A Rare Opportunity

My first job as an Engineer (FINALLY!) was at KeyTronicEMS in July 2006.  In 2007, I took my very first "business trip" to our facility in Juarez, Mexico, with my mentor, Ken Holmes (a now-retired specimen of engineering awesomeness).  Growing up, I remember vague tales of grown men taking business trips to "exotic" locales and seeing incredible sights.  The way they described it made it seem like a company-paid vacation.  Apparently, my wife had heard the same stories.  I went.  When I got back, she immediately wanted to know what sights I had seen and what souvenirs I had brought back from them.  I told her, "none".  She was incredulous and asked what I had done for an entire 6-day period.  I told her, honestly, "I woke up at about 6:00 every day, had breakfast in the hotel, and at 7:30 went in to the factory.  We got done sometime around 6:30 or 7:00 PM every day, went to dinner (at which time everybody else is eating too, so it all took longer).  By the time we were done with dinner, it was 9:00 PM and we were exhausted so we went back to the hotel and slept.  EVERY.  DAY."  She never asked me what I did on a business trip again.  They were ALL like that.

All of them so far... except this one.

For a particular project we are working on with Eaton Corp., I traveled to the Baltimore area with our Sales Manager and my Design Engineer.  Often, it is much easier to resolve issues like the ones that we were having face-to-face rather than via email.  Not that the latter is not possible, it is usually just faster to do the former.  It is also a great relationship-builder between companies and teams.  We do our best to plan enough time to address all the concerns a customer has, but sometimes, like in this case, we are just too darn efficient.  Based on the length of the flights (and the routes we had to take) we allotted travel days, not hours, so the 6th and the 8th were "flight" days and the 7th was for visiting the customer.  We completed that visit at 11:00 in the morning.  Lunch with the customer was over by 12:30, and we were left wondering what we were going to do for a half-day.  The obvious and usual answer was to go back to the hotel and work remotely, but I knew that my designer had no way to do so.  We learned, however, that he had never been to Washington DC, before, and both our Sales Manager and I had.  We decided to take him on a tour to some of our favorite sites.  First up, was the National Air and Space Museum.  Our Sales Manager is a private pilot, and I have always been interested in aeronautics and the space program (after graduation I wanted to work for NASA as a Chemical Engineer), so we both LOVED the place.

Several pictures of the things that we saw are below (In the later ones, I thought to take pictures of the descriptive plaques so that you might see what they were...):

This one is from the inside of a Boeing 747 cockpit.

Some of the "experimental" planes used by NASA and the US Air Force:

Old rockets and space modules:

A couple of satellites:

                                 

 

After that, we started in on the national monuments.  The capitol building (the dome was under repair at the time):

The Jefferson Memorial:

I have to stop here for a moment.  I have been here 3 times now.  Twice as a kid and once again as an adult.  I have to say, as an adult, this had MUCH more meaning than it did when I was younger.  I had an actual spiritual experience here this time around.  Over the last several years, I have been studying off-and-on the founding fathers, their writings, American History, Economic Theory, Political Theory, Constitutional Law and Theory, and American Government.  To me, Thomas Jefferson was the pinnacle of American Thought and, while not particularly sectarian, was very definitely a God-made man, who reverenced his Creator and understood the importance of using God as a foundation for an enduring and just system of government.  The quotes within this monument are powerful enough to me now that I had to take photos of all of them. His words are worth studying still and, in my opinion, should be required reading for ALL youth in America today so that they will understand the great inheritance that they have received and treat it with the care and respect it deserves.

The Washington Monument (and the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool):

And finally, the Lincoln Memorial:

And old Top-Hat himself...  I've often wondered what he'd say if he were here now.  I think I have a pretty good idea.

By the time we'd been to all of these, everything south of my knees felt like it was going to fall off.  I'm getting too old and too out of shape to be doing that much walking all at once, but I am incredibly glad I did, and grateful that my designer could provide an excuse for me to re-visit some of these timeless locations and gain a new and more mature appreciation for them than I was able to in my youth.  Also, it was simply a more pleasant way to spend an afternoon than sitting in a hotel room in front of a computer.  I don't know that I'll have the opportunity to do that very often, but it was definitely nice this time.

