Poor Kid Doesn't Stand a Chance

So I am frantically packing for my trip to CA tomorrow and trying to wrap up at least one project, but I am so fried I need a break- sit down with my Vault Fizzy and chill for a second.

So some of you may think that I am kidding when I say that Mr. Probert and I are grooming Panorama to become an Engineer, but alas, the poor kid doesn't stand a chance.

On paper, you might think that we are some part sort of eugenics program. Mr. P and I are both Civil Engineers. His father and uncles are engineers (Electrical, Electrical, Nuclear). My father is a Systems Engineer. His father was the head machinist at a design-build machine shop. My uncle is a EE from that three-initial place up in New England.

While most people have pleasant dinner conversation or awkward family reunions, mine come down to first principles.

Last summer, my parents and I went to see Pink Martini. During the cocktail hour, I whipped out my green filler and $10 pencil and my father and I started deriving phi and discussing sequences and series. When I started sketching a conch shell my mother took the pad away.

At our wedding, the two sides of the Engineering Family Tree met for the first time, and we found more than one paper napkin with a circuit diagram sketched on it.

I go to Baptisms and Communions in my cousins' new build subdivisions and I spend the whole time checking out the sidewalks and the SWM easements that run between the lots. I talk about the merits of different types of curbs and comment on the lane widths and traffic calming strategies.

Mr. P is a DOT engineer, and we have had some serious flooding in our neck of the woods. Last night, purely for geek entertainment, we sat down and watched a slide show of all of the road and bridge destruction he had on the digital camera. We spend awhile discussing the potential causes of failure and strategies to repair...

And we wonder why Panorama's first word was "Culvert".