Job Search. Wow. Tons of Interviews on campus. CCO is amazing in terms of putting students in touch with companies interested in exactly what we have to offer. I've been doing a lot of online job-searching, too - but mostly it's really hard to find listings for "entry level engineer" anything - mostly they just email back telling me that I'm underqualified for whatever...which I understand, but it still sucks to think you're qualified for something and then be told you're not....

Right now I'm in that time where I've applied/interviewed with more than one really interesting company, but NOBODY's gotten back to me. Not even the company I co-opped with. Weird. I'm sure that will change soon, and there will be a very brief flash of activity like 2 weeks before I have to make up my mind....but I wish it were a steadier process....

Companies I've interviewed with that would be AMAZING to work for:
*Sikorsky - Design Engineering of mechanisms. Best continuing education program in the country. That fits what I'm looking for to a T.
*Whirlpool WTEP - Basically it's an advanced co-op program. 3 years, 4 six month rotations sandwiched around 1 year of full-time school to get a M.S. degree....with a stipend. Awesome. They seemed really open towards my dorkiness...which is...good..
*Kohler Faucets - I'm totally qualified to work there. They're prestigious, very intelligent, and they like what I have to offer.... nice.
*Kohler Generators - It's not my specialty, but I could really fit in there. Sounds like they give a lot of freedom to their engineers.
*It would also be awesome to land a job with one of the myriad of aerospace companies in Huntsville.... I'm a little behind on that - but that's going to pick up soon, here.

Right now I'm feeling pretty good. I'm finally on-top of everything I need to be on top of. Lola (my car) is feeling healthy after her oil/filter change. My room & house are both clean. I'm on top of my classes (which is awesome because of how many different little things there are going on.... e.g. I'm developing a hands-on kit for my class to build in under 2 weeks.... tomorrow I have a group meeting to build a chute for my natural convection project... et cetera....). UUUm I'm pumped about this weekend (football yay! B-Fast club yay! James' B-Day yay!). I should grill something. What else? I'm ready for Kel & Erin's wedding.... should be a fairly easy time for me, since I'm not IN the wedding I just get to show up and enjoy my date and the experience (plus it's my 6 month w/ Stace....go me and go commitment!!).

I'm trying to think of the best picture I can add to this posting to summarize what's going on right now... I think I've settled on this metaphoric picture of a sunrise from my recent trip to Huntsville:



Peace out.

Insanity. I am so busy it scares me. Yesterday was one of the longest days ever (9AM to 11PM solid schoolwork)...but wow was I productive. This afternoon I'm trying to work on some stuff due as soon as I get home from October break (when I'll be gone the whole time); 375 HW, 315 Lab, stuff like that. I'm psyched to spend a few days with Stace, and I'm stoked to see my Mom for an hour tomorrow. Kind of bizarre, I know - but hey I'll take what I can get.

But I wanna say a thing or two about my Heat/Mass Transfer Lab Project... because I'm really getting into it. The idea is based around natural convection - which is where because a heater changes the temperature (and thus, density) of a gas locally - that gas rises and creates a bulk motion. We're going to set up a heater (cylindrical in shape) in an insulated vertical chute, and measure the resulting temperature and velocity of the steady state air that's going to blow out of the top. It's called the "chimney Effect". The thing will look like this:



It's a heating/flow phenomenon, so it can be simulated by a numerical solution to the Navier Stokes equations coupled with some known heating/density stuff.

Temperature rises locally around the heater and creates the hot jet that rises in the center.



Because the air's heated - it starts gaining velocity; looks like it's going to get going to fastest in the middle of the buoyant jet:



So that's cool. I didn't write the CFD code, or run the simulations (code written by my 12-year PhD candidate TA, simulations run by my group member). But damn, I must say that is player. I've been responsible for finding as much academic information about the project as possible - and sure enough some guys from the Netherlands did this verbatim in 1994 ("Natural Convection Around a Horizontal Circular Cylinder in Infinate Space and Within Confining Plates" - Numerical Heat Transer Part A Volume 25 pp 441-456) - complete with their own accompanied experimental/numerical results. Awesome. So for the next month or so I'm going to be consumed with building this thing and taking the data.

I think it's fair to say I'm getting into my classes quite a bit. Hopefully I'll post a entry later about my ME444 project - where we're building a toy plane based on a really interesting historical aircraft.... and it's going to look amazing.

Allright - gotta get back to work and finish as much as I can so I can goof off for break and not feel guilty! Huntsville, here I come! 5 day weekend!!!

Sunday Sunday Sunday. This represents the first weekend of the entire semester I haven't had plans. No football game, no traveling, no guests. Granted, I do miss Stacey a lot but I woke up this morning feeling so refreshed..... I accomplished a lot yesterday afternoon (chore-wise) and I plan on accomplishing more today (homework/schoolwork wise).

I even cleaned out my grill. Scrubbed the plates, wiped down the surfaces, emptied out the "juice tray". Hooray! New propane tank, feels like a new grill.



Ain't she a beaute'? Last week I made this wicked pork tenderloin in a teriyaki marinade. But mostly, I focus on sausage and hot-dogs. I bought drumsticks at Payless yesterday, so I want to make BBQ early this week....maybe part of a Craig Birthday celebration!??! maybe. I'm baking a cake here as soon as I finish this entry.....

I'm sad Stacey's moved away (well, further away). She'll be stationed in Huntsville, AL for the next 9 months. We'll see each other a lot here in the next month (I'm flying there for October break, and she's flying here for the Wedding at the end of October). But after that I don't know. I want to come back up early after X-mas vacation so I can spend New-Year's-Eve with her - but it's a long time between Halloween and the New Year. She's a goofball, and I love it. I can honestly say I smirk everytime I think about her.



Things are going swimmingly right now. Spencer wants me to make a "lifesize portrait complete with cowboy hat and cigarette" of him for Christmas. Well, thanks for the early warning.... I think I'll do it, but not in watercolor. It would turn out really shitty. I think I'm going to learn how to do a monochrome stencil in photoshop, and spray paint it on a white sheet or something. That way, I can have more than one shot at getting a good one....plus it'll go with the theme (what, was he expecting oil paints? puh-leaze.).

Life at the house is great. I'm not playing as many video games as I'd like (no free time) - but the guys are amicable and I enjoy living here. I do most of the cleaning (which doesn't bother me so much....because it's not that much cleaning...once a week) and cooking (which also doesn't bother me because "cooking" is read "grilling").

Big month coming up ...I'm excited.