Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Environmental Fun

Ok, so we all know that Al Gore has gotten the world to agree that Global Warming is our number 1 priority. He also has pitched the theory that Global Warming is going to lead to famine. Is is possible that the push to use bio-fuels as alternatives to fossil fuels will push us to a global food shortage sooner?

I was sitting at work reading an article (sometimes work does not seem like work except for the topics that I have to read about) and it is talking about agriculture prices. The oil folks are starting to worry, both the food oil and the fossil fuel oil folks, that the demand for vegetable oils and oilseeds could lead to a food shortage.

It is a good counter-point that global warming may not bring on a food shortage, but the demand for bio-fuels in order to curtail global warming could drive us into a food shortage much faster. Cotton is approaching $0.80/lb but corn is up 50% over what it was last year which was enough to drive cotton acreage down by 29%. Corn stocks to use ratio is approaching an all time low, even with the record corn productions. European feed-wheat production is so low they are using corn for feed which drives the market even more. Corn plantings are expected to go down and switch to soybeans. Soybean prices are 70% higher than last year and climbing. Soybeans are approaching a record low stocks to use ratio as well. Then you get to throw in wheat which is more then double the price it was last year and is now more profitable then corn, soybeans, or cotton to grow. The price of cotton is expected to skyrocket.

China is expected to reduce cotton acreage to plant more soybeans.

Demand for cotton is at an all time high and yet cotton stocks are dwindling……….whacky.

Do you go naked? Starve? Or burn fossil fuels?

And this is why I don’t think ethanol or bio-diesel (made from soy or other plant stock, algae based bio-diesel is different) is a viable solution to the problem. The short sighted concern of global warming due to fossil fuel usage without looking at the whole system is causing much more pressing problems much sooner…………too bad the media is too ignorant to address a complicated problem in an honest way.

Monday, December 17, 2007

More Government Fun

Last week I was subjected to a week of "Introduction to Supervision" training by the government. A nice bit of irony is that I am no longer a supervisor. Now, for anyone who is expecting that the mandatory training that supervisors are supposed to receive would teach you the stuff you need to know to be a supervisor (like legal and administrative responsibilities and policies) you would be wrong. The training consisted of being taught how to "motivate" people and some tactics that might be marginally useful for giving annual performance appraisals. In fact, the little advice (I say advice because it was not a lesson) given on who to contact in case of conduct problems was wrong. There is a big difference between Employee Relations (discipline and firing people) and Human Resources (hiring and training people) in the government.

All I can say is ARGH!!!!! This is the last of my training for the year.....

Monday, December 10, 2007

Various Updates

Been really busy, but I am back now and ready for more government training. Starting tomorrow is "Introduction to Supervision". After being a supervisor for a good long while of a large number of people and now supervising no one the government is sending me to supervisor training.

I am planning for my January trip to Vegas. La wants to see the Vegas Sign Boneyard. If anyone knows where there is still mud wrestling in Vegas, please pass it on, La really really really wants to see some.

Brad Pitt is organizing a new project in New Orleans. To his credit he is putting up $5 million of his own money. On the other hand, it is only for the 9th ward and oh yeah, check out the proposed houses to see how architects continue to prove they are idiots. See specifically the MVRDV to see what I mean.

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Government Training Part One

Today was the first day of New Scientist Training. Leslie warned me that it was the three most useless days she spent in the government. As far as I can tell, she was right. We spent sessions teaching me stuff I have known from being in the agency for 9 years. I knew all of the speakers but the first one, who is one of the National Program Leaders (major program administrators in Washington) but I spent 2 hours at dinner with him tonight. The technology transfer presentation was painful since I am fairly well-versed in how screwy the office of tech transfer really is. The worst of all presentations was probably the one on publishing.....135 power point slides over 120 minutes, each slide was full of text with the same background and no graphics. The text was set to "fade in" on each slide. Copies of the slides were handed out before the presentation and the presentation consisted of being read the slides. Painful enough for you? Nope! When the presenter skipped a slide she did not go back, instead she ended the presentation, started over and then clicked through each slide until she caught up. FUN! The IT person did pretty much the same thing in her presentation.
Two more days to go.

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Assorted goings on....

Chicago Food
My dad was asking if I had good food in Chicago....short answer is yes.

Saturday morning we had brunch at Blueberry Hill Pancake House....very tasty Irish breakfast of potatoes and corned beef hash. On Saturday night we went to get pizza at Aurelio's which was yummy pizza but not the traditional Chicago deep-dish. I had a very tasty Leinenkugel beer with the pizza. Leinie's is a good brewery that I try to enjoy whenever I see it. They have been brewing good beer in Wisconsin for over 140 years.
On Sunday night we ate at Goose Island and I had very yummy sausage (Bratwurst, Knockwurst, and Thuringer) and for desert a damn good creme brulee' from Alhambra which is a funny story in and of itself which involves missing our train back to Homewood and two wasted filet mignons. After missing our train by only a minute or two we headed to Miller's Pub to kill 2 hours.
Monday we had tasty polish sausage at the AWS trade show and then really good mexican food but I don't know where where it was. I did have a yummy Sol with dinner.
I grabbed a bite to eat at the airport before my flight on Tuesday and treated myself to a SuperDawg, it was good but the peppers were a bit much.

Back at Work
Wow! I did not miss anything. I got to work and dove into making the revisions on my Beltwide manuscript for the conference in January (editing on the plane makes the flight go by). I turned it into my boss and he told me he would get it back to me but not to expect it this week (and he knows I am off next week). Oh yeah, he did not have the paper I gave him last Wednesday read yet either.....SURPRISE SURPRISE! Same ole shit.

