middle life

Almost There

2010-04-24T15:19:00.002-04:00

Just one more week left!

Hard to believe that by this time next Saturday I'll be finished with my degree and back out in the real world again. Very mixed emotions though. I've had such a fantastic time and made some really great friends. But I'm ready to be done with assignments, exams, grades and the non-stop thinking. Also miss being able to unwind at the end of the day, and work on things around the house without feeling guilty that I'm blowing off school stuff.

A couple of weeks to wrap up at Special Collections after the 1st, then 12 weeks at The Henry Ford, which should be great. Could not pass on chance to work at THF though. Kinda' like Charlie and Chocolate Factory. Finally close out the student life with a week in DC for SAA and a bit of a reunion with family and friends. So, I'm easing back into the work world rather than going in at the deep end.

- Brian

ASB Day 5

2009-02-25T21:52:00.010-05:00

Actually got a full 8 hour day of productive work today. Turned a revised draft of the guide over to my supervisor at the end of the day, so I'll find out in the morning if I'm as close to being finished as I think I am.

Both my supervisor, Deena, and the Library Director, Amanda, are Ohio State grads, so in their honor I'm planning on wearing my Michigan wear tomorrow. We have a SI Alumni sponsored mixer after work, so the M stuff will do double duty.

Our meeting at NARA is a go, with several folks from the NTL going along, so it'll be Library Day at College Park on Friday. Should be a good way to wrap up the week.

Managed to do a five-miler after work, making the full lap of the Mall. Should be able to get at least one more in on Friday and maybe Saturday morning before we leave town.

I realized before I started writing this that I hadn't taken any photos today. So, I've taken a couple tonight that illustrate the charm of the Harrington. The photo on the left shows how the bathroom door just clears the toilet, and actually has sort of a notch in the edge for clearance. Photo on the right shows same door hitting the seat. Nice.

Time to do some reading, and then catch a little Daily Show. Promise to be better with the pictures tomorrow.

- Brian

ASB Day 3 and 4

2009-02-24T22:56:00.004-05:00

Missed posting yesterday (Monday). Got in kinda late after attending an after work mixer put on by our sponsors, and then being treated to dinner by one very generous sponsor. Thanks again Rob, Sean and Doug.

Spent a good part of the last two days getting situated at DOT. Meredith and I have been provided with an office, computers, a phone and ID badges. Quite a bit of effort on the part of DOT, DOT Library, and RITA NTL to support us for just one week. It is all very much appreciated.

My project to assemble an access guide for DOT inactive and archived records is coming together reasonably well. I met the RITA Records Manager today and expect to have a meeting with her Wednesday or Thursday. Deena, my supervisor, has scheduled a meeting with the person at NARA in College Park responsible for DOT records. Besides helping to answer questions specific to my project, we will apparently also get a tour the the NARA facilities. Bonus.

Today's get together was a lunch in Chinatown with our fellow students interning at NPR and at Georgetown Law Library, along with their supervisors and sponsors. BTW, NPR has some of the coolest business cards I have ever seen.

Rather bad picture of
the Chinatown Gate.

Went running on the mall after work with Lori Donovan, who has a great story about meeting Sean Connery at the Library of Congress. She may never wash her face again!

Always a welcome sign to return to your hotel
after dinner and find a fire truck and ambulance
outside.

Finished off the evening by watching Obama address Congress, and then listening to about 45min. of "Black Helicopter" traffic flying over and around our hotel after the speech ended. I guess the hotel is centrally located.

That's it for tonight. Need to get some sleep.

- Brian

ASB Day 2

2009-02-22T20:25:00.013-05:00

Today (Sunday) was pretty relaxed. Checked out of one hotel and into the Harrington, my accommodations for the rest of the week. Took a walk and Metro ride over to DOT so I know where I'm going tomorrow.

