Riding the 'T'

In Boston, when you refer to the 'T', you're talking about the transit system but especially, the subway system. I've loved streetcars and trolleys since I was a child. Then my parents took me to New York City and I fell in love with the subway. When I moved to New England and made trips to Boston, I was pleased to find that Boston has both trolleys and subways. It's an old system, the Boston subway was the first subway in North America, but that just adds to its charm. It's not as efficient as newer systems but it sure is fun to ride and explore.

So, when my wife needed to go to Boston for two days of tests, we took the kids. Rather than drive around, we took the 'T' and my children enjoyed it. We rode on four of the five color-coded sections of the system. But just for fun, without needing to go there, we decided to ride to the end of the Blue Line. I'd always wanted to do that. On the map in the picture, that's the end on the upper right of the Blue Line. We got out and walked around. There used to be an amusement park there called Wonderland. Then it closed and a dog racing track, by the same name, was opened there. Then dog racing was banned from Massachusetts but the station kept the name. That's not the first time the thing that gave a station its name has gone away. There used to be a department store called Lechmere at the end of the Green Line. Even after that chain of stores closed, though, the station kept the name.

Maybe, one of these days, we'll go to the end of each of the lines on the Boston subway system. That would be fun. I don't know why it's so much fun but it is.

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Well, I've finally published all the posts I mentioned in Another long time between blog posts but... last month. It took longer than I thought it would but at least I finished. I've updated that post with links from each of the 10 posts I said I'd publish to their eventual location. It's always nice to do something you planned to do. If I can do that more often, I'll be a happy guy.

New England Aquarium - part 2

In my previous New England Aquarium post, I mentioned that I had more pictures from our visit there that I was going to post this time. After a long week-end of driving (more about that some other time), I'm finally going to show them.

The first picture is in a new part of the aquarium that is quite exciting. If there aren't a million people at the aquarium (like there were by the time we got to the tank) and if they aren't a bunch of children who never learned to take turns (as there were when we got to the tank), you can actually step up to the edge of this tank and touch the rays and sharks (!) as they swim by. In the Shark and Ray Touch Tank this day, the sharks were few and far between and when they came by, I was usually being pushed out of the way by kids and their parents who also didn't know about taking turns. But the rays were much more numerous and I was able to sneak up close enough for a photo this one time. This is such a beautiful scene to me. Just as the penguins seemed to be flying in the water, these rays seem to fly rather than swim.The contrast of the sandy bottom in the foreground and the light blue further back makes it seem like they are leaving the sea and flying into the air.

The last picture I want to show you is of the Sea Anemone tank. The colors are amazing and I wish I had better skills at photography to get them into my pictures. If I'd had a tripod, I could have set the camera for a long exposure to get more light. But I didn't have my tripod so I just have to be satisfied with what I was able to do. The fact that the picture is taken through the glass of the tank doesn't help, either. I wonder if a polarizing filter would help there? I'm going to look into techniques for taking pictures through glass.

Isn't it funny how so many things in the sea are named after something on the land? Sea Anemones are named after the Anemone flower. We have Sea Cucumbers, Sea Lions, Sea Horses, Sea Urchins, Sea Weed and even Sea Monkeys. Then there is the Star Fish with its doubly removed name. It's not a fish and it only looks like a caricature of a star but that's what we call it. With the vast expanse of the sea and the myriad creatures in it, you'd think we could be a little more creative in our naming.

Here is the ocean, vast and wide,
teeming with life of every kind,
both large and small.

See the ships sailing along,
and Leviathan,
which you made to play in the sea. 

Psalm 104:25-26  New Living Translation

New England Aquarium

Click to see the diver on the right

While my wife was going through two days of tests in Boston at the Boston Medical Center, I took my children to the New England Aquarium. I had been there about 20 years ago and was looking forward to seeing it again. My kids had never been there. We got there early before the crowds filled the building. It probably got so crowded because the weather was so bad that day.

From the aquarium website

The biggest feature of the aquarium is its huge, saltwater tank. Hundreds of different kinds of fish and turtles swim around in what looks like a coral reef. In the first picture at the top, my son joked that we came to an aquarium to see people. Yes, it takes a lot of people to maintain the environment and to feed the animals. The small picture to the left gives you a better idea of the scale of the tank. It holds 200,000 gallons of salt water and is 40 feet high and 23 feet wide.

