Thursday, December 30, 2010

Intercalary days, Resolutions, and Great Evil

One thing I studied in college was Ancient Egypt. I took classes on Egyptian history, Egyptian artifacts in the Hearst Museum, and Egyptian religion.

The Egyptian calender was a few days shorter than a full year. To make their years fit with the 365 day solar year, extra days had to be added at the end of the year. These intercalary days were considered dangerous as they were outside the normal year. Since the normal calender was not in effect, the proper order and stability of things was in chaos. Malevolent spirits and forces could influence the world more than normal. There was a fear of great evil and mischief happening on these days.

On the topic of evil, or at least less than perfect things at the end of the year...

New Year's Resolutions
I don't like them; here is why.

If you make a resolution or pledge it will be as effective as what you are basing it on. Since the change of the year is nominal, any resolution made because of it will be nominally effective.

To illustrate this I will present a successful change. Consider someone who makes a pledge to give up a bad habit during Lent. If she is motivated by being a better person and getting closer to God, it has a good chance of success. The reasoning behind the action is love of God, which is very important to her.

Now back to New Year's. Unless you worship the sun and take great meaning in the change of years, December 31st to January 1st is just another night. If you were a true pagan, the winter solstice is much more meaningful and happened a week ago.

New Year's resolutions fail because they are based upon something of no importance or meaning. If you want to change your ways, do it because living a better life is important to you. If you want to make a resolution to improve you life in general, start following it when you think of it and do not wait for the calender to say it is time.

The things people come up with as resolutions are usually great ideas. They are changes worth making. However, if motivation for a habit change is as thin as a sheet of paper from a calender, it's success will be just as thin.

If you want to make a change for the better, make it for the right reason.

Sunday, December 26, 2010

Rain in Zion

During the aforementioned trip to Bryce Canyon, Peter, Larry, and I took a day and drove over to Zion National Park.

While the other parks I have driven in (all two of them) have roads in nondescript forest areas, at Zion the main roads go through canyons and provide wonderful vistas in your windshield. Driving the two main roads and stopping in parking areas along the way gives a good view of the park. It should be noted, the road has some steep drop offs with little (1 foot high) or no barriers to keep cars on the road. Getting a couple of feet off the pavement at any of several turns will send a car flying off the side of a cliff.

We were visiting at a great time to see waterfalls. A lot of rain had fallen in the previous few days and it was raining the entire day. Since we only made a day trip to the park, we took several short trails. The four I detail below are all one or two mile round trip trails with little elevation change. They were all a few minutes drive from each other. The first three of these are classified as easy, with the Canyon Overlook being moderate with a paltry 163 ft elevation change. In comparison, the ones we took at Bryce Canyon were termed strenuous and had over 1,000 ft in elevation change.

Emerald Pools
This loop trail started as a paved sidewalk, which is hardly a trail. We came across a big waterfall. Then we had a choice, we could either follow the trail behind the waterfall and get wet or backtrack and follow the trail the long way around and see the rest of the trail. The second way would be longer, but we would avoid the thick mist the water was generating. Which way do you think we chose?

Emerald waterfall
We took the adventurous way and went behind the falls. The signs indicated an upper, middle, and lower pool as part of Emerald Pools. We followed the signs and came upon another water barrier.

River blocking trail to Emerald Pools
The trail was crossed by a 6 foot wide rapidly moving mini-river. The Park Service had placed a chain across to aid in crossing it. I did some scouting and tried to see how deep it was. I determined a crossing could be attempted if the stream did not get too deep. However, this would get us very wet so we decided to turn back. We ran into some friendly people who snapped this picture of us in front of the falls.

Three of us at Emerald Waterfall

Weeping Rock
We took a few steps to see the Weeping Rock. It gets its name from how water oozes out of its sides and it appears to be crying. This effect is from the geology of the rock formation. Over time, different layers of sediment and different types of rock got laid down. When the top of the formation gets wet and water seeps into the rock, different layers absorb different amounts and it drips out of the side.

Riverside Walk
This trail goes from the end of the road and follows the Virgin River into a canyon. However, the narrows continues much further and can be hiked with a permit. The trail was closed after a mile because of the danger of flash floods.

Virgin River at end of trail toward narrows

Canyon Overlook Trail
Part of the main road was an impressive 1.1 mile tunnel that was blasted through solid rock. Our last trail started next to the east entrance to the tunnel. Most of the trail was along rocks on the side of the canyon with some long drop-offs which were mostly fenced. The sun was setting as we started the trail, so everything was colored from a darker pallet.

Bridge to tunnel with color edited
At some points the ledge we had to walk on was less then a foot wide. However, it had some great views and was a lot of fun. An observation point was at the end of the trail. By the time we started back the sun had set and the landscape was mostly silhouettes. On the way back we would have walked straight off the edge if we did not have flashlights. Both of these pictures were artificially brightened.

View from rim trail
Since we finished our Bryce Canyon activities a day earlier then expected, we were planning on coming back to Zion and hiking Angel's Landing on the way back. We figured this hike was a big deal because the gift shop sold shirts that said "I made it to the top of Angel's Landing." Larry encouraged us by telling us about the people who died hiking to Angel's Landing or falling off the sides of the steep trail. We decided the night before to skip the Landing because it would be raining all day and the trails were already saturated with water.

While we did some good little hikes in Zion, there is still enough to warrant a trip back there. We have to hike the Narrows, Angel's Landing, and probably some other things.

The Drive There
At Bryce Canyon we were staying at Ruby's Inn. As we were eating dinner at their restaurant, I noticed the placemats had maps. I saved mine and used it to navigate to Zion. Now the route I took. From Bryce Canyon, I drove north on the 63 and went west on Utah 12. When that ended, I took US 89 south and then Utah 9 west which went directly through Zion. The entire trip was around 190 miles, but I did not keep careful track.

Friday, December 24, 2010

Ebenezer Bryce and his Hoodoos

Yesterday I got back from a trip to Bryce Canyon in Utah. It was wonderful.

There is a lot to talk about, so I will divide the material between a few posts. Today I will talk about the specific trails I hiked and throw in a few pictures.

The first day we hiked the Fairyland loop. It was 8.0 miles and had a 2309 ft elevation change. This trail and the subsequent ones started at the rim of the canyon which is around 8,000 ft in elevation. While things were foggy, we were able to see a few things. The trail was completely covered in fresh snow and more was falling as we walked. The trail was quiet; we only ran into one other person.

Mountain on Fairyland Loop trail
I was hiking with my friends Larry and Peter. We were all impressed with how this rock formation in the distance looked. Then, we saw the trail go toward it and became dejected we would have to climb it. Luckily, the trail veered off and we did not have to ascend it.

Two days later we took some better pictures at Bryce Point. The fog cleared up a lot and the snow turned to rain. I do not remember exactly where I took all these pictures, but the ones below are from the second Bryce day.

Bryce Point View
Our next hike was a combination of several trails. It was Queen's Garden to Peakaboo Loop to Navajo Loop. We started at Sunset Point then hiked to Sunrise Point before descending to the Queen's Garden. It is so named because of a rock that looks like Queen Victoria. Then, we walked up the Navajo Loop on the Wall Street side for 1/3 mile until the trail was closed because of weather dangers. Next, we took a trail over to the 3.0 mile Peakaboo loop. After hiking that, we backtracked to the Navajo Loop and took the other side of it up to Sunrise Point. The entire trip was less than 6.4 miles and had 1785 ft in elevation change.

Canyon view with snow
On this hike the falling snow had turned into rain. This left the trails in a sloppy condition. They were either muddy, snowy, slushy, or all of the above. When the snow started to melt and mixed with the dirt the snow took on an orange color. We used Yaktrax, which fit over the soles of boots and increase their traction. They were very helpful, even if one of mine broke at the end of the trip.

Bryce Canyon trail with snow
One common sight at Bryce Canyon are rock formations known as hoodoos. I will refer you to the Unnamed Geniuses for a complete explanation of hoodoos and how they are formed. There is also a great picture of Thor's Hammer in the linked article. I would put up my own picture of it, but after several hours in 30 some degree cold and a constant rain my camera died. Below is a picture of random hoodoos I took.

