I can't believe I spent a whole train ride thinking about this

Parallels between the current U.S. Presidential campaign and the latter seasons of The West Wing. West Wing spoilers follow, but since the only people who watched the (increasingly crappy) last two seasons were myself and diehard Sorkin fanboys looking for cannon fodder, you're probably safe.

Primaries
Fiction: Republican contest wrapped up by Super Tuesday. Democrats deadlocked through to the convention, where a heart-tugging speech and plenty of backroom wheeling and dealing results in a candidate no one expected.

Fact: Republican contest wrapped up by Super Tuesday. Democrats...well...you were there.

Candidates
Fiction: Republicans field a respectable, no-nonsense "maverick" Senator with decades of experience who is in favour of abortion rights and doesn't attend church. He is played by Alan Alda. Democrats nominate a relatively inexperienced Congressman, the first Latino Presidential candidate from a major party.

Fact: Democrats - the same, only black and a Senator. Republicans - the same, but sadly five years removed from the things he actually believes. Saddest of all, Alan Alda is seemingly uninvolved.

Running Mates
Fiction: Democrats pick an ornery but beloved party veteran to counteract perceived inexperience at the top of the ticket. Republicans pick a young, attractive, frightening social conservative to counteract perceived common sense at the top of the ticket (aka "pander to the base").

Fact: Democrats, ditto. Republicans...actually, the truth is more far-fetched. The less I talk about her, the better for everyone.

Debates
Fiction: A much-touted debate sparks public interest, but is actually incredibly dull to watch.

Fact: Wake me up when they stop talking about that Joe guy.

TSN Turning Point
Fiction: A near-disaster at a nuclear plant in the Republican candidate's home state turns the tide of a nail-bitingly close race.

Fact: An actual disaster in the finances of the world causes America to come to its senses.

Predictions
Based solely on extrapolation from the eerily prescient (and Emmy-winning!) television series, the following things will definitely happen*.

1. At some point during the campaign, Obama and Bush will eat ice cream straight from the bucket in the White House kitchen at midnight, and discuss their ideological differences with eloquence and civility. This has probably already happened.
   
2. Obama's campaign manager and the campaign manager's former assistant/current campaign aide will finally give in to years of sexual tension on the eve of the election, givng rise to plenty of awkward election day hijinks and a bevy of Moments You've Been Waiting For.
3. Joe Biden will die of a heart attack several hours before the polls close, and everyone will be very sad.
4. A virual tie in the electoral college will bring it all down to the good people of Nevada. After Obama wins, he will appoint a bitter but still reasonable McCain as his new Secretary of State.
5. Allison Janney will show up and do something awesome.

*only #5 is guaranteed.

"It's being-first-woman-President good."

Be it resolved that I have failed at all blog-related aspects of my life. I've reached the point where there is so much to talk about that I don't have time to begin, and so I will talk about other, less interesting things instead.

I've spent the last 5 weekends travelling throughout Austria and to several other countries with a motely crew of scientists and engineers - mostly European, mostly dudes. I'm having a blast, but occasionally (perhaps every three weeks or so), one tires of fart jokes, drinking games, and "you really play soccer? Like, on a team?"

Maybe that's why I found this so funny, though I'm pretty sure I still would have laughed if I'd watched it from Girl Guide camp. See also: the same comedian's take on Botox, wedding shows, and making dinner.

Ah, intelligent, non-whinging, feminist humour, how I love thee. And now, back to my regular schedule of beer bongs and doing your mom.

Three cheers for public broadcasting

I was wearing my CBC shirt on the way home from work today, when an ex-Montrealer and retired VP of Kraft approached me and struck up a conversation. Turns out he's been living in Vienna for 11 years. I never thought I'd discuss the Hockey Night in Canada theme song on my way between the Wien Mitte CAT platform and the U4 underground line, but there you go. CBC merch: more subtle than maple leaves, more late-July-appropriate than a red and white toque.

In other news, I am still alive and still in Vienna. My phone works, my visa has been approved, I have a PIN from the bank, my finger is still broken, and I survived a weekend of Gaelic football and drinking with the Irish (lessons learned: "savage craic" is a good thing; drinking Guinness and then failing to sleep before playing three games of football is not).

Hopefully I will add some substantive information before a hiking trip this weekend, but if not, I hope you're all enjoying the sunshine.

"I can't watch any more of these German sitcoms."

An MS Paint production, in 4 parts.