The good news is that tomorrow is my last day until after Thanksgiving week.

Greenville is too damned small!!!!
I woke up with a sore throat. I figure this has something to do with going from warm Mississippi to cold Chicago which became warm Chicago to Mississippi which now has a cold front passing through. I figured it was no big deal, I would just stop at the drug store on my way to work. There are two to chose from, a Walgreens and a CVS. Nope, at 6:45AM this morning neither was open! I stopped at Walgreens on my way home from work and got a couple of things but I decided to get a couple more this evening. That was not so easy, apparently CVS closes as 8:00PM in the Delta. Off to Walgreens I go! They are open until 10:00PM....woohoo! Big City time!

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Returned to Delta

I got back from Chicago tonight. The flight from Little Rock to Midway was delayed by a half-hour (shocking that the flight might be late when the plane is not at the gate at the time you are supposed to be in the air) but the return flight left on time and even arrived early by 15 minutes. We must have had a heckuva tail-wind because the pilots kept apologizing for the turbulence. The drive back from Little Rock was uneventful.

Chicago was fun, but I am exhausted. I will just hit the beer highlights for starters. On Saturday night La and I went to Flossmoor Station Brewery. On Sunday night we went to Goose Island Brewery. On Monday evening we went to Brauhaus in Lincoln Park. It was all good (except for the Bourbon Imperial Stout at Goose Island, it makes my short list of very very bad beers).

If that list seems like a lot of beer it is not. There was more beer consumed at La's house as well as during dinners.....oh yeah a bit of bourbon was consumed as well.

More tomorrow. Time for bed.

Friday, November 9, 2007

Greetings from Little Rock

I am sitting in Little Rock National Airport. Yep, it is not an international airport, just a national airport. Arkansas is a strange place. This is a small airport and only a bit over 2 hours from Greenville (so comparable in drive as Jackson's and Memphis' airports are) and had the best price for a flight to Chicago. I have an hour to kill before my flight.
Security was a pain in the butt for such a small airport. One lady was checking IDs and she could not have worked slower if she tried (good federal employee). They had only one metal detector and one x-ray line running so it was also slow just to get through that.
On the bright side, they have free wireless throughout the airport!

I will be in Chicago until Tuesday afternoon. Many things are on the agenda, not the least of which is the AWS/FABTECH trade show (engineering geek that I am) and The Kiss at the Museum of Contemporary Art (the artist that La is).

Wednesday, November 7, 2007

Mardi Gras Po Boys

I tried out another restaurant in Greenville tonight. There is a relatively new place called "Mardi Gras Po Boys". I tried a muffuletta instead of a poboy. It was not a great muffuletta but considering that I am in the Delta it was not too bad. Oh yeah, if you don't know what a muffuletta is check here. The bread was not quite right, but close. The olive salad was the biggest weak link, not soft enough or enough oliver, more oil then anything else. Oh yeah, they needed more meat and cheese, but it was successful enough I might try a poboy from there soon.

Tuesday, November 6, 2007

Hot Tamale Heaven.........NOT!

I was driving home from work tonight and noticed a restaurant, Hot Tamale Heaven. The thing about this particular restaurant that caught my attention was that it is simply a portable metal building (like a construction site trailer) parked on a gravel lot with a drive up window and walk up window installed.
I guess I should explain that tamales are a big thing here in the Delta for some reason, not sure why, but you can check out Alton Brown's Feasting on Asphalt 2 for some information.
Anyway, so I was intrigued by this place and decided to give them a shot. The menu was interesting for a drive up shack: tamales, wings, burger, ripper dog, fish platter (it is the Delta), hush puppies (again, it is the Delta), country fried steak sandwich, fried tamales, and tamale pie. I decided to try some tamales and some wings. The tamales were ok, not too bad, the wings were just not worth a second try although they did smell really good.
I will probably go back and try some more items off the menu though. For those not familiar with a ripper dog, it is a hot dog tossed in a deep fryer until the skin rips open......mmmmm cardiologist friendly. I will also probably give their hush puppies a try because I still have not found any really good hush puppies here yet.

Monday, November 5, 2007

Weekend Update!

Just back from a nice 4 day weekend in NO. Four days flies by but was a lot of fun and I got a lot done. So we will start in a random spot:

Congratulations to Anna and Sean on their new marriage and very lovely wedding. La's singing was spot on. I need to thank Beau for the text message updates on the LSU-Alabama game during the wedding, because who gets married in NO during the LSU-Alabama game?

I did a ton of plumbing on the addition for the new bathroom and laundry room. Check out the newest pics on Picasa. Ron, I could have used your help. It is sort of like figuring out a big giant 3-D jigsaw puzzle. The vast majority of the DWV (drain-waste-ventilation) is done. I need to tie in the shower drain (need to buy it) and plumb the vent for the shower, which is also going to serve as the wet vent for the toilet. I also need to add a vent stack for the laundry room sink and tie all the vents together to go through the roof. The only other plumbing left for the addition is to do the supply lines, but that goes so much faster.

La has been trying to leave NO for 24 hours. I just got a text message that she is boarding the flight, so it looks like she will be successful. She was supposed to board a flight last night that was postponed and then canceled. La was rescheduled for tonight and when she got to the airport her flight was announced as being delayed. She needs to get back to work to keep Alcasco going, especially since I am heading to Chicago this Friday so she will be having a short work week anyway. Much beer is awaiting me in Chicago.

