(This post has no continuity.)
For the last few days, I've had the sniffles. It started Thursday night, and I took Friday off of work so that I could rest and get better for Legoland. Then Legoland kicked my ass and by Sunday night I felt like shit. Still, I had a great time at Legoland.
And, as is always the way, I'm calibrating a machine this week. So, work Monday was drug induced stupor. Today I felt much better. A bit of Sudafed to clear the congestion, but I actually felt O.K. for most of the day. Now it's evening, and my congestion has returned, but at least I don't feel miserable. I should be done with the machine on Thursday (we are doing this machine the slow, traditional way because my super-cool fast way won't work this time). If I still feel like this, I'm taking Friday off again.
I have no Halloween costume this year. It's strange. I really really want one, but what's the point. There is no party to go to.
I'm coming back to St. Louis on the 6th of December, but only for the day. I fly in about noon on the 6th and leave the morning of the 7th. I already have plans for that night, but will probably not bother going into work that day if anybody wants to hang out for lunch somewhere. Preferably a burger joint.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Thursday, October 18, 2007
OW!
I did bouldering instead of routes last night. I got up some V2s which was fun. I also wrenched my back somehow. I hate getting older. So today I've been in pain. It will heal. Need to remember to stretch more before climbing. Especially bouldering.
The Stonehenge and Bath pictures are up on Flickr. I particularly like this one. I think I might get a print of it.
The Stonehenge and Bath pictures are up on Flickr. I particularly like this one. I think I might get a print of it.
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
Not much new (random rumbles to fill space)
Amanda has been on me to post. Not much new going on. We went to Bath a bit over a week ago now. It was nice, nothing spectacular. I'll get the photos up this weekend probably. I spent most of last week and a bit on Saturday getting a demo ready at work. I now have a lame little demo where a robot puts dowel-pins into an MFI cabinet side. Mostly, I've been wasting my time.
I finally finished Zelda, Wind Waker. O.K., so I'm about four years behind everyone else in video games. It's new to me. I did enjoy it, but felt it got very tedious at the end (wait for controller to vibrate, hit [A], maneuver to a good position, repeat). I only consulted the Internet three times throughout the game, which is pretty good for me and puzzle games. Now Amanda and I are back on to Dark Alliance II, making a second pass through the game.
It gets dark here now about 6:30. A long cry from it being light until 11:00 at night before. The weather is cool and rainy. About like you would imagine England. I heard that it is hot in St. Louis. Read in the news that a few dozen people at the Chicago Marathon ended up in the hospital because of the heat. Glad I ran it last year.
I'm thinking of starting running again. I'd like to just work on doing a 10K in 52 minutes. Its a goal. Also, I've noticed that without any bike riding or any aerobic activity whatsoever my climbing stamina has suffered. I can't make it to the top of the wall on lead without a break about 3/4 of the way up. That has to change. So, back to running for a while. I also have a goal of ascending Long's Peak next summer. That is my big motivation for improving my cardio and endurance. It's about a 14 hour 8 mi one-way hike with just under 5000 vertical feet. Not technical, but not for the faint of heart, or the out of shape.
Thats about it really. Winter is setting in here, and there is less to do with less light each day.
I finally finished Zelda, Wind Waker. O.K., so I'm about four years behind everyone else in video games. It's new to me. I did enjoy it, but felt it got very tedious at the end (wait for controller to vibrate, hit [A], maneuver to a good position, repeat). I only consulted the Internet three times throughout the game, which is pretty good for me and puzzle games. Now Amanda and I are back on to Dark Alliance II, making a second pass through the game.
It gets dark here now about 6:30. A long cry from it being light until 11:00 at night before. The weather is cool and rainy. About like you would imagine England. I heard that it is hot in St. Louis. Read in the news that a few dozen people at the Chicago Marathon ended up in the hospital because of the heat. Glad I ran it last year.
I'm thinking of starting running again. I'd like to just work on doing a 10K in 52 minutes. Its a goal. Also, I've noticed that without any bike riding or any aerobic activity whatsoever my climbing stamina has suffered. I can't make it to the top of the wall on lead without a break about 3/4 of the way up. That has to change. So, back to running for a while. I also have a goal of ascending Long's Peak next summer. That is my big motivation for improving my cardio and endurance. It's about a 14 hour 8 mi one-way hike with just under 5000 vertical feet. Not technical, but not for the faint of heart, or the out of shape.
