Thank an Engineer

I have never thought of Civil Engineers as bad guys. I have found that most of them are very agreeable. Although it comes as no surprise that not everyone thinks the same as me, after all I am an engineer, it is interesting that engineers are trying to boost their public image.

Work for the Dead

Have you ever thought about how much work will need to be done to redeem the dead? Being an engineer, I had to crunch the numbers.

Assumptions:

1. There are 7 billion people on the earth now

2. About 7 billion people have lived on the earth before now.

3. There are 13.5 million members.

4. Half of whom are active and able to go to the temple.

5. Of those member aforementioned, 2/3 of which are temple age.

6. Work will not be repeated for the dead.

7. Excluding all who are born during this time.

8. Including all who are currently alive.

9. Exclude any time for genealogy and name preparation.

Those members need to go twice a week and complete all the ordinances for 30 years to get the work done! Considering I don't think that many of my assumptions are accurate, there is likely much more work that needs to be done.

Late Pi Day

For Pi day, my wife was studying pies at school. After her class, she brought in one of the pies for my coworkers and I to share! You may think I am bias, but it was honestly the best apple pie I have ever had.

Wind & Rain

In Washington, it rains every day (or so people say). I went for a jog today in great weather. Now (3 hours later), it was raining. Even though it is great the rest of the day - it has still rained.

As I look out the window, watching the wind blow at and angle, I want to draw lines measuring the angle of the fall outside. As interesting as that would be, I could also do some math to figure out how hard the wind is blowing. I can look up the terminal velocity of a drop, measure the distance of the it moves hoizontally, project the resulting vector onto the correct plane, and get the result I am looking for.

Now that I actually think about it. It would be far simplier to measure the velocity outside than do all those calculations inside. oh well, life isn't suppose to be easy.

Computer Sorting

I created some files in autoCAD and was surprised to see how my computer decided to sort them. I don't always agree with sortings (like the yellow pages) but this one was strange. Does the dash not count as a character?

National Engineer's Week

What a great idea. We have so many other "weeks," why not have one for engineers?

What are some ways you can get involved? I would start by making a sketch of your front room. By completing the sketch into CAD it will be easy to plan out future remodeling for the furniture in the space. If that sounds too complicated, try making a bottle rocket or maybe even a toothpick bridge.

On the website for Nation Engineer's Week, there is also a page for Engineer You Life. It is a page targeted to get young women interested in engineering. Maybe what you can do is find someone who is on their way to college and encourage them to look into engineering.

Warming Up with Work

A while ago, I noticed that the bathroom at work was really cold in the mornings. There is a heater in the women's room to keep it warm because it is along the exterior wall. Turns out the heater had quit. It was old enough that they had to order in parts to fix it. Now that I knew what the problem was, finding a solution was easy.

I did a quick calculation and found the bathroom required about a 1/2 KW of heat. This value is negligible when compared to the building. I suggested propping the door open at night so the HVAC system would warm it up in the morning. It was a success!