I Live in Iowa: Week 41

This was such a fun week! I have such a great life. Often I wonder what purpose is it that I have so much when others have so little. I mean this about everything. I have accumulated more wealth this past year than other do in five years. I have some of the most amazing family and friends. Where do these people come from? How in the world am I fortunate enough to be friends with them? How is it that I had such a wonderful formal education? I mean seriously, I went to one of the top 5% of public schools in Kansas. I went to the college that while ranked only in the 50s by the standard rating agencies, has the 9th highest starting salary for undergraduates. In my opinion the measure of starting salaries is a little more descriptive of the value of an education than a ranking based on class size or starting salary compared to cost of attendance. By the way, WPI ranks higher on the starting salary scale than MIT. I'm just saying.

I worked 42 hours and finished some more projects this week. This is great I am hitting my stride, it just took a nine month warmup. Projects that formerly took days and weeks I am doing in hours or days. I feel almost guilty when I start a project and finish it less than three hours later. I feel like I shouldn't be going that fast. However, I still have significant room to grow and improve in the areas of structural evaluation. The things that we are doing with nCode and load surveys are pretty interesting and still not optimized for accuracy and efficiency. Honestly, in five years on products that we have been making for at least 10-15 years we will not need to physically test before we start selling them. Maybe it sounds like magic to imply that something will be able to go from computer screen directly to customer without us trying to break a few at our proving grounds, but the time of that is nearing, and we aren't even close to atomic scale modeling yet. (When we get to the point where normal cluster computers can model structures at the atomic scale and include everything like discontinuities and welding we will really begin using engineering minds.)

I ran two races this week, the mile and the 200 meters. Both went well. The mile I ran in 4:39.59 going through the first 809 meters in 2:15 I slowed down significantly but managed to recover enough to run 33 something seconds in the last 200 meters. The 200 I ran in 28.52 and received deal last place by more than a second out of the 38 people who raced it. I was so slow that about a dozen women beat me. Hopefully, my two races provided some inspiration to the members of my team. For the sprinters I hope that they saw how I put myself in an uncomfortable position and gave it what I had. I ran a sprinter workout with them on Tuesday and was tearing it up in front of them. Hopefully they can say, 'hey this guy only raced two seconds faster than he was running repeat 200s this week. Maybe I can pick it up in practice a little bit.' For the distance runners I hope that they can look at my 200 and think, 'I'm faster than that in the 200, I should be a little closer to him at the longer distances.' Plus, I feel we have a good relationship among our whole team right now, but it could be better. We are having some of our distance runners run 4x200s and 4x400s in meets and the occasional sprinter workout. Similarly sometimes we get the long sprinters to do a longer workout or outside distance day with us. I feel that bridging the gap between strait sprinters and strait distance runners is important to building a loyal team. If you can get those two different groups together you will end up with the jumpers and throwers being in on the huddle as well. When everyone on the team knows everyone else and respects them, you get a lot more cheering and encouragement. Oh yeah, I ran 72 miles this week it was my first 70+ mile week post-CIM.

In other news, I am trying to get a team for Reach the Beach New Hampshire this year. If you would like to join and be part of a relay and run three legs totaling about 20 miles over 24 hours let me know. WPI Alumni runners preferred, but I will take others as well.

Ten Things About Engineering You Don't Learn in College

They say experience matters, and it does. In fact, knowing what I know now I would say that twelve months of experience, such as during a co-op, is a great idea and huge advantage to an engineer's career. Well here is a non-exhaustive list of things they don't thoroughly teach in college.

1. Cost drives everything. You can make a great design that lasts for decades, but if it survives the warranty period that's good enough, and it probably costs less.
2. There are many right and many wrong answers, but no grades. It's really a pass or fail world. Of course, defining fail is another reason engineers get paid so much.
3. The expectation is to get X amount of work done in Y amount of hours. It usually takes .5Y or .75Y or .9Y to do X amount of work. But there are days when it takes 1.5Y hours of work to do X.
4. Seniority is based primarily on age and years of experience, not necessarily education or performance although they do account for something. 
5. There is a lot of monotony. Instead of taking four different classes you are doing one thing or perhaps two, nearly all the time.
6. Few people use calculus. I know a lot of math, but most of the time I don't use any of it. Most of the important calculations have spreadsheets or macros (small computer programs or additions to a computer program). Simply plug in numbers and receive a result. 
7. Microsoft Excel is probably the most used engineering software in the US.
8. You are likely to get hired if you already have a job in that industry. It is harder to get a job if you are unemployed or changing fields. 
9. Successful engineers must keep learning to stay current. If you thought education ended when you got a job, you are wrong. Standards and expectations are always changing. 
10. The things that we do and choices that we make in our offices costs others millions of dollars and can determine life or death for some people. If a roll over protection system fails, someone will likely die. Engineering can be isolating. We don't always see the manufacturing process or the operator using our product. A "win" might be a part that weights 30 pounds less (when measured on the computer) or seeing yellow (moderate) strains instead of red (high) strains. At the end of the day the bridge is not 10 feet longer or the building one story higher, the pictures on the computer simply have different shapes. 

Those are a few of the things I have encountered. I could expand on most of those, but I will leave it as it is. I am so fortunate to have the job that I do! This is such a great learning experience for me. One of the things that I like to do as I am encountering these new situations is ask, how could we do this better? So often, I really don't have an answer. It is great to be working to improve something and not have a cut and dried solution already in your head. It keeps it interesting. It keeps me thinking.

I Live in Iowa: Week 38

This was a great week! I started back at work on Tuesday, having forgot hardly anything. Coaching was good. Running was mediocre. I was super busy all week. Here goes the rundown.

I want to emphasize how interesting this week was at work. On Tuesday all before 9 AM I made the rounds talking to the various people I am working on projects with to see what the status was of all my projects. It's a simple process, walking around talking to people, but not too many people seem to do it. I think it is crucial to socialize with the people I work with enough so that we keep the lines of communication open. The reason is that there comes a point when sitting beside someone and talking through the problem is far more efficient than making a presentation, emailing it, and then replying to questions later. This brings us to Wednesday...