Random hoodoos

Thursday, December 16, 2010

Velocity of posts

As the velocity of my life increases, so should the frequency of my posts. The more things I do, the more I have to talk about. The last few weeks have been fasted paced. Unfortunately, the blog has been lagging.

This past weekend I was in Western New York for the wedding of my cousin. Aside from a beautiful wedding, a nice reception, and seeing relatives I have not seen in several years, there was rain, freezing rain, snow, lake effect snow, and temperatures below freezing. There are pictures of the wedding I was tagged in on Facebook if you want visuals. A more detailed post is in the works.

Tomorrow I will be driving to Bryce Canyon in Utah. If Google Maps is to be believed, it is 524 miles and will take 8 hours 45 minutes (or 10 hours 40 minutes in traffic). That is, after I pick up my car which needs new tires, brakes, and a bunch of other things. The repairs will cost a lot of money, but the car will be hitting 95,000 miles on this trip.

In my few days home between these two expeditions I baked two coffee cakes, sour cream cookies, and some date balls. Earlier tonight I managed to burn my hand while my Grandma was explaining how to make rice with milk. Boiling water and milk have a deleterious effect on my skin.

Now I need to start packing for the trip to Utah tomorrow. However, I need to unpack from my New York trip before that. Over the next few days the temperature at the canyon will be somewhere near freezing with a low of 16 and a high of 40. The wind chill will make it feel even lower. It is similar to the weather I just had in New York, except this time I will be spending most of the day outside.

This trip to Bryce Canyon is the second installment of Larry's National Park Adventures. The first part was the Grand Canyon during the summer. Like the earlier trip, a few days in Las Vegas are included for good measure.

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Movies at the Red Cross and a Shocking Grade

Now for the latest installment of my apheresis appointments at the Red Cross. Since the platelet donation process takes around two hours, they have movies available for watching. The ones I saw included:
  • The Ghost Writer
  • L.A. Confidential All I will say is go watch this movie.
  • The Terminal
  • Inglorious Bastards Better than the average kill Nazis movie. A couple of days ago The Simpsons did a scene combining this movie and Dumbo. It starts at 11:25 of this video.
  • Cinderella Man There is a point when the boxer (Russell Crowe) is completely broke. As a last resort he goes to the public assistance office for money to feed his family. Later when his fortune turns around he goes back to the office and returns the money he was given with interest. Unfortunately his attitude of giving back is in short supply today.
  • Atonement This movie left me sad and wondering how long it will be until everyone learns making assumptions and lying can have very bad consequences.
  • Die Another Day It was the twentieth James Bond film and contained references to all of the previous ones. I have seen every Bond film except The Man with the Golden Gun
  • Forgetting Sarah Marshall This movie was recommended to me by the girl who broke my heart. We had the same sense of humor and she knew I would like it. If you need a reason to see it I have three words: Dracula Puppet Show.
Radar Project
As a follow up to my post yesterday, this evening I got some emails from UCI. The instructor for my class posted a grade for my term project, final, and the class overall. For the final 95%, for the term project 95%, and for the class A. I was shocked. For my project I was expecting a C or at best a B-.

My only explanation is the paper write-up was great enough to cover up my programming failure. I followed the directions the instructor gave and included everything he wanted, even if I though it was pointless. I had great block diagrams to explain what I was doing and nicely formatted equations.

Monday, December 6, 2010

Falling apart, coming due, and flying out

The last couple of weeks have had some of the worst moments and the worst days I have had in a while. It will be OK; the next few weeks will have some great stuff in them.

Many of the bad things relate to how I view everything. Many small annoyances, problems, and stresses have a common solution, "If I did not live at home."

In addition to that, I had a lot of concern over my DSP class. Last night the final and paper/project for my class were due. These two items combined are 90% of my total grade. This is the summary of the project I wrote last night:
The project based itself upon a surveillance radar. This type of radar is used primarily for locating an object and roughly finding its velocity. It used a pulsed wave so the same antenna could be used to send and receive signals.

Signal processing was done in three parts. The matched filter in the first part used FFTs to mix the original signal with the received signal. This amplified the parts of the signal where any echoes would be found. After the inverse FFT was applied, this was sent to the detector processor. Before looking for a signal, a CFAR was calculated and used to establish a detection threshold. If a hit was detected, the signal was then passed onto the next stage. At the postprocessor the highest signal was isolated so its frequency and time could be recorded. Using the transmitted signal's initial conditions as a base, these measurements were used to estimate the object's velocity and range respectively.
This project used Simulink which is a simulation tool closely related to MATLAB. Like my astrodynamics project for an earlier class, this involved me learning a lot of stuff in a new field. However, this project turned out poorly. I did not understand radar design very well, I did not know how to recreate everything on a computer, and I kept putting off doing the work.

Now I will share what I wrote in the results section:
The simulation did not work. Debugging had to stop as the project was due. The problem was providing a signal the simulation would accept.
The project was due at 11 last night and I submitted it online at 3:11 this morning.

The Final
This turned out much better than the project, but it had a couple of interesting moments. It was an at home open book test. One of the questions involved adaptive filters and neural networks. At first I thought they were related through a lattice-ladder pattern. As I looked through the textbook I found support for my idea; a FIR (finite impulse response) filter structure can be realized as a lattice structure.

Two days later I discovered I was wrong. My research led me to the MathWorks documentation. As I was trying to make sense of adaptive linear network architecture, I had the strange feeling I was actually reading something fictitious. The algorithms were described as learning how to do things on their own.

The Next Part
Between now and Christmas I will be spending more time away from home than at home. I will develop the details as things happen or after I have pictures and stories to share. For now you should know several states and several feet of snow will be involved.

There are still many things I have to do, but some of them are things I want to do.

Wednesday, December 1, 2010

The Perils of Facebook

Recently my friend Aden went on a Facebook hiatus. After concerns over the privacy of his information, he removed himself from the site. This brings up some points I want to make. If you have any public service announcement music now is the time to cue it up.

I will start with a couple of lists. These are based on my experience and what I have seen other people do.

Great Things:
  • Keeping track of what people are up to, what school they attend, what year they are, or where they work.
  • Seeing pictures of trips my friends take and places they go.
  • Knowing when people's birthdays are and dropping them a wall post.
  • Getting friends' phone numbers when a phone needs to be reprogrammed.
  • Finding out if a girl really has a boyfriend or just made one up when a guy was hitting on her.

Terrible Things:
  • Wasting time by looking at the news feed and refreshing it over and over.
  • Resentment over not being invited to events that are talked about on Facebook or not being among someone's top friends.
  • Letting Facebook stalking substitute for actual interaction.
  • Facilitating false assumptions about other people and inviting unequal comparisons. Fr. Charlie once said, "Don't compare someone else's outside to your inside." Facebook bombards users with the facades other people put up.

Third Party Applications
I have a strong no third party applications stance. Since I already have concerns over how Facebook will use my information, I do not want to multiply the problem by allowing a half dozen different programs each with their own privacy standards and security vulnerabilities to access my profile.

For example, my Dad uses the Family Link application. I will not confirm I am his son because that would require I allow an application access to my profile. Anyone who is friends with my Dad and I know we are related. No one who is a friend of mine needs to know my Dad's name, my Mom's name, who my brother is, who my cousins are, who their parents are, etc. Anyone who meets them will lean their names as they meet them.

Real Dangers
On many profiles people can get answers to questions like:

In what city were you born?
What is your mother's maiden name?
What is your birthday?
What was your high school mascot?
Who was your first employer?

These are common security questions. Banks ask these questions to reset your password before giving you access to real money. Email accounts can easily be compromised and thieves can spam everyone in your address book.

This information can easily be gleaned from a person's profile. While I trust my 449 friends will not try to steal my identity, I do not trust they are all sophisticated enough to avoid leaving their password on a public computer, phishing, installing questionable third party applications, or linking their profile to a myriad of websites. At least half a dozen of my friends have had their accounts hacked into. There could have been a score more whose accounts were frozen after Facebook realized their friends were being sent spam in alphabetical order.