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

New Toy


It has been a number of years since I bothered to have a printer hooked up at home. The new job has me limited in my internet access and free reign to use the computer and being that I am stuck in the Delta for a bit longer I finally broke down and bought a new one. I need to be able to print thesis stuff and scan a few things so I decided to buy a multi-function printer. Long story short I ended up buying a HP LaserJet 3050. I got a good deal on it and then spent a chunk of time getting the drivers installed tonight.
I scanned and then edited the picture above from the original that survived Katrina. For those who don't know what it is, that is the tensile testing results from the nanocomposite fibers. There were a number of curves on the plot that were no good because of clamp slippage. The other problem is that all the curves were the same linestyle....that would suck for black and white printing so I had to convert one to a dotted line. For all your image manipulation needs I recommend the GIMP. I also resized the picture using one of the few good and free tools from Microsoft, the Image Resizer. Just scroll down and select the ImageResizer.exe. Once installed you can select one or a group of pictures and when you right click an option (besides cut, paste, etc) will be to resize. Super simple, super quick.

Oh yeah, this means I can now put this image into both my thesis and the latest paper I am working on!

Monday, October 29, 2007

WTF?!?!

Another boss rant....consider yourself warned! Actually it is 2 rants!

Friday my boss comes to see me with a paper that he has finally agreed to let go out to a journal. He has it in his hand and asks me "You do still plan on learning more about statistics don't you?"
Me: "Ummm yeah, why is there something wrong with the statistics in the paper?"
Boss: "No"

WTF?!?! Where did that come from? I mean really!

So today he brings me a Plan of Work that he was reviewing. I should explain that the Plain of Work is an internal document used to outline a project including such things as literature search, hypothesis, sampling and testing, etc.... This was an update of a previous Plan of Work. I added a part 2 to something he had previously approved! He admits as he comes in the room that he only has a few small things.....mostly grammatical. Now, I will admit that the grammar was not 100% spot on. I threw together a quick document for internal use....I guess I should have done better. Oh by the way, all of his grammar comments were in the original part of the document and not the new part of the document......he missed them the first time.
That is not the problem though, if all you can pick on is my grammar so be it. But no! He then tells me "you know, you don't need to do all variables for all projects" Ok, this may be, but this is a pretty big project and it is designed to allow us to establish some fundamentals, so I think it would be best to do all the variables we can. I explained this thought and he agreed that for this project it is important but he was "...just saying for future reference...." WTF?!?!?! I mean really!

I think Beau and Leslie have hit the nail on the head for this one.........ARGH!

Good news is that it is a short week for me....Wednesday night I am out of here for the rest of the week.

Thursday, October 25, 2007

Ahead or Behind the Curve

My boss asked me and my co-worker to turn in our abstracts for a conference for him to review. The conference deadline is Friday and he is asking us to turn them in on Thursday. I told him mine had been in his mailbox since Tuesday and he said he did recall my telling him that on Tuesday. My co-worker said he had not started one yet and was not sure that he was going to do one.
My boss then began "telling us a story" about a previous employee who always had his papers and presentations finished 4-5 months ahead of schedule. Now let's forget that I have only been on the job for a few months, and we can forget that I am head of the publication requirements for an entire year on the job in that short time, but WTF? I turn mine in before he asks about it (oh yeah, did I mention I found out about it on Monday?) and get lectured while my co-worker does not plan on doing one and it is all good.
My response to the story was that once you get ahead of the curve and have been doing the job for awhile you should be able to prepare presentations quickly and ahead of schedule. Perhaps I am ahead of the curve or perhaps I am permanently behind the curve....ideas?

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Save the Haus!

Deutsches Haus is home to the best Oktoberfest in New Orleans. The Haus has been a New Orleans fixture since 1928. The city of New Orleans has created an asinine plan to build a new LSU/VA hospital complex right on top of the Haus.

Now I have a few issues with this:
1) I am not a conspiracy theorist, but is it a coincidence that someone was buying up the property all around the Haus right before the announcement of this plan?
2) The city wants to spend $50 million out of $200 million in federal funds dedicated to repair streets and public buildings damaged in Katrina to buy the area around and including the Haus. The city would then give the land to the VA in exchange for the old VA property for the city to lease out or sell. Something does not smell right in that deal............ read about it here.

You can sign a petition to Save the Haus online.
If you get this comic you might be over educated. Thanks to Decorum for the comic.

Long day of writing papers (a new one almost ready to go to my boss for review, an abstract to submit for a presentation next July, and working on a presentation for January as well as two Plans of Work for next month) so more later.

Monday, October 22, 2007

Dating Math


I think this comic speaks volumes.

Check out xkcd for more comics.

Saw an interesting interview on CNN this weekend about global warming. A scientist from the University of Alabama was on. The reporter asked him why he had problems with Al Gore's movie and winning the Nobel Peace Prize for his work on global warming. I thought his answer was enlightening, to paraphrase "....to see someone speak with such confidence on a subject which I have spent most of my life working on and have been humbled and humiliated by the lack of knowledge we truly have on it is mind-boggling...." and "...although CNN reported the Arctic ice pack reaching its all-time minimum for records, CNN did not report that the Antarctic ice pack has reached its all-time maximum....". I thought it was some of the best discussion on the topic in the mainstream media. By the way, the CNN reporter had no rebuttal about the Antarctic ice pack.

