The deadline is looming!

[Ulu]

Something that I have to confess to you all, is that having deadlines on a project is not something I have dealt with for six years since I retired. It is a source of past stress come back to haunt me.

Deadlines! The stress returns!

It was the one thing I hated about the engineering business: the finance-schedule driven deadlines for the engineering work.

How did I ever sign up voluntarily for a deadline, when I live in a world where I work on whatever I feel like at any particular day, unless something has broken down & needs serious attention immediately?

Clearly I wasn’t in my right mind. I think this is what happens when engineers start to dream too much.

 

[kingfish254]

 

[Ulu]

Now be nice KingFish**. I have a complete and rideable bicycle.

I have nice unpublished photographs of it, and I could just put it up right now.

The thing is, I wouldn’t stop working on it. I would just stop worrying about it.

** It is very difficult to say this to someone who has liked my posts like no other.

 

[threeforks]

Tic Toc Tic, Oh me oh my
No need to worry, no need to cry.

Just toss up those photos,
and point to the sky.

 

[Ulu]

Yeah that’s a problem too…I only get two bars where I live, out here on the edge.

I have to be discriminate about how many photos and how large they are.

When I upload the final photos they will be whatever resolution I can manage on the camera phone.

 

[threeforks]

It takes extra time, but as I found out on some forums in the past,
"resized" photos upload better.
So all the pics now are taken with the old digi camera, loaded onto another old 'puter,
opened up in "paint", and then with "stretch and skew" are resized to 25%,
then loaded onto a thumb drive, then finally uploaded here.

Thanks again to RRB for making a way to upload those pics direct.

 

[Couch tater]

In a way I'm glad the end is near but at the same time I've been looking at my future projects and thinking about what I need to round up for them. Madness, sheer madness.......

 

[BartRidesEternal]

Something that I have to confess to you all, is that having deadlines on a project is not something I have dealt with for six years since I retired. It is a source of past stress come back to haunt me.

Deadlines! The stress returns!

It was the one thing I hated about the engineering business: the finance-schedule driven deadlines for the engineering work.

How did I ever sign up voluntarily for a deadline, when I live in a world where I work on whatever I feel like at any particular day, unless something has broken down & needs serious attention immediately?

Clearly I wasn’t in my right mind. I think this is what happens when engineers start to dream too much.

I see your conundrum Ulu.
What kind of engineering did you do? What kind of products? If I may ask?

I currently work at a company which gives me a lot of freedom and responsibility and that works really well for me. Deadlines are here too, but then there is still some space left.

Currently there are so many ideas for my build, but not able to try them all. I am skipping some ideas to the good stuff; riding the bike

 

[Ulu]

Last 28 years I was in structural & architectural, running the network and drafting ops.

I did export vending machines and prison windows in the 90s.

Before that, a manufacturing engineer. Lots of CNC coding and I ran a prototype
shop, designed tools.

In the 70s I did wood trusses and prefab house walls. Very primitive CAD on the IBM systems 32 generated a plot & punchtape. I wrote the code with a pencil and had a keypunch operator make the IBM cards.

 

[Ulu]

It takes extra time, but as I found out on some forums in the past,
"resized" photos upload better.
So all the pics now are taken with the old digi camera, loaded onto another old 'puter,
opened up in "paint", and then with "stretch and skew" are resized to 25%,
then loaded onto a thumb drive, then finally uploaded here.

Thanks again to RRB for making a way to upload those pics direct.

This is the sweetest thing about the iPhone: I can take a picture to upload directly into a post, and then I can take a screenshot of that picture, edit the screenshot, save it, cancel the original photo, and then upload the edited photo from my files. This is a big time saver if I’m trying to do things on the fly.

 

[ingola]

@Ulu your thinking like an engineer the world needs them no doubt. I work with a lot of engineers (I'm actually one of the few people in the country that do what I do that are not an engineer) they worry about everything how this is going to react to this and this is easier than this. I just go at it full tilt just do it and see if it works lol. Just simplefy take the pics and put them no need to worry about sizing well all love em any ways. The day this gets stressful is they day I never participate again.
Finished bike check
Are my feet in the pic don't care anyways
Just nice to create something instead of destroying it. (Witch is my job)

 

[Ulu]

@Ulu your thinking like an engineer the world needs them no doubt. I work with a lot of engineers (I'm actually one of the few people in the country that do what I do that are not an engineer) they worry about everything how this is going to react to this and this is easier than this. I just go at it full tilt just do it and see if it works lol. Just simplefy take the pics and put them no need to worry about sizing well all love em any ways. The day this gets stressful is they day I never participate again.
Finished bike check
Are my feet in the pic don't care anyways
Just nice to create something instead of destroying it. (Witch is my job)

Well I had a plan, but it was a plan I couldn’t manage to execute, because there were too many uncertainties, distractions and, well It just wasn’t a fabulous plan.

