NYC: Day1

We started out the day with a delicious strawberry pie for breakfast.

Phew! We made it to NYC without too many issues.

After some walking around to see the sights near our hotel, we finally found something the guys would get their pictures taken with.

We went to a Brazilian steakhouse for dinner. It was a lot of fun, and really interesting to try all sorts of meat. My least favorite was the chicken, and my most favorite was the flank steak. I also loved the sides - mashed potatoes, fried bananas, and a salad bar that had more than lettuce. Laura amazed us all by eating a ton of food; her favorite were the ribs.

We ended the day by going up 30 Rock and seeing the skyline at night.

Monday: dragons

We made it back from NYC! Pictures and such to follow, probably tomorrow. It was a good trip.

I'm currently reading Joust by Mercedes Lackey. I've read it a few times before, but it always makes me want a dragon. I think I want a white one because Flurry is white. I've asked her a few times if she wants to become a dragon, but the answer always seems to be "no."

Floating subs

Why do submarines float (and sink)? It's all a matter of controlling the sub's density. If the submarine is less dense than water, it will float. If it is more dense, it will sink. So let's start by looking at density. In words, density is how much stuff is in a certain amount of volume. Mathematically, density is as follows:

(Side note: if you were to measure density on the Moon, another planet, or deep in the ocean, you'd have to worry about the difference between weight and mass. Fortunately, for most people reading this post weight and mass are approximatively equivalent. For more information, check out this link.)

We're also in luck...water has a very easy density to remember: 1000 kg/m^3. Ocean water is slightly different due to it's salt content, but for our purposes we're just going to ignore some of those subtle nuisances.

When a submarine is floating on the water, its ballast tanks are filled with air. So let's pretend the bottle below is a submarine with air-filled ballast tanks and measure it's weight.

Next the volume of the bottle needs to be deterimed. Normally this would be done by sticking the whole bottle into a graduated cylinder filled with water, but I do not have one. So I estimated the number of teaspoons that the bottle held with a measuring cup. There were about 78 teaspoons.

So now that we've found the weight and volume (and converted them to practical units), we can find the density of the empty bottle.

So here's the big question...will the bottle float?? Do you remember what we said about density up above?

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It floats!

It floats because the density of the bottle (601.5 kg/m^3) is less than water (1000 kg/m^3).

Next let's fill the bottle with blue water and see what happens. We already know the volume, but we need to find the new weight.

With the new weight we can find the density of the bottle filled with blue water:

So, is the bottle with water going to float?

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No!

The bottle sank because its density of 1573 kg/m^3 is more than that of water.

Can you figure out how full the bottle should be so that it will hover in the water?

Here are some more interesting links:

How Stuff Works

MSI learning lab

Friday: scavengers

Today I felt like a scavenger. Ben and I went to Laura's for dinner as she was trying to get rid of some food. It was delicious. Then we got to empty her refrigerator and ended up taking home two coolers worth of food. It was very good timing because we haven't gone to the grocery store for a while and so had lots of room for more food.

I think I'm most excited about the frozen precut chicken. I have realized several times in the past few years that I enjoy eating smaller sized foods more than larger sized foods. If something fits into my mouth without needing a knife (or a bite) that makes my life much happier. (A good example of this is tortilla chips. I enjoy the crumbs and Scoops better than large triangles.)

Thursday: lunch

I had lunch with Jess today. It was really the highlight of my day because work was so busy...it was nice to have a break. It's really nice to just get outside, away from the cold air conditioning, and spend some time relaxing with a friend.

Tuesday: a few more upsides to working a long day

Today was a long day at work. However, there were two good things that happened:

1) I was able to pass off fixing some WIPs to someone else because I'm too busy. SCORE!!!

2) Around 6:45 all the phones started ringing. I was out on the manufacturing floor...a phone was ringing. That phone stopped and a different phone started. I went to my office. Two phones were ringing. They stopped. Another phone rang and someone picked it up - no one was on the line. The fax machine buzzed. My phone rang (there was no one there). Another office phone rang. I went back to the manufacturing floor and the phones were still ringing. When I left 20 minutes later the phones were still all abuzz. Interesting.

