KiddSisko

Hung out and talked with two exiles on my ride today: umd and Floyd. Two separate incidents.

KiddSisko

Where?

mollusk

Irish coffee is one of them.

kensuf

"I wouldn't call what I did today racing, Bob.."

Ooof. I guess a big knife is meaningless if the blade is dull.

big john

Club start at CSUN to Montrose, around the Rose Bowl, a little Pasadena, then up into the Verdugo hills to make my eyes bleed.

Grumpy McTrumpy

how were the rest of the knives in the drawer?

ridethecliche

It's jan. Still a long way to go!

Homebrew01

Couldn't get my hands comfortable riding the trainer. They would get numb, or just not feel right. I normally don't wear gloves, but today I had towels folded up & draped over the bars .... strange.
Front wheel's a little high .....

Flatballer

https://charlotte.craigslist.org/bik/2162561725.html

For only $375, you too can end up in the emergency room.

rog

San Diego is actually really nice.

agoodale

I would say having any kind of commute kills all the benefits of SoCal. You'll spend way too much of your life on the road. But living close to your job usually means expensive housing. So if you and your spouse don't make at least 150k+ (hopefully more) then your middle class SoCal American Dream lifestyle will look quite different that what you'd hoped for. If you're retired, or independently wealthy, or work at home, or don't plan to have kids, etc... you can find some beautiful and peaceful areas to live.

Flatballer

well, I'm single, and make around 90k. Not sure where I'd be working, so I could end up getting lucky and getting a job outside of the city. I'm an electrical engineer, so there's a decent chance I'd end up somewhere outside of downtown. I currently work downtown at a utility, but I'm thinking of going into design work for electronics in a few years.

I'll be in Charlotte at least 2.5 more years until I can get my PE license. After that I may go back to school for a Masters in Power Electronics and then try to find a job in SoCal for that. Not sure where I'd go to school. If I can get a job as an employee where I am (currently a contractor) I'd probably stay here and go to school part time on their dime.

ridethecliche

Okay. I officially hate you.

Not really, but well done. Good to see you helping out your parents as you have been from time to time. Nice to see that people still do that.

Flatballer

it looks like more than it is. I'm paid hourly as a contractor. I get no benefits, no bonus, no health insurance, etc. But I get a lot hourly to make up for it, but it ends up looking like I make more than I really do.

Only a few of my friends know what I make hourly. I kinda feel guilty about it since most of my friends are still making $10/hour. I worked to get where I was, but still.

shovelhd

UCSB has an excellent undergrad Electrical Engineering program. Dunno about grad school.

mollusk

Smart. That job cannot be outsourced and most of the work force is approaching retirement age. I have steered a few kids that I like that had an aptitude for it to that area for the last 15 years.

School choice will be tough because it is not an area that has had lots of federal research money over the last 20+ years, hence there are not a lot of faculty in that area at the "good" schools. There has been a lot more Federal interest lately because of homeland security issues.

Flatballer

actually, Power Electronics is different from Power Engineering. Power Engineering (utility) is what I'm currently doing, and can't be outsourced, and our average age at Duke Energy is 53 or something like that (seriously).

Power Electronics is stuff like DC-DC converters, designing HVDC stuff, AC-DC stuff, power management in semiconductor stuff, designing solid state AC-AC transformers, electronics to govern utility stuff (solid state relays and such), etc. That can easily be outsourced, but it's technical enough that most of the manufacturing of the good stuff is still in the US, and most of the design of all of it, is still in the US.


Right now I enjoy what I do, but most of it isn't engineering. I spend a lot of my time doing engineering project management, maintenance of the stuff we have out there, and some high level trouble shooting.

My dream job would be someone giving me a budget and a per part price, and telling me to go design a DC-DC transformer within certain criteria.

ridethecliche

Eh. I have no complaints being where I am. On that note. I need to study.

patentcad

So in their campaign to battle rogue cyclists who bomb down sidewalks and terrorize pedestrians in Manhattan, the NYPD decided a great idea would be to set up dragnets in Central Park, of all places. You know, the place cyclists go to ride that's safe, closed to traffic, and generally the place you should ride your bicycle in Manhattan. They actually (I kid you not on this) wrote hundreds of tickets to road cyclists for bombing red lights on the closed park road. You know, the 40 traffic lights on the park road that you pass on your six mile circuit. The circuit closed to vehicular traffic. You can't make this stuff up. I mean, that's just Palin Dumb.

I wonder if they'll have a big Sting operation all set up for the first Spring Series race. They can ticket lots of cyclists in March.

rog

Some councilman is proposing to have cyclists register and plate their bikes in NYC. I'm sure that'll work out well for everybody.

patentcad

No, that's some ditz state legislator in New Jersey. Some idiot woman from Essex County. God what a moron. That's going friggin nowhere.

botto 

lounging in the lounge. this time i'm drinking. lots.

patentcad

Good time to watch 'The Hangover'.

GirlAnachronism

I grew up there, and it was a great place to grow up, and a great place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there as an adult. Mostly, it's what agoodale said--it's a car culture and I don't like that. Everything is spread out and accessible only by highway, which just makes for a different lifestyle than what works for me. I like public space, and walking places, and people that move quickly and get lots of things done.

In San Diego you go from your car to someone's house (or whatever your destination is), to your car, to your house. It feels very isolating to me. Also, there are no jobs in my industry (book publishing). I can understand why people like it there, I was just being flippant...

Mostly I just like living in a big city, but I'm considering a move to Northern California at some point. Just a different culture that works a little better for my personality.

mollusk

Gotcha. Given the demographic it might be a great career choice to stay in Power.

Seems to me that power electronics will require knowledge of "tubes" instead of solid state. Do they still teach that stuff in EE departments? Almost everything that I see working with EE undergrads is mostly 1's and 0's. Almost nobody learns a damn about analog circuit design anymore.