Jul
18
San Diego
July 18, 2010 | Leave a Comment
I just got home from a whirlwind trip to San Diego.
Lets see…
I missed my flight in Eugene…. turns out the boarding pass machine turns off at 30 minutes before the flight. 27 minutes before the flight was too late… watched the plane leave.
I got a friend to help me drive to Portland. Drove to portland, checked in online in car, made the flight. Got to San Diego eight hours after getting up.
Had meetings until 6. Dinner from 7-9 in the Gaslamp at a Tapas restaurant.
Meetings from 9 to 11, then sleep.
Meetings from 9 til 12. Then visited Wavehouse and Mission beach. Then off to the USS Midway. Then off to the SD Maritime Museum. Then off to the House of Blues. Then off to the hotel for a meeting. Meetings… Then dinner at O’Brother’s organic burger joint. Then off to check out roof top bars. Saw the Stingaree club (amazing!), then the “Beach” on the roof of the W. Sleep finally at midnight.
Meetings from 8 til 10:30. Checkout at 11. Then off to the Air and Space museum. Then off to the Natural History Museum. Then off to Prado for lunch. Then a tour of Prado’s ballroom (great for a SD wedding). Then off to tour the Fleet museum. Then off to the airport.
Wow. That was a long trip. I got to see several of San Diego’s highlights. In a “one hour per location” pace, I got to see but not really inspect all these great places.
San Diego was fun. Now to rest and recover for normal life in Eugene.
Jun
23
Office Remodel
June 23, 2010 | Leave a Comment
A year or so ago, we hired an additional employee. This new employee was literally housed in a closet. In discussions on how to split our offices, we worked out how we could take out our three “spaces” and make three “equal” spaces. I came up with the clever plan to be “innovative”. The goal? Have a “collaborative and adaptive” working space. This brings in those new cool buzz words in academic computing. Needless to say, in hindsight, Im regretting this idea, but I think it will work out.
I took some pictures on the way attempting to document the construction.
Heres a pdf of the initial situation.
This was our proposed modification.
The door to the “closet” was the first to go. In about 20 minutes actually.
Next went the wall between the closet and the office.
The next step was to cut the hallway entrance to be big enough to hold the door frame. Turns out the opening was 32″ and needed to be 36″ to hold the door frame.
The light switch? Yeah, that wasnt going to be staying in its original location.
Got the door squeezed in to place.
That hand railing… oh yeah, fits baby. By the hair on our chins, but it fits!
There is a little bit of the floor missing. Where the wall was anchored to the floor.
Drywall makes everything better.
A full section between frame had to be cut out to feed conduit up for power and networking. That section being cut out appears to be missing from my pictures. But it got buttoned up nicely. The cut did require removal of one of the shelf brackets, so no more shelves. Hey, who forgot to take down the coat rack?
Ah thats better. I came in at 5:30 at night and took down the coat rack. Then made the framers fix the holes the next day.
The new floor tiles blend in well.
New “double” light switch.
The network guys re-pulled all the phone and network into our space. This turned out to be 24 lines in the end. And an entire new patch panel in our rack.
At the end, my office becomes our “conference room”. We can use it for confidential discussions, interviews, conference calls, meetings, or introverted work time.
The main work room. A window with a view, multiple couches, a large table on casters.
A single workstation and desk. Currently being used for our Windows 7 64bit image host.
My little modification. My remote controlled car collection is subtly displayed on the HVAC plumbing. One mustang, one mini, one VW van, and one f150 truck.
Jun
23
Fun with facial hair.
June 23, 2010 | Leave a Comment
So every few years I decide that I should grow a beard. Yet I never really do. This year, I tried something new.
From March til June, I didn’t really put any effort into shaving. And people started noticing and complementing me for it. Lesson learned? Apparently I look good in a goatee. And I hate having facial hair.
THis is what it looked like.
Then it transformed. One of my employees was leaving us after four years, and in appreciation for his work, my beard became a mustache.
The mustache lasted about a week. The kicking point was when someone pointed out that my face looked like it could belong on the cover of an x rated movie.
On the way towards cleanliness, I thought it might be interesting to pull something else off. So, without further ado, the “italian” look. Might be fun for a holloween some time to be Mario or Luigi from Super Mario Brothers and pull of that mustache, but I cant imagine in modern times wearing that around in public much.
Jun
13
Evan
June 13, 2010 | Leave a Comment
Last weekend my cousin Evan came to visit.
He and I are roughly the same age. From age 0-4, we lived near each other, and our families interacted regularly.
