I took the United States Patent and Trademark Examination (for the second time) on Monday.
The test is pass / fail, with a score of 70% needed to pass. The first time I took the exam, June 14th, I scored 68%. As you can imagine that made me a little upset.
But I'm happy to report that I passed this last Monday. I studied roughly 180 hours (in total) for the exam. I am so glad I do not have to study for the test ever again. I've seen enough of the MPEP (Manual of Patent Examination and Procedures).
As for the law school update, I'm planning on the U but waitlisted at GW. GW cut their waitlist to 80 people (down from 1400) last week and I'm on the list of 80. Time is running short, I told GW they need to accept me by the 7th of August if I'm going to come (I need time to drive across the country and be there by the 14th). Let's hope they get on the ball and call me sooner than later.
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Our Bean
Early in the pregnancy Kristin and I decided our baby (pictured to the left) should have a name. At the time we didn't know he would turn out to be a he, so we needed a gender neutral name to use for the pregnancy. I don't remember how, but somehow we came up with "pinto."
The evolution of pinto (no -- not that kind of evolution -- I'm referring to his name) amazes me.
The ladies at Kristin's work come to Kristin every morning, say "good morning Kristin," and then kneel down and while speaking into her tummy say "hi baby pinto -- how are you today."
Both of our families refer to the baby as pinto.
I find myself calling him "the bean."
Sometimes I wonder if our current actions will harm my son for the rest of his life... I doubt it.
Long live the bean.
The evolution of pinto (no -- not that kind of evolution -- I'm referring to his name) amazes me.
The ladies at Kristin's work come to Kristin every morning, say "good morning Kristin," and then kneel down and while speaking into her tummy say "hi baby pinto -- how are you today."
Both of our families refer to the baby as pinto.
I find myself calling him "the bean."
Sometimes I wonder if our current actions will harm my son for the rest of his life... I doubt it.
Long live the bean.
Friday, July 6, 2007
Last Summer
On the off chance my kids read this blog someday I thought I'd include one post to describe what I did the summer of 2006.
I worked as an intern for the Division of Water Resources (DWR). We designed, and Gerber construction built, a new and improved spillway for the Red Butte Dam up Red Butte Canyon. I actually joined the process midway through; DWR had completed the design and construction began just before I came into the picture.
I spent the summer verifying that the construction company followed the engineer's drawings (fancy way to say I worked as in inspector). For those of you new to the construction business inspectors don't have the best rap in the industry -- they are known for sitting in their trucks while the construction workers die in the heat and only leaving the blessing of their air conditioning to inform the construction workers of a mistake.
I did my best to buck the trend. I worked with the construction guys, against policy but I did it anyway, and did my best to deliver a nice glass of water when needed.
Below I've posted a picture of two DWR engineers and myself -- from left to right: me, BJ and Lee. As you can see Lee is sitting on the spillway (the structure used to release water from the reservoir when water elevations are too high). I am using a handy dandy instrument called a nuclear density gage. It determines soil density by sending a probe 6 or 8 inches into the dirt, releasing some radiation and then measuring how long the radiation takes to return to the probe.
Most days I spent 6 - 8 hours at the site. We saw moose, rattlesnakes (the construction workers ate them -- no joke), deer and other wildlife. I took notes of all the activities, held responsibility for anything that went wrong, kept a photo journal and performed necessary on the fly engineering calculations (we engineers love that "calculation" word). Sounds like fun, no???
I worked as an intern for the Division of Water Resources (DWR). We designed, and Gerber construction built, a new and improved spillway for the Red Butte Dam up Red Butte Canyon. I actually joined the process midway through; DWR had completed the design and construction began just before I came into the picture.
I spent the summer verifying that the construction company followed the engineer's drawings (fancy way to say I worked as in inspector). For those of you new to the construction business inspectors don't have the best rap in the industry -- they are known for sitting in their trucks while the construction workers die in the heat and only leaving the blessing of their air conditioning to inform the construction workers of a mistake.
I did my best to buck the trend. I worked with the construction guys, against policy but I did it anyway, and did my best to deliver a nice glass of water when needed.
Below I've posted a picture of two DWR engineers and myself -- from left to right: me, BJ and Lee. As you can see Lee is sitting on the spillway (the structure used to release water from the reservoir when water elevations are too high). I am using a handy dandy instrument called a nuclear density gage. It determines soil density by sending a probe 6 or 8 inches into the dirt, releasing some radiation and then measuring how long the radiation takes to return to the probe.
Most days I spent 6 - 8 hours at the site. We saw moose, rattlesnakes (the construction workers ate them -- no joke), deer and other wildlife. I took notes of all the activities, held responsibility for anything that went wrong, kept a photo journal and performed necessary on the fly engineering calculations (we engineers love that "calculation" word). Sounds like fun, no???
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