The U.S. Supreme Court struck down DOMA today. We are still waiting to hear the ruling on Prop 8. I included a link to the ruling in this blog: SCOTUS Ruling on #DOMA It should be read - even if not entirely (It's 77 pages long, although only the first 4 pages contain a summary of the ruling by the court, the rest is the description of the suit and the full ruling and dissenting opinions.). This may be the most compelling part that I have read though:
"2. DOMA is unconstitutional as a deprivation of the equal liberty of persons that is protected by the Fifth Amendment. Pp. 13–26."

First Trail Half Marathon in the bag - Now marathon training begins

In March 2013, I ran my first trail half marathon on Racoon Mountain in East TN at the Rock/Creek Scenic City Trail Marathon & Half Marathon (http://www.rockcreek.com/trailmarathon.rco). It was my second trail race (my first was the Rock/Creek River Gorge Trail Race 10.2 miler: http://www.rockcreek.com/rivergorge.rco.) and my second half marathon (first: 4 Bridges Half Marathon: http://www.7bridgesmarathon.com/). I managed to PR on this trail half with a time of 2:11 (7 minutes faster than the flat road half I completed 6 months earlier), despite the 1100+ ft of elevation gain, which made me happy. I still haven't reached my target time of <2:00 a="" but="" eventually="" font="" get="" half="" i="" in="" nbsp="" there.="" will="">

I was prepared for this race despite the fact that I had missed several training runs leading up to the event. I started out around the middle of the pack and just ran my race the whole way. Other than a few steep hills near the end, I managed to run the whole thing which was a first for me on a distance that long. 

I now have my sights set on my first full marathon in December at the St. Jude Memphis Marathon where I hope to raise $1000 for the hospital's research and cancer treatment. You can find my personal fundraising page here:  http://heroes.stjude.org/Stephen-wren if you wish to help me raise money. You can also read a number of factoids on the hospital, the research they do, and the children and families they help. 

I have a hard week of training ahead of me with 14 miles between now and Friday and then 18 miles on Saturday and another 8 on Sunday (40 total).  I have never run that far before (for a weekly total or a daily total), but I know I will get there. I may have to stage some water along the way though just so I can stay hydrated throughout. I will post more updates as I feel they are warranted. 

BTW: Happy Runners Day. Go out and log some miles. See you on the roads/trails. 

One Year Anniversary with Current Company

I recently celebrated one year with my current company!

I am happy to report that last month, I completed my first full year with my current company. I have had some incredible opportunities this past year; I have traveled to several customer job sites, met with numerous client representatives, participated in a number of highly visible projects, and built several important professional networks in the engineering consulting industry.

If you had asked me a couple of years ago what I wanted to do with my career, I would have described my current role with to a "T." I just never thought I would find a company that was so tailor suited to my professional goals. - I get to travel to numerous customer locations, work on a diverse project portfolio, and learn more about fossil, nuclear, hydro, solar, and wind power generation.  I even have the ability to only work four days a week so I can have more time at home with my family.  I just don't know too many people who get those opportunities in their line of work. The only downside to my job that I have seen is that I work in a cubicle about 40% of the time, but the other 60% is spent in client meetings, at job sites, and educating myself on the customers and power plants they operate. 

I know there are a lot of jobs that pay better, but I would be willing to bet that the stress levels are much higher and the personal rewards for a job well-done are not as significant.  I know, because I have had some of those jobs, although most of them paid less and were less rewarding and more stressful. (Active Duty military - enlisted: low pay, high stress; In-home sales: moderate pay, high stress; University Research Assistant: low pay, moderate stress; Military Civilian Engineer: moderate pay, high stress)

If anyone else is considering a career in engineering, I would highly recommend you learn more about it, do a little research (talk to professors, professional engineers, engineering students, etc) and see if engineering is a job that would be a rewarding career for you. Feel free to email me if you are interested in learning more about what an engineer does and where we work.  I would be glad to help you learn more about it.

BP...