Finally, for those who have not seen the story on Lt. Michael Murphy, USN you should. In short Lt. Murphy has been awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for actions in Afghanistan as the leader of a 4 man SEAL team.

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

New Bathroom and House Update



I have been knocking out a ton of work on the house lately. I am just about ready to start plumbing and installing the new bathroom for downstairs. I think I have a final plan for the bathroom thanks to a few friends, this design is inspired by some enlightening comments and ideas from Kathryn.
Hopefully if everything goes well, I will be building the last wall of the bathroom this weekend and installing the plumbing by next weekend. By Thanksgiving the subfloor should be down and finishing of the bathroom can be underway.

The second picture contains the floor plans of the house. Kind of nifty, at least in my opinion.
On the left is upstairs and incorporates the changes I have made although the bathroom for upstairs is wrong because I am no longer adding on a little bit. The kitchen is my rough layout.
Downstairs is on the right. The only thing I know for sure is the rear area. I don't even know what I am going to do with downstairs yet. I know I will need to add a bathroom somewhere, but that is off in the future.

Comments are appreciated.

Monday, October 15, 2007

Government Pay Bands

I am considering applying for a job with my nemesis, the Corps of Engineers. It would put me back in NO, which would be a good thing. The Corps has switched from the GS pay scale to the new idea of Pay Bands. So I decided to try to find some info on Pay Bands. Instead what I found was a semi-coherent rant on the way government employees are evaluated. You have to check it out!

Scary but true!

Sunday, October 14, 2007

New Route

I have a new route to help vary the trip from NO to Greenville. I usually shoot up I-55 to MS-27 (72 miles into MS on I-55) and that takes me through Crystal Springs and Utica to Vicksburg. Due north 82 miles on US-61 from Vicksburg will reach US-82 and in another 11 miles to the west I am in Greenville. I am now shooting down US-82 to the east through Indianola (birthplace of BB King) to US-49 which goes through Belzoni, MS (the catfish capital of the world) to Jackson and I-220 to I-20 and then right onto I-55 and due south.

This route is all 4 lane highways and has allowed me to shave 15-20 minutes off the drive. One of the new and interesting sites to see includes this giant cement teepee. Details of the teepee can be found here.

Friday, October 12, 2007

Hiring and Firing

A week in NO at the old job has left me with more questions then answers.
1) How is it that the government can take more then 19 months to finally get around to almost firing (in 30 days) an employee who has been suspended with pay at over $100,000 a year?
2) How can the government hire a manager who has been fired from almost every job he has ever held?
3) How can the government decide maybe they should apologize to someone 3 years after they run them out?
4) Is it normal to admit that you did not hire the smartest person in the job interview on purpose?
5) Is it normal to hire someone but give them no information on who their boss is or what their job is?

Just a few random ruminations that come to mind after a week at the old job..........

Monday, October 8, 2007

Ig Noble Awards

The contrast to the Noble Prize is the Ig Noble Award. As a government scientist I can appreciate them. Check them out. They are presented by the publishers of the Annals of Improbable Research.

This years winners are:
MEDICINE: Brian Witcombe of Gloucester, UK, and Dan Meyer of Antioch, Tennessee, USA, for their penetrating medical report "Sword Swallowing and Its Side Effects."
PHYSICS: L. Mahadevan of Harvard University, USA, and Enrique Cerda Villablanca of Universidad de Santiago de Chile, for studying how sheets become wrinkled.
BIOLOGY: Prof. Dr. Johanna E.M.H. van Bronswijk of Eindhoven University of Technology, The Netherlands, for doing a census of all the mites, insects, spiders, pseudoscorpions, crustaceans, bacteria, algae, ferns and fungi with whom we share our beds each night.
CHEMISTRY: Mayu Yamamoto of the International Medical Center of Japan, for developing a way to extract vanillin -- vanilla fragrance and flavoring -- from cow dung.
LINGUISTICS: Juan Manuel Toro, Josep B. Trobalon and Núria Sebastián-Gallés, of Universitat de Barcelona, for showing that rats sometimes cannot tell the difference between a person speaking Japanese backwards and a person speaking Dutch backwards.
LITERATURE: Glenda Browne of Blaxland, Blue Mountains, Australia, for her study of the word "the" -- and of the many ways it causes problems for anyone who tries to put things into alphabetical order.
PEACE: The Air Force Wright Laboratory, Dayton, Ohio, USA, for instigating research & development on a chemical weapon -- the so-called "gay bomb" -- that will make enemy soldiers become sexually irresistible to each other.
NUTRITION: Brian Wansink of Cornell University, for exploring the seemingly boundless appetites of human beings, by feeding them with a self-refilling, bottomless bowl of soup.
ECONOMICS: Kuo Cheng Hsieh, of Taichung, Taiwan, for patenting a device, in the year 2001, that catches bank robbers by dropping a net over them.
AVIATION: Patricia V. Agostino, Santiago A. Plano and Diego A. Golombek of Universidad Nacional de Quilmes, Argentina, for their discovery that Viagra aids jetlag recovery in hamsters.

Columbus Day Plumbing Fun!

Today is Columbus Day and therefore I get a day off of work. This day celebrates Columbus, who according to my sister, sailed from England to the New World in 1742. Ummmm, it was Spain to the New World in 1492, but close enough.
My day was spent digging old plumbing out from under my house. I drove up to the Delta this evening and will be heading back to NO tomorrow night to work in NO the rest of the week.
I removed a ton of cast iron plumbing from my house today, check out this piece, just the T weighs 16 lbs. For more of today's fun see here.