As an aside, you need to be aware of one of the scams making the rounds. Crooks will break into email or Facebook accounts, pose as the account holder, and send messages asking for money. They will claim some dire situation like "I am in the middle of Europe and lost my wallet and phone! Please send money to this bank account ASAP!" If you get a frantic message asking for money investigate it first. If you have the person's phone number, call it, especially if the message claims the phone is lost or does not work. If you know other friends of the person, contact them. Ask if your mutual friend is in Europe or whatever situation the message claims.

Think about the situation. If you were in the dire situation described with no money and no one to help you would you really get access to a computer, contact a person other than your immediate family or best friends, and have your bank account number memorized?

Advertising you are going on vacation will also let people know your residence will be unoccupied and ripe for robbery. This is a big problem if you list your address on your profile.

What you can do
The first and most important thing you can do to keep your information private is do not put it on Facebook. If it is not online, no one can steal it online.

The second thing is to control access to what you do place online. Under Account in the top right corner, click Privacy Settings. Here you can control many settings, all of which deserve review. I set many things to Friends Only. At Applications and Websites on the bottom left, you can follow a link and block all platform applications, games and websites.

There are many wonderful things you can do online, but you need to be aware of the dangers and proactive in protecting yourself.

To bring this back to the beginning, Aden ended his hiatus and came back to Facebook.

Saturday, November 27, 2010

Grilled Turkey and a Gold Rush

My Mom found some comments online about grilling a turkey. I followed those for Thanksgiving and it worked out well.

As described online, the cooking uses indirect heat. Part of the grill is turned on, but the turkey is placed over the other part with no heat underneath it. The top is kept closed so the heat can cook the turkey like an oven. It took around 4 hours to cook our 18 lb. bird.

Turkey on grill
I did have one problem. The big barbecue fork I used to rotate the turkey could not handle the job without bending. What good are barbecue tools if they can't handle an 18 lb. turkey?

As with any turkey cooking method, seasoning the bird is very important. The grilling turned out OK, but was lacking a lot because very little seasoning was done.

This is Mom at the table before everyone ate.

Dinner table and Mom
I also enjoyed a drink I recently read about in the Wall Street Journal. There is a video that explains how to make a Gold Rush that I recommend. The recipe is transcribed below. While there are several different recipes online, I can only attest to trying this version from the Lambs Club in New York City.

Gold Rush

2 oz Bourbon
3/4 oz Honey mixture (in a 3 parts honey to 1 part water ratio to lower its viscosity)
3/4 oz Lemon juice

Since this is the first drink I have made that involves honey, I skipped the dilution and put in slightly less than 3/4 oz honey. I had trouble mixing the honey with the rest of the drink. My solution was to mix the honey with the bourbon first before adding the chilled lemon juice and ice. I served this and it was well received.

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

The Problem of Complacency

I will keep this short, lest I dilute the point.

I have a problem. I am too comfortable where I am. There is no pressure or encouragement for me to get a job, move into my own apartment, or advance my life.

I have settled into contentedness at the expense of happiness. I am not meeting new people, making friends, or pushing my life forward as I want to. I am not living up to my full potential.

I can do better.

Monday, November 22, 2010

I will lay out a few things

First, I like using puns in my post titles.

Second, if you are one of those people reading this on the RSS feed, you need to migrate to the blog itself. There is a visual part to this.

Third, I am making some changes to the layout of the blog. Blogger rolled out some new design options recently. After I saw the visual impact of one of these new designs on Aden Dreams of Pavement, I decided to update some things.

I was the Online Editor for the Patriot, so I know how to do a few things with code online. While Blogger's design editor makes some things easy, the 1,924 line template was intent upon making my life difficult.

Incremental changes will be made over the next few days until I am pleased with everything.

If you have any comments about the layout, I will accept them in the aptly named comments section below.

Sunday, November 21, 2010

Two Library Cards, One Day

A few Fridays ago I went on a trip around Orange County.

The first stop took me to UC Irvine. I went to the UCI library because they have many engineering books. Before I could check anything out, I needed a library card. Since I am a member of the Cal Alumni Association, I can get a library card at any UC campus for free.

I was in need of engineering books for a paper and project due in a couple of weeks for my digital signal processing class. I need to talk about a use of digital signal processing and write code that does DSP.

Drive down MacArthur
After my time among the anteaters, I drove down MacArthur Blvd. to Newport Beach. I went to their public library and obtained a library card. At the Newport Beach Library cards are free for people from other cities. However, if an out of town person went to the Huntington Beach Library and wanted a card it would cost $25 annually.

The first time I went to the Newport Beach Public Library my Associate took me and extolled its excellence. It looks like a nice place. I do not have an easy metric for determining the quality of books a library holds, so I can only judge the library by its building.

These are the cards I got and the books I checked out. The friendly anteater is from UCI, but he did not come with the books.

Anteater with UCI and Newport Beach books and library cards

Thursday, November 18, 2010

Weird Things and Thinking

I recently finished the book Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of our Time by Michael Shermer. The book talks about unusual beliefs and some of the reasons people hold them.

Several topics including psychics, alien abduction stories, and fire walking are examined. They are shown to have simple explanations and not otherworldly causes. Two big parts of the book are case studies in the creationism verses evolution fight and Holocaust deniers. Shermer details some of the techniques both sides use and their advantages or shortcomings. He explains why some leaders in those areas can so easily outflank other people. During these two sections are the only places the book was boring; they were detailed summaries and refutations.

The Personal Side
My favorite part of the book is how Shermer brings his personal experiences into the discussions. Shermer is a well known skeptic and has been part of numerous debates and television programs. He represents a skeptical counterpoint to people who hold fringe views.

Once he went to Edgar Cayce's Association for Research and Enlightenment where he was part of an experiment in extrasensory perception (ESP). When the results were tabulated the leader declared they were proof of ESP. Shermer explained how statistics indicated the results were random chance and not evidence of ESP. The experiment leader did not take kindly to his comments, asking "Are you an engineer or one of those statisticians or something?"

Shermer details his own alien abduction memory and how it was caused by more pedestrian events.

Some books consistently belittle anyone who holds a contrary position to the author, but Shermer does not do that. He takes a nicer tone. However, I did not hold any of the ideas he dismantles in the book so my view could be skewed.

The main message of the book is the scientific method should be applied to claims people make. To help ferret out false conclusions, a list of 25 ways thinking goes wrong is included. These range from scientific thinking mistakes like letting theory influence observations to logical mistakes like an either-or approach where problems are assumed to have only two possible answers.

If you are willing to admit things you know could be wrong, check this book out.

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Samuel Adams Cupcakes

It is time to make some cupcakes with a fine beer, Samuel Adams.

I originally saw this recipe in the Orange County Register on April 22nd. However, a quick search will turn this up in many places online. All the recipes are the same. This is a problem because they all turn out terrible. I left the cupcakes in for twice as long as the recipe states and they still looked questionable and unbaked. Whoever wrote the recipe must have been drinking a few Sam Adams.

The original recipe has all the ingredients below, except with 1/2 cup water, 1/2 cup Samuel Adams Boston Lager, and 3/4 cup flour. For my changes I left out the water, increased the Samuel Adams to 3/4 cup, and pushed the flour to 1 cup. With my new recipe I baked a dozen which turned out better. I bumped the temperature up to 350 from the originally mandated 325 for the second batch and they baked even better. The original recipe also neglects to tell you to add the flour, baking soda, and baking powder to the mix. As I said, someone must have been drinking when writing the recipe.

Now my new and improved recipe.

Boston Lager 25th Anniversary Cupcakes

1/2 cup butter
1 1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup cocoa powder
2 eggs
1 cup flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 cup Samuel Adams Boston Lager
1/2 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place butter, sugar, and cocoa powder in a large mixing bowl. Add in eggs and mix until thoroughly combined. Mix in flour, baking soda, and baking powder. Pour in Boston Lager, then salt. Mix until mixture is smooth and there are no lumps.

Line muffin tin with muffin liners. Pour approximately 3 – 4 oz into each cup. Bake in oven at 350 degrees for approximately 15-20 minutes or until golden brown. The recipe's official yield is 2 dozen, but I ended up with 20 or 22 using my "that looks good" method of filling the cups.