One of the supervisors scheduled a nine hour meeting to go over various aspects of a project. I think 11 people were there from different functional groups to provide input. It was great! We were able to talk through issues and when one person suggested a fix, a different person would shoot it down, a third would suggest a second fix, and a fourth would modify the second suggestion so that it would actually work. Without a meeting with those four people, it would take each of them ten minutes to understand what was going on, five minutes to type up an email, four hours for the group to all be notified through email, another ten minutes for the person to modify the suggestion, and another five minutes to email the change, and another four hours to notify everyone through email. Then, there is a chance that one or two people would object to the idea because they were not clear on what the change was and that would take more time to fully explain the idea. So while a meeting that I estimate was costing John Deere $7 per minute and lasting for nine hours might not be a good solution to most things, I feel we got a lot done. We could have probably done it all in five hours or less, but planning a nine hour meeting sends a message that this is serious. We ended up getting done 45 minutes early, so it was really more like an eight hour meeting.

Thursday and Friday were rather typical and it was really nice to get through the first week of the year. I say that because now on my resume I can put April 2011 to January 2012. Spanning the two years I think is important for the ten second glance over from prospective employers. (I'm not applying for other jobs at the moment, but it is nice to have that experience in case I was fired or laid-off tomorrow.)

Coaching was another highlight to the week. I took a USATF Level 1 course and assuming I pass the test will be officially certified shortly. It has been on my list to do for a long time, and now I've done it. It was funny though, one of the presenters was talking about coaching a 400 meter runner to second place at state the year before, when the University of Dubuque head coach who coached the 1st place runner is sitting in the audience. However, that class was not the highlight of my coaching week. One athlete finished class early this week and inquired if it was possible to do the workout early. Through a series of text messages I gave the runner three options, with A being double. The runner chose A! I will not force kids to double because I had a bad experience in high school. However, doubling is one great way to get better and when an athlete comes to that solution willfully, good things happen. Plus, this runner was a freshman which means we have lots of time to improve even more.

My own running was not spectacular at all. A total of 43 miles, one day of stations (probably 20 minutes of core and neuromuscular work over the course of 50 minutes) and a couple strides. I had lower leg and shin pain most of the week, which turned out to be shin splints. I have been neglecting toe ups and experience showed me years ago, neglect them (and it seems even more important after a marathon) and get injured.

Socially I woke up at the beginning of the week in Dillion, Colorado and drove back to Dubuque. I did not get the sleep over the last week that I desire. However, caffeine helps to accommodate a lack of sleep in the mornings.

I'm Hungry.

I was listening to the impact of poverty on children on Talk of the Nation on NPR and had some thoughts. I was on free lunches while I lived in St Louis and reduced price lunches throughout elementary and into middle school. I suppose that means I lived in poverty. I never felt like I lived in poverty because I had plenty of toys and we always had food and the heat always worked at home and we had a home!

As 2011 draws to a close I am realizing that this year when I file taxes it will be the first year that I get paid more than minimum wage for the entire year. I suppose I have been poor my whole life. Even as I write that I cannot actually believe it. Wealth is about so much more than income.

For example, my family always had a place to live but my parents did not own a home from the time I was five until I was 20. We lived in apartments and houses lent to us by my dad's employer. I consider having a house, apartment, or place to live wealth. The same goes for vehicles. My parents have bought only one new car in my 25.5 years, but numerous cars over ten years old. Having one or more vehicles counts as wealth to me. Even though I currently drive an 18 year old van with 277,000 miles, I consider that a luxury item.

I am continually thinking about motivation. How does one get it? Where does it come from? What events lead to increased motivation? What things will decrease motivation? Why do I pound out ten or more hours of running per week? What am I trying to prove? Why do I care about getting the best answer to an engineering problem at work and not just an acceptable answer? Why do I model things with solid (3D) elements when others use only shell (2D) elements? Why did I go to college at WPI in Massachusetts? Why did I get a master's degree?

I finished Steve Job's biography by Walter Isaacson on Saturday. What was Steve's motivation? It seems making the best possible user experience, but that is not 100% clear. I will write a review of the book in the coming weeks.

Motivation is something that is cultivated and grown, but exists within. Can one person give another person the seed of motivation? That is one tough question. If the answer is yes then I give credit to my parents for the roots of my motivation. My family vacationed to Colorado when I was young and we camped, had fires and cooked, and my dad told stories of hiking mountains like Longs Peak. I think that those little trips were the seeds of my mountaineering motivation. It was developed along the way by four summers at Philmont, and numerous hikes and climbing in Rocky Mountain National Park and the 14ers around Leadville. Yet it started with a hike to Emerald Lake and a drive to the continental divide ranger station in RMNP. My other motivations have roots with my parents. When I was six or seven I out sprinted my dad in our back yard. He might have let me win but I decided that I should not be able beat him and I did not want others to beat me unless they were actually faster. However, had he beat me would I have gotten discouraged and chose not to pursue running? Probably... My parents are geniuses. I hope I can do half as well with my kids as they did with my sister and I.

I feel that my motivation wanes when I have more luxury in life. Nice things, which I really like, give me the feeling of being complacent. (I'm struggling to come up with an example. I've been sitting here for at least 10 minutes without writing a sentence.)

I quit acting when I went to college. I did five musicals, four plays, and a slew of speech and drama routines at competitions in high school. The highlight was my senior year when my duet with Dana May Salah was amazing. We cleaned up at just about every meet. We were getting first and second at almost every meet we went to. That was after three years of struggling to make it to finals at local speech and drama competitions. At state that year we expected to cruise through semifinals and compete for the win, but judges rated us terribly. Our second round was the best performance of the year. It was the best acting I ever did. When we calmly walked out of the room we were seriously jumping up and down because we just had the most amazing performance of the year! The judge gave us a ranking of five, with one being the best and ten the worst. Unbelievable. We didn't even make it to semifinals. I did do improvised duet acting also at that state meet and my partner and I got 8th at state with a really really tough draw in the semifinal round. The point being, my motivation for acting left after that state meet. People in my home town thought I was going to go into acting, and were surprised that I cared so much more about engineering. Some were even disappointed.