There was supposed to be a group run at 4pm, but nobody showed. So, I went on my own monument run. About 90min, and a little over 6.5mi. Of course it wouldn't be a monument run if I didn't show you all the monuments. And no, I don't know what's up with the stupid expressions on my face.

Barack's House from the Ellipse.

World War II Memorial.

Reflecting Pool
(Got my only "Go Blue" here)
Wow, really stupid expression.

Honest Abe
(77 steps from bottom to top)

Jefferson Memorial, Take 1

Jefferson Memorial, Take 2

Washington Monument, from the Jefferson Monument

Washington Monument

The Capital

It wouldn't be an SI run without the National Archives.
(Got my only "Go Bucks" of the run right after this.)

The finish line, Hotel Harrington.

- Brian

SI ASB '09 - Off to DC

2009-02-22T10:31:00.007-05:00

We left for DC on Saturday morning. Took about 10hrs to make the drive. Went through some really bad snow between Ann Arbor and Toledo. First 20miles of the Ohio Turnpike was pretty bad as well. Eventually, skies cleared and ended as a nice, sunny day.

Coffee? Check.

Not bad. You can actually see the car ahead.

Jasper catching some zzzz.

Ahh! Sunny skies.

A little refreshment after a good days work.

Stay tuned.

-Brian

More DC Web Cams

2009-01-18T09:25:00.003-05:00

A few more DC webcams that were actually providing live feeds as of this morning:

Earthcam Capital Cam: Appears to be located on the side of the Capital Building opposite the Mall.

TrafficLand DC Traffic Cams: Links to multiple DC traffic cams located throughout the Mall and Capital area. The data for the TrafficLand page comes from the District of Columbia Department of Transportation, which has the same camera feeds located here.

- Brian

Inauguration Web Cam

2009-01-18T09:16:00.002-05:00

This camera is located at The Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian on The Mall very near the Capital (mmm, obviously).

- Brian

Grad School? What the #$@&?!

2009-01-12T23:17:00.012-05:00

In my post back in June I noted that I had applied to grad school at the University of Michigan, and it's WAY past time to give an update:

Turns out I was accepted by the School of Information (SI for short) for Fall '08 admission, and I started classes back at the beginning of September.

Why change careers and why SI? Good questions! Been asking myself those at least twice a day for the last 6 months. As far as career change, this is something I've have thought about for maybe the last five years. I felt like I'd reached a plateau at work, and didn't want to stay on that same horizontal line for the next 20 years. Probably reaching the 20yr mark in my career, and reflecting back, caused me to consider if I wanted to do something different. Sort of the second phase of my mid-life crisis.

I started out by considering what other roles I could play at work. Then thought that I if I was really going to tear things up that I should consider if a completely new career would be attractive, which then led to going back to school for an advanced degree. Didn't really want to do another engineering degree. Thought about teaching K-12 for a little while. Then sat down and listed out what skills/interests I had from my current work, and started hunting around for a program that fit that. Since I'm not 18 any longer, I only looked at schools within commuting distance, and really focused on UofM for obvious reasons (alumni, legacy, location, reputation, etc.). After looking at several programs I hit on the School of Information.

So why SI? Several reasons, really.
- I want to use as much of the knowledge and skill I've acquired over the years, but in a non-engineering role.
- I think this degree will give me more flexibility in choice of employer, as well as location. As the auto industry and Michigan continue to decline this becomes more important.
- Although I'm still trying to resolve this, I have the opportunity to pursue a career that can be focused on the public interest rather than private industry.
- The school aims to have a diverse student body, and makes a point to include folks with backgrounds similar to mine.
- SI is right in my backyard. I can attend one of the finest schools in the country, and walk or ride my bike to class.

I chose to pursue the Archives & Records Management specialization as this seemed to align most closely with my what I could bring from my existing career. Plus, I've always had interests in history, genealogy, photography and some other areas that fall under the archives "umbrella".

