Keith's Posts

Chocolate-Dipped Cookies Mess

RECENT PROJECT
After doing a lot of breads, I realized, “You know what, I should actually get to baking some other things.”  It is with that, then, that I tried my hand at some chocolate-dipped cookies; to be specific, this recipe from Food Network.  I quickly learned that, if you act like an engineer and just blast out several exact “1/2-by-3-inch strips”, you kind of get a tiny little cookie.  Thus the mixture of two-in-one cookies, narrow cookies, and kind-of-OK cookies shown below (pre-dipping).

Chocolate-Dipped Cookies - Undipped

OK, so lesson one was learned:  Take a couple extra seconds to create nice, thick cookies.  Lesson two followed quickly when I realized I don’t do the most even dipping in the world on cookies, as you can see in the image at the top of this post.  Still, even with the inconsistencies and imperfections, these were quick to make and tasty to eat–and some of them did turn out alright.

Now, you can leave these cookies undipped and they’ll taste alright, but they really are way better when you dip them in chocolate.  Hey, that’s like finances:  They’re alright without a budget, but it’s way better when you do a budget.  What a timely parallel given that today’s post is about why we budget.

TOPIC FOR TODAY
The word “budget” is a funny thing.  For some people, me included, it’s a happy word:  It’s exciting  to think of looking at your spending, seeing where your money is going, and then figure out where you can cut back in the future.  For others, and my wife originally fell into this category, it’s more of a “Really?  Do we have to?” response.

To be completely honest, the reason we had a budget initially was because I had one set up and I led the way in making it part of our activities as a couple, too.  Given the choice, Mary probably would have thrown the budget out the window within the first year of our marriage and been completely fine with it.  For that first year and even into the second, there was that bit of tension every time we sat down, pulled up the spreadsheet, and started going through where she and I were spending money–and, in some cases, overspending money.

Given the tension, why did we do it?  And why should anyone and everyone do it?  It’s simple, really:  You need to know where your money is going so that you’re not wasting it on useless things, which then lets you save more for your future goals.  This is something that, at least for Americans, we’re not doing such a bang-up job of.  This article from 2017, for example, indicates that 57% of Americans have less than $1,000 in their savings accounts, with 39% having nothing at all.  I would hazard to guess that many of those people don’t have budgets in place.

For my wife and I, the goals part of budgeting was certainly the primary item that kept us going.  It was also what helped us understand each other better.  As we went through items and realized areas that we could improve on, there were also areas that I realized were important to her:  A nice coffee from a coffee shop once a week, or having a little room to replace older clothes a couple times a year.  Those are things that seem superfluous to me but, knowing they matter to her, it makes me want to work our budget so that she can have them.  Similarly, she was able to see how happy it was making me to pay off debt and to push for an increased savings rate–which helped her begin enjoying the thought of being debt-free as well.

There you have why we budget:  A common goal of eliminating debt, increasing savings, and getting the chance to enjoy some small pleasures in life.  I’ll do another post about how we budget because that can provide insight for what works for you versus what really does not work for you.  The “how” of budgeting is not nearly as important as making sure you just go and do it!

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When we first started this blog, we knew it might be a short-term creative outlet–and that’s exactly what it became.  After some discussion, and learning that it takes a fair amount of effort and planning to keep a blog going, we’re going to start adding more posts, at regular intervals, and with an eye to keeping those going long-term.  So apologies for the fits and starts, and here we go again!

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Well, OK, how to admit this–I haven’t been particularly motivated to write any more posts.  It’s not that I don’t have lots more to say, or that I don’t want to say it, but that I feel like I should be able to briefly summarize the large topics of my life into a few paragraphs, type that up, and call it a day.  But that would be stupid, and completely waste this blog, so I’m going to try something just as crazy as I am.

Starting with this post, I’m going to share something that I’m working on or have done:  It may be cooking, baking, building something, or just assembling something with the kiddo.  That’s my hook for me to keep writing.  Then, I’ll communicate my topic, which is what perhaps someone would desire to read once they’ve reached the end of the Internet and gone, “I wonder if I missed something–oh, look, a blog.”

