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One of the year-long projects I am working on within mechanical engineering (namely aerial acoustic localization) has a broad, engineering design lecture component that all of the ME students in my year sit in for. There are a few random assignments thrown out in the lecture as well as the occasional attendance quiz, so, despite the frequently sleep-inducing topics and speakers, the lecture is fairly well attended. Almost a month ago, we had a guest speaker from the mechanical engineering branch of the United States Patent & Trademark Office [USPTO].

Apart from a PowerPoint preso that violated every presentation tenet known to mankind (including a slide that suddenly changed EVERYTHING TO ALL CAPS EVEN THOUGH THE SLIDE CONTENT WAS NO MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE OTHER SLIDES FORE OR AFT), his charisma was lacking, his confidence absent, and his tone monotonous. He showed us the USPTO internal patent searching system software that he uses day in and day out and also showed us how inept he was at using his own computer.

Eventually, he got to the point in his presentation where he mentioned job opportunities at the USPTO and brought up the salary numbers. Starting salary for a mechanical engineering patent examiner is around $60,000, with a $5,000 to $10,000 signing bonus. What? I could sense all of us sleeping engineering students wake up at the sound of a few, generous pay stubs. I was ready for the barrage of questions regarding what exactly does a patent examiner do all day, because some of us might just be interested?

Summarizing his words and from what he showed us thereafter, a patent examiner sits in an office and goes through patent applications one-at-a-time. With care and diligence, a patent examiner studies the applications and makes dozens if not hundreds of searches for each application to discover if any other prior work is involved or related. A patent examiner’s job boils down to quotas, as our speaker said, and the more applications you push out the door, the faster you climb the ladder. It’s a one-man job (who relies entirely on his speed at getting around a search engine) and competing with your fellow workers is not only the way to success it is blatantly encouraged. [Maybe not-so-ironically enough, after class a few friends of mine spoke to the man who confided that turnover is unspeakably common in his area; if an examiner makes it four years into the job, he’s pulling for the team].

Wednesday evening, I spoke to my roommate about this because he had mentioned some dull jobs he was applying for in similar quota-based fields. Then, today, I find this article which is absolutely amazing and brings home how flawed the American patent system is. For some quality Washington Post reading, check that out.

Since my brother and my new sister-in-law are on a honeymoon and weren’t particularly concerned about packing food, I brought almost all of the catered platters back with me. I can stomach raw broccoli and cauliflower for a while, if only to save a few bucks. However, I discovered that the sliced cucumbers are freezing, even in the main compartment of the refrigerator and even in the same mixed veggie bag as with the baby carrots, celery, and aforementioned cabbage species.

Frozen cucumbers taste like nothing. Trust me. It’s just like biting in a flimsy disc of ice… were ice packaged in discs or capable of being flimsy.

It has been a long but satisfying day, so I feel like this.

And I can admit that the MagSafe power adaptor on my MacBook is one of my best friends. Even when I neglect it or give it ambiguous signals (plug you in, take you out, plug you in, take you out..), it is inevitably going to still cling to me, or at least the MacBook. I can even abuse it, like how I now have no inhibition to walking away from my laptop whether or not the cord is in my way. If I catch my foot on the cord… ah, what of it? In reality, I am now a slave to this technological marvel.

While doing the mandatory browse through NewEgg, I actually looked at their homepage and discovered a wonderfully eye-catching slogan, for us internet-savvy people out there.

Perfect! Getting your credit card out for BestBuy is just about as dated as gas station pumping service. When it comes to computer hardware, anything you can buy at BestBuy is #1) outdated and #2) is available for one-third or one-half of BestBuy’s price at NewEgg. Let’s quickly check some numbers.

Alright, so BestBuy’s website has a section for “Video Cards and PC Components” which I suppose is appropriate considering their sales’ reps capacity to explain their merchandise’s features. Now, locating their most expensive, and therefore most recent, video card results in this BFG card for $939. NewEgg’s regular price for this unit is $709, a savings of 25%. Not quite the 33% that I estimated in the heat of my arrogance, but fairly close. So, then let’s try another hardware component.

