Sean's Blog

Christmas 2011

sab13 — Sun, 25 Dec 2011 13:35:36 +0000

Christmas 2011

The best of Bill Dance

sab13 — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 18:56:09 +0000

http://www.snotr.com/embed/5987

Annoying Orange

sab13 — Sat, 25 Jun 2011 01:38:08 +0000

What an Anniversary!

sab13 — Sun, 19 Jun 2011 00:46:18 +0000

Maverick @ Cedar Point. We tackled this one later in the day, and although intense I thought it was really fun. Michele liked it, but her ears were sore from her head banging around! These coasters were ridiculous! I’ve never ridden anything like these things. We definitely found out that we aren’t 20 anymore.

This is Max Air. We rode this one firs….at 10:00 in the morning. We were ill. Everyone was screaming and laughing until the last couple of swings when it peaked out. Then, there was silence. Everyone was shaken.

We rode this one last. When we were in line we didn’t know that this would be our last ride, but both of us blacked out briefly on the first big dive. We spent the rest of the ride trying to recover. I also had to work to keep my glasses on my face. This video does not even do it justice!

I PASSED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

sab13 — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 01:26:46 +0000

I can’t believe it, I actually passed the CQE exam. I woke up this morning after 2 nightmares in which I found out I failed the test. I woke up sick to my stomach! That massive failure during my younger years at NIU still occupies a spot deep in my heart. It’s amazing how much that failure has pushed me. In the back of my mind I can’t bear the thought of another failure like that. That awful fear has pushed me through finishing my Bachelors, and now the grueling self-study for the CQE examination. I have to say that I enjoyed the math/stats material. A lot of the other was often a little to theoretical to be useful, and because of that I had a difficult time with some of those type of questions. I really can’t believe that it took me the entire 5 hours! I thought for sure I would have time to go back through and check the questions I wasn’t confident about. No luck. It ended up being an all or nothing shot. However, I can’t forget God in all of this. On many occasions I prayed that I would “get” the material. There was so much to cover, and I had to move so fast that I was afraid that I would get to June and forget what I learned in December. On the day of the test, I prayed that God would help me recall what I had learned and help me keep my nerves in check. He delivered! I thought it would be contrary to pray that he would help me pass. I thought to myself, He can’t realistically just help me pass if I hadn’t, at some point, learned the material. That would run counter to His character. I actually think I probably prayed that way at times in the past, but in this experience discovered that was a little immature and short sighted. All in all, it was a great experience. I feel like I have achieved something that will allow my peers, employers, and myself to see that I have measured up to a set standard. I’m glad that it was so tough. If it wasn’t it would be meaningless, but realistically, to most of the world it still is! I mean, seriously, what normal person knows or even cares what a CQE is? It is a great personal achievement for me though, and can’t wait to apply all that I have learned.

Anxious

sab13 — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 02:07:26 +0000

Took the CQE exam (Certified Quality Engineer for those who have no idea what a CQE is) on Saturday, but can’t get the results until maybe Saturday. It will probably be Monday though. Hands down, the toughest exam I’ve ever taken. Worse than any Physics or Calc exam for sure. A lot of questions with more than one good answer. I have my fingers crossed though. It seems like everyone else has more faith in me than I have in myself. All I hear is, “I’m sure you passed”. Well, I studied like crazy since December, and despite being mentally exhausted, felt like I did ok. However, I felt, at best, 80% ok, and that’s the minimum passing score!

I read a post on a quality forum (I know, how geeky is that) that described the test as being very engaging. I have to agree. I’m amazed at how much I learned. My whole intent was to be judged against an objective standard because the title “Quality Engineer” gets thrown around a lot, and too often ends up landing on people who aren’t capable of performing, what I think are the cool aspects of quality engineering. They are much the same as I was prior to this experience; flying by the seat of their pants, and trying to learn along the way. I found that to be very stressful. I will still be leaning from now until I retire, but, if I pass, I will know that I have measured up to an objective standard. If I didn’t pass, there’s always the test in December!

Madelyn’s New Glasses

sab13 — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 19:47:40 +0000

America’s Ugly Exported Prosperity Gospel

sab13 — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 14:29:24 +0000

Pumpkins!

sab13 — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 01:45:00 +0000

Here are the pumpkins for 2010. The kids are becoming more and more helpful. This year they did a much better job cleaning out the insides, and even poked the holes in the stencils we used for the design. Mine is the vampire, Madelyn’s is the cat and Alex’s, is the crow. I love this time of year and especially love spending time with them doing this.

What are the chances of life creating itself?

sab13 — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 20:34:00 +0000

Leaned something useful in my Stats class this week. Sir Fred Hoyle, noted outspoken atheist, calculated the possibility of a chance formation of life to be less than 1 carried to 40,000 decimal points (0.39,999 0′s-1.. Conversely, the probability of life not spontaneously creating itself is 99. -39,000-9′s%! Sir Fred suggests that it would be about the same probability “that a tornado sweeping through a junkyard would assemble a Boeing 747 from the materials therein”. That being said, Praise God, the creator of the heavens and the earth, and all that is in them.