Dozen frosted Sam Adams cupcakes with two bottles of Sam Adams beer
For these I used some Pillsbury frosting I wanted to finish up at home. Consequently, I did not test this frosting recipe. However, with a cup of butter it has to be good!

Boston Lager Butter Cream Frosting
3 cups confectioners' sugar
1 cup butter
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon whipping cream
2 tablespoons Samuel Adams Boston Lager

In a standing mixer with a whisk, mix together sugar and butter. Mix on low speed until well blended, then increase speed to medium and beat for another 3 minutes. Add vanilla extract, Boston Lager, and whipping cream and continue to beat on medium speed for 1 minute more, adding more cream if needed.

Sunday, November 14, 2010

A Parish Priest and some Knights

I just finished the book Parish Priest: Father Michael McGivney and American Catholicism by Douglas Brinkley and Julie M. Fenster. The book is a biography of Fr. McGivney and a look at the Catholic Church in New England in the late 1800s. It also covers the Knights of Columbus, a group Fr. McGivney founded.

Father Michael McGivney was born in 1852 in Waterburry, Connecticut. The book tracks his life, how he became a priest, and how he worked in his parish. Fr. McGiveny was always visiting the sick, planning activities, and comforting people in need. Aside from his normal spiritual duties, he kept young people out of trouble by organizing baseball games and directing amateur plays. As the book's title indicates, he was a dedicated parish priest who served his congregation.

The need for Knights
The 1870s and 1880s were a dangerous time. Diseases like tuberculous were rampant and since antibiotics were not understood, simple injuries could easily become infected and led to serious complications. When the father of a family became gravely sick or died, that family lost all certainty and security. Any children old enough would be sent to earn money for the family, while the rest were in danger of being taken into custody by the state to be provided for. Fr. McGivney was distressed by this destruction of families.

Some groups tried to address this problem. Benevolent societies existed and Connecticut was the home of the emerging insurance business. There were dozens of different clubs and secret societies men could join. However, they varied in their membership, aims, and activities. Some were openly anti-Catholic, while others were social clubs that did not promote moral living. Fr. McGivney wanted a group that could provide for the families of its members in case of tragedy and allow its members to bring their Catholic faith into all of the group's actions.

Into this Fr. McGivney decided to start a new group for Catholic men: the Knights of Columbus. Since there were prejudices against Catholics and talk of them being more loyal to the Pope than the United States, the Knights took the name of Christopher Columbus; an acknowledged national hero.

128 years later
Today the Knights of Columbus have over 1.8 million members. They volunteer their time and money to charitable causes in their communities. Fr. McGivney's vision of protecting widows and orphaned children is realized by a strong insurance program.

In 2008, Pope Benedict XVI declared Fr. McGivney to be of "heroic virtue." He is referred to as a "Venerable servant of God" because his life exemplified great virtue. These are early steps on the path to sainthood.

Thursday, November 11, 2010

A Retreat and a Subpar Weekend

Several weeks ago I went on a retreat at church.

For those of you who do not know, I have been on many religious retreats. I started counting and came up with over a dozen that lasted more than one day and more than I can remember that were day events. I was also involved with planning a couple of them.

Now back to the most recent retreat titled Christ Renews His Parish. It is an established retreat program that started in 1969 and has been used by Catholic parishes across the country.

Evaluating, not experiencing
As the retreat started, I evaluated everything in it from an administrative point of view. I was thinking how I would change things to make it better. I compared every part of the retreat to experiences I had on other retreats. This was bad because I lost some focus on experiencing the programing myself. However, in almost every area I came up with a suggestion for improvement. The small groups were sized too small, the group leaders did not facilitate effectively, the talks were not properly connected to the activities, the activities were unexciting and repetitive, and the list goes on.

At the end of the weekend many people said it was one of the best retreats they had ever been on or even one of the best weekends of their lives. It ranked near the bottom of retreats I have been on. Now a few points about the good and bad.

There was a gap between me and the other people. On the other retreats I have been on the leaders and other participants were my own age. During this one most people had children and I could not relate to anyone's comments about their relationships with their wives or children. One of the three other people in my group went to Cal; he was a student when Pappy Waldorf coached the Golden Bears. While that is awesome, that makes him at least 50 years older than me.

This age gap leads into one of the strengths of this retreat; the talks from the team were great. Compared to other retreats I have been on, these people had a lot more time to mess up their lives and draw meaning from their mistakes.

I went to the sacrament of Reconciliation also known as confession. It was the oddest Reconciliation I have ever been to, but also the best. My sinning has been reduced in measurable ways (at least so far). In another context I wrote a few comments on the Reconciliation if you are not familiar with it.

Continuing on
The retreat experience did not end on Sunday. On the following Wednesday and every Wednesday night for the next few months the retreat participants are invited to participate in a sharing and discussion focused on the readings that will be used at mass on Sunday.

While the retreat weekend was less than average for me, it had a good effect on me for the following weeks. I am being nicer and more considerate of people. They gave all the participants a Bible and we had to use it for a few of the activities. I was inspired to open it up and read almost everyday for a couple of weeks afterward.

The other participants were positively affected in the days after the retreat as well. When things became difficult at work or home, many people said they remembered the retreat and did not lose their temper.

This entire retreat process has some good ideas in it. However, they need to be expanded and executed better. They are looking for people to help plan the next retreat. I want to be involved, but I have to find the right balance between conflicting impulses. I want to rewrite the book for the retreat, but I also want to be humble and learn more about how they do retreats before suggesting big changes.

Sunday, November 7, 2010

Hamming Windows, Halloween, and Inspiration

This starts last Sunday when I was working on an assignment for my DSP class. My problems started when I got the Hamming and Hanning (or Hann) windows confused. Look at the equations for both of the windows and you can see how close they are. At first I thought I had to explicitly code each equation to magically create the windows. Even though I had an example for another kind of window, I had no idea how to do this.

The notes gave an example of a Hanning window complete with the equation and then asked me to use a Hamming window and gave me its equation. When I read this I thought both of them were Hanning windows with the second one being implemented with a slightly different equation. I tried many things, but I could not create the window or even reproduce the example in the notes.

Then around 5:45 Sunday afternoon inspiration hit. I realized the example and the exercise were two different functions, I did not have to code them directly, the earlier example in the notes was unnecessarily long and drawn out, and MATLAB has built in functions for Hanning, Hamming, Tukey, Kaiser, and Rectangular windows. I was very pleased I figured this out.

Moments later I was struck by an unrelated inspiration. I remembered how much I enjoyed Halloween when I was a child. At some of the houses I went to the adults distributing candy were very into Halloween. In Ohio, my neighbor across the street made a witch head and answered the door with it scaring the children, while some people just handed out candy in normal attire. I thought it would be great if I dressed up when I answered the door. Since I had 15 minutes and had not worn a Halloween costume for a few years, my options were limited. However, I remembered a mask I had in the garage, a coat I had never worn before, and a hat and gloves from when I was a magician. After finding all of this in a few minutes, this was the result.



The children were scared. Many of them commented on my costume. A couple of people thought I had a gorilla mask, while I think it looked more like a skeleton mask with the bones colored black and the teeth white.

In the large groups of trick or treaters, some of the really little kids saw me and were scared to walk from the sidewalk up to the door to get candy. I had to get as low as possible and hold the candy in front of me so the four year olds would not be intimidated. My costume was an overwhelming success.

On a class related comment, now might be a good time to start looking at the lecture notes, reading the textbook, or working on the assignment due at 11 tonight. If inspiration is going to strike again, I better be ready for it.

Thursday, November 4, 2010

A Merely Interesting Book

Yesterday I finished the book Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis.

It is an introductory book to Christianity and recounts some of Lewis's arguments and reasoning that brought him to Jesus. It was originally a series of talks Lewis gave over the radio in England during World War II. The talks were later edited and expanded into a book.

Lewis is advocating for Christianity in general and not one denomination or another. In the title, the adjective mere refers to Christianity in the general sense, not a specific type like Anglican or Presbyterian Christianity.

