Work Stories

For work I'm designing a pressure containing vessel that requires reinforcement.  One idea was to bend some sheet metal into bracing that could be welded on. The bending worked, but the specific concept was eventually scrapped.

This one time I put my phone in the washermaschine and now it is broken (1 month).  I will say that not having a good working camera has really limited the productivity from this blogger- sorry!

A German behavior/idea, in my opinion, is to only buy things once.  Germans love when little things are made very well and hate when things break.  If I had a dollar for every German appliance in the home here over 20 years old, I'd have some dollars.  Jochen enjoys pointing out how old his blender and microwave and washer-maschine are, and to contrast this with the number he has had to replace in a few short years in the US.  My boss says: If we think this may be so and break, then we will build it more. It must last forever!

Well, here is a great little example:

 This pencil sharpener has a spring loaded allignment function built in.  You put the pencil in the vice grip, and it grabs and pulls the pencile directly into the middle of the shaver.  You never have to worry about breaking the tip!  It also costs 50 dollars, which is about 45 dollars more than we would be willing to pay in the states. Culture!

There was a partial eclipse of the sun last Friday, and a total eclipse of my heart.  I have never seen an eclipse before and was thankful to be working somewhere with extra welding lenses lying around:

During the peak of the eclipse the lighting was very beautiful.  Everything was illuminated but it was much softer- like dusk without the shadows and yellow light. Or something.

p.s. sorry for the Bonnie Tyler joke.