Engineer's Graphic

Ask an engineer (specifically one with marginal InDesign/Photoshop skills) to give you a graphic and you are bound to get something like this:

 

Pi Day 2013

You Can Call Me Nanerpus

For those of you that may have had the opportunity to see the commercial, you might know who Nanerpus is; for those of you like me, it's on YouTube.

I'm going to pretend to be a guy for a moment: Long story short, Rachel named her baby Nanerpus.

Now back to being a girl: Following delivery of their baby, Randy looked and saw "it" was a boy. The doctor said, "what do you want to call him"? Rachel, in a drugged state of existance said, "you can call him Nanerpus"!

So yea, Miles was born on Friday the 13th. Randy calls the baby Miles. Rachel still calls him her little Nanerpus. It's actually rather sweet.

Since Miles was born early, Rachel and Randy never got the opportunity to get the things they needed for bringing home a baby. Eva and I went shopping this weekend for some of the items they needed. No one carried anything we seemed to go there for, but we got them plenty anyway. I got them a Serta Sheep changing matress. Are you surprised? Didn't think so!

Anyway, when I wasn't looking for things that appear to not exist, I spent a lot of time YouTubing this weekend, which is what happens when I have time to spend on the Internets. I watch old shows, good commercials, and lots of music. It's always worth the time I spend.

I rode my bike on Sunday because the weather was nice. I was worn out, and took a nap. Well then I woke up absolutley stir crazy. So I decided to start cleaning the basement of stuff I do not need. Seriously, I am a packrat so I save everything. Well, there's lots of stuff that I wanted to save all these years, but I don't want to drag it with me everywhere I go in life. So, I just started going through it and cleaning out stuff I didn't need. There was a lot that I decided to keep though. I at least consolidated. I might take pictures of some of it, and I might scan some photos when I get time. Some of it is too classic to trash and needs to be shared with the world!

Quick shout out to Ben and Ashley, who are now engaged, I'll spare you my ideas on being married. A quick shout out to Steph for reaching her 100th Mobile Blog post (oh wait, that's me).

Well, I need to move on to something more productive, so here are your words of the weekend and today:

pi day: March 14. A "holiday" celebrated by math geeks everyhwere. Pi is approximately 3.14, and March 14 is 3/14.

de-loosify: Loosen.

In Use: He made the big switch to Tropicana from Minute Maid orange juice because he was unable to de-loosify the lid.

Pictures of Pie and Buildings

I'm back!!

I wanted to quickly share a couple of things with you. The first is a project I worked on called King Abdullah University of Science and Technology located off the Red Sea north of Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Those of you that personally know me might recall the suffering and slight enjoyments I went through on this job; but in the end it feels great to see it. So, here are some photos! I worked on the big guys! Feel free to look at the KAUST website and look at additional stuff! [For those of you that I e-mailed these photos to, sorry to repeat, but I think this is really amazing, so I felt the need to tell more people!]

All images are copyright of KAUST


Next on my list of things to share with you, is Pi(e) Day. I've only mentioned it a few hundred times within the past week perhaps. I am therefore absolutely sure that you know what I am talking about. I did want to share a picture though, of my small group of people that I work with everyday. We're a fun group, albeit nerdy, but we like us! If you are wondering why our smiles look fake, well, that's because they are!!

[From left to right: Ruben, Andrew, Steph, Crystal, Jim, Yong, Steven, and Abdel]

HOK Blogger Rachel will be posting a blog about Pi Day tomorrow, on the actual Pi(e) Day! Look for it at hoklife.com!

I would also like to mention that young Miles John B. was born today! Rachel, Randy, and baby Miles are doing well! Happy Friday the 13th Birthday Miles!

Pi Day

Ppppppppiiiiiii Day! So it's actually tomorrow, but I'm celebrating today. We have a lot of pies here. A lot of people wanted to participate, that is great! A lot of people are laughing at us too, that is great!

Another engineer in our office that works for construction management was laughing at me because he has engineering pins older than me!

Anyway, I'll probably blog later when I might have more time. I shouldn't say that, I have plenty of time right now, but I need to appear busy for the sake of people walking by my desk to eat pie!

Word of they day:
anablog: An old-fashioned journal made with crushed tree pulp, binding, and maybe some kind of lock mechanism. It is a fad past its prime, but Borders still sells them.

On that note, you go Borders!

A True Love Affair

I just got back from my midday walk. It was cold outside, but felt good. I like the way the cold encompasses one's face and numbs the extremities. My eyes even watered a little.

