Cottage update

Since my last post, progress has been made on the cottage purchase. I have started the process to secure a mortgage for the property, and we have the home inspection scheduled for next week. We will drop Samson off at Whiskers, and head up for an overnight trip to Greenbush for the inspection. So far, so good. Everything is progressing along smoothly.

Stay tuned to this channel for future updates.

Back in Battery

The subject of this post is a phrase taken from my time in the Navy. Warships carry large caliber guns to shoot at people and things we do not like. These guns are known as a battery, and they have such fancy titles as "Mount 51" or "Mount 32." From time to time, maintenance needs to be done on the guns, and when the gun system is taken off line, it is known as being "out of battery." When the repairs or maintenance is completed, a report is made to the Tactical Action Officer that simply states, "Mount 51, back in battery." That simple report means that the gun is ready for action again.

Well, I am happy to report that I am "back in battery." I last updated this blog almost a month ago. Between work and a few projects, I just did not have the time or the inspiration to write. Well, my motivation is back and a few things have happened my life. Now for the update to the goings on here just east of the equator...

Work has kept me incredibly busy the past few weeks. Despite the tough economy out there right now, the General has kept me incredibly busy. GE Aviation here in Grand Rapids has been chasing new business and I have been busy assisting in the pursuit. I am also now a group manager, so I have additional responsibilities in overseeing the work of seven reliability engineers.

Last weekend, Deirdre and I made a road trip to Oscoda, Michigan, where our friend Steve has a cottage on the shores of Lake Huron. We went there for the specific purpose of searching for a cottage of our own. We visited Steve at the end of August and we got the bug to look in earnest for a cottage. Subsequent to our visit in August, we located a realtor (her name is Missy) and we told her what we were looking for in a cottage. Missy looked at some listings for us and arranged for us to see five different properties. Each one had some different to offer, and all of them were beachfront property.


I am happy to report that we have located a property and made an offer to purchase it. The seller has accepted our offer and now we have to work out a few details of the purchase. We will need to have the property inspected and appraised, and start the process to close on the property. We are expecting to close sometime in late November. The property is a two bedroom, one bath cottage on a lot that is 50' X 175' with a great view of Lake Huron.



The inside of the cottage is pretty typical of most cottages in northern Michigan: varnished knotty pine. The kitchen was recently updated and there is even a garage which blocks the sounds from U.S. 23, a road that snakes around the eastern shores of Lake Huron. This real estate transaction is a "work in progress," and there are a few milestones we will need to meet before we get the keys to the place. Look for updates as evolution this progresses.

Old School

Deirdre and I went on a sort of roadtrip stay-cation over Labor Day weekend. We drove east to spend a few days with my parents. My father is about to turn 80 and he has slowed down a little the past few years, and I know he appreciates it when we can make it back to spend the weekend with him and my mother. We left for my parent's house a little before 3PM and I was caught up in an 80 mile per hour parking lot. There was a lot of traffic on I-96, but it was moving along. We arrived at my parent's house in a little less than two and a half hours, which was darn near record time.

The weather for our visit could not have been better. Warm, cloudless and sunny days, with cool, clear nights. My plan was to make dinner each night for my parents (and Deirdre, too!) and work on any chores my father might have around the house. My father marinated a flank steak for Friday night's meal, and we made some rice, steamed green beans and a tossed greens salad. My father enjoyed the company as well as having somebody else make him a meal. We picked up the ingredients for this meal from the Village Market. The Village Market has been in business since 1939, serving the best in meats, seafood and groceries. It is an old fashioned butcher shop, something that has all but disappeared with all the Wal-Marts and chain grocery stores.

The subject of this post, old school, is about Deirdre and going back to the town where I was born (Detroit) and raised (Grosse Pointe). I have not lived in either place in almost three decades, and in the course of all of those years, there are a few places which seem to never change. Mack Avenue has had a few changes along the margins, but certain places have changed little since I left. We had lunch at the Irish Coffee on Saturday. It menus has been the same since it opened four decades ago. There are darn few watering holes in my home town, and the IC is one of the best known. Sure, you can go to Little Tony's Lounge in the Woods, or maybe Telly's Bar & Grill on the other side of 8 Mile. Each has its own feel, but when I walk into any of the aforementioned places it is as if I had never left.

