ISTP, huh?

Have you ever wondered how your personality might determine your path in life? Recently I took a Myers-Briggs personality test and found out I have an ISTP personality. Which for those that know me is probably not much of a surprise but what I found to be surprising is how much that actually matched my life. Here is what can be said about the ISTP personality...

According to Myers-Briggs, ISTPs excel at analyzing situations to reach the heart of a problem so that they can swiftly implement a functional repair, making them ideally suited to the field of engineering. Naturally quiet people, they are interested in understanding how systems operate, focusing on efficient operation and structure. They are open to new information and approaches. But contrary to their seemingly detached natures, ISTPs are often capable of humorously insightful observations about the world around them, and can be closet "daredevils" who gravitate toward fast-moving and/or risky hobbies (such as bungee jumping, hang gliding, motorcycling, parachuting, SCUBA diving, etc.), recreational sports (such as downhill skiing, ice hockey, racing, etc.), and careers (such as aviation, firefighting, etc.).

Scary Eh? How well does your Myers-Briggs indicator predict your life?

YES!

I am almost there! Today I received my notice of acceptance for graduation at the end of the spring term. So you all know what this means...

Hum, Since graduation is happening in Maryland I won't be walking the walk, but that doesn't mean we can't have a little PARTY!!!!

Weekly Rant

I know you all have been waiting impatiently for my next temper-tantrum so I will try to not disappoint. It was a tough week as there was not many completely obnoxious happenings that got me all in a pinch. There has to be something to rant and rave about and the simple truth that I have nothing to really get me going is not a good excuse. I know I could carry on for a long while about Ladies driving urban assault vehicles, I should probably save that for a different audience. According to Google, my blog audience is comprised of a majority of women, some of which I am sure use an Urban Assault vehicle as their main mode of transportation. But I am sure NONE of you would have committed any of the annoying things on my list of MANY annoyances.

Hum, this really isn't working out as well as I thought but at least my blood pressure has been down all week...

On a positive note, my plan roll has been working out quite well and I have received interesting comments and review of the contraption.

Okay, so maybe I really do have something to rant about, it would seem that while I was out of the office for the first part of the week there was a little bit of passing the buck action going on. Grrrrr, that really irks me. How difficult is it to accept responsibility for a mistake that you made? Does it really do any good to blame it on the guy who is out of the office and unable to respond to his e-mail? Why can't one just say, "I apologize for not getting the information to you and I will prioritize getting everything together and get it sent" I guess it is so much easier to say, "What? Didn't Carl forward that to you? I know he was working on it because I assisted him in getting the information together." When the truth of the matter was, they were supposed to include EVERY thing into one submittal and get it sent off a YEAR ago.

The lengths some people will go to shirk the blame that they are deserving of is unreal. Maybe I am just a push-over and over zealous to claim responsibility for my mistakes. Instead of getting irritated, this might be a lesson in how I should react in the future. Pass the buck, shirk the blame, smoke mirrors and misdirection...

But instead I get to craft a politically correct explanation why the information was never collected into a submittal and sent to the proper individual for processing. Of course by now the damage is done, but the black eye will eventually heal, right?

The New Project...

Well, today marks the start of my next project. My favorite site visit bag suffered some severe damage during the last site trip to Dillon. I would like to blame the extent of the damage on the cold temperatures compromising the vinyl material, but I think it was just old age and experience that caused the catastrophic failure of the bag. I was really attached to the bag, and have tried to replace it on several occasions but never managed to forge a long term bond and relationship with any of the replacements.

For those who don't know me, I am a picky man (hence why I am still unattached) so finding a new bag has not been just as easy as going shopping. I did manage to find a few bags that I could make work, but their price tag had three digits and my heritage wouldn't allow things to go down that way. Today I brain stormed with Mom and put some sketches down on paper on how I would envision my perfect site visit bag. There was even a trip to the fabric store, man how I used to hate the trips to the fabric store. I used to beg Mom to let me stay home and now I am inviting Mom along for these trips. Since I am so picky, I will be forced to make my own pattern which will make things really interesting. So there will be a lot of brainstorming, sample patterns, failures, sketches and discarded ideas, but I think I might just luck out.

I will keep everyone posted on how the progress of the project and hopefully the finished project is functional and satisfy my desire to have the perfect work bag. I plan on taking pictures throughout the process, so maybe it will be a future Do-it-Yourself blog.

Today I made a plan roll, but forgot to take my camera over to the house to take pictures of assembly. This was just a taste as to what this next project will be like. I even sewed the binding on all by myself; a project I would normally talk Mom into doing for me.

Keeping plans clean and un-tattered is a chore and often gets accomplished through the use of plan tubes. I personally don't care for the bulk that plan tubes have so I have created this device. Nothing more than a piece of Cordura with webbing straps that gets wrapped around the roll of plans to protect. The nice part is it can be folded or rolled when not needed and doesn't have the bulk of a tube. It will accommodate a 5" Dia plan roll which is typically more than one would want to carry around. It has attachment points for a carrying handle or a strap, and I hope to incorporate an attachment point for this on my site bag. It should help to keep the plan edges clean and protect the plans from getting wet in inclement weather.