- Josh                        

Attentiveness Unit Study

Our next unit for Homeschooling has been Attentiveness.  The theme is paying attention to detail and observing the world around us.  For the first section in this unit, we studied the ear.  The kids discovered the parts of the ear, and how they work to help the brain interpret sound waves.  Inside your ear, you have short hairs and long hairs.  Shorter hairs pick up the high pitched sounds because the amplitude of the wave is able to reach them better, and the taller hairs pick up the lower pitched sounds with their reduced wavelength.  Sound is directed by the cartilage in the outer ear into the ear canal where it strikes the ear drum vibrating it at the frequency of the instigating sound wave.  The ear drum, in turn, causes the hammer, anvil, and stapes to vibrate at that frequency.  These vibrate the air in the cochlea at that same frequency.  It is there that the hairs of different lengths pick up the frequency and transmit through the auditory nerves to the brain.

We talked about causes of deafness and then we talked about Helen Keller and watched the Miracle Worker which the kids really enjoyed.  We played different memory games to help with concentration.  For their writing assignment for deafness, we had them make up an advertisement for hearing aids so that they had to investigate how hearing aids worked so that they could convince people to buy them.

We discussed Alexander Graham Bell and his contribution of the invention of the telephone.  We discussed sonar and how ships and bats use sound to navigate obstacles.  We discussed the story of the Greek Nymph Echo which deals with how we hear echoes.  Then we began a discussion of musical instruments and orchestra and went to our friend Ellie's house.  She pulled apart her piano, violin, and marimba and we discussed the different parts of each and what they did.  We discussed different percussion instruments as well.  Then we talked about orchestras and how and why they are set up in a specific way.

We talked about rhythm and tempo in music as well as music dynamics.  Throughout this whole portion of the unit, we introduced them to different, well-known classical symphonies and talked about different composers.  Meagan's favorite of the new music she had never heard previously was "1812 Overture" by Tchaikovsky, and Jacob's was "Bolera" by Ravel.

The next section we covered was the eye.  The kids learned the parts of the eye and how they function to help the brain interpret light waves.  The rods on the sides of an eye see only black and white, and the cones in front see colors.  Jacob really enjoyed finding the blind spot in each eye and how the iris reacts to changes in light intensity.  For Meagan's writing project, we discussed myopia (near-sightedness, or the inability to see objects that are far away) and hyperopia (far-sightedness, or the inability to see objects that are close).  For Jacob's writing project, he compared the eye location of several types of animals and the pros and cons of each.  We talked about glaucoma, cataracts, and night-blindness.

For the last section, we discussed tracking.  We talked about Lewis and Clark's journey with Sacajawea (or the Corps of Discovery Expedition) to survey the land purchased by Thomas Jefferson known as the Louisiana Purchase.  We discussed the Louisiana purchase, and why it was made.  We talked about who it was purchased from and what we hoped to gain.  We talked about the Mormon Pioneers that crossed the Great Plains to Salt Lake City.  We plotted them on the map of the continental US with string. 

We discussed how these explorers and pioneers survived during their treks.  We called in the wilderness expert (Grandpa Stumm) and talked with him about bears.  He talked about how you hunt them & how bears live.  We had them each make a fictional "Explorer's Journal"

Jacob's journal is called "My Research About the Mokele Mbembe".  It is the lore of the last living dinosaur and is from the Congo.  He wrote about trying to find out the truth of the legend.  Meagan's is called "The Ghost of Union Bay" and is the legend of a haunted island and her attempt to discover why it is haunted.

We discussed a little bit about the War of 1812 and why it happened.  We discussed England's trade embargo of our goods via shipping, the impressment of merchant sailors into the Royal English Navy, their support of the Indian tribes against American expansion, and the American interest in annexing British territory.  We discussed the Star Spangled Banner and it's origin in Fort McHenry and Francis Scott Key's observations there.

Meagan's favorite things this unit were the memory games and guessing the orchestral piece from hearing a part of it.  Jacob's was studying the eye and how it works.

Next up: Patience.  Stay tuned for gardening, growth, and more!

- Josh & Sarah