Since the stupid Bushies have taken all 4 of my Kerry/Edwards signs, I guess I’ll put one up where they can’t get it. Oh yeah, new poll too
Update: Apparently, some of the code on the poll is broken so you can’t see the results after you vote. Fitting time for such a bug. So, vote away and I’ll tally the votes on Tuesday afternoon and announce the winner. Someone call CNN so I can report my poll results too.

Ok, so maybe I did die, but I was reborn as a bum for Halloween. Regrettably, no one in the house had their camera on them during the party. I?m trying to get people who had cameras to send me pictures they took (if that?s you, send them DAMMIT). Anyway, as a peace offering for lack of updates, I do have 3 pictures to post. The first is of the nice clean front room. As usual cameras don?t do its cavernous expanse justice but nor does me talking about how big it is. Click for a larger image.

On to the fireplace . . . as I mentioned last week, I spent some time and rebuilt the fireplace. Well, the firebox and front tile anyway. There has been some verbage about the actual color of the tile and Jason, you?re pretty much right, it is grey. But all is not lost Katie, it does have some green specs in it. Enough rambling, here?s the goods.

The second picture was taken without the flash to give you a (pretty accurate) feel for what the room looks like when just the fire is going.

No, I didn?t die. Just a bit busy that?s all. Today I impulse bought a MP3 player (insert link here). I figured I?d been spending enough time in the weight room and running that I deserved some sort of reward (other then a UP radio station). I almost impulse bought a digital camera as well, but the prospect of finding a vastly superior model on the internet was too much to ignore.

As far as the pictures go . . . with my present inherent lack photographic abilities I?ve been at the mercy of others. Hopefully I can post some pictures of what has been happening here. The fireplace is now complete minus the grout between tiles (and yes Katie, the tiles are some variant of green ? good call). The 2nd floor bathroom is also nearly complete with the stepping block being the polyurethane drying on the cabinet (so really close).

Beyond that, the house is beginning to transform into a state conducive to the Halloween Party that is scheduled for Friday. As a precursor I?ll say it is the only party I?m willing to host this year and that it is costume only.

Oh yeahm one more thing to throw on the political flameware already afoot: this

Just a quick update on a few things:

The House: Tonight I had opted to take a couple hours off from doing other work and do some house work instead. As winter is fast approaching, I opted to start working on rebuilding the main fireplace (as in the one that works, the other three will have to wait). It has basically been falling apart and is getting to the point where I didn?t feel too comfortable using it. Now, it is all gutted and I put the first course of fire brick back in. I have to say, working with refractory mortars (mortar that doesn?t expand/contract with temperature) is really weird. It dries quite quickly but doesn?t eat away at your hands like regular mortar (see 1-18-04). Hopefully the couple of bricks I installed will stay put but playing mason is relatively new territory for me. I?ve been documenting the progress but Jason went to bed to soon for me to get the pictures off his camera.

School: I may be turning the corner in my classes. I?m caught up again (with one exception) and since I?ve organized all my papers and junk I?ve been working quite a bit more efficiently. Advanced Thermodynamics exam on Thursday though, so we?ll see about that.

Work: I?ve largely been a holding pattern at work the last couple of days owing to my desire to not flunk out. However, I did manage to get the real version of my presentation uploaded. That is available here [9.7 MB PPT]. It probably won?t be too instructive since we sort of operate on the philosophy that the few words the better; you talk, they listen as opposed to having people ignore you and read the text ? that?s what papers are for. The MSGC conference went very well in my mind. No one was murdered and everyone who was speaking from Tech did an excellent job. Sure I still speak to fast and tend to trail off, but I think my point was conveyed. We (as in most of my research group) also hung out with Brad?s old PhD advisor, our grand-advisor of sorts. I have to say, that was the first time I?ve seen one of the most respected men on earth (in my corner anyway) do an Irish Car Bomb at the bar with grad students. It?s your turn Brad. Partying aside, I also managed to squeeze in some technical collaboration with the University of Michigan equivalent of us. Good stuff.

deanmassey.net: I did some minor logo changes as requested by the general (and likely more graphically adept) audience. So let me know what the general consensus is. Anyway, long day tomorrow.

Finally, I?m getting the hell out of Houghton!!!1!!1! Only for the weekend though. I?m headed down to the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor to give a talk at the Michigan Space Grant Consortium. So, if you happen to be in the Ann Arbor area on Saturday, you can drop by Space Research Building on the North Campus around 1pm and see me dazzling the audience in my spiffy new power suit. You can see a rough draft of the presentation I?m going to give right about here [9.4 MB ppt]. No, its not done yet, but it is a long drive down there so it should be polished upon arrival. Anyway, everyone have a good weekend (?cause I know I will).