What was also interesting is how we all have the same type of phone and yet they all sounded different.

Monday: 5 question Friday

1. What is one thing you miss the most about childhood?

I miss having summer vacation. Even in high school when I was working I still had a lot of time off. It was wonderful to have a change of pace.

2. Are you still friends with your friends from high school?

Yes, but we aren't nearly as close as we used to be. Probably because I don't live close to any of them anymore. I do keep in touch with several of them though and see them occasionally.

3. Is there a catch phrase, cliche, or word that just drives you bonkers every time you hear it?

"My bad." Bad is an adjective, so you can't own it.

4. What is one thing that you think symbolizes America...besides "Old Glory"?

This picture:

5. Do you have any scars? If so, what's the story behind it?

I have one on my back from where I had a mole removed.

(Thanks to Five Question Friday for the questions)

Sunday: why I am (semi) happy to pay my taxes

Do I like paying taxes? Not really. Does it seem unfair that those who make a lot of money have to pay more taxes? Sure. Do I think the money could be handled better? Yes. But today I don't want to talk about such topics tonight. Today I want to refute the comment "I've never heard anyone tell me anything good that taxes have done for them."

Taxes pay my salary. Taxes actually pay a lot of salaries when you think about it.

Taxes pay for schools. Even if the schools aren't very good learning is still important.

Taxes pay for recycling.

Taxes pay for a lot of social services...some that keep me safe (I can pretend it's like insurance) and some help out people who are having a hard time.

In conclusion, while taxes do have several downsides, they also do have some positive effects on society.

Sunday: cooking frisbees

We looked in our car today only to find that all of our four frisbees were misshappen.

Since it is nice to have a lot of Frisbees, we're hoping that we can reshape them. I placed one in hot water for a while to see if it would come back. It is still a little off, so it is currently under a 40lb bag of salt. The Frisbee did cool down before I put it under the salt bag, so I might need to retry the process again later.

Saturday: movies take 2

Today I worked on my 60 second movie. I spent a fair amount of the day working on it and didn't finish. :( I have most of my scenes finished and most of the prep work all figured out though, so hopefully the last bit will finish easily. It didn't help that my camera overheated and so a few of the good takes that I did get for the last part had some weird effects.

Most of the morning was spent trying to make a bluescreen (and a greenscreen). It didn't work. I probably had the wrong color fabric, because I did get the software to work on small sections of the video. It's too bad, because I was really looking forward to making some stock footage of Ben and I so that we could be in outer space or on the lip of a volcano or swimming under the ocean.

It was rather hot out today so we went out for dinner and then went to see Inception. It was a great movie. I'd highly recommend it.

Friday: movie!

For Month at The Museum, I need to make a movie. I never before realized how hard it is to put everything you want to say into one minute AND make it creative at the same time. It gives me a new respect for advertisement designers.

Anyway, here is the first movie I've ever put together. It was actually surprisingly easy. I know it's not a great movie, but I was having fun figuring out how to put the different components together.

It features my wonderful cat Flurry and her love of water.

Thursday: organized

When I'm asked to describe myself, one of the adjectives that I usually use is organized. These skills came in useful once again this afternoon. I discovered that three cables that need to start being built tomorrow but weren't on the list. Then while looking at the list I realized that two of the planned cables needed some changes made before they could be started. So I quickly did the half dozen tasks that are required to change a single wire.

Disaster averted!!

Business meeting

To those of you who recently had a business meeting (you know who you are):

Sending a card to someone you didn't invite to the meeting that says "We're sorry you couldn't make it" shows complete disrespect for my inherited office of Treasurer.

I expect a formal invite to the next business meeting.

Sincerely,

Amanda

Tuesday: fruit flies

Today we seemed to have a lot of fruit flies in the office. They're annoying, but not too bad. I just hope that we get them under control before there are too many of them.