After 4, my family moved away. Since then, I have only seen him a few times. When we were 5/6, a family Christmas party at my aunts. At 12/13, we spent 2-3 days together at the same aunt’s house. At 21/20, I attended his wedding. At 22, I attended the funeral of his father. And twice in the last 5 years, I’ve visited him in San Diego at his house. Yet he is one of the few people in my extended family I talk to regularly. I see him as the closet thing to a brother I have (because we are blood related, and share many genetic similarities).
Anyways, background aside, he came to visit for 24 hours last weekend. Evan came to Oregon with his sister and her family. They all came to visit our parents’ cousins in Grants Pass. Evan and I made plans for one of the three days of their trip to be spent in Eugene.
Friday night, I drove down to Grants Pass. 150 miles round trip. I had dinner with all of our family.
The biggest surprise of the trip was my cousin’s daughter, Diana. I remember Diana as a little kid, as she is 6 years my junior. In my mind, I picture her as a teenager. The reality was much more startling; she is a beautiful young woman who is a striking clone of her mother. It is hard to see in the dark image below, but for those who remember Alison younger, I think it comes across.
Evan and I got back to Eugene about 9pm. We sat around talking about life and family for about 2 hours. It is amazing to sit and talk with family about family, and I keep finding opportunities to do so. After long talks, we settled on a night time tour of Eugene. I took Evan for a slice of pizza at Sy’s Pizza (a campus hole in the wall new york style pizza shop). We toured and had a drink at Rennie’s, as I discussed how many years of my life I wasted there. Then off to downtown, to tour the various establishments. Evan got a kick out of the laid back style of dress, and lack of cover charges found in our common bars. San Diego and Eugene are a slightly different type of bar life. I finally remembered to snap a picture at Jameson’s.
My plan on Saturday was to run Event 3 of Autocross. Evan was willing to participate. He was much more interested in seeing the Dunes. As an avid dirt bike rider, he spends a lot of time in the desert. He had heard many things about our dunes, and had never been to Oregon before. Thus, we settled on a tour of Oregon. The weather could not have been any more cooperative.
A quick stop at a grocery store yielded several examples of Oregon microbrews for him to take home. Ninkasi and Rogue mostly.
Then it was off to the sand. Here is what we found.
Evan took off down the 50 foot berm we were standing on, to feel the wonderfully cold water.
After South Jetty recreation area in Florence, we continued down the coast. We drove down 101 until shortly after Coos Bay.
We cut across on Highway 42 to Roseburg. About 10 miles in, we found America’s road trip food. A long discussion occured about how the only time you find these restaurants any more is rural places on major highways. And it always sounds like a good idea because you really want a rootbeer float!
Then down I-5 to Applegate. Arriving there, we had driven 340 miles. I dropped him off and headed home. All said and done, I drove 150 + 340 + 75, for almost 600 miles in 28 hours. And I finally learned that I get 35mpg on the highway. Thats pretty cool.
So thats a wrap. I’m glad he came to visit and hope he does so again in the future for a longer period of time.
May
13
Step two. Timing belt.
May 13, 2010 | Leave a Comment
The other major problem on my newly purchased grocery getter was the timing belt.
As best I could tell, with a simple visible inspection, was that the timing belt was old and worn. All indications, with the care taken of the rest of the vehicle, was that it hadn’t ever been changed.
The plan was to pull the water pump, the timing belt, and the tensioner on a friday night. Three weeks later, and that free time on a friday night had not quite happened.
So I broke down, and took it to Garage 808. James and Crede had fun today. Timing belt, water pump, tensioner, alt belt, cam seal, ps belt, valve gasket, coolant, hoses, fuel filter, thermostat. All replaced.
So the accessory belts… had been changed. They were aftermarket parts.
The timing belt. It was original. It was original. I can’t get over that. 170k miles on the same belt. And 17 years. Man. Thats awesome. The belt was worn pretty evenly down one side, but the ridges were worn down, and the rubber was splitting at each ridge.
The fuel filter. Most likely original. When turned upside down, a brown goo came out. It was like watching someone make jello. It was thick, chunky, and didnt even smell like gasoline. Sigh.
James kept all this stuff out for me to check out, because he was so incredulous. Neither of them had ever seen a 170k timing belt on a D series that was in one piece.
None of this is really… documented. But I can say that it’s amazing what a pressure wash does. I had that on the list of todo, but James couldn’t stand to work on it due to the filth… so its clean now. Check it out, before and after shots.