I had no success in competition acting for two and a half years then I had success at the end of my junior year and lots of success my senior year. I was loaded with motivation at the state meet my senior year. After the rejection I feel I felt acting was a search for acceptance and popularity. I felt that hard work did not necessarily pay off. Success or failure was determined by the whim of another person. In engineering and running and mountaineering and relationships the return on investment seems far more direct. If I train hard in running, I run faster races. If I study more material in engineering, I will have a better grasp of the phenomena. If I climb more I will be able to climb more. If I spend more time with a person we will have a stronger relationship (if we can work past the fact that I am a self centered egomaniac). In the words of my high school running coach, "You get what you get."

Another aspect of my attitude is that I compare myself to the best in the world. Watching the movie Inside Job one person commented that investment banking became a contest. 50 Billion dollar deals were not enough it had to be 100 billion. Unfortunately, I feel that way sometimes. So and so runs a 2:14 marathon, so I want to see if I can do it. So and so climbed Everest without oxygen, and I'm a way better runner than he is so I must be able to do it. So and so started a company that revolutionized the industry, and I'm a far better engineer than he is and more personable too. These thoughts filter down to the way that I live. Why don't I get rid of my van and buy a Mini Cooper like I have wanted for a decade? Because I would rather drive a Prosche 911 Turbo. Why don't I buy a nice bed and some more furniture and a huge TV? Because I would rather buy land and have a house. Why did I go to Pakistan and try an 8000 meter peak instead of trying Denali or Aconcagua first? Because it's bigger and bigger equals better right?

I am clearly delusional. I am obviously crazy. I have accepted those opinions as facts. I fear that these ideas in my head hamper my ability to have a committed romantic relationship. Or any relationship really. On the other hand my focus is very long term. I've been thinking about Mt. Everest for eight years, now it's just the funding. I do know that these expectations and desires set me up for disappointment. March 2010 was a really rough month. Fortunately, I am enough of a normal person to take joy in how far I have come. When I defended my masters thesis I was incredibly happy! After so much time and work, I had something to show. It was the most fulfilling formal educational experience I have had. There were so many times I thought about quitting. When I ran a 4:38 mile at Smith college my senior year of college I was ecstatic! While I planned and still do plan to be able to run under 4:20 in the mile some day, actually getting under 4:40 was amazing because part of me never thought it would happen. It is the same with my engineering. I solve problems and make products last longer, and in 2010, I was not sure I would ever have that chance. I'm a useful addition. I'm part of something. I am economically productive. It is very rewarding.

I still have a lot to do in life. I have a number of "delusions" to chase. However, if this afternoon I end up unable to walk, talk, see, and work for the next 50 years of my life I have enjoyed more success than any one person ever deserves. It is the dichotomy of performance.  The new best performance is not enough, yet it is infinitely more than is deserved. I am so blessed!

I Live in Iowa: Week 35

Another week living the life. Every time I say that I have some fear that I am actually at the top of my game and it is all downhill from here. My article tomorrow is all about goals, expectations, and satisfaction. Come back again tomorrow please!

I had a very nice week at work. I worked 47 hours, my second most hours engineering. Industry involves far fewer hours than college. At WPI I had very few weeks with less than 50 hours. On Friday I had a breakthrough. I was writing a report trying to correct a number of failed strain gages from a stress test and there were a few failed gages we didn't even try to solve, and I despise giving up so easily. As I was staring at this area with bent plates and welds I suddenly realized that the bends in the plates and the welds were in the wrong locations. The bends were in the areas that did not have much strain and the welds were in area with a large amount of strain. It was backwards! That is easily one of the best ideas I have had at work. It is not patentable or anything, but it is possibly an industry changing design. So we shall see if anything comes of it in the next few years (big businesses don't move too fast).

There was no coaching this week because UD was out for Christmas.

I ran nine miles. I started running again Friday and I was in a great mood all day. It was funny, at my weekly one-on-one with my supervisor he said, "Today is one of those days I don't want to be here, and you know why? I haven't been exercising." I was totally the opposite, my first time running in 11 days and I was in a great mood. Exercising makes a difference.

I finished reading Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson. Steve was crazy. I'll elaborate on that in the coming weeks.

Friday night my department went bowling and I convinced a few of my coworkers and friends to try the Voodoo Pizza with me. It has the ghost pepper, the hottest in the world. You can't tell me something is the "...est" in the world and not expect me to go for it. I only ate four bites. My friend on the right of the picture ate his whole piece before I even got to my second bite. Many tears were shed...

The Voodoo Pizza Challenge

I'm the Expert?

As it happens in life, if you stick around for any length of time other people start giving you responsibility. It happened in Boy Scouts, it happened in high school clubs, it happened in college clubs, now it is happening in engineering. Suddenly I have more experience looking at stress contours and fracture mechanics for the assembly in question than anyone else. Suddenly, decisions I make have the ability to save money, risk failures, add weight, and reduce manufacturability. They may only be small things, but they are profitable professional things.

I really like being the one in the room that has the answer, but I know from experience that if I make enough decisions, I will eventually decide wrong. This time there is more at stake. They could fire me. Lest anyone get the idea I am guessing the answer is not typically only A or B. Do we need a bigger weld? Do we need thicker plates? Do we need a doubler? What shape doubler? Do we need to change the contour? Do we need to use a different material? Do we need to change the way several plates weld together? Typically the answer is a combination of those factors.