My knowledge of Christianity is well beyond the introductory stages, so a book that explains basic ideas is boring. While there were a few interesting analogies and arguments, they not worth going through the entire book to find.

The book was not excessively interesting to me. It took me over two months to read it. The book was not difficult or hard to understand, but it was not as interesting as any of the other books I was reading or wanted to start during that time. It might have kept my attention better if I skipped some sections and read the book in a few days' time.

If you want to understand the reasoning an atheist took to become a Christian and read explanations of the tenets of Christianity, this book might be for you. If you are like me and already know about Jesus and the Christian world view, I would suggest picking up one of Lewis's other books like The Screwtape Letters or The Great Divorce.

Monday, November 1, 2010

Read about the Ragtime

I just finished the novel Ragtime by E. L. Doctorow. It was great and you should read it too.

It is historical fiction that takes place in and around New York City at the start of the Twentieth Century. Much of the story follows three families and what they do to fulfill their dreams in America. In the book over half a dozen historical figures interact with the main characters without eclipsing them. The famous real people drive the thematic development without diverting the plot.

I was first exposed to the story in high school when I was involved with our school's musical production based upon the work in May 2003 (Oh no! the Unnamed Geniuses made a mistake). When the story was adapted for the stage a lot of material had to be cut out or reduced. However, this meant when I read the book a bunch of it was new to me.

I came to know the plot of Ragtime the same roundabout way I learned the plot of all the plays I worked on. I will explain.

Learning plot through play
Whenever I was on stage crew, I pieced the story of the play together slowly. Since my job was to build things and move stuff around, I was not given a script. As rehearsal started, I would hear about individual scenes. The stage manager would say we needed to make a graveyard scene or the director would talk about benches we needed for a classroom. This gave me an idea of the setting. When the cast appeared on stage to practice lines I learned more about the action. As the days advanced, I would see a couple of new scenes and some of the old ones incessantly repeated. I knew a few isolated parts very well, but lacked the context they were in. If it was a musical, the songs would haunt my waking and resting hours.

As I learned more about the characters, I still had no idea what the correct sequence of events was. More plot details would emerge from what I was told to do. Once the stage manager told me to build a window seat with an opening top so bodies could be hidden inside it. I had no idea why people died, only that they were hidden. Every time I pieced together a narrative that made sense to me, something would throw it into chaos. The stage manager would say we needed to bring a barrel in for the jail scene or the technical director said we needed to simulate a fire offstage. Since the storyline I had constructed had nothing to do with a jail and no room for a character to go to jail, these revelations would bring my understanding of the play back to square one. It was not until the first dress rehearsal that I saw all the scenes and figured out the correct order. After seeing the complete play I would realize I made a big mistake, like thinking the villain of the story was actually the hero.

Now back to the book. When I recently heard the novel was supposed to be a good work of literature I decided to pick it up. I was not disappointed; the book was great. Unlike some of my recent reading, every time I put the book down I looked forward to when I would continue it the next day.

Sunday, October 31, 2010

Propositions and Questionable Candidates

I keep hearing the upcoming election is a big deal. While it is, I will be very happy when the phone calls, TV ads, radio ads, street signs, emails, and mailers stop. However, I will miss the entertainment of their misleading information and poking holes in their claims. Below are a few ideas for your consideration when voting.

Propositions
If you are looking for some comments about the California propositions, check out this voting guide James prepared. My votes will look very similar to these (except on 22) and for most of the same reasons. I was going to say some nice things about the politics of James, but after I read his next blog post I must hold off.

Ideology and Practicality
In looking at candidates running for office, one question has often come up. Is it better to support a candidate who is close to you ideologically but less likely to win, or should you vote for a candidate who has a better chance of winning but is ideologically only slightly better than the other leading candidate? I have two examples.

In the race for Governor I am voting for a candidate I do not like, Meg Whitman. She has some red flags and at least one position I want nothing to do with. However, I am voting for her because she is better than Jerry Brown, who has been in California politics for longer than I have been alive.

In the Lieutenant Governor race I am writing in a candidate who has no chance of winning. I will not vote for the nominee of my party, Abel Maldonado, because he has shown on many occasions his political values are far away from mine. For the past few years Maldonado's name has been a joke among my friends as someone who is in the wrong political party and a questionable character.

I am disappointed that in a state as large as California these are the candidates at the top of the ballot. However, I am excited to vote for a lot of other good people. Now back to the question I brought up before. Is it better to vote for a candidate who has a good chance of winning who is far from perfect ideologically, or a harder to elect candidate you agree with on many things?

I make my decisions on a case by case basis, but I am favoring the later. I have knocked on doors and made phone calls for candidates with platforms I was not thrilled with, only to be rewarded with policies I was less than happy with when they took office. However, if I vote for a third party or write-in candidate instead of one from a major party, I could end up with the worse of the two major candidates in office.

I do not have any easy answers. All I can suggest is that you look into the candidates you are voting for and realize what compromises you are making.

Monday, October 25, 2010

The blue, the gold, and the red

This colorful story starts two weekends ago when I went to watch Cal play USC at the Colosseum. I was excited to watch Cal play, but it was terrible. Everything went wrong. It was the worst football game I have ever seen the Bears play in person. While I was saddened by the game, every time USC scored Sidney held me personally responsible for their actions. Their quarterback Matt Barkeley went to my high school.

Now on to the positives of that day. I got to see and talk to people like Juliette and Sidney. Melissa made an appearance, but she was staying with friends at USC. We had dinner at a Chinese restaurant. Since it was happy hour we happily ordered discounted items off the happy hour menu. I got to see where Melissa and Juliette live in West Hollywood. It is amazing how far money goes for housing when you get away from the Bay Area. They live in an interesting and colorful neighborhood; their building is across an alley from a brothel.

This 107.9 mile trip qualifies as a road trip. I took the 405 north, to the 605 north, the 5 north, the 101, stopped in West Hollywood then down the 101 south, to the 110 south to the Colosseum before starting back up the 110 north to the 101 north, then south toward home on the 101 and the 5.

More primary colors
As mentioned before, I have been representing UC Berkeley at college fairs. With the help of another person or two (or three), I answer questions about Berkeley, the admission requirements, programs on campus, and any random thing students or their parents can think of. Most high school students ask for the average GPA (4.39 weighted or 3.93 unweighted) and SAT scores (around 700 for each section) of the incoming class.

Last week I went back to my alma mater Mater Dei High School to work at a college fair for my other alma mater. When I checked in the person at the table recognized me; she was my former guidance councilor. A lot of things have changed. They have a new gym that can seat 9,000 people and a pool on campus. Since my graduation the basketball team won 3 CIF state championships and an alumnus won the Heisman Trophy.

Memorable moments
From the outreaches I did at a few schools I have some interesting moments to share.
  • A parent asks "Do you know about the programs of this school?" I think, I am standing behind a table with a big Berkeley banner and a name tag from the school, so of course I do. I ask "Which programs are you interested in?" She starts to tell me about the programs the high school offers to its students. She says the high school should make sure all the college representatives are educated in all the programs the high school offers. This parent was trying to convince me to send my non-existent child to the high school instead of asking why she should send her child to my college.

  • I told a high school student in very strong terms "If you do not get into Cal or any other top school your life will not be over. Your life will not suck. Have fun, enjoy what you are doing now."

  • A parent asked me "What is the point of this? Students walk around and pick up a flyer from every table. What is the point of all this?"

  • A panicked student really wants to go to Cal but got a C in AP Calculus. She wants to know what she can do to make up for it. I tell her I got into Cal and I got a C in AP Calculus as well. After we talk for a long time she walks away and later comes back to the table and spends a longer time talking to one of the other Cal representatives. It is good I did not tell her Cal did not see my C as I got it senior year.

  • A student asks, "Is that guy next to you the chancellor?" While Doug is an alumni volunteer like me (who has a degree in physics like me) and not the chancellor, he looked very official with his suit and Cal tie.
The non-chancellor Doug took this picture of Lee and me. Lee said I looked familiar and remembered seeing me when he was visiting a friend who lived on my floor freshman year.