Thats about it really. Winter is setting in here, and there is less to do with less light each day.
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
Imagine, Laugh, and Celebrate.
I have a collection of video links for this post. You'll need sound for all of them. Grab your headphones or turn on your speakers.
The first is for TED talks. TED is a conference held anually in Monterey, California with a goal of spreading ideas. They have started putting videos of the talks online for people to watch. I try and watch a presentation about once a month, because I find them so inspiring. The people that give the presentations have amazingly creative ideas in technology, entertainment, and design (TED) that make me think more creatively about the problems I face in my work. Most of the talks are very short, some are a bit longer. This talk (at just under 8 minutes) blew my mind. It starts with the rapid and seamless display of enormous quantities of visual information, and then shows the integration of this technology into a photogrametry application. I can't really describe how incredible this is, you have to see the presentation and play with the demo. It only takes 8 minutes, go watch it now.
OK, are you back (shame on you if you're skipping ahead)? Think of the amazing implications of this. Normally, as a research scientist, I think in terms of "How can I gather this information?" This technology challenges me to instead think "Who else is gathering this information, and what does it tell me that they weren't expecting to find out?" The people gathering the information aren't even aware that they are contributing a piece of the puzzle. Each of the photographs of Notre Dame were taken by ordinary people, none of whom thought, "Gee, if I take enough photos, then I have enough information to reconstruct a realistic 3D model of the cathedral." But many researchers in my field have thought, "Gee, if I had enough photos, I could reconstruct a 3D model of the cathedral" and then set off to take a ton of photos all with proper calibration artifacts, etc. etc. etc. The brilliant part, the truly creative part, was the person who thought, "If I had enough..." and then realized, "But the world does have enough photos of Notre Dame!" and instead solved the bigger and more interesting problem of how to find these photos with all their flaws and work with them anyway. Brilliant. Now extend that network thinking to other areas! Genius.
The second is the first of two commercials that have been airing on UK television lately. One is a surreal commercial for Cadbury's Dairy Milk chocolate bar. It made me laugh. I like it.
The third video is for a Woolworth's commercial. "It's a bit on the dark side".
Finally, I found out last week that I was selected for Associate Technical Fellow. So yeah me! I'm glad it's over, and I really feel proud about this accomplishment. It was a lot more work than I probably thought (especially since I did the process from the UK while still being classified as "Central"). If you care to join me in celebration, go find a bottle of Black Sheep Ale. And if you do, please let me know where I can get it when I get back to St. Louis.
The first is for TED talks. TED is a conference held anually in Monterey, California with a goal of spreading ideas. They have started putting videos of the talks online for people to watch. I try and watch a presentation about once a month, because I find them so inspiring. The people that give the presentations have amazingly creative ideas in technology, entertainment, and design (TED) that make me think more creatively about the problems I face in my work. Most of the talks are very short, some are a bit longer. This talk (at just under 8 minutes) blew my mind. It starts with the rapid and seamless display of enormous quantities of visual information, and then shows the integration of this technology into a photogrametry application. I can't really describe how incredible this is, you have to see the presentation and play with the demo. It only takes 8 minutes, go watch it now.
OK, are you back (shame on you if you're skipping ahead)? Think of the amazing implications of this. Normally, as a research scientist, I think in terms of "How can I gather this information?" This technology challenges me to instead think "Who else is gathering this information, and what does it tell me that they weren't expecting to find out?" The people gathering the information aren't even aware that they are contributing a piece of the puzzle. Each of the photographs of Notre Dame were taken by ordinary people, none of whom thought, "Gee, if I take enough photos, then I have enough information to reconstruct a realistic 3D model of the cathedral." But many researchers in my field have thought, "Gee, if I had enough photos, I could reconstruct a 3D model of the cathedral" and then set off to take a ton of photos all with proper calibration artifacts, etc. etc. etc. The brilliant part, the truly creative part, was the person who thought, "If I had enough..." and then realized, "But the world does have enough photos of Notre Dame!" and instead solved the bigger and more interesting problem of how to find these photos with all their flaws and work with them anyway. Brilliant. Now extend that network thinking to other areas! Genius.