I suppose life is the process of learning and then doing, which I am. The curious part is the progression is nonlinear, yet my brain plans things very linearly. I also understand linear things better than nonlinear things. I am still coming to grips with the reasons that I spent 57 weeks after my masters degree unemployed or working for minimum wage. Of the over 400 jobs that I applied for and eight or so interviews I had John Deere and RFA spent the least time interviewing me yet offered me the best opportunity.

While I do feel useful at work and as though I have something unique to contribute, being unemployed helped me realize that I am replaceable. You can not replace the whole package that is me, but there are plenty of other engineers who can do work just as well or better. The fear keeps me hungry.

I Live in Iowa: Week 33

In the interest of tantalizing you for a few more hours you will have to wait another day to read about my recent marathon.

In working news I worked almost 35 hours in four days. I spent much of that time with a bracket for the exhaust on one of our upcoming final tier four machines. For those not in the engine industry there are new emissions requirements coming out in a few years that further reduce the allowable emissions of petrol engines. Basically, greatly over simplified, this means that the muffler is far more extensive and there will be a Diesel Exhaust Fluid (DEF) tank that will need to be filled regularly. In other words, the new emissions requirements contribute to the stimulus of my bank account.

One thing that frustrates me that happened for the first time in high school is when people tell me that I would so strong professionally if I put as much effort into my career as I did into running. That is totally not true. Ten hours a week of engineering would not lead to dramatic progression. I think what they mean is if I spent all of the time I spend running on my career as well as the time I already spend on my career I would enjoy greater success. Okay, miscommunication rant of the day done.

I don't know how much I ran but it was like 45 miles and one terrible 5k tempo. I had one lower leg pain after another. Finally on Friday in California I had a good 40 minutes that was as good as I have felt in more than three weeks. Saturday was just as good. Perhaps there is something in the air in California...

While in California I stayed with family friends from early in my parents marriage and early in my life. Interestingly enough they have a dozen different fruit trees in their backyard and he works at the California EPA. Dare I say, it was stereotypical. The weather out there was great in the 50s and 60s. They were just getting around to raking leaves and some were still mowing lawns.

In the coaching world the distance runners further dwindled. The two of us distance coaches had only three runners one day. Coaching at the college level seems to involve recruitment... Great teams don't just happen they are recruited and developed.

It was a good week.

Applying Education

I realized something yesterday, I have had more short term (daily and weekly) consistency for longer in my life since moving to Iowa than I perhaps have ever had. My reasoning is that in school there were semester breaks and class changes and long summers. Considering that, I have been doing somewhat the same thing for eight months.

It is strange because I still feel like it is new and I have not yet arrived at the end of the semester yet there is no clearly defined next semester although some may argue retirement. This is now the application of what I learned through years of school. Lest my discussion be misunderstood as complaining, I suppose I never really explored the concept of acquiring a position of optional complacency.

People often talk about the corporate "ladder" but I feel a pyramid is really more descriptive of the advancement process. The ladder illustration implies that everyone climbs equally in single file which is clearly not the case. Instead many people remain well below the top of the pyramid. Our education system is in fact designed to accommodate this. There is no bachelors of Chairman of the board. I am not saying that anyone's aspirations are misguided. I am suggesting that the dynamic nature of our education system does not adequately prepare entry level employees for the consistent nature of big businesses. The only suggestion I can think of is a multi-semester class such as "Math and Physics for Engineers" which would last for two or three years, at the same time of the day and week with the same instructor for the entire class. (Sure, they can still have four month summer breaks, but that is a different topic.) I think injecting some long term consistency into the lives of young people, who might be missing that consistency at home would help develop better professional manners, long term relationships, and perhaps even some accountability.

In other words, I do not expect to be in the same position in 30 years because I have never had that kind of consistency. However, that is a possibility that would still be considered a huge success in my view. Many people do not use their degree within their career and in that respect I am more fortunate than most. This journey is continually interesting!

I Live in Iowa: Week 32

I am so fortunate! On the whole 2011 has been a phenomenal year for me. I have expanded my capabilities and accomplishments in just about every area that I work on, with the exception being climbing. I'm doing it, life that is. I'm engineering and saving the company money by making things lighter and I am making things stronger by identifying weak areas. On Tuesday this week I realized at the end of the day that I ran about six different FEA iterations trying to improve this one area. I realized that in the past running six different concepts would be impossible. The resources to build a machine, gage it, test it, and evaluate the data takes at least weeks and often months. Additionally it costs a lot of money. I was able to do six iterations in one day. That's not even impressive, it's just that I happened to count instead of trying a dozen or more iterations as I have in the past.

I "worked" 44 hours this week including two hours on Sunday and 16 hours on Thursday and Friday of paid holiday. I have been wanting to come in on the weekend for a while but with marathon training and cross country meets I have been otherwise occupied. I again worked on the Disk Saw Felling Head all week. It is such an interesting piece of equipment. The thing that it reminds me of the most is thrust vectoring on jets. Although, it's probably more like landing gear. Regardless, it's a complex dynamic system.

I ran a measly 53 miles including a terrible 6k tempo. The worst I have had in at least eight months. I think there is a plethora of things that have happened to cause me a running setback. I had an amazing month of training in October. It was great. Then my grandma died. Then I had a few little lower leg pains. Put them together and I think you get some terrible running. I feel this is the way that I am being told to take it easy. My life goes in cycles. Things go well, I want more, then I crash, I recover and reevaluate my life, then I repeat the process again. I think that these setbacks will help me be more rested and ready for my marathon. Regardless of the outcome of the race I know that my trip to California will be good.

The UD kids had the week off of school so I did not coach. Do kids go to school at all any more? A week off here a month off there. I'll go be a teacher just for the four months off every year.

What else? Does the world repeat 80 year economic cycles? I am just struck by the similarities between the 1930s and now. On the one hand, we can not find finite element structural analysis engineers and there are help wanted signs all over Dubuque, but unemployment is still high. I don't know what is going to happen. It is certainly interesting.

http://spiraldates.com/?p=575

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_supercycle

http://steadfastfinances.com/blog/2010/08/16/spooky-similarities-between-1930-2010-stock-market/

I Live in Iowa: Week 31

Overall a good week. I mean, I find it very hard to complain about my overall situation when things are going so well for me.

