I finished my 2.1 mile run last night in 24 minutes! Ok, so its no half-marathon in 2:15 or anything, and its much slower than most people run. But for me, a <12 minute mile is pretty damned good.

This morning, I forgot my classes were in the afternoons instead of the mornings (like they were last semester). So instead of rushing into work to get here early to squeeze hours in before leaving for class, I was puttering around wasting time. Oh well.

On Letterman:

Top Ten Reasons George W. Bush Wants To Put A Man On Mars:

10. Dick Cheney needs a new undisclosed location

9. It's part of his "No Planet Left Behind" initiative

8. Great deal on the off-season airfare right now at Expedia.com

7. Maybe we'll find some weapons of mass destruction there

6. We've run out of places on Earth to drill for oil

5. Hoping to get Mork's autograph

4. We cannot back down until the people of Mars hold free elections

3. Dude, free Mars bars

2. Why not? It's not like we have an enormous debt or failing economy

1. Pete Rose bet him we wouldn't do it

Work Rant

I need to get away from my computer. That's probably my biggest complaint about my job -- that I spend all day at a desk in front of a computer, in front of one of a select number of computer programs. I just looked at a reassignment opportunity in the NBL (the giant pool where the astronauts train) - I'm not actually considering it because I like my current job and the path where it may eventually lead me. But, momentarily, it was nice to consider having a job that would occasionally require me to swim, travel, work with hardware, and attend meetings with people that do things outside my specific discipline.

Instead I make charts. All be-it cool charts. But charts none-the-less. I engineer by powerpoint. Sarah commented the other day that the problem with staying motivated is that no one cares about the results of a lot of our projects, and I have to wholeheartedly agree. When I'm doing last minute work to go into a bigger presentation on an important project, I feel motivated and productive. But when I'm doing work that the end result is going to be my group lead looking at it and saying, "wouldn't it be interesting if you refined these by doing these 10 million more cases?", then, well, not-so-motivated. Paralysis by analysis. This is why I'm a bad engineer, I can't endlessly study a problem because its interesting. I require a deadline and a specific result.