Monday, September 28, 2009
Filling
I got a cavity filled today. Lindsey seemed very happy with her handiwork so I figured I'd try and take a look for myself. Nicely done Dr. Anderson!
Friday, September 18, 2009
80's dudes, then and now
Andy supplies more quality links.
I like how even the chihuahua is mesmerized.
I like how even the chihuahua is mesmerized.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Backpacking report
Finally! The backpacking pictures!(em-biggen pics by clicking)
Members of the expedition are Jason, Karisa, Melanie and Kendall
Here was the route we did in the "Mineral King" area of Sequoia National Park.
http://www.mapmyride.com/route/us/ca/mineral%20king/481125246999421132
Labor day weekend is a very busy weekend for once yearly backpackers such as ourselves to come out of the woodwork. We attempted to get to the Mineral King Ranger Station early, by leaving around 4:30am. We had some success with this as when we arrived at the ranger station at 10:15am we were just ahead of several other parties. We didn't get onto the same trail that we planned to hike originally but really that's just kind of the way our backpacking trips seem to go. We set out around noon in good spirits. We met some quirky dudes in their 50's that were joking around with us in the parking lot and gave us some of their "gorp" since they were just going to throw it away since they didn't have any more room to pack it, we reluctantly accepted. Turns out it was super tasty with sunflower seeds and craisins and basically blew away the trail mix that we brought. Thanks dudes!
Then we hiked. We hiked past some water falls, a nice valley, a lake, and thenon some rough terrain, apparently it was too hardcore for the horse that keeled over for some reason, right around the 11,000 foot mark or so.
We made it too the top of the 11,710 ft pass right around sunset. We were supposed to get to the the lake at 100 deg east in the panorama below that night but we didn't quite get there. After 4000 ft in 8 miles the last 2 of the remain 3.5 miles just wasn't going to happen.
We set up camp in the almost dark, had some good beans and rice. The *new* jetboil stove that I got for my birthday works great! It was a little bit chilly and we didn't have a fire, my verbalized wish before going to bed was "I hope I wake up in the morning because the tent is too hot" Wish... GRANTED, well after 8am! Awesome. This is where we found ourselves when we woke up.
We hiked up another small pass, past a couple of lakes and could then see the valley that we were going to hike through the rest of the day.
At the second campsite after another 10 miles or so, we stopped well before dark and even had a campfire! I tried to make the Backpacker's pantry biscuits and gravy with somewhat disastrous results. They tasted alright in the end but the consistency was very off. It did mix in well with the vegetable curry.
For day 3 we had another 10ish miles or so and 2000 feet to go up, and 4000 feet to go down. Some guy on the trail saw my WWC t-shirt and informed us that his boss went to WWC. Good times.
We made it too the top Sawtooth Pass at 11,630 ft, and we could see where we had come from. And where we were headed too. The view was great, you could see the coastal range to the west, and to the east, they other guys at the top of the pass were pointing out Mt. Whitney. One of the dudes at the top systematically doled out one orange peanut M&M for each of us that made it to the top. Thank you?
There was really a surprising amount of water, flowers, and fresh green plants. In this picture the mountain top is right there another 200 feet above, not sure where all the water for these flowers is coming from??
Also you'll notice the trekking poles in some of the pictures. I can't say enough good things about trekking poles, this is my first trip where I had my own, and didn't have to borrow them after my knee got sore. Also, my knee did not get sore. I will never go backpacking without trekking poles ever again. They are like 4wd for the steep parts of the trail. (I got some like this for 50% off at rei since they were returns from the online store. SCORE!)
The decent off of Sawtooth Pass was extremely steep and there were some really sketchy sections of steep rock, covered with decomposed granite, not all that fun but at least it was over quickly. Coming down was really lame, I can't imagine going up, suffice to say it would be lame.
We finally made it back to the car and saw some deer. We ate celebratory pizza at the Pizza Factory in Three Rivers. Great trip! Next year, trail reservations, and maybe half the mileage? ... or not?
Slide show:
Members of the expedition are Jason, Karisa, Melanie and Kendall
 |
| From backpacking2009 |
Here was the route we did in the "Mineral King" area of Sequoia National Park.
 |
| From backpacking2009 |
http://www.mapmyride.com/route/us/ca/mineral%20king/481125246999421132
Labor day weekend is a very busy weekend for once yearly backpackers such as ourselves to come out of the woodwork. We attempted to get to the Mineral King Ranger Station early, by leaving around 4:30am. We had some success with this as when we arrived at the ranger station at 10:15am we were just ahead of several other parties. We didn't get onto the same trail that we planned to hike originally but really that's just kind of the way our backpacking trips seem to go. We set out around noon in good spirits. We met some quirky dudes in their 50's that were joking around with us in the parking lot and gave us some of their "gorp" since they were just going to throw it away since they didn't have any more room to pack it, we reluctantly accepted. Turns out it was super tasty with sunflower seeds and craisins and basically blew away the trail mix that we brought. Thanks dudes!
