Random fun facts from engineering magazines

I don't always read trade magazines, but when I do, I like to find the weirdest parts:

A) From September 2012's CEP (Chemical Engineering Progress) magazine, a description of why pruny fingers prune!: "water-logged fingertips develop wrinkles because of a mismatch between the physical properties of the outer epidermis layer and those of the inner dermis layer, which are tightly bonded to one another. When soaked in water, the epidermis, which is more porous than the underlying dermis, absorbs water and swells. Because these two layers are bonded together, the only way to accommodate the extra surface area is for the epidermis to buckle, forming wrinkles."

B) From October 2012's TCE (The Chemical Engineer), a terribly snarky british publication I got for free at AAAR last year, a totally sick engineering burn: "if found guilty of gross negligence, BP's civil damages under the Clean Water Act could quadruple to US$21bn. Government lawyers cited several examples of 'behaviour, words, and actions of these BP executives that would not be tolerated in a middling size company manufacturing dry goods for sale in a suburban mall.'" Dry goods in a suburban mall! oh snap!

These guys also have a runner up in weird via their grade-A bizarre/awesomely-titled "Shrimp hydrogel slows banana ripening" article, detailing how "a hydrogel made from PVA and chitosan, a polysaccharide derived from chitin, the principal component of the shells of shrimps, crabs, and lobsters" was made into "a spray-on coating for bananas which slows down the ripening process and extends their shelf life." Bonus, "it naturally inhibits the growth of the bacteria which causes the banana to rot"! I don't know whether to be grossed out or super impressed. We truly live in the future, no?

The shrimp-banana pairing seems like something that could be a science joke, if I had the brain for it. Since I don't, enjoy http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/the-lay-scientist/2012/dec/03/comedy-mathematics instead.

@james_randerson @guardiansciblog you know what gets on my nerves? Myelin

— Dean Burnett (@garwboy) November 30, 2012

Hippie July

Besides getting engaged and seeing the Dave Matthews Band, Peter and I also went to see the first annual Firefly music festival in Dover, Delaware, July 18-22nd. How exciting for a major music festival to be in Delaware! It's probably the coolest thing that's happened to the state in years. By pure luck, I was able to cash out some of my hotel points to assist in a place walking distance from the site, which was way easier than camping and paying to use the showers (A+ thinking). I suspect this may never happen again, but it was nice while it lasted. A chronological rundown of what we saw there:

Friday -
- Blind Pilot (with only some poncho required due to rain! actually we got very lucky with the weather...)
- The Wallflowers (who knew they were still around?)
- Jack Daniels bus tour (pretty neeeeat, want to do a Tennessee bourbon tour run someday)
- OK Go (besides the ridiculous Flaming Lips, they get points for most amusing show)


(I do love me a foam thing on a stick)- Walk the Moon
- Silversun pickups (eh)
- Jack White (sound was off for the first two or three songs! and it drizzled! and he was barefoot? but pretty good show. People were tossing glowsticks which was neat, but apparently the next day, glowsticks were banned.)

Saturday -
- Moon Taxi (a second good moon-related band)
- Ra Ra Riot (one of our favorites - yay!)
- During a break we broke out of the festival confines for a La Tolteca lunch - much cheaper than inside!
- Michael Franti & the Spearheads (we saw him and his possee later in the crowd, and he is an absurdly tall man)
- Pretty painting break:
- Young the Giant
- Cake (yay trumpet dude!)
- Modest Mouse (they get points for having a tuba, and they were better than when we saw them in 2007, but they are just one of those bands where I still prefer the recordings over live...)
- The Killers (weeee fireworks!)

Sunday -
- lowercase blues (hometown band)
- The arcade room had a Jurassic Park table - they know their audience
- The Head and the Heart (SO GOOD)
- We took a nap in the forest while Bombay Bicycle Club was playing
- Saw multiple passes of a play banner with "welcome to carper country" written on it...okay tom carper, what?
- Mariachi El Bronx (a rapping mariachi band, ha! I love new things.)
- Gratuitious festival gear, hat on a hat edition:
- Fitz and the Tantrums (these guys were awesome!)
- Death Cab for Cutie
- The Flaming Lips (fur-lined jacket in July, human hamster bubble, bubble over guitar frets...these guys are nuts)
- Girl Talk (I headed over there to see it solo while Peter kept our spot for the headliner, craziness it was)
- Black Keys (hadn't realized it was just two dudes! super impressive)

We drove back to Pittsburgh by way of some Amish country roads we don't normally traverse, and I forgot how cute that section is. Many a sign for interesting stops if we had the time... one sign said "Christ's Home Office" and another "Amish Stuff - Not just stuff...Amish Stuff". Ah country. But we had a date with the Turkey Hill Experience! I don't know how we got along thus far without knowing there was an ice cream museum on our way home, but I'm glad we finally stopped. It was full of way more interesting information than I had supposed, plus unlimited ice cream and iced tea samples...hooray!