I worked just over 43 hours for the week. Since I get paid by the hour and can build up hours working a few extra hours each week is something I like to do. Then I can take more vacation, and get a quarterly bonus (if I work enough hours). I spent the whole week working on a new Disk Saw Felling Head. I won't say which one, because it is one we do not sell yet. I have to say I enjoy working on the DSFHs because the load cases are more diverse than most things that we have. For example, an airplane wing only gets loaded in a few different manners but the DSFHs get abused every which way. So it is interesting. Plus, they are a very visible part of the machine. I can take 180 lbs. out of a boom and three people notice, but I make a DSFH last a few thousand hours longer and half a dozen managers notice. Thus there is a little bit more pressure to get it right.

My running was in the tube most of the week. The special block I had scheduled for Sunday turned into a failure with only two miles at about 92% of marathon pace instead of 2x8 miles at marathon pace. I totaled only 59 mile for the week. My lowest mileage since the second week in July. Thus far in November, the month leading into my marathon I have had one good workout (the seven mile tempo a few weeks ago). I have been having left lower leg troubles, tight/knotted calves, plantar fasciitis, shin pain, etc... However, I ran a seven mile cross country race Saturday. The Living History Farms race is a true cross country race. A dozen stream crossings with some over two feet deep, hills so steep they had knotted ropes to pull yourself up, gravel roads with tennis ball size gravel, and brutal single track trails.

Proof I was there.

My name will not show up in the results because my friend broke his ankle two weeks ago and they would not let him transfer the number to me, so I just ran under his name. The picture above has me in it, not the guy in red of course but the guy in the black singlet coming out of the stream below him. I think this was the stream crossing that was two or three feet deep. Coming out of it I tried to stretch out my legs, but after taking a five second ice bath they did not want to stretch...

It was a great race, plus I enjoyed spending seven hours with my supervisor and his wife, the conversation was great. I don't have very many engineering/entrepreneur/economy/current events discussions in my daily life. The LHF race was the most technically difficult race I have ever done. Now I just have to figure out how to do something like that in Dubuque. Over 7500 people ran the Living History Farms race because it is different than your typical road race. Dubuque has a whole bunch of land that could have a race like this, in fact we have bigger hills and streams than central Iowa so it would be even harder. Although, I think that shorter than 7 miles would be better. Perhaps a 7k or a 4.7 mile run or 1.8 leagues. Some very non-standard distance that would take most people less than an hour but almost everyone more than half an hour.

Coaching this week I spent some time with the sprinters and throwers and trying to talk our resident can't-take-time-off runner into taking time off and doing yoga. One of the perks of coaching is getting all the new team clothing. I mean we have some really good clothing and since I typically don't buy much new clothing I tend to appreciate new stuff. We have a hoodie that is especially nice.

In economic news, do not expect any big improvement (media coverage) for the next month, but expect things to increase dramatically in the first couple months of 2012. At least at my company we are anticipating a new round of hiring in the next calendar and fiscal year. The actual economy in the US has been getting better all year but the stock market and big banks continue to yo-yo so there is a lot of hesitation in companies and consumers about increasing expenses. However, both companies and people have begun saving very seriously and we are likely approaching a tipping point where all of that money will burn a hole in some people's pockets and expenditures will go up. For example, John Deere is having trouble finding people to do finite element structural analysis. If we (with all of our big company benefits) are having trouble everyone else probably is too. So if these companies want to continue to get work done and fight for qualified employees, salaries will go up. This happens when people at the top who know about the extra cash will decide that getting the work done in a timely manner is important and they will increase the salaries they offer to new employees. I am not sure if that applies to retaining current employees, but I hear Siemens is hiring finite element structural analysis engineers in Boulder to do analysis on composite wind turbine blades...

I Live in Iowa: Week 28

Another nice week living the dream, or something like it. What to say...

I spent most of the week meshing plate steel assemblies because most of India was on vacation for Diwali so I had to (or rather I chose to save John Deere the time) do my own grunt work. The designs that I am working with are getting better and better with every iteration that I run. I learned this past week that because of my optimization on on particular assembly (a boom) I am saving John Deere over $200 per machine. Plus, I am saving them 85kg in that optimized boom on the working end of the machine so they will be able to pick up a tree 200lbs heavier now.

It is exciting because there is relatively little recognition in the work that I do. Having even one person (the design engineer in this case) recognize the huge amount of weight and money that we took out of the boom goes a long way toward keeping me motivated. Now if only I would get a bonus or a pay raise because I just saved my company over $1000 per week, on just one of my shorter easier projects...

I ran 82 miles with two tempos on the track. I have been putting in a strong week followed by an easier one, and this was an easier one. I had a workout the Saturday before and the Sunday after so it was sandwiched between two hard workouts. I continue to progress really well, it just takes time, and rest, which honestly, I am going to run so well once I taper.

Coaching was a good week. Nine out of the eleven starters that we had on Saturday at the IIAC meet set personal records. That kind of success is almost unheard of. That being said, our team started with almost nothing, so compared to other teams, we have a long way to go. We also had one runner DNF. It was or is a situation very similar to Jenny Simpson (formerly Barringer) at the 2009 NCAA XC national meet.

That presented an interesting experience because it is similar to the experience I had just before I left Colorado in March 2010. When a top runner DNFs there are so many questions and trying to figure out what is wrong, having gone through a similar experience I feel I was able to do more work to get her mind on the right track in the seven minutes it took us to walk back to the team than I would have in a month or more had the 2009 and younger Isaiah been doing the talking. I feel like the de-facto UD runner sports psychologist now.

Growing up, or whatever it is called as you age, is continually interesting. It is amazing how the things that plagued me when I was even a few years younger are the same things that a bothering kids now, and the solutions I used work for them as well.

