Sweet, sweet summer lovin'

Okay, I'm making the official proposal that we plan a little get together for sometime in August. I know that Ryan will be out east at some point then, and I can get away for a long weekend without much trouble. What say you!?

The Fool on the Hill

"No doubt," the tall man ( E.C.) agrees. "By 'every study,' I do not, of course, mean to include the study of how to act like a pompous ass, which is the only study to which your offspring are likely to be inclined."
- Matt Ruff

So what did Ryan learn their?

Article

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0616/p13s02-stct.html

This is an article about what I do. Andrew Fanara is our EPA client and basically tells us what to do for ENERGY STAR product development. A few people from my office are going to the meeting in San Francisco they mention. I should get to go to these type of meetings as I get more involved in projects.

JIMMMMYYYYY

Jimmy emerges from the depths of Ohio.
I think Jim should be required to write a 500 word essay on what he's been doing for the last year. To ease the task, I'll even suggest some potential topics to hit:

1. Meg
2. Mrs. Robenalt
3. Pictures of Jim's main squeeze (I imagine she looks something like Meg or the Mrs.)
4. How Jim plans on "contributing" to society as a lawyer
5. The social injustice forced upon us by the Ohio republicans.
6. When Jim's coming out east to "Hangout".
7. Current height, weight, girth and IQ.

What ya'll think? Maybe we should all just write essays about what Jim's been up to and make it a contest. Winner will get 55 cents and a tin of popcorn.

westward ho!

Well boys, Anna and I are heading to points west for our triathlon this coming weekend. I'm feeling pretty good about the whole thing, as long as I don't get too overheated with my mop top. I'm hoping to bring back some pictures so I'll let you know how everything turns out next week.

Space Playground

This is a virtual model of a Space themed playground I built. About 20 damn hours of work for a 5 minute presentation. There's a good effort to result ratio for you. Below the virtual model pics is a scale model we built of the main tower. I finished my quarter up a few days ago and am now just being extremely lazy and doing nothing for a few days. On Wednesday I head up to chill with Ryan for a bit, and then next week I'm heading to help the folks pack up. They're moving down to St. Louis in a month.

Space Playground CAD model 2 

Space Playground CAD model 1 

Scale Space Playground model 

Blogging

So I've been meaning to blog but can never think of anything to blog about. So then I thought: "what if I blogged about nothing". Perfect. Remember in High School when people would write papers about nothing, or better yet turn in a blank sheet of paper? I know a girl who did it twice, to different teachers, on two differnet topics and got a B+ and a C. Ridiculous! (and this was a world class institution, not some camp for rich ski brats, whose english department head will give anyone an A just for giving praise to the devil.) This really is pretty good, when you consider the reward/effort ratio, but also comes at high risk. I tried to think of ways to submit a blank blog, but then you'd just scroll down to where there was actually writing and wonder about all the empty space above it. You'd probably say something like "stupid internet, must be broken again." This clearly lacks the effectiveness of the stark blank piece of 20# printer paper with your name in the upper right hand corner. So instead of taking this approach, I decided to write about nothing... but of course this turned into writing about something - namely writing about nothing - and so this is how I have failed. At least I managed to enetertain you for a couple minutes, or at least given you yet another reason to kill me.

some good Auden

from part III of "In Memory of W.B. Yeats," which, as i understand it was actually written before Yeats died. Auden just put it in a desk and waited. (i think i'll do that for you AJ.)

Follow, poet, follow right
To the bottom of the night,
With your unconstraining voice
Still persuade us to rejoice;
With the farming of a verse
Make a vinyeard of the curse,
Sing of human unsuccess
In a rapture of distress;
In the deserts of the heart
Let teh healing fountain start,
In the prison of his days
Teach the free man how to praise.

I don't buy it... not even for a dollar

Ghost Reflections ...
Question: On a long vacation drive, as it gets dark and people are putting on their headlights, you flip the rear-view mirror up into the "night-driving" position. Your daughter notices and asks, "Dad, what did you just do?" You reply, "I flipped the mirror to night-view to reduce the glare from the headlights behind us." She's quiet for a minute and then asks, "Well, how does that work?" What do you tell her?

Answer: Most mirrors are glass with a back reflective coating. This protects the reflective coating from scratches and tarnish. There are front-reflective mirrors but they are rather rare, expensive and usually used in optical systems where you don't want "ghost" reflections from the partially reflecting front glass surface. However, in the case of rear view mirrors, this is exactly what you want to exploit. The trick here is that the two glass surfaces of the mirror are not parallel — the glass is actually a shallow wedge when viewed from the side. When you use the mirror during the day, you have it adjusted so the back silvered surface provides the reflection to your eyes. At night you pivot the mirror, using the factory installed adjuster, by the wedge angle so that the front surface of the glass now directs the reflections to you. Regular clear glass reflects approximately 4% of incident light (in air) from the front surface, so in this position about 4% of the light coming from the headlights behind you makes it to your eyes. The rest of the light (minus losses) is directed up to the headliner of the car (assuming you flip the mirror up to make the adjustment). Pretty simple and beautifully effective.

Murderball

Have any of you heard anything about this movie? It's a documentary about guys playing rugby in wheelchairs, could be cool.

Watch the trailer

Fish Air Freshener, Back Seat of Some Girl's Car Named Valerie, Portland, ME - Saturday night 

WWII Memorial - last night 

WWII Memorial - last night