Bogieblog

Awards, Certs and Prizes

Last Saturday was the HOG Chapter Christmas party. The venue, as usual was lovely and I got there early enough to get pictures of the view out the back windows.

Part of the festivities is the awards for various reasons. I was shocked to get the Die Hard Award. There is a story there, but I won't get into it - just suffice to say, no, I never even met Ray Hamel, so the name is in memory of a person and some of the stuff he went thru.

Had a great time and I left when the dancing started up (as usual).

The week before Thanksgiving I attended the first week of Green Belt training thru one of our customers. This last week, I attended the 2nd week of training. BTW - Please no comments on where the training was done - (CC - you know what I mean).

We had a group project thru the week which involved making "helicopters" out of paper. The hellicopters had to follow a standard template and the only modifications that could be made were by folding and use of paperclips. Out of the 4 teams, my group came in 1st. There were several things that were scored; there was a 10 minute presentation featuring stats and use of Minitab for the project, The team had to build and test 10 identical helicopters in 5 minutes, testing consisted of the requirement that each fly for at least 1 second from a height of 65", then the teams got to pick 5 of their 'copters to compte for flight time and lowest Standard Deviation between the 5.

After the presentation, my team was in 2nd place. Then we made up points during the build because each was identical to the others (seriously, I figured that would be a given for teams, but apparently not). We had a very tight Standard Deviation for our 5 competition flights, which was followed closely by another team. We also slightly beat out another team for longest flight at 1.89 seconds. We did not hit our 95% confidence level for flight time, but none of the other teams did so either, so when all was said and done, our team squeaked by with 1/10th of a point. Each team member received the following prize

Hey, and the first week we had a team competition also. first, each person took a survival quiz. Without scoring or knowing answers, we then broke into our groups (totally different groups than week 2) and then took the survival quiz as a group. Once the scoring was done, I had the lowest score in the class (lower is better - my score was 40), and my team had the lowest team score by about 10 points at 50. This despite the fact that our team also had 2 of the highest individual scores at 78 & 80. So I was able to influence the team enough to lower the score significantly.

Lets see, two team competitions where the only common denominator was me - cause and effect perhaps :D [/JK]

 

Training Day

Today I spent 8 hours in class and am now the proud holder of this certificate:

Oh, and I also got a patch for my vest

This class was organized by the HOG Chapter that I belong to and opened up to a couple of other local HOF chapter members. We had 32 participants in the class. We were originally supposed to hold it at our sponsoring Dealership, but with so many people attending the venue was changed to a library that has a lot of classrooms.

All participants paid their own class fees and instructor travel fees (he came up from past Boston). We also kicked in money to donate to the library for allowing the use of their large conference room that had tables/chairs for the entire mob (plus extra - we could have had 50 fit easily), a projector screen and computer set up for PowerPoint slides and of course the  necessary restrooms. Plus we had lots of room to hold 3 different training scenarios at the same time.

We all had a good time and learned lots. It helped that a couple of people had attended this class before so were able to help with the training scenarios - otherwise it would have taken forever getting thru them with just the lone instructor.

UPDATE: Someone sent me a picture of my attendance. I have no idea who the other people are - they are from different HOG Chapters.

Interesting

I have become a research resource on sled dogs - given as an assignment by a Texas teacher. The teacher points to a post I did quite some time ago.

Found this little tidbit because my stats automatically loaded when I signed it=nto Typepad and I got curious as to why I was getting referals from Teacherweb.

Hey, and only 3 days until Iditarod 2012 starts!

 

Things I Learned

I was at Census training this week (except Wednesday, when I was at work). I learned a few things. Okay, some things I learned were actually true and other things I learned were actually things that people should know, but forget until the situation arises.

• Tea Partiers: They are likely to shoot any Census worker (or government employee for that matter) as to look at them. You will be lucky to leave with only a couple of scratches if you have to interview one of THOSE people. They will be hostile because they hate government and want to have anarchy.
  
  No, this wasn't taught by the Census Bureau or any of it's Supervisors or Crew Leaders. This was common knowledge amongst the students. Out of 17 students, the only people that had a different opinion were myself and a farmer (as far as I could tell, I didn't really stick my neck out on this) Also, I couldn't tell about a couple of the college kids - but everyone older than 25 (besides myself and the farmer) were very addament that Tea Partiers were basically the lunatic fringe and dangerous.
  
• Know-it-alls stick together and have side conversations thru the class, which dirupts the rest of the classroom learning. I'm not saying these people (about 6 of them) didn't really know it all as they had worked on a previous portion of the current Census. They were very talkative amongst themselves, and the building echoed badly, so they made hearing anything very difficult.
  