Thursday, October 4, 2007

Code Monkey Part Deux

Have results dribbling in from gin trials and previous projects. Today has been a number crunching day. La sent me this Code Monkey song. It is quite entertaining and I highly recommend it. It is catchy too. I fit in, but not a fan of Tab.

Next week is a crazy week. I am heading to NO this weekend since it is a 3 day weekend. I will be heading back to the Delta on Monday and then after work on Tuesday I will be heading back to NO to work in NO for the rest of the week. I am training two of the people they have hired to replace me.

Speaking of my old job, JC reminded me that I suffer from Cassandra Syndrome. We both thought it would stay behind when I left the old job, but it has somewhat followed me to the new one. Go figure.

Monday, October 1, 2007

The Big Move

My grandparents have been successfully moved from Ruston, LA tom Memphis, TN. All it took was 2 26 ft U-Hauls, 2 F-150s, 2 Minivans, 2 sedans and an SUV. Oh yeah, 80 lbs of dry ice, a dozen ice chests and a couple of cases of beer helped too.
A grand total of about 650 miles were driven over 54 hours, as well as loading and unloading of all vehicles.

I am tired. I am sore. I did see the new John Deere round cotton modules outside of Clarksdale, MS though.

Big plans for this week on a work note, will be heading into a commercial gin to run some trials now that the gins are up and running.

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

Ms. Mae's

One of the most New Orleans of New Orleans bars is Ms. Mae's. Ms. Mae's is located at the corner of Magazine St. and Napoleon. Ms. Mae's used to be located down the street at what is now St. Joe's Bar. If you don't like the crowd just wait a few minutes and it will change: College kids, frat boys and sorority girls, bikers, neighborhood folks, senior citizens, professionals, and drinkers alike. It is one of the cheapest places to get a drink as well and is an awesome choice for Mardi Gras drinking as all the Uptown parades line up in front of it. Cash only though.

The reason for this story is here. Ms. Mae's was damaged in a fire last night. Hopefully it will reopen soon. Ms. Mae herself could often be spotted sitting at the bar in college, but I have not seen her in awhile.

Monday, September 24, 2007

Work is an amazing place

When meeting with a trade group that is a major source of soft money (grants!) is it okay when asked to talk about your work to reply "I am not sure what I am working on right now?". No? Are you sure? Hmmm my colleague must have missed the memo.

This really happened today. The boss kept prodding him and spoon feeding topics to him, in the end did most of the talking for him. I have only been here for a few months but was able to talk intelligently about my work on several topics for 15 minutes or so.

I did manage to get a tour of where I work, which was nice since I had never really been shown completely around.

John Force

I enjoy NHRA drag racing. From an engineering standpoint it is truly phenomenal. The idea of a Nitro-Methane powered Funny Car pumping 8000 horsepower out of an 8 cylinder engine is unbelievable. Undoubtedly the best Funny Car driver ever is John Force. John has won 14 national championships from 1990 through last year. He won the national championship every year from 1993 through 2003, he owned the winning team in 2004 and came back to win in 2006. This year has a new format for the points and although he had the worst start to a season he has ever had through the half way point, including the death of a team mate (Eric Medlen) from a wreck in practice he had worked himself into position to challenge for the championship again this year. He won his 2nd round elimination race yesterday before an accident caused his car to rip in two and shatter and tumble. John had surgery today for a compound ankle fracture, extremely dislocated wrist, and lacerated knee. He is standing already. He is likely out for the year, although he has inquired to his doctors as to what it would take to be back in the car in 2 weeks. The man is a machine, best of luck to he and his family.

View the crash here. Notice, the chunk of car they follow is not John, his front wheels and enjoy are what they follow, not realizing the rear wheels and John were left at the point of impact. The thought is the foam marker that Kenny Bernstein hit, went under John's car and exploded his tire at the same time his chutes deployed, ripping the car apart. Oh yeah, that is 300 MPH and John won.

Thursday, September 20, 2007

Ramblings of a Government Worker

Boss is back after almost 2 weeks....damn. Off to a wonderful start. He ordered a new device and it did not come with instructions, whatever should we do? Apparently bring it to me and tell me to figure it out. Then, rather then ask me what I have been doing we had to schedule a meeting for tomorrow for me to tell him what I have been doing and what my plans are. I love scheduling meetings for stuff that we could just take care of on the spot.....c'est la vie.

I had to participate in a teleconference phone interview today for an attempt to hire a replacement employee for the old job. HR dumbed down all of the requirements and the list of candidates was woefully unqualified. Today's victim said he was very familar with Linux and used it for all of his work in one of his labs unless they had to modify a picture, then they had to switch to windows. Anyone who is fairly familiar with Linux should know about the GIMP. The GIMP is the GNU Image Manipulation Program and is one of the most popular Linux applications. There is a Windows version which I highly recommend. It is a great replacement for Adobe Photoshop and is free and Open Source.
Ok, I can forgive him for that (barely). The final straw was my asking if he understood what it was to accept a job and move to New Orleans right now (he is in the midwest). He said yes, he understood it would be hot. Ummmm, OK, what about the little Katrina thing down there? Cost of housing? Crime rate? Job located in a partial ghost-town? Nope! Just that it is hot!

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Talk Like a Pirate

The day be International Talk Like a Pirate Day. Pirate jokes and other booty may be found where X marks the spot, to assist in celebrating the day. A bottle of rum and a wench or two would be better.

