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Pete and I are finishing up our Carabiner analysis for our Mechanical Engineering studies. Check out this sweet video showing loading.

Carabiner FEA Analysis from mikedidonato on Vimeo.

Good morning!

We’re back! This weekend (actually most of last week really) was pretty much non-stop work. Friday saw class, Saturday saw class, and Sunday saw 11 hours of work on an engineering project. So really, not all that super.

BUT, there were moments of joy nestled in between the mayhem. First, I had dinner with Schuyler and Darcy on Saturday night. We got a little dance dance revolution and guitar hero in before I headed out overwhelmed with exhaustion. Those people are so much fun.

Saturday’s class was rather exciting as well. The class I’m taking is ‘Management Failure Analysis’ We’ve been talking about big failures and what went wrong and how to fix them. This week we had Rear Admiral Thomas Atkin come in to talk to us about Katrina. Admiral Atkin was the Chief of Staff for the federal government’s response to Katrina. His commentary was great and, whew, what a cool guy. Tall, clean cut, and dressed in his coast guard uniform he walked into the classroom with an aura of authority. He was extremely well spoken and really knew what he was talking about. He discussed federal and state law during emergencies and some of the challenges that he and the others (federal, state, and political) faced as they tried to rescue the people of New Orleans. We discussed future disasters, the role of media, the organizational structure of emergency response, and some specifics to Louisiana.

It was totally awesome.

Homework is tragic word. ‘Work’ is pretty much the polar opposite of ‘home’. ‘Home’ instills thoughts of relaxation, sleep, and comfort. ‘Work’ instills thoughts of stress and overwhelming to-do lists. Why would anyone ever want to combine the two?

“Now we’ll pass it over to Roger for the weather. Tell us Roger, what’s in store for this beautiful Thursday?”

It’s Wednesday.

But when you’ve just come out of your nightly coma, you’ll believe anything that Mr. Radio tells you. Especially when, deep down, all you want is closer proximity to Friday. What a disappointing way to start a day! It took me a few minutes of wondering ‘did I meet my work deadlines?’ before I recognized that this morning Mr. Radio actually was wrong.

Unfortunately, this was followed by the realization that I don’t really want it to be Friday this week. My new semester is starting up so we’ve got a marathon of classes fast approaching.

Speaking of which, lets take a look at the completion charts.

sigh. That equates to 30 weeks of classes for the MBA and about 4-6 weeks for the MS.

I took the day off from work to try and demolish my final paper for my economics class. Wish me luck!

Celina: “I want to throw up school everywhere.”

“It is the effort to impose more order, which sometimes creates more disorder.”

-J.Stodder

“Complaining about Microsoft seems to be one of America’s favorite sports.”

My economics professor.

Attention Team D! Let’s all work together to help out my sister’s buddy Tony on a survey of epic proportions. You can even win $100!!!!

It takes about 15-20 minutes and is pretty interesting. I’ve disabled the comments in order to help ensure that no one can influence anyone else.

Perhaps once tony finishes with his study he can give us a little info on his findings.

Thanks guys!

Take the Survey HERE.

I’m on a short business trip today. But I have all sorts of exciting things to share.

Firstly, I went to a dermatologist yesterday. They did a biopsy on one of my funky birth marks. How did it go down? Pretty nasty. First a nurse injected me with some sort of local numbing agent. Then the doctor went in. I couldn’t feel a thing so all I got from the goings on was the conversations between the doctor and his helpers.

Doctor: “we’ll need some towels. he’s bleeding a bit”
Nurse: “I’ll grab some.”
mike d thinks: towels?
Doctor: “go grab Janet to do the stitches”
mike d thinks: stitches?
Janet: “well, I’ve seen worse.”
mike d thinks: awesome?

Actually, it all came out pretty good. I have to go back in ten days for stitch removal and biopsy results. But the whole thing was really very fast, and the dermatologist seemed to know what he was doing. I was in and out in an hour with a full review and minor surgery. For anyone looking for a dermatologist in the New Haven area, I recommend Savin.

The other exciting news is that last night I had my very last class for my mechanical engineering degree. Class… meaning… class. I still have an independent project that I must complete, but no more classroom time! Yes!! This is a huge life savor. From this day forth I will loose one less night a week to academia. Rock!

On the topic of environmental regulations.

Professor:
One particular interesting story is about a barge that was sent out of New York. It had hazardous waste in it and they wanted to dump it out at sea. This was before the laws completely prohibited the practice. So the barge goes out and New York says it can’t dump it within their waters. So the barge goes south. And as they go they keep meeting resistance. No one will let them dump the garbage. I mean, if it was solid waste? If it was solid waste they could have put it in a landfill. But obviously this was something atypical. They got all the way down to Costa Rica. And still… nothing. So what happened? Where did they have to go?