We went to an even older school place for lunch on Sunday: Sinbad's. Sinbad's is celebrating its 60th anniversary this year. If you walked into Sinbad's tomorrow, it would look very similar to how it looked 30 or 40 years ago. The long wooden bar was refurbished a few years ago to its look and feel from 30 years ago: polished mahogany. Ask almost anyone who was raised on the east side of Detroit and most of them have been to, if not heard of Sinbad's. I had a cup of their chili, the recipe for it has not changed, ever, as far as I know, a burger and Stroh's. I also saw something I have not seen in years: a cigarette machine. Hopefully, Michigan will soon join the ranks of the majority of states and ban smoking in most public places, but until then, there will be cigarette machines at Sinbad's. If you have a spare $7.50, you, too, can buy a pack of Marlboro cigarettes.

Yep, it was an old school weekend.

Gravity and Celestial Mechanics

I work for GE Aviation. We make avionics for civilian and military aircraft and I like to think that we are the best aviation company on the planet. I am the Reliability Group Manager, which means I supervise the work of seven reliability engineers. These talented folks are electrical engineers by education and they are darn good in what they do. My people look at electronic schematics, circuits and analyze the reliability of these systems. They are the best at what they do.

In the course of my career with GE, my coworkers have learned that I am not an electrical engineer. Rather, I was trained in chemistry and mathematics. In order to understand the chemistry I studied, I had to take a lot of physics classes. They also understand that I served as a Navigator of a destroyer, so I have an understanding of celestial navigation and celestial mechanics. Also, these aforementioned electrical engineers are very focused on, well, electrical engineering. Few of them took classes outside of the mathematics needed to take "double E" courses and they certainly did not take courses in celestial mechanics. This is where I come in...

One day at lunch, my friend Greg asked me, "Paul, do you know anything about how gravity works? Specifically, do you understand why a planet is used, sometimes, to increase the speed of a deep space probe?"

I answered, "Why yes, yes I do." I explained to Greg that the reason why gravity is sometimes used to increase the speed of a deep space probe because there is essentially a "well" that is created by the mass of a planet in space-time. NASA has used planets to increase the speed of deep space probe, and this is known as a gravity assist.

A gravity assist or slingshot maneuver around a planet changes a spacecraft's velocity relative to the star around which the planet circles, even though it preserves the spacecraft's speed relative to the planet—as it must according to the law of conservation of energy. To a first approximation, from a large distance, the spacecraft appears to have bounced off the planet.

Realistic portrayals of encounters in space require the consideration of two dimensions. In that case the same principles apply, only adding the planet's velocity requires vector addition, as shown below.

Thus, to a stationary observer measuring the velocity of the spacecraft, its velocity increases relative to the observer. NASA has used this on the Mariner, Voyager, MESSENGER and Cassini missions. I have certainly learned a lot from these electrical engineers, but is is refreshing to share a bit of the knowledge with some really bright people.

My new red shoes

Well, made a quick get-away to Lake Huron for the day and Samson had his first exposure to a real lake. We know that he loves playing in the pools at Whiskers, but he had never seen a natural body of water before today. Samson was a little tenuous when he was first exposed to Lake Huron, but after a few minutes of barking at the waves, he absolutely loves the water.



















In the course of our visit to Lake Huron, I bought a pair of Crocs. A couple of my friends have them and I was always interested in getting a pair. Well, I found a pair that fits that were on sale (half off). How could I refuse a deal like that? I will tell you, these Crocs are comfy and they are the best beach shoes ever. They give me great support and they rinse right off. These will be my beach shoes for years to come.

Publish Post

18 August, 2007

For those of you who were with me two years ago today when I had my change of command and retirement ceremony, thanks for being there for one of the most important events in my life.

















It was a memorable day shared with friends and family. For those of you who were not able to attend, you missed a heck of a party!

Final staining has begun

On Friday, a replacement closet door was delivered and I set right to work to stain it for installation. It takes about 3 days to properly stain and seal the door, so I am hoping to have the door ready for installation by Tuesday at the latest. I had no idea that this project to upgrade the closets would take close to three months!




Look for some final images after this door is installed. The transformation has been pretty amazing.

New window images

I am happy to report that my hot, dirty manwork paid off. Chris, the expert installer from Window World of West Michigan, arrived a little before 9AM and he set right to work. I showed him where the window was to go and he said to me, "Wow, thanks for clearing out the egress space for me. It will make my job a lot easier."


There are a lot of shady window sellers out there, who peddle low quality windows for high prices, or will use a bait and switch technique to sell you a window you don't need. Window World is not that kind of window seller. With this final window installation, we have replaced every window in our home with Window World Comfort windows. We also have greater comfort indoors and lower energy bills to boot!

