Jump to content

marolyn

Members
  • Posts

    1,004
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Posts posted by marolyn

  1. I've been accepted in the most famous youth orchestra of my town! Okay, I have to play some pieces to them first, but it's as sure that I can join. I'm so damn happy!

    My parents are afraid, that I don't handle playing 4 instruments, have band rehearsals plus riding lessons and 11th grade, but I thought: I'm young just one time and I won't miss a chance like that. Better living fast now than missing experiences that will be so unique and beyond great.

    But what do you think? Better now than never or enjoy relaxing while you can?

    do it all!!!...be it all!!!...congrats!!!!...

  2. I'm reading nothing but CRAP!!! I can't find anything funny, or riveting, or even remotely interesting. I need a funny book with sex in it. Any suggestions?

    ...i suggest never mix reading and sex...hard to stay focused.

    but for interesting try...

    51J6KXH1Y9L._SS500_.jpg

  3. Great Pics Marolyn! WOW.....I have seen the northern lights they are amazing from what I remember. As a kid......I lived in Fairbanks Alaska (I was an airforce brat) and saw them once. I hope you get to see them and everything else that you are looking forward to!

    DD

    thanks dd..i have seen them many times up in northern minnesota as well, but they were always green...saw an imax production many years ago filmed at an aurora borealis research center in northern norway and it looked unreal, every color of the rainbow...

  4. Do you do any traveling there? How are the natives? :)

    as much a possible, amazing beauty here...mulling over the next one either to svalbard or the ice hotel in kirkenes for some snowmobiling/sled-dog mushing/crab fishing... you can even don a survival suit and swim in the barents sea...i'd really like to sea the northern lights up there, but it's a crap shoot if that will happen or not...

    as far as the norsk go...they are a little tough to get to know, but once you're in, you never get rid of them! i do like their attitude of family life first, work second...3:00...they are outta there...huge difference!

    peeking over the troll's tongue at kjerag 2 weeks ago...

    n566304403_584480_7325.jpg

    partying norwegian style in july...

    they have public islands with trampolines, rope courses, ect...

    n566304403_523920_616.jpg

  5. Well......it's nice that they got them on base now! How big is the base there? How much longer are you going to be stationed there?

    very tiny...the bx is about the size of a 7-11 (better than nothing). has a small library where we have access to english books and movies...(the big bonus we have here is access to the british sailing club's fleet) ...have one more year here and then??? don't like the options uncle sam is currently offering...hoping he changes his mind sometime in the near future... :)

  6. What Made Tommy Happy Today #651

    I just downed a pot of coffee... and my $1200.00 USD cheque FINALLY CLEARED AT THE BANK AFTER 11 COCK-SUCKING BUSINESS DAYS.

    HONESTLY THIS ISN'T 1970BLAHBLAHBLAH ANYMORE - I DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT THE FUCK A BUSINESS DAY IS!

    11 DAYS TO CLEAR IT!? SURE... BUT THE GOD-DAMN SPLIT SECOND I OVERDRAFT, THEY CATCH IT, 12 ALARMS GO OFF AND THE COPS SHOW UP AND I GET SLAPPED WITH $627 IN OVERDRAFT FEES, 6 OF MY CHEQUES BOUNCE, THE IRS SHOWS UP WITH FILES (I HATE FILES)... WHERES MY PISSIN' 11 DAYS NOW HUH?

    YOU'RE TELLING ME WE CAN BUY AND SELL GRILLED CHEESE SANDWICHES WITH MOTHER MARY'S LIKENESS ON IT INSTANTLY ON E-BAY FOR $24000, BUT WE CAN'T GET A CHECK TO CLEAR IN A WEEK AND A HALF?

    11 days...

    ...christ.

    Thats what made me happy today.

    :hysterical:

    ... you need to start a "what pissed tommy off today?" thread...

  7. Brace yourselves, I'm a mechanical engineer and this is going to seem dorky.

    I have just finished designing a geared transmission shaft that is required to transmit 100 lbf +/-5% to two other gears with resistance torques of 300 lbf each. I designed it to have a 95% reliable infinite fatigue life with a fatigue safety factor of 3.02, and a desired safety factor for yielding of 2.00.