On a Pirate related note, please examine the chart closely. I think Al Gore needs to be notified. I must attribute the chart to the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Also, anyone who wants a new and interesting job should check this out. I think NASA might be a bit desperate for good publicity.

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Chinese Food in Greenville

Another restaurant review from lovely Greenville, Mississippi. Tonight's special was Hunan Restaurant. There are a handful of Chinese restaurants in town and I thought I would try one tonight since after some very yummy Vietnamese food at both Pho Tau Bay and Tan Dinh in New Orleans.
I am pretty sure the place has not been redecorated since the early 1980s. It was a stereotypical sea of red and a bit of gold asian motif everywhere with a giant oversize wristwatch on the wall (similar to one my sister had in bedroom in the early 80s).
The service was friendly but slow. The prices were a bit high for Chinese food but not out of line and the quantity was impressive so if you consider it two meals (maybe more) it was worth it. The quality was good, but not great. The fried rice was ok, soy sauce made it better. The Hunan Chicken was good but hardly spicy.

On the other hand I was finally able to get new tires for my truck today. Apparently 275/70R17 tires can be a bit tricky to find. The Goodyear Tire store in Greenville was quite friendly and got the job done in less then an hour. 4 new Goodyear Eagle GT II tires for less then $650. Score 1 for Greenville.

Monday, September 17, 2007

Just say no to K-Ville

If you watched the premier of the new Fox series K-Ville tonight I think you will agree with me that the rest of the episodes should not see the light of day. It was bad. Really bad. Words defy me bad. Forget the couple of idiot actors trying to do a "New Orleans accent", forget the bad geography, the idiotic escape by boat from "the docks" (where might one go? how would one get in a small boat at the Mississippi River docks?), forget the evil white "Dubois" family that owns the casinos and lives on a plantation, it is just bad. The 9th Ward is referred to throughout, including the Upper 9th, I guess trying to show the producers know something about the real New Orleans. The premise is just bad, especially the stereotypical white cop/black cop partner/buddy theme. Of course the black cop is a veteran cop who stayed through the storm and his partner left him during the storm. The white cop has a secret too, he is actually an escaped prisoner from OPP, but the cop he is partnered with does not mind when he finds out. The truly bad moment was when they referenced "neutral ground" but never explained what it was. Another truly stunningly bad moment was the reference to a "Gumbo party". Fox....listen to me.....KILL IT NOW!

We don't need no stinkin' water!

I have complained about the brown water in the Delta in the past. Today is a bit different. No water. Most businesses would shut down without water, or perhaps notify the employees at a minimum if the water was to be turned off. Not the government.
The government owns a number of homes scattered throughout the research facility. These houses are maintained by the government and rented to some of the employees. Our electronics technician rents the building on our front lawn. This weekend he was digging a hole and ran into a water line and it broke. The government maintenance folks came out this morning to fix it and at some point terminated the water service to our facility. Of course they did not notify of this. We found out the hard way.

Last week: no power
Two weeks ago: no phones
This week: no water

What next?

Thursday, September 13, 2007

#!@#$@! Tropical Weather


I am speaking of Humberto. It turned into a hurricane overnight and zipped through Texas and into central Louisiana before becoming a Tropical Depression. It is currently dumping on the Delta and me. I am right near where Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi meet.
It is also bad timing for the cotton crop as the fields have been defoliated and were ready for harvest. The rain is bad, but if the wind comes tonight it will be really bad. The leaves are off the plants and there is nothing to protect the bolls from the wind. If the bolls hit the ground it is game over.

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

The Liquor Store

I finally broke down and hit one of the local liquor stores. I went to Chilie's on Hwy 82. It it the biggest in town and was recommended by a number of folks. Well it appears to have a pretty decent selection of wine and an okay selection of liquor. I was a bit stumped though. I worked for 2 years in a Liquor Wholesaler and have a better than average understanding of how a liquor store is arranged. I quickly located the liquors (very few) and the clears (vodka, gin, tequila) and around the corner from that was an adequate selection of Irish Whiskey and Scotch. By adequate I mean they carry Jameson, Bushmills, and Blackbush. I looked around but did not find bourbon. I was on a quest for bourbon, I keep a very nice bottle or two of Scotch in the apartment as well as Irish Whisky but was out of bourbon. Mike hooked me up with a bottle of Maker's Mark when I moved here and I knocked that off a few weeks ago. I was hoping to find a bottle of Booker's which is my preferred brand (although it is more then a little pricey). I blame Grover, he got me hooked on it.

Anyway, the bourbon, Canadian, and sour mash whiskey is all behind the counter for some reason at this place. I had to wait for the owner to finish talking to a customer about how the guy's son got popped in the face by his rifle scope while deer hunting and therefore took 3 shots to hit a deer (perhaps deer in these parts are a bit dumb thanks to the brown water). I asked for a fifth of Maker's Mark as it was the top brand they carry and the guy asked me if I needed anything else. I said that was it and as he rang it up he asked where I was from. He did not believe I was from NO....don't know why. What happened next was a 15 minute conversation about where I went to college, why was I in Greenville, how big was UNO, was it a private school, how did I like LSU, how big is LSU's graduate school, and was I really from NO....bizarre, but friendly. Remember, it is important to be friends with your liquor suppliers. After all, Grover and I still get great service at Elio's.