The second is the first of two commercials that have been airing on UK television lately. One is a surreal commercial for Cadbury's Dairy Milk chocolate bar. It made me laugh. I like it.
The third video is for a Woolworth's commercial. "It's a bit on the dark side".
Finally, I found out last week that I was selected for Associate Technical Fellow. So yeah me! I'm glad it's over, and I really feel proud about this accomplishment. It was a lot more work than I probably thought (especially since I did the process from the UK while still being classified as "Central"). If you care to join me in celebration, go find a bottle of Black Sheep Ale. And if you do, please let me know where I can get it when I get back to St. Louis.
Sunday, September 2, 2007
Moving Air
I've updated the Places I've Been page. I didn't go anywhere in July except back to the US (and other work related trips). Amanda went with the family to Scotland. Maybe I can show her how to tag the places they went to and upload those. It's kinda cool to see everywhere we went in Ireland from 300km up. We covered a good bit of the Emerald Isle.
One thing I forgot to mention that I accomplished last weekend. I fixed Amanda's blower! The heater blower fan for Amanda's Peugeot wasn't spinning (even though I was certain that I checked it when I test drove the car) and as a result if the weather was wet and cool you had to crack the windows to get the windshield to defog. Not a big deal right now, but wouldn't be acceptable come winter. I'd already checked the fuses and relays without finding a problem, but I needed some free time to really check everything out (and a multimeter).
So, last Sunday I borrowed a coworkers multimeter and took out the blower assembly. Turns out it is very easy to get to in Peugeot 306, right under the passenger side dash. First thing I did was check the windings. Measured about 45 KOhms. OK, that sounds reasonable (not open, not short). Put the multimeter on the harness. Dead simple setup, there was two wires for power and one wire to supply a speed control voltage (which means that the speed control circuit is part of the blower assembly and can be replaced in one go if it if faulty, nice). Supply voltage is 14V, good. Control voltage ranges from .7V to something around 2V depending on where I set the fan speed switch on the dash. That looks OK. What the hell is wrong with this thing?
One thing left to try. Hook it back up and see why it won't spin. So I hook up the harness, turn on the car, and whirrrrrrrrr. OK. Reassembly everything, and it continues to work. So, best case scenario, the wire harness had a bad connection with the motor assembly. Disconnecting it and reconnecting it fixed the problem. Worst case scenario is an intermittent fault somewhere in the harness which wiggling stuff around to disassemble and reassemble has temporarily fixed. As long as it keeps working right now, it's fixed. More importantly, I did it, and didn't get ripped off by a garage charging me for a new fan motor (which they probably would have just to do something).
Yesterday I went climbing up at Stanage again, and to stay on topic it was windy as hell. At the bottom of the crag, you barely noticed, but by the time you reached the top it was a very steady 15 mph or so. Never really dangerous, but it did feel like I was more likely to get blown off the face than fall off. We climbed some good challenging routes first, then Rich showed me how to properly set an anchor at the top and how to set protection in the cracks.
I led a very easy route first (I don't remember the British grade, but I'd put it at a 5.5 or maybe a 5.6). This let me concentrate on setting good protection and not having to do anything under duress. All my protection I could set while well balanced with a good hold. Then I led a Severe route. Estimate about a 5.7, maybe an easy 5.8. Again, I could set all my protection from a good spot. I set way more than I needed just to get practice setting protection. It was great. I'm glad to be leading again.
Wednesday I have scheduled some time with the instructor at the climbing gym to show him that I am capable of lead climbing. One other person in the climbing club can lead now, so I hope to pair up with her and get back to leading routes.
The kids start school on Tuesday and they are looking forward to that. I find out the results of my ATF interview on Wednesday. Looks like an exciting week ahead.
One thing I forgot to mention that I accomplished last weekend. I fixed Amanda's blower! The heater blower fan for Amanda's Peugeot wasn't spinning (even though I was certain that I checked it when I test drove the car) and as a result if the weather was wet and cool you had to crack the windows to get the windshield to defog. Not a big deal right now, but wouldn't be acceptable come winter. I'd already checked the fuses and relays without finding a problem, but I needed some free time to really check everything out (and a multimeter).
