Political Forecasting

Here's an interesting website. It takes into account many, many polls and models and predicts the outcome of the presidential election. As of now, it predicts a narrow Bush victory.

Walking Down the Stairs

My left eye has bothered me on and off for the last month or two, and when I went to the doctor it was supposedly because I'd been wearing my contacts too much. So I caved and shelled out the money for a pair of glasses. Supposedly, lenses with large surface areas are not cool because there was a turnstile with lots of frames and the lady said something about me probably not wanting those, the big ol' frames. So she points me toward the little ones, which look nicer and are more the style of a young person.

But I've discovered a drawback. I can barely go down a flight of stairs without stumbling. My instinct says look where you're stepping, and when I do, my brain is confused as I look down and see partly through the lenses and partly outside of them, resulting in a sort of double vision. When I forget about trying to look, I'm fine. Muscle memory. It's only when I try to guide myself that I get into trouble (and I have nearly fell recently).

It reminded me of walking by faith and not by sight. Same deal, if we trust the Father to guide our steps and be our muscle memory, we'll be fine. Otherwise, we'll stumble down and probably end up falling hard.

Quickly

I will be on a youth retreat-thingy this weekend, sans computer.

Why do Christian girls dress immodestly?

David called the love between him and Jonathan better than "the love of women." Look it up.

If someone authorizes you to forge their signature, is it still wrong?

Old wise sayings are wise for a reason. "Don't tell me about it until you've walked a mile in his shoes." Ok, whatever it is, it's true. I can't say enough how true it is: perspective is everything. You have no idea what a preacher feels like and sees until you've been behind a pulpit. You don't have a clue as to the commitment it takes to be a high division 1 college basketball player until you've put in the time. What makes us think that we know what God's up to? We've never had his perspective, and since we haven't the key is to trust His perspective as best.

There are essentially two Professional organizations in Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering that have student chapters at OSU. One is the Institute of Industrial Engineers and the other is the Society of Manufacturing Engineers. The former is social, larger, and rich; the latter is focused on professional development, and is small and "emerging." I'm Vice-President of Chapter Development of IIE, and a member of SME (my membership in SME is tenuous at best; essentially, I'm out when annual dues are requested of me). Since I'm an officer in IIE, I have a pro-IIE perspective, one that will spend energy to organize, promote, and even lure people to our meetings to be there, take part, and become members. I don't mind meetings that take more than a half hour, and I don't want to see people fidgeting to leave--because it's OUR meeting. But I have no such vested interest in SME, so I go to their meeting for the pizza, wish I were studying instead of sitting there waiting for it to end (I do apologize to any SME OSU members that may be reading this, but surely you know what I mean?).

You know, it's the perspective and the investment, totally.

Looking for Home

Last night a few other people, I went to my Grandma and Grandpa's house to sing for them. My grandpa's health is failing. He recently had surgery and is now undergoing radiation treatment to try to control cancer in his neck.

Grandpa's always been a singer, but he lost his voice since before his surgery. As we sang, Grandpa sat in his chair and mouthed along with the words. Sometimes, like when we sang Palms of Victory, he cried. Grandma sat in her chair with a little smile on her face and when Grandpa would cry, she'd look over at him with a satisfied look of great love on her face. It was beautiful, really. Things aren't looking very good, but there's hope, and peace, and emotion.

Projects, Propsals & Gantt Charts

Gantt charts are essentially visual planning guidelines that outline the estimated timeframe to begin and complete specific parts of a project. This must be included in the project proposals for our Senior Project course that the teams are presenting today or Thursday.

I was talking with a buddy and he was telling me that he's decided to propose to his girlfriend. He's made the decision, but the time and place are yet to be decided. We talked for a few minutes, and then he said he was going to "go downstairs and make a gantt chart for the proposal."

I was like, what? I knew we had to make a Gantt chart for the project, but not for the proposal itself. Oh no, he said, I'm going to make a Gantt chart for the "proposal".

I thought that was so funny. He was going off to use an industrial planning method to figure out how he was going to buy the ring and surprise his girlfriend.

Micro-managing

If I were a bo-oss,
I'd tell you what I'd be.
A micro-manager that everybody'd hate,
Soo-diddle-diddle-dee-dee.

I fight that tendency. I see something and want control of it, to make sure it gets done right.

This also manifests itself on a larger scale in my life. Like when I'm planning for the future. I want control of it, to make sure it happens like I want it to.

It's interesting, how the micro and the macro interact.

Like Material Science for instance. You know how some materials are stronger in one direction than another? It's because, on the microscopic level, are more tightly packed with atoms than other directions. This results in more bonds and more strength, all because of the way the atoms are arranged.

I have computer issues. Even now, there are messages languishing in my inbox that may never see the light of day. It's sad, really.

But there's hope, there's always hope.