I'm Employeed!

Just got the news this morning: the RoadSoft contract for 2005 was approved by the 'ad board' -- the final hoop to jump through in getting our 2005 contract approved.

Translation: I'm employeed for the year of 2005.

For those of you who don't know, my terms of employement are hard to explain, at best, but I'll try.

I work at/for Michigan Technological University...kinda. My paychecks say "Michigan Tech" on them, but my department has nothing to do with the faculty who teach students. We're kind of like a research department. I work for the Technology Development Group (TDG.) The TDG is a branch of Michigan's Local Technical Assisstance Program (LTAP.)

What's LTAP again?
Every state has an LTAP center. A quote from here puts it like this: "LTAP's mission is to foster a safe, efficient, environmentally sound transportation system by improving the skill and knowledge of local transportation providers through training, technical assistance and technology transfer." See the previous link for more details. Basically, we're a sort of clearing house of information and training for civil engineer types of people. Our LTAP here at Tech is a little different than most LTAP centers in that we have this TDG thing.

So, as you might guess, that makes us a part of the Civil Engineering department here at Tech. But we're a bit different. (Catching the pattern here?) We're like a research group in that we're what you call 'soft money'. The University support us at all. No general fund dollars come our way. If we don't bring in contracts, we go home. We don't work. As far as I've ever known, the contracts we deal with are yearly. So, every year we basically sweat in our boots until we find out if our contracts will be renewed for another year. If not, we sweat a lot more while we scramble to find new jobs.

Buuut anyway... I need to get going.

RIP Beer Fridge

Well, I guess my beer fridge is dead.

When we bought our house, it came with two refridgerators. One nice new one, and an older one. I was suprised at home much space it had. I immediately claimed it as 'mine', for use only in my devious beer-brewing schemes. I gutted the thing to the point where I could fit 5 corny-kegs in it, and still have room for about a case of bottles. I could fit 6 kegs if I didn't want any bottles. Did I mention it also had a nice freezer? This was a nice fridge!

Well, since this summer, it's been running more and more often. It's never had a problem keeping things cool, and the freezer's always kept things frozen solid. But, it's gotten to the point where it's running all the time, and never turning off. Which, I guess is fine, if you can stomach the extra $30 a month on the power bill. So, for now, I've unplugged it, emptied it, and defrosted it. It's a sad sad sight.

Please, a moment of silence...

...

...

Ok, that's enough. In other news: I brought home the medium-sized dorm fridge that's been at the office for the last 5 years. It's the new beer fridge. Sure, there's no room for kegs, but hey...we'll figure out a way to cope.

This is the coolest thing! Below is a screenshot. Just click-n-drag like the instructions state.

This is so cool. :)

Check this out, it's a picture from the Astronomy Picture Of the Day. APOD: 2004 November 30 - Lake Effect Snow on Earth

I just thought it was a pretty cool picture and wanted to share.