    In essense, this part will never break, even after a lifetime of the specified load fluctuation (paperclips, for example, do not have infinite fatigue lifes as evident by them breaking after only a few bends back and forth).

    You can even apply (statically) twice the rated loading, or 210 lbf, before this thing will yield/break. This is for your own safety. Think of a ladder that says it is rated for 250 lbs. Engineers know that a 350 lb person will no doubt use the ladder anyways, hence why we design with safety factors.

    All this, while decreasing the shaft diameter from 1.38 inches to 1.179 inches. (Saves material. Material saved = higher profit)

    In addition, I was able to write a Matlab program for a shaft of this type that will solve for the required shaft diameter needed (based on the max. shear stress & distortion energy theorms) for any desired safety factor. The program's required inputs include gear forces, gear diameters, desired safety factor, shaft length, etc.

    There is no telling just how lame this must sound to all of you. I wouldn't be surprised if 60% of you haven't even made it to this point in my post before moving on to the next one. I guess this is the price I pay.

    But there is no denying that this is what made me happy today.

    but the question i have is...why can't you design a paperclip with an infinite fatigue life?...

  8. i couldnt open the other link though......it begs the question, who is on your back up list? marolyn, how about starting a thread on this!

    here's the article...evidently i need a "fondue-related accident" contigency plan...ha!

    (OPRAH.com) -- You could fill entire football stadiums with all the things that I don't know. I don't know how to make paella. I don't know how to do algebra or iron pleats or ski. I don't know how to sing on key, accept a compliment, interact at a party consisting of more than eight people or kill a lobster ... which brings us back to my paella issues.

    Lisa Kogan has a long list of "Plan B" boyfriends.

    But I do know a thing or two about men ...

    Okay, not two, but there is this one little thing about men that I do know with crystal clarity: I know what I like.

    Needless to say, what I like, love and cherish above all others is my own man, Johannes Labusch. He was a friend for quite a while, and then 14 years ago this month we went to a museum together and I stood there looking at a Giacometti sculpture through his faded denim gray eyes, and he was so funny, so astute, so sexy, so unpretentious that somewhere between the cafe and the gift shop, I was a goner. And (despite the fact that a mere 20 minutes ago we had an unbelievably irritating phone conversation) I still am.

    But what if something were to happen to Johannes? I mean, I realize that spending most of the year working in Switzerland isn't exactly on par with spending most of the year working in Iraq, but things happen.

    Suppose he falls off an Alp or chokes on a chunk of chocolate? Do you have any idea how many human beings perish every single year in fondue-related accidents? Well, neither do I, but suffice it to say the statistics are probably off the charts.

    Anyway, forget Zurich: What if when Johannes is here in New York, he were to slip on one of the many, many wet towels he leaves lying all over the floor after his shower and then crash headfirst into the guitar he has such a hard time pulling himself away from even though I'm late for work and could really use some help getting our daughter dressed (did I mention that we had a big fight 20 minutes ago?), then who could I fall truly, madly, deeply in love with ... after, you know, a suitable period of mourning? I've spent the last 20 minutes giving this matter considerable thought. Oprah.com: Men! What are you thinking?!

    Don't Miss

    Oprah.com: How to get the love you want

    Oprah.com: Best places to meet men over 35

    Oprah.com: Ten guys you should run from -- ASAP!

    Men I could fall hard for ... after, you know, a suitable period of mourning:

    • CEO/mensch Jim Sinegal came up with this utterly novel theory: If you hire good people and then treat them with respect, nice things happen. The nice thing is called Costco, a place where workers earn an average of $17 an hour and pay just 9 percent of their health insurance costs, a place that sells everything from Dom Pérignon to diapers at bargain prices.

    In a world where CEOs of billion-dollar companies require salaries to match, Jim (as every employee calls him) takes home an annual salary of $350,000. I don't care if he's not a billionaire, Jim and I will live on love -- and perhaps a 22-pound wheel of Jarlsberg cheese for the low, low price of $180. And when our days dwindle down to a precious few, we'll go online to the funeral department and get a terrific deal on matching, high-quality Costco caskets.