I crunch every photo because of band width limitations where I live. I could pay a lot of money for a fat pipe but I don’t really have the need….I’m not doing business. It’s really fast once you know how to do it.

I have never worked on a project that went exactly to plan. There is always “design development” as you go along, because you address things in new and better ways when you can, but mostly just run into problems that were unconsidered in the initial assumptions.

Then there is the problem of people who build things without following the plans, or damage work in-process.

As a consulting engineer you were always fixing other peoples problems. The ones they bring you, and the ones they create along the way inadvertently.

In the end it was always a rush. Most engineers have very hectic jobs, unless they are retired, and just design things for their own amusement.

And even then we can screw that up.

 

[RustyGold]

Is there a Starbucks or other such place around that has good wifi?

The thing is, I wouldn’t stop working on it. I would just stop worrying about it.

You are at a place where it is no longer a deadline, it's a snapshot in time. Evolution past the build off is pretty common... rebirth, reimagining, recycling is fairly common in these build offs.

There have been plenty of people that post a finished thread early...but, don't stop building or tweaking their entry, just update the finished thread as needed until the end. Truly a snapshot in time...no deadline.

 

[Ulu]

Those places are usually inconvenient and untrustworthy, plus I don’t drink coffee anymore.

I just need to spend less time looking at other peoples bikes and more time working on my own bike.

Anyhow, once the build-off is over, I’m going back to work on the fake Jaguar.

I should complete the Sting Gray, & I have a few in the wings, including a tandem and a trike.

But those other bicycle projects will have to wait.

 

[Ulu]

It is no longer a deadline, it's a snapshot in time.

I’m probably way too OCD to chill on that basis, for any project, ever.

Once upon a time, in 1989, Roy Becker was the consulting structural engineer for the city of Irvine, and he was checking my work. I was submitting the curtain wall drawings for the Western Digital headquarters in Irvine, and he asked me, “Did you guys work on this until the last minute?”

We always worked on it until the last minute. But that time we worked on it until the very last minute, which was like 3 AM, and we were on the plane to Irvine by 0630. The three of us probably looked like it too.

Still we were able to defend our work and get a permit. That is to say, Roy stamped our drawings. Very sharp engineer but the poor guy probably ate himself into a diabetic coma 30 years ago. It’s occupational hazard for desk jockeys like me.

Anyhow, you can expect me to work on it until the last minute. More or less.

 

[threeforks]

Truly a snapshot in time...no deadline

That about sums up what most of my work has been.
I often see ways to improve projects only after they are "finished" ?

Also, some of those snapshots, the pictures, from the past , end up being the best memories.

Like this one. Now 25 years old.Make that 30 years.

 

[MattiThundrrr]

@ingola while I'm in the road, do you feel like sneaking into my garage and polishing her for me? Fenders, bars and crank are on the back shelf. Just be sure to edit my feet into the pictures so no one will know

 

[Ulu]

I started cleaning up the steelyard region in the junkyard district of the boatyard.

It is tiny, being the entire boatyard is only 500 sf, and this corner is only 100 sf of that. But it was/is a tangled pile of things.

Heavy steel things.

I got lots of it moved. In the process I had a better idea for my stock rack, and I started getting it all set up. In the process I had a better idea for my frame jig & I started setting that up.

But it is 110F in the boatyard. In the shade. I had to give up after about 3pm. It’s all just half done.

 

[Ulu]

Sometimes you have to step back from life a bit and take stock of what’s really going on as opposed to what’s going on in your head. I did this today when I went riding on my canal rescue bike, to get some exercise away from the house.

I now realize that the great cause of stress in my life was not that this contest only has nine days left to go. I can do an enormous amount of work in nine days.

The cause of stress was that I can’t ride my favorite bicycle until I finish, and put it all back together. I have to ride the ugly bike.

Maybe I’m just not a rat bike guy at heart?

Naaaaah!

Once I got out there and pedaled around the neighborhood I realized that this was a different kind of fun, but it was nearly just as good. It’s not flashy and laid-back, and it’s not bouncy fat tire fun over the gutters and ruts.

The rescue bike set up calls for full leg extension, and it is very light so it takes off without effort.


I love the classic clacking of the Sturmey Archer transmission. I don’t have to put playing cards in the spokes anymore.

Fortunately my wrists weren’t bothering me and I was able to ride with great comfort today.

And I feel much more comfortable about my decision to involve myself in deadlines.

 

[ingola]

@ingola while I'm in the road, do you feel like sneaking into my garage and polishing her for me? Fenders, bars and crank are on the back shelf. Just be sure to edit my feet into the pictures so no one will know

Your neighbors might when the see I finished bike.