Representing Cal at fair in MD gym

Monday, October 18, 2010

Back in School

I just finished the third week of my class in digital signal processing. Like my earlier classes, this is online through extension with the anteaters.

First I will address a problem I had with the grading of exercises for the class. The syllabus dated for the Spring quarter said there were weekly homework assignments. A post in the online system said the homework was for our own practice. A third source implied the homework would not be graded and even gave a breakdown of how much of the grade would be the term paper and how much the final (these two numbers were different from the syllabus and added up to 100%).

A couple of weeks into the class, I noticed some of the other students had submitted assignments. I wanted to clear up this point so I asked the instructor. He said the assignments needed to be turned in and would be graded. To get all this work done, I have spent the last week doing three weeks worth of work.

I have been having other problems with the class. Z transforms are not my friend. I am supposed to understand them with little explanation, be able to do them, and then look them up in a table if I ever need to use them in the future. When the section on z transforms ended I was happy. Then I read the next section, inverse z transforms. It starts with a reassuring line, "The Inverse Z transform is a lot more complicated than the forward z transform."

The exercises and notes say to take the discrete Fourier transform on a signal, but then the fast Fourier transform function is called.

Remembering Things
Reading the textbook and lectures brought back many memories of my academic career. Some of the memories were less then helpful.

When I read about the Cauchy integral theorem I had flashbacks to Math 54 and the professor who often drew a big cat's paw on the board and sometimes made noises like a tiger or some other ferocious animal. He always wore a plain black t-shirt, black pants, and black shoes. One time I was in the restroom before class and as he walked in he made a joke how he must be in the most popular room on campus. Then a minute later he made the same joke to the people next to him when he was washing his hands. While I enjoy remembering this, when I hear about the Cauchy-Schwarz inequality all I can remember is it is important and I did not properly understand it.

When I saw δ(n) I first thought it was the Dirac delta function. I was wrong. It is actually the unit sample sequence or unit impulse function, which are similar but less exciting.

In the next week I have to come up with an idea for a term paper. I am lacking ideas and most of what I found on Google was either too far removed from the class or uninteresting. There are a couple of interesting ideas, but I need to see if they are feasible for an entire paper, my skills, and time.

Friday, October 8, 2010

Lies and What People Think

Recently there was some news about one of my friends.

He did something that almost everyone he knows will eventually see the effects of. However, he is not telling the truth about it. He is spreading a lie to cover the truth. When I asked him why he was not telling everyone the truth, he said the actual facts of the matter were a "juicy piece of gossip" people would love to get their hands on. I was too shocked by this answer to give a reply.

I will now explain a fundamental truth of how gossip works. Gossip is popular because it claims to offer a glimpse into a truth of someone's life that he is trying to cover up. If a person publicly tells everyone a piece of news about himself, it is not gossip; it is a statement of fact. Half the excitement of gossip is its secretive nature. If you want to prevent or stop gossip about yourself, explain the truth to everyone and answer their questions.

In this example, by concealing the truth and spreading a lie my friend is making the truth a piece of gossip.

Now why was this friend covering the truth? He did not break any laws nor did he do anything morally questionable. He did something he considers embarrassing. To be honest, if I did what he did I would be semi-embarrassed. However, I would consider the choices I made to get into that situation to be at least as bad as what I eventually did.

Now a couple of months later my friend is doing it again on a completely different matter. He is spreading a lie to cover the truth. He wants to lie to his friends and family about something I see no shame in. In fact, if it was me I would have written a blog post about what happened.

There is a good chance the truth will eventually come out. When it does the effect of the lies and damaged relationships might be greater then the response to the original news itself.

One phrase I hear thrown around a lot is "I will support you in anything you do." A better phrase is "I will support you and help you make the best decisions." People do not need to be told they are right all the time. They need to be corrected when they take wrong turns.

I think I failed this friend.

Monday, October 4, 2010

Tabling & Transfer Students: Then and Now

Last week I represented Cal at a college fair at Orange Coast College, a local community college. As a representative of the University of California, I stood at a table and answered questions and passed out literature to students considering applying to Cal as transfer students. I was there with three other alumni volunteers.

I observed how the other Cal representatives interacted with students. One of them asked what their major was and then opened a flyer to point at the acceptance rate of students in that major. Another simply asked students if they had any questions.

I realized (in my own biased opinion) I am really good at interacting with students. I asked leading questions to engage students in conversation, highlighted great features of the university that were applicable to the students, and knew when to walk up to people near the table and talk to them. This reminded me of my earlier experience tabling. Now I will explain how I became so good at this, even though this was the first time I had represented Cal at a college fair.

BCR Tabling
At Cal I spent a lot of time tabling for the Berkeley College Republicans. It was a boatload of fun. From 10-2 on Monday-Friday there was a table and two people scheduled to be on Sproul, the primary student plaza. The main purpose was to inform students of the club, promote upcoming events, and recruit new members. Many people were surprised there was a thriving Republican club on campus. Some were happy we were there while other people were displeased if not openly mad we existed. People at the table endured insults, profanity, tiny rocks, spit, yelling, and a few dirty looks. However, the table grew to be more. The table was a social hub. Members would stop by and eat lunch at the table, hang out after class, or even be at the table instead of going to class. Students, local community members, and visitors to campus would talk to us about current issues, argue politics, or hear stories about the campus. Between the people stopping by, crazy people coming to the table to argue, and the random things that happened on Sproul there was a lot of excitement. From all these experiences, I became a very good tabler.

Transfer Students
Since the event was at a community college, it was focused on students transferring to Cal as juniors. I volunteered to work at this event because the transfer students I knew were interesting and dynamic people who had everything organized. They knew they had only two years at Cal and tried to fit in four years of activities. Some of my best friends were transfer students. The person I ate breakfast with at Crossroads everyday for a semester, the person I did Latin homework with, the girl I fell in love with, a person I hung out with and went on some trips with, my lab partner in physics who was also on a few teams at church; they were all transfer students. I have many fond memories of hanging out in Spens-Black (the transfer student dorm).

I liked working the event. The fine people at OCC came around and gave us water and a voucher for $9 at the cafeteria. I enjoyed an orange chicken bowl, Dr. Pepper, and some kind of pastry courtesy of the transfer center.

Thursday, September 30, 2010

Making life better?

I will start with a story I was told. Before he became a priest, Fr. Charlie worked in the publishing industry. Mail would be delivered to the office around 10 AM and then again around 3 PM. If an important document was expected, it would arrive at one of these times. If it was not in the mail, it could be put out of mind until the next delivery time. In his words, it was great. Then the combination of two things destroyed that: fax machines and phones. If someone in another office wanted a document reviewed, it would be faxed and then a phone call would be placed to confirm receipt of the fax and demand a timely response and fax back. Everything had to be done immediately.

I would guess the inventors of the fax machine and telephone intended to make life easier. However, that was not always the effect. As above, the new inventions were a way for micromanaging bosses and overeager collaborators to rain havoc over more people.

Now lets bring this to today. Email is all the rage and not just on computers. With so many people using a Blackberry, iPhone, or other internet-centric phone the new inventions originally designed to make life better are everywhere.

What effect are these new devices having on people and their mental well-being? Are they adding something valuable or just filling time?

I have sat looking at my inbox and psychotically kept clicking refresh hoping I would get an email. Even if I was not waiting for anything specific, I kept hitting refresh every second. Then I found a way around this; I started using a widget which generated a pop up anytime I received a new email. This stopped the psychotic clicking, but did not solve the problem. Instead of giving my full attention to what I was doing, I let the pop up window be a line that instantly pulled me away from whatever I was doing to check my latest email. While a few times it was nice to respond to emails within minutes, it did not make my life better, easier, or calmer.

To prevent becoming caught up in this mentality, I have started a 10/4/10 email plan. Unless I am expecting a very important timely email, need to reference some information, or want to write a specific email, I only open my email three times a day, 10 AM, 4 PM, and 10 PM. It is awesome; you should try it.

The next time you click on your internet browser or pull out a smartphone (smart in the sense their manufactures have convinced millions of people they need to buy such devices) to check the latest news, email, or Facebook update Stop! Ask yourself if you really need to. Question yourself "Will this bring me happiness?" If the answer is no, rethink your actions.