• Anyone who lambasts the "younger generation" as rude needs to do more than just generalize. I found the rudest people to be those in their 30's and 40's. The college kids were not diruptive and they came to class on time (unlike some other people in the class).
  
• Anyone that has a "rebel" or "Don't Tread on Me" flag is going to be dangerous to interview. This is again common knowledge amongst the class (those 25 or older) and may be related to Tea Partiers.
  
• The government is very inefficient (duh!). The first class I went to, was given even though there would be no work for us. In fact, we couldn't even do the whole training because there was no way to give us live exercises. The Boston regional office had insisted that the class be given even though the NH people told them there was no need. I thought I would get work out of this second class, but now I am not so sure. I was supposed to do a training / observational live exercise with my crew leader today, but that was cancelled as we have no work (and we don't know when it will show up). For having 10 years to organze this thing, it is sure disorganized and inefficient.

Just a few thoughts / observations and reminders from the week.

Continuing Ed

If you're into continuous education, generally bettering your knowledge in various subjects, and doing it cheaply here is a list for you. I know that one could view lectures from MIT for free, but I didn't realize that there were so many places, and many of them prestigious, that you could do so.

Unforturnately, they don't give you credits, but it still seems like a good way to strain you brain.

Thanks to Granite Grok for the link.

Class Conversation

The first night I walked into the Quality Control class that I am currently enrolled in, there were 6 guys already there plus an instructor (not "our" instructor, but one that obviously had at least one class with these guys). I picked a seat, got my stuff out of my case and just listened to the conversation going on between the guys and the instructor.

Before the instructor left, he pointed and exclaimes, "YOU."

Me: "Yes"

Instructor: "You are in trouble with these clowns."

Me: "I used to load liquor trucks for a living with a bunch of guys, I think I can handle this bunch."

Instructor: "Well, you might be okay with most of them anyway. . . " and he left the room

Most of the talk so far had been about sledding, which I had stayed out of becuase I don't really know that much except for some of the local trails (curtesy of listening to WS and Jim talk about them). In most of the classes I have taken thru the last 15 years, I have not really joined in at all - I have kept pretty much to myself.

A couple more guys came in (it turns out in a class of 12, I am the only female), and two conversations destinguished themselves. Now, the chairs/tables are in a U shape (with the curve flatter), and I had picked my position in part of the curve area. The two main groups of guys were on the "legs". There were two main conversations which happened to coincide with the legs - on my left was a conversation about guns, on my right was a conversation about motorcycles.

Let's put it this way, I have never had so much in common with a bunch of people right off the bat. Every Tuesday, I get to class about 1 hour early, as do several of the guys, and we never have a problem with conversation. We may talk about Harley's vs sport bike, vs others; or about windshield heights; or we talk about one guys Iraq experiences; or we talk about sighting systems (one guy works for Insight Technology); or hunting; or even armorer issues (one guy is a certified armorer and works with military equipment). There is always an interesting conversation going on, in which I can both learn and contribute.

I think the instructor was a little incorrect when he said that I was in trouble being in a class with these guys!

Continuous Learning

Monday I signed up for a Quality Control class at a local Tech College. That evening, after work, I scooted on down there to get my book. Every Tuesday night, for the next 16 weeks I will be sitting in a class from 6 until 10:10 PM. Should put me home about 10:45 (assuming good road conditions).

Me thinks I will be going in to work later than normal of Wednesdays.

A Little Firing

Last Saturday I was here earning this

by going thru about 6 hours of training on safety and assembly/disassembly. Then I got to go out to the indoor range and figure out how best to use my non-traditional eyesight to do this:

Not bad for the first time ever handling one of these (. 25 shots - 25 hits; all the ones in the black were my first shots.

I took a women's only class, where once again (as in the motorcycle class) I was the only one who didn't own a the equipment already. Once again, I'm thinking that some people are doing things bas-ackwards! However, I was surprised by the spread in age; there were two mother-daughter teams (daughters were under 18), several my age and a couple of ladies in their 60's or 70's. Out of a class of 12, that is quite the diversity.

Some time in the future I will attend a mixed 102 class (Orientation was 101), where the time is spent mostly on the range.

And a good time was had by all.

I'm Back

So, Bod asks the timely question, "where are you bogie?" Dudette called last weekend looking for news, however we were off for the dump run and breakfast so all we got was a message (and you will see in a minute why I didn't call back).

We are alive and well at Casa Bogie. In the month since my presence has not graced this blog, I have been extremely busy.