The next weekend, I participated in the One Whirl Yoga Festival with my friend. Ultimately, we took five classes that day, and I got a free Lululemon shirt, which is impressive since they are spendy! At the end of the day I could just touch my toes, something I probably won't be able to repeat unless I do another all-day yoga festival.

The next day, Peter and I headed up to take a tour of the Harvest Valley Farms, where we get our CSA from. We missed last year's so it was exciting to be able to finally do it. We saw rows of lettuce and large onion drying machines, got to pick super delicious cherry tomatoes (and I am not a raw tomato lover!), and learned that border collies are useful for catching groundhogs.

Music, yoga, and local food - how lucky we are.

Ringmaking and other things

Well folks, I have to confess: I'm writing this up a year after it happened. Whoops. It's been a very crazy year, for reasons that will soon become apparent.

I organized a group of SWE ladies to visit the Strip district's Society for Contemporary Craft on July 9th for a ringmaking class. Peter was knee-deep in the comps process and hadn't slept much the previous night, but I cajoled him into joining us and helping to make my ring. Here is where it becomes a little complicated: while he was in Germany, we had talked about getting engaged and I had done some research into what I might want, but never really found anything I loved. There were too many choices. At that point, I floated the idea of how cute it would be if we both just made one, and he agreed. And then, sort of coincidentally, I planned this event for SWE. While our prior conversation was fresh in my mind, it was apparently not present in Peter's for the duration of the event. To keep from raising suspicions of our fellow ringmakers, I had sized both right and left ring fingers and was supposedly designing for the right hand. The winking and nudging directed at Peter about it being left-hand bound was sadly undetected. I explain this important misunderstanding as it's a pretty amusingly relevant representation of our relationship as a whole, wherein both parties have differently organized and prioritized brains. Anyway, we snipped a strip of metal, made a design, annealed and bent it into shape, then soldered the joint and polished it off:



It was only after we got back home, when I explained myself more thoroughly, that we decided to use it as an engagement ring. Which is to say, Peter asked if I was proposing to him, after which he had to ceremoniously remove the ring from my right hand and put it on my left. This (physiologically arbitrary but culturally significant) change meant that, after over six years of dating, we were engaged. Some unexpected freaking out was done on my end, even though it's not like I had envisioned a different outcome. Brains are weird. Hugging also ensued.


In any case, I had already planned for my mom and her friend to come up to Pittsburgh to see the Dave Matthews Band on the 14th, so I decided to keep it internet-quiet until then. I still wore the ring to work, but that made far fewer waves than I had anticipated, which was convenient. I had heard many times how, after my mom and dad were dating for a while, Mom-mom would always check my mom's hand for a ring. The one day she didn't was, obviously, the day my mom had to basically wave her hand around to get noticed. I figured I'd similarly wait and see how long it took her to notice. I thought she'd get it right off, but it wasn't until she brought up her stuff from the car and got into the apartment for a few minutes (after an excess of left-handed nose-scratching) that she was like, "You don't wear rings. What's that?" Hah! And then there was much rejoicing, phone calls, and finally Facebook posting of a photo we had taken on the rooftop a few days earlier. Weirdly, the day we ate dinner up there (BBQ takeout, I believe), there were randomly fireworks right after. Celebratory!

And then we headed out to the First Niagra Pavillion to see the Dave Matthews Band, which was another adventure entirely. The trip was funded in part by a prize I won playing a Coke Rewards game... wee. The venue is mega-sized, but without any kind of sane parking theory. Instead, there is only one entrance and one exit to the lot for thousands of people, and the lot itself is just a flat-ish grassy hillside where people park basically willy-nilly. Getting in took a good while; getting out was nearly impossible for about 45 minutes. The people watching was pretty prime, though, and I had read about the parking lot dysfunction so we just relaxed and ate snacks afterwards. The show itself was knockout - I knew these guys were good, but to be that good for two straight hours with minimal breaks is nothing short of amazing. Hooray for DMB! Thus begins a pretty good July - but more on that later.

A patriotic week

Lots of interesting bits to start off July!

This 4th of July was much lower-key than in years past for us. We did make some good steak and mashed potatoes, though, and prepped some chocolate raspberry ice cream to make later in the week, so that's pretty exciting in itself! This was the first year CMU hosted their very own fireworks for the 4th of July, and they were really quite good! Not having to fight any traffic was a definite plus as well. The aftermath the next day was kind of surprising, but also interesting to look at.