So, last Sunday I borrowed a coworkers multimeter and took out the blower assembly. Turns out it is very easy to get to in Peugeot 306, right under the passenger side dash. First thing I did was check the windings. Measured about 45 KOhms. OK, that sounds reasonable (not open, not short). Put the multimeter on the harness. Dead simple setup, there was two wires for power and one wire to supply a speed control voltage (which means that the speed control circuit is part of the blower assembly and can be replaced in one go if it if faulty, nice). Supply voltage is 14V, good. Control voltage ranges from .7V to something around 2V depending on where I set the fan speed switch on the dash. That looks OK. What the hell is wrong with this thing?
One thing left to try. Hook it back up and see why it won't spin. So I hook up the harness, turn on the car, and whirrrrrrrrr. OK. Reassembly everything, and it continues to work. So, best case scenario, the wire harness had a bad connection with the motor assembly. Disconnecting it and reconnecting it fixed the problem. Worst case scenario is an intermittent fault somewhere in the harness which wiggling stuff around to disassemble and reassemble has temporarily fixed. As long as it keeps working right now, it's fixed. More importantly, I did it, and didn't get ripped off by a garage charging me for a new fan motor (which they probably would have just to do something).
Yesterday I went climbing up at Stanage again, and to stay on topic it was windy as hell. At the bottom of the crag, you barely noticed, but by the time you reached the top it was a very steady 15 mph or so. Never really dangerous, but it did feel like I was more likely to get blown off the face than fall off. We climbed some good challenging routes first, then Rich showed me how to properly set an anchor at the top and how to set protection in the cracks.
I led a very easy route first (I don't remember the British grade, but I'd put it at a 5.5 or maybe a 5.6). This let me concentrate on setting good protection and not having to do anything under duress. All my protection I could set while well balanced with a good hold. Then I led a Severe route. Estimate about a 5.7, maybe an easy 5.8. Again, I could set all my protection from a good spot. I set way more than I needed just to get practice setting protection. It was great. I'm glad to be leading again.
Wednesday I have scheduled some time with the instructor at the climbing gym to show him that I am capable of lead climbing. One other person in the climbing club can lead now, so I hope to pair up with her and get back to leading routes.
The kids start school on Tuesday and they are looking forward to that. I find out the results of my ATF interview on Wednesday. Looks like an exciting week ahead.
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Quit complaining, it builds character!
So if you've read Amanda's blog, you know that we spent the first six nights camping in Ireland. Of these nights, it rained six nights (that's every night for the numerically challenged). It was not the best camping, but it was a very long way from the worst camping. The tent was (for the most part) dry. It dripped in during the absolutely heaviest rain, and even then, it was just an occasional drop. Mostly from a seam in the fly that doesn't seem to be quite water tight (have to hit it with seam sealer).
Regardless, I think the kids will fondly remember this for the rest of their lives. What with all memories seeming better over time. For example, I'll probably start a PhD after we return. The memory of my Master's Thesis doesn't seem so bad anymore.
My absolute favorite campsite was the Glen of Aherlow. It was more peaceful, more remote, better views, and free showers. That's a pretty good combination. Still not anything as good as a state park in The States. Camping here is all private and business, not the nature feel you get at a park in the US.
Ireland itself was beautiful. All the pictures are up now on Flickr (along with Scotland, London, and Roche Abbey). Take a look and see what we saw. Nothing is tagged, so aplogies for that. Maybe I'll get around to dividing them up into finer sets instead of simply "Ireland". The coast was fantastic. I really wanted to get out there and try surfing, but didn't have the time. I think in October we'll try to get over to Irish sea side of the UK and I'll do some surfing then. We saw some amazing ruins from several different centuries.
An anecdote from the trip. Amanda had bought this low res map of the stone circles between Cork and Kilarney. It's the highest concentration of stone-age ruins in Europe. She really wanted to find one. I pointed out that the map would be useless as it wasn't to scale, and only gave a vague indication of where they were. I would be like trying to find a particular stone in an entire farmer's field. Actually, exactly like trying to find a particular stone in a farmer's field since all the land is privately owned. But, because I love my wife, we stopped at a book store and bought a proper OS map with a scale of 1:50000 and all the topographic features and ruins marked.
