Crazy week

Oh boy. Oh boy, oh boy. It's going to be a crazy week. Somehow they all are, aren't they?

Seriously, though, there are a lot of things coming up. This Friday is one of the major training days for ROTC and that means I go into overtime as S4, the supply officer. All of our 80+ freshmen and sophomore cadets need full equipment (kevlar helmet, ruck sack, load carrying vest, mock weapon, etc) and all of the evaluators need special equipment (mock AT-4s, mock claymore mines, radios, etc). But first I have to return the equipment we were using a week or so ago. Plus one of the officers has requested that I issue to all of the juniors all of the equipment that they'll need for the ROTC assessment camp (called LDAC) this summer which includes cold weather gear, wet weather gear, protective knee and elbow pads, protective eyewear, notepads, pens and pencils, and a few other things I can't remember right now. It's not going to be an easy feat and it's not going to be quick. I'll probably be down there in the ROTC office quite a bit this week.

And then on top of that we have a MAJOR clinic deadline for Monday morning in exactly one week. We are finally organizing a formal design review of two of our device's critical components (an air inlet and an analyzer) one of which I am heavily involved with and that means that a whole lot of work needs to get done from now until then.

The analyzer, you see, is an interesting piece of work. The basic idea (as I may have said before) is to shine a light on a filter and see how much light gets through. The less light that gets through, the more black carbon there is on the filter. Simple idea, right? Unfortunately, like most things, its simple to conceive and pretty difficult to actually complete.

You see, there are a couple of main concerns with the analyzer that could adversely affect its performance. The first is electronic noise and stability. Detecting the low concentrations of black carbon that we'd like to involves regulating an LED to +/- 2 nA!! Not to mention that our detector has to be low-noise enough to see these small signals. The second is in making sure the actual optics are doing what we'd like. We just found out that there is a difference in measurement technique if the incident light source is collimated or if it is diffuse; they will get you two different measurements for how much light is attenuated. The third is random artifacts that have to do with particle collection on a filter. Turns out you get all kinds of multiple scattering and things like humidity or particle morphology can affect your measurements. There are a lot of things to work out and its pretty important that we hit a home run at our design review in a week or so.

But like Raffi says, this is the interesting part; this is the actual engineering. Here's hoping we all can pull it through.

Conflict Resolution / What to do when you find out how much you suck as a Clinic team leader

Clinic is a mighty beast. For some with the right combination of luck and skill, it can be a fantastically challenging thing, perfectly suited to their level of expertise. The problem is technical enough that it appeals to them as engineers and yet contains enough breadth to pretend like it's a full engineering project (which it is). For others, it can be just the wrong problem at the wrong time. Like the homework solution that seems to elude you even after hours of constant struggle or the test problem that seems ever just out of your reach.

My clinic project seems to have been both. At times it feels more the former, and at other times more the latter. Today it feels like more the latter.

Even before I took over as team leader I knew I would have big shoes to fill. The previous team leader, Raffi Attarian, is a stellar engineer and an experienced project manager. His leadership during our first semester took what could easily have been a flaming fireball of hell and breathed life into it. He was meticulous, tireless, and had a knack for thinking about things from every angle.

But it feels like I don't have those skills. Even with what I would consider three years of fantastic leadership training with ROTC I still seem to be dropping the ball. Two weeks ago I scheduled a site visit and only today do I realize (at Raffi's prompt) that I don't know what we're going to do when we get there. How could I not have thought that through? That feels like project management 101! And this came on top of a particularly challenging week for our project where it feels like we've been cornered into a difficult project with no easy way out.

So certain people expressed their disappointment/disapproval over the way I have been handling things. All in all I agree with them. But while accepting it is a big step, it doesn't make it all go away. Now I have the even harder task of constantly accepting those failings while working to correct them.

Along the way I may take criticism from those around me. They may not let me forget so quickly my past mistakes. On some levels it is their right to voice their concerns. I have to have a thick skin, an open mind, and an undaunted spirit to continue where it seems only failure lives.

And I must redouble my efforts to fix what has come undone around me. No, this does not necessarily mean I work twice as hard. It does mean I need to progress twice as much but to do that I have to follow what I've been taught:

1) Assess the situation

2) Create an appropriate plan

3) Execute that plan with fervor

4) Repeat

Here's hoping that I don't make the same mistake twice. That I can do some good this semester on this clinic team. That the leadership mistakes I make in the future never cost me the life of a soldier.

The inability to read anything anymore. Ever.

Maybe it's just today and the fact that I didn't sleep much last night and that I worked out hard yesterday and twice today, but I just cannot read anything about the philosophy of religion right now!

Two sentences in, while David Hume is using Cleanthes and Demea to argue about something I can't comprehend, I feel the familiar smack of my forehead making contact with my keyboard.

So I redouble my efforts, get up to walk around, then sit back down. But like clockwork after two sentences suddenly Cleanthes is wearing a toga and telling Demea to pick up the box of birthday hats next to him and I know that I've stopped reading the real article a few minutes ago.

So what am I doing now? Blogging, first. But more than that I think you just need to know when to quite, how to apply my time effectively to get the most done. Sure I could sit here for the next two hours and struggle through another 1/3 of the article and remember none of it. I would tell myself I did something but I would have accomplished nothing. Like my friend says, work without progress.

So I'm moving on to something else, something more engaging. Hopefully this way I can actually get some things done tonight, get to bed early, wake up early, and read that article with a fresh mind.

My girlfriend is making fun of me again

Dear Diary,

Just because I put a lot of thought into writing these blogs she thinks she can make fun of me! Don't worry, Diary, I won't let it get to me. I value our time together.

Nathan Jones

*Obligatory remark about how long its been since my last update

"Since You've Been Gone" a series of haikus by Nathan Jones

Some finals I took
Their difficulty was astounding
But passed them I did

Then on to Christmas
To spend time with a great family
And relax with them

But break was not done
And to Oregon I went with friends
To see wind and rain

Then back to my school
To begin again for the last time
Four months and counting...