A New Calling... Perhaps

It was probably about 6 months ago that I first happened upon a marvelous TV show on the Discovery Channel. This show was called "The Detonators," maybe you've heard of it, but since it hasn't been syndicated, you probably haven't. In this show, a camera crew follows around a crew of explosives engineers while one or two experts, and professors in the field of explosives engineering explain what they are doing. And what do these explosives engineers do you ask? They blow stuff up, of course! (Okay, you probably didn't actually ask that question.) In the course of the shows which I have viewed, these engineers have used various explosives to demolish structures like buildings, bridges, smokestacks, and the occasional car. XD. The most common structures which go the way of all the earth on this show are post-tensioned concrete buildings, bridges which span rivers, and any structure that's in a tight space. And if you're not entirely familiar with those concepts, that's okay; just know that they are right up the alley of one who will shorty hold a baccalaureate degree in civil engineering.

At this point, I probably need not mention that over the past few months I have found a great affinity for the concepts of demolition and explosives engineering. Though I do feel the need to mention that my desire to learn more about and even pursue a career in explosives engineering goes beyond the innate urge found in all human males to destroy things. I've recently heard a story about President Henry B. Eyring and his father Henry Eyring. When President Eyring was a young boy, his father had a chalkboard (which they had back then) in the family's basement on which he would have his children do advanced problems of mathematics and physics. He would often gather in his family on Friday nights for all of them to do just that (if my dad had done that, I would have gone on many more dates :P ). One week, President Eyring's father asked him if he had any ideas for the solution to the problem on which they had been working the previous week. When President Eyring admitted that he had made no progress on the problem his father asked him:

"Haven't you been thinking about this problem during the week?"

"No, I have not." he admitted.

"Then you should get out of physics. You should do something that you are passionate enough about that you think about it when you don't have to think about anything at all."

And thus it is with me and the whole of civil engineering. I think about it even when I don't have to think about anything at all. It is most noticible in my mind when I am walking down the street and think about all of the analysis and design that had to go into the street itself and virtually everything surrounding it. Heck, civil engineers even design the dirt... THE DIRT that the road sits on!!! I have recently found that demolition and explosives engineering is even more applicable to this priciple because it combines two separate things that I like to think about when I don't have to think about anything: structures and blowing stuff up.

As far as higher education goes, it would be only a minor adjustment in order to get a degree that would help me greatly in the demolition industry. The Missouri University of Science and Technology in Rolla, Missouri would be the place to go. There prospective explosives engineers can work under Dr. Paul Worsey who one of the world's foremost experts in explosives engineering and is on of the experts featured on the show which I mentioned at the top of this entry. :)

A little while back I called my dad and presented this idea to him. I wondered beforehand how he feel about a somewhat abrupt change in career path, and was sure that he'd be in at least some measure pessimistic. When I was done explaining to him basically what I've told you in this entry, he said to me, "Dang William, that's a really good idea, I think you should do it. As your mother always likes to say, 'Gary all you taught William to do was destory stuff!' It would be supremely fitting for you to go into such a career field." At this point, I'm not totally decided on this particular career path, but I've decided that I absolutely must keep this open as an option. It might just end up being my calling in life... maybe. :D

PS-I wanted to share a related video, but Discovery seems to have NSA-esque security around imbedding it, so I'll just leave the link.

http://dsc.discovery.com/videos/the-detonators-being-a-blaster.html

We Get No Respect

Yesterday, as I was casually perusing ESPN.com as I often do, I stumbled across a sportsnation poll that royally pissed me off, for lack of any more satisfactory vocabulary. This poll simply asked, "Which Conference is Better?" and listed two choices, the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) and the Mountain West Conference. In my mind, the results were appalling. It showed that nearly 60% of the voting populous had selected the ACC as being a better conference than the Mountain West.

Now let me put this into a little bit of perspective. My two favorite teams in college football are the Brigham Young Cougars and the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets. Seeing as these teams are split between the ACC and Mountian West, I figure I've done enough following of each conference to give informed commentary on either.

That being said, let me say that this ESPN Sportsnation poll is bull$h*7. Anyone who payed even the slightest attention to NCAA football during the first week of the season should be able to see that fairly clearly. Let's review the results of the ACC's week 1 games:


South Carolina-7, NC State-3: North Carolina State barely shows up against one of the SEC's more beatable teams and is totally shut down.

Georgia Tech-37, Jacksonville State -17: I'm not going to say too many bad things about the Yellow Jackets, but last year Utah State fans were chanting "overrated" when BYU only beat them by 20 points... I think the same principle applies here.

Boston College-54, Northeastern-0: This is exactly what should have happened, props to BC for being a standout in an otherwise mediocre conference.

Baylor-24, Wake Forest-21: Do you know how many games Baylor has won over the past five years? Epic fail, Wake.

North Carolina-40, Citadel-6: UNC gets zero props for beating a team that hasn't won against a FBS team in uh... how many years?

Clemson-37, Middle Tenessee State-14: Clemson allowed 14 points to MIDDLE TENESSEE STATE... I think I've made my point.