• First, as Buffy surmised, I have been hitting the books. I have had 3 tests, 42 hours of class and about 80 hours of homework in the last 4 weeks. S
• econd, I have spent extra time at work because we had our second annual ISO surveillance audit last week, and as a principle player in that area, I had to make sure everything and every area were prepared.
• If that wasn't enough, I have had a couple rounds of pet-sitting.
• Fourth, I canned another batch of salsa and two batches of spagghetti sauce. With the spagghetti sauce I had to cheat and put in the freezer because I just didn't have the time to do the water bath part.
• Fifth, I planted the rest of the miniature roses which had been gracing the deck but needed to be put in the ground so they would get a chance to survive the winter.

So, having no time to do anything but shower, grab a bite to eat, and get a couple hours of sleep here and there, I was about ready to throw in the towel on the Circuit Analysis class. This past weekend I didn't even get any of the homework done because I was busy with my math homework and pet-sitting (dates which had been set up months ago).

I figured if I buckled down on Tuesday night, I could get a fair amount into the homework, then Wednesday before class (I get there  about 1 hour ahead of time), I could make a great effort to get most of the rest done. Sure, I wouldn't have worked any on the Lab report, but that isn't due until next Wednesday. Sure, I wouldn't have read any of the upcoming chapters, but that was okay too because I figured I had extra time since there was no lab scheduled for that night (additionally, with a 4 day weekend coming up, I could catch up).

Then, for the second time in 3 weeks, the CA instructor threw a loop in the plans. On Tuesday, he emailed that we had to do a pre-lab for a lab that he added to the schedule. Oh, and by the way, sorry for the short notice.

Uh, no, that wasn't going to happen - not for me anyway. Oh, and the pre-lab writeup is worth 15 points (out of 50). Nope, just can't do it. I went to school on Wednesday and dropped the class.

This weekend, I still have plenty of math homework to keep me busy. Plus, I have another test Monday night. However, I will be able to go on a ride with WS on Saturday and work in the garden a bit. With a 4 day weekend (my Friday off and Monday is Columbus Day - a holiday at work), it will feel like I have massive amounts of time on my hands.

Next semester I will be going at Circuit Analysis again. It won't be any easier the second time around (I struggled with it as I did with Digital Fundamentals). I am hoping for a different instructor next time around, but if I get the same one, at least I should have some time to take on the surprise assignments.

So to Bod, Dudette, Buffy, and everyone else who has wondered, that is the answer to where I have been.

Hodge-Podge of Doings

I picked the first tomatoes of the season on Friday. None of them were truly ripe, but I wasn't going to wait for chipmunks to do any taste-testing. I also picked 3 green peppers. Wow, that is an increase of approximately 10001% over what I have picked in previous years (remember, I had already picked a couple last week).

*      *      *      *      *

I spent yesterday in flea-fighting mode. Prince got a fleabath and dip (he went for a run earlier in the day and got muddy). Missy got a good brushing (she is shedding horribly, then got some of the stuff you put on their backs. After Prince dried off, he also got the same stuff. The whole house got sprayed too (cats and dogs were out and Birdie was locked away in the back room.)

*      *      *      *      *

Birdie probably thought he was being punished. The back room is still full of boxes of books and other stuff from the den. The only place to put Birdie's cage was on the floor, so he couldn't even look out the windows.

*      *      *      *      *

I am slowly working on getting things put to rights in the den. I cleaned out the front bedroom Friday night (some of which was plant stuff - it got put in the lean-to) so that work-outs can be done in more than a 4 square ft area. I also got one box of books placed in the new book case. I started on another box, but the a lot of series got split up, so I have to find the mates to the books before they can be put away. Oh yeah, in my copious free time I will be doing that.

*      *      *      *      *

Friday I signed up for two classes; Circuit Analysis and Elementary Functions (a math class that is a co-requisite). I will be at class from 5:30 until 10:30 on Mondays and Wednesdays starting the week of Labor Day (Monday class doesn't start till the next week) until December 19. I am still unsure how I am going to get all the tomatoes canned while taking classes, but I am sure I will find a way.

*      *      *      *      *

Yesterday the local Agway had shrubs and trees on sale for 30% off. I got some Viburnums to replace a couple of plants I ripped out last weekend from the shrub garden I put in last year. Those shrubs were not really liking the part shade, so I put them in pots and will figure out what to do with them next year. Perennials were at 20% off (which I had been waiting for) so I got a bunch of hostas to place in an area that WS is working on. They will probably also be overwintered in their pots. Hey, and the Agway Manager gave me 40% off the shrubs and 30% off the hostas instead of the posted discounts (we practically support an employee so he gives us discounts on darn near everything anyway).

*      *      *      *      *

I got 3 more roses planted late yesterday afternoon; Oklahoma, Honor and Soaring Spirits were placed in their permanent homes. I only have two more full-sized roses to get in the ground. I also have several minis, a climber and two rugosas to plant, but I am getting there.

*      *      *      *      *

And that folks, is pretty much all the exciting new I have for this week.