Liberal Arts Education

So by the close of business (COB) today, my team and I are supposed to submit a report document on the results of laser data collected in August by my company. One member of the team volunteered to write up a "boiler plate" which consists of all the non-results related information such as "how we did it", "what we used," etc. Seemingly straight forward correct? Especially when the guy writing it has a title of "Principal Electro-Optical Laser Scientist" right? So...here's some of my favorite highlights of the draft before I spent 5 hrs revising my life away.

1) The use of the word "nominally" as much as 5 times in a page in sentences such as, "Mechanically, the camera was nominally set back from the target screen about 25 feet when positioned at Nohilli Point."

2) The ability to repeat the same concept more than once in the structure of a sentence, i.e. "Sunlight being the main culprit was relatively constant but intensity on the screen did change over time throughout the day operations due to changing position of the sun as well as occasional clouds that would impede sunlight briefly thereby changing the background of the target screen. "

3) And my personal favorite...the use of dramatic effect: "To add more challenges to the air operations, the passenger door on the helicopter was removed leaving roughly 10 ft2 of open area for not only the laser to propagate into the helicopter but the ambient environment as well. On the ground, the temperatures experienced by the crew were relatively mild however, as the helicopter achieved 3800 foot elevations, the air temperatures coupled with the strong prop wash from the main rotor blades created near freezing conditions for the operator next to the open doorway (**adin's note: Guess who the operator next to the open doorway was**). In addition to the cold temperatures, noise from the rotors was substantial and communications suffered from the excess background in addition to some still unknown electrical problems associated with the internal headsets used by the members of the flight crews. The open door created additional concerns with regard to safety. All equipment had to be secured so as to prevent the possibility of something falling out the open pathway and striking the main or tail rotor props the consequences of which are left as an exercise for the reader to consider."

Thank you for exercising as a reader. Have a good day.