I Live in Iowa: Week 27

I worked 42 hours including spending three hours on the phone and instant messaging my coworkers in India on Friday. I had one of those great moments where I said something, and I was right. It is still unusual for this to happen to me, so I'm going to toot my own horn. My coworker in India desired to do some finite element analysis, even though it was not his job. He was using ANSYS, which I used at Kohler and have not used in six months. Yet I spent enough time with the software I was able to give him enough advice and suggestions that after 20 minutes of trouble shooting, the model solved on the first try. This is important because I feel that he put in several hours working with the software prior to asking for my advice. In other words, I was teaching, and I taught well enough to get a model to solve. There were a number of differences between his model and mine, but there was still information to be learned from his simulation. Simply developing autonomy...

I managed to run 100 miles including my personal record half marathon and my second best long run. The half marathon was run in Des Moines. I ran a 1:11:48 for 17th place out of about 4000 people. I was pretty even paced for the whole race with a few faster miles and some slower ones but an average of 5:29 and many miles within a few seconds of that. Since I have obviously been training to run 5:18 pace for a full marathon I feel nowhere close to the goal, even though a 1:11 half marathon is my best race ever according to purdy points and vo2max charts. So there is a mental low associated with running half of a 2:23 marathon when I am training for 2:18:58. I know I am a long shot, but I was hoping to be a little faster. I know, I'm so demanding.  I finished the week off with a 20 miler run in 1:59:26. It was the first training run that I decided with about 12 miles left that I wanted to run 20 faster than 6 minutes per mile pace. The best part is that the first mile was in 6:50 so I spent the next 14 miles trying to get rid of those spare 50 seconds. Overall a very good week in running that was at the time, a little depressing.

Coaching continues to go well. I give some of the runners extra exercises to do for soreness, and it works! It is amazing for me because I know what works to help most of my recurring aliments but when the same things work for others, it is continually surprising.

Other than that, my grandparents came to town and we had an afternoon and two nice evenings with each other. I am always happy to hear the stories and advice they have to give. There is so much attained wisdom stored in our octogenarians and septuagenarians that we ignore. We are not smarter than those that came before us, more often than not it seems we just repeat the mistakes of the past. Getting into debt is good? Seriously? Who came up with that idea? History is littered with examples of societies that went into debt and struggled or failed to get out of it. So why did we go into debt once again? Wasn't the economy going well enough the last 30 years? The wisdom of our elders is valuable. I plan to listen and avoid the mistakes they lived through.

Confidence, Cockiness, and Arrogance

Talking running with some friends, the subject of a particularly arrogant runner came up. It has come up that my attitude can at times be elitist and arrogant on this blog as well. In the context of coaching or competing or training or even engineering and academics there is a certain confidence that is needed to complete the work necessary to rise to the next level.

For example, Saturday the 22nd, I ran 20 miles in 1:59:26. It is the first time in training I have ever been a few miles out, in this case about 8 and decided that I wanted to do 20 in under two hours. There is quite a lot of confidence you need to decide to run 12 more miles in 70 minutes after doing 8 miles in 49 minutes.  Unfortunately, the confidence talking about doing 20 miles at 5:58 pace translates to a certain arrogance about my ability to run 20 miles. As millions of people run and will never run 20 miles in under two hours I have trouble relating completely to their point of view. They ask how to improve, and the simple fact is, they don't work hard enough.

I come from a family which encouraged a very hard work ethic. The amount of time that I have put into my education and engineering (and continue to put into engineering at an average of 42 hours per week) have given me experience regarding certain situations that I speak about with a very opinionated view. You can not have square inside corners on an object that will be in tension or compression and must have any sort of fatigue life. That is just the way it is.

It is strange for me as well because I know that I say things on the blog in a way that I am uncomfortable saying them in person. It is hard to be that direct. It is also hard for me to confront others on events that I perceive as opportunities for their improvement. However, as I coach I am getting better at providing suggestions. Another professional way that I am improving is by helping to teach and work with my colleagues in India. I spent close to three hours Friday on the phone and our instant message communicator discussing modeling techniques.

I suppose my view is that sometimes X is the truth. If my presentation of X comes off as ignorant and arrogant then the problem is with my presentation of X. Within the United States I feel there is sometimes a refusal to stand up for our beliefs. If standing up for my beliefs is arrogant, I feel that is a better solution than not standing up for my beliefs. Although, translating words on paper to a real time conversation is typically difficult. So you can expect me to be a shy as ever in public, and as arrogant as ever on the blog. It's strange, I know, but it is easier than shouting from the street corners. Plus, when I decide that I said something crazy on the blog I can go back and edit it. It is kind of cheating, but every other web based news and information service can do the same.

I Live in Iowa: Week 26

If you look at this week by itself, it looks like a wash, but if you look at the week before, or the day after, or the impact that I am having on the UD kids, or the work I am doing at John Deere, this all fits into the picture rather well. It is all progression.

I worked 39 hours. I took part of Friday off to go to LaCrosse for the Tim Jerews cross country meet. That is beside the point. Right now at work the new forestry machines are near the beginning of their promotion to virtual build, which is the process of making sure that everything can be built and work. After this we begin physical build, which involves building several dozen prototype machines. The point is, it is a time when a lot of work is to be completed and the volume or pace of finite element model simulations that I am producing is the best that I ever have.

My running involved a small 64 miles and one workout. The workout was a 10k progression run that I ended after 6k because I was struggling. But a minute later I felt good so I finished it with 2x2k after a few minutes of rest. It was a good workout. Basically as awesome as my week was last week I really really suffered from it this week. I mean I was extremely tired and had very heavy legs. Plus, Tuesday night I remember being half awake clenching my feet and pulling my feet into the bed, effectively stretching my shins, and cramping up the bottom of my feet (plantar fascia) and calves. I woke up Wednesday with plantar fasciitis in my left foot. I was so tired besides that that I took the day off. Anyway, I fixed the plantar fasciitis, and I should write an article and make a video because that injury is kind of my specialty. I'm getting so I can fix it in a week.