After a nice lunch at a local cafe, and corelating the tourist map with the OS map, we set out to find a stone circle marked near a road (little hiking) and with a decent drawing on the tourist map. It took about a half an hour of backtracking to find the approximate location to park. The map was not waterproof, and it was raining, so while Amanda and the kids sat in the car I studied the map, jumped out of the car, hopped the farmers' fences and looked for the relic in the rain. Retreat to the car, relic still hidden. Study the map some more, try again. No luck. We were close. I should have been able to find it, but in the summer, the brush was grown in quite well hiding anything low to the ground. Without the map in hand, I had to go by memory, and there were builders nearby working on a new house and I didn't want to get kicked off the property. Anyway, it ended in no luck, muddy pants, and a tired Phil from running around trying not to get noticed.
There is a nice stone circle near our flat in England, and I know exactly where it is (theres a picture of it on Flickr with The Girl climbing on one of the stones). I'll take Amanda to that one this weekend if she's up for it.
I'm working on the Google Earth track of our trip. As soon as it's done, I'll post a link.
This weekend, I did some bike riding on Saturday. I rode up to the highest point in South Yorkshire. When I say I rode, what I mean is I rode, then pushed, then rode, then pushed, then tossed the bike to the side of the trail and walked. Beautiful views.
On Monday (holiday here) I did some bouldering with The Boy. I bought a bouldering guide for the peak district and found that there was some decent (read easy) boulders at Burbage South. The Boy kept mocking me for not taking the easy way up. I kept thinking I couldn't climb because the best I could do was a 4, equivalent to something between about a V0 and a V1! I think that not having a crash pad was making me too nervous to try anything harder. Also, my shoes suck for bouldering. Yeah, that's it, it's the shoe's fault.
Finally, in response to Mike's post on Flash games I want to point out one that a friend sent me. Bloxorz is a very clever puzzle game. Took me about 2:30 to finish all 33 levels, so you won't feel like your wasting your life if you do start it. You can finish it in one or two sittings.
Regardless, I think the kids will fondly remember this for the rest of their lives. What with all memories seeming better over time. For example, I'll probably start a PhD after we return. The memory of my Master's Thesis doesn't seem so bad anymore.
My absolute favorite campsite was the Glen of Aherlow. It was more peaceful, more remote, better views, and free showers. That's a pretty good combination. Still not anything as good as a state park in The States. Camping here is all private and business, not the nature feel you get at a park in the US.
Ireland itself was beautiful. All the pictures are up now on Flickr (along with Scotland, London, and Roche Abbey). Take a look and see what we saw. Nothing is tagged, so aplogies for that. Maybe I'll get around to dividing them up into finer sets instead of simply "Ireland". The coast was fantastic. I really wanted to get out there and try surfing, but didn't have the time. I think in October we'll try to get over to Irish sea side of the UK and I'll do some surfing then. We saw some amazing ruins from several different centuries.
An anecdote from the trip. Amanda had bought this low res map of the stone circles between Cork and Kilarney. It's the highest concentration of stone-age ruins in Europe. She really wanted to find one. I pointed out that the map would be useless as it wasn't to scale, and only gave a vague indication of where they were. I would be like trying to find a particular stone in an entire farmer's field. Actually, exactly like trying to find a particular stone in a farmer's field since all the land is privately owned. But, because I love my wife, we stopped at a book store and bought a proper OS map with a scale of 1:50000 and all the topographic features and ruins marked.
After a nice lunch at a local cafe, and corelating the tourist map with the OS map, we set out to find a stone circle marked near a road (little hiking) and with a decent drawing on the tourist map. It took about a half an hour of backtracking to find the approximate location to park. The map was not waterproof, and it was raining, so while Amanda and the kids sat in the car I studied the map, jumped out of the car, hopped the farmers' fences and looked for the relic in the rain. Retreat to the car, relic still hidden. Study the map some more, try again. No luck. We were close. I should have been able to find it, but in the summer, the brush was grown in quite well hiding anything low to the ground. Without the map in hand, I had to go by memory, and there were builders nearby working on a new house and I didn't want to get kicked off the property. Anyway, it ended in no luck, muddy pants, and a tired Phil from running around trying not to get noticed.
