Back of the Envelope

I spent the day at the Louisiana Renaissance Festival with my parents, my sister, and her daughter. It was fun, even if my niece, Hope, was a handful. I especially liked the blacksmith. I considered buying one of his swords, but it was a bit outside my price range... for the time being.

I considered giving a little homily today, but I think not. Today I'll be spending time with my family, and I urge you to do the same if possible. At the least, remember what you are thankful for, and the One to whom you are thankful.

God bless, and I'll see you tomorrow.

I have now accepted a job offer, and everyone has now been informed, so I can let you know that, come January, I will be working at Lincoln Laboratory. I'll be attempting to make all the arrangements to move back to the Boston Area next month, and if I'm lucky, there won't be any delays due to snow. I'll let you know more as I learn more.

This weekend I'm deciding between two job possibilities, one at Lincoln Laboratory and one at JENTEK Sensors. The final decision will not be based on starting salaries, as they are close enough to make no difference. The first factor is how I feel about the work. Since there are security clearances and non-disclosure agreements at stake, I need to be careful not to say anything I shouldn't, so I'm going to do what every good blogger does, go to the web and just quote what's already public domain. At Lincoln Laboratory, the group which made the offer is the Tactical Defense Systems Group, and rather than try to paraphrase what they told me, I'll quote the Licoln Laboratory website:

...A second major emphasis is on Tactical Air Defense which includes a broad range of activities in the detection, location, identification, and engagement of air vehicles. We combine the modeling results of phenomenological investigations and testing insights from air vehicle measurements into system performance predictions. Our suite of state-of-the-art instrumentation sensors includes two business-sized jet aircraft with instrumented radar and infrared sensors and electronic countermeasure systems.

Our work includes experimental demonstrations as well as phenomenological experimentation and analysis. In fact, we're modeling the effect of new surveillance and air defense technology on military outcomes, as well as comparing alternative technology and designs. At Lincoln Laboratory, we're creating a rigorous scientific foundation for the world's most advanced tactical systems technology development

JENTEK Sensors doesn't have a website, but if you do a Google search you can find a few things, such as this page:

JENTEK Sensors, Inc. provides sensors and systems for monitoring of fatigue crack initiation and growth on aircraft and other structures, as well as for manufacturing/rework quality control. This SBIR [Small Business Innovation Research] focussed first on the adaptation of JENTEK's MWM™-Array sensor to develop surface-mountable eddy-current sensors that can be mounted in difficult-to-access locations on aircraft (e.g., in the fuel tank) to monitor crack initiation and growth. Also, this program addressed specific problems in manufacturing quality control (e.g., rolling, shot peening, and coating characterization).

Both of them are fascinating projects, although JENTEK's research is closer to what I've done previously. Aside from the work, there are other things to consider: advancement opportunities, benefits, work environment. At the end of the day, I think the question is where I think I will perform the best, not just in terms of pure skills but also where my personality and work habits will fit in best. I'll need to have an answer by Monday.

The first part of the interview, which was today, went well. The second part is tomorrow, but I'm thinking it's highly likely they'll be making an offer. Which means that I'll have two offers, and I'll have to decide between them by Monday. I won't tell you which way I'm leaning, as there are positives and negatives with both.

I'm currently posting using the wireless access in the hotel room, which is cool. It wasn't free, but it was cheap (about $4), so I thought it was worth paying for.

I'll have to write something else to take the place of the earlier post that was supposed to go up tomorrow.

I'm going to be out-of-town on Thursday and Friday of next week, on an interview in Waltham, MA (in the Boston area). I may be able to prepare a few posts to go up while I'm out of town, but no promises. I could try to get someone to do some guestblogging, but I'm not sure I'm willing to put up with the childish rivalries they encourage.

After resting, I felt well enough yesterday afternoon to go running and to write, so now I'm back blogging. In case you're wondering, both went well, and I've started on the next portion of Ryan's and Emily's adventure. As for blogging, on today's agenda are Arafat, Ashcroft, and... something else that begins with A. I'll think of something.

I'm not feeling too well right now. I'm feverish, and I have a headache and a uncooperative stomach. It may be because I haven't been getting enough sleep. Whether I have or not, I certainly haven't slept well. I'm trying hard to keep up with writing 2,000 words a day and running 2 to 3 miles, but unless I rest up and get better, the running's out and the writing will be hard, so I'm going to have to cut out the blogging to give me time to rest. Sorry, folks. Hopefully I'll see you tomorrow. If I'm feeling better, maybe even this afternoon.

