Danger lurks in Veloceraptors. But don’t fret. It could be worse.

From Kurt

Dearest Readers,

I want to vamp up two sections of this website. The first is ‘favorite posts.’ If you look at the bar on the left and scroll down you’ll come to a list of favorite posts. Do any of you have any favorite posts that you think I should include in the list?

The second section is the About me page. Right now it’s passable, but not awesome. It definitely needs new photos. Any other suggestions?

Rock,
Mike D.

Your name: Mike D.
Complaint regarding: Mr. Sandman.
Date: 10/31/08

Description:
Mr. Sandman’s lack of punctuality has been highly degrading to our team’s performance.

If this behavior continues I think it will be necessary to take disciplinary actions on Mr. Sandman.

From Chris Tanner.

A fun video about candles and how they are basically awesome.

I kind of want a Volt now.

From Shaun L.

There’s a hurricane of delicious coming to CT.
And its name is Guarapina.

Upon reading Alicia’s blog post about my Portland visit, I was reminded of the our trip to the Pambichi brunch place. Alicia, Dwane, Sarah, and I went on Alicia’s birthday to celebrate her life with Cuban delights. She and I both ordered a Guarapina: a beverage that mixes pineapple juice with sugar cane juice.

It was like drinking sugar Octane. I will go to the store this weekend and buy ingredients, I will make this luscious drink, and I will take pictures and document the deliciousness. Get excited. It’s going to be awesome.

The Best Lack of Sleep Ever.

Last night I sat down and hit the books to complete a vibrations exam and a bunch of academic stuff for an MBA Brookstone* strategy assignment. I didn’t get to sleep until 1:30am-ish. Then, I had to get up this morning before 6am for a cholesterol check down at the Hospital.

Tangent: The Hospital.

Meriden, CT is home to the mid-state medical center hospital. Apparently they recently did some housekeeping: the hospital is beautiful. Walking inside felt less like a hospital and more like a trip into a hotel. It didn’t smell like Hospital. It smelled… like a delicious coffee shop. And sure enough, there was a dunkin donuts inside the hospital.

The signage was extremely clear. And the interior design was really classy and warm. I never thought I’d be so impressed with a Hospital. Way to go Mid-state Medical!

Anyway… despite the paltry 4.5 hours of rest - I am feeling great today. It’s remarkable how great I feel. Why is this? we can only wonder. But somethings have definitely helped.

1. Pandora has delivered a fantastic array of rocking tunes to start my day:
Audioslave: light my way
Soundgarden: mailman
Alice in Chains: It a’int that way
Stone Temple Pilots: Down

2. I’ve been amazingly productive at work.

3. Coffee.

I hope I don’t crash in exhaustion. Today’s got such potential.

Fast Action Poetry!

Tree comes up with the most amazing suggestions in times of woe.

Mike D: this stinks Tree. one of my test problems is worth 25 points
Tree: oh i’m sorry buddy - ugh
Mike D: and I’m struggling with how to start it.
Tree: hm
Mike D: like no clue.
Tree: can you start it with a rhyme?
Mike D: ha ha ha
Tree: ha ha ha
Mike D: Vibrations result in Complications.
Expectations and Fluctuations
So please ready your Calculations
Lest our customers submit some allegations
demanding forth explanations
Ending our Occupations

Ha! i’m proud of my poem.

Sweater Thursday

It’s early, and we’ve already had a great response of Sweaters for Sweater Thursday. I’m proud of you guys. What a fantastic group of fashionable sweatery folks we are.

Halloween

I’ve got a Halloween costume idea. I’m going to have to spend some time building it, but you can be certain that pictures will appear within the next few days. Irene is having a Halloween party on Saturday where the costume will make its debut. Get excited. It’ll be sweet.

*how the heck do they make money? we’ll find out!

It’s Sweater Thursday! Are you guys wearing sweaters? If so, e-mail pictures of yourself wearing a sweater over to me at mikedidonato AT gmail D0T com and I will add you to the sweater enthusiast list below.

First off, here’s my sweater.

I decided to go with a brown sweater. Since we’re formal at my company I had, of course, the tie on underneath. Sweet sassy mo’ lassy that is one fine looking sweater.

Next up, we’ve got Kurt’s mom and sister. They have been waiting nearly a year for this picture to appear on Sweater Thursday. Take it away Kurt’s mom and sis!

Why are they eating mayonnaise you ask? Because it runs in the family*

Wow! bdp sent in an awesome sweater combo. Major bonus points for the dog sweater.

Jocelyn join us from Chicago! She comes charging in with a cardigan.

Rumor has it that this isn’t the first sweater Jocelyn wore this week. In fact, she claims that the previous two were home made. WHOA.

Irene is also pulling in the sweater theme today. Notice the hugely awesome collar on this particular sweater.