In case you're wondering, I just read that the life cycle of a fruit fly is about a week. Great news for us! The bad news is that they can lay up to 500 eggs during that time. At that rate we'll be over come with fruit flies rather quickly.

Stay tuned to find out what happens!

Tuesday: month in a museum?

Ben told me this morning that the Chicago Museum of Science and Technology is going to host someone in their museum for a month. The person would live there (all day and all night) for a month.

I'm very seriously thinking of applying. How much fun would that be! I love science museums. I could sleep in the train. I could sleep on a ship. I could check out all the bathrooms and figure out which one is the best. I could watch all the movies that no one ever watches because there isn't enough time. I could watch them twice.

So while I sit here, trying to think of three words that describe me and reaching for the thesaurus, you can help me too! Which of my blog posts do you like the most? Or, at the very least, which of the blog posts do you remember? I know there are a few that have stood out for me, but I'm curious if any have stood out for you.

Monday: TV shows

Following in Lisa's steps, I listed the TV shows that Ben and I have watched (or are in the middle of watching) since we started Netflix.

Big Bang Theory - five stars (hits oddly close to home sometimes)
How I Met Your Mother - four stars
The Office - five stars
Battlestar Galactica - five stars
Firefly - six stars (<3 <3 <3)
Arrested Development - three stars - it's on instant view
Dexter - three point five stars - season two wasn't so good, but we've heard season three gets better
Scrubs - five stars
24 - four stars
That 70s Show - five stars
Red Dwarf - zero stars - we barely made it through one episode

So now we need your help - what other good TV shows are out there that we've missed

Sunday

Hmm...it was a fairly normal Sunday today. Ben played drums and I did some errands during the off service. Then we had a church picnic. There was a tent and nice breeze so it wasn't too hot, but it was still hot. We didn't stay long because we had already been at church for a while and I was getting tired.

I also did some chores, watched some TV, and worked on a quilt. Oh! and I talked to Nathan on googlechat! I couldn't get my video to work most of the time, but the voice worked pretty well.

Saturday: kitten

we were at a friend's house and they recently got a new kitten. It was so cute! And so small! Ben and I have talked a few times about getting another cat so that Flurry wouldn't be alone so much when we're working, but we decided that Flurry would really just hate that more than being alone. So...no new kittens for us. :(

I saw a live skunk on the way home! I think it is the first time I've seen an alive one. I know they're all over because you can smell them regularly.

Tonight

Friday: haircuts

Ben and I got hair cuts today! Yay. I was looking forward to it all day...someone semi-massaging my scalp. Aahh. Anyway, she wanted to talk, which kind of ruined the whole semi-massage.

Maybe I should ask for a gift certificate for a massage for my birthday instead of ski-diving. They're kind of at opposite ends of the adventure-spectrum. I know! I'll ask for both. :)

In other news, I was reading an article during lunch about movies that make people cry and one of them was when Dumbo's mother can only hold him through the bars of the jailcar. Just thinking about it almost made it cry. But then I almost laughed as I imagined explaining why I was crying to my coworkers with whom I had a meeting in five minutes.

Thursday: life cycle of a couch

Dusty and Laura are giving their old couch to our church's youth group, which encouraged me to think about the life cycle of a couch. I found it rather interesting...

Year 1: Brand new! My owners love me! They won't let anyone eat on me or put their stinky feet on me!

Years 2-10: Well, I've become slightly worn, but I am still in a place of honor. I have a good life.

Years 10-15: I was given to the kids. They just got their own apartment and while I don't match any of the furniture, I am the only sitting location. I get used a lot! Life is good.

Years 17-19: I was given to a college kid. The room stinks, but I'm the only piece of comfortable furniture. I am loved!

Years 20-23: I am back in an apartment with non-matching furniture. I'm getting very worn at the edges and some springs don't spring anymore, but things are going ok.

Years 24-26: I was given to the youth group. I'm in rather terrible condition, but I at least get to be with other couches in terrible condition. Life is fun, and I don't have people sitting on me very much which is good at my age.