Friday and Saturday the UD team traveled to LaCrosse, Wisconsin for a cross country meet. It was our first overnight team trip. The team did well with several personal records despite two very hard weeks of training the last two weeks. Some of the runners also had really good aggressive learning experience style races. Sometimes you need to go out over your head so see what it's like. You also learn what it feels like to hit the wall and what it feels like at the beginning of the race when you hit the wall. When you watch the very best  they generally feel the pace and know at the beginning of the race if the pace will be manageable. They have gone out too fast, and just right, in the past and they know what it feels like.

I have such a great life mixture right now.  A great job, great running situation, a great second job, some cool friends. Life is good.

I Live in Iowa: Week 25

This was an amazing week for me, partly professionally and incredibly in terms of running. I worked 41 hours which was lower than normal because ran so much. Technically I didn't get as much worked finished as I would have liked but I worked on several different projects and progressed on all of them, so it could be worse. Then I learned on Friday that I might have an opportunity for a promotion. There is a decent chance that I do not get it, but the fact I am being officially considered is a significant recognition for me, in my eyes. It's like the Olympic trials, if you are there you have the chance to be an Olympian. So often just being in the game in the running is a success in my mind.

My running week was my best one yet! I ran 140 miles including my two best long runs, and three fartlek/hill workouts, and a set of strides. It was rewarding. Since I have never run 140 miles in one week I feel a little obligated to describe it run by run. Alas, I am tired so it may be a few days. I will tease you will with my Sunday: a 23.5 mile long run with the first six in 41:45, next six miles in 37 all of that with G the other University of Dubuque assistant cross country coach, and last 11 in 1:03 with a 5:21 and 5:29 mile in there in the middle. For me to average 6:11 per mile over 23.5 miles is good, to put down 5:30s and 5:40 in there near the end when I am tired is even better! That evening I went over to G's apartment (and C and S's appartment) and we did another seven miles around seven minute mile pace. That made it my first 30+ mile day of serious training and it was all run semifast. The beast part is I still have six hard weeks of training left!

My sister came to visit on Friday and Saturday and that was the extent of my socializing this week. If you want to work 40+ hours a week and run nearly 17 hours a week the only other thing you end up doing is eating and sleeping.

This World Keeps Changing

This was an interesting week. On October 5th Steve Jobs died. I know he had survived pancreatic cancer and a liver transplant, but it just seemed like he wouldn't die, at least anytime soon. People are beginning to wonder about the possible demise of Apple. I think that they put so much work into defining what made Jobs so distinctive that for the next several years, probably the next decade, they have nothing to worry about. Secondly, I can't help but think of the movie Tron or Batman how the son inherits the company. Who knows what the future will hold?

The iPhone 4S came out. It's cool because it has HSPA+ (3x faster data speeds), a better processor (up to 7X faster graphics), an amazing camera, up to 64GB of storage, and to top it all off it has this new thing called Siri which people don't really know what to do with yet.

Unemployment is still high, yet we can not find engineers! There are three open positions in our group for finite element structural analysis engineers for people with 1+ year experience and a salary of $70K+ that have been on the website for a month yet only 12 people have applied, and one is me and one is my coworker who sits behind me and we are just looking for a promotion.

Secondly, I hear about the booming oil and gas fracking industry throughout the midwest and tales of 2% unemployment where someone can find a job they day they arrive in town. Do you really want a job? Go to North Dakota.

On the European economic front they are having problems. We spent so much money, for so long that now it is time to pay it back. Let me tell you from experience it is fun getting into debt, but paying your way out of it is not easy. I am making more money now than I ever have but my standard of living is barely higher than it was in college. I sleep on an air mattress! (It is a double tall queen size.)

This is such an interesting time to be alive! I will be able to say that I watched the world go from no cell phones or Internet to ubiquitous cell phones with the Internet. We went from some of the greatest peace and prosperity to a 10 year old war and a long running recession and very slow recovery.

By the way, stocks on Wall Street have been up and down huge percentages recently (10% per day in some cases) and the more volatile stocks are in general the more money those in the market stand to make. If for no other reason that people are buying and selling and Fidelity, among others, is making a commission on each transaction. In other words, billionaires get richer and unemployed people in their 40s and 50s still can't find jobs.

The Great Recession is Not Going to Relapse... Yet

We are in the process of a paradigm shift, debt is not good, it is enabling, in the same way that a fake ID enables young kids to drink alcohol. We worry about Greece defaulting and low consumer confidence, but let us look at some factual things.

Since I have an amazing career at John Deere let me tell you about business. We can not find finite element structural analysis engineers. If you are looking send me an email. If the economy is so terrible why is it impossible to find anyone with FEA experience? Second we are hiring for our new Chinese construction and forestry operation and it is even harder to find FEA experience in China. India on the other hand is swimming in FEA experience. John Deere recently announced the new construction factories in Brasil worth something like $124 million. Third, we are having great orders for much of our equipment. Why the stock is down at 61 from 95+ a few months ago I don't know. (disclosure: I don't own any John Deere stock, but I plan to buy some within the next two years, perhaps as soon as this week although I don't have enough money to buy many shares at all right now.)

Things are not going to return to the way they were, at least I hope not. "Sustainable Growth" is 0.0% anything greater results in consuming the world eventually. We can not spend 101% of our income as a nation and expect to sustain that. Oh wait, that already collapsed. What necessitates a growing economy anyway? Why is a recession defined as two negative quarters instead of two quarters with growth of -3% or worse? What good can we do sweating the small stuff?

