Who needs balls when you have caffine?

In an attempt to wake myself from the mundane work I've been assigned to do I started talk to my manager. I told him, Wednesday, that I was staying here in Iowa this weekend, "I'm not venturing back to Wisconsin this weekend" were my exact words.

So now I sit here in my cubicle, Friday morning, writing out my list of stuff to take up north with me. Jake and I need to finalize our frame design this weekend, so I can FEA it on Monday, and then Jake can take the .dxf to get made next weekend.

The fact that I have been gone almost every weekend, either up to River Falls to work on the tractor design, or to Madison, forces me to raise the question when have I sacrificed enough?


One of my first day's here at work one of my coworkers gave me some of the best advice I have ever received; don't worry about what other people do.

I find this to be good advice because it has helped me to keep my ethics in place. Other interns may show up an hour late wearing last nights t-shirt and jeans, take extended lunches, and leave early, but not me. I am here ten minutes early, respect the lunch hour, and dress professionally. We have a lax dress code, so I could easily wear jeans and a t-shirt everyday, but I take pride in the fact that most people do not realize that I am an intern, and no one ever believes I am as young as I am.

I do find though, those words are easier said then swallowed. With every group project this mantra of not worrying about others, and getting your own stuff done the best you can, seems to be outweighed by the feeling of inequality when you spend all your free time doing research and working while your 'teammates' are out drinking or spending time with their significant other.

And then you remember that your peers and you are not on the same page, and it is after all your professors who will be aiding you in really reaching your full potential, and it is their praise that is really being sought after, not that of some drunk frat boy. But that joy is sometimes even outweighs when you drive 6 hours every weekend because you have a teammate who lacks the ability to view the bigger picture, and you know you have to go because if not it will not get complete and then, even though it is not your responsibility entirely, you will look bad.

So you give up your free time and social life to drive.

On a douch bag scale, from one to ten, my coworker is the new ten.

Never could I have imagined someone like him existed. Our first few days of working together I simply brushed him off as a ‘one upper’, but as our time together grew painfully longer, I realized he is so much more then that.

The guys here at work joke with me about my ‘thick’ northern accent (I still say I don’t have an accent) and the various stereotypes of Wisconsin, which I happen to fill perfectly. Well this here db will go on for ever on how Iowa State University is so much superior then any education that anyone could possibly receive in Wisconsin. The day that he tied to lecture me on how I cannot compare ISU’s ¼ ASABE tractor design team with ours at UWRF because ISU is so much superior (even though we beat them in almost all of the design catagories, just not overall because we never pulled). This is the moment when he became more then just a one upper, he’s also a pompous asshole.

So how he is now maxing out the douch bag scale? He is sick, and he came to work sick, he has yet to take a day off. So now he has made his cubical mate sick, and therefore his cube mate's wife and kids sick. And me, he has made me sick. And what did he say when I told him everyone was gettign sick including me, he said that he is having alergies. One other guy at work has a weak immune system becuase he had Malaria at one point in time, so he has allergy problems year round. But Mr. Douch Bag is coughing, not sneezing at all, and has a cold

A meeting on meetings.

Yesterday I attended a very exciting workshop on how to facilitate effective meetings. The only thing I didn't like about the meeting was the fact that there were little trinkits on the table, which lead to dicking around when we should have been listening.

View from the stands at the Fall Challenge (Southern Iowa Speedway) Friday night.

View from the other side of the tracks, before all the people started pouring in. It rained Saturday night so the race was postponed untill Sunday. It stopped raining just after they called it.



View from the 'pits'. The guy who won the modified class is retiring this year, so his last year of racing he goes out in style atleast.



Where we were pitted.



The modified.



Skinny, Ed, and Dave by watching by turn 4 and the pits.

So I'm at Walmart today, purchasing crackers for work, and all of a sudden I see the most lazy invenetion ever. Prepainted pumpkins. Why? The fun of decorating for Halloween is in the pumpkin activities.

I am out of the office all week, I will get back to you next week.

The LONG trip back

On the way back to southern Iowa it started to rain, so suprise, and it rained for over half the state, which sucked. And of course, there were a bunch of yahoo's who don't know how to drive on the shoulder of the road, and not so much on the shoulder, more of half in the right hand lane, half on the shoulder, which isn't the best situation when you can barely see three car lengths in front of you. And these yahoo's travel in packs, so when one pulls off the road, they all do. It was pathetic.

But I snapped this picture when I was coming out of the storm. I thought it was pretty nifty, since you can literally see where the rain ends, and the sunny drive pavement part of Iowa begins.