Year 27: I was put out on the curb to die, but some college kids picked me up before it rained. Phew. They kept me for four months. And then ceremoniously buried me in the dumpster. It was a good way to go. It was a good life.

Tuesday: cereal-luck II

Today we had our second cereal-luck. This time we invited all of the church. Not many extra people came, but it was still a good time! We played frisbee golf afterward and had many laughs and many cheers. I found that I really like Reese's PB cereal...it was delicious! It is probably also a once-in-a-while treat. :)

Monday: epic dinochickens

Once upon a time there was a dinochicken named Tristan. Tristan had a very happy life, clucking with other dinochickens, and living his life at extreme temperatures.

But one day Tristan met Tyrek. Tristan went up to Tyrek, clucking away.

But Tyrek was not a very nice dinochicken. Upon seeing Tristan, Tyrek's dinosaur instincts kicked in and he started fiercely attacking.

"Never fear, the longnecks are here!" Some of Tristan's faithful dinochicken friends came to his rescue.

The three of them overcame Tyrek and made sure that he would never again give a bad name to dinochickens.

The End

Sunday: careless

"Look at the birds...[they are] careless in the care of God. And you count far more to him than birds." Matthew 6:26, The Message.

Careless in the care of God. That is the phrase that stuck out to me. I read this on Tuesday and it has come back many times since then. That's how I want to be. It doesn't mean that I don't have cares and concerns, but that I know that they are being taken care of so that I don't have to worry about them. It brings a deeper meaning to the word 'trust'.

I think that one of my life goals is to completely embody this concept.

...It might take a while.

Saturday: reactions

Woah. I was looking at a few other random blogs and found these little reaction buttons on the bottom. So now, if you don't really feel like you have a comment, you can still cheer me on!!

We'll see if anyone uses them.

Friday: corporate training videos

Today I did some of my corporate training. I understand why we need to do it. But what really makes me mad is when we are asked vague questions during the training and then told that the answer is wrong. Here are my examples:

1. You have found a problem. What do you do next?

A. Gather more information

B. Take action.

2. You have found a problem. What do you do?

A. Tell your manager immediately.

B. Validate the facts and then tell the customer within a few days.

C. Nothing.

3. You have a harassment problem with the person in the cube next to you. What do you do first?

A. Talk to the person

B. Tell your manager

C. Tell HR

D. Nothing.

Answers.

1. The answer is A. I would like to point out that gathering information is taking action. I got it wrong twice. (the question was posed in two different locations.)

2. The answer is A. I think B is an additional correct answer.

3. The answer is B. When you click on A it says "You talk to the person and they are unresponsive. Try a better answer." This answer bothers me because talking to the person is what they did first! It isn't my fault that the person is unresponsive. The question didn't ask what I would do if the person ignores what I say.

Thursday: twitter

Tonight I visited Twitter.com for the first time. Ever. I'm part of the dark ages. But I wanted real-time updates on So You Think You Can Dance and it seemed like the best place to get it. It worked rather well. Alex is gone due to an injury, but it sounds like he'll be back next year.

We went to see IronMan 2 after work because it was rather hot out to be in the house. It was good. The middle was a little long, but I enjoyed the end. I was sad that the robot didn't play a larger role.

This afternoon I spent about 2 hours measuring the thickness of some panels. It was a riot, let me tell you. Oh, and then I wrapped the panels in foam. But that's not what I want to talk about. I want to talk about Verniers. (It's a way to precisely measure something.) The first time I used a Vernier was in general physics lab. It's kind of cool - I like lining up the lines. But I think it takes way too long to read. Today I had to read 0.0 + .075 + .008 + .0001. Sure, I can do that math in my head but it takes just that split second longer. Oh, and I had to move the whole panel around to see the .0001, so that definitely took longer.

Wednesday: owie

So after bush whacking yesterday I found a scratch my finger. There also looked like there might have been something in the scratch. After Ben's sliver infection fiasco I did the obvious thing. I looked at it under a microscope.

The thing that looked like a sliver was just dirt in a line. Phew.