My advice, graduate with an engineering degree asap (and some FEA experience). If you are older, uneducated at the college level, or have a degree which only cuts you out for grad school, I have no advice. I suppose what you can do for yourself is come up with a value proposition for your career. What is my value proposition? Good question. Something like: capable of using his manufacturing experience from three companies and creativity from two patents pending along with an MS in materials science and BS in aerospace to create structures that are stronger, lighter, and thus more energy efficient than current products. Sounds good huh? All of that only took a minutes to come up with as well. If you can't come up with a reason to be hired instead of someone else you will have a more difficult time finding a job.

Finally, the iPhone 4S or 5 comes out today and orders will be huge! I realize that income distribution plays a part in Apple being so successful and that is part of the problem. I'm just saying that business and the economy is far better than a bunch of disconnect-with-business and disconnected-with-America media people and Wall Street people are saying. I probably listen to more NPR than them all as well.

I Live in Iowa: Week 24

What a nice week! Like I've said, I have a great life. I worked 43 hours, mostly due to 9.5 on Friday. Work is going well. I am working on a project for one of the new forestry machines and due to the finite element analysis that I did, they will probably save 90kg (200 pounds)! This is important because this is a moving assembly on the working end of a machine. Which means that one pound from this assembly is worth perhaps five pounds from a less critical part of the assembly. It is an exciting prospect to be part of a team that is using the full range of tools available to us to make a product that will better fulfill the customer needs than what we currently make. Our current models are industry leaders by the way.

I ran 87 miles, after six consecutive weeks at 100 or more I needed some down time. I was tired. I did wrap up the month of September with 447 miles, one of my better months. I had three workouts this week. Monday I tried to solo a sub 16 5k on the indoor track at the University of Dubuque, but I was hitting 77s and a 78 and 79 so I stepped off after 2400 in 7:47, three seconds slow. Then I did some 800s and 400s and a hard hard 200 to get 5k of work in 15:53, which is okay. It's not what I wanted, but it's better than just 2400 of work. Thursday I did 10x2 minutes hard, 1 minute easy for a total of 29 minutes. I ran that with M my marathon training partner on Thursday afternoon at the Dubuque City high school meet. The former coach at Loras College (M's alma mater) is now the coach at Dubuque Senior High thus the connection. Plus I know a sophomore that runs for "Senior", as they call it around here. Then Friday, feeling good enough for another workout I did a seven mile progression on the heritage trail with the last three miles at 5:38, 5:25, and 5:19. So three workouts this week. That's a nice number and it is what I needed.

Coaching at UD is going really well. We had a hard workout Monday and a moderate workout Thursday. Saturday, nearly every runner on the team set a personal record. Plus, we are not even peaking yet. I am sure that we are going to have more breakthroughs the last three meets of the season over the next six weeks.

That was about my life.

Non-Linear

Non-linear is a good description for many things. This topic is a can of worms so I apologize if this does not flow linearly. (ha!) Okay, first the running stuff. Renato Canova posted the July and August training of some runners who ran at the world championships including Abel Kirui who won the marathon.

http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=4213844&page=1

The point is I have been on a linear (nearly identical weeks) running schedule most of my life, but it is not the best for development. In fact, many of my best workouts leading into the marathon were out of my ordinary routine (30 miles on Good Friday). Furthermore, many of the best marathoners of the 70s thrived off of one major workout/long run per week and smaller workouts during the week. In other words, a week between hard workouts. Say it takes five days for a body to recover over the course of seven weeks implies ten workouts versus the 70s era seven workouts. I won't even address the 90s era three workouts a week because it complicates thing. But since you are curious, the idea was more workouts would be better, but without enough days to over compensate and respond to the workouts the workouts will not be as effective. In other words, after hard workout X in three days you can run 12 miles at marathon pace but if you wait five days you can run 16 miles at marathon pace, even though you feel the same on the warmup or five miles into the workout.

Changing subjects, life seems to happen in leaps and bounds and plateaus instead of a little progression every minute. After 400 job applications why did I get hired here in Dubuque after only a one hour interview?

In the material deformation world non-linear is where it gets interesting. I had the chance a few months ago to do a finite element simulation using viscoelastic material properties and it was exciting. Plastic deforms permanently even at very small strain levels where as a piece of metal or ceramic will elastically rebound to it's former shape after small strains. When there is any plastic deformation all sorts of crazy things happen. Vacancies dislocate, interstitial atoms resist vacancy dislocations, crystals deform and work harden, and there is some heat released typically. Hundreds of Ph.D.s are granted based on non-linear material properties. All metal forming (machining, casting, and extruding) and joining (welding) involves non-linear material properties.

There you have it, non-linear, it's not a line.

I Live in Iowa: Week 19

Another good week. I worked 42 hours this week. Part of that was a half day field trip to a logging operation that is using one of our skidders. It is nice to get out into the field and see the stuff actually be used. We can see how they use these things and the short comings they have.I like learning the details about our machines that are not as good as our competition or as good as a previous edition. It gives us something clear to improve.

I ran 101 miles this week including a 22 mile long run and a couple of workouts one with a 4:49 mile. That is the fastest mile I have ever run in a workout and it's a nice step in the right direction. I did end up chasing mileage on Saturday afternoon and doing 14 miles instead of 10 miles so that I would get over 100. It sounds ridiculous but in a month or two when I look back at this stretch of training that 100 mile week will give me more confidence about my training.

I spent a number of afternoons coaching the UD team. It is very exciting to be working with these  people. They are excited to be there and there is so much to teach them. I think that without a doubt every athlete on our cross country team is going to have a great season. Most if not all will probably have significant personal records.

I even spent some time socializing with non-runners and non-coworkers. I kind of did everything this week, except go climbing. I haven't climbed in months and my finger tips are weak. For now that is okay, but I do miss climbing.

Something that kind of set in this week, is that I'm really just paying off my loans. Money comes in and money goes out and I'm still sleeping on an air mattress and driving my Toyota Previa with 273,280 miles. It is something to enjoy (getting out of debt), but I feel like I'm getting nowhere. Maybe I need to get some new clothes... I basically wear the same four pairs of pants to work.