Recently, I was sitting across from a colleague of mine, and we were discussing the development of a new infrared imager. He looked at me a little funny and said, “You know, the shirt you have on is a button-down shirt. It should be buttoned down.” I buttoned the shirt down, and, sure enough, my shirt and I both looked better. I was oblivious about it for more than half a day, and I saw the young scientists and engineers that I work with doing very similar things—using inefficient techniques, performing basic functions incorrectly, etc. It takes me back to a three-week period when I was just out of graduate school and was tasked to measure the modulation transfer function (MTF) of an infrared targeting pod. There was a tutorial paper on how to measure MTF that I carried around in my back pocket every day. It was tattered, folded, and dirty, but it was an outstanding paper. It became part of my wardrobe for three weeks! I have fond memories of that paper because it helped me tremendously.

We are launching a new effort in Applied Optics this month (20 February issue), Engineering & Laboratory Notes (ELN). Brian Monacelli is the lead for the effort and will publish an introduction describing the new feature. I want to thank him for the tremendous job he has done. I also want to encourage all of you who have an optical design (that is not research), engineering techniques that help produce components and systems, or laboratory techniques that are useful for the broad Applied Optics community to please submit a manuscript to Applied Optics under the ELN category. Many of you out there are senior scientists and engineers, and even some who are retired, who could provide an outstanding paper that a junior scientist or engineer would use daily. Such papers could potentially save our protégés some serious time and effort, reduce their stress in accomplishing specific tasks, and allow the continuation of good laboratory and engineering practices.

ELN is like any new initiative. If we work hard and publish some useful notes, then it will catch on because people will talk about it, use the notes, and want to participate. We welcome high-quality, useful, relevant, and interesting ELN articles. If you have an idea or some notes you took related to a task in the past that you think would provide an outstanding note, then please submit and help our practicing constituency. If you don’t have any ideas, but you know of someone who, through their experiences, could provide a great note, then please help encourage them to submit. This is a community service that we believe could be very worthwhile.

After I returned from a ride in the country on my motorcycle earlier today, my 16-year-old daughter pointed out that not only was my shirt covered in bugs, it was also on inside out. I guess that just goes to show that learning is a lifelong process—we can all use reminders and advice from time to time!