I know there are a lot of mixed emotions about the environmental disaster that has occurred in the Gulf of Mexico as a result of BP's and Transocean's negligence, but I think that there are too many complexities at stake here for us to completely shut down drilling for oil in the Gulf of Mexico at the current time. While I hope that we do so in the relatively near future, I think that we as a nation are not ready to limit our supply of domestic oil just yet. We still rely heavily on Saudi Arabia, Canada, and Mexico for our imported oil, and if we shut down the Gulf and the Alaskan oil fields, we will greatly hinder our bargaining position in the world's politics. (We don't want to be at the mercy of any country, friend or foe.) That being said, I do think we should be taking a more proactive approach to the development of more cost effective "alternative" sources of energy, whether they be wind, solar, or nuclear. Which I personally think all are viable. The only questions are: 1.) Can we improve the efficiency of solar panels enough so that our entire planet is not covered by them to meet the demands of our energy hogging lifestyles, 2.) Can we reduce the electrical resistance of the wires used to supply off-shore wind-generated electricity to businesses and homes on shore enough to make it economically viable, and 3.) Is our government willing to accept that while nuclear waste does exist, it can be recycled, reprocessed, and reused just like France and several other European countries currently do. Then, after it has been recycled a few times, the radioactivity emitted from the permanent waste is nearly non-existent.
I know most people are ill-informed when it comes to nuclear fuel, because in the US, we have a terrible fear of a meltdown similar to what happened to Chernobyl and Three Mile Island. First, let me inform you that the Soviet nuclear reactor design is VERY different from the ones used in the US. In the Soviet reactors, as temperature increases, so does reactivity. This is a result of a design feature that gives the Soviet reactors a positive temperature coefficient of reactivity (TCR). In normal situations, this is perfectly acceptable, and it even aids in bringing the reactor up to full power faster. The problem arises when a casualty occurs, and as temperature rises, reactivity does as well. This creates a situation where the only was to control reactivity is to insert the control rods back into the reactor core. However, when reactivity reaches a certain point, reinsertion of the control rods no longer a significant enough effect to control the reactor, and it can quickly get out of control. In reactors built in the US however, we have a negative TCR, and therefore as temperature rises, reactivity decreases, thereby allowing the reactor to self-regulate itself.

Further, when the Chernobyl meltdown occurred, the regulators were running system tests, and had disabled all of the safety protocols in place to protect the system. This poor planning and the positive TCR resulted in the disaster we are all too familiar with at Chernobyl.

At Three Mile Island, there was a terrible disaster that occurred at a nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania, as most of us are aware. This resulted from poor training of the plant operators, and the failure of a pressure relief valve. The automatic reactor vessel protection systems operated as designed. The problem was that the auxiliary reactor coolant pumps when isolated by cutoff-valves, in violation with NRC policy, and were unable to maintain cooling water flowing over the shutdown reactor. While there was a loss of reactor coolant and ultimately the reactor, the containment system worked. The radiation loss was minimal, and the risk of long term effects to the public were negligible. To read more about Three Mile Island, click here.

The American people have a long way to go before we will cease to be the most energy hungry nation per capita in the world, but hopefully we can learn to be more aware of the consequences of the things we do, especially when it comes to blatant disregard for our fragile oceans and tidal basins which are so critical to life, not just ours, but those of millions of sea creatures. BP, I know there are thousands of Americans who work for your various divisions, but I hope the US government does not let you slide on your bill to clean up this mess for which you are ultimately responsible.

...

I have been a busy lately, between my senior ME design class, and my ongoing research with CAVS here at Mississippi State, I haven't had much time to get on my blog. I have recently had what I consider to be a break through in my research of AZ31 Magnesium. It took quite a long time to get everything to work out right, but I have finally achieved the accuracy level that I wanted. I should be able to start work on my research article soon. I just need my advisor to review my results and approve them. In the mean time, I am going to continue to tweak my data until I get the material properties that are required for my materials to behave the way they do under the given loading conditions. Until next time...

First entry

I am new to the blogging world, I don't have too many thoughts that anyone really wants to hear about, but I think expressing one's self can be helpful in gathering and organizing one's thoughts.

I have recently begun my research with Dr. Haitham El Kadiri at the Center for Advanced Vehicular Systems (CAVS) in the Thad Cochran Research Park at Mississippi State University. The research is complex and challenging, but I think that is the point. If it was easily understood, there would be no point in wasting my time trying to better understand it, because someone else already would have spent their time on it and written a paper that I could read about it.

I am pretty excited about what we are investigating, because this will have a significant impact on the automotive world in the future, by developing processes that can be used to make vehicles from magnesium which is stronger and lighter than the currently used aluminum and steel. There are other implications to this as well, but the automotive industry and the Department of Energy are our primary funding sources. Hopefully, I catch on pretty quickly, but I doubt that will be a problem, I already understand the HCP materials (magnesium, aluminum, zirconium, etc.) and their properties better now than I did when I took materials class a few semesters ago. I guess it is just a matter of engulfing myself in the topic to be able to grasp all that is entailed. Well, back to work, I have some more modeling to do. Until next time...