JesseParker.com

I'm emailing this post to blogger, so that I can attempt to post something during the day if I get a chance. Most of the internets are blocked out at work, a good thing really... Work is fun, very fast paced and variable. I'm sort of in charge and stuff, which is weird but exciting. People come and ask me questions like I know stuff, maybe all this school was for a reason? I'm tired, so I'll leave this with a few funny signs I saw today at the factory. I'd take pictures, but I'm not allowed to. Stupid confidentiality agreement... "Warning! Danger to life" "Organ Danger" (on a bottle of cleaner) No mom, I don't deal with either of these things. I'm paid too little (or too much?) The end, now for bed...

The company was founded in Switzerland, hence the Matterhorn logo.. So I start my new job tomorrow. It's a 6 month temp to possible permanent position working for Synthes , a company that makes surgical implants. I'll be what's called a manufacturing engineer, which means I'll be "in charge" of a group of a piece of a factory that makes all sorts of bone screws and femoral nails. If machine operators have problems or questions, it's up to me to try and answer/fix them. The factory has about 800 people in it, so I'll be in charge of a fairly small section. The company itself seems really cool, and the people I met and will be working with are pretty cool as well. When the lunch conversation with my boss during the interview turns to the merits of 29" bike wheels I knew it was somewhere I'd like to be. The location is pretty nice, just north of CO Springs in a town called Monument. And only a mile or two from excellent biking . And every...

So I finally have an in-person interview with the same company I phone interviewed with a couple of weeks ago. Tomorrow morning at 9 AM... Wish me luck. I'm now off to print out the application I'm supposed to fill out and bring and get a haircut.

As I write this, Grandpa Zeke is getting a nice new knee. Wish him luck!

So Kara and I have had some pretty good scrabble games lately. Check out the scores. This was the first time I've ever broken 300. If anyone wants to play some scrabble, go to scrabulous.com and start one up. It's a pretty cool site where you can play scrabble over email with anyone you want..

Baby rats are called pups, so these really are puppies. I didn't drink any more of that coffee after that. I definitely like the little guys, but I'm not quite that sort of pet owner yet...

This place is city owned, and has some really well built singletrack for hikers, bikers, and equestrians as well as a skills park for bikes, and lots of sport climbing routes for the rock climber types. They even have secluded hiking only trails and places to let your dog off the leash (although most people just do it everywhere in the park). This is a cool idea that seems to work quite well; a multi user park that actually accepts input from the community on what to do with their land.        

View Larger Map So here is Palmer Park as an embedded map.

Rode this last Thursday, decided it was time to get the pictures off the camera and up into the internets.. Started with a bunch of climbing up loose switchbacks. I made a bunch of them, but some were pretty much impossible. Maybe sometime when it rains a bit to firm them up.. Stopped at a nice vista for a quick snack After that the trail arrives at a parking lot, so I took a break and had some lunch... Then I saw this as I was about to get back into the woods. Hmmm... Not the best time to be in the woods alone. I spent the quiet climbing formulating a plan for when the kitty decides it wants to play. It never showed up, so I took another break at the highest point of the ride. Then it was a ridiculously fast and cool descent on a trail shared by motorcycles. as much as I think it's lame to use a motor out here, they sure make the trail nice. Then I was back at the car... Click on any of the photos for more, complete with "geocoding"

I made this with animoto.com, it automatically put the pictures with the music. It appears once again robots are better than me.

This is definitely not a graph of the strain-field on the surface of a piece of fiberglass.

Like words, like feeding hungry people? Freerice donates rice to united nations for every vocab word you get correct. They pay for it with the money coming from the sponsors below the vocab game. Seems like a worthy cause to me..

Meet Triscuit And Olive Just a couple of blue rats checking out their new home. Smart little fellas, We did the dog trick where you put food under a towel and they went right under without hesitating.. Going to teach them to come when called and maybe roll over or play dead or something.