Why I almost didn't become an engineer

When I originally considered going to college, I thought I wanted to major in chemistry. I'm not exactly sure why. It's been about 47 years since I had to start thinking about what I'd want to study in college but part of the reason was that I was good in that subject and I'd had a chemistry set when I was younger and the things you could do with a knowledge of chemistry fascinated me. Also, with the growth of the plastics and pharmaceutical industries in the 1960s, it made me think I could do something useful with a degree in chemistry. So, when I was applying to colleges, I included Bucknell University in my list (I also applied to Penn State, the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie-Mellon University - I was accepted at all four schools) because it had very good reputation in chemistry. Then I took the Advanced Placement exam for chemistry and did horribly on it!

My other interest at that time was music and I briefly thought about going to school to get a degree in music. My parents were not happy about that, though, because they worried about my finding a job. They would have backed me up on any decision I made but it was important to me that they be happy with any decision I made. So, while I did look into applying to Duquesne University's School of Music, I didn't go too far down that path.

Then came a big event in my life. I was selected to go to a district band after trying out among other high school band students and we performed an interesting piece that included some electronic music. I found the idea of actually making music that included traditional instruments with electronically produced sounds (not an electronic organ or electric guitar) very interesting. My father had taken a course in television repair (when that sort of thing was still done) to supplement his operating heavy construction machinery (which often led to no work during the winter) and he was always trying to get me interested in electronics. Also, one of my best friends was interested in electronics, too. So, the idea of being able to design musical instruments and perform with them tickled my fancy.

At this point, I had already decided to go to Bucknell but since I didn't think I'd do well at chemistry at the university level, I switched my major to electrical engineering. My parents were happy with this decision because they thought it would lead to a stable and well-paying career. They were right, of course, but I liked it because it was an exciting field of study. I had initially found it interesting because of music but there were a huge number of options once you had an electrical engineering degree. Another of my interests had been marine biology and I thought it might work out that I could design instruments to help in that field.

So, I arrived at Bucknell University in the fall of 1969 as an electrical engineering student. But one night, I went to a get together and there were a few upper class engineering students there. One of them was a senior and was thinking about where he might be working after graduation. He was talking about preparing to work in a company for the first time and talked about working in an office. Someone asked him if he knew how to type. This was before everyone had a computer on their desk and it was easy to write a paper or letter and just print it out. In those days, if you wanted to write a paper, you had to type it on paper with a typewriter. It was a good skill to have. Some students who knew how to type and had a good typewriter could make extra money by typing other students' papers.

I'll never forget the engineering student's answer: "No, I haven't learned to type. I understand that if the company finds out you know how to type, they won't give you a secretary." I was completely floored by that idea. For one thing, this guy seemed so petty. For another, he made it sound like he was going to be assigned a slave. Then the idea of writing up things being so important to him (instead of designing things or making things) made the whole idea of being an engineer seem much less appealing. Would I just be sitting around all day and dictating things to be written to someone? Was engineering all about just writing reports? I didn't want to be in a profession if the other people were like this guy.

The next day, I went into the Dean of Engineering's office to talk with him about it and to tell him I wanted to change my major. I'd just seen an interesting show about population biology. Also, as I mentioned before, I'd always had a special interest in marine biology. I watched all the Jacques Cousteau documentaries and thought maybe I could help change the world in that field.

The dean was not happy with my decision but had to acknowledge that it was my decision to make. But he tried to dissuade me. He scoffed at the engineer who had made the statement about not wanting to learn type. He stressed how much of engineering was in doing things and not the writing of reports (although there is certainly a lot of writing involved). Fortunately, the dean came up with an interesting idea about combining electrical engineering and biology in a five-year program that would allow me to get degrees in both disciplines. That is what I did. I had hoped to get a job in medical instrumentation or for a company that instrumented biology labs but that didn't happen. The closest I came to that was in working for the US Geological Survey where the instruments I developed were used by scientists in the Water Resources division to monitor our nation's water supply and, later, aboard ships to study marine geology. But no matter how I got here, I am very glad that one engineering student's off-hand remark didn't keep me for continuing in this fascinating field.

Mr. Spock as viewed from high school

I was sad to see that Leonard Nimoy died on Friday. I really enjoyed the character, Mr. Spock, he played on the original Star Trek series and I enjoyed his appearances in the later Star Trek movies and as a guest on the later Star Trek series. I liked how he and the writers kept the character from veering into parody or changing into some sort of super hero. But there were two things I really liked about the Spock character as I was watching the series in high school (I graduated in May, 1969 while the final Star Trek episode aired on June 9, 1969). Mr. Spock was an outsider on the series and he was the Science Officer.