If the latest technology is not making your life easier, less stressful, and better, you are not using it correctly.

Monday, September 27, 2010

Have a Hot Dog

I had an authentic Top Dog hot dog today. Instead of driving up to Northern California, I traveled the freeways of Orange County.

This story starts a few months ago when my Mom saw something in the Orange County Register. To summarize the article, the owners of a yogurt store in Mission Viejo contacted the owners of Top Dog in Northern California and worked out a deal so they could sell their hot dogs.

Today I went there with James and enjoyed a Santa Fe turkey dog. I would furnish some pictures, but I could not easily find my camera before I left. I picked one of the worst days ever to dive to Mission Viejo. It was 108 out there and the hottest day ever recorded in many places.

If you make the drive (the address is in the article linked above), look for the Del Taco; Berkeley Dog is a couple of stores away. It is in a huge plaza and I drove by nearly 50 stores before I found it. Do not expect to be greeted by a hot dog, the door still advertises the yogurt the store sells.

If that is too far for you, I did some research and just learned a second shop opened in Brea last month.

An earlier trip
This was the second time I have been there. The first time I went I wanted to go with someone I knew from Berkeley to get their input on the place's authenticity. So I called a friend who lived in Mission Viejo. When he got back to me a few weeks later he said his externship in Los Angeles prevented him from going. Next I thought of another Cal alumnus who was at UCI; Irvine is just a city over. I sent her a Facebook message but she never replied. Then I thought of a friend who would be up for an adventure if I picked him up and drove him there. I called a few minutes after noon but he did not answer. I declared my efforts to get other people interested a failure and drove there myself. He called me later in the day and explained he was still asleep when I called him.

Thursday, September 16, 2010

Works in Progress

I have been doing a lot of things but have not finished them. Instead of waiting another week or two until they are resolved and provide finished posts, I will say a few words now about what I am doing. You can think of each paragraph as the first act of a different and unfinished play.

The inside of my parent's house was painted last week. In preparation for this, all the stuff had to be taken off the walls and the furniture moved. After the painting was done we had a great opportunity to evaluate and rethink where things should go and what the best way to arrange everything is. For example, my Grandpa made some great wood toys. However, they were on top of the cupboard where they are hard to notice. I moved them to a more conspicuous place where they can be viewed up close and appreciated. All the blinds and shades have been put back up, but some furniture and pictures still need to be arranged.

I am setting up a computer with a Unix-like system. I have saved a couple of old computers from being trashed and am using some parts from one to fix the other. So far I have moved a CPU fan, hard drive, and RAM stick from one machine to the other. I went to Fry's to buy some cables for a KVM switch. A KVM switch is a device that lets multiple computers share one keyboard, monitor, and mouse. When I plugged everything into the computer and pressed the on button nothing happened. I could not find the problem, but I circumvented it and now have a computer up and running. The next step is to install a new operating system I have never used.

As furniture was being moved for painting, I decided to refinish the coffee table. A few years ago a live plant was placed on the table by our neighbor and water leaked onto the table and left a big spot. I started the restoration by removing the old finish, sanding the top, and applying a new stain. Most of the table looked good, but there were two dark lines where the stain soaked in more than the rest. Since I was unhappy, I sanded the table down and restained it using a foam brush. That was a disaster; the brush strokes were visible. After treating a quarter of the table I stopped and removed the stain. When I started my third staining application I ditched the foam brush and went back to using a normal paintbrush. It turned out worse than ever. The table looked terrible and the stain made a mess everywhere. As of now the table is sanded again and ready for my fourth attempt at staining it.

When I graduated I was gifted an album that said "Graduation 2008." For the last two years I have been meaning to select 100 pictures from senior year and get them printed out and put in that album. I went through all the pictures from my camera (and the pictures I took with Derek's camera while mine was broke). When picking pictures I aimed for a good assortment. I selected pictures from different events, included a variety of different people, and made sure I was not in too many of them. There were a lot of good pictures and I enjoyed looking through all of them. Even after I limited myself to pictures from my last semester I had 114 pictures for a 100 slot album. After more rounds of reductions, prints were ordered and they have arrived here by mail. Now they need to be placed in the album.

In a couple of weeks everything should be set and you can stop by my house to see the finished products. Until then, things are scattered about as work continues.

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

What I did over summer

Three days ago I started writing this post. After I wrote the title I hit Enter and the post which contained nothing in its body was accidentally published. If you are using a reader program to read this blog you will have seen the title of this post three days ago and watched the blog float to the top of your recently updated blog list; only to find I did not actually make a post. I would apologize for my mistake, but I am not a fan of using blog reader programs. Now I can return to the topic at hand.

This story starts at the end of May. Since I explained most of this in earlier posts, this is a summary of summary posts.

Overnight trips I took:
  1. Up to Berkeley to see Fr. Charlie and assorted friends.

  2. Orlando for a family reunion and the local sights.

  3. Grand Canyon for hiking and nature stuff.

  4. Las Vegas to have fun with Peter and Larry.

  5. Washington D.C. and Virgina for a friend's wedding.

  6. San Diego for CRP and hanging out with Rohit and Derek.

Day trips to Los Angeles:
Picnic in the park with Sean and the Salesians.
Several weeks later to watch Sean start his pre-novitiate program.
Watch the Dodgers play (14 hits in 9 innings and they still managed to lose).

The happiest places on Earth:
I went to Disneyland on the day of its 55th anniversary. Before that, I spent four days at the four different parks of Disney World.

Places that show the sky is only the beginning:
I went to the Kennedy Space Center and the Udvar-Hazy Center of the Air and Space Museum.

There was an interesting adventure to the San Diego Zoo. Much good food was eaten at the Orange County Fair.

I saw a lot of movies on their opening nights. I could think of five, but I would have to pull out my ticket stubs or ask Frank and Aden for an exact count.

Friday, September 3, 2010

The Bears are coming

As some of you know, tomorrow is the first game of the California Golden Bears football season. I have been listening to my Cal Band CD to get into the correct mood.

The complete schedule for the season and where to find the Bears on TV and radio is available on the Cal Bears website. You can also listen to all the games on KALX online.

On Saturday at 1 the Bears will be playing UC Davis at Memorial Stadium.

When I lived at the Yee Tenement House, I would often make a dip Derek, Patrick, and sometimes David would enjoy before walking down Piedmont to the stadium. I will share the recipe so you too can enjoy this game day tradition. This would usually be accompanied with rum and cokes or gin and tonics if I had a two liter bottle of tonic to finish up.

Layered Nacho Dip

1 (16 oz.) can refried beans
1/2 pkg. taco mix
16 oz. guacamole dip
8 oz. sour cream
1 small can black olives, chopped or sliced
2 tomatoes, diced
Green onions (or a small onion) finely chopped
taco sauce or salsa
thick layer of shredded Cheddar (and/or Jack) cheese

Mix refried beans & taco mix. Layer in shallow dish (I think I used a 9 x 13) or pie pan in order: Beans/taco mix, guacamole, sour cream, chopped black olives, diced tomatoes, onion, salsa & shredded cheese. Serve with nacho chips.

You can play with the amounts and ingredients any way you like. I used genuine Safeway refried beans most of the time and started with this appetizing sight.

Refried beans in shape of can at start of dip
Game day never tasted so good.

Tuesday, August 31, 2010

It's all happening at the zoo

Last month I went to the San Diego Zoo. I went there with the Vietnamese Crew.

As I started organizing my pictures, I remembered I never shared any of my pictures from an earlier great zoo adventure. So here is a picture from a trip to the Oakland Zoo in Spring 2008.

Oakland Zoo gate
Bonus points if you can name the people in the picture.

Now to my recent San Diego Zoo trip. I will skimp on the descriptions as most of the animals could be identified by a competent kindergardener.

Two giraffes

Two elephants
At a nearby gift shop they had paper made out of elephant dung for sale. If you ever get a letter from me you should be glad I refrained from buying it.