So, that's a little of the how and why. Of course there's more. Anyone doing this is bound to be a a rolling psych experiment.

But now on to Fall '08!

- Brian

Shoe Update

2009-01-12T22:10:00.003-05:00

So, just a few days after putting on the new tires Ann Arbor got a 7" snow fall.

Yes, that is a Mazda 3 under there somewhere. City was on top of the street plowing this time, at least in our neighborhood, and I was easily able to get out and around. Car now handles reasonably well in 3-4 inches of snow and slush, with very little wheel-spin. Tires are somewhat noisy on the freeway, but I'm willing to trade that for the improved traction.

- Brian

New Shoes

2009-01-06T15:52:00.012-05:00

The Mazda got new shoes today. Two pair of Kuhmo Ecsta ASX all-season tires. Purchased through Tire Rack and installed by Ann Arbor Tire. Photo on the left is the old left front, the original Goodyear RS-A, with 37,800 miles on it. Basically, an F1 grooved dry tire. Photo on right is the new left front Kuhmo. Supposed to get some snow tonight and tomorrow, so they'll be put to the test right away. I could barely make it up Hill St. in the slush with the "race" tires.

Bye for now,

Brian

Weighty Matters

2008-10-05T20:06:00.005-04:00

Since late last summer I've been trying to reverse more than a few years of bodily neglect. This has involved working with a personal trainer on a once-per-week basis, cycling, running, walking and to some extent watching my diet.
As part of this I've tracked my weight on a nearly daily basis, weighing myself in the morning before eating breakfast. I've then been entering the info into a spreadsheet and generating pretty graphs. You can take the engineer out of engineering, but you can't take the engineering out of the engineer. Or something like that.Graph shows weekly average weight plotted for each of the last 64 weeks. Average weight for week 1 was 187.2 lbs. and for week 64 (just completed) is 169.1 lbs., for a loss of 18.1 lbs. Also threw a trendline on the data which indicates I'm losing about 0.25 lbs. per week. Max to min loss over the 64 weeks is a higher than the average, working out to 24.5 lbs.

- Brian

A Bit About Dad

2008-09-18T20:32:00.003-04:00

Before my Dad dedicated himself to model railroading and being a land baron, he was Professor of Composition at the University of Michigan School of Music. I found this page today that I thought was pretty cool and gives some insight into what GBW is all about: http://sitemaker.umich.edu/livingmusic/browse_interviews&mode=single&recordID=749321&nextMode=list

-Brian

Catching Up

2008-06-19T23:26:00.001-04:00

It seems I have some catching up to do. I went and started this blog back in November and haven't posted anything since. And so, some of things that have happened in the meantime in roughly chronological order:

- Traveled to China on business for 10 days in December. Spent most the the time in and around Chongqing visiting suppliers, but also traveled to Wenzhou, Ruxian and Shanghai. Very interesting and exciting.
- My Dad developed prostate cancer and broke the news to us on Super Bowl Sunday back in January. He has since completed a course of radiation treatment, which appears to have been successful based on recent test results.
- Continued working out on pretty much weekly basis with Amy at Coach Me Fit.
- My father-in-law passed away in late February
- Ran in my first road race since 1981. The Shamrocks & Shenanigans 5K in March . Did a 27:12.
- Spent a week in Boston with the kids. Walked the Freedom Trail, climbed to the top of the Bunker Hill Monument, and visited Harvard Yard.
- Applied for fall admission to grad school at the University of Michigan.

Of course there's been all the usual day-to-day stuff like work, getting kids back and forth to school/soccer/cello/etc, taking out the trash, shoveling snow, and mowing the lawn.

That's all for now.

Brian

Joining The Blogosphere

2007-11-26T19:31:00.000-05:00

Having read other blogs over the last couple of years I've decided to give it a try myself.

I'll make no guarantees with regard to the quantity, quality, usefulness, insightfulness, or any other -ity or -ness of the content.

Enjoy.