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Ok, so it’s a bit of a random thought, but today, as I looked at a can of peas the though occured to me that “Le Sueur” sounds a lot like “The Sewer.” While “le sueur” really means “sweet” I do find the similarity striking. Not that I have anything against peas, in fact, I’m all for “whirled peas” (think about that one for a bit). So, the next time you have some peas, think lovely thoughts about your local sewer system.

Yeh, so it was a lousy day at work. I thought I’d be out of there by lunch time – I ended up leaving at 5:15 only to spend 45 minutes navigating the frenzied thoroughfare of I40. The trip usually takes 20. To make matters worse I had goofed up on two boards. For those of you that don’t know, I work at a small engineering company out in Durham NC called Foard Systems Design. Right now I’m doing the soldering for their prototype boards. {{popup IMGP2131.JPG IMGP2131 640×480}}Here is a picture of what I solder – those are chips. The resistors and capacitors are smaller. That really fine pitch chip to the right makes for hard soldering. I was doing a number of bigger chips with that fine of pitch (closeness of the little metal pins) today and had a terrible time of them. Then, to make matters worse I put three wrong chips on the boards. Big chips. Like 80+ pin chips. They had the same part number as the other one, but I should have asked first. Ahrg.

Anyway, I’ve decided that after my vending machine business is up and running I’m going to start a fast food resturant. I’m going to call it “Ten-Der-Beef.” Our mascot will be a chicken that holds signs that say “Bef. Its wuts for dinur.” I figure I should capitalize on the marketing strategies (and monies) of others. We’ll serve steak on a bun and other tasty tidbits of cows flesh. I think it will be a grand success.

For those of you that care, the CWIS 2003 pictures can now be found online at http://gallamine.is-a-geek.com/pictures/CWIS2003/. These are reduced images. If you want the full size, 1600 x 1200 images, just e-mail me or something.

Last night I had a weird dream. Actually, I’d probably call it more of a nightmare. It involved me and a sword. The fact that I was very tired after 8 days of working at a camp, and that I had taken a very big sword to that camp probably had some effect on the dream. I was sliceing up rats … yeh … funtimes. The only problem was that, as you well know, in dreams things tend to change very rapidly. In this particular instance the soon-to-be-dismembered-rat turned into an infant which was consequently sliced in half by me. At that point I woke up in horror and found it very hard to fall back asleep for a long while. I don’t think it would have chilled me near as much, had it not been for the immediate thought upon waking up, of, “that’s just like abortion.” Last Friday, Ben Carr, in his speech for the mock legislature quoted some document citing uterine damage after an abortion from, “small bones left inside.” It just made we want to puke. Seriously.

If there was a business in your town where a mother could take her child, up to 9 years of age, and leave them there to be butchered, what would you do about it? I’m been pondering that. Is an abortion clinic any different? I’ve been struggling with the thought of civil disobedience. Honestly, I think if I had a pair of handcuffs I’d be ready and willing to go lock myself to a clinic door. But, that action would then lock you out of any government job. But, is the right thing to do always the easiest?

Then again, if you take the thought too far, you can all-too-easily end up with a mindset that prompts you to shoot an abortionist. There’s a definite line in there somewhere. Finding that line is the hard part.
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Three times this past week I’ve heard someone quote Eric Liddell saying, “When I run I feel God’s pleasure.” Three different folks in different situations, but each time it was a little spark of hope that, yes, I can pursue robotics and please my Savior. Liddell was a great man of God, who, for a while, ran as his ministry. How far is that from something ’spiritual.’ I hear his own family even tried to get him to do something else. I feel the same way sometimes. Not necessarily from my family, but from others, especially Christians that seem a bit to ’spiritual’ for their own good. Sometimes I just feel like folks don’t understand how robotics could possibly be God’s will for my life. Or maybe it’s really just my mind struggling with the same thoughts. But, honestly, it’s all I’ve got to go on at the moment. Someone asked my about my plans recently and I started talking. My enthusiasm for the subject shocked even myself. I’m excited about robotics and where it can go. And it’s honestly an excitement I don’t have for much else.

So, maybe hearing that quote of Liddell three times wasn’t a coincidence at all.