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