Well, it started snowing today. The forcast doesn’t seem to indicate that it will be stopping anytime soon. As I was walking from Lot 9 to my office today, I was wondering just what the hell happened to fall. Now about three weeks ago, it was so damned hot, no one could stand it. Now today, it is about 35 degrees and snowing. Fall is generally considered that transition period from Summer (3 weeks ago) to Winter (about 5am this morning). I guess at 47.1 degrees North latitude, the time table gets pushed up a bit.
In other news, my super awsome parents have come through yet again and scored me a fly a new ride. Its a 2000 Chevy S10 with 4×4 and all the fix’ens. It handled pretty well in the bit of snow we had this morning. All of the garbage is gone and I got rid of all the brush. Pretty sweet deal. I’d post pictures, but my computer decided to go the way of my cars (it died). Not a real big surprise since it spent the whole summer sucking plaster into the power supply.
Sweet, my thermal modeling solution just came back from processesing and it doesn’t look like it’s making things up anymore.

I think the world has elected to leave me alone for a while because things seem to be coming together again. For instance, Matt and I are going to go and grab the tattered remains of my car - hopefully it will go home with him. My dad is also going to be lending me one of his work trucks so I can regain mobility. Even better, I managed to secure a ride (actually it will be more of a road trip) to Duluth to get the truck. Better still, this guy from Aerojet is here in town. I think he’s cutting a deal with my advisor for some hardware and stuff. In any case, he sat our research group down and we had a really good talk about space propulsion technology and where we should be looking. Cool deal, I can handle more days like this.

All right, I’m going to come clean here; I’ve posted long enough to this site for the “audience” to realize that there is much more that goes on then I actually post (this isn’t a diary or anything is it?). Continuing on, read some Kafka which should give some insight as to exactly how I live here.
I’ve decided that fate really has nothing to do with my recent misfortunes (since they extend over a year into the past). Rather, I’ve decided that I’m living the most intense life that is possible in the UP of Michigan. Between my travel schedule and the stuff that actually happens when I’m home, I quite possibly have one of the more interesting lives on the internet. The only problem is that I usually don’t write about this kind of stuff. Perhaps I should. We’ll start now then . . .
As was pointed out to me this past weekend, the 2nd definition of absurd: “Of, relating to, or manifesting the view that there is no order or value in human life or in the universe..” (dictionary.com for the curious). So what if that is true? I sort of believe that off the cuff since at any given moment we could be blinked out of existence by some interstellar body colliding to the Earth. What would we have to show for it? All most nothing. A couple of probes, but beyond that, humanity would go largely unnoticed into the void (what exactly “the void” is lends itself to some sort of religious belief which I will not expound upon here). For some true insite here, listen to Staind So Far Away since that’s what I was listening to when I wrote this.
Anyway, so where I chose to expound upon this point depends upon the feedback I get on this. I know that I get about 150 visits per day so people must have some sort of interest. Post!!!! So I can get some feed back!!!

Yeah, I’m getting by here. Hitching rides isn’t too bad. I usually wait until the end of a meeting or something then hit the group up for a ride. Lame yes, but two miles is quite a ways to walk. I’m attempting to negotiate the sale of the Talon to my neighbor Matt (owner of Matt’s Auto Glass). We’ll see how that goes; otherwise, it will just end up in the front yard until I can rip the engine out of it and sell if for scrap. Stupid car fires anyway. Although I must admit, I did have one to many cars thought. This sort of solved that problem albit not exactally in the most financialy conducive way. And one more thing as long as I’m this somewhat meaningless rant: I’m all caught up in heat transfer. Horray for me. I bet many more posts like this and no one will read the site. I promise, something really good (or more likely really bad) will happen tomorrow and I’ll spend some time talking about it. I’m just sort of putting the peices back together from last week so the content is a bit weak.

