Hmmm....

Know how when you're getting a shot at the doctors or at the dentist and they always tell you to think of a happy place? What do people think of? I think most everyone probably thinks of Disneyland. When you're grown up they let you watch the needle, so that's what I do now.

ARG!

I think the second most stressful part of being a parent of small kids is getting them ready to go out the door (the worst stresser is waking up screaming at 2 am and then not going back to sleep). The getting-ready-to-go-out-the-door process exponentially complicates itself in the cold winter due to coats and shoes even though you might only be going 20 feet from your doorstep to the car, to another doorstep.

Late last night I was getting the three kids ready to leave my mom's house after the Jazz game. Maggie is at the age where she can dress herself 50 to 75% of the way, but then needs help with one thing or another. She was putting her coat on and had one arm in, but was struggling with the other. She was bending her arm back funny like happens sometimes and so she was missing the sleeve. She asked me for help, and silly mean old me, instead of having her readjust her arm, I just forced it until it went in the sleeve hole, at which point a loud pop was heard. She screamed "OWWW!!!" but didn't cry and her shoulder didn't look dislocated and she still had full range of motion, so being the proud, reassuring parent, I just rubbed it and said, you'll be OK.

So then this morning she was watching me put a coat on one of the twins. After I was done she said, "Good job brudder! Daddy not breaka your arm. Daddy breaka my arm Grandma's house." I had to laugh. She is a good sport. I am glad kids are made of rubber and they don't break that easily. I am surprised that none of them have had to have stitches yet. By the time I was their cumulative age (~6.5 years) I had had stitches at least 3 times.

Here are some pictures of the twins the Sunday before Christmas. Things started out good with a standoff-ish high five and went downhill from there.

 

Will is really good at arching his back. I think he will make a fine wrestler.

Engineering Tip #1

Since this is a blog devoted to the art and science of engineering, I decided I should post an engineering tip.

Today's tip is about broken back slopes. I know that sounds risque and improprietous, but it is not what you think, it is a real engineering term. Click here to google broken back slopes. We will break down a broken back slope to understand its features and then calculate an equivalent slope.

Everyone repeat out loud today's objective with me: We will break down a broken back slope to understand its features and then calculate an equivalent slope.

OK. Lets start by examining the case of a retaining wall. A retaining wall with an infinite slope is shown below. The wall height is H and the back slope rises from the horizontal at the angle B (beta). The angle of the backslope (beta) is used in a long equation ripe with trigonometry functions to calculate the active force coefficient of the retaining wall backfill soil that must retained. The equation is called Coulomb Active Pressure (click to see in Wikipedia - oh, and don't forget to donate).

Now we will look at a retaining wall with a broken back slope. If the horizontal distance of the slope to the point where the back slope breaks is less than 2 times H, we should calculate an equivalent back slope called B' (beta prime) to use in the Coulomb Active Pressure calculation. B' (beta prime) is the angle of a line extrapolated from the top of the retaining wall to a distance 2 times H behind the wall.

Please ask questions by clicking here.

Happy News!! It's a Girl!

Hogle Zoo's baby elephant has arrived!! Watch the video below. You can go to the Hogle Zoo website and see a list of possible names. I think they should name her KHARI (CAYR ee) Meaning: queenly; joyful song; born to bring joy. She will be ready for everyone to see Friday September 11!!

Video Courtesy of KSL.com

The President's Speech

I hope that all of us can find the tolerance in our hearts and the common sense in our heads to hear and allow the President's speech to school children. The President will not be indoctrinating anything other than telling children that they can succeed and will succeed if they set goals for themselves. I don't want to offend people, but the majority of the people that I see on my facebook that are opposing the President's speech are the very people that could have used a message like this when we were in school. Maybe then they would have learned to be smart enough to use some common sense and be able to think for themselves.

I hope that all of us will respect the President for his role even though we may not agree with his political agendas or his personal habits. After all, I think most of us would agree that as a community "we believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law. We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men; indeed, we may say that we follow the admonition of Paul—We believe all things, we hope all things, we have endured many things, and hope to be able to endure all things. If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things." (Joseph Smith)

When I was a kid I asked my casually republican father what he thought of Bill Clinton. My dad sad that he didn't agree with the things that Bill Clinton may have done or believed in, but respected him as the president anyway. He said he learned that from his mother who cried at the death of President Kennedy even though she didn't vote for him. I just wish people would set aside their false rumors and paranoia and use a little common sense.

More about shopping

Last time I was together with all my siblings, we shared (or bragged) about our best shopping trips, i.e. where we spent the least amount of money and due to the diligent use of coupons came away with the most food.

Albertsons was having a sale last week where you buy $30 of certain products and then you get $15 back for your next purchase. We did this last night with OK results but not the best because I think it was the last night of the sale and a lot of the good food was gone. We ended up getting over $202.38-worth of food for $49.45 (before tax on both). I prepared extensive shopping lists with item descriptions and attached coupons fer every item. We didn't buy anything without using a coupon on it.

