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Tried cutting beams today, but it was way to hot in the saw room even with both end bay doors open.  To cut with the saw you need to have long pants on, steel toe boots, and wear the rubber apron over the top.  It gets quite toasty with that rubber apron on. Oh, before anyone gives me crap... you need a shirt too. 

Made it through two beams before the sweat was running in my eyes and dripping down my glasses.  Fortunately, I was only training someone else on how to cut them so I don't have to do the rest. 

However, it is too hot out to take the Tater to the Dog Park.  He got to go yesterday so he's not missing too much.  He'll probablly get a pupsicle after the afternoon walk since I know he'll be very warm.

For anyone with doggies who reads this,  here's how to make a good cooling treat for your dog.

1 large container of Non-fat yogurt (the really big ones)

3 Tablespoons of honey

3 Tablespoons of peanut butter

1 mashed banana

small plastic bathroom cups (the wax dixie cups work too,but I like the plastic ones)

blend it all smooth in a bowl.  This works best with a stick blender.  Pour into as many cups as you need.  Cover cups with plastic wrap and put in freezer.

To unmold...run under water and pop the pupsicle out from the bottom into the dog's dish.  If using the wax cups, you can just rip them apart.

So in addition to hurting my thumb, I also hurt my head.

I was getting something out of the car during a major downpour and I had my head ducked down.  Well, I had it down enough that when I opened the door, I slammed the corner of it into the side of my head.  I then proceeded to fall into the car in pain.

At first I thought I was bleeding because of the rain running down my head, but it turned out I didn't cut anything.  I just gave myself a huge goose egg and bruise around the hairline on the right side of my forehead.  It hurt so bad yesterday that I could feel it all the way down to my jawline.  It's better today...less swollen and painful, but still there and hurty.

Today I made sure to wear my steel toe boots for working in the lab because I know that if I didn't I probablly would have gone home with a broken toe.

So I was splitting out some asphalt into pans so I can make beams tomorrow.  I went to move a pan that was short of the full amount of asphalt and I didn't get it on the counter all the way.

I didn't want it to spill on the floor so I went to catch it.  Well...what I ended up doing was catching the edge of my fingernail on it resulting in a severely bent backwards thumbnail.  I did save the pan, but now I have a giant bruise under the nail.  I can't even tear masking tape with it now.

I'm also not about to do that crazy thing where you heat up a paperclip or needle and burn through the nail to relieve the pressure.  With my luck it would end up infected.  I'll just deal with it til it grows out.  The bruise is right near the end of the nail where it comes off the end of the thumb rather than at the nailbed, which would take forever to grow out.  I dont' think I'll loose the nail either so that's good.

(this is actually a re-do of a blog that got lost in the cyber-space graveyard)

So ESPN showed the Nathan's Hot Dog eating contest yesterday.  This contest is for the most coveted Mustard Belt.  Also, the contest was shortened to 10 minutes instead of the usual 12 minutes.

ESPN made a whole spectacle of this event with mini-bios on all the contestants, pagentry, and there was even a Wii game where you could make your little guy eat a hotdog with the flick of a wrist.

The contestants to watch were Joey Chestnut and Takeru Kobayashi.  Chestnut won the title from Kobayashi last year due to a jaw injury on Kobayashi's part.  Turns out, Kobayashi has jaw arthritis from practicing for and participating in too many eating contests.

I previously had a play-by-play account of what happened, but I'll have to shorten it here since I don't remember all the details.  Basically, it was neck and neck with Chestnut and Kobayashi for the whole 10 minutes.  Occasionally one would take the lead over the other, and then it would switch.

In the end, it came down to the wire with Chestnut and Kobayashi each stuffing a 59th hotdog in their mouths at the buzzer, thus resulting in an unprecedented tie for the Mustard Belt. 

The only thing that could solve this problem was an eat-off.  Each man was given 5 hotdogs and whoever ate them the fastest would be the winner.

It was a close call, but Chestnut reined supreme and pulled off another upset win over the crowd favorite, Kobayashi, to retain his holding of the Mustard Belt.

After the contest was over Kobayashi said that he is definately going to come back next year and try for the belt again.  Chestnut looked both very happy and in a lot of pain.  That's what eating 64 hotdogs (with water logged buns) will get you. 

Proposal Mark 3.0 is underway.  I have a new title (that has been approved) so I can, hopefully, get down and dirty with this thing and knock it out without to  many more revisions.

The new title is "An Extended Fatigue Behavior Analysis of Hot Mix Asphalt Pavment Inclusive of Both Laboratory and Field Studies." 

I used the word "comprehensive" in the previous title and that would have been a hard thing to do.  So we're going from a comprehensive study to an extended study.  This will make my life easier and will be much more feasible.  Other people can take my work and do a comprehensive study in the future.

I am, however, going to have to intersperse my thesis research with my paid research.  *sigh*  This means it will take longer to do.  I do have a new helper, my cube-mate, who will be helping me make and prepare all the samples.  He's not a moron and already knows how to make some of the samples I need, which is good. 

I also need to do some more on the literature review side, which sucks.  The good thing is that my research is fairly new so there aren't a lot of other papers on the subject... the bad news is that there aren't a lot of papers on the subject because my research is fairly new.  I do have a lot of papers that deal with my parts of my research, which I can use to say "hey, there's not a lot done already on this topic so that's why it's important."