As far as an outsider goes, I think everyone, to some extent, was an outsider in high school. We all tried to act like we had it all together but no one could live up to the expectations put on you by society, your parents and the school staff. That is to be expected because none of us is perfect. Even if you could possibly get 100% on every test and never missed a day of school (neither of those happened in our school), you couldn't do everything right. My big "downfall" was in the social aspects of high school. I never went to any of the big formal dances and only went on one real date the whole time (and that was because a girl that I was friends with asked me to a Sadie Hawkins Day dance). I looked up to Mr. Spock because he was an outsider, too. But in reality, he was the smartest, strongest and would out-live any of the others in the crew of the USS Enterprise. You always knew that if no one else could figure out how to get out of a bad situation, Mr. Spock could do it. And he didn't let his emotions get in the way! That was the thing I think I wanted to emulate more than anything else. Every time I noticed a girl I liked, it would never work out (usually because liking her meant I would never be able to talk with her). Every time I tried something out of my comfort zone (being in the school band and doing well academically), it didn't work out (like the time I tried out for the track team). And every failure seemed like the end of the world. Every failure hurt terribly. Why couldn't I be like Mr. Spock and just shrug off those things and just keep going?

Then there was the science. Whenever the ship and crew ran into trouble, they always went to Mr. Spock to figure it out. Science really had a use. It wasn't just something to like and to be good at. Science could be used to save lives, get you somewhere faster or help other people. Mr. Spock made science cool. And he always seemed so sure of himself! What a difference to how I felt (and probably everyone else in school). Oh to have that kind of confidence. To know what you should do and to be able to do it. He was just the guy a shy, outsider could look up to. While I did have heroes in other areas like my father, the minister in our church, even Jesus (another outsider) and various athletes and musicians, I also include a fictional character from a fictional story that somehow made my situation seem OK.

My birthday

Today, I am 64 years old. When I was much younger, I figured that by the time I got to this age I'd be ready for retirement and would be having a hard time getting around. But as I've aged, my view of aging has changed (I'd like to say it's matured) into the realization that age really is just a number. In a lot of ways, I feel better now than I did 10 years ago! Of course, there are other ways that I feel and look worse than 10 years ago but you can't have everything.

I'm not ready to retire yet. In fact, I love my job and the people I work with. Just this week, we had our yearly job performance reviews and I got the highest rating I've gotten in many years. They are really happy with the work I'm doing and I'm happy to be here. It helps that my job is not a physical job because I would probably have a hard time keeping that up at this age. Although, if I did have a physically active job and was at it every day, I'd probably be in better shape than I am now. But I would also have a greater chance of hurting myself. But with my software engineering job, as long as I can think clearly and continue to enter programs for the computer and write up reports about what I'm doing, I could do this job forever.

Anyway, my hope is that everyone could be as happy with their life as I am with mine.Today's daily devotional from our church (Cape Cod Church, here's a link to the page which is updated six times a week) has a message that is appropriate and includes this encouraging verse.

Always be full of joy in the Lord. I say it again—rejoice! Let everyone see that you are considerate in all you do. Remember, the Lord is coming soon.

Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:4-7 NLT

Again, I hope to get back into a rhythm of writing more posts for this blog. That brings me great joy, too.

Walking and writing

My blog posts have certainly dropped off again. I think the reason is that, with all the snow we have and with how cold it has been been, I have not been walking, either. I'm not sure the two things are interrelated but it certainly seems suspicious.

Anyway, I may take a short walk in the woods at lunch today to see what shape the paths are in. I'll certainly get a lot of exercise walking in the deep snow. It will be an adventure.


[Update - after lunch]

The woods are lovely, not so dark but deep

Well, the snow is still very deep out in the woods. I made it about 30 yards along the trail and gave up. The picture at the right (just click on it to see it full sized) shows the path I would have liked to take but I was exhausted just to get to this point. I was breathing hard and it was cold. Sweating in the cold is not a good thing. You can get colder mightly quickly after that.

So, I stopped long enough to get my camera out and snap these pictures. My hands were pretty cold in the short time it took me to take this picture and the next one.

My steps were deep, too

The next picture may be hard to place. It's a picture of my foot about 18 inches into the snow.The snow came up to about my knee. So, taking each step was difficult and keeping my balance was not easy either. You never know what is below the snow and it's easy to twist an ankle if you're not lucky.

So, right after taking these two pictures, packing up my camera and tucking it back into my coat and putting my gloves back on, I headed out the way I came. I hoped it would be easier as I tried to use the steps I'd already made in the snow but even that was much trickier than I'd thought. It was good to get back in the the warm, dry office.