    • Supremely skilled, deeply compassionate, cucumber-cool Andrei Rebarber, Daniel Saltzman and Samuel Bender are the obstetricians who pulled me through a harrowing high-risk pregnancy. I'd like to take this moment to declare my undying love for these medical miracle workers and to offer a brief apology.

    "Gentlemen, as you may be aware, the birth process is often a touch uncomfortable in an I'm-being-torn-limb-from-limb-by-a-horde-of-rabid-wildebeasts-while-someone-sets-all-of-my-internal-organs-on-fire-and-stomps-up-and-down-on-my-tummy kind of way. It is possible that in the course of my 22-hour labor I may have inadvertently referred to one or more of you as a motherf*@# ing, gravy-sucking weasel. I see now that this was an unfortunate choice of words to use when requesting an epidural, and I am deeply sorry."

    "It is further possible that you might have been bitten, kicked, pummeled or clawed at in a manner that can best be described as 'satanic.' Again, I am beyond sorry. Finally, rest assured that I now fully understand that you were not in any position to prescribe heroin even if it were called for, and that any comments I might have made with regard to your manhood, your immediate family or your innate sense of common decency were just terribly, terribly wrong."

    • Some desire DiCaprio, others crave Clooney, I have a little thing for Desmond Tutu, or as I like to call him, Archbishop McDreamy. What can I tell you? I've always been a sucker for integrity and twinkly eyes, which is why I'd also like to send a quick shout-out to and Walter Cronkite.

    • I never thought of myself as a particularly vain person. In fact I sort of prided myself on having a decidedly undiva-like attitude. But all that went out the window when I realized my face had to appear in this magazine every month. It turns out I'm ridiculously insecure and once lost an entire night's sleep worrying that my wrists looked puffy. Enter John Ritter. Not the guy from "Three's Company." No, the John Ritter I love illustrates this column.

    Here's a tip. If you're ever going to be viewed by millions of people on a regular basis, forget hair, makeup and the South Beach diet -- get yourself a man who sees grace where you can see only crow's-feet.

    • After 46 Thanksgivings, I still can't make a good turkey. Mine was so undercooked last year that several guests suggested a really excellent veterinarian could probably get it up and gobbling again. I love a man who can cook and I love a man who can write, and Anthony Bourdain is a man who can do both. So come next year, Chef Bourdain can be in charge of cranberries and column ideas.

    • I believe I could listen to Tom Waits singing "Take It with Me" every rainy Sunday for the rest of my life. I also love Johann Sebastian Bach, Ray Charles, Randy Newman, Stephen Sondheim, Johnny Cash and several Beatles. They all make me happy, and they all break my heart. And when you think about it, what else do you want from a musician?

    • One hot summer night at the end of the '70s, I sat in a 15,274-seat amphitheater just outside Detroit, Michigan, and watched a wild and crazy guy in a white suit perform "the disappearing dime trick." It was absurd and ironic, and exceedingly funny -- it was the bravest act of comedy I'd ever witnessed. It was Steve Martin.

    He removed the arrow from his head a long, long time ago, but like comic geniuses from Buster Keaton to David Sedaris, he still performs a remarkable sleight of hand. Rent "Roxanne," read "The Pleasure of My Company," or "Shopgirl," or a short story from his "Pure Drivel" collection called "Hissy Fit," and see for yourself how, time after time, he manages to catch the pedestrian moment -- the ordinary gesture -- and wring it into an expression of exquisite longing. He was, is, and will always be my ideal combination of contemplative and cuckoo.

    Finally, there's the 20-something model/actor/Barneys clerk who sold me a pair of sunglasses I couldn't afford last Saturday morning. Shallow? You bet, but Walter Cronkite will only take a girl so far. I know Sunglasses Guy is an impossible fantasy, but you have to admit, he's a better option than Johann Sebastian Bach.

    Besides, I think there's something to be said for coming up with a list of impossible fantasies. Woman --at least this one --cannot live by reality alone.

×
×
  • Create New...