William & Mary-26, Virginia-14: hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha... I think this is Exhibit A of my point.

Richmond-24, Duke-16: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA... Exhibit B

Alabama-34, Virginia Tech-24: Virginia Tech played a good game, and is undoubtedly the cream of this lackluster crop, but was ultimately outplayed and outlasted by a better team.

Miami-38, Florida State-34: An in-conference game that, while fun to watch, doesn't really apply to my point here.

The two most notable stats that I would like to point out here are that the ACC was 4-2 against FCS teams, with two of those wins being mostly unimpressive; and a whopping 0-3 against schools from other automatic qualifying conferences. (0-2 v. SEC and 0-1 v. Big XII)

Now, let us recap the Mountain West's week 1 performances:

Utah-35, Utah State-17: An unpredicatable rivalry game that resulted in a moderately impressive victory for Utah.

Air Force-72, Nicholls State-0: A thorough pounding of a no-name FCS school is exactly what one would expect from schools in an elite conference.

Wyoming-29, Weber State-22: The buttcrack of the Mountain West managed to irk out a win against an FCS school... I'm looking at you Virginia.

Brigham Young-14, Oklahoma-13: A hard-fought, physical victory and upset of the #3 ranked Sooners was landmark for this program and the conference.

Texas A&M-41, New Mexico-6: In a heavy rebuilding year for New Mexico, no one expected much from them against Texas A&M... and they delivered.

UCLA-33, San Diego State-14: Considering how bad this SDSU program has been over the past few years, scoring two touchdowns against as legitmate of opponent as UCLA is an accomplishment.

UNLV-38, Sacramento State-3: Domination on both sides of the ball from beginning to end by the team that should win.

Colorado State-23, Colorado-17: An in-state, cross-conference rivalry game that was well coached and well played on the part of the Colorado State Rams.

Now the same stats for the Mountain West are 3-0 against FCS teams and 2-2 against automatic qualifying teams (2-1 v. Big XII, 0-1 v. Pac-10)

Now as you can see, the Mountain West and ACC have not yet played any head-to-head matchups, which would very much help to determine which conference is "better". But don't be too discouraged, because on this very day Texas Christain will play Virginia in Charlottesville, a week from today, BYU will play Florida State in Provo, and in two weeks TCU will match up against Clemson in South Carolina. You can pretty much guarantee that TCU will trash a Virginia team that was defeated convincingly by an FCS foe last week. In the next two weeks the class of the Mountain West will go up against the upper echelons of the ACC, and it will be then that we will see which conference prevails.

Extrapolation

So, based on the first week of classes, this is about how I figure that each of my classes is going to go:

CE En 321, Structural Analysis: This class is going to be a whole lot of fun and yet very challenging at the same time. Thus far I've enjoyed the review of statics and look forward to learning four other methods for analyzing structures. As already stated this class has been mostly review thus far and will continue to be through the first test... then the real challenge begins.

CE En 305A, Metals, Woods, and Composites: This class would be pretty awesome if it wasn't taught by the man to whom I loving refer as "Dr. Dumb@$$". He surely knows his stuff about metals, woods, and composites, but not ordering the textbook until 3 days before class starts, not giving us a syllabus, and not organizing the homework... pretty much at all has led to the title that has become infamous in my own mind.

CE En 305B, Aggregates: This will be class 1 of 2 in my major that deals entirely with concrete. It doesn't start until the second block of the semester, October 21st, so I'll make more commentary when that time comes.

CE En 562, Traffic Engineering: After taking CE En 461, Geometric Highway Design in the spring from Dr. Saito, I pretty much know what to expect from his classes. I hope that this class will really take me beyond the basics of transportation engineering and really get into the core principles and "deep doctrine" if you will of what kind of problems transportation engineers solve daily.

Bio 100, Principles of Biology: All I can say is "hahahahahahahahahahaha" XD This class is a freakin' joke. On Wednesday, we spent the whole class watching a movie. I haven't watched a movie in class since my freakin' junior year of high school. And the best part is that there was nothing due afterward! I freakin' love n00b classes!!!

Rel C 234, LDS Marriage and Family: In the first week of this class I've found that it's about much more than getting you hitched to the first random woman you find on campus. In the now immortal words of my father, "William, I'm glad that you're taking that class, because you certainly didn't learn anything about healthy or effective relationships living in our home!"

Bus M 380, Executive Lectures: As the name implies, there will be big corporate executives that come and give us lectures about business and such. Thus far, I suppose that this course will give me valuable insights into my new-found career aspiration of becoming a CEO. ;)

CE En 300A, Stupid Seminar: Same stupid thing on the same stupid day, at the same stupid time, with the same stupid rules and requirements, and the same stupid people who really don't want to be there... Why? Because it's STUPID!!! PS-I am the king of the comma splice. :D

All in all, I think this semester is going to be good fun. There will surely be some challenging times. Structures tests, staying up until 3am to finish 305 lab reports, passing out in Bio because I'm just not used to 7 women all sitting next to me while wearing half a gallon of perfume... but I think that, in the end, I will be content with my courses for this semester. :)