Adventures in Mechanical Testing

So I'm a few days late.  Sue me....in fact, Sarah - kick me. 

Today was Day 6 of mechanical testing, and we had our first "oops".  It wasn't a catastrophic "oops", but it was a big enough "oops" for the Vets to get very, very frustrated.  I was cool with it.  "Oops" happens.  It's Mechanical Testing.  Throw Research on top of it, and you have a pretty frustrating and ugly beast that needs taming.  Sometimes it's never tamed, only reluctantly caged.

We solved our "oops", after a little bit of creative thinking and negotiation (that's why I have the Engineering Degree), and we should be able to test it out tomorrow, provided there are no more "oops"'s.

This round of testing reminds me why I left industry in some parts (constant plan changing - so much so that it's hardly worth making a plan), but it reminds me about what I miss.

I miss being called "Trouble". I miss working with my hands.  I miss decompressing data - I may change my mind after dealing with 20 +1G .txt files - but for now it's cool.  

I don't miss making plans up as they go. I don't miss trying to squeeze more work than humanly possible into a very short time frame. I don't miss waiting until a test finishes to see how it's all going to turn out.  I don't miss it when there are no results. 

Either way, I'm sure this month will garner it's fair share of "oops"'s.  I'm cool with it.