Peter and I had a Groupon expiring, so we were further spoiled by a midweek dinner downtown at Elements.  A seven-course meal is a pretty rare occurence!



And then, of course, was the real patriotic event of the week. Only on late Tuesday (after tickets had already been handed out to the greater Pittsburgh public) did we CMU citizens learn that Obama was going to speak on campus, right across from my building, on Friday. Crazy stuff! Since security was going to be tight, my building would actually be locked all Friday, so it was either attend or work from home. Seems like an easy choice to me. I went in and stood in line for tickets on Thursday (thank goodness they thought to have some for the students/staff), and did some more standing on Friday. I figured, at worst it would be a dry run for the Firefly Festival, since it was supposed to be very hot. I brought a bandana for dousing with water, water bottle, sunscreen, a fan, even a sandwich and banana in my purse...and I was very happy to be so prepared. Fortunately, the initial line was under an overhang in the morning, so the 9:30 - 11am wait was relatively cool in the shade. I was far enough ahead that I was able to grab a spot underneath the only tree on the CFA lawn too, so I was further protected for another hour or so. The last hour of waiting (1-2pm) was pretty brutal, though, and even I wasn't feeling the greatest - especially after watching people left and right faint from the heat. Let's face it, a 98F cloudless day is not optimal for waiting 4+ hours outside, but what can you do? They had some sparse entertainment on stage, but by far the best was watching the secret service guys set up and patrol the rooftops.



I can't really fault Obama for being there after 2pm, though - he gave a speech in Youngstown just before 11am, apparently, and that's 1.5 hours away. Tight scheduling. Once he finally came to the stage, there was simultaneous relief and electrification in the crowd. At the beginning he made a joke about the White Sox and the Pirates which people liked; I liked his "I love you back!" quip to the many shouts of love from the crowd. The ensuing half hour speech was about what I had expected, otherwise. I found it very reasonable and mostly hinging on what he has accomplished thus far, which I think is a lot. I dutifully cheered when he mentioned keeping folks under 26 on their parent's insurance. :) He did seem tired and a bit raspy, not too many smiles until the end either. But he is a heck of a good public speaker.




(sidenote: they didn't put the seal up until right before he was about to speak, tricky)

(^-- can you see him in the backround?! I wasn't very far away! // lots of debris --v)

It's not every day that you get to see the sitting POTUS speak right outside your office!  Well, as a civilian, anyway.  One of the coolest 98F experiences I've ever had, probably.

Beachy beach beach!

Another successful year at the beach!

Well, maybe not completely optimal -- I did not break my bumper like last year, but my car did need a lot of dad-maintenance yet again. Saturday's drive was a lovely one, until I was about two miles from the beach house. I stomped on the brake for a yellow light (sigh) and almost stopped - and then felt something give, and the car kept going until I really put my foot to the floor. Ack. I knew I only had three turns left so I decided to just go for it (really there wasn't much thought involved other than holy poop why don't my brakes feel the same unless I stomp on them?!) and start stopping verrry far in advance. Not fun. Thankfully I pulled into the driveway without incident, but I would later learn that a rusted brake line had burst at that fated yellow light. Gahh. I had not previously given thought to the fact that brakes were perhaps not forever, which puts tailgating into a whole new light -- I just want to yell "YOUR BRAKES ARE NOT INFALLIBLE!" now. Anyway. I'm very lucky that my dad is a car genius, and got the right tools via a call to Steve who was still at the house, and all was okay. Except we broke one of the tools essential to fixing the line right after we did it, oops... but otherwise it was mostly a nice way to spend time with my dad (except that things broke, and minus when it rained so hard we had to close the garage door).

(will this part be the next to go? who knows...)

On a lighter note, this was the first year I was able to make the Lewes sea glass festival, which was super nice! We found all kinds of interesting things, and mom got me a glass and wire ornament that, in lieu of a christmas tree, I've hung on a light in our apartment. The historic area in Lewes is getting pretty cool, I'm impressed. For dinner on Sunday we hit up Cake Bar, a new place, for very good food and drinks and most especially CAKE! Hooray!


Cousin Beth Ann and Aunt Bobby took the Cape May-Lewes ferry over from their romp in Atlantic City, which was neat. This may be the first year ever that I've seen them two months in a row (previously: steve's graduation)! Very cool. Dinner was Saketumi, yum grilled pineapple mojitos and sushi.


