‘Never fight with an ugly person, they’ve got nothing to lose’
Robin Williams
Quote of the day: Robin Williams
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I Love Going
I’m not quite sure what it is about going around the country and becoming familiar with different cities that I love so much, but it’s definitely a great gig. I used to look at my friend’s posts on facebook with envy as they listed all the cities they would be traveling through as part of their job, whether it be talking to clients or recruiting or whatever, I was jealous. After all, there are a lot of major cities in the United States. I’m fortunate to live next to the largest, New York City, to have gone to school in one of the oldest, Philadelphia, but now I’m broadening my horizons, both literally and figuratively. Now, I am that person, no longer envious, yet not tired of the constant need to fly. TSA be damned, they haven’t ruined anything for me and my mustache yet.
I’m currently stuck in Arlington, Texas. It’s a “little” suburb where the Dallas Cowboys’ home is, stuck right between Fort Worth on the west and Dallas on the east. I always thought it was silly, “Dallas-Fort Worth” area, but once you’re here and you’re moving around between these 2 major cities in just 30 minutes, you really do learn to appreciate them. I’m finally becoming comfortable enough to travel around without a GPS, a rarity for myself really, and I’m learning the names of landmarks, it’s really bizarre. I have one more week of training here and still so much to do! See Cowboy’s Stadium, visit Six Flags, even go back into Dallas and see what other fun places I can check out other than the Dallas Stars Arena and it’s surrounding area.
This happened when I was in Chicago, Pittsburgh, Jacksonville, Indiana, it happens everywhere I end up being sent. I learn. Not just what I’m expected to, but about the city, about the people and the landmarks, the local dialects, the flow of traffic. It’s those small details that once you learn, you start to feel like you fit in, people start to accept you more, and those one-off conversations you have with people in passing are a bright spot in you day. “Went to Pappadeaux? I love that place,” I mentioned in passing a woman in the hall of my hotel after her casual but slightly concerned “hello”. Just that smallest input helped defuse what would otherwise be a tense situation of a strange, mustached man approaching her in the hall. She responded with something about how she too loved it and most likely ordered too much and we shared a laugh before I moved along to the elevators.
And this is more the norm these days than the exception. As I go around the country, learning small things about each place I go, I become comfortable in my environment and I feel as though my environment becomes comfortable around me.
Statistics
I love data.
Raw, naked, unorganized and unfettered data. Give me a pile of data and ask me to find something meaningful in it and I’ll be over the moon. Stand aside League of Legends, World of Warcraft, and Minecraft, even you are no match for a data set in the thousands.
Perhaps it’s fitting then that I’ve chosen a career path finally. A career. It’s amazing that word even exists in this modern age where job turnover is high (3.4%), even in fields where it’s been traditionally low. I truly believe though, that what I’m doing now, I could do for the rest of my life. Collecting and analyzing data is a staple of engineering, something I’ve proven to be competent in, but it’s also a hell of a lot of fun.
Maybe I’m weird. I understand that a lot of people really don’t like math and anything associated with it. Learning how to get across to those opponents is a challenge, but not as much as it used to be. Today, anyone can look at countless charts and visualizations on commonly used websites like www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful and better yet, anyone can submit content to the same. Enabling people to experiment and be quickly judged based solely on their presentation of data is an amazing feedback tool and I love it.
I digress.
I admire the statistician Nate Silver. He’s built a brand around being able to prove anything using a little research and a lot of data. For example: to become elected as the President of the United States, you need to secure a majority of the 538 electoral college votes. The only reason I know this is because fivethirtyeight.com is Nate Silver’s website. One of his most recent claims to fame was accurately predicting the outcome of the 2008 Presidential Election.
I’m not Nate Silver, I obviously lack a PhD in statistics, have no large fan following, no job with ESPN, The New York Times, or any government agencies (okay, maybe a couple government agencies). But when I read his lengthy and boy do I mean lengthy blog posts about whatever he’s chosen to look at that day, I just can’t help but admire the work he’s doing. Is it ground-breaking? Sometimes, but not frequently. Do people value his opinion? Definitely, he’s appeared on many network and cable news broadcasts, sometimes even being described as a wizard.
My current role, my current function in the corporate machine that I give me 45-50 hours a week to (I should track this!) is to take a team of employees and guide them through an analytical process to determine a better method of whatever they want. Lean Six Sigma (boo, hiss). It’s a terrible name in itself because of the fact that it obfuscates the true meaning of the “process”. Lean is a philosophy. Six Sigma is a mathematical approach. So together, logically, it would be a philosophy of mathematical approaches.
“What? How does a philosophy of mathematical approaches help me put labels on a box of stuff?”
Slowly. Unfortunately, changing a process is never easy, unless it is easy, such as moving the box of labels storage closer to your station so instead of walking 6 miles a day, you only walk 3 miles. The norm is a slower, iterative process. This part of Lean Six Sigma (LSS) is not something I enjoy. But, one of the driving factors behind that slowness is the drive of the individuals on the team. Drive too fast, you miss something or crash and burn. That’s good though, the crashing and burning, but I suppose only in a metaphorical sense. We don’t hesitate to kill a project that can’t succeed, it’s better to work on stuff that can work, than waste time on something that might work.
Drive too slow and you lose focus, you lose the support of the people around you, and you lose your ability to change. This happens a lot in politics, hospitals, engineering firms where everything has to be tested and approved. And for good reason! Changing the flow of a highway or how a medical procedure is performed should not be done overnight without extremely good reasoning! But if you drive slow, you can avoid those pot holes, avoid those rear end collisions with the people around you, and have time to take in the scenery as it blows by your window.
Change isn’t something that happens overnight, but when change happens, it’s an amazing thing.
That’s just my 2 cents.
My best friend’s wedding
I’ve led an interesting life, that much I’ll admit. My best friend has always been a girl, woman, female. What Freudian complex issue I’m dealing with, I’m sure will one day come to the surface, but this time I’ll just ramble on about my best friend Jenn.
Most times, those who pick on you don’t become your best friend. Most of the time, those who twirl your leg hair into dreads while you’re waiting for your match of whatever-paddle-and-ball-“sport”-we’re-playing-that-semester-in-gym-class don’t become your best friend. I could go on and on, but her and I have stuck together for the past 13 years. For those 13 years, she’s had her eye on one prize, Bijan.
Bijan and I served together at the Woodbridge EMS squad back in high school. That’s when I really got to know him, as he went to a cross-town high school. He always was a really great guy and loved to help people. 9 years later, once again with my best friend Jenn, he finally asked her to marry him and this past weekend they threw an amazing party.
Best wishes to the newly wed couple, best of luck with the pregnancy, here’s hoping he’s a Rangers fan.
Remember that time your best friend got married? I laid off the booze and won’t forget any of it. Best of luck to the lovely couple, can’t wait for that mustached baby to pop out.
Sometimes I just get to have fun
Today’s goal is to get this 3D camera to output a 4..20mA signal. Well, a useful signal. Let me iterate that statement one more time. I need this camera to tell me how much volume I have inside of something else and the signal it produces will be how it tells the computer system that controls it how “full” it is.
But really, I just get to tinker, build something with science, and have fun.