My cotillion
Hello? Hello? *tap* *tap* Is this thing on?
Livejournal has given me billions and billions of free electrons to push around as I see fit. But what should I write? What should I do? Is there something profound, earth shaking, or insightful that I can say?
Nah. I'll just blather.
So, here I am - cybersquatting in the middle of your vision. I guess I should write something about me, so you can know me. But what is that? Know? What can one know about another person simply from reading what they write in an anonymous manner for the whole Internet to see? You wouldn't know the person. You may get a sense of what the person enjoys and dislikes. You may form an opinion of the other person's intelligence from the sentence structure, grammar, and command of language. You may even believe that you know them. I say you do not. For all you know, I am Charlotte Simmons.
Or not.
If you're reading this, you're most probably familiar with Michler's site. If so, you'll find a pretty lengthy introduction into that which is Steampunk here. That will tell you a bit about me, my interests, where I live, and what I do.
So I'll make the focus of this first entry an expansion of one theme in my introduction (cited above).
Why Steampunk? I grew up with a father that worked for years on the railroad, and a grandfather that retired from one. My father's interests centered around railroading, specifically steam locomotives, and some of my earliest memories are travelling to see different trains around the country. I've seen just about every steam locomotive there is to see on the West Coast, to include some in Mexico. I'm quickly checking off those here in the East. My favorite being the Southern Pacific #4449, which is based in Portland, Oregon.
Ory-GUN. Oregon. Not Ory-GONE. Thanks.
As many people have noted in their lives, they become their fathers. In this case, I have inherited my father's interest and I believe it is not such a bad thing.
I am fascinated by all things mechanical. I am also interested in history. The history of mechanical engineering is the history of steam engines. Power, energy, dynamics, and thermodynamics - many of the areas studied by today's engineers were discovered and invented solely to progress that fascinating device known as the steam engine. Why is a watt named after Watt? Because James Watt built one of the earliest steam engines! And the railroads built this great country I proudly call home.
Steampunk is also a genre. It defines a fictional period in time when impossible things were achieved without the aid of computers. Think of Charles Babbage, or Jules Verne, or H. G. Wells. Imagine going to the moon without computers or travelling for days beneath the sea without nuclear power. Funnily, I don't actually enjoy reading books written in this genre. But I enjoy the concept.
So, I further my hobby of trains where I can. At work, I'm helping with the marketing of a device that I hope the railroads will adopt. At home, I'm slowly building a metal working shop so that I can build a working Live Steam model of a locomotive. I volunteer, with a group about 250 miles away, that is slowly restoring an 80 year old locomotive. While I'm a Mechanical Engineer, I am not as proficient in the mechanical arts as I would like. Machining at home, and also with my volunteer work, is enjoyable and educational at the same time. I have also finished a couple of welding classes at the local community college. Working with my hand relaxes me and allows me to ponder the world.
And so, I have a healthy (or unhealthy, if you prefer) obsession with trains. And the genius that was the men who built them.
PS - One of the predecessors to the SP #4449 is shown in my avatar. And that also brings up the title of my journal. Men with slide rules, paper and pencil were able to design a machine that weighed over eight-hundred-thousand pounds, yet she could run at one-hundred ten miles per hour. Genius.
Livejournal has given me billions and billions of free electrons to push around as I see fit. But what should I write? What should I do? Is there something profound, earth shaking, or insightful that I can say?
Nah. I'll just blather.
So, here I am - cybersquatting in the middle of your vision. I guess I should write something about me, so you can know me. But what is that? Know? What can one know about another person simply from reading what they write in an anonymous manner for the whole Internet to see? You wouldn't know the person. You may get a sense of what the person enjoys and dislikes. You may form an opinion of the other person's intelligence from the sentence structure, grammar, and command of language. You may even believe that you know them. I say you do not. For all you know, I am Charlotte Simmons.
Or not.
If you're reading this, you're most probably familiar with Michler's site. If so, you'll find a pretty lengthy introduction into that which is Steampunk here. That will tell you a bit about me, my interests, where I live, and what I do.
So I'll make the focus of this first entry an expansion of one theme in my introduction (cited above).
Why Steampunk? I grew up with a father that worked for years on the railroad, and a grandfather that retired from one. My father's interests centered around railroading, specifically steam locomotives, and some of my earliest memories are travelling to see different trains around the country. I've seen just about every steam locomotive there is to see on the West Coast, to include some in Mexico. I'm quickly checking off those here in the East. My favorite being the Southern Pacific #4449, which is based in Portland, Oregon.
Ory-GUN. Oregon. Not Ory-GONE. Thanks.
As many people have noted in their lives, they become their fathers. In this case, I have inherited my father's interest and I believe it is not such a bad thing.
I am fascinated by all things mechanical. I am also interested in history. The history of mechanical engineering is the history of steam engines. Power, energy, dynamics, and thermodynamics - many of the areas studied by today's engineers were discovered and invented solely to progress that fascinating device known as the steam engine. Why is a watt named after Watt? Because James Watt built one of the earliest steam engines! And the railroads built this great country I proudly call home.
Steampunk is also a genre. It defines a fictional period in time when impossible things were achieved without the aid of computers. Think of Charles Babbage, or Jules Verne, or H. G. Wells. Imagine going to the moon without computers or travelling for days beneath the sea without nuclear power. Funnily, I don't actually enjoy reading books written in this genre. But I enjoy the concept.
So, I further my hobby of trains where I can. At work, I'm helping with the marketing of a device that I hope the railroads will adopt. At home, I'm slowly building a metal working shop so that I can build a working Live Steam model of a locomotive. I volunteer, with a group about 250 miles away, that is slowly restoring an 80 year old locomotive. While I'm a Mechanical Engineer, I am not as proficient in the mechanical arts as I would like. Machining at home, and also with my volunteer work, is enjoyable and educational at the same time. I have also finished a couple of welding classes at the local community college. Working with my hand relaxes me and allows me to ponder the world.
And so, I have a healthy (or unhealthy, if you prefer) obsession with trains. And the genius that was the men who built them.
PS - One of the predecessors to the SP #4449 is shown in my avatar. And that also brings up the title of my journal. Men with slide rules, paper and pencil were able to design a machine that weighed over eight-hundred-thousand pounds, yet she could run at one-hundred ten miles per hour. Genius.