Not too bad and we still have $15 to spend on our next trip. Megan really wants to spend the coupons on a gift card to a nice restaurant but says the responsible thing would be to spend it on diapers. A fancy dinner without kids sounds really nice these days. Who knew that three kids crying/whining at the same time could be so loud?

Shopping

Megan will tell you that I am surprisingly one of the most opinionated, difficult and pickiest shoppers you will find. When it comes down to it, there's some stores that I love to go to and others that I loathe and would drive way out of my way to avoid. Recently my list of places to avoid has seemingly common themes. I will tell you the stores, and you tell me if you can relate to what I think they have in common...

The stores I hate shopping at are:

1. Wal-Mart
2. Lowes
3. Walgreens

SUDDEN DISCLAIMER: If you or anyone you deeply and lovingly care for works at these stores and if you are easily offended, please don't read past this point. I have a lot of inner grief that will be relieved through this post.

What they have in common:

1. Unhelpful Staff
2. Unfriendly Staff
3. Never quite the right item
4. Cheap crap from China (identical items across the stores)
   
5. A million cash registers that aren't open
6. What I need is always in the far back corner of the store
7. Bad reputation

Since they have so much in common, it is a common misunderstanding that Wal-Mart owns Lowes and Walgreens, but I guess they don't.

Though I find shopping at theses stores extremely frustrating and un-enjoyable, I make it a point to go there one or twice a year so I don't forget why it is that I don't like going there. In fact, on Saturday I was really worn out from doing sprinkler work but needed more parts to finish up and since the Lowes is closer than the Home Depot, I thought I would go there. This is what ensued:

1. As I parked the car some other person in a whitetrashmobile was trying to leave the parking lot by pulling straight through my chosen spot. It was awkward, but I didn't back down cause I totally got there first.
   
2. I entered the store and was immediately surrounded by a barrage of ugly and worthless seasonal lawn decorations. There was so many, I was suddenly overcome with bewilderment and fear as if I was being entertained by a group of angry clowns that were closing in on me from all directions, closer and closer...
3. I regrouped my thoughts and then said OK, I know where the sprinklers are at Home Depot, they are near the front and very easy to find. So I walked toward that area of Lowes, but no, there were no signs indicating sprinklers in that area of the store. I quickly turned around and walked toward the clown mob, thinking that sprinklers are somewhat seasonal and they might be near the rest of the seasonal garden equipment.
   
4. I searched row after row of foul cheap imported garden decorations and by then I could smell the clown halitosis and I got dizzy.
5. Just then I saw someone carrying forth sprinkler parts from the back corner of the store. My beacon in a sea of grossness, I headed toward thence he came.
   
6. After passing light bulbs, vacuum parts, shower inserts and toilet bowls, I finally found the sprinkler parts along a dark aisle in the back corner of the store.
   
7. The selection was very disappointing. I found some of what I needed. What else I needed was a RainBird rotary head (part number 22SA) that is interchangeable with the 1800 series bodies that I bought a few weeks ago. After diligently searching I found they had the rotary head already connected to a body. But all I needed was the head!!!! I was getting frustrated.
   
8. I picked up the head+body and walked around 25% of the store looking for someone to help me. No one. Not a soul.
   
9. Finally, I met an "associate" that was heading toward the back break room or something. I asked him if they sell just the head. He said, "if we don't have it over there then we don't." Oh c'mon! What kind of a stupid answer is that? I told him again that I had looked all over and not seen it, but I wanted to know for sure because I didn't need to buy the body and just wanted the head.
   
10. So he did what must be basic "Hello, I-work-at-Lowe's-and-I'm-an-idiot" training and he radioed for backup.
    
11. Another "associate" came after a while, who knows where he was hiding, and I told him my same predicament. He had to look at the shelves but then told me it came in the head+body package only. I told him Home Depot had it as a head only and he didn't care. He didn't even offer a price match. At Home Depot they will do that and they will take Lowes' coupons.
    
12. Then I walked all the way back to the front of the store, past the toilets, shower inserts, vacuum parts, light bulbs and hideous garden decorations to find that all 35 cash registers were closed except for the self-checkouts. I hate self-checkouts. Have you ever tried to buy a lot of tiny, seemingly weight-less sprinkler parts at a self check-out? I hate those scales. One time only the self check-outs were open and I was buying really heavy bags of gravel and I was so mad that a real person wasn't available to help me that I totally piled all the gravel on those stupid bagging scales and I jacked that machine up good. Next time I will sit on it and jump on it if doesn't work good. HA!
13. Anyway, I am angry.
    
14. The lady that was helping the self checkouts was scary looking
15. I left the store and came home and finished my sprinklers and stayed out working on them under some big halogen lights til midnight. It was like a football field, it was so cool. Then I was really tired. While I was doing that Megan went to Walgreen's to get a prescription and they were closed before the closing time listed on the door and then she got really mad and she swore.
16. then today we went to Wal-Mart, but we decided to go to the new one in Cedar Hills and that one was not ghetto like the others. It was ok but the price check scanner in the middle of the aisle wasn't working so I unplugged it and after a few minutes it worked again. It was an OK Wal-Mart visit.
    

So now we don't have any more money, but it's ok because we don't like shopping at those stores.

END OF RAMBLINGS