Panda eating
I waited in line to see the pandas. It was a disappointment. First, the name "giant panda" is misleading; I could almost throw one in my backpack. Second, they just sit around and eat. They have the digestive track of carnivores but eat bamboo all day. Third, they look like bears with black and white fur. If you want to see something different and not wait in line check out our friend below.

Okapi
This last one is less well known; it is an okapi. If you are not familiar with these cousins of giraffes ask the Unnamed Geniuses to learn more. There is a great history of how European scientists heard stories of okapi but thought they were mere myths until some evidence of them was collected. If you want to learn more about the process check out Cryptozoology.

Zoo photo cut-out
Here we have Larry making friends with an expert who looks like Brandon.

After the zoo we went to Dave & Buster's to eat and wait for the traffic to subside. Along with dinner many of us had drinks while it was still happy hour. Larry was heavily pushing AMFs. On that topic, I have another drink recipe.

A.M.F.

1/2 oz Vodka
1/2 oz Gin
1/2 oz Rum
1/2 oz Tequila
1/2 oz Blue curacao
2 oz 7-Up
2 oz Sweet and sour mix

Mix the first six ingredients and then top with 7-up. While the drink usually goes by its initials, its full name is Adios Motherfucker. After you have a few of them you will know why. The alcohol in this is almost the same as a Long Island Iced Tea, except blue curacao replaces triple sec.

Sunday, August 29, 2010

San Diego and the Island of Dr. Moreau

Last weekend I was in San Diego.

I got there early on Friday to pick up Rohit from the airport and drove back on Sunday afternoon. I was there to attend the CRP (California Republican Party) convention and spend time with Derek and Rohit. Over the weekend I saw half a dozen people I went to school with and knew from BCR (Berkeley College Republicans).

We stayed at the Manchester Grand Hyatt where the convention was held. The convention had the usual type of convention stuff. Candidates tried to drum up support for themselves, people argued for or against propositions on the November ballot, and there were some intense battles on rule changes and resolutions within the party. Then there were the hospitality suites. I only went to a couple but they were good ones with some food, dessert, and refreshments.

I spent some time walking around the Gaslamp district and ate at a couple of places there. I also wondered around Seaport Village. Both of these are nice places to walk around and hang out. When I last stayed in the city for the Poinsettia Bowl in December I stayed in a less exciting area.

Driving down to San Diego was easy. Take the 405 South (also called the San Diego Freeway, though I think it should be renamed) to the 5 South. Getting back was annoying. With few exits, no construction, no accidents, and no big merges or lane reductions, traffic found a way to be slow and randomly stop on the 5.

On the same weekend I started reading The Island of Dr. Moreau by H.G. Wells. This is the fifth of Wells's books I have read and also the fifth book of his I liked. I do not want to give anything away, but strange things happen on the island of Dr. Moreau. It looks at evolution, experiments, and the divide between humans and animals from a Nineteenth Century perspective. The novel was published in 1896. Like all of Wells's novels I have read, it is short (just over 200 pages), easy to read, and fast moving.

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Some Red Cross Answers

As I have said before, I donate platelets through the Red Cross on a regular basis. Every time I go I am asked a set of questions. They are the same set for anyone donating whole blood or platelets. My answers are almost always the same.

First, I say some basic information such as my name, address, phone number, gender, and weight. Then, I acknowledge I read the educational materials, ask any questions that arose from it, and say I never donated under a different name. Next, there is a check of my physical condition. My blood pressure, iron level, heart rate, temperature, and skin condition are all checked. Eventually, I get to answer questions on a computer. I click Yes, No, or Skip for each question. I have done this so often, I know what my answers are:

EDIT: I got questions 1 and 5 switched. The corrected version is below.

1 Yes (Are you feeling healthy and well today?)
2 No
3 No
4 No
5 Yes (Have you read the educational materials?)
6 No
7 Skipped by computer
8 Skipped by computer
9 Yes (Within the past 8 weeks, have you donated whole blood, plasma, or platelets?)
10 No
11 No
12 No
13 No
14 No
15 No
16 No
17 No
18 No
19 No
20 No
21 No
22 Skipped by computer (Since I indicated I am a male, I am not asked if I am pregnant)
23 No
24 No
25 No
26 No
27 No
28 No
29 No
30 No
31 Yes (From 1980 to 1996, where you a member of the United States military or a civilian dependent?)
32 No
33 No
34 No
35 No
36 No
37 No
38 No
39 No
40 No
41 No
42 No
43 No
44 No
45 No
46 No
47 No
48 No
49 No

The Yeses for questions 9 and 31 raise flags. The first one is resolved when the technical looks at my chart and determines my last platelet appointment was two weeks ago or more. The second question about the military is answered when I explain that during my entire lifetime my Dad was stationed in the United States.

Since the donation process takes around two hours, I get to watch one of several movies they have available. The latest movies I saw with comments on a few of them are:
  • Sherlock Holmes

  • Surrogates I am one of the worst people when it comes to judging movies, acting, and all aspects of film making. However, if they had spent a few minutes developing the characters so I would actually know and care about them the movie would have been much better.

  • Crazy Heart

  • Alice in Wonderland I have not read Carrol's books nor had I seen a movie adaptation of the story so I had no idea what to expect from the story.

  • Sin City I liked this best of this movie bunch.

  • Little Miss Sunshine

  • Cop Out Better than I though it would be based upon the trailers I remember seeing before it came out in theaters. In interrogating a suspect, a police detective portrayed by Tracy Morgan starts using famous lines from different movies to scare the person into talking. While this happens his partner played by Bruce Willis is watching from the observation room and commenting on these impersonations. My favorite exchange:
    Tracy Morgan: "Yippee-ki-yay, motherfucker!"
    Bruce Willis: "I've never seen that movie before."
    If you are not familiar with John McClane, you are missing out on some great stuff.

If you donate platelets at the right place you too can watch movies.

Saturday, August 14, 2010

Aircraft in Virgina

I have a few pictures from my recent trip to Washington D.C. and Virgina.

Hanger view two

Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center of the National Air and Space Museum

The Smithsonian has such a large collection of airplanes, aircraft, and related flying things, they cannot display all of them at the National Air and Space Museum on the Mall. A few years ago they built a place near Washington Dulles airport. While there is plenty of space to display many items, a visit requires a special drive to get there.

The centerpiece of the collection is the Enola Gay. It dominates the pictures above and below.

Enola Gay
If you do not know the story of this B-29 Superfortress, the Unnamed Geniuses some words and more pictures of this aircraft.

British Hurricane
The Hurricane gained fame in the Battle of Britain. The aircraft model on display here did not enter service until later in the war.

Rotary-wing kite
This World War II item is a rotary-wing kite. A U-Boat could deploy one of these to look for ships to sink. While it increased the visual range of U-Boats and made it easier to find ships to sink, it also made it easier for Allied forces to spot and intercept the U-Boats.

Hanger view with Concorde
A Concorde is in the middle of all the planes above.

SR-71 Blackbird
Here is an SR-71. Even though it was built in the 1960s, it still holds the record as the fastest air breathing manned aircraft.


James S. McDonnell Space Hangar

McDonnell space hanger view
A subdivision of the Udvar-Hazy Center, this houses space related items. The main attraction here is the Enterprise space shuttle. It was the first space shuttle and used for approach and landing tests. After the testing was complete, it was determined it would be easier to build a new shuttle instead of upgrading and adding all the elements necessary to make the Enterprise space worthy. It was followed by the Columbia, Challenger, Discovery, Atlantis, and Endeavour.

Enterprise space shuttleThe Apollo 11 Columbia command module is at the Smithsonian on the National Mall. However, the flotation bags and collar attached to this other module are the actual ones used when the Apollo 11 command module splashed down. In the background on the right is the Mobile Quarantine Facility where Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins were kept in until they were deemed free of contamination from the Moon.

Apollo 11 airbags
The aircraft can be observed from the ground, a second level, or an even higher observation level. It is as if you are in the air watching them fly.

Hanger view
I learned more looking through the National Air and Space Museum's website and the Unnamed Geniuses of Wikipedia than I did at the museum itself. I also looked at the fine pictures online to get the exact names of some of the aircraft I photographed.