Act I - Temptation


Act II - Fun while it lasted


Act III - Pigheadedness


Later:


Act IV - Comeuppance

Austria gets knocked down, but it gets up again and makes you sign a form

Trial the first: Be in Austria Legally

• IAESTE member gives me the address of the building where, he assures me, I can apply for my visa
• I show up at said building to find it locked. After several minutes of dictionary-flipping, I confirm that the sign on the door states that the office has moved across town.
• I show up at the new building, to find that the office closes at 12pm. It was then 12:20.
• I return to the new building the next morning, promptly at 8:00.
• After sitting in a dank waiting room for an hour and a half, my name is called to a room, the number of which I am not fast enough to translate from the loudspeaker. I am yelled at by an Austrian lady in the incorrect room, who eventually points me down the hall.
• After several minutes of sighing and paper shuffling, the even grumpier lady in the correct room speaks only enough English to grunt, "YOU ARE WRONG!", and point to an address written on a scrap of paper. She hands me my forms, and I leave.
• I consult with a different IAESTE member, since the one who originally gave me the (outdated and incorrect, anyway) address has since moved to Germany.
• After two or three days, I am informed that I should go to the address that Angry Grunting Lady wrote down.
• I arrive at this third location to find it friendly, well-lit, and staffed by smiling people who will condescend to answer my halting Engleutsch phrases politely.
• I have submitted my visa application!
• BUT
• I also must go to "register with the police".
• "Well, not quite the police...like the city police...they must know where you live."
• After speaking with some of the other interns, we discover that IAESTE has given us the wrong location again. Fortunately, native Austrians and long-term exchange students on our floor point us in the right direction.
• The next day, I am registered. Surely my status is unimpeachable now. But how will I be paid, unless I...

Trial the second: Obtain a bank account

• IAESTE member assures me that bank accounts are easy to obtain, and that he will fill out the paperwork for me
• Oh, but I have to bring a photocopy of my passport
• It's easy - we can do it at the IAESTE office. Drop by anytime!
• I drop by. The door is locked.
• I email the same person, telling him that I don't have a phone yet, and asking when someone will be in the office.
• "Oh, just come anytime. If the door is locked, call me."
• Several days later, I manage to arrive while someone is there. Photocopying ensues! I sign things! Everything is great!
• Two days later: "Your account is ready. You just need to go to the bank and sign the form. Be there at 12:00 tomorrow (Monday)."
• "Um, can I go in the morning? I have to work, and it takes about 40 minutes to get there from downtown."
  
• "I think that should be fine. Oh, and I guess I should tell you where the bank is?"
• I arrive at the specified address, not knowing the name of the bank, and find three banks side-by-side, all in the same buiding with the same address.
• "Guten Morgen! Ich bin Trainee mit IAESTE. Ich heisse Kari Zacharias..." [please be it, please be it, please be it]
• YES!
• 5 forms and 8 signatures later (not even joking), I have a bank account. But no bank card!
• "We will mail it to you. Then you come back to the bank to get your PIN."
• That is silly, but I don't care, because I have leapt over the two major hurdles, forded the two biggest streams. I have conquered Austria! I could kick Napoleon's ass right now. Surely now it will be simple to...

Trial the Third: Get my godforsaken phone working

• NO.
• I borrowed a phone from IAESTE somewhere in the middle of all the showing up at the office as much as possible. However, it needs a SIM card.
• Incidentally, cell phones are called "handys" here, which means that there is at least one phone store called "Handyland". I did not visit that one.
• At a store with a less creepy name, the nice man informs me that my phone is locked. I will need to get that dealt with - just not at this store.
• IAESTE advises me to find a small phone store. "They'll do it for 5 Euros."
• All the small phone stores are closed ALL THE TIME. Also, I work all day long.
• I am prevented for a week from finding a store during the hour or so window that exists between my arriving home from work and everything closing.
• Today: I found one! It is open!
• My phone apparently was jostled on in my bag, and now needs to be charged before unlocking.
• No matter! I got home early today - the store is open for at least another hour and a half.
• I return, half an hour before closing time, with a 3/4 charged phone.
• "Oh, I meant that you should leave it here and I can do it tomorrow. I don't have time tonight."
• "I'm sorry, I can't make it tomorrow. Do you know anywhere else near here I might be able to go?"
• "No."
• ANGRY CANADIAN TURNS IMPOLITE - MURDEROUS RAMPAGE ENSUES! NO MOBILE PHONE DEALER IS SAFE!

Next time, I'm moving to somewhere with no phones. And no forms. Maybe not even any paper.