Tuesday: bushwacking

Our Bible Study helped out at the church today by removing a small jungle and painting the front awning. It was hot, but we finished in the right amount of time and it looks a lot better!

Before:

After:

Tuesday: hahaha

Monday: how I woke up

8:45:00 am: casually turn my head to see what time it is.

8:45:01am: OH NO! I NEED TO TRANSFER THE FILES BY 9AM OR WE'RE IN DEEP TROUBLE!!

8:45:02am: jump out of bed

8:45:03am: wonder where the files are

8:45:04am: wonder what exactly is going on

8:45:05am: try to remember if it was a dream

8:45:10am: figure it must have been from a dream - at least, it better be because otherwise the files won't be transferred and we'll be in deep trouble.

8:45:15am: decided to get up because I'm already out of bed and have a ton of adrenaline pumping through me.

Sunday: today

Today was a very nice day. I went to bed (rather late). I got up. I had a donut. And Spice Tea. Yum. We went to church. We made lots of plans after church. We went to Home Depot and bought oil. We went home. I sent a ton of email based on the plans that had been made. I ate lunch. I quilted and watched TV. I talked to Dad. I PvPed.

Saturday

I snuggled with Flurry for my nap this afternoon. I was rather surprised that she didn't leave.

It was the official good bye party for Dusty and Laura. Laura made a bunch of delicious food and we played RockBand. We played our favorites, including Maps and Move Along. We sang Yellow Submarine and Ben added bubbly water noises which I found hilarious. Overall, a very fun party! (And we tried to ignore the fact the they are leaving. It worked well for me because I interacted more with Dusty this week than most previous weeks.)

Friday: blog

Today we have our esteemed guest, Amanda, here to tell us some of her thoughts on blogging.

Interviewer Amanda (IA): So, Amanda, why did you choose to start a blog?

Responder Amanda (RA): Well, there are two main reasons. First was to share with friends and family what is going on in our life so that they know what's happening even if we aren't able to talk very often. The second is to help me remember all the little day to day things that I would otherwise forget - like a journal. Like this entry - it is a small enough event that I would probably forget it, but it was so much fun!

IA: What are your favorite and least favorite parts about blogging?

RA: Well, one of my least favorite things is that because anyone can read it, I don't write about all of the things going on in my life. But one of my favorite things is that anyone can read it. I love getting comments. (Hint, hint.)

IA: I notice that you post most days...why do you choose to do that?

RA: Well, one reason is that I always love having new posts to read from friends, so I figure other people feel the same way. Also, it keeps me in the habit of writing. Although I'm not sure that the "nothing interesting" posts are worth it. What do you think?

IA: I'm not sure either

RA: Well, that makes two of us.

IA: Actually, it only makes one of us.

Thursday: middle of the year

Happy Middle of the Year. It's flying by. It's feels like just a short time ago it was the beginning of the year and my day-by-day calendar was very full. Now it is amazingly half done. :)

As middle of the year days went, it was very nice. I got to eat lunch outside. I only had a few people in my office needing help. And...Grid started working!!

What is grid you ask? It's a mod to help see what's going on in the raid. Monday my grid looked like the one on the right. Now it looks like the one on the left. While I guess it might not mean much to you, but can much more easily see ALL the spells that I have on people.

Ben always laughs at me because my mods as a whole seem to have a mind of their own as to when they are going to work and when they aren't. I'm just glad this one is working again.

Wednesday: hazardous wastes

Ah, hazardous wastes. I know they aren't supposed to go in the trash and yet I never had enough gumption to actually bring them to the correct recycling location, so they just sit around the house. I know, sounds scary, doesn't it.

Luckily, Laura finally has a reason to get rid of her hazardous wastes, so we're going to trade some wastes and each bring them to their proper disposal area. At least, I think that is the plan. One place might take all of them. Yay for housecleaning!!