RECENT PROJECT

This week’s project was baking snickerdoodles.  Yes, of course, thousands upon thousands of people have done it before me, but I haven’t done it myself, so why not try it?  The recipe I used was Allrecipes.com’s “Mrs. Sigg’s Snickerdoodles”.  How were the cookies?  Both the Wife and her friend who was over enjoyed them, and my son called them “delicious”, so I’d say that’s a thumbs up. It’s still weird to me that you pull the snickerdoodles out when the center is a bit moist, because I certainly don’t want to underbake something, but who am I to argue with the results.

TOPIC FOR TODAY

So what do you think about when you’re baking snickerdoodles?  What grand plans of the universe might be revealed amidst cream of tartar, cinnamon, and sugar?  I discovered the phone screen I was using automatically locked on me way more than I thought it would while reading the recipe.  As for revelations, they were small-scale, but one that I had was this:  I’m really locked into my daily lists of things to do.

I don’t even remember what book or article it was I was reading a long time ago that had a summary that went something like this:  “People who write down their activities for the day get more done.”  OK, I thought, this works for me.  I love making lists, checking things off, and proving how amazing an amount of things I can get done in one day.  With this in mind, I got a notebook, started writing a list (numbered, of course) of all the things I should do each day, and it worked–I was getting lots done, including the small things that might normally slip my mind.  Years have gone by where I’ve done this, and I’ve filled up multiple notebooks with my tasks for each day.

Here’s what leads to the problem, though:  99.9% of the time I’ve listed out my tasks, they have been things like:

  • Take out the trash
  • Fold the laundry
  • Clean up the table
  • Caulk the windows

And on and on, specific activities meant to take care of the basic needs of life.  It’s awesome if they’re all things I can get done within a half hour of getting home.  Yet most often the tasks are things that I only get completely done shortly before I go to bed, or <gasp!> I don’t even sometimes get done at all.  This leaves little to no time for quality time with my son or my wife, and there’s never really time for friends or events outside of this.  The really bad thing is that I feel guilty when I don’t get the things I’ve listed done, which makes me stress out, which makes me a terrible person to be around.

Wait a minute–these task lists were supposed to let me get more things done, so that I could have more time for the good stuff that fills me and my family up with happiness.  Did I miss something?  Where did I go wrong?

If you’re someone who likes everything wrapped up neatly, here’s where you’re going to be disappointed:  I don’t know what’s going wrong with using lists.  A lot of the things I write are things that really need done.  Do I need to just trim off a couple things and acknowledge that I can’t get them done?  Or do I need to add the happy tasks to my list too?  I’m going to try one or both of these things, and I’ll share how it works in a future post.  For now, I’ve got some weatherstripping to do . . . oh, and vacuuming . . . the cat litter needs changed again?  Dang it . . .

 

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NOTE:  I realize this is a second posting on engineering, but I wanted to just get these out of the way for my first posts.  They’re part of who I am, and will hopefully provide some perspective on how I perceive things as I write about them in future posts.

Requirements and Design:  For an engineer, depending on where you work and the past experiences you’ve had, those words can cause an entire range of reactions from, “Yup, gotta do them” to simply groans followed by mutterings of “Here we go again”.  But for this post, I really want to talk about something different:  What are the Requirements and Design for being an engineer?

Realistically, engineers have a broad range of attributes, so I can only talk about the general Requirements that I’ve seen that made the several great engineers I’ve gotten to work with.  I’ve met lots of good engineers, unfortunately quite a few bad ones, but I’ve only found a few I and the people I work with consider great.  Off we go:

REQUIREMENT #1:  EDUCATION

This may seem ridiculous to some:  Every engineer probably has a college education, you might say.  But that’s not true, and that’s not what I mean.  I’m talking either a formal college education, or education through years of experience, or both.  One of the most effective engineers I’ve worked with in the past several years didn’t have a college education, but he’d been in the automation field for decades.  His knowledge of the variety of automation systems, problems that could arise when implementing any system, and how to interact with other groups to get work done was incredible.  Similarly, I’ve worked with college-educated individuals who were simply amazing at picking up challenges in the workplace and being able to crank through them.  Wherever it may come from, education is imperative.