Hot Dirty Manwork

Tomorrow morning, the professionals from WindowWorld of West Michigan will pay us a visit and replace the egress window in our basement. An egress window is one where you can escape from the basement in the event of an emergency. The current window is drafty and as part of our overall maintenance plan, we decided to replace it with a new double paned window.



Before the new window could be installed, I had to clear out the debris that had collected there. Over the weekend, I removed all of the leaves and I was surprised to see how much organic matter and gravel still remained in the egress space. Thus, I had some hot dirty manwork to do when I got home from work.

This egress opening is a virtual magnet for leaves and other debris, so I was hoping that once I remove the leaves and other stuff, that there would not be too much else that needed to be removed. Well, I was wrong. Whomever installed this egress window must have added a couple cubic feet of gravel and stones to the bottom of the egress space. In order for the window to be installed, I needed to remove enough gravel and dirt to allow open access to the window sill. A coworker gave me a post digger, so I was able to clear out a lot of the dirt and gravel, as the egress space is too small to effectively use a shovel.

After approximately 30 minutes of digging and removing gravel and dirt, the window sill is now clear of all obstructions so the installation tomorrow should occur without a hitch. Updates to follow on the new window as conditions warrant.

Yep, it was hot dirty manwork tonight!

SAILING, METAL FATIGUE OR JUST A COINCIDENCE?

It was a busy week at work for the General, so I let my blogging lag a bit. I will endeavor to dedicate at least a few hours per week to writing. I also feel strongly that if I have nothing to say, I should do just that: say nothing. That being said, I do have a few updates on the happenings at this magical place just East of the Equator.

Last Sunday (8/2), Deirdre's colleague Dorothy invited us to go sailing with them for a few hours. Dorothy and her husband Daryl own a 30 foot Catalina. The weather was perfect for sailing, with a strong southern wind, little to no chop in Lake Muskegon, and a clear blue sky. We drove to Muskegon where they keep their boat, and soon after we arrived, we got on board and left for a few hours of sailing. Growing up, I learned to sail at the Detroit Yacht Club, and I kept sailing on and off, ever since. I suppose my 22 years in the Navy helped a little, too! Dorthy and Daryl's son, Braden asked me to take the helm, which I happily obliged. In addition to ourselves, there were some of Deirdre's co-workers aboard, and none of them had any experience sailing, so it was up to me and Braden to keep on an "even keel" and allow the land lubbers to enjoy themselves.

Most of the 90 minutes or so we spent sailing were uneventful. With the strong southern winds, I was able to guide the boat to a respectable 4-5 knot speed through the water, and only once did things get a little interesting. I was in a broad reach heading west when a gust of wind filled the sails and in a matter of a few seconds, the sailboat went from having 0 degrees of heel to 25 degrees of starboard heel. This gust was unexpected, and my aforementioned land lubber passengers were a little startled when the boat suddenly heeled over. I steered the bow into the wind to right the sailboat, and as quickly as the heel came, it went. However, it was fun to see the look on the faces of the people in the cockpit with me as a few of them thought that the boat was going to capsize. I tacked back and forth a few times, gave Braden some lessons about the Nautical Rules of the Road and generally had a great time. We returned to the boat slip, and we then settled in for some grilled burgers and conversation. It was a great way to spend a lazy Sunday afternoon and evening.

The next issue of the week had to deal with our corkscrew. On Wednesday night, I made Chicken Cordon Bleu, and I wanted to serve a bottle of Chardonnay with the meal. I cut the foil off the top of the bottle and proceeded to work the corkscrew into the cork so I could pull it out. While I was inserting the corkscrew into the cork, I noticed that the corkscrew seemed to be twisting in an unexpected way. Undaunted, I then tried to extract the cork, but instead of removing it, the corkscrew broke off inside the cork. Thankfully, I had a back up corkscrew, so the cork was removed without incident a few moments later and we enjoyed the Chardonnay with our meal.

However, I was deeply troubled by the failure of the corkscrew. Was this failure attributable to operator error, metal fatigue from use, or was it all just a cosmic coincidence? Upon further review, I determined that the corkscrew failed due to metal fatigue. The corkscrew failed due to repeated cyclic loading. Of course, I needed to find a scapegoat, so during our visit to see Amy at Art of the Table, I confronted her with the failed corkscrew and said to her, "It is because of all of the wonderful wines you have sold to us that my corkscrew failed!" We all got quite a laugh out of it, and Amy handed me a brand spanking new corkscrew, emblazoned with the Art of the Table logo. All in all, it has been a good week.