In what will likely go down as one of the coolest catastrophic thruster test failures, yesterdays quasi-explosion pretty much retired that model of the thruster (affectionately known to me as the BPT-2000-SV3). In all the previous 4 tests, we had been having trouble with some excess current being discharged somewhere. On take 5, the answer was quite evident (click for larger).

See the burned black part? Hard to miss. The crusty black stuff is the remnants of some crazy tape that is usually been good to us upwards of 500 degrees C (about 1,000 F) but above that it basically vaporizes and gets frozen to the cryopump. The other stuff is some ceramic rope, which I had dubbed the ?plasma tampon? which is also pretty well scorched. Lesson learned: dumping 3 kilowatts of power (about 4 horse power) into something the size of a dime will basically destroy it. But man will it look cool. So, in honor if me inducing stray discharges in 5 out of the last 5 tests, I feel obligated to display my penalty: 0wnd by Trogdor the Burninator.

What a weekend. My mom, dad and brother came up this weekend for a little bonding time Massey style. Massey style being of course working on the house and then going bar hopping. I must admit, the fossils held their own going into the third bar, but couldn?t handle 4 through 6. I scarcely could either though. I?m still waiting on the pictures to comeback (that?s you?re cue mom) but when they arrive, I?ll post them. What will be contained in these pictures you ask. Well, my mom painted the 2nd floor bathroom and my dad, brother, Jason, Zak and I worked on 3rd floor drywall. All told over 20 sheets were installed (mainly in my room). Just to go on record, Jason and Zak are machines.

My parents also brought with them a gift of sorts ? my busted car. I can?t wait to get cracking on fixing that thing. Over a year it has been. But, first things first - thruster test today. I?m running about 45 minutes behind at the moment, but since it is really only my schedule, who cares. With any luck, all the changes I made last week should now have our current hemorrhaging problem fixed. Blower just kicked on (woohoo).

Update 7:34am I guess I just can’t read this morning. The pictures were in my inbox all night. Anyway, here’s one of my dad, me and my brother.

As is obviously evident, things have been a bit of a flux of late so I?d like to throw some thanks out to the peeps who deal with my ranting on a semi-daily basis recently. I haven?t been into the lab to do work in the last two days. Instead, I concentrated my efforts on my course work ? although that was sort of driven by the fact that I had 2 exams this week (done now though). As I sat wallowing in the seemingly unfathomable depths of work and responsibility, wondering how things had gotten so messed up, I remembered something one of my co-workers told me last year when I asked why he was leaving when there was still work to be done he said ?there is always work to be done?. I remember how angry that made me at the time. I was thinking, if there is work to be done, why not do it!?!?!?? I think I understand now. Yes, there will always be work to be done, but it does not all need to by done today. Tomorrow will likely be the same shit, different day, but progress will have been made incrementally. Sort of sounds like the procrastinator?s creed but that?s being written tomorrow.

So I?m sure the question burning in people?s mind is what am I going to do? I honestly don?t know. This was a bit of a thought exercise and someone stated it perfectly in one the myriad of emails I received. ?It is liberating just reminding oneself that we really are in control of a situation to some extent even when the pressures make us feel differently?. We?ll see how this pans out. I know I certainly freaked out my parents and when I re-read what I wrote with a more emotionally invested slant, the meaning changes entirely. It really does sound like I?m loosing it, not just take a couple of steps back and entertaining solutions to my problems. Put it this way, it took me over and hour to write that since it was basically a strung together chain of fleeting thoughts that needed to be tempered and put into English (as opposed to the language the voices in my head use).

Ug, time for bed. I stayed up way too late last night dealing with different sets of drama. Some vastly more important then others but nonetheless all will probably make for a good story in 20 years. Nay, strike that, some of this is parable caliber.

It?s a funny thing, when you look back and examine the subtle things that you do with more discretion. To longitudinally see the bulk decision making process progress towards some conclusion is a fascinating exercise. For me, it is easier since I air about half my dirty laundry on the internet; the rest I keep neatly folded under pint of beer.

I spent a little while talking to a good friend of mine on the phone this evening (yes, the phone is back so I can verbally terrorize the outside world too). And although the future is never too far from my mind I sometimes forget that the future is forged in the present. Where am I heading with this? Well, for the second time (see my meltdown last year about this time), I?m seriously considering leaving graduate school and therefore Houghton.

You see, my life of late has been stuck in a bit of a rut. I basically have 3 full time jobs: research, school and the house. I managed to maintain some sort of precarious balance over the last 15 months but it really hasn?t worked out that well. I can handle two jobs, but three is getting too much. In the long term, I?m significantly less effective at all three. Computer science has perfect analogies for this condition. In virtual memory management its called ?thrashing?; in higher level programming it is excessive context switching. In either case, too much time is spent screwing around changing tasks that performance takes a hit. Anyway, people are almost always some degree of pissed off at me, or me at them. Case in point: I?m still catching shit for going camping last weekend. Yes it meant that I wouldn?t be able to work in the house past 6:30 or likely in the morning but I had been looking forward to it all week, house be damned. I now realize that when you?re getting spread so thin that people are ready to burn you at the stake partaking in what amounts to coming up for a breath of air, something has to change.