Pluto Discovery Day

Two views of Pluto and its moon Charon

Right now, a 1,000 pound spacecraft is streaking toward Pluto at about 30,000 miles per hour relative to Pluto itself. The New Horizons spacecraft was traveling as fast as 51,000 miles per hour (relative to the Sun) after it got a gravity boost by passing close to Jupiter. In July, it will make it closest approach of Pluto and our knowledge of this mysterious body will expand more in the approach and close encounter than it has in all the years before.

It was on this day in 1930 that Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto (although it wasn't called by that name until March 24 from a suggestion by 11-year old Venetia Birney of Great Britain). Mr. Tombaugh was the first American to discover a planet (at least it was considered a planet then). I wonder if that was part of the motive for the International Astronomical Union to demote Pluto from being a full-fledged planet?

There are a wide range of instruments aboard the spacecraft and you can find all sorts of other interesting facts about the spacecraft and Pluto on the New Horizons webpage here. The pictures above, although grainy and not very distinct, were taken by New Horizons when it was about 125 million miles from Pluto. So, it's understandable that they are not the best views we have of Pluto and Charon. Don't worry - the pictures will get better!

Eight years later

About eight years ago, I wrote about playing for a Valentine's Day dance. It was the last time I played at that yearly dance. But this week, I did it again. Here's the link to the write-up about that dance eight years ago. I'm no less neurotic now than I was then but they needed a keyboard player. The trouble is, I haven't been playing as much as I would have liked. I wrote about getting a new, 88-key keyboard about this time last year (here the link to that post) and I really did have high hopes that I'd be playing a lot more. Then the rest of 2014 intervened. I keep promising to write about the trials of last year but I'm not quite ready to write it all down yet.

I didn't take my new keyboard because it' not set up to plug into an amplifier and its own built-in amplifier and speakers aren't loud enough for something like this. So, I took my old, reliable Korg DS-8 synthesizer (that's not mine in the picture but it's still a picture of some one's DS-8). My amplifiers still don't work (I hope to get them fixed some day) but they other guys said I could plug into one their amps.

Anyway, it was a big step to play for the Valentine's Day dance this year. The guys I played with were better than ever and it's an honor to get to play with them. They are real musicians and performers. I learn a lot just by sitting in with them. But I am a terrible live musician and especially when there is no written music. Not even lead sheets (with the melody and chords) like you'd find in a fake book. What happens is that one of the guitarists will mention a song and start playing. If I know it, it helps but often they'd forget to say what key the song was to be performed in. So, it took me most of each song to figure out the key and then the rest of the song to figure out the chord progressions to play. For most of the songs, I just figured out what I should play by the last line of music. But it was still fun.

But the very best part is seeing the smiles on the faces and the dancing of the kids at the party. You see, they are all special needs kids. This is a big deal to them. They all look forward to this dance. To them, we make up a terrific band. Not only that but we get to make our own ice creme sundae and spend some time talking with the kids. It's usually about the things they like to do and what they did that day. And they are so excited! Why do I have any right to be neurotic? Because, as Popeye would say, "I am what I am and that's all what I am." It's doing things like playing for this dance that put the neurosis behind me for a while.

A Big Snow (for Cape Cod)

The big storm that was forecast for yesterday and today hit right on schedule and for Eastern Massachusetts, it seems like the weather forecasters were right on the money. We got a lot of snow and a lot of wind. That combination makes a blizzard and no one who knew it was coming wanted to be out in it. It snowed all night and the wind blew it around with gusts of up to 58 mph. It was supposed to stop snowing around noon but it didn't. I took these pictures around 10 AM.

It was hard to walk around in our yard. There were a few low places that the wind scoured out but those places didn't go where I wanted to go and there weren't that many of them. My guess is that we got about 18 - 24 inches. It's hard to be sure because there were drifts well over 48 inches high and bare places with barely a few inches. I know people in other parts of the country and Canada would laugh at our inability to deal with this amount of snow but we're just not used to it. Plus, this winter has seen particularly little snow so far. So, this was a shock. In the picture to the left, you can see how little snow is on the cars and how much has drifted up around them. But it's not all drifts because it's about that deep over most of our yard.

This next picture shows the drift in front of (and on top of) my mother-in-law's part of the house. She won't be using her front door. The last picture shows our front porch and how the snow drifted up in front of the porch higher than the porch itself. My son and I started to dig out the driveway and got within a few feet of the road when the wind and cold got to us.

We've come in to warm up a bit but I wonder if we're going to go out again tonight. It's getting dark and the snow is still coming. The wind has died down but there are still gusts once in a while. My office was closed today. It was nice not to have to feel guilty about not going in or rushing to try to get there. But work is on for tomorrow and I may be taking vacation time to do some more shoveling. We'll see.

Just click on the pictures to see them full size.

[Update: The reports on TV news say our town got 24-25 inches of snow]