The King: It's the new idea.

I have found that I have been struggling with ideas about what to write another poem about.  I kind of stumbled in to the idea of writing about my mentor.  I have also been thinking of righting about viewing the ISS with the naked eye. Those thoughts have been running through my mind.  I also have been thinking about other passion I have.  I love racing.  I think that I might be able to write disguise a poem about racing as something else.  I have been reflecting back on my childhood.  I’ve been thinking about this idea of “painting a picture.”

When I was 6 years old, we were at Daytona for the July race.  I can distinctly remember leaning against the fence in the tri-oval at the racetrack.  I was looking toward turn 4 and Richard Petty came cruising around the corner at nearly 200 mph.  The car drifted up toward the wall.  He drove about 6 inches off of the wall when he raced.  His philosophy was that if you were closer to the wall when you lost control, it would hurt less than if you traveled farther to hit the wall.  Anyway, I vividly remember the silver grill of the Dodge Charger coming right toward me.  Because of the slight curve in the track he was literally lined up on me. 200 mph is FAST!  The squares in the fence were about 6 inches square.  I found fit my 6 year old face through the fence.  When he zipped passed me I could have reached out and touched the car.   The suction the car created tugged my tiny little frame tighter up against the fence (Bernoulli).  I also experienced the Doppler affect as the motor grew louder and louder as he quickly approached, and went screaming by only to have the sound soften as he drove away.

Petty Blue, Blaze Orange, Red Stripes.  STP, #43

The man had 200 victories, 7 championships and 7 Daytona 500 victories.   They don’t call him The King for nothing.

As much as I respect what he did, and that cherish that moment, he wasn’t my favorite race car driver.  He was one of them, but not the one I liked Best.  I liked this cat named Buddy Baker.  Baker won only 19 races and one Daytona 500.  He never won a championship.  But when he raced a car, he ran it as fast as it would go every single lap.  HE was hard on motors because he pushed them so hard.  He would lead 75% of a race, only to have the motor break.  I loved everything about this guy.

So anyway, I’ve been toying with this idea of just painting the picture of the Petty Memory.  But I also have been thinking of righting the poem from the point of view of Buddy Baker; forever trying to dethrone The King.   I also started thinking of Petty being The King and the Lion being the king of beast.  Engines roaring, Lions Roaring.  Petty’s crew was made up of mostly family members.  They did all the foot work behind the scenes.  He capitalized on their work; much like the male lion doesn’t do the hunting, he relies on his pride to do all of the hunting.

The trick is to figure out if Buddy Baker is another lion, or is he more like a cheetah.

Traditional Engineering Design Process

Traditional Engineering Design Process

There are two basic methods to engineering design, yet every company has its own model that it follows.  The two basic approaches are the traditional engineering design and concurrent engineering design.  The traditional engineering design process uses a linear approach. The concurrent approach is more web-like, but is still based on the linear approach.  There are 8 steps to the traditional approach.

Step 1:  State the Problem

This is the step where the basic design idea is conceived.  This is the step where the brainstorming takes place.  This is also the step where you would collaborate with team members and also perform research.

Step 2:  Analyze the Need

I believe this step is self-explanatory.  The engineer must decide if the product is practical and marketable.

Step 3:  Set the Objectives

In engineering this is the step were we would first set the general objectives and then specific objectives.  We would write a proposal explaining what the problem to be solved is that would include the design concept specifications and estimated costs.

Step 4:  Create Alternatives

In this step we would consider the physical design of the product.  You must consider all of the criteria required and what your constraining factors are.  If I were creating a design on a CAD system I would create several different models.

Step 5:  Check for Feasibility

Now is the time to study each of the design concepts carefully and select the design that best meets the objectives that were set as well as which design is the most marketable.  There is a loop in that begins in this step that goes back to Step 4 to optimize the design.

Step 6:  Select a solution/ develop a prototype

The most feasible solution is selected and then a prototype is constructed.  This is the part where you would test the design and make sure it meets the specifications.

Step 7:  Feedback/Market Response

The prototype is submitted and analyzed by a specific market research group. Your research group needs to be unbiased to get the best possible feedback.  If you find that changes are required the process reverts back to Step 4 and continues forward from there again.

  Draw the design

This is where the final drawings are prepared as well as specifications and other documentation.  The product is then turned over to marketing and manufacturing. And you move on to the next design problem.

I always liked the linear approach because it is simple and my drafting teaching in high school always told us to, “KISS IT: Keep It Simple, Stupid.”  That guy was awesome. That’s a different story, or maybe a different poem.

So as an engineer I am going to attempt poetry using this process because this is what I know.

"Welcome to Tomorrow" and some other ramblings

There are a few interesting points that I have noticed so far on my short little journey into the world of poetry.

1. I find myself look at things a little differently again.  Basically, I am looking for some inspiration.
2. I find myself having a different attitude towards poetry than I did when I was in high school.
3. I find that this blog might be the best place to document ideas.  For example, Wednesday, I had the idea that I wanted to get on paper.  I didn’t bring my note book with me to write stuff down, and to be honest, I’m not the kind of guy who is going to carry a poetry notebook around with me anyway even if it does look like this:

I have also made the decision to go ahead and post the first poem up, but you have to know that it is still a work in progress.

Here goes:

Welcome to tomorrow
What is new is old
what’s old, is new
She is gone
To be with her own kind
We are forced
to pick up the slate
Forced to move on
Like it or not
It’s not our choice
But the choice is made
Welcome to tomorrow

Right now the part I don’t like is the part marked in yellow.   It has been suggested that I should try to paint a better picture.  This is actually pretty hard for me.  So I wrote down some of my brainstorming ideas that I might try to use.

