Grow your own Metal Militia

I am a sucker for anything free. So, instead of reloading my Starbucks card, I got a new one, the one that comes with two free iTunes downloads.

As I was poking around on iTunes, my youngest (age 5) comes in and asks me if I have Master of Puppets on my iPod. The answer is no, but it is such an amazing question! I will download it shortly!

I ran upstairs to tell Heather what he just asked me and she tells me that he was asking her about it just a few days ago, too! I've got my own Metal Militia right here at home! My kids are so cool!

Energized by making a list

After thinking about breasts for my last few posts, it is time to get back to the serious content that I know you all love.

As I have previously written, I recently started Business school and some changes at work have given me a great deal of responsibility. As I add activities, I subtract sleep. I have been exhausted for a long time, and I can't seem to keep up with the rate that things are being added to my to do list.

Friday morning, I took a different approach. Before I even had coffee (see I'm not an addict), I sat down and went over the things I had to do. In the process, I came up with even more things to do, too. On the good side there were some tasks I could delegate and defer until much later. But at the end of it, I had a very long, prioritized list of things to do.

I felt energized after it all. I knew what I had to do on this day and even in what order. It was important because I didn't have any extra time as I had to prep for a weekend outing.

And just to draw the day to a close, I got everything done and I was ready to leave on time!

Now, I'm sure that this technique isn't news to those in the productivity world. But it was great to have such clarity of purpose and the right energy level to attack a busy day.

It worked wonders for me and I'll be repeating this strategy in the future. Mid-terms are right around the corner and I'm facilitating a 6 hour breakout session at an annual comapny meeting (and I'm flying in and out the day of the presentation); my plate is gonna be full for a while.

Breasts and Hooke's Law

My wife brought up Hooke's Law in a comment on Amelia's blog about her breasts.

After thinking about Amelia's boobs and Hooke's law, I realized that she made errors in her explanation of Hooke's Law. I did post a comment, the text of which I have pasted below and I can assure you that I will explain and demonstrate Hooke's law to my wife and how it applies to her breasts at my earliest convenience.

Scout's Honor [ed: my wife's pen name], while Hooke's law does apply to boobs, I think you misunderstood which forces where being discussed.

Hooke's law is applicable to springs and what force F is required to make them stretch a certain distance x. There is a material property of the spring k, called the elastic coefficient, which drives that ratio.

So, how does Hooke's law apply to breasts, in particular Amelia's? As she so astutely noticed, probably along with the other men in her town, her breasts are getting bigger. As her boobs (need to bring this comment back down to the level that it deserves) increase in size, they also increase in mass.

This increase in mass increases the force due to gravity on her breasts, which could cause some, but not all of the problems you identified in your comment. Obviously a force applied to the boob will actually pass back to where the boob meets the chest (not that great lower breast part), but that which is visible when showing off cleavage. I can not imagine that boobs will get so large as to actually cause a rupture, or explosion as Scout brought up, but if the current rate at which your breasts are increasing in size continues, they are going to be ginormous!

However, this is where the science gets fun! Amelia, we need you to collect some more information. Maybe this is better information for your husband to collect, to mitigate any anger issues that might arise from how much thought I've put into your breasts lately. We need to measure the change in the elastic coefficient of your boobs.

While there are many good scientific methods we can use, a good approximation would be to measure their firmness, which is where your husband comes in. Another method would be to actually apply weights to your nipples and measure the amount of stretch, but I don't know if you are that kind of girl or not. Which ever method you and your husband choose to measure the elastic coefficient of your boobs is up to you! Make it fun, science is fun!

So, Hooke's law dictates that the larger your boobs get, the more they could, for lack of a better term, sag. But I maintain, especially amongst preggers, that as your boobs increase in size, they will also get firmer (sweet). This increase in firmness, or the elastic coefficient, should mitigate any additional sagging. From my experiences with Scout's boobs during and shortly after pregnancy, the firmness will change during the course of the day, based upon feedings and other external influences.

Amelia, in the name of science, keep collecting and reporting the details!

If there is anyone from the NSF reading this, I would greatly appreciate some grant money so that I can study the effects of increasing breast size, both in preggers and non-preggers, on the elastic coefficient of the female breast.


[ed: I wish I had the right pictures to put on this post; a picture is worth a thousand words]

Baby Island: Boobs - A Visual Aid

Baby Island is a blog my wife reads and the authoress, Amelia, comments frequently on my wife's blog.

Amelia wrote this post, Baby Island: Boobs - A Visual Aid, and of course, I read it. How could I pass it up with a title like that. And I just feel the need to pass it on.

But it is a great read and all about math and science! Read it for the articles.

Toilet paper failure

My first "I'm blogging this moment."

My wife just came into the office and plopped this note on my desk.
Yes, she just returned from blogging in the bathroom. I'm not really sure that I needed to know this or if any of you really did either, but that is what makes it so much more blog worthy.

Not enough coffee

Last night, I didn't drink anything with dinner. A beer would have been nice with the take out burrito from Chipotle, but we didn't have any at home and I didn't pick up any on the way home. But I didn't drink any soda, water, lemonade, wine or cocktail either.

This morning, I woke up with a splitting headache which I attributed to dehydration. My lips aren't as soft as they used to be, either. So, I decided that I wouldn't drink my usual quantities of espresso and I would substitute water.

I had been drinking cup after cup of water, which is a rarity for me, but the headache was still there. Figuring that I had made a good effort to counter the dehydration, I had an espresso con panna. One shot with a little whipped cream and kapow - no more headache.

Before you go and suggest that this was a lack of caffeine induced headache, I maintain that the water finally took effect. And there is water in espresso, too!

Late nights = exhaustion

I'm beat. But it is worth it.

Unfortunately, this isn't a post about my late night parties with Paris Hilton or Lindsay Lohan. If I'm not at school late at night, I'm doing homework. It's not going to make Page 4.

Tuesday night, I was working on an accounting case study that kicked my butt. I was crunching numbers, trying to complete several financial statements, emailing team mates and even talking on the phone with them at 10:45 pm. Finally at about 11:30 I finished up and felt really good about it.

Wednesday morning, I had an early meeting that I had to drive to, so I was beat. The work meeting went well, but I was worried about how I would stay awake during class that night.

It turns out that staying awake wasn't a problem - I got all the financial statements completed properly, did my analysis fairly well (my reasoning was off, but the answer was right) and even contributed to class discussion. Knowing that I have no financial background adds to the amazingness of that contribution.

I'm still beat on Sunday morning and have another case study to write up, but I pretty excited about it. Hopefully, this one doesn't take all night long.