experiences interspersed day-to-day. Last weekend I took Sara up on her offer (see comments to previous post) of going out to a college acapella competition downtown. I've been in choirs and choruses for the majority of my life, but I wasn't quite enough of a chorus geek to be aware of this particular sport. Apparently at some larger colleges (larger than Rose, at least, which was the same size as my high school) groups of students get together and practice acapella songs to perform and compete with other groups. It isn't barbershop, madrigal, Latin chanting, or do-wop. These songs are arrangements of popular music,...

We've had our cat, Nigel, for about six years now. Like all cats, he has an aversion to water or getting wet. When Nigel does something he isn't supposed to be doing, and we see it, he will get squirted from a water bottle. Now, however, I think he is trying to train himself to not fear the water! When the tile in the shower was replaced at the end of last year the shower door was also removed. Instead of the metal track on the rim of the tub, we now have a shower curtain that goes outside of the tub and a shower curtain liner that goes inside the tub. This forms a tent over the rim of the tub. At first, Nigel just played in the tent. Then he would hop into the bathtub (when it was dry) and wrestle with the liner. Or just stand in the bathtub. Now he'll hop into the bathtub when it is still wet from a shower. Or he'll perch on the rim of the tub and try to catch the water still dripping from the faucet. This may be one of those "you had to be there"...

A few posts ago I wrote about how the lever to open the trunk of my car had stopped working. I was on the phone with the service department today to set up my 30k appointment, and mentioned that I was having this problem. The service manager that I was talking to, Steve, immediately suggested that the lock-out lever may have been accidentally set. He described the lever's location so I could check it myself. (The lever happens to be unmarked and Not Obvious.) Sure enough, that fixed the problem immediately. Kudos to Steve at Bigger's Mazda for sharing information for free over the phone - not normal for a car dealership service technician! I wrote out a list of nifty links to send to a friend, and figured I may as well share them with you all as well: This site integrates Google Maps so you can figure out exactly how long a walk you took was: http://www.usatf.org/routes// This site was written by "some guy". I'm not sure how medically accurate his advice is...

I would like to share the play I wrote last weekend with anyone who would like to read it. I think it turned out very well, especially given the time constraints and this is the first time I've ever done anything like that. BUT I'm worried that if I put it out on Google Docs with the setting where ANYONE can read it, some kid will find it and rip it off for their creative writing assignment. Paranoid, I know, but I'm proud of the multi-level symbolism I was able to create around a train whistle, and I don't like the idea of some cheatwad getting extra credit for it! Okay, that sounds really far-fetched when I write it out like that. Here's the link: (link removed 3/31/15) I may take it down in a month or so, to reduce its weblife. Warning: not entirely work safe. Read it yourself before deciding who else to show it to! I'd love to hear comments. (I disabled the capthca-thingy, but comment moderation is still enabled.) (And if you knew me in college or b...

My Mazda3 sedan reached 30,000 miles on the way home from work today. In the near three years I've had it, I've had only two things you might be able to classify as problems. First, they did a recall to fix an airbag sensor that would crack and let moisture in. Second, I've recently realized that the lever inside the car that pops the trunk has stopped working. I'll get that fixed under warranty at its 30k checkup. So I have been more than pleased with the quality and design of the entire car. I'm starting to see more of them on the road, too, so others must be happy as well. The payments will be over around this time next year, and then I hope to drive it for many years after that. I spent more time and energy researching which car to buy than which house to buy - and while we had to compromise on the house (1.5 bathrooms instead of 2) I don't feel I had to compromise on the car at all. Thank you, Mazda, for designing and building a small car that isn...