Wow, Hannah got me the latest issue of Make for Christmas. I've been reading the online blog for a while, but am really impressed with the quality of the print magazine.

Now I am in a deep quandary: too many cool projects, with far, far too little time to play.

Maybe next year...

We just finished a site visit from the Department of Homeland Security. We teamed with seven other universities and submitted a proposal to be the fifth DHS Center of Excellence. We'd be focusing on preparedness for and response to high consequence events. We've seen quite a bit of this recently, with mudslides, hurricanes and other natural disasters, as well as the human-generated events of recent history. We've had a lot of experience from the response side and we are teaming with some really brilliant researchers at the other universities, so I think we are well positioned for this proposal. I hope the site visitors thought the same.

I was not presenting or anything -- we hosted the event, so I and the other grad students have been preparing for this since we found out about the visit, and have been scrambling this week to make sure the event went as smoothly as possible. For us this meant making sure the A/V equipment was set up correctly, copying slides, assembling binders, doing last-minute fact-checking, and so on.

It was also very nice to finally put some faces to some names of people I was aware of via publications and reputation. Jeff Bradshaw from IHMC was also in -- we've worked together a bit over the past year or so -- but we barely had time to say hello and chat for a few minutes. The work that I am doing for my PhD ties in with work his interests and I wanted to have a chance to talk over some of it with him. Guess email will have to do...

So after the first half of the week being 12-16 hour days, it was nice to relax and recover a bit today. Unfortunately I got to deal with administrative hassles today -- like trying to figure out why I couldn't access my health insurance account to print this year's id card and why I won't get paid for August until September. Grrr....

I've seen a few people try this, but with limited results -- mainly because they were just piling books and boxes under their monitor until they could stand up. But I would imagine and actual workstation might work pretty well. I do notice that I need to get up an move around quite a bit to keep comfortable during the day. For me this usually means a hike across campus to get coffee and work the kinks and soreness out. Maybe when (if!) we move into the new building I can talk the powers-that-be into a standing setup.

Anyone had experiences trying this?

So I'm in a little bit of a quandary at the moment. My current laptop, a gigabit ethernet G4 Powerbook, is starting to have problems. The top case started to crack around one of the hinges and I believe damaged one of the cables for the display. Now it still works -- I did a jerry-rigged fix to repair the break, but after I close and open the lid I have to finesse the display to get it to work.

I know what I want to do:

1) Give this laptop to Hannah. We can set it up in a fixed location at home and it should be OK. We wanted to do some music work with Hannah singing, and Garage Band is ideal for starting out.

2) I'd get a new laptop. I'm leaning toward a Powerbook 12". Two doubts about this laptop at the moment. One is the eternal fear that an updated version will be released mere moments after it is too late to change an order. Not much I can do about this... The second is the size: will the 12" screen be too small for me? Workaround for this is a KVM and use the nice big screen at work when I am here.

The biggest problem right now is budget. In theory I have some loans for the next year that will be kicking in soon and I do need a laptop. I often find that changing my location is good for my thoughts and focus and I can't take advantage of a portable with a broken screen. I can also go the "Student Developer Discount", which will give a nice 20% discount (see here for details). This makes it a little more palatable, but still not cheap.

Well, I know which of these inner voices will win, but hopefully I can hold out a little longer and wait until we're in a slightly better financial spot. I don't suppose anyone wants to throw an equipment grant my way... :-)

So the school library has started purchasing resources through an online library. While the USF library is otherwise excellent, I take issue with this decision for a number of reasons. Let me first state though, that I really don't have a problem with the concept of an "ebook", mostly just with this particular instantiation. Problems that should be fixed:

• Each page of the book is a separate document. In the browser window, the embedded Adobe Reader will show one page at a time. The main problem with this is flipping pages -- with network lag and often-slow loads, by the time the next page has loaded, I've lost the thread of the sentence. If I want to go back page to re-read a passage, wait... wait... wait... what was I going to read again?
• No apparent way to bookmark a passage -- or even a page. While not as draconian as it could be, even going so far as to allow the printing of a single page at a time, there is no online way to bookmark a page or otherwise save a location. This is especially troublesome because of the
• Short timeout. Don't get distracted and let the system timeout -- you'll need to search for the book again, reopen it, and go to the page you were on. What's that? Didn't note the page number before the book auto-closed? Hope you're patient while you search.
• Oh, and I can't get it to work right in Safari...

After Andrew's wedding, Hannah and I took a day or so of personal time before seeing all the family. We drove from Laramie to the Springs, taking the scenic route through the mountains. We stopped a few times for some fun. I wonder how long "Melty the Snowman" lasted?

Then we spent the night in Manitou Springs, and wandered around the town the following day. Manitou has the highest Bed and Breakfast per capita ratio of any town I've ever been in, but besides that is filled with little parks (most around the springs for which it gets its name).

Hannah hadn't seen much of this part of Colorado, so we did some touristy things like the Cliff Dwellings (we took the Cog Railway to the top of Pike's Peak the last time we were there together).

