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Faster, Higher, Stronger

8/27/2023

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Nope, that the motto for the Olympics.
What I am thinking of is:
   "We can rebuild him. We have the technology. We can make him better than he was. Better, stronger, faster."

​The other night I came across the Six Million Dollar Man series on Peacock. I saw it when it first aired but did YOU know that this is one of the shows that influenced by career path???
Go, go on! Go get a cuppa and sit back and enjoy the story!

Let's start with my father. A self-made engineer who said I could be anything I wanted and gently pushed me into STEM because I could tell him how to take apart, put together, improve and fix things​ since I was a wee lass.

Then Star Trek came along (1966-1969). Most women in STEM might say it was
Nyota Uhura who showed them that not only a woman in space was possible but they can be very smart too. But for me it was Montgomery "Scotty" Scott. I could see myself as an engineer who could fix anything and I really really wanted to go to space.

Fast forward to the early 1970's I am in high school and I am now pondering what I want to do with my life - should I become an engineer, nurse or doctor; teach science or home economics; become a chef, or..?? I could not decide.

In 1973, I was starting to look at engineering schools and ABC aired a made for TV movie "The Six Million Dollar Man" and I realized it was possible to combine engineering and medicine.  My parents were so confused when I said I wanted to do THAT! 

I went to my guidance counselor Mr. Clarke, who was fantastic in his position, and asked him what sort of engineering program would I study to make medical stuff - prosthetics, equipment, and tools for medicine and he said he would look into it. Sometime later we had a meeting and he said that ANY field of engineers except possibly Aeronautics or Marine, could go to work for a company that researched and made items for the medical industry BUT there was a new field called Biomedical Engineering which was focused on just that - teaching medical science and engineering specifically for the research and development of medical equipment. He handed me a brochure from the Society of Biomedical Engineers and I was ecstatic.   

Mr. Clarke then did more research and passed along a list of schools where I could get an engineering degree but only ONE, at that time, had an accredited undergraduate program specifically for Biomedical Engineering and that was Case Institute to Technology, later to be the Case School of Engineering at Case Western Reserve University. 

Eventually my father and I did tours and took interviews at the schools I was applying to: Case and as fallback schools Carnegie-Mellon, Northeastern, Boston College, Wooster Polytech and a SUNY just in case. I wanted to apply to Rensselaer Poly Tech or Rochester Institute of Technology but they did not accept women at that time.
I was accepted at Case and Carnegie-Mellon but there I would be in a general Engineering program and then use electives to take other medical science courses.

So Case it was and that is where I graduated from. My undergraduate thesis was on the Impedance layers for Ultrasonic Transducers. From there I went to work on Ultrasonic Medical Scanners, Silicone Medical devices, Intravenous Pumps and IV bags, Angioplasty devices, Intercranial Pressure Monitors and Transducers and then I moved into Engineering consulting.

And that ,dear friends is how I became a Biomedical Engineer.
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For Me

8/15/2023

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First the HEAT.
Yes it's been a record year for temps over 100 and add to that the high humidity and you have horrible weather.
When we lived in California we could have temps upward of 110 but with the low humidity it was hot but tolerable; not so here. Now, we have not hit 110+ but we have had a stretch of 104 - 106.  I mostly stay inside and keep the lights off until around 8 pm; I do the laundry, run the dishwasher, or some cooking all by 10 am. This helps keep the house cooler and having the A/C set to 76 I would like to think that I am helping NOT max out our electrical grid.

I have finished cleaning the quilt fabric closet as well as the family room which has my sewing corner. During that I found 3 quilt tops I finished 4-5 years ago but never layered and sewed to make quilts PLUS there are the unfinished quilt blocks for Kira's "Wedding Quilt". 

With the heat I am holding off cleaning the sun room (off the family room) and my metal studio both of which are NOT air conditioned and are despite having windows open to allow a breeze.  I will tackle them in September when it cools off, if it does by then.

I decided to finish a quilt from one of the quilt tops I have that is scrap fabric from other quilts and sewing projects. It's for a chair thus it is only the width of it but it is long so it drapes over the back and down the front; this quilt was to started to replace the prior chair quilt that literally wore out after being used for almost 15 years!

Last Friday I removed the paper (from the piecing), ironed the top, pieced the batting to give me the length, and found a large piece of fabric (in the quilt fabric closet) so it's one whole piece for the back. I then laid it all out on the floor and pin basted the layers together. Saturday I started sewing by doing the straight line horizontal quilting, Sunday I did the vertical quilting and yesterday, Monday, I bound it. I HATE binding a quilt and since I have not bound a quilt in over 10 years this was a bit of struggle but it's done. The quilt is has now been wash and shall be placed on the chair I now use for watching TV (it was Erich's chair). 

Next up, finishing Kira's quilt.
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    About Laurie

    Laurie lives in central Texas with the memory of Erich, a.k.a. "the shop elf", who was her hubby of 35+ years and Cowboy Boots, the cat; her metals studio including 100+ hammers and 300+ chasing tools; her sewing studio which has a sewing machine, a closet filled with fabric, hundreds of skeins of embroidery floss and perle cotton, silk and other materials, and Mrs. King the dress dummy; one weaving loom, assorted knitting needles, tubs of yarn; assorted art supplies of pencils, colored pencils, water color pencils, water color paints, acrylic paints, markers, and pads of paper; lots of books; plus a plethora of geeky tech gadgets, computers, and more.

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