Motherboards. (I am cringing at what is about to happen). Ok, BestBuy has this BFG motherboard for $329. NewEgg does not have the identical unit, but it does have a newer model of the exact same board (so a more powerful board) and their price is $185 regular or $135 with a rebate. That’s a savings of 44% without rebate and almost 60% with rebate. Clearly, it would take the not-so-genius of a local computer tech guy who just took a community college course in DreamWeaver, who is ready to tackle the Internet head-on, and who has the ambition to start up his own ISP company to head over to BestBuy and purchase a motherboard for his new workstation. A sad sight.

As a side note, both examples used BFG components, which is pretty much bottom of the line. NewEgg’s big price breaks happen with the more popular brands like Asus, MSI, or GigaByte. In those cases, the prices are way, way lower than anything else available on the internet and at a component quality far exceeding anything possibly offered over-the-counter at a BestBuy.

It’s important to tell people about NewEgg. Geek session closed.

There were a few special guests touring the VAL today, so for the last two days we “cleaned up” our areas. This included organizing our desks, wrapping cables, getting rid of the three dozen UPS boxes we had laying around, and vacuuming. Of course, none of us volunteered to vacuum. Instead, someone brought in their iRoomba which roamed the 1000some square feet for two days, picking up an insignificant amount of dirt (we actually needed to dust), and bumping into our chairs. It’s a pleasant robot, though.

It rapidly became cold here in Blacksburg. From my waking until now, I am fairly certain the temperatures stayed below 60F. Oh, and the wind; that returned, too. I’ve been three days off a bike now and the change of weather has given me an adventurous spirit to be outdoors with earwarmers and leg warmers riding around my classic roads. Oh well. I should be riding after this weekend.

And, this has got to be the best “blog” I have come across recently. It’s better than what you “might expect”.

For the next week I cannot eat a daily loaf of bread and cannot daily devour 12 ounces of M&Ms. The worst part of this is that Sunday is a family wedding where I will most certainly want to digest anything sweet within an arm’s length. This is actually the third time an unfortunate event like this has coincided with a major family holiday or food-based celebration. The first was when I broke my jaw right before Thanksgiving many years ago and whenever it was that I had all of my wisdom teeth taken out immediately before Christmas.

This time my unfortunate event was a weekend of cycling beyond the +10% weekly increment of miles otherwise recommended. I rode 150 miles in two days, both in roughly equal-length stages that a few of us on the team were excited about. The first was really good road and hills as I mentioned before. The second day featured long straights with two major climbs, one of them being Miller’s Cove in the backwards but safe direction (descending Miller’s is really sketchy). Both of the climbs were miniature versions of this. Anyways, I began the second day’s ride with a sore knee which was even more sore when I arrived home.

So, I am taking this advice which specifies resting, icing, and elevating the injured leg. Resting, eh? This basically means zero cardio exercise for a week to ensure that my knee has healed sufficiently. No cardio means no need for carbo-loading. No cardio means no M&M crate purchases. No more cardio means no indulging in wedding cake[s].

Another rider suggested I use the time to do upper body exercises. I assume he was not referencing my current jaw or digestive exercises but rather those dastardly, monotonous motions some poor, top-heavy fools go about at the gym. Blast. I’m in a bind.

Despite the scrubbing and brushing and soaking, my Trek Pilot’s first front derailleur is confirmed dead. The high/low screws are seized and therefore won’t allow any adjustment for tension. Luckily, I had already purchased a new one. But, dang it. I really wanted an evening clean to do to the trick. The useless part makes for a nice knick knack, at least.

On another note. The team ride today was fairly amazing. All said and done, we put in about 72 miles (the Google maps route is incomplete) and had a top speed of 54 frightening mph. The downhill bit that gave us that rate was wide, traffic-empty, and assumably a terrible wall to climb in the opposite direction. To get a feel of these descents, I would recommend watching this. It gets uncomfortable in that position after a while.