Mike W
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mjwallace42.bsky.social
Mike W
@mjwallace42.bsky.social
120 followers 130 following 880 posts
i solve problems. occasionally my own.

i enjoy running and taking pictures. manufacturing engineering continuous improvement nerd. i love pi[e].

he/him
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mjwallace42.bsky.social
We voted! (and the "kids" too!)

Fingers crossed we get a new mayor and retain some justices.
Mike and Pi are smiling and showing off their "I voted" stickers.
November 4, 2025 at 10:43 PM
mjwallace42.bsky.social
I paused a few times to take photos during my run along the Slippery Rock Creek in McConnells Mill State Park, and this one is my favorite. It was a beautiful partly cloudy fall day.
A fall scene in a wooded creek valley. Colors of green and yellow and red and orange abound. On the left is the water of Slippery Rock Creek with small ripples on the water surface. On the right side of the image is a leaf-covered trail wandering over the roots of a beech tree marked with a blue blaze. It's a bit of a clearing, but there are still trees all over the place.
November 3, 2025 at 3:28 AM
mjwallace42.bsky.social
i dressed up for halloween;
i wore a necktie.
selfie of mike, a white guy with a brown beard (with a little grey). he's wearing a black polo shirt and a black necktie with images of skeletons hanging somewhat like monkeys from the barrel of monkeys game.
October 31, 2025 at 3:07 PM
mjwallace42.bsky.social
Happy Mole Day!
A stuffed animal that is a mole. He has a light colored furry face with black beady eyes, a fuzzy dark nose, and white front teeth sticking out. He’s also wearing a lab coat because he’s a chemist.
October 23, 2025 at 1:57 PM
mjwallace42.bsky.social
Best ‘cup’ of gumbo I ever ate, and likely ever will, today at Dooky Chase’s Restaurant in the Treme neighborhood of New Orleans. It was a warm loving embrace in a bowl.
A pair of images. On the left, a white ceramic bowl filled with a hearty red-brown broth with shrimp, chicken, sausage, and a scoop of white rice. On the right, the same bowl is empty, except for a tiny trace of broth and a spoon.
October 22, 2025 at 11:29 PM
mjwallace42.bsky.social
Violent Femmes! I know 2.5 songs! First time at Stage AE and it was crowded with fellow Gen-Xers! I was a last minute sub cause one of Pi’s friends couldn’t go. I still had a good time!
A stage lit in red colors with ‘Violent Femmes’ showing on the backdrop. Band members are on stage playing guitar, snare drum, bass guitar, and other instruments.
October 16, 2025 at 2:37 AM
mjwallace42.bsky.social
This is an appropriate time to post what I simply call “The Problem”. Basically an entire class of ChemE undergrads bullshitted our way through this exam by stating, “My assumptions are…” and going from there. I have never been able to solve this problem.
An exam problem with a diagram showing an integrated circuit on a circuit board with a cooling fan. The problem text is as follows: Problem 3 (25 points) An integrated circuit rests on a circuit board as shown in the diagram. In operation, heat is generated within the integrated circuit at a uniform rate, Q0, in watts per meter cubed. Assume that the thermal conductivity of the circuit board is zero. Derive an expression for the maximum temperature in the chip.
October 10, 2025 at 3:18 AM
mjwallace42.bsky.social
When a friend convinces you to run an ultramarathon with 4 weeks to go and you end up doing well despite A LOT of hiking during the last 10 miles, I call that an excellent day.
Graphic of a course map following the Gerard Trail as it loops around Oil Creek just south of Titusville, PA. Also shown are race stats. Distance of 31.17 miles Elevation Gain of 4797 feet Elapsed Time of 7 hours 28 minutes 50 seconds Average Pace of 14 minutes 24 seconds per mile Selfie of Mike, a mid-40s white guy with dark brown hair and a beard turning to grey. He’s standing in a small clearing in the woods just in front of two replica oil derricks. The derricks are probably 25 feet tall open trapezoid shapes, framework with diagonal crossbeams and 4 tiers of horizontal supports. The far side of the green wooded valley is just visible in the background.
October 5, 2025 at 11:46 AM
mjwallace42.bsky.social
I ran 6.9 miles this morning (nice!) (yes I planned it) after running 12 yesterday, saw a Polyphemus Moth caterpillar, and now I’m ready to begin my taper for OC 50K by playing trucks with my grandson. Support trans rights.
A bright green Polyphemus Moth caterpillar crawls along a sidewalk next to a Brooks purple and blue running shoe. The caterpillar is as long as the arch (close to 3 inches long).
September 21, 2025 at 3:04 PM
mjwallace42.bsky.social
It’s definitely looking like fall around here. Everything is so dry and withering away.
Three 4-lobed “flower” parts, next to what I think are the seeds from what were the actual small flowers, from my hydrangea tree (which is how I describe it). Two of the lobes are mottled brown and one is a pinkish hue.
September 21, 2025 at 11:41 AM
mjwallace42.bsky.social
I still get a little thrill when I find a new-to-me brick in a set of LEGOs.
A 2x2 square LEGO brick that is only 2 rows high (!!!) only the sides are routered so it looks like 4ish layers. This one is colored tan. It’s from set 60408 “Car Transporter”.
September 21, 2025 at 12:10 AM
mjwallace42.bsky.social
After a nice trail run this morning, I helped my dad pick a couple of bushels of apples of his honey crisp (pictured) and gala apple trees.
A honey crisp apple tree with bare lower branches but some nice clusters of red and green apples near its top. An apple picking ladder (regular ladder steps but a single post for support) is set up under the tree.
September 6, 2025 at 7:26 PM
mjwallace42.bsky.social
Your last saved pic is your moral philosophy.
Screenshot of skeet from Canadian Bacon (at tashaneedshelp) on 2025/09/03: “I would absolutely follow a rolling wheel of cheese into the creepy woods.”
September 5, 2025 at 11:58 AM
mjwallace42.bsky.social
Incredibly fun time with Pi and a couple of my friends from high school at the NIN concert in Cleveland! It was an absolute blast!
Collage of 3 photos. Top photo is Mike and Pi and a couple of other folks in a bar area with hanging plants and overhead lighting. Second photo is Mike and Pi smiling and in front of a digital display for the concert tour. Third shows the crowd in the arena with a small stage and the NIN logo on a curtain surrounding the main stage.
September 1, 2025 at 5:32 AM
mjwallace42.bsky.social
First volleyball game of her high school senior season last night… and first victory!