Classmate:
New Jersey?

The response from my professor was hilarious:

“Hot Stuff Mike.”

(more…)

“In Economics they say there’s no such thing as a free lunch. But sometimes you may not realize you have a lunch. or you’re throwing your lunch away. When you can reclaim that lunch… it looks and feels a lot like a free lunch.”

Jim Stodder

Professor: So why would demand increase?
Me: International business?
Professor: yes. good. what’s your name again?
Me: mike.
Professor: Mike D?
Me: that’s right.

Last night I had a midterm in my Heat Convection class.

It went… okay. Hardly flawless, but not nearly as bad as I had originally expected. This tough exam comes alongside two great pieces of news.

1. it looks like I’ll be able to get credit for two of my MBA classes as ‘elective’ courses for the M.S.

This is awesome because I thought i could only get one. A bonus class would be SWEET. If that goes through we will have the following school completion levels.

2. Pete and I may be able to do a project for the engineering degree. That means I could be done as early as MARCH. MARCH!

that would be bliss. I can’t wait.

Studying is brutal when you don’t have a deep sense of passion for the content.

I’m really not digging my Heat Convection class. It’s too theoretical and doesn’t apply (at this level) to anything I do at work. I’m taking it to fulfill an elective requirement for the master’s in science and I’m just not happy with the subject. The only thing that amazes me about Heat Convection is that someone had the enthusiasm to figure all this stuff out in the first place.

This makes studying for this week’s midterm particularly trying. Especially with the everest of guitars quietly calling out to me from within its plush hard case.

Today I took a vacation day from work so that I can finish up that paper.

whoop-de-freakin-doo.

I just found out* I have a 10 page paper due in my international business class Friday. AND I had already agreed to go to Karaoke tonight. I hope ear bursting Journey tunes will provide enough energy for me to stay up for the next 60 hours to write this paper.

*we were actually told about this long ago**. I just forgot entirely until a classmate reminded me.
**long ago = about 4 weeks. But really. I just found out*(***)
***recursive footnotes!!!

Yesterday I took a vacation day so that I could work on some projects for school. Specifically, a take home exam and a New Product Development project. The exam was… well? an exam. Nothing too noteworthy there.

But the New Product Development work was a blast! Our group is working on a project with the Hartford Wadsworth Atheneum. The Atheneum is an art museum in Hartford that is known for its impressive Baroque collection. Myself and three project-mates met with a woman who is deeply involved in the museum’s education connection. We learned so many amazing things about museum operation.

Take, for example, the checklist of criteria that must be met in order for a museum to loan out works of art. It’s about a half inch thick stack of rules. It covers everything from “is the location in a flood zone” to the material of the walls (brick, drywall, etc…).

We learned a bit about the categorization of art pieces, how exhibits are formed, and that the museum owns more than 50,000 works.

After the meeting, two of us took a stroll around the museum. I need to make more time for culture like that, it’s such a treat.

Last night was my last night of Fluids!!! I’m excited to report that I pulled off an ‘A’ on my last exam.

Only four classes left for the MS!

Reasons why I suspect that my Saturday class will be one I enjoy

1) “and I’ll make sure that you learn enough about Excel… to make you lethal.”

2) The professor refers to the class as a ‘gig’

3) During class he asked “any Scrabble players here?”

I’m having trouble with some annoying algebra.

Suggestions?

This weekend gets a qualified “eh.” I came in to help with my company’s inventory count on Saturday and Sunday. Most of the rest of my time was spent on a Fluids homework assignment that reaches new levels of obnoxious.

The annoying part of this homework is that most of the work is just algebra. After figuring out which formula to use, which takes all of 3 minutes, the next hour is spent substituting in variables and simplifying equations.

Not fun.

Thankfully, there were two moments of enjoyment this weekend. Saturday night, at 6:45 Jesse and I decided to sprint up to Pinnacle rock and whip out two climbs. We did 1st and 3rd crack. Finishing 3rd crack as the sun set over the hills. Then, last night Pete, Crystal, Jesse, Irene, Joel, and I decided to save our sanity and get a quick climb or two in at Main Cliff.

I collected my first piece of climbing booty* (a sweet Tricam) on a 5.5 lead then tied into a top rope on Wetwall and some 5.9 face. It was raining by the time I hit Wetwall and the 5.9, so the fun factor jumped considerably.

Overall, this weekend gets a 5.3 toprope rating, more effort than enjoyment.

*a piece of gear that someone else left in the rock, either inadvertently or because they couldn’t remove it.