Happy New Year 2012

Posted Mon Jan 16, 2012 in

The holidays are past, most of the stuff put away. The travel is over. Between the end of November and the First of January, I drove about 8,000 miles. We drove to Missouri to visit Wife’s folks for Thanksgiving, then to Louisiana to visit Daughter and her family for Christmas. We returned on 3 January. Older Son and DiL arrived from Denver on 7 January for a week’s stay.

We loved having the kids here. Older and Younger Sons worked with me to do some of the project around the house that languished for lack of enough help to move the furniture. The kids and Wife played a good part of the time. I worked most of the week, then took the last couple of days off to work around the house and spend time with the family.

This was very good. It’s a challenge for me to leave work for almost anything. While I wouldn’t say I “love” my work, it provides the support needed by my family and I’m dedicated to getting the job done for those who depend on me — family, clients, and boss. So, that was hard, particularly after being gone over the holidays. But, I did it anyway. It was the right thing to do.

The Girl adores the kids. She played hard with Older Son, who loves rough-and-tumble dogs. He has his own “war wounds” to show for the rowdiness. It’s a guy thing, I think. The Girl will play as rough as you want, but she’s very sensitive to her strength and has a soft mouth. What a doll.

When they were laying about watching TV, the Girl was in the middle of them, snoozing in a nest of blanket. Until they came, she wasn’t much to get on the furniture. But, she was right up there with them, sleeping and cuddling. She is the most social dog I’ve ever known.

When it was time to drive them to the airport yesterday, I put her in her crate. I left her a chew toy to occupy her time. As we left and I closed the front door, I hear her cry out. It was a cry of pure anguish at being left behind while her family left. I backed the car from the garage and heard her barking, calling to be let out of the crate.

That was hard. I hate leaving the Girl behind. But, there isn’t enough room in the car for five adults and a dog. So, behind she had to stay. It broke my heart to hear her pain. I guess I’m still the empath, after all I’ve been through.

The boys talked on the trip to Reno. It is fun to listen to them together. I wish Daughter could participate more. She might be small in stature, but she can keep up with them. That girl doesn’t know the meaning of quit.

Too soon it was time to drop them at the terminal and return home. We had a couple of stops to make on the way home to finish the projects. I am using my Winder$ box enough that I wanted speakers for it. So, I moved the Harmon Kardon Soundsticks to that machine (it recognized them!) and bought a pair of B&W MM-1 speakers for my MacBook Pro. I also needed a couple of small office-type things and Wife needed to pick up her prescriptions.

The Girl was happy to see us when we returned. She was waiting patiently in her crate, chew-toy between her front feet. The crate is beginning to show the impact of her protests. She pulls on it when we leave, trying to get out. The wires at the door are bent inward. The Girl can pull.

We crashed hard. I puttered around my workroom, installing my speakers and cleaning up my worktable. I backed-up Wife’s computer with a new drive. She filled the old one, so it was time to get something a little larger. I went for small too and bought one of the Seagate Go-Flex drives. I should buy the FireWire adapter for it because FireWire 800 is still faster than USB 2.0. I might do that yet.

The house seems quiet without the kids here. I’m used to Older Son showing up in my workroom about this time with coffee. We spent the early mornings talking about things. Those are the dad-words I wish I could still have. DiL would wander in a little later with her coffee and sit on the floor, reading a magazine and listening to us talk.

I wish they were closer. I wish all of them were closer. They are not and I don’t see it.

The week begins. It’s time to refocus on the tasks before me.

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Remembering Pearl Harbor, 2012

Posted Wed Dec 7, 2011 in

It’s December 7, Pearl Harbor Day… “A day that will live in infamy.” Seventy-years ago, the Japanese struck Pearl Harbor in a surprise attack that caught America off-guard.

Most of the men and women who were there are now gone; only a few remain. The first-hand recollection of those who were there will soon disappear. We will lose touch with what happened and the people it happened too.

I was on Oahu many years ago. I didn’t get to the Arizona Memorial, but I did visit the Submariner’s Memorial. It was a solemn place, even amid the children playing on the grass. I remember reading the names of the men who died in service of their country. The sense of history was nearly overwhelming, punctuated by the laughter of the children playing in the background. The contrast struck me at the time.

It was good to see the place, to think about what happened, to remember. It is good to remember this day and the men and women who sacrificed then and in the response to come. I remember.

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Veteran's Day 2011

Posted Fri Nov 11, 2011 in

I remember. Thanks for your service and sacrifice.

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I Cannot

Posted Thu Oct 13, 2011 in

Hugh MacLeod is one of my favorite artists. I guess I’ve been following his work for years. I receive his daily in my morning email (usually). Whenever it arrives, I take a few moments, read his comments, and think a little.

This morning I Cannot arrived. While my coffee was brewing, I thought a little about my life. I spent nearly 20 years as an academic, more if you consider my teaching while working through graduate school. Students, like my own children, sometimes came to me seeking advice.

I don’t give advice. I don’t tell others what to do. It is not my place in the world to do something like that, because their path is not mine; their history is not mine — neither is their future mine. Those things all belong to the other person. Therefore, for me to try to tell them what to do is morally and ethically wrong.

But there were/are things I can do. I can listen to the other person explain their thoughts and concerns. I can let them vent their frustration. I can ask questions. I can offer alternatives to the things they’ve considered. I can believe in their ability to solve their own problems and tell them so.

These are things I did. I still do them, but not as often because I’m no longer a teacher. This is one of the good things I did as a university professor. It is also one of the things I’m proud of.

Good call, Hugh.

