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Tomorrow morning, again way too early, I fly to Charlotte. These people had better have their damn spare parts.

Clearly, I need a travel icon. Perhaps the American Airlines logo. I use the glamour chicken because, as we all know, business travel is glamourous.

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I've had a few people ask me lately what it is that I do, so I thought I'd share with you all:

I'm an application enginner working in the field of motion control. What this means is that my company makes electric motors and controllers that go on manufacturing machines. These could be machines that make products, package them, move them around, etc. The machine I'm working on tomorrow, for instance, takes big sheets of cardboard and cuts them out so that boxes can be made from them. I've worked on other machines that load pasta into boxes, make plastic cups, make pop tarts, stamp VIN numbers onto cars, package candy, move boxes around UPS plants, make semiconductor chips, cut metal, wind denim fabric, saw wood, print stamps, assemble magazines, test baseball bats (by hurling a ball at them ~160MPH), etc. Basically, if someone doesn't know how to use our products or needs help using them, I help them use/fix the product. It's fun from the perspective of getting to see new processes and things, but the last-minute travel can be tiring.