You know, sometimes I think there is some vast conspiracy afoot that seeks to probe my limits of tolerance. Why you ask? Because, my mother f-en Talon burned to the ground tonight. The timing really could not have been worse. Now this may seem like some sort of rant and I guess it really is, but the friggen Universe has really had it in for me the last month or so. Between car fires, dodging hurricanes, people moving out of the house, money getting tight and thus far sub optimal performance at my research (see above reasons) it really makes one wonder what the hell is going on.
Anyway . . . may as well tell the story. My friend Jon (who you’ll remember from the last post as the person I stayed with in DC) asked to borrow my car for the day. No problem, he hooked me up in a tight situation, we’re just returning a favor here; balance - all zen like. After a hard day of tossing up drywall in the hallway (which incidentally is finished and it looks great) I get a call at 8:32pm from Jon asking me how much I paid for the car. At first, I really thought he was joking. But as he continued to tell me about how it was sitting in the parking lot in front of DHH and the police and fire department were there putting out the fire, I began to get concerned. So my dad and I hopped in the Tahoe and took off for campus. What did we find when we got there? This:

Absolutely totaled. The interior is fine (albeit a bit wet), but the engine is totally toast. It didn’t get hot enough to melt aluminum (1220 degree F), it was surely enough to melt about everything else in there. Here’s a closer look at it:

This whole situation may seem a bit familiar probably because a while ago, my Eclipse caught on fire in the garage. I talked about it here and here. I mean really, who has both of thier cars start on fire? Sure the first one was my fault but I really had nothing to do with this one.
The best part about this whole thing, is that I called Geico (my insurance company) when I got home and was basically told to suck ass since I didn’t have comprehensive on the car. Admittedly that was my fault, but they wanted an extra $300 every six months for that . . . sort of wish I would have done it now since my cars have developed a propensity to spontaneously combust. And I had just put the snow tires on today too. At least I got to take it up to Quincy mine today and whip a couple of doughnuts before it detonated. I posted the rest of the pictures here What a mess.
So, I’m calling for comments here on this one; am I just destined to have terrible things happen to me every week, or has this just been a bizarre little span in my life? I need a beer. Cards may be sent to 315 Reservation Street, Hancock MI 49930.

What a great trip. Oddly enough, had a lot of fun and got done exactly what I went there to do. I guess we’ll start with work first (aimed mostly at the technically inclined) . . . I’m very pleased to report that my design of non-inverting amplifiers using 9 volt supplies and 3.3 volt level shifting worked perfectly (more or less). The design still has some offset issues (about 750mV), but the output does change with the input (which is good that it doesn’t just sit there). All told, it took about two days of sitting in a lab soldering stuff. Not really too exciting but it was fun in that “hey it might actually work” sort of way. It will have to go through another design iteration that’s for sure, but that will be left for those picking it up after me.
Now on to the good stuff. So I played couch commando at Jon (a friend of mine from school) place in a very nice townhome (shoes off) near the campus of the Univeristy of Maryland. This area would be the stage where some very interesting things would happen.
I rolled up on the DC Metro on Saturday after a largely uneventful plane ride. Actually, I shouldn’t say that, landing at Washington National (DCA) was interesting. Aparently the pilot that it was a good idea to take the ninja aproach route. In essence, he followed every little bend in the Potomic river. It was actually pretty cool though because you could actually feel the plane wings bending under the stress of heaving that damn thing around all the corners. I had no idea those big planes could be so agile. Anyway, the first night there we really didn’t do much other then catch up on some sleep.
The following day was a bit of a different story. Sometime during my stay, I wanted to go out to an Irish Pub. I just love those things. At the same time, I wanted to see the National mall and all of that good stuff. So we now have the perfect synthesis of tourism and Guniness. Some internet searching garnered us the location of our target: and Irish pub . . . in Chinatown. Whatever. After marching around outside pointing at crap and taking some pictures, it was beer time. The bar was your typical Irish pub - sort of dark with nice woodwork and a closed in feel. Five Guniness’s later, we’re out the door (a bit poorer too) and onto the metro. After the 30 minute train ride back to Greenbelt MD, I stopped by this dive of a liquor store snagged some more beer. Everytime that happens - one leads to two leads to ten. Stupid brain.
With beer in [my] hand, we arrive back at house to the company of his housemates. Long story made short, by the time Ben (go A Team) and I went to bed at 5 in the morning, all of the world’s problems had been solved and I had to be at NASA in 4 hours. Dammit.
To be continued . . . (I promise)