A word about work, and then a tangent

I'm working with an Austrian company called FACC, which used to stand for Fischer Advanced Composite Components and now stands for [something with an F] Advanced Composite Components, since the founding family was bought out a few months ago. They've got a couple of contracts on the go right now at the Vienna office, including the design of flap track fairings for the A380 as well as something else for Airbus, but the main focus is on the translating sleeve for the thrust reverser of the B787. This is the group I'm working with. In brief, I'm doing FEM modeling and stress analysis on various parts of the sleeve (mostly composites), using a software package called Patran/Nastran. Any Aeros reading this can probably stop here, but for the benefit of everyone else, a rudimentary breakdown follows.

The thrust reverser is part of the engine nacelle, shown below (nacelle in red, thrust reverser in
green). When the airplane is taking off or cruising, thrust needs to be generated 'backwards', in order to propel the plane forwards (physics!); however, upon landing, it's useful to generate thrust in the opposite direction, to slow the plane down. To do this, the thrust reverser separates slightly from the rest of the nacelle, and uses the resulting gap to push air up and towards the front of the plane. The translating sleeve consists of the outer shell of the thrust reverser, an inner "acoustic skin", which is specially treated to reduce noise, and a series of small blocker doors.

Boeing subcontracted the design and construction of the nacelles to Goodrich, which in turn subcontracted the translating sleeves to FACC. Most of the design and analysis is happening out of the Vienna office, and all of the production is in Ried, a smaller city in Austria between Salzburg and Linz. The frantic rescheduling and inevitable delays common to all large aerospace projects eventually resulted in Goodrich sending a small team of Americans to Vienna to "supervise" the design process. This has resulted in some mostly good-natured tension.

So, what do I actually do? I spent most of my first week playing around with the software and trying to convince my supervisors that I really was going to be useful, despite my lack of practial experience with modeling (if you thought explaining EngSci to people was fun without a language barrier...). On Thursday and Friday, though, I managed to do some actual, if extremely simple, work, creating a mesh for the blocker door hinges and running a normal mode analysis.

The work is certainly more interesting than anything I did at Honeywell, and has the added bonus of being based on things that I actually learned at school. Also, I have a nice desk rather than a cramped, shared, overheated conference room, and the office is on the top floor of a gorgeous glass building, directly overlooking the main runway of the Vienna airport.

My direct supervisor, the composites lead for the stress analysis group, is named Ernst. His direct supervisor, the lead of the entire stress analysis group, is also named Ernst. I believe there is at least one other guy named Ernst, whom I haven't met.

There are around 45 people in the Vienna office and, aside from the receptionist, Sandra, I'm the only woman. Fortunately there are three women's washrooms, so I've figured we can each take one and use the third to store our hair products. I'm also the youngest and the only Canadian (though there are several Americans and Brits) so it's fair to say I stick out a bit. This is neither unexpected nor totally disheartening, but it can be a little strange.

The Vienna office employs people from a variety of different countries, including Austria, Germany, Spain, England, Switzerland, France, the U.S., and now Canada. Vienna's diversity in general is a far cry from Toronto's or Vancouver's, but I continue to be astounded by the sheer number of countries represented by my fellow IAESTE trainees. Yesterday, at dinner during the IAESTE Vienna Weekend, I shared a dinner table with people from Austria, Ireland, Norway, England, Australia, Jordan, and Israel.

In addition to those countries, between IAESTE and the hostel where I'm staying, I've met people from Pakistan, Lebanon, Northern Ireland, Mexico, Portugal, Tunisia, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Egypt, Turkey, Slovenia, the Czech Republic, Russia, Palestine, Italy, France, Lithuania, and Wisconsin. I also met two 0T8 + PEY mechanical engineers from U of T, who remain the only Canadians I've seen. Finally, the prize for the coolest background thus far goes to my new friend Olga, who was born in Jordan to a Russian mother with family from Moldova and a Jordanian father who works in Greece. She speaks English, Arabic, Russian, Greek, French, some Italian and a little Moldovan. Needless to say, I feel like a moron most of the time. I'm grateful at least that I can entertain people with "Canada is kind of wacky" stories ("you call them loonies?").

Speaking of which, I will leave you with a Foreign Currency Fun Fact as a parting note - I recently found out that in Israel, a two-shekel coin is called a 'shnekel', since shnek is similar to the Hebew word for two. Puns and money FTW!

P.S.

Happy Canada Day, everyone! I miss you.