Jesse has provided us a sweater photo. In his words:

“I have two favorites and couldn’t decide between the two, so I Duct Taped them together and I’m wearing both.”

Wow.

While Patrick isn’t wearing a sweater, he did want to share with us a sweater story. Patrick reports:

“2-3 years ago, I did a Google image search for “argyle”. And this came up. It was so awesome that I decided to keep it. I have no idea what website it was from, who the guy is, when it was taken or anything. I just know that there’s an argyle sweater in it.”

Thanks Patrick! Great find of this ArgyleDude.

Send me your sweater thursday photos, and I will post them. It will be an epic sweatery day. Keep checking back for updates!

*picture from last year’s sweater Thursday

RPI Teammate #1: you guys realize I have no idea how to do any of the stuff that I’m talking about right?

We all remember the skyline challenges of the past. This time I want to try something a little different.

In the past, I’d show you a skyline and a satellite image and you’d have to tell me what cities were represented. This time, I’m going to show you a photo taken of a skyline and you must pinpoint the location on a map from where the photo was taken. Yeah, I think this will be challenging.

So let’s try this one first. The photo was taken in Chicago. Tell me where the photographer stood.

The photograph is here.

Also… wow. this is extremely challenging. Way more so than I had anticipated. I just tried to find the place where I took the picture, and I’m having a very difficult time. I highly recommend using street view to try and figure out how far you need to be from the monuments.

50 MikeDiDonato.com points if you are the first to identify the satellite location via Gmaps link.

This must have taken forever.

Hi everybody. Meet Jobonga.

She has an avid appreciation for sweaters and she and Whitney invented ‘Sweater Thursday’ awhile back. As you can see from the image above, Jobonga has thrown the gauntlet for yet another winter season. She encourages us to Commence Sweatering.

I still have a few photos from last year that I need to post of eager people wearing sweaters. If you’d like to participate, wear a flashy sweater tomorrow and then take a picture of yourself in said sweater. E-mail the picture over to me at:

MikeDiDonato AT gmail D0T com

and I will add your picture to the pile in the feature section tomorrow. Get stoked. It’s going to be sweatery.

Adorable Skeleton Cookies!

Meowstro’s got some more funky leg action going on.

Check it out.

Shaun L. got Rock Band 2 a short while ago and we have been playing like crazy.

This is my avatar:

Please note:
The heroic hair
The impressive tiger striped coat
The really sweet scarf

Last night we jammed through a few tunes including:
Alanis - You Oughta Know
some Fleetwood Mac.
Journey - Any way you want it
Soundgarden - Spoonman
Alice in Chains - Man in the Box

Shaun L. owned the guitar. Kevin switched bass and drums, and I switched drums and vocals. We ended the night with Livin’ on a Prayer which has disgustingly brutal vocals. If any of you guys have Rock Band 2 out there, we’ll have to hook up on the internet and have Band showdowns.

Our band, LeMarbelous, will crush you.

I need to fix the problem light. It’s been down for far too long. Perhaps I’ll take a look at it during lunch today.

Hello readers! I need a new watch. I’ve been watchless for at least a year now and it’s time I return to my heavy wrist ways. I have a deep appreciation for awesome fashion, but a complete ineptness in choosing my own accessories. I’m looking for suggestions. I lean favorably towards the Fossil brand, though I’m not opposed to other watches. My last watch was the Fossil Arkitekt. It was a pretty great watch. I think I’d like to keep the leather band look over the metal band look.

As for variety, Analog is a must. Part of me loves the idea of the eccentric Automatic watch. These are the watches that have an unbalanced ratcheted weight inside that winds the watch as the user moves around naturally. Apparently the newer ones have dual eccentrics (SHUT UP!) so that the watch will wind itself with both clockwise and counterclockwise motion. Genius!

Using these criteria, I come up with these options. Not really all that snazzy.

And then there’s the S+arck. Whoa. Perhaps one of these would be awesome on my wrist.

Or maybe I should go funky, or old school, or my little pony.

thoughts? suggestions?

My least favorite engineering character is unquestionably lower case zeta.

In vibrations, this little guy is the damping ratio. Why don’t I like this character? I guess there are two reasons. Firstly, it’s really tough to draw. Try it. At least for me, it took a bit of practice before it stopped looking like a random squiggle and started looking like its true Greekish form. Secondly, it’s not as widely recognized as, say, the ampersand. That means, that if you screw up in your artistic attempt to draw the little guy then no one will have any idea what you’ve written down.

I mentioned in my Portland recap that Michelle got us free OMSI tickets. Michelle is married to Thor, Ryan Schenk’s cousin. She totally hooked us up. When we (Dwane, Alicia, Sarah, and I) got to the Membership desk to pick up the tickets she left for us, we found 16 TICKETS! 4 General Admission, 4 Planetarium, 4 Imax, and 4 Sub Tour. We could choose what we wanted to do.