There is a nice stone circle near our flat in England, and I know exactly where it is (theres a picture of it on Flickr with The Girl climbing on one of the stones). I'll take Amanda to that one this weekend if she's up for it.
I'm working on the Google Earth track of our trip. As soon as it's done, I'll post a link.
This weekend, I did some bike riding on Saturday. I rode up to the highest point in South Yorkshire. When I say I rode, what I mean is I rode, then pushed, then rode, then pushed, then tossed the bike to the side of the trail and walked. Beautiful views.
On Monday (holiday here) I did some bouldering with The Boy. I bought a bouldering guide for the peak district and found that there was some decent (read easy) boulders at Burbage South. The Boy kept mocking me for not taking the easy way up. I kept thinking I couldn't climb because the best I could do was a 4, equivalent to something between about a V0 and a V1! I think that not having a crash pad was making me too nervous to try anything harder. Also, my shoes suck for bouldering. Yeah, that's it, it's the shoe's fault.
Finally, in response to Mike's post on Flash games I want to point out one that a friend sent me. Bloxorz is a very clever puzzle game. Took me about 2:30 to finish all 33 levels, so you won't feel like your wasting your life if you do start it. You can finish it in one or two sittings.
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
NO MORE TRAVEL (sort of)
I haven't posted in a while because I've been traveling like mad lately. The first part of August I went with my parents and family to London. I'm glad I went and I had a great time. I've seen London, but I think others who knew it a decade ago are right, it is just another world city these days and the local charm of "London" is gone. I didn't ever feel like I was in a foreign country. It felt only slightly different than the few hours I spent in New York years ago. Anyway, I've been to London now.
After that, I had a trip back to the States briefly for the second interview in my job/career track thing. I thought it went well, and I will find out the end result on September 5th. I'm anxious, but confident that I passed. While in St. Louis, I did a ton of work. The hours were long and I was basically eating, sleeping, or working. I did get to have dinner one night with some friends and that was special. Thanks to Merl for a fantastic spread!
Then, when I got back to the UK, I rested on Sunday, worked on Monday, and then headed off for my actual family vacation to Ireland! Nine days and eight nights, six of which we were camping. Amanda brought her computer, and wrote blog entries every night. She will be posting them shortly. I will write my impressions of the trip this weekend. Basically, Ireland has rain. Rain is wet, but it makes things green. Green is very pretty.
So between London, Amanda's trip to Scotland, and Ireland we've got over 500 photos to go through and put up on Flickr. It will take me a while to get them all up and organized. Just to give you all an idea, about 1/2- 2/3 of the photos get put up on Flickr, the others are poorly exposed or crap or whatnot. Most of them are duplicates from exposure bracketing or playing with aperture and shutter and I judiciously try to pick the best one to put on Flickr. I haven't even looked to see what is on The Girl's camera lately.
So, except for a probable trip to Maryland in the near future, I'm done with travel for a while. Back to work in the UK!
After that, I had a trip back to the States briefly for the second interview in my job/career track thing. I thought it went well, and I will find out the end result on September 5th. I'm anxious, but confident that I passed. While in St. Louis, I did a ton of work. The hours were long and I was basically eating, sleeping, or working. I did get to have dinner one night with some friends and that was special. Thanks to Merl for a fantastic spread!
Then, when I got back to the UK, I rested on Sunday, worked on Monday, and then headed off for my actual family vacation to Ireland! Nine days and eight nights, six of which we were camping. Amanda brought her computer, and wrote blog entries every night. She will be posting them shortly. I will write my impressions of the trip this weekend. Basically, Ireland has rain. Rain is wet, but it makes things green. Green is very pretty.
So between London, Amanda's trip to Scotland, and Ireland we've got over 500 photos to go through and put up on Flickr. It will take me a while to get them all up and organized. Just to give you all an idea, about 1/2- 2/3 of the photos get put up on Flickr, the others are poorly exposed or crap or whatnot. Most of them are duplicates from exposure bracketing or playing with aperture and shutter and I judiciously try to pick the best one to put on Flickr. I haven't even looked to see what is on The Girl's camera lately.
So, except for a probable trip to Maryland in the near future, I'm done with travel for a while. Back to work in the UK!
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