Thursday February 2, 2017

Blog time 1035 sitting in Panera

Yes folks today is Groundhog Day, what a useless day. We always have six more weeks of winter no matter the sun. Six weeks puts us near St Patrick's Day. St Pats day has alway been my end of winter day.

In GR the hog did see his shadow. The temp was in the mid teens this morning but the 15mph wind put the wind chill in single digits. Single digit wind chill means that I do my routine at home and then walk to Panera. If I walked to the Y which is an extra mile I would end up with some serious frost bite. I think part of my double vision problem was caused by walking into to the wind on a bitterly cold December day. It felt like I froze my eye.

Nancy left early this morning for her Thursday swim. After the swim she is heading to the dentist for some crown work.

Kim came this morning to clean the condo.

Each morning after I check my emails I go to the News app on my iPad. Check the headlines in the UK papers. Lately I have complained about the nasty reporting by many US newspaper reporters. After reading the UK papers I think we are amateurs. The UK reporters cover up their nastiness with humor.

Our President is having problems dealing with our allies. He and German PM Merkel have not started off on the right foot especially as regard immigration.

Apparently our President hung up on a the PM of Australia. President Obama had an agreement with the Australian PM to accept about 1,500 immigrants. Trump said we don't want them and hung up. Apparently our President did not go to Sunday School.

The US has been criticized for our immigration ban. Australia has also been severely criticized for their handling. The Aussies put immigrants into offshore detention centers where conditions are less than perfect.

Tech companies have a great need for engineers. They claim a limited supply of US engineers and use the H-1B program to get engineers from other countries. The problem is the H-1B program has a cap which is much to low. The Tech companies want the cap significantly increased. Trump thinks the Tech companies are using foreign workers because they are cheaper than US engineers. I don't know if this is true? I recently read that the majority of students in US public colleges studying electrical and computer engineering are foreign born. Why aren't US students going into these fields? Are public universities recruiting foreign engineers because they pay higher fees than US students?

Whatever the answer we need talent for our industries. The politicians should make sure that this void is filled. Success is based on talent.

Foreign students in engineering schools is nothing new. In my structural engineering classes at UM the majority of students were foreigners. I remember in one class of 30 that there were only two US citizens.

The Ukraine is back in the news. Will the return to hostilities test President Trump?

Iran is also doing some testing with its recent missile launch? The world is a dangerous place and the USA will constantly be tested. I hope their are some cool heads on the President's foreign policy team.

The walk home was not bad because I had the wind at my back. As soon as I got home I dropped my backpack and took a walk around the block.

After lunch I headed down to my office. Turned on the heater and fired up my laptop. I am trying to import my DNA data from 23&me into my family tree data base, My Heritage. I called and a young lady in Manila told me I could not. I emailed 23&me and they said I could. Go figure!

I spent about an hour catching up on back issues of SI and ENR. I still get a print copy of SI but I changed the ENR to a digital issue.

With her dental work Nancy can not chew so we are going to Panera this evening for a bowl of soup. Soup sounds good on a cold winter's day, doesn't it?

I did get my 30 minutes outside today.

As a boy one of my favorite pastimes was reading comic books. I saved all the old comics. When my pile got big enough I would trade them. I have great memories of trading comics on a cold winter day. After dinner I would sit by the hot air register in the living room and spend several hours reading comics. Life was good for a ten year old boy.

Nancy and I are having problems finding a Netflix show that we both would like. Maybe we should split up, Nancy will watch her favorite shows and I will watch Frontier or Victory at Sea on my iPad. Of course if new seasons of Doc Martin or Death in Paradise are released we go back to joint watching.

The cold weather continues with temps in the mid teens overnight. It looks like that I will forego my walk to the Y and do my routine at home.