Andrew's wedding was first:

Very lovely ceremony. It was outdoors at an old, historic building in Laramie. We lucked out and ended up staying a mere block away from the wedding site. There was lots of singing (by friends of Andrew and Brennae), and during the reception, Hannah sang "Look to the Rainbow" a capella to the bride and groom. She said they were misting up:

And there was lots of dancing. Unfortunately for me, it was (almost) all folk dancing that they had been doing for years. So they would put a song on and everyone would form some complex shape and do some complicated footwork. I tried once or twice to follow along before I sat down. Hannah, being much more coordinated than I had no problem learning the steps.

Congratulations!

Man what a week... Hannah and I just got back from ten days in Colorado and Wyoming for Andrew and Brennae's wedding (Laramie), followed by my sister Karen's graduation from the US Air Force Academy and marriage (Colorado Springs).

I'll post some pictures, but all events were wonderful and I couldn't be happier for Andrew, Brennae, Karen (x2) and Frank.

Now this is obviously something that I need to work on, although the chances of fixing my handwriting are pretty slim. Apparently I write with my fingers instead of my whole arm. Of course, if you follow any martial art, this doesn't go far enough. I'd imagine I should really figure out how to write from my hara. Actually this might not be a bad idea, especially for teaching in front of a class and writing on the board.

Jeff Kramer is a new graduate student in the lab. He spent a few months in Japan recently, and posted pictures and a travelogue.

So it looks like Boblbee has some new bags that might one day satisfy my pack fetish. I currently am using the Megalopolis, which works well and leads one main question: 1) What the hell is that?

But I've been in the market for a laptop bag and Boblbee might be able to help out there:

or are possibilities. Any bag that lets you use tools to change the look is ok with me!

And of course there is the new Amphib, a soft-shell sport backpack:

Ultra-light snowboard climbing pack with extreme water resistence. Essentially waterproof, but not to be submersed. Molded protective lid, access to inside bag with snowboard mounted. Body moulded ultra- light shoulder straps. Super strong diecut Hypron waistbelt. Glued and laminated shells with Hypron canvas protection. Goggle and glove pocket. Waterproof welded lock. Ice ax/pole attachment. High density laminated moulded foam with rip protective nylon mesh. Shovel/rope/board guard in tauplin canvas.

Fun, huh?

Since we can't actually afford a new laptop at the moment, I did the next best thing: upgrades. A nice surprise over the weekend was the delivery of the RAM and hard drives. I'm now running a maxxed-out 1GB of RAM and have doubled the drive space to 40GB (hey, I said I'm on a budget). The upgrade was smooth -- just a little bit of tinkering to get the RAM seated properly. The hardest part was reinstalling the new drive into the Powerbook. The little rubber grommets don't like to stay in place.

But now the Powerbook G4 / 550 I bought when I stated grad school feels a bit smoother and faster. My new OS upgrade, Tiger, should be arriving in the next day or two and we'll see what that does.

Oh, I purchased the RAM from Omni Technologies, and the hard drive from NewEgg. Ordered both mid-last week and had them by the weekend. I ordered Tiger from Apple, of course, so I could use my student discount.

Not mine though, fortunately. Aaron got a job with Ocean Optics, working on the device drivers for some small inexpensive sensing devices. Since Aaron's working on the code, it they should have a good set of drivers for Windows, OS X, and Linux -- hopefully we can adapt some of the sensors for the robotics program at school. It might be useful to have a small sensor on the front of an Inuktun that can sense a variety of hazardous environments (such as arsenic), might it not?

But today was pretty easy -- we got him moved over in one trip. Aaron has maybe two heavy pieces of furniture. It is simple to move someone that doesn't even own a bed.

His new place is nice, a large one bedroom apartment in Dunedin, just a few miles from his office. Since he is in Dunedin, he is also just a few miles from the beach. Not too shabby.

Going to an art / performance thing at a local gallery. Here's the blurb:

"Curators Wendy Babcox and Ryan Berg bring their respective projects Slapdown! and Chariot to the main room for a double-billed opening night of spectacle, costume, Rock n Roll and women wrestlers. A one night only opening reception and performance of both the costumed glam rock cover band Chariot as well as the rabble rousing wrestling women of Slapdown! is the heart of this show and is not to be missed. The remainder of this month long exhibition will focus on the documentation of the performance itself as well as it’s remnants, touching ideas of natural and unnatural history, alter egos and their biography, and the relationship between art, performance, and the fuzzy spaces in between. Tattered and recreated costumes, photographic portraits of the performers, and the inevitable yet carefully produced event-related merchandise will fill the gallery, as well as large scale multimedia documentation of the show itself. "

Gallery address: 4606 N Florida Ave, Tampa, FL 33603

It looks like there are only a few rules that apply to us:

1) We should take a Premarital Preparation Course and read the online guide to marriage.

2) We both need to show up with valid picture ID

3) It will cost $93.50 without the course noted above, $61.00 with the course.

More information at the HC Tax Collector site, which lists prices oddly different from the above.

Ah, looks like an even better source is the Clerk of Circuit Court.

Found this on the web:

So George is doing yet another photo op at an elementary school, and this one’s been going pretty well, so he offers to take questions. A little boy raises his hand.

“I have five questions,” Steve says. “First, why did you go to war without UN approval? Second, why are you president when Gore got more votes? Third, where’s Osama bin Laden? Fourth, why did the bell for recess ring twenty minutes early? And fifth, what happened to Billy?”