First Post
For a while now I’ve been thinking about starting a blog to share insights I have with others, both technical and non-technical. Some books and articles I’ve read over the last several years have convinced me that helping others is the best way to true long-term happiness and success. So, I thought “how best can I help others?” ”What unique help can I provide, given my background?” And “what medium can I use, especially given that I’m just starting out in this area, to reach as many people as possible?” For the last question, using a website was the obvious answer. For the first two, see below.
First Primary Topic: Personal Growth and the Psychology of Productivity, Motivation, and Decision Making
I’ve become very interested in personal growth and psychology topics over the last few years, and I’ve accumulated a large amount of advice and quotes that I find inspiring. Most of it I’ve come up with myself (with many influences of course), but I’ve also come across many sources of inspiration that I saved. I gave a presentation at my company called “Psychology of Decision Making for Engineers” a couple of years ago, and quite a few people told me they really enjoyed it. So that got me thinking that perhaps I should pursue this a bit further. I’ve been primarily interested in productivity improvement, motivation, and career advice. So this is likely what I will primarily share on this blog, at least to start.
Second Primary Topic: Technical Tips
As part of my job as an aerospace engineer working on navigation and mission design for a NASA mission, I discover nifty tricks and tips on an almost daily basis. Most of the time I don’t communicate this information beyond the coworkers in my office, and sometimes it doesn’t even make it to them. This is something I’d like to change. I am particularly interested in posting about solutions I find or figure out on my own that I was not able to find with a Google search (which has become a much more common occurrence for me). I like to think my Google skills are pretty decent after using it for more than a decade, but I am sure I will post a solution at some point that does have an easy to find answer on Google, so please feel free to post it in the comments if you are able to find such a page.
Other Topics
Other topics that I am interested in include:
- Martial Arts (I teach Tae Kwon Do at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, and have been training since I was 11)
- The future of space flight (I’m a huge Star Trek nerd, I’ll be the first to admit)
- Travel tips – I have traveled a bit throughout my life, and I enjoy the idea of communicating what I learn about places I visit (see my Europe travels blog here: http://corwinineurope.blogspot.com/)
- Autonomy and robotics – I’ve always been fascinated by this topic, and I plan to pursue it more in the future
Now I better go write the “About” section!