An engineer who knows the difference between literally and figuratively? Very suspicious indeed! Yet here I am, proudly rebranding myself as an engineer who also deals in words (and sounds, but that's another project). I've always needed to write, just as I've needed to nourish the technical aspect of my brain. When I'm at work, I'm, like literally engineering. At home and here in this blog I can be literally minded - thinking, reflecting and, from time to time, writing about engineering.

It's a big topic covering an unimaginable range of products, from things that we touch and use every day - to the arcane, that we rarely, if ever, see. And yet it's a small, parochial topic, too. Specifications, drawings, tolerances, materials - all of these need nurturing by us, the oft-unsung engineers, wherever and on whatever we work. And to do that, we need, like it or not, literally to use words.

So, here's my fresh start, with a fresh suit - which will need some nipping and tucking as time and wear go on. Let’s see where the journey takes us...

I had a couple of hours today at work in what I can only describe as -for the workspace, at least - blissful calm with my laptop offloaded to IT for new software and general updates. It was positively therapeutic having my twin displays switched off, docking station bare and keyboard stowed away. All of a sudden, I could see my working environment for what it was - a mess.

So I cleared the decks. Drawings that had lain scattered around in various states of checking or revision were brutally culled. Specifications for review that had sat there for months were shredded. Samples for testing were tidied away for the ever decreasing likelihood of them being required (the usual samples that arrive with no reference documentation or any indication of what they were for, let alone including a formal test request from someone who knew what they wanted). All of those things had become mere symbols, signs to my colleagues that I was - am - busy.;Which is of course a far cry from doing anything useful.

Finally I could see my desk again. That little expanse of off-white reflected my inner calm, the sun shone outside and my cup of coffee smelled great…

Then I realised that I need to do some desk clearing with my blog-life, too. I started this blog with the intention of writing about those aspects of engineering that generally aren't taught in uni. Things like PPAPs or finding things. As part of my background research to this blog, I came across a site called engineerblogs.org with some decent observations from a range of writers. They had a notification up saying that they were looking for writers, so I ended up submitting oneor two posts, which became threeand soon four. I'm still a guest blogger there, but I realise that I am neglecting my own blog.

Hence the need to order my thoughts in terms of what ideas belong to this blog and what to EngineerBlogs. I can't say I'll have any answers straight away, but I don't want to switch off the Canny Engineer just yet.