Snakes On A (Higher) Plane

When your wife texts you that the garage door doesn't work, you would think it's just the batteries in the remote, or maybe the power's out.

But when she says it goes up a little bit then reverses, you would think it's going to be a walking stick breaking the beam of light.

And when she says there's a snake in the cable and it's keeping the door from working, you don't really think anything; 'cuz that's crazy Liz Lemon.

Snakes, why'd it have to be  snakes?

Somehow, a Texas Rat Snake decided to sneak his way into the garage and slither up the cable. And it was a big one.

He got wrapped around the pulley as the door went up, getting caught between the cable and the pulley and wreaking havoc with the door sensors. Door broken.

There will be blood.

When I finally got back from work, the entire house wanted to participate in the serpent liberation, except the woman.

When you've got an 800 pound door (I had to lift it, so don't argue with me) being held up by a tiny diameter cable, there's a lot of force that the snake's body just can't handle. Don't you feel sorry?

Trying the door a couple of times after inspecting and realizing there wasn't much I could do, I saw the snake drop onto the concrete near the puddle of snake blood. He slithered underneath the van, and that's when the wife denied the snake's stay of execution.

I was prepared to commute the sentence, since he wasn't going to last much longer, but the governor is the decider. So the boys and I worked on various ways to lethally "inject" him.

Spare me the details.

Let's suffice it to say that he's now resting peacefully in two different landfill locations. The garage door is in fine working order with a restringing of the cable, and the four foot rat snakes are 0 for 2.

When will I ever need to use Venn Diagrams?

This is a fun one. I have liked the idea of using Venns for work, but for technical people, they are typically too high-level (i.e. they summarize something obvious).

So my oldest came home and had me review his homework of Venns. Since "I'll never use this" has become a disappointing game for him, he asked if I used these today. I thought about it and said, "No". But I did mention that I have used them in the past.  He left happy.

The next morning before he went to school I had an early morning meeting, and ended up needing to review a document of product failure precipitation techniques (processes to simulate aging effects and find poor design or manufacturing errors). 

At the top there was a Venn diagram that not nearly as complicated as this one (but more proprietary):

sad face
That was not a happy morning for my son, since he's trying negotiate his way out of fancy math by saying he'll never use this stuff.

Credits:
http://kinnechapin.com/tag/listography/ for the simple Venn
http://www.collegehumor.com/article/5778557/venn-candygram for the candy Venn
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Symmetrical_5-set_Venn_diagram.svg for the fancy Venn

When will I ever need to use ______ ?

xkcd.com

One of the pleasures of being an engineer parent is when your kids come home with math homework.  It's an opportunity to flex parts of your brain that haven't been exercised in decades. (Never mind the depression/anger that arises when the teacher gives the parent a bad grade.)

But it gets even better when you are able to tell them that this ridiculous concept that they're learning really can be used in real life, if they get into certain professions.

This series will be a journey of answering the question, "When will I ever need to use         ?". It will be populated by real life examples that I encounter during the course of my job and my sons' math-lete adventures.

Salomon Quest 4D GTX Backpacking Boot Review

Purchased from REI. I tried all of the hiking and backpacking boots that they had in stock and found that these and the Asolo Power Matic were the only ones that didn't rub my feet the wrong way.  (For my usage, the Asolos only added a feature of the bearing in the laces eyes that make your boot explode open when you untie and unlock the laces; nice, but not worth the extra money.)

The Salomon's were comfy right out of the box, though I did have to get the one size larger than my normal shoe size (The Asolos would have worked with my normal size 12.)

Wore these in New Mexico (see amusingly insufficient video) for a week and had no blister development. Walked and hiked about 50 miles over that week. Break-in consisted of wearing them around the house for about 4 hours while sitting at a desk and watching TV (so, really nothing).

The locking heel cam is really nice for getting the right tension on the lower and upper part of the boot.

For a simple action video with white legs, see my YouTube posting: http://youtu.be/7_CqZFZnBsE

Crouton saga continues

A little more reasonable sized croutons are found at Tom Thumb. Isn't that nice?

Got flies? Solve it, cheap.

Pretty gross. But, no matter how many times you scream at remind everyone in the house, flying things make their way in.  Once they're in, you can smear their guts all over with a fly swatter or fry them with the battery operated version.

Until Now.

With just 3 purchases from Home Depot, you can make a simple, sanitary solution. Set a reminder on your Google calendar every six months to change out the trap and it will last years.

Here's the parts list:

1. Undercabinet fluorescent light fixture (Don't put it under a cabinet, though.  Put it on top of your cabinet.)
2. Blacklight fluorescent bulb, sized for the fixture above (bugs like the UV light)
3. Sticky box fly trap (bugs will brush against this and get caught)

You may have seen something like this, even if you didn't realize it, in restaurants.  The cool blue glow of that white thing sitting on the wall of the kitchen at your favorite place does the same thing.  The principle is pretty basic.  Attract flying insects on a one-way trip to their afterlife.

Find a good spot on top of one of your cabinets.  Set the fixture up there, with the blacklight bulb installed.  Run the power cord off the side of the cabinet so that you can plug it into the wall. The fly trap would normally hang somewhere, but we're just going to lay it on top of the bulb and fixture.  Make sure to remove the sticky backing so that the insects will be captured. Then just turn on the light.  It won't suck too much juice, but if you really don't want it on during the day when the attracting light won't work as well, you can add a timer.

At night, when you're padding through your kitchen at night with your white socks on, they'll glow like you're at a rave. No need for a night lite.

Depending on how many insects you let in, the fly strip will last several months, but it's easy to check.  If it loses its tackiness, swap it out.  If it gets full, swap it out.  It's a couple of bucks to replace.  The light bulb will last years. And you'll be surprised at how many bugs you'll catch.

Check this one out.  Got more crane flies than houseflies this time.

Starbar Ez Trap Fly Trap 2 Pack - 3004323 (Google Affiliate Ad)Fly from here.

Is anyone else as annoyed as I am about the...

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Greg Noeninckx Is anyone else as annoyed as I am about the ridiculous size of croutons these days?   Everything that you can get in the stores is "Texas sized" or "homestyle" or some other code-word for manufacturers wanting to make more profit by cutting out process steps. Eating a homemade salad with store-bought croutons is like chewing on an entire slice of rock hard toast. Bring back normal sized croutons, please.  View or comment on Greg Noeninckx's post » Google+ makes sharing on the web more like sharing in real life. Learn more. Join Google+

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