What a great trip. Oddly enough, had a lot of fun and got done exactly what I went there to do. I guess we’ll start with work first (aimed mostly at the technically inclined) . . . I’m very pleased to report that my design of non-inverting amplifiers using 9 volt supplies and 3.3 volt level shifting worked perfectly (more or less). The design still has some offset issues (about 750mV), but the output does change with the input (which is good that it doesn’t just sit there). All told, it took about two days of sitting in a lab soldering stuff. Not really too exciting but it was fun in that “hey it might actually work” sort of way. It will have to go through another design iteration that’s for sure, but that will be left for those picking it up after me.
Now on to the good stuff. So I played couch commando at Jon (a friend of mine from school) place in a very nice townhome (shoes off) near the campus of the Univeristy of Maryland. This area would be the stage where some very interesting things would happen.
I rolled up on the DC Metro on Saturday after a largely uneventful plane ride. Actually, I shouldn’t say that, landing at Washington National (DCA) was interesting. Aparently the pilot that it was a good idea to take the ninja aproach route. In essence, he followed every little bend in the Potomic river. It was actually pretty cool though because you could actually feel the plane wings bending under the stress of heaving that damn thing around all the corners. I had no idea those big planes could be so agile. Anyway, the first night there we really didn’t do much other then catch up on some sleep.
The following day was a bit of a different story. Sometime during my stay, I wanted to go out to an Irish Pub. I just love those things. At the same time, I wanted to see the National mall and all of that good stuff. So we now have the perfect synthesis of tourism and Guniness. Some internet searching garnered us the location of our target: and Irish pub . . . in Chinatown. Whatever. After marching around outside pointing at crap and taking some pictures, it was beer time. The bar was your typical Irish pub - sort of dark with nice woodwork and a closed in feel. Five Guniness’s later, we’re out the door (a bit poorer too) and onto the metro. After the 30 minute train ride back to Greenbelt MD, I stopped by this dive of a liquor store snagged some more beer. Everytime that happens - one leads to two leads to ten. Stupid brain.
With beer in [my] hand, we arrive back at house to the company of his housemates. Long story made short, by the time Ben (go A Team) and I went to bed at 5 in the morning, all of the world’s problems had been solved and I had to be at NASA in 4 hours. Dammit.
To be continued . . . (I promise)

Man, I sure know how to pick them. It would seem that Hurricane Isabel is making its way towards DC. See the picture here and the projected path here. My flight is schedule to leave Washington DC at 8:25 am on Thursday, but it will probably already be too bad here to leave. Its cool though because I always wanted to have a front row seat for a natural disaster (don’t worry mom & dad, I’m safe). Anyway, long day of work today so I’m going to go get some food.

Well, in about an hour, I’m taking off for Washington DC. My final destination is NASA Goddard in Greenbelt Maryland but flying into DC is really easy. The reason for the trip is to do a bit of resyncing on a project that I (and several others) have been working on for NASA. It should be an excellent trip that actually acomplishes some meaningful work. I’m bit worried that I have to check my bag with all of the electrical components in it but due to size and the overall lack of common sense in the aiport security people (look Bob, its a circuit board, he’s obviously a terrorist) it will just be easier. Well, I need to get going here. I’ll take a bunch of pictures and post them when I get back on Thursday.

Back by popular demand (and my computer finally being hooked up again), I’m proud to present the lastest and greatest pictures of the house. I walked around and took them yesterday. I tried to capture all the “trouble” areas of the house that are in various stages of completion. So: The House - 9-09-03.