REQUIREMENT #2:  INTENSITY

What is intensity for an engineer?  It’s rising with a big old grin to meet a challenge that others haven’t been able to solve; it’s focusing on something either alone or in a team to the point that everything else falls away; it’s a drive to succeed not because of a financial or career incentive, but just to prove you can.  Most engineers I’ve worked with have some intensity, but the ones who are great tend to have a higher level of it than others.  But take note:  VOLUME DOES NOT EQUAL INTENSITY.  One of the greatest quality engineers I worked with was a very quiet person, but wow, he really knew what he was doing and was fantastic at it.

REQUIREMENT #3:  SENSE OF HUMOR / SARCASM

Being an engineer (automation, quality, or whatever) requires a good sense of humor, and typically a strong sense of sarcasm.  The best engineers I’ve worked with have had at least a good sense of humor, and only a couple have not had a strong sarcastic streak too.  The Wife (mine, not theirs) doesn’t always appreciate the sarcasm, but in my experience it’s the best way to deal with some of the ridiculous things that can happen when you’re trying to cope with different attitudes, sometimes overinflated egos (and I’m not just talking engineers), and troubleshooting systems in an active plant.  In the automation engineering world, sarcasm is often a result of, “You won’t believe what the last moron did who worked on this system”–and then, in the worst instances, you realize the last moron who worked on the system was you.  So let’s include being able to laugh at yourself in this engineering Requirement.  I’ve only seen one person come into engineering who tried to make things all butterflies and rainbows, and she left for a different career only a few years later.  The engineers with the daily sarcastic remarks, the occasional self-deprecating jokes because they realize they’re just as capable of doing wrong as anyone else?  In my experience, those are the great engineers.

REQUIREMENT #4:  FINDING JOY IN FAMILY AND FRIENDS

Surprised by this one?  It surprised me, too, when I was looking at the several people I was thinking of when writing this post.  But when I really looked at those men and women, I realized that they had done things like:

  1. Made sure that they regularly took vacations where they spent time with their spouse and family
  2. Almost every weekend, spent time with family and friends, because that was more important than catching up on a few more emails and tasks
  3. Quit their engineering job because, though they were great at it, it was preventing them from taking care of their family the way they desired
  4. Changed jobs so that they could move to a place where they could see their family more often
  5. Played sports or worked out with their friends, even with many of those friends being people they regularly work with

Even though there were a lot of different ways these people spent time with their family and friends, they all made sure to do it.  It was important to them, and it didn’t stop them at all from being great engineers–instead, it let them view their job as something that was a fun challenge and that they could be passionate about, but not the sole thing that defined them.  Here’s my word of advice on this to others out there, and it’s always your option to take it or leave it:  Don’t let your work define you, because sometimes bad days just happen regardless of what you do, and it doesn’t mean that you or your life are bad.  Sometimes, @!$# happens.

CONCLUSION

These are just the most obvious Requirements that were part of the great engineers I’ve worked with.  There are a few more Requirements that I’ve got in mind, but some of them are more pertinent just to those engineers responsible for programming controllers, apps, and tools in an industrial environment, so I might include them in a later post.

But I said Requirements and Design for this post, right?  I didn’t forget, but I’ve got an out:  No matter what the Requirements are, there are a million different Designs to get there, so the reality is there is no single Design for an engineer, great or otherwise.  After all, even simple Requirements like erasing a chalkboard can be designed in fantastically strange ways.

ONE FINAL POINT:  Marrying a teacher is not a Requirement for being a great engineer, although it’s worked out well for me.

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One thing about being sick:  Writing can take a back seat.  As such, this post is going to be short, but it’s also an important one to lay a foundation for other topics I’d like to write about.  Enjoy!

