I've decided to share with you a typical day in my life. On Friday the 13th of February, I carried my camera around all day with the intention of sharing those precious moments that make up my life right now. I wont be Offended if you find it boring and decide to walk skim over this post. But Since I have no charming stories about my fictitious children and no stories to share about my non-existent "newly wed" status (hehe), I figured I'd show you that having a life outside of those things is not necessarily all bad - well, at least for me.
I begin each morning waking up to my roommate turning on the shower a few minutes before 8am. And its not until much later that she emerges from the bathroom with dried hair and makeup. On this particular morning, nothing was different. That means that I waited for her to finish so I could use the toilet. (which can sometimes comes close to an act of torture). Because I'm a peacemaker, I'm keep my mouth shut and just wait.
Because this was a Friday, I had no classes to attend. Lucky me. Except that means that I'd be busy all day in the machine shop. I needed to be prepared so I made myself a hearty breakfast. (Unfortunately, this blog idea didn't occur to me until after I ate it, hence the pic.) I had a Belgium waffle with blueberry sauce, orange juice and strawberries on the side.
After getting ready, I caught the bus to campus which is about 1.5 miles away...
...and arrived at the Aerospace Machine shop where I would spend the next 8.5 hours of my life.
I started working by cutting a stock piece of HDPE down to the size for the mold I was going to create. If you look carefully, you'll notice that its actually two pieces bonded together by 3 pieces of tape. This will become a problem later. Problematic - but not unforeseen.
As you can see, as soon as I started machining it, the two pieces came apart. This happened numerous times, creating many frustrated sighs and some not-so-happy thoughts. Maybe it was the fact that it was Friday the 13th.
We finally ended up using double-sided masking tape and bolting the center together with two 1/4-20 bolts so that it wouldn't happen again. Shortly after lunch time, we ran into another problem. We didn't have a tool that could create the shape we wanted without A) the tool breaking or B) the holder of the tool colliding with another piece of the mold. To solve this problem we raided the tool cabinet for something that would work. Here is the tool we lovingly called "Bigboy" and "Bigboy" hard at work. (No camera tricks here boys and girls!)
Once that was under way, I was finally able to pop over to the B-School (Engineering code for Business School... get it?... B-school...hehe) to get some lunch. Notice I didn't say that I went to lunch... I said "get". I brought it back and continued working in the shop. Corn chowder and Boulder Sea Salt and Pepper chips (the best chips ever!)
Over the next couple hours we got the mold finished, but of course, like a true engineer, I had to document the day in my notebook before I could officially call it done. The time was already fast approaching 5pm. (Notice the safety glasses. Safety First!)
Ok, now I can call it finished.
I made my way to the composites lab with my newly made funnel mold to hand-off to my Project Manager. When I got there, I found him finishing up a lay-up and I figured I'd help out. What I thought would take 10 minutes turned into a 1.5 hour endeavor to solve a problem with the bag not wanting to stay sealed under vacuum. After several attempts, we were able to fashion a two layered bag. One inside and one outside the cylinder sealed with putty tape. Here's the finished product. (Well, technically it won't be complete 'til Saturday or Sunday...but you get the idea.)
Once that was done, I left my PM to clean up the mess and went to catch the bus. The time was already around 6pm and I had completely missed the sunshine for the day. :(
After being on my feet for most of the day, my feet were swollen and I needed to re-introduce that blood supply to the rest of my body. So after eating left-over pizza, I put my feet up and watched an episode of "The Simpson's."
Once I felt as though I were a little re-energized I headed over to the Institute (even though it was snowing) for some Friday Fun: indoor four-square and Settlers of Cataan. Actually, I ended up doing neither and sand Broadway hits with a friend at the piano for most of the night.
Afterward, I went home and collapsed into a deep slumber just to be woken up this morning to the sound of the shower turning on. Life sure has a weird sense of symmetry.
I hope you enjoyed my day. It was as typical as they come these days. So I hope I didn't bore you too much. I left most of the mundane happenings out. I know I could have done better on the photography side, but you get the idea. My life isn't very artistic these days. Maybe I'll do this again sometime but on a day with classes. That is, if I don't get to many people telling me they fell asleep while reading.
Keep in touch!