Tuesday brought a bike ride with my parents, in which we saw a deer very close up, the new very large cannon up by the observation tower, some hilarious signs, and other things. Dinner was at the house, which you'd think would mean low-key, but it was actually a figure-out-how-to-smash-this-lobster dinner, weeeee.


Thus far we didn't know if Peter would be able to make it because of work he needed to do for comps (which are ridiculous and don't get me started), but it turns out he got the green light of sorts from his professor and took a greyhound from Pittsburgh to Philly on Tuesday. Not only did the wifi not work as promised, but in a sitcom-level turn of events, a pregnant lady's water broke on the way and caused a delay. Maybe not the easiest way to get across the state, but certainly the cheapest if you don't have a car! On the bright side, Peanut was heading down from Philly early Wednesday morning and picked Peter up from his parent's house on the way. Woop! This leg was also a little fraught with difficulty, though -- turns outPeanut's mechanic didn't put the right rear brakes back on properly (missing a very important bolt!) so we had yet another brake-related difficulty that required the many talents of my dad. So I brought this fancy yogurt breakfast into the car as we went to rescue them. Never a dull moment!


They still arrived in plenty of time for the Dogfishhead tour mom had set up. The target market was perhaps Steven and his beer-snobbery, but to a chemical engineer it was very cool as well! The beer was okay but I really liked the premises and especially the treehouse in front, which was sold from its Burning Man artist to the owner for a dollar, as long as he'd pay to ship and display it on the property. Steve, Peter, and I all have the same shirt with this on it. Neat!


Lunch was a hilarious mix of things - three dicke bockwurst in a can from germany, pickled asparagus, and lots of leftovers. On the beach (we ARE there, after all, though I haven't been mentioning it) we watched a rescue boat tow a previously sunk boat, and found some washed-up puffer fishes. Ken also brought a floating shark thing which he promptly used to mess with the grandparents.



Friday I finally got up early enough with mom to go on the morning walk to Henelopen with my aunt. Highlights include dolphin sightings and bird prints in the sand vs the monster sand smoother machine. During a later-in-the-day beach walk with Peter (up to the second pier! a first!) we saw a big Amish family playing on the beach. It was kind of amazing, the girls in the water with their big dresses and bonnets on. Must be so heavy, yikes. Yikes also to finding some washed up squids and showing them to all the kids on the beach during the walk back. :D


Last big dinner out was at Nage, where lots of fun was had via wine flights, chocolate cake, and strange foie gras eclairs, amongst other food. Since it was the last night, when we came back we had to try and do ALL THE THINGS that we hadn't yet done. This year that included trying the molecular gastronomy spoon shots again, and this time they were more of a success than when I did them with Sharon, probably due to peter's superb chemistry skills. They're still bizarre feeling, though. We subsequently distracted ourselves with sparklers.


Saturday brings general cleanup craziness in the morning, but it also yielded what I think was the best quote of the week from the grandparents:
Mommom: "David, you have to learn to put the toilet seat down!"
Poppop: "Yeah, I wouldn't want anyone to sneak in there and steal anything..."
BAM! What do you say to that? Impeccable logic. Unfortunately the quip seemed to go over everyone else's heads but Peter and I thought it was amazing.

After a brief de-stressing walk on the beach, we hit up brunch at a new place, JD's filling station. All sorts of fun car memorabilia that dad would like, but I had a very very dense oatmeal brick that wasn't really what I had expected. Certainly made me want to sleep instead of shop in the outlets, but I think we know what had to happen. :) We were pretty successful until Peter got too tired of it, so we drove him back to his parents and I took mom back home to unpack. We kept thinking we were going to have a nap but it never quite happened; dinner with the folks and Sue, then more unpacking, then just as it might have been zzztime a sudden call that Sue's train back to NYC had been canceled. Eeps! After a lot of time spent on hold with Amtrak, turned out that the huge storm of the prior night (which woke me up at 1am to watch the crazy lightning from the porch; Sue got excellent pictures) had knocked out electricity all over the northeast. Makes it hard to run trains that way, for sure. So we drove her up to Wilmington to catch a different train successfully...and then drove home to zonk out for sure!

If you got this far, I congratulate you. If you didn't, here's the too-long-didn't-read: I have a great family!


Peter and I continued the celebration of food and booze that is central to the beach in Pittsburgh with our CSA: black raspberries were put in chocolate ice cream, blueberries and peaches were eaten straight, cauliflower was roasted, cucumbers were made into juice, potatoes were mashed, and onions were chopped... and we attended a going away party for some of Peter's labmates, which was full of wine (we brought an "El Jamon" tempranillo, commemorating the most common word said by us while backpacking in Spain, a great find by Sylvia!) and meats and Patron. Not too shabby, June!