I walked to my bench. It's a nice seat located in the grassy area between the Old Courthouse and Interstate. My bench is the Northeastern one! I like that it faces the Old Courthouse. I could have chosen the bench across from it and faced the Arch; but I just love the way the Old Courthouse proudly sits on its well groomed piece of land with something of a modern city sprouted up around it.

I particularly like to go to this location because no one is there. Sometimes its nice to people watch, for which I have alternate locations. For getting away from reality, this bench is the only bench that will do! In fact yesterday, I was forced by grounds crews to go somewhere else. I walked to the Arch and sat, rather laid back and rested my head on some steps behind me. Fortunately the weather is cold enough that there were no tourists! I have to admit that watching the river was a bit calming.

So back to my original story: I sat at my bench today with wind lightly whisping my hair around. I just sat there quietly singing along to my music, which was a mixture due to the fact my Zune was on shuffle where I skipped anything classical because I wanted to sing along. I had a brief fleeting thought that I should write down a note on things that make me happy. I can think of at least three: coldness on face, light winds that whisp my hair just right so I can smell it and feel it brush against my face, and quietly singing aloud to music. Considering my lack of finding much enjoyment with anything lately, it was nice to have that 'happy' thought; fleeting as it may have been.

But seriously back to my original story: As I got up to walk back to my office building, my Zune stopped working. It just stopped. This of course made me freeze in place, reach into my pocket, and gently caress and hold my Zune. I turned her little power button on, and she started up but had forgotten what she was doing. It's okay though, I far too often lose my train of thought! I think she may have been cold, so I held her the rest of the way back to my desk.

The whole ordeal made me laugh to myself, and perhaps even out loud! Point is: I always have music playing. It's either piped to my ears through headphones, or played on speakers, or in the car. The few times I don't listen to music would be when I sleep or watch TV/YouTube/etc. BUT, sometimes I still have my headphones on when I fall asleep, so there's something to be said about that! I know there are times when I don't listen to music, but they are far and few between! I do not know how people get through the days without music. If I don't have music, I sing! It may not be good, in fact it may be terrible, but it's music I like none the less! Very often, I dance too! I have silly sort of dances that I do like a hybrid skank-twist, or my shuffle-skanking! I also waltz, but I do the real thing with my imaginary partner, I didn't make that one up!! I'd make someone really waltz with me, but none of the boys I hang around with know how to waltz! Besides, they are all way too concerned about what people think that they'd be too embarrassed to dance with me!

Back to the original story: I have to say that on this walk back, I did not do any dancing, but a lot of little head tilts. I walked the long way back just to maximize my away time. I got back, and here I am, blogging. I'm extremely sleepy and I need to clean my desk up while waiting for "things" to happen. I also need to make a shopping list of pie ingredients!

You might be wondering where the story went. It started as a story and then just stopped being anything of consequence. I guess I never had a story. I just wanted to say I love music. And as I leave you now, I'm skanking in my desk chair to the Specials (a true love affair)!

It's You (ska version)

It's Thursday, the day before Friday. I'm rather excited about this because I can sleep this weekend. This weekend should have been Rachel K.'s baby shower but since she's been in the hospital, her shower is being postponed until further notice. I've heard she is doing well. Saturday is Pi Day. You know that little Greek letter, looks sort of like a double T? That guy is named pi. His short number is 3.14, hence March 14=Pi Day. We in the structures group are celebrating it on Friday by bringing in pies (yea, we know, a day early). We opened it to the whole office this year! We even had some posters made. It's pretty exciting. Well as exciting as celebrating a Greek letter can be!

So I imagine right now you are thinking one of three things. Either you know me well and are thinking "she's making that lemon pie"; or perhaps you know me, but just not that well and are thinking, "This is such a Stephy-Made-Up-Holiday"; or you don't know me and are thinking, "Really? This chic is one crazy nerd". In any case you are right on three accounts.

Yesterday I bought some music: an Elvis Costello album that I actually haven't gotten around to listening to yet; and The Definitive Collection by Toots. Toots is awesome as usual. This album has a reggae version (or perhaps more reggae version) of Redemption Song. It has a couple ska and reggae versions of a couple songs. I prefer the ska versions with out a doubt. I certainly have to say that It's You (ska version) is top notch! It's going on the list of fav songs, I've listened to it about 10 times in the last 15 minutes or something.

Anyway, I actually have some stuff I need to get done this morning, so I will leave you now. With Pi Day Celebration tomorrow, I don't know how much time I'll have to write, but I'll catch up soon.

Word of the Day:
e-hole: A person who sends useless mass e-mails, usually jokes or chain letters.