Things that go boom in the night

It's an all nighter tonight.

I'm a business process engineer by civilian trade: O if only I could sell a couple of novels ;-) I enable people to do things in leaner and more efficient ways that enable businesses to turn strategies into tactics. Sounds cool if you like numbers. Otherwise - just another engineer.

Tonight I will stay up all night rebuilding a stochastic model of my division's financial performance for the next ten years, based upon efficiency gains that I have designed, so the senior leadership team can do it's long range business planning. The problem is that they are on another continent doing the planning while I am here answering their changing assumptions via e-mail.

Its my own damn fault - I took the day off today.

I took the day off so that I could do my process improvement and development work as a favor for a friend. Can't name him here - you know the drill.

One ripple in the wind..

and I hate to be the butterfly. You'll all hear about him one day soon. My friend is the closest thing to a mad scientist that you could ever meet. he is well educated, genius smart and the ideas flow from his mind like water from a hose - fire hose. He has also invented a new kind of body armor that is flexible, moldable, provides more coverage and weighs way less than the SAPI plates we've all had to put up with. It could even be used to up-armor a humvee at way less weight than is currently done (no more top heavy roll-overs) In a word - he's figured it out and I am privileged to help design the production processes that will get this to market one day.

It will probably take us awhile to do. There are government regulations, relationships to build, money to raise (lots of it) and a world of obstacles to overcome before something like this can come to market or ride a soldier's body through Baghdad or Kabul or line the body of a Border Patrol truck.

Its coming though. He does this full time. I work days off, late nights and weekends and never once has my family complained. they know I love it almost as much as flying or writing and eventually someone will come home and hug their kids or their parents and families because his invention brought them home and my processes made it manufacturable. They know there's a purpose behind this one.

Four young Americans died in two seperate IED attacks in Afghanistan today.

Tonight I'm pulling an all nighter because I took today off to work on armor.

Its worth it but I wish we could go faster.

TIA

Earl