If you are in NO and need a drink, especially a keg, check out Elio's. Check out the list of kegs available on the website, it is the most extensive list I have seen anywhere!

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

Lots of stuff

Boss is out of town so I have been editing a paper for the umpteenth time since he has made more "suggestions" for the umpteenth time. I took some time out from editing to focus on one of my latest projects (also known as the "throw chris under the bus" project). This means I have been doing Split-Plot experimental design data analysis with Minitab. Minitab is my preferred statistical analysis package, I find it much easier then SAS and it will be interesting to see my boss' reaction to my use of it. I have used it for a number of years, but never as much as in my new job. My boss is big on "statistics", not that I have seen much in the way of real good statistics coming out of the lab, but that is a story for another day. Suffice it to say, Garbage In = Garbage Out and nothing will improve that. I may not be the smartest, but I have integrity.

I am taking advantage of my time in Greenville to do some planning for my house. The downstairs addition is coming along nicely and I am trying to figure out the downstairs bathroom. I am considering doing a tile shower to add a 3/4 bath to the laundry/entry area. I am discoverd a nifty system called the Kerdi system. You can read more about it here.

I also have decided it is time to buy an actual bed. The air mattress is starting to need air almost daily and has needed two patches. Yes, I really am that lazy that I am still using an air mattress. I used one in Clemson for about 5 months, so this is not that new of a concept. Jacqueline pointed me to Overstock, as they have shipping for $2.95 and a number of places are dumping their old mattresses. The regulations just changed on July 1 to require more strict flammability regulations. This is what Jacqueline works on nowadays. I did not see anything that jumped out at me, but I did find Mattress.com which looks like it might workout. I need to look into it more. Anyone have suggestions on where to get a really decent firm mattress in the middle of nowhere?

Sunday, September 9, 2007

Back in the Delta

Vacation is over. I am back in the Delta.
Vacation was good but a bit short. I got a lot of work done on the house and even put in about 7 hours of work.....ARGH!

This should be an interesting week and a half with my boss gone.

If anyone is going to be in Indianapolis in September, check out ORANJE, La will be presenting some art at the show.

I finally got my truck in the shop at Chief. Progressive has been a pain in the rear to do business with, but only because the claim rep I was assigned does not believe in returning phone calls and instead likes to call late in the day on weekends or holidays. I got her boss on the phone and was able to get a rental car lined up. This is a bit unusual for me, but I was rented a car that I had never seen or heard of: Ford's Edge. It is a crossover-SUV similar to Nissan's Murano. It is okay, but I prefer my truck. It was good to see some progress happening at Chief, even though it meant leaving my keys with either the idiot or the ex-con at the shop as Barry had taken his wife to dinner on Saturday. They are still the best place to get body work done in New Orleans even without electricity, but it is coming.

I made a run to one of my absolute favorite lumberyards in New Orleans before dropping my truck off. It is hard to transport 14' pieces of Cypress siding without a truck. Bourg is a very small lumber yard, but they carry a ton of inventory. They specialize in a lot of the materials needed to build a proper New Orleans house. They have the best quality and price on cypress siding and also carry the tongue-and-groove porch boards used on the porches across the city. In addition to 25 pieces of 14' cypress (I had 16 16' boards left from my garage front) I picked up a half-dozen 5/4 x 6 x 12' pressure treated boards to be the corner boards on the addition when I install the siding. The neat part was that this was the absolute best looking PT wood I have ever seen. I have never seen #1 grade PT wood, this means almost no knots and the few knots are incredibly small. It was not cheap, but well worth it at $1.85 per linear foot. Thankfully I don't need to too much of the stuff. I enjoy going to Bourg, but it always costs me quite a bit of $$$$. It is one of the few places where I usually don't ask price, just get what I need. If I am there, they have what I need and it will be the best price for what I am getting. I also love their location, they are in the Marigny/Bywater area on S. Peters and it is a very NO experience to go there and then have to drive through the Quarter to get my haul home.

Wednesday, September 5, 2007

Random Ruminations

I survived the weekend at the farm. There was a first time event, we ran out of beer. One case of champagne (actually Spanish Cava), 6 cases of beer, and a large bottle of Vodka are all history. Many stories will come forth from this little adventure.

I am in NO for the rest of the week enjoying some time off and working on my house. Now it looks like I have to go into my old job for a few hours tomorrow to interview someone. The funny thing is I don't even know what I am interviewing this person for.....go figure. Gotta love government efficiency.

Thursday, August 30, 2007

LSU Football

I am not the biggest LSU fan in the world, nor am I the biggest football fan in the world. That being said, drinking a nice Abita Amber and watching LSU dominate Mississippi State 45-0 was quite enjoyable considering they did it at Starkville and most of my coworkers are Mississippi State fans.

Tomorrow is my last day of work for a week. The government enjoys a 3 day weekend for Labor Day and then I am taking the rest of the week off. This may be the longest stretch of time off I have taken since before Katrina.....crazy. Off to Ruston for the weekend and then down to NO.....stay tuned kiddies.....

Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Katrina

Today is the 2nd anniversary of Katrina, I am sure by now everyone is sick and tired of the news coverage....I know I am. So, how about some math?

Gary, IN had a murder rate of 48 murders per 100,000 people in 2006.
New York had a murder rate of 7.3 murders per 100,000 people in 2006.
Gary had the second highest murder rate in the country.