• To many bees in the honey
• Golden honey
• Honey is golden
• Honey tastes sweet
• Honey is sticky
• Flies in the honey trap
• You catch more flies with honey than you do vinegar
• Vinegar is interesting….
• It’s bitter
• Vinegar is an acid.
• Honey and vinegar.

"Now forward is backward and backward is forward."

Left my poetry journal at home and need a place to keep notes.

In the middle of my Robot Unit in my engineering class I heard something that I want use.  It is actually how the robot is programmed in combination with the configuration of the wires.  The problem is easily fixed.  I may or may not use it, but here is the quote:

          "Now forward is backward and backward is forward."

Earnock

I found something pretty cool... My youngest daughter is doing a family tree project for her English class. She's researching about my grandfather.   It turns out he was born in a little place called Earnock.   It is an area south of Hamilton in Lanarkshire, Scotland.   As it seems, the area where he was born has disappeared.  They have named areas of Hamilton after Earnock, but it appears Earnock is a field on an old estate now.

 

What does this have to do with poetry, you ask?

 

Well, in my research to find out more about this missing town, I found a poem that the poet wrote using the dialect from the area.  It is really cool!  You should go read it just to try and sound it out.  It’s fun just to read it out loud!

 

http://www.poetryofscotland.co.uk/Other/inmemoryofearnockbing.php

 

Here is a small section that I stole from the website, but for all I know I could be related to this fellow.

Dear Earnock bing where ur ye noo
Wher’ever did ye go
Scattered to the winds, ah think
Ah’ ken ah miss ye so.

Oh Earnock bing my Everest,
It's time to say fareweel
Ah wont forget ye ever
Fareweel! Fareweel! Fareweel!!!

Pretty  cool, huh?

Punctuation and Enjambment

This poetry thing is pretty fun.  I put something down but it feels incomplete.  The Teach says that it’s “pretty good for an engineer.”  The she dropped these two new ideas on me and we read another poem. 

1. Punctuation:  Used to create silence and pauses and to give moments to think.
2. Enjambment:  Don’t finish a thought on one line.  Finish it on the next.  But it also has something to do with pushing the thought forward and drawing it back.  I get the principle.  I just don’t know how to word it.

From what I understand these are going to help me paint a better picture in one of the sections of my poem.

I don’t know how to word this yet, but I’ll eventually figure it out.

Here is another problem I am having.   My brain never quits.  I have many passions, many things that interest me.  I am finding myself trying to figure out something else to write about.  I want to write about something else too.

What else could I write about?

Let this poetic journey begin

I'm not going to go into too much detail about myself and my background at this point. To keep it simple, I am a mechanical engineer who happens to teach in a high school. I try to impart the knowledge I have learned about my industry to the future engineers of the world.  I try to stay up on all of the latest technologies available and learn from the way things were done in the past.

 

When I was in high school, I hated reading. Not because the books they assigned sucked or anything, but it just turns out that I am a slow reader. When the teachers would make reading assignments and I would have to read 70 pages in a night, I was in real trouble. Back then I could read maybe three pages before I fell asleep. It must be something about moving my eyes back and forth in the repetitive motion or something.  

 

After high school, I was having trouble falling asleep on a regular basis and I remembered from my high school experience that reading puts me to sleep. So I got this brilliant idea of going to the local book store and dropping $15 on a new book. I decided that if I was going to read a book it was going to be a best seller, so I selected John Grisham's The Client. Turns out, I loved the book. I read the whole book in about 3 days and I came to the realization that reading is fun, as long as it interests me. Now I read all of the time. I still read slowly, but I usually have a book that I am reading, I'm an avid scripture reader and I read Popular Science, Discover Magazine, and Mother Earth News from cover to cover each month.

 

Through a series of events my friend, Sharon Krasny, suggested that I should start writing poetry. She thought I would be interested in the kind of poetry that has hidden meanings. At first I thought (and may have even said), "As if I need something else to do." But on my drive home, I turned off the radio and started thinking about it and that it might be a good creative avenue to express feelings ideas. I thought harder about it for a few more days and decided I needed more information about it. I wanted to read one of these poems that had a secret meaning. So I went back to Mrs. Krasny and asked her to show me one. She actually showed me two of them. When I read it, it made absolutely no sense to me, and I started to think to myself, "Dude, what are you doing? This is just over your head." But my brother once said to me, "The best way to get the information you need is to just ask an expert. You start by saying, 'Look. I'm an idiot. Can you explain this to me?'"  I have found that this actually works. You won't get answers unless you ask, and I could have easily just stood up and walked away and given up on poetry forever.

 

Two problems:

 

1.      I don't quit or give up, ever.

2.      I still was intrigued by this idea of having secret conversations right under people's noses. Sounds like fun!

 

So I went home and started thinking about poetry and came to the realization that I didn't know how to do it. Because Krasny is a fantastic teacher, I went back and asked for help.  I learn using the engineering design process and as we had our conversation, I began to realize that poetry isn't going just happen like they show in the movies. I need to brainstorm, and then start formulating ideas and then make a draft. So I needed a NEW journal. I actually thought about blogging, but the internet reveals too much information and the secret meanings wouldn't be secret. So I bought a new journal just for poetry.

 

Then about a week ago, I picked a subject and started the brainstorming. The crazy part is that I started thinking about POETRY even when I didn't want to be THINKING ABOUT POETRY! GRRRRRRR! SHARON KRASNY! IT'S ALL HER FAULT! She made me learn and do something completely interesting and cool!

 

To add to this, I have been thinking about making a blog anyway and she also suggested that I blog about my poetry writing experience.  Seems like a good idea, because I’ll be honest about the experience.   I might not give away the secret meanings, but I will share the experience.

 

So let this poetic journey begin.