Wednesday, June 03, 2009

An engineer and his sons...

To avoid doing actual productive work at the computer this afternoon, I took an old yellowing list of numbers I had created from our "measuring door jamb" in our kitchen to make the graph below for my sons.  Much to their annoyance, I would pester them to stand up straight against the white-painted woodwork and mark their height with the date.  When we redecorated the kitchen a few years ago, I had the uncharacteristic foresight to record the marks before painting over them.

This is how engineers communicate with engineer offspring.

 
[Click to embiggen]

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I take it that Aaron is the younger son? There are fewer data points on his growth curve. Parents always seem to run out of steam after the first born. Spoken from a voice of experience

John Phipps said...

anon:

Nope. Aaron is our oldest son, who now farm with us. Jack was the basketball player who to whom height was more important.

I think the rule applies best to family photos.

Ron Swanson said...

It is interesting how family traditions can have rather obscure beginnings. My wife recorded our three son's height and date on the kitchen door frame periodially as they were growing up. They have long since gone and now when the grandchildren (9) visit, they are curious at the markings of their respective fathers. They are also adding their height and date as well, so needless to say the door frame is getting rather crowded, but Grandma loves it. Don't think we will plot it on a graph however.

Anonymous said...

I stand corrected on the growth curve data!

John Phipps said...

Ron:

But..but...it's so much more sentimental in Cartesian coordinates.

Right?