FAQ

Shelbinator?
It seemed like a good idea at the time, when I started blogging years ago, thanks to the nickname a coworker at AlliedSignal promulgated. ShelbyHighsmith.com just doesn’t have that buzz to it, you know?
What do you mean, watching crack grow? You don’t grow crack you make crack!
The hell I don’t grow crack! My graduate research for the last several years has focused on stable crack propagation in aerospace alloys, like nickel-base superalloys and titanium alloys. Little nicks and dings and cavities in these airplane parts can, over time, turn into wee cracks which then grow into big cracks which then make the plane fall outta the sky and everyone dies and it’s very sad. So we study those process and model them so we can predict and avoid such things. My master’s research involved many, many, many boring hours watching small cracks through a microscope as they took a beating in a hydraulic load frame (tiny news clip via my cellphone here).
When did you start blogging?
Actively, in 1999, when I bought my first laptop as a workin’ man. I had made a few webpages with pictures and stories of travels while an undergrad in 1995-96, but it wasn’t updated with the kind of frequency that might make one call it blogging.
But why did you start blogging?
Fair question; a lot of people wonder about the exhibitionist narcissism of blogging, and naturally there’s an element of that in all personal blogs. Before I started blogging again in ‘99, I had a few friends who had gone on to consulting jobs with Andersen and the like after college, and we’d never hear from them while “busy on a project” until they were flying home and decided to send us all a mass “life update” email from their laptop on the plane. I felt similarly inclined to keep my friends apprised of my antics, but without the presumptuous in-your-face nature of the mass email. I also like the writing practice because your typical engineer writes like crap.
Seriously, what’s with the PBR?
I’m poor, and it’s beer. Bite me.
Did you ride your bike here?
America has an obesity problem and a gasoline problem. It’s time more people realized bicycling is a good idea. Besides, it helps me justify being an SUV-driving environmentalist.
When will you be done with your dissertation?
I’m sorry, how much do you weigh again?
What are you going to do after graduation?
Anything but what I’m doing now, for probably not much more money.