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Steve Jobs (RIP)

Posted Thu Oct 6, 2011 in

SunflowersThere will be hundreds (thousands?) of eulogies for Steve Jobs over the next few days. Some people will probably feel physical/emotional grief over his passing. I can understand that — it’s difficult to watch one’s heroes pass. But pass on they do. All of them. Everything dies.

I thought I might dwell for a few minutes on how Jobs and Apple impacted my life. The cynic in me would declare that Apple and Jobs are responsible for separating me from a significant amount of my hard-earned money. That cynical part of me would be correct.

However, the more reasonable part of me would observe that I received something in return. I could not say how many hours of music I listened to with my iPod. Having (and using) my iPod meant that my discs could stay at home and in storage, safe from the risks of physical damage associated with travel. My family enjoyed many hours of music shared with my iPod in the car, played through the vehicle’s sound system. Music is such a big part of my life that the money spent on hardware (iPods) is small compared to the amount spent on software (discs containing digital music). I would say this is a fair exchange.

I live with Macintosh computers. Since I switched from Winder$ in 2003, I only briefly looked back… and then not seriously. My MacBook Pro computers do most of what I want done. I rely on Winder$ boxen to run a few numerical models that are only supported on that system. That’s desktop land. Everything else (the bulk of my time) is done on my MBP, including the statistical analysis and writing. When needed, I can open a terminal (command shell) and run *nix commands from the command line. I still do and compile and execute small FORTRAN programs to do very specific tasks that are not easily done in commercial software.

My iPhone is nearly my constant companion. I switched from a dumb-phone in 2003 to a Blackberry. I loved my Blackberry and it did certain things very well (mostly messaging and email). Integrating it with my MBP was a PITA, however. When Apple released the first iPhone, I knew it would integrate seamlessly with my MBP and so my Blackberry went away and I became an iPhone fanboi.

My iPhone does just about everything I want done remotely. The camera is not quite as good as my carry-camera (certainly not as good as my Nikon D100, now gone), but it’s always with me and does more than adequate for grab-shots. The new iPhone 4S supposedly has a better camera. We’ll see about that.

Finally, there is my iPad. I still have a first generation iPad and will probably hold out for the iPad 3 before I change. My iPad is great for traveling and I’d rather carry it than my MBP. Even with an external keyboard, it’s lighter and more compact than the MBP and it’s support. I can move and edit images from both my iPhone and Canon G11 (carry-camera) with my iPad. Email and internet consumption works very well on the iPad. Reading PDFs on the iPad is also very good, although I prefer my Kindle for books because the Kindle is reflective and the iPad is transmissive.

These things wouldn’t exist without Steve Jobs and Apple. Although my life would go on, these things make my life a little better. My life is not better because I own things, but because the things do “stuff” for me that I enjoy or makes my work a little easier and enjoyable. Those results are good and I’m thankful for them.

Rest in peace, Steve Jobs, and thank you for your life’s work in computing technology. You will be missed.

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Writing

Posted Sun Aug 28, 2011 in

Parker 51One morning last week I was finishing up a technical review for a paper I’m coauthoring with a group of men I work with. The light through the window and from my desk lamp caught my attention. So, very carefully, I framed the shot with my iPhone and released the shutter.

I have no idea why designers feel compelled to use a motor-drive sound for a shutter release that is essentially silent. I doubt most people have heard the sound other than in the movies or from a digital camera. It’s BS and something of an anachronism, given the move to all-digital camera technology. OK, that’s the end of my little rant.

I tweaked the image a little, increasing the exposure slightly to compensate for the overly-white background. The pen is an ancient Parker 51 vacumatic, probably manufactured during the mid-1940s. The diaphragm was replaced and the pen was cleaned, but it writes a nice wet medium line. I loaded it with Noodler’s Red-Black because I wanted a red but prefer darker colors for improved contrast against white paper.

I am actually working on my handwriting. If I take a little more time, write carefully, and don’t write too small, my handwriting is actually legible.

I write daily; actually, I write more than once each day. I keep a journal and notes. I use my fountain pens for those purposes, plus other miscellaneous writing tasks required on a daily basis. I really enjoy my fountain pens.

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Summer?

Posted Thu Aug 25, 2011 in

Markleeville CreekDuring the mostly-monthly staff meeting last week, one of my coworkers leaned over to me and said “Summer? That’s Memorial Day to Labor Day, right?”

“Nope… It’s from 21 June through 21 September (more or less); the Summer Solstice to the Autumnal Equinox.”

“Hmph…”

On reflection, I should probably have nodded and smiled. My coworkers call me “Doc” or “Professor” a lot, which is OK because they’re playing. I’m still one of those “damned know-it-all engineers” I guess.

The seasons are delineated by definite astronomical events. This isn’t because God suddenly flips the switch and things switch from spring to summer (please induct), but I suspect because this allows us to communicate across areas of widely varying climate. It’s much easier to mark a specific astronomical event than to reference a country-specific holiday.

I suppose most Americans think of the summer season as the end of school late in the spring and the beginning of school in the late summer. That artificial division of school season is an anachronism held over from a time when the primary industry in this country was agriculture and all hands were needed to plant, tend the fields, and harvest in the fall.

As a nation, we don’t generally think in terms of the science. It’s a shame.

The image is one of Markleeville Creek I made when I was in Markleeville for a meeting. Markleeville is a small town in the eastern Sierras. It’s an interesting place and attracts a few motorcyclists in the warm months (too much snow in the cold months) as a way-station on their way through the country backroads. It’s worth the visit.

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