Besides that...nothing super interesting has happened in the past few days. Work has been really busy and has flown by, but nothing really interesting has happened. I watched So You Think You Can Dance and think it is pretty obvious who is leaving tomorrow...unless the judges feel the guy/girl ratio out be too out of whack. I also really enjoyed Alex's dance, and am having a hard time picking a favorite this season.

Monday: elephant

Hanneke and I suddenly enjoyed being African Elephants in high school, which brought forth a long love of elephants. Therefore, thanks to Brian for finding this gem...

Sunday: hiding

Ah, some more pictures of Flurry. Ben played drums in church this morning, so the morning was pretty busy but we took it easy the rest of the day. We had several chores that we needed to finish and I had a long nap to take. :)

Saturday: Flurry take 3

For some reason my camera ended up in my pocket today while I was doing chores, so Flurry got a several pictures taken of her.

She doesn't get to go in the garage very often, but once in a while I find her on top of the car. This is the first time I had a camera.

Oh, the classic sink pose.

Friday: the last Friday

Today was probably our last Friday night with both Dusty and Laura (although we will see them again next Saturday.) It's been a long standing tradition that we go out to dinner and do something on Friday night. It has lasted about six years and two states.

We started the night by going to the Dugout. Last time the four of us where here, a few months after we had all moved here, we come here and had terrible service and terrible food. It was much better this time, although the waitress forgot to bring refills. Then she said she forgot to add the extra toppings to the check. But then she forgot that she didn't forget, and the toppings really were on the check.

Ben and Dusty doing something cool with the iphone. It took a lot of pictures to get a good one of both of them smiling.

Laura cleaning up after we made apple crisp.

I've decided not to be too sad (yet), as Laura is still around and we'll get to see Dusty a few more times in the next month. I think it'll be a lot tougher on Ben because he normally sees Dusty every day at work. :(

Thursday: the best moving-help day ever

After work we went over to Luke and Rebekah's to help them pack. (Side note: since we were over that way and didn't have a lot of time we stopped and Joe's McDonalds and got to see him for a few minutes!)

Anyway, this was day two of packing up the truck for Luke and Rebekah, which worked really well for Ben and I...I think we only had to bring down two loads of stuff. Oh, Ben had to help with one desk, but that was the only heavy item. I swept and swiffered. Sandra did an amazing job cleaning the stove. And then we were done! Sweet. While I would have happily helped move more things, it was nice to have it be an easy day too.

Wednesday: yum

I had lunch with Jess today. Hugh managed to get his snacks out of a spill free container for the first time! It was wonderfully warm out too after spending the morning in a cold office. I sit in the draft when the a/c turns on, and it is rather annoying.

So You Think You Can Dance was on tonight. I'm not sure who is going to be in the bottom three - usually I have a guess about at least two, but this time I only have a maybe guess about one person.

Tuesday: Going away party

Today was Luke and Rebekah's going away party at small group. We'll be seeing them several more times before they actually leave, but not many. It's been good having them with us, and I wish them all the best in their new place down south.

The whole group showed up! Twenty people + one baby + one guest = 22 people!! Yay for friends!

Luke and Rebekah with their cake. We brought ice cream too, but it quickly melted. Not before we could eat some though!

Monday: visitors

Travis, Allison, and Scarlet came over for the night. We had pizza, played some games, and watched Scarlet be cute and Flurry be territorial.

Weekend: camping!

This weekend we went camping with our small group. It was a ton of fun, relaxing, and the weather was about perfect. We played some Frisbee, took a walk, visited a castle, and ate good food.

The group:

Ben and Amanda (the only good one of both of us, even if the angle is off)

Friends watching a sunset

The sunset

Ben playing Frisbee

Thursday: unislander

Today was better than the rest of the week. I got to try out a new piece of equipment which was interesting. I also fixed a piece of equipment all by myself. Sometimes I feel like I'm not very good at fixing things (mainly due to the WIPs and wire twisters), so it was nice to have something work.

We went out with Dusty and Laura for an early weekend meal. I made up a new word: unislander. Here it is used in a sentence (or two): "A bridge is not an unislander. A sand bar could be an unislander."