I’m not sure I can stand a lot of 5-set-stress this season, though.
A host of girls in red jerseys jump and shout for joy after they win their volleyball match. Volleyball action shot. A girl on her belly on the gym floor looks up at the ball she just dug. Her coach and other players look on.
August 27, 2025 at 5:31 PM
mjwallace42.bsky.social
Sunflower sunrise on the drive into work.
A landscape photo of a field of sunflowers in front of other farm fields and some barns and other farm buildings on the horizon. Most of the nearby sunflower field is in shadow, but the sun is behind the photographer and is rising above a hillside. The far fields are in full sunlight. All the flowers, with their big leafy green stems, bright golden yellow petals surrounding circular orange centers, have their faces pointed towards the sun.
August 12, 2025 at 12:49 PM
mjwallace42.bsky.social
Bee on a thistle.
A thistle plant in a green field with some flower buds about to bloom. On one that has just started to bloom its red-violet flower, a bee (I think it’s a carpenter bee) with a fuzzy yellow abdomen crawls around.
August 6, 2025 at 1:57 AM
mjwallace42.bsky.social
“I Robot” by the Alan Parsons Project is a better album than “Kilroy Was Here” by Styx.
The album cover of I Robot by The Alan Parsons Project. The following description is summarized from the Wikipedia article on the album. Several persons are shown on escalator tubes that overlap visually. The photo location was the Charles de Gaulle Airport near Paris, France. On the left side of the art piece is a painting of the neck and head of a silver robot with a sharp angular head and a multicolored schematic of an atom for a brain. Along the top in red LCD style text is “THE ALAN PARSONS PROJECT” and below that horizontal red lines with the same style text “I ROBOT”. The cover art was created by Hipgnosis.
July 30, 2025 at 1:00 PM
mjwallace42.bsky.social
I got inked! Beautiful color work by Paul at Queen of Swords in Mt. Oliver.
A view of Mike’s back right shoulder. It has just been tattooed with a monkey with a diamond shaped head and a curly tail. The body is a blue gradient and the tail is shades of the rainbow.
July 25, 2025 at 5:18 PM
mjwallace42.bsky.social
7/24/25

Happy Pythagorean Triple Day!
A drawing of a right triangle with sides of lengths 7 units, 24 units, and 25 units.
July 24, 2025 at 11:51 AM
mjwallace42.bsky.social
One of my favorite woodland flowers are Ghost Pipes (monotropa uniflora). I don’t think I had ever observed the seed pod stage before last week (2nd photo).
A cluster of ghost pipe flowers. The stems emerge from leaves on the forest floor and grow straight upwards. The bell-shaped flowers droop over slightly. The stems and flower petals are a ghostly white. 3 stems of ghost pipes have bulbous seed pods at the top. The stems are ghostly white, and the seed pods are white but with a faint pink hue, with a black ring at the top.
July 21, 2025 at 3:24 PM
mjwallace42.bsky.social
A Regal Moth (citheronia regalis) visited us at work today. Isn’t she (I think, given the small antennae) lovely?
A soft large fuzzy moth rets on a concrete stoop. Her wings are grey with orange veins and pale yellow spots. Her thorax and head are super fuzzy orange and pale yellow.
July 18, 2025 at 7:05 PM
mjwallace42.bsky.social
The sandhill cranes were very close to the road this morning. I was able to capture a few images from the driver’s seat through the open rear passenger window.
Seven sandhill cranes browse in a green low cut hayfield with some brown dried grasses in the foreground, two trees behind the cranes, and then more fields and a distant stand of trees in the background. The cranes are spaced out in a line. Some have their heads down looking for food, while others have their long necks stretched out looking around. Their feathers range from rusty brown through medium grey.
July 14, 2025 at 1:14 PM
mjwallace42.bsky.social
Thai basil has such pretty flowers!
A Thai basil plant. Clean yellow-green leaves are elongated almond shapes. Each leaf has 4 or 5 pairs of primary veins. Atop the stem sits a flower bundle of deep red wine mains with individual flowers a lighter pink-purple tipped with white.
July 11, 2025 at 12:18 PM
mjwallace42.bsky.social
A goat ate my shoelace.
A pygmy goat with a white and brown speckled face has its mouth around the shoelace on my red sneakers. Mike’s sexy white calves flow into white socks with rainbow stripes. In the background another pygmy goat with brown fur and a white muzzle looks on quizzically.
July 5, 2025 at 12:19 PM