Another popular feature is the penguin display. They are quite active (and noisy at times) and everyone seemed to spend the most time watching them. And yes, another human in the picture. It's amazing how many people it takes to maintain the aquarium. I don't remember seeing this many people at the zoo. Someone has to clean up the mess the penguins leave behind on the rocks and the penguins are too busy to do it themselves.

They don't just stand around. The penguins love to swim. The next picture, on the left, shows the penguins swimming around the huge pool provided for them. It circles the large salt water tank shown above. It was hard to tell when one penguin started and stopped but they seemed to like swimming for long periods. They are fast and graceful and seem to be flying underwater and, being birds, maybe that's why it looks that way.

Well, I'm running out of space and time so I'll leave the last two pictures for the next post. I've got a picture of some rays swimming in another large pool in the aquarium and I'll finally show you some invertebrates - sea anemones.

Be careful, you're being watched

As I mentioned in previous posts, Cindy has been going to Boston for various tests. As mentioned in "Under the Sea", for one set of tests, we went for two days and the weather was terrible. But on the next trip, the weather was wonderful. Cindy and I happened to make that one-day trip without the kids so we just strolled around the Public Garden. We watched the ducks and the people but weren't aware that we were being watched, too. The picture at the right shows Cindy relaxing a bit before she needed to go to the next appointment. Do you notice who is watching her? You never know who is behind you.

As you can see in the next picture, the squirrels were keeping their eyes on us (just click on the picture to expand it so you can see the squirrels more clearly). We don't know if they just found her interesting or if she looked like she might give them some food. Maybe they thought we were hanging around in their territory a little too long and were giving us the, "OK, move along. We saw these acorns first," look. I guess we'll never know. It shows you that when you're in the big city, watch your back!

"Under the Sea"

Well, I didn't get all my draft posts published in September as I had hoped in Another long time between blog posts but... but I'm still pretty pleased with myself. Even after not posting anything for 17 days, I still managed to publish 11 posts for the month. That's about what I've been averaging over the last few years. I also learned the lesson that I'm not a good enough writer to post every day. I think I'll stick to posting every 2 to 3 days and even putting up with gaps of up to 17 days.

When my wife needed to go to Boston for two days of tests (see Amyloidosis), we wanted to bring the kids along so they would know what was going on. But the children and I were not able to go into the various testing and consulting rooms so we decided to explore Boston. Since the remains of Tropical Storm Lee were bringing days of rain to the area, we weren't going to be doing much outside. So, I took the kids to the New England Aquarium. One of the things we did there was to go to the Simons IMAX Theater associated with the aquarium. We saw a wonderful movie titled Under the Sea.

We've seen some really good 3D movies. At least Evan and I saw a really good 3D movie, Avatar, not to be confused with Avatar: the Last Airbender which we also saw and enjoyed. We've also seen some really horrible 3D movies. But this one ranks up there with the great 3D movies. You really feel like the schools of fish and colonies of coral are right there in front of you. At some points, you feel like you need to get your arms out in front of you to push the kelp away so you can see the wonders ahead. The camera work is amazing. When you consider how difficult the environment is for taking these pictures, you just have to shake your head and wonder at how they pulled this off. You know the equipment must be large and imposing yet the animals don't seem to notice. Of course you know they did and it is the skill and patience of the filmmakers that makes this work. It is so clear. I have trouble getting scenes in focus with my auto-focus camera. How do you do it hundreds of feet below the ocean surface with hundreds of subjects to focus on? So you not only marvel at the beautiful images but, if you're like me, you marvel at the technical aspects of this movie, too.

I took a class in marine biology in college but all we ever saw were animals that we were able to dredge up on a short visit to the Duke Marine Lab in North Carolina and the organisms in the small aquarium in our lab and pictures in books. This movie should be a requirement for anyone thinking of studying the oceans. It makes you understand how something as vast and diverse as the ocean can also be so fragile and in need of our stewardship. To see a more extensive website devoted to this movie, see this page at the IMAX website.