I've recently begun trying to write a bit more, from 1,000 words a day to 2,000. This will be split between the sequel to Fire and Ryan's and Emily's story. I'm not sure I can do it, but with a job offer on the table I may soon have less time to write than before, so I'd like to get as much done as possible now. At this rate, I can probably finish Fire's sequel within a month, not including the three-step revision/research process. Not that you are necessarily interested in the rate at which I'm writing, but I'll keep you updated anyway.

I meant to revise the next installment of Ryan's and Emily's adventures yesterday, but I was distracted by the election. I'm not talking about the results, although watching the returns last night prevented my late night attempt. But even earlier, when I opened up the file on my laptop and prepared to write, I couldn't concentrate. Blame the panic-inducing afternoon exit polls if you'd like. Anyway, it's somewhat possible I won't get it done in time for the next carnival (unlikely, though, since as host, I can stretch the Friday night deadline all the way to when the Carnival goes up). Even if I don't get it up in time, I do have an alternative story I can use. It would fit my criteria of having something a little bit different each time to demonstrate the different type of stories that are part of the Storyblogging Carnival.

Update: I had meant for this post to go up much earlier, but I goofed, and it didn't go up 'til after midnight. I moved it back by 12 hours, where what it says makes more sense. In the process, I managed to move half-a-dozen other posts back by an hour. I'm not sure why.

I know I said I wasn't going to do any election commentary until tomorrow, but I found this highly disturbing (via Instapundit):

I was not in the books. I've voted in every election in my district since moving there in 2000. I recently moved but hadn't changed my voter registration (as advised by the County election board) since the move was outside of the timeframe to change voting districts.

I have two forms of ID - a driver's license and a Firearm Owner ID. I also have a faculty ID for the UofC and a corporate ID from where I work. I had my Voter Registration Card. I also had a paycheck with my address on it.

There were many people who were also not in the voter books. The guy next to me was screaming about "Fraud!". There were four ladies who were crying. Another guy was yelling about his rights. The election judges were freaking out.

The election judges (certainly inept and under-prepared for the onslaught) didn't have any provisional ballots.

They turned everyone (that was not in the books) away.

As I left on my way to the County Election Commission to file a complaint, I asked ten different people who were also denied a vote because they weren't in the book, "Are you Republicans?"

All ten replied, "Yes."

"Did you vote in the primary?"

Nine, "Yes."

It's impossible to know if the Republicans were removed from the book. But this is Chicago...where the dead count more than the living.

As Hugh Hewitt says, Bush doesn't just have to win, he has to win by a large enough margin to overcome voter fraud like this. And beyond that by a large enough margin to overcome any legal challenges from Democratic lawyers, as Mark Steyn says.

In other news, I voted today. I'm rather surprised that I did. Not that I didn't want to, you understand, just that I was able to. I was registered to vote in Louisiana when I lived here briefly eight years ago, and I kept a Louisiana license and everything for the seven years I spent in Massachusetts getting educated. Last year, when I moved to New York, I got a New York license and registered to vote there. When I found myself moving back to Louisiana two months ago, I was reluctant to move everything here, since I didn't expect to be here more than a month (it looks more like three months, now, but still not a very long time). My original plan, if I had not found a job and moved somewhere else by the time, was to vote by absentee ballot in New York. When I looked into it, I discovered that legally I'd been living away from New York for too long to vote absentee. I could probably get away with it, but I didn't want to push the law like that. By this time is was too late to register in Louisiana, so I pretty much expected not to be able to vote.

However, it turned out that my registration was still good in Louisiana. This disturbed me, as this would mean that I'm registered in both Louisiana and New York, but it does mean that I was able to vote.

Update: Even when it looked like I wouldn't be able to vote, I wasn't too upset. Neither of the states I could vote in are battleground states. I mean, if my vote gives New York to Bush, then he wins by a landslide. If it takes my vote for Bush to win Louisiana, then there's not a chance he'll beat Kerry.

I received a job offer yesterday from Lincoln Laboratory, a federally funded lab associated with MIT and located in the Boston area. The pay's good, better than I expected, there's a relocation package, and the work is intriguing. I'm not sure how much I can say about it since much of the research is classified. I doubt anything I know about it right now is secret, but I'm not going to take chances until I understand the rules better. This is one of those jobs for which I need to get security clearance. Cool, huh? So watch for my triumphant return to the Boston area, should I decide to accept the offer. I'll keep you updated.