New Orleans had the highest………
70 murders per 100,000 people, 25% higher then second place.
CNN is reporting on the crime and they are saying NO is on track to hit 200 this year (161 last year). However, they are wrong, they say NO is at 137 so far, in reality NO is in the 150s already. I think 151 was this past weekend, family of 5 Vietnamese shot in the East, 2 dead 3 wounded, home invasion robbery.
I had a coworker tell me how he was watching the news about Katrina and they said there had been 150 murders SINCE Katrina, and he was appalled at that number. I had to explain to him that it was not since Katrina, just this year. I guess he will stop telling me about the “high crime rate” in Greenville now.

In other commentary, how about a travelogue?
As everyone knows I am in Greenville, MS. Two years ago I was in Ruston, LA for about a month. Then I ended up in Clemson, SC (actually I lived in Seneca and worked in Clemson and spent a chunk of time in Greenville, South Carolina that is) for 9 months or so before heading back to NO before making this little move.
My sister, Melissa, went from Ruston to Jackson, MS for 4 months and then back home. My parents ended up from Ruston to Alexandria and then back home.
La ended up in Monroe for a shortwhile and then caved in on her southern departure and went back to the Chicago area.
Jacqueline went to Houston, then Memphis, then Athens, GA, and now Washington, DC.
Leslie may be the most travelled, she went to Leesvile, LA (and got whacked by Rita) and then Blacksburg, VA, and finally settled in San Antonio with pretty much a whole new life.
Elena got run out of town and had to finally give in and move to Houston with Beau.
My old boss, Devron, ended up settling in at Clemson, and decided not to retire.

I think that is a cursory overview of some of the traveling in the last two weeks.

Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Katrina -1

Tomorrow is the anniversary of "the thing" and all the fun that has shaken up so many of our lives in the last two years. I don't have too much to say, but I think if you have not been following Chris Rose's columns you have been missing something.
He has been a master at telling the story of New Orleans and the idiots who run the city. His book "1 Dead in Attic" is a must read. Unfortunately, he has been going through even more hell lately but keeping it to himself. I encourage you to read about it, especially if you have been following his columns for the last two years. Another good thing to check out is NPR's coverage by Chris Rose.

I am not usually a serious person, especially on here, but I think it deserves a mention.

Sunday, August 26, 2007

Weather Control

China is promising that rain will not interrupt the weather for the Beijing Olympics. They have dumped tons of money into research and practice to be able to control the weather around venues. I have a better solution: ME!
Some of you may not know that I have the ability to control the weather. I can't make it not rain but I can make it rain. I simply work on my house and it rains. Like magic!

Yes, boys and girls, the second day of working on my house this weekend was rained out like so many other days on my house have been.
This weekend's fun!

Saturday, August 25, 2007

Government Problem Solving

My boss got reamed for our industrious unit not meeting the majority of our 30+ annual benchmarks and milestones. Why did we not meet them? I don't know for sure since I was not working here, but his answer was that none of the current staff work as hard as the previous boss. Umm, perhaps that was not the best answer he could have used.
So what is the problem with this? Congress does not care which benchmarks we hit, they want to know as an agency what our total percentage of hit benchmarks his. We hit 85% last year and Congress would like 90% this year.
The solution?

Rewrite the benchmarks and milestones of course! How simple! This includes the milestones for the year that just finished. We went from 30+ to 9! Want to guess our success rate for the past year? A whopping 100%!

Your tax dollars at work! Bet your job can't improve efficiency that much in one day!

Think I am joking? Sadly I am not.

Thursday, August 23, 2007

Deep Fried Food Is Always Better

I thought I posted about this, but La pointed out that I hadn't. I looked back and realized it coincided with "Is Your Boss Evil?" and well, obviously I had other things on my mind at the time. In my continuing quest for food in the Delta some of it found me last week. We had a lunch at the lab which was the usual catering food in the Delta: fried catfish. To go with the catfish was the usual french fries and hush puppies. The hush puppies are a bit plain in the Delta as they don't believe in much seasoning beyond salt and pepper. However there was a third side dish that appeared to be an egg roll on steriods: fried corn on the cob. It was not bad, not great, but interesting and tasty.
I guess in the South you really can fry anything.
Oh yeah, desert was banana pudding.

Monday, August 20, 2007

Connecting Motorola RAZR V3 to Computer

In the previous post I included a picture from the accident that was taken by my cellphone. Anyone who has a Motorola RAZR has noticed that they included a mini-usb port on the side of the phone to charge it with. You might think it is a simple process to just plug the usb cable into your PC and RAZR and connect..........nope. That won't even get your phone to recharge. You can buy a cable (any mini-USB will work) and software from Motorola for $50 or more or you can use the power of Google.
****************************************************
WARNING!
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This is not as simple as it should be. It took me over 2 hours of screwing around to figure out how to do it easily. You need some drivers which are found in a file called "razr V3 usb driver.zip". Installing these drivers will allow your computer to recharge your cellphone....handy but of limited use. Then you need a software package called P2K Commander. That can be found here. Installing this program will then require you to go to System and Device Manager and right-click on the cellphone in Device Manager. Three different applications need to have the drivers update, however they are all included in P2K Commander, just point Windows to that directory and you will be good to go. Then reconnect your phone to your computer and start P2K Commander. You can then navigate around on your phone and move files to and from. That alone has a learning curve as well. If anyone is curious for specifics just let me know. It is a very useful tool.

Traffic Accident Pictures

I promised pictures from this weekend's adventure and here they are. Mustang meets F-150: CRUNCH!
And for comparison is a picture from the Escort that ran into the front of