The catalyst came this past Friday. I was still recovering from not sleeping the previous two days so things were a bit murky in my brain. I had been home all of 3 minutes when Jason tells me that US 41 is going to be re-routed through my dining room. Apparently the city manager notified Matt?s Auto Glass and the other people in the blast radius but hadn?t gotten around to me yet. Ironic since I?m the only person who LIVES in said trail, but whatever. Anyway, apparently in 5 years time, they want to knock my house down and pave over my sauna. I believe my only reply was ?fitting end to a shitty week?. Then I went to bed.

I continued working on the house on Saturday more or less pretending like I didn?t know. But in the back of my mind wheels were turning . . . adding everything up. So here?s how it stands: I now feel like I?m wasting time if I?m not doing something while eating, I haven?t played any games other then FreeCell for god knows how long, my computer is in shambles, my room sucks, my car is still broken, my social life flat lined a long time ago, I?m behind in all my classes, the thruster keeps blowing up, any work in the house may be in vain, I?m frustrated that I can?t seem to communicate with anyone anymore without pissing them off, I haven?t left the country in 5 years, the state in three months and more then 30 miles from my house in six weeks, and my only salvation from any of this is to get super drunk on the weekends which really isn?t salvation as much as it is an unhealthy escape. So in short, I?ve become an ineffective automaton with a drinking problem. That?s just what I signed on for. Sort of like So Far So Good by Thornley, its sort of like my theme song. I don?t want to sound like I?m bitching here (even if I am), I just needed to write this all down for my own good and why the hell not post it on the internet.

Now on to the actual topic of debate here, have things gotten to the point where I should pack up and get the hell out Dodge? I don?t know. I like the research I do. It?s interesting and somewhat rewarding. Brad is pretty much the best PhD advisor one could hope for. However, the work can very frustrating, time consuming and I don?t get a lot of help and honestly it is of limited application. I pretty much despise 2/3?s of my classes. Controls notwithstanding, I?m not really learning anything I have even the remotest interest in. The house is coming along and I was actually enjoying hanging drywall in the curved wall of the turret this weekend, but again that may all be for naught. The thing is though, if I do withdraw, is this one of those things where you look back in 10 years with nothing but regret. Or go to that special place in hell for fallen graduate students? Sure, I could stick it out but even at this moment I don?t like the person I?ve become. I?m tense, moody, ineffective, and I?m developing a tendency to lash out at people.

So even as I sit here (in the lab), the prospect of change is rushing over me like a breath of fresh air. Like there?s a powered blender heading for my stale, stagnant waters, ready to mix things up again. I know one thing for sure though, I?m going to speak to Brad and see if I?m still on track for a 3 year PhD. If he laughs, I?m gone. The big question, not as big, but still large, is what to do then. The obvious answer is to get a job. One of my friends is in town recruiting for Raytheon and said he?d get me an interview. I still have some good ties back at Texas Instruments as well. Or I could transfer. That is an interesting option as well. Or of course there is always Naked Birthday Cake. While entrenched in the depths of an advanced fluids problem Makela and I were talking about saying the hell with it, dropping out and forming a punk band. And that band would be called Naked Birthday Cake.

Well now, after yesterday?s inflamed rant, I feel a bit better. Unfortunately, today?s thruster test did not ratify my latest fixes but it did perhaps point a finger in the right direction. Hopefully, dumping 4kW into a small area should leave a trail of blood that I can follow. There are some excellent pictures of the test available here: 9-29-04 Thruster Test. Here’s a sample:

However, the fallout from this week of testing has yet to be fully realized. After two days of really no sleep, I totally pooch?d a quiz today in my controls class in addition to the fact that the homework that is due at 9am has not, and will not be addressed until some other time. Oh well. On top of that, my sleep schedule is about 10 hours out of whack with the rest of the world.

In other news, Jess (Ben?s girlfriend) who is a nursing student at Finlandia University was running around taking people?s blood pressure in the house. I?m trying to convince here to do a case study of the ?diverse? crowd we have in the house. Anyway, my blood pressure was 107 over 78; which is a bit surprising after the last few days. Perhaps it was from watching Kerry school Bush in the debates this evening. I have to be honest, after listening to Kerry actually speak about this stuff, I no longer felt the despair and lack of hope the I felt about the world in general; perhaps humanity may pull through yet. Anyway, it is getting damn early and I should really try and fall asleep.