Depending on where you’re coming from, “engineer” either sounds quite impressive or like a title with “Nerd Alert” flashing above it (or, if you’re a spouse, possibly a test of your patience).  I’m actually OK with the nerd title in addition to the impressive title–after all, nerds are often smart people and, from what I’ve seen, a lot of the gears that keep the world turning are driven by engineers.  Plus, when you’ve got The Knack, you use it.

So how did I drive down the path of being an engineer?  More specifically, how did I choose to be an automation engineer?  The truth is, I didn’t choose it; I kind of fell into it.  I had planned on being a software engineer (which is what my schooling was for), but my co-op (read:  intern) experiences were for Human Machine Interface (HMI) development and code development for industrial systems.  Once you start dealing with HMIs for glass manufacturers and Programmable Logic Controller code for pharmaceutical companies, the label of “automation engineer” just gets slapped on you.

I have to admit that, while this is not the career path I had initially expected, it’s a lot of fun.  I get to not just do graphics and software development, I also get to see the tanks and motors and valves and belts that I’ve developed code for jump into action and make amazing things like cancer drugs or glass.  It’s very rewarding and, most of all, feeds the inner part of me that likes to imagine how things could work, build plans for it that can be both complex and elegant, and then watch those dreams turn into a smooth, well-orchestrated reality that benefits others.

This is why I’m an engineer–because I get to be very detail-oriented in planning to make things happen, and then use those plans to play with really big (and often expensive) toys.  It’s fun, it’s challenging, and this nerd totally loves it.

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I’ll admit that, on some level, I’ve pretty much always thought, “You know, it would be nice to have kids someday.”  That’s pretty normal, right?  Of course, you can think that for years and years, but after the joy of your wife saying, “I’m pregnant!”, reality tends to slap you upside the head like a five year old cracking open their first pinata.

Wait, though, I wanted to be a parent . . . oh yeah, but my parents were divorced before I can even remember.  Since we just saw my Dad primarily on the weekends and during the summertime, I have no idea what it means to be a dad in a marriage and taking responsibility for a kid.  Other male role models?  I had a few good ones that were just occasionally in my life (teachers, friends’ fathers), but a lot of the men I was around up to and even into high school weren’t what you’d consider stellar examples of their gender, and if married weren’t great husbands or fathers either.

So I can still be a good parent without having viewed a great Dad on a regular basis, right?  Sure!  I can start with going to those required classes for when you’re having your first baby.  OK, breathing techniques for the birth, preparing for the hospital, and–what do you mean that sometimes the baby is taking its sweet time and they have to plunger them out?  Wait, I’m supposed to be there to support my wife when she’s having the baby, but you’re telling me it’s not even necessarily going to be our doctor who delivers the baby?  Now I’m not only an inexperienced Dad, I’m a nervous Dad who’s freaked out that something is going to go wrong or we’re going to miss the birth signals and have the baby in the middle of the interstate.

And now, as our kid grows up, I know that part of being a good Dad is making sure that my wife is happy too.  That makes me a good Dad because I’m taking care of her so she can take care of the kid, and it makes me a good husband, so bonus points.  Oh, except you hear about how much things change when you have a kid, but no matter how much you think things will change you’re way underestimating the reality of it.  Because, you know, all those things that made my wife happy before will be the same things that make her happy now that there’s three of us, right?  If I knew how to type maniacal laughter here, I would do it.

In total, this means I don’t have a good view of how to be a dad from experience, I’m nervous with all the things that can go wrong during and after pregnancy (though we’re into the “after” now), and I get to relearn how to take care of my wife so that I can be a good Dad and a good husband to make a happy family.  Uh-oh.

The truth is, I’m still not sure what makes a good or great dad, or if I’ll ever find a way to be one as our kiddo goes from baby to toddler to teen and into adulthood.  Have my thoughts of, “I want kids someday” translated into, “I am glad we have a kid today”?  Absolutely.  I may be on a never-ending road of trial and error, of joys and sorrows, and be scared to death about being a parent, but through it all I love being called “Dad”.

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