Two more things before I finish. One pleasant surprise was the narrator. Jim Carrey does a really good job. When I first saw his name on the opening credits, I worried that we were in for a bunch of goofy voices and silly jokes but Mr. Carrey just spoke clearly and eloquently. He seemed as amazed as we were at what we were seeing. But one other thing that I wish would have been different was the 3D glasses. For a normal 3D movie, these glasses would be fine but for an IMAX movie, I found myself wishing they were bigger. Yes, you could move your head to look at different part of the huge screen but I find one of the nice things about IMAX movies is that your peripheral vision kicks in and makes you feel like the movie is all around you. With the normal 3D glasses, I just felt like the movie was in front of me. But it was still a fantastic experience and I highly recommend it.

The unwritten laws of engineering

I learned a lot of things in engineering school. I learned the basics of electricity and electronics. I learned circuit theory, communications theory and digital electronics. But when I got my first job, I found there were a lot of things I didn't learn in college. I bumped into this series of three articles in Mechanical Engineering Magazine Online that covers a lot of what I and many other engineers didn't learn in college. Here are links to the three articles.

Part 1: 

a) In relation to the work

b) In relation to your supervisor

c) Regarding relations with colleagues and outsiders.

This section covers what you need to know when you're first starting out. Remember that no job is too small. You need to demonstrate that you can be trusted with small projects before you are given more advanced projects where more is on the line. Enthusiasm for the job counts. One of the big things in this section that I still have trouble with is speaking up and promoting my ideas. It's never too late to learn things. This section also covers the importance of dealing with other people. The good and the bad. It's important to cultivate the habit of working with other people. You need to solicit their ideas, too. 

Part 2: 

a) Individual behavior and technique

b) Managing design and development projects

c) On organizational structures

d) What all managers owe their employees. 

The second section carries on from the first. It's important to learn not to try to do it all yourself. This part is for when you are further along in your career. Presumably at this point, you've settled into the com[any structure and made a niche for yourself. This section also discusses the importance of learning to make concise decisions and wading through all the details of a problem and boiling it down to its essentials. At this point, you will be starting to run a project and this section discusses the way to do that. Finally, this section covers the situation when you take the supervising of other people.  You have to treat people right to get them to contribute to a team.

Part 3:

a) Laws of character and responsibility

b) Regarding behavior in the workplace

c) Regarding career and personal development

This last section is really for anyone. It's not just about engineering or even working in a company. It's just plain, good advice for anyone. It ends with a section on developing a career and looking toward your future. It's not that you're going to immediately be looking for a better opportunity as soon as your start working at a job. It's more that you need to keep in mind that everything you do at your job will reflect on you if you do want to (or need to) look for another job. Don't forget that it's important to keep learning. School never ends!

What is especially interesting to me about this series of articles is that they were first published in 1944. These "laws" are just as relevant today as they were then. Some things just never go out of style. 

[UPDATE: These articles are no longer available for free on that website. They have all been collected in a book (with revisions and additions). The book can be purchase online at the American Society of Mechanical Engineers site or at Amazon.]

A historic collapse

In the evening of August 31, the Red Sox had the best record in the American League. That evening, they had a one and a half game lead of the Yankees for first place in their division. As they went to bed that night, they had a nine game lead over the third-place Tampa Bay Rays. Everything seemed rosy as they fell asleep that night. The Red Sox were beating the Yankees most of the time and everything seemed to be going well. At the beginning of the season, they had been picked, by some, to get to the World Series.

Then, September happened.

They started the month by losing to the Yankees. Players got hurt. Pitchers had trouble pitching for more than a few innings. They dropped out of first place. While they had a relatively easy schedule in the month, they didn't win a single series against any team that month. The Red Sox only won seven games the entire month.

On the final day of the season, they had given up their nine game lead for the wild card position in the play-offs and were tied with the Tampa Bay Rays for that last spot in the play-offs. All they had to do was beat the team in last place in their division while the Rays lost to the first place team in the division. The Red Sox were ahead in their game and the Rays were losing 7 - 0 in their game. It looked like the Red Sox were going to limp into the play-offs.

But they didn't. The Red Sox gave up their lead in the ninth inning and the Rays stormed back to win their game in the 12th inning. And that was it. History was made and we'll be telling our grandchildren about it. The Red Sox are back to the way they were in the 20th Century. And we saw it.

While I finished writing this and actually posted this in September 29, I'm labeling this post with the date September 28 when the collapse completed.