WHOA.

Before we explored the special tickets, we entered the Mindbender Mansion exhibit. Mindbender Mansion is a series of confusing puzzles like those ones where you have a ring and a strip of steel and you have to fit a knot through a heart around a steel triangle without taking the nail out of the chunk of driftwood. Usually there’s a trick to it, but until you see that trick, the puzzle seems virtually impossible.

Take for example, this one. Two people put rings over their wrists that have rope strung between them. You cross your rope with your partner’s rope. Then you’re suppose to untangle yourselves without removing the rings from your wrists.

I have no idea.

Some of the puzzles at the Mindbender Mansion had little clues associated with them which could be entered into a computer to generate some snazzy password or cool video or something. In order to beat the hordes of field day students who were coming in, Alicia, Dwane, Sarah and I split up to try and get as many of the clues as possible. It turns out that despite my mechanical engineering degrees, I’m terrible at these things. There was one weird one where you had to fit all these puzzle pieces together to form the letter T. It was surprisingly difficult. Sarah and I were working on it diligently - hitting dead end after dead end. Suddenly this little 7 year old brat walks up to our table, reaches over, and moves the critical piece into the right spot solving the puzzle immediately. This was not good for my delicate ego.

We left mindbender mansion shortly thereafter and decided to hit up the submarine tour.

Check it out!

The Submarine

Torpedo Tubes!

Controls and fake wood paneling!

We walked through the sub under the direction of a submarine guy. He told us how they navigated, what types of sonar they used, methods of submarine propulsion, living conditions, how often showers were allowed… that sort of thing. It was really fascinating and the guy did a great job of describing life underwater. Here are some fun sub facts:

Fun sub facts:

In the 70’s about 3/4 of the sub population smoked. That mixed with the diesel sub engine resulted in some NASTY air quality.

There’s very little storage space on a sub. So the food is put in cans and put all across the floor. Then they put a fake floor on top of the cans. Best food in the military? Yes. Lower ceilings? worth it.

No women have served on submarines.

The maximum height limit on a submarine is 6′7″

Thanks again to Michelle for helping us out. It really made for a fun day. I highly recommend going to OMSI if you happen to be in the Portland area.

At the RPI Library…

Mike D: Hi. Are we allowed to check out technical books from the Library? I was hoping to take a Vibrations book for about a week.
Librarian: Yes. The only books you can’t take out are the reference books in the reference section.
Mike D: Excellent! Well then, I’d like to take out this Vibrations book please.
Librarian: no problem, do you have your ID?
Mike D: Yup, here ya go.
Librarian: okay, let’s see here. ::types:: okay. All set. And this is due back in 15 weeks.
Mike D: Wait, what? 15 weeks?
Librarian: Yup. February 7th, 2009.

During my stint in Ohio I stayed at the N. Canton Ohio Holiday Inn. There’s nothing too fantastic about the hotel. The people are nice and the location is convenient, but it’s a really weird hotel layout. Chances are it’ll require a good 4 minute walk through a labyrinth of corridors to reach your room from the front desk.

All this, however, is completely worth it because on Wednesday and Thursday nights they have Karaoke in the lounge. This past Wednesday my coworker Brian and I went to Karaoke. I got up there and opened with my go-to Karaoke tune Lights by Journey. Some women sang along with the chorus and I got a high five at the end. It was decent. Next because attendance was low I figured I’d try out a new tune. I decided to give Aerosmith’s ‘Dream On’ a shot. It went well, though I didn’t nail the screaming portion of the chorus as well as I’d like. Still, I got a fist pound from some dude at the bar. I sat down and decided to conclude my singing for the night.

Now, the average age of the crowd there that night was probably 60. This meant that most of the tunes that were sung were pretty old school: Sinatra, Elvis, Ella Fitzgerald, and the like. While one guy was doing a great job with ‘Music of the Night’ a younger guy sitting in front of us turned around to me…

“Dude, I will give you five bucks if you get up there and sing a real song.”
“How’s AC/DC?” I asked
“Perfect.”

So I concluded my night with “Back in Black.” - HOLY CRAP. It was so hard. Really intense scream/singing. I didn’t think it was anywhere close to my best work. In fact, I intended to give the guy his money back. But as I returned to my seat the guy turned to me, threw up a high five, and said “Best money I spent all night. That was AWESOME.”

It was a really hilarious night. I got video of the Journey tune, but I haven’t figured out a way to get it off the camera yet. Hopefully I’ll be able to post it soon. Rock!

An amazing claymation video that shows a chess game.

It’s awesome.

Another Japanese Garden Photo from Portland.

A rock garden! Snazzy!

Wow.

from Shamus.