Then we hiked. We hiked past some water falls, a nice valley, a lake, and thenon some rough terrain, apparently it was too hardcore for the horse that keeled over for some reason, right around the 11,000 foot mark or so.
 |
| From backpacking2009 |
 |
| From backpacking2009 |
 |
| From backpacking2009 |
 |
| From backpacking2009 |
 |
| From backpacking2009 |
We made it too the top of the 11,710 ft pass right around sunset. We were supposed to get to the the lake at 100 deg east in the panorama below that night but we didn't quite get there. After 4000 ft in 8 miles the last 2 of the remain 3.5 miles just wasn't going to happen.
We set up camp in the almost dark, had some good beans and rice. The *new* jetboil stove that I got for my birthday works great! It was a little bit chilly and we didn't have a fire, my verbalized wish before going to bed was "I hope I wake up in the morning because the tent is too hot" Wish... GRANTED, well after 8am! Awesome. This is where we found ourselves when we woke up.
We hiked up another small pass, past a couple of lakes and could then see the valley that we were going to hike through the rest of the day.
At the second campsite after another 10 miles or so, we stopped well before dark and even had a campfire! I tried to make the Backpacker's pantry biscuits and gravy with somewhat disastrous results. They tasted alright in the end but the consistency was very off. It did mix in well with the vegetable curry.
For day 3 we had another 10ish miles or so and 2000 feet to go up, and 4000 feet to go down. Some guy on the trail saw my WWC t-shirt and informed us that his boss went to WWC. Good times.
We made it too the top Sawtooth Pass at 11,630 ft, and we could see where we had come from. And where we were headed too. The view was great, you could see the coastal range to the west, and to the east, they other guys at the top of the pass were pointing out Mt. Whitney. One of the dudes at the top systematically doled out one orange peanut M&M for each of us that made it to the top. Thank you?
There was really a surprising amount of water, flowers, and fresh green plants. In this picture the mountain top is right there another 200 feet above, not sure where all the water for these flowers is coming from??
Also you'll notice the trekking poles in some of the pictures. I can't say enough good things about trekking poles, this is my first trip where I had my own, and didn't have to borrow them after my knee got sore. Also, my knee did not get sore. I will never go backpacking without trekking poles ever again. They are like 4wd for the steep parts of the trail. (I got some like this for 50% off at rei since they were returns from the online store. SCORE!)
The decent off of Sawtooth Pass was extremely steep and there were some really sketchy sections of steep rock, covered with decomposed granite, not all that fun but at least it was over quickly. Coming down was really lame, I can't imagine going up, suffice to say it would be lame.
We finally made it back to the car and saw some deer. We ate celebratory pizza at the Pizza Factory in Three Rivers. Great trip! Next year, trail reservations, and maybe half the mileage? ... or not?
Slide show:
Monday, September 14, 2009
Cool pictures
I liked the "click to fade" to see the 1 year difference in these photos.
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/09/one_year_after_hurricane_ike.html
http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/09/one_year_after_hurricane_ike.html
Saturday, September 5, 2009
Backpacking
Leaving for a backpacking trip in about 4 hours...
This seems appropriate to share!: http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2009/08/14/128-camping/
This seems appropriate to share!: http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/2009/08/14/128-camping/
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
SP Zen
Deep thoughts from Alan Watts and the Southpark guys. Also this (here) if you want some soothing voice telling you to enjoy life, man.
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
An array of 'tubes
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Look ma, no hands!
From the "wouldn't believe it if I hadn't seen it" dept!! Kevin stumbled on to this on Joe Sorren's Blog and thought that Loe would like to see it.
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Kevin and Jessica travel to Nepal!
Kevin and Jessica are departing for an adventure to Nepal for a couple of months, they depart in about 30 minutes! They have a blog, follow their adventures.
Going and living in another country is all the rage this summer. Deeanne and Garret skipped town a few weeks ago and have headed south - they also have a blog filled with (epic and well documented!) adventures.
Going and living in another country is all the rage this summer. Deeanne and Garret skipped town a few weeks ago and have headed south - they also have a blog filled with (epic and well documented!) adventures.
Comment Feeds!
I have a comments feed!
http://thisisnotkendall.blogspot.com/feeds/comments/default
When Jason started his weblog he shared a link for his comments feed as well. I found this to be awesome. I tried typing "comments" where "posts" goes in the link for the blogger feeds and what do you know - a comments feed was lurking all along! Loe and Kevin I'm now feeding your comments as well - the word has officially been gotten out.
http://thisisnotkendall.blogspot.com/feeds/comments/default
When Jason started his weblog he shared a link for his comments feed as well. I found this to be awesome. I tried typing "comments" where "posts" goes in the link for the blogger feeds and what do you know - a comments feed was lurking all along! Loe and Kevin I'm now feeding your comments as well - the word has officially been gotten out.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Links
Links that got saved over the last few weeks. Variable quality.
Giganto ipod touch
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvCo6-KhZT4
Cats cartoon
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1qHVVbYG8Y
Sorry I'm Late (Little Big Love in the same link possibly better)
http://vimeo.com/4862670
Birth of Nukes
http://www.photographyserved.com/Gallery/Slouching-towards-Bethlehem-___/56780
Chernobyl in decay
http://villageofjoy.com/chernobyl-today-a-creepy-story-told-in-pictures/
Girl at the video game store
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_VaDyN-5Ko&feature=popular
HDR-wesome
http://abduzeedo.com/incredible-new-portfolio-dave-hill
High altitude balloon photography
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1201090/Everest-revealed-British-balloonists-breathtaking-panoramic-shot-worlds-highest-peaks.html
Code Monkey song
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5W_wd9Qf0IE
My best score was 2100 something
http://games.adultswim.com/spell-my-finger-twitchy-online-game.html
Giganto ipod touch
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvCo6-KhZT4
Cats cartoon
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1qHVVbYG8Y
Sorry I'm Late (Little Big Love in the same link possibly better)
http://vimeo.com/4862670
Birth of Nukes
http://www.photographyserved.com/Gallery/Slouching-towards-Bethlehem-___/56780
Chernobyl in decay
http://villageofjoy.com/chernobyl-today-a-creepy-story-told-in-pictures/
Girl at the video game store
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_VaDyN-5Ko&feature=popular
HDR-wesome
http://abduzeedo.com/incredible-new-portfolio-dave-hill
High altitude balloon photography
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1201090/Everest-revealed-British-balloonists-breathtaking-panoramic-shot-worlds-highest-peaks.html
Code Monkey song
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5W_wd9Qf0IE
My best score was 2100 something
http://games.adultswim.com/spell-my-finger-twitchy-online-game.html
Thursday, August 13, 2009
The OS browser OS
The below is probably of limited interest to people who spend less than 8 hours a day in front of a computer.
When I read in the summary that this IEEE article (here) discussed "The projects—ServiceOS and the Gazelle Web browser—make the browser act more like an operating system." My first thought was "This article is likely going to make Jason's head asplode." However it didn't end up being all that inflammatory or terribly interesting, even for people who really believe that the current trend of using the web browser for everything is rather misguided. The upshot is that Microsoft has a project going that has end goals similar to the Chrome OS from Google.
When I read in the summary that this IEEE article (here) discussed "The projects—ServiceOS and the Gazelle Web browser—make the browser act more like an operating system." My first thought was "This article is likely going to make Jason's head asplode." However it didn't end up being all that inflammatory or terribly interesting, even for people who really believe that the current trend of using the web browser for everything is rather misguided. The upshot is that Microsoft has a project going that has end goals similar to the Chrome OS from Google.
Damping
Wikipedia just can't compete this time.
Generally, damped harmonic oscillators satisfy the second-order differential equ...
*yawn*
oh look! animated breast simulator that advertises mega-bras!
Today's suggested experiment, confirm that even an 'under-damped mass-spring system' (*cough*) acts as a low pass filter.
Generally, damped harmonic oscillators satisfy the second-order differential equ...
*yawn*
oh look! animated breast simulator that advertises mega-bras!
Today's suggested experiment, confirm that even an 'under-damped mass-spring system' (*cough*) acts as a low pass filter.
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Plug-In 2009
Must look at tracker of the electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles in development now: here. Lots of cool cars in the pipeline!
On Tuesday evening I attended the "Plug-In 2009" electric vehicles (EV) conference public night at the Long Beach Convention Center. Carrie met me there (hooray for an interested friend!) and we got to the exposition floor with about 30 minutes until the discussion started. It ended up being busier and a bit larger than I had expected. AV had a large booth set up showcasing charging stations and a hybrid drive test system. I ended up chatting with the AV sales rep for awhile and didn't leave much time to check out the cars on display. So in the last few minutes I just quickly snapped pictures of anything that was shiny. (slide show at the bottom)
The discussion was interesting and exceeded my (kinda low) expectations as far as being engaging. The panelists were: Chris Paine the documentary director of "Who killed the electric car" Chelsea Sexton an EV activist ever since the EV-1, and of course Bill Nye is "The Science Guy" who has one of the Mini-Es. The first question was very technical, about the P1772 connector. But the panel wasn't really there to debate engineering specifics so the discussion mercifully was directed back towards broader themes. There were some colorful characters and Bill Nye raised the ire of the dirty hippies (unbathed) in the room when he suggested that dirty hippies have unrealistic goals about what the environmentalism movement should try and achieve. Bill Nye comes off as genuine and likable as you'd expect. He appears to possibly have a bit of a love/hate relationship with his self proclaimed D list celebrity status. My arm chair psychoanalysis is that while he loves his career of promoting all things science he may feel a bit like a fraud, constantly being portrayed as an expert on subjects when really while he is a remarkable jack of all trades, he's not really an expert or accomplished 'scientist' in any given field. (perhapds accomplished engineer but not 'scientist') Anyhow, he's still out making science fun and easy for people to understand, and he was on TV when I was 13 and that's awesome.
Something else that I found kind of interesting about the EVs on display is that their installs were a little bit ... kludgey. As in not very different at all from what I helped wire up at Anuvu Inc. in 2003. The installs are just square boxes packed full of electronics wedged in where a gas engine used to be. The built from the ground up plug-in and 100% electric vehicles will hopefully have much more elegant integrations of the drive systems. (After a short search I found the obituary for Anuvu. I'm glad I went to work for Cliff instead of taking the job there full time after the internship! Interesting comments)
The Tesla Model S - WANT!
Hydrogen is really on the back burner these days. (gotta love how you can find a headline that matches any point you're trying to make) With nearly all research money going into plug-in hybrid and electric vehicles, hydrogen fuel cell cars will not arrive any time "in the next 10 years" that they were talking about 10 years ago. The point was made that this doesn't have to be an either-or proposition however. And that people adopting electric cars in large numbers would only help the hydrogen technology when it comes finally becomes available.
On Tuesday evening I attended the "Plug-In 2009" electric vehicles (EV) conference public night at the Long Beach Convention Center. Carrie met me there (hooray for an interested friend!) and we got to the exposition floor with about 30 minutes until the discussion started. It ended up being busier and a bit larger than I had expected. AV had a large booth set up showcasing charging stations and a hybrid drive test system. I ended up chatting with the AV sales rep for awhile and didn't leave much time to check out the cars on display. So in the last few minutes I just quickly snapped pictures of anything that was shiny. (slide show at the bottom)
The discussion was interesting and exceeded my (kinda low) expectations as far as being engaging. The panelists were: Chris Paine the documentary director of "Who killed the electric car" Chelsea Sexton an EV activist ever since the EV-1, and of course Bill Nye is "The Science Guy" who has one of the Mini-Es. The first question was very technical, about the P1772 connector. But the panel wasn't really there to debate engineering specifics so the discussion mercifully was directed back towards broader themes. There were some colorful characters and Bill Nye raised the ire of the dirty hippies (unbathed) in the room when he suggested that dirty hippies have unrealistic goals about what the environmentalism movement should try and achieve. Bill Nye comes off as genuine and likable as you'd expect. He appears to possibly have a bit of a love/hate relationship with his self proclaimed D list celebrity status. My arm chair psychoanalysis is that while he loves his career of promoting all things science he may feel a bit like a fraud, constantly being portrayed as an expert on subjects when really while he is a remarkable jack of all trades, he's not really an expert or accomplished 'scientist' in any given field. (perhapds accomplished engineer but not 'scientist') Anyhow, he's still out making science fun and easy for people to understand, and he was on TV when I was 13 and that's awesome.
Something else that I found kind of interesting about the EVs on display is that their installs were a little bit ... kludgey. As in not very different at all from what I helped wire up at Anuvu Inc. in 2003. The installs are just square boxes packed full of electronics wedged in where a gas engine used to be. The built from the ground up plug-in and 100% electric vehicles will hopefully have much more elegant integrations of the drive systems. (After a short search I found the obituary for Anuvu. I'm glad I went to work for Cliff instead of taking the job there full time after the internship! Interesting comments)
The Tesla Model S - WANT!
Hydrogen is really on the back burner these days. (gotta love how you can find a headline that matches any point you're trying to make) With nearly all research money going into plug-in hybrid and electric vehicles, hydrogen fuel cell cars will not arrive any time "in the next 10 years" that they were talking about 10 years ago. The point was made that this doesn't have to be an either-or proposition however. And that people adopting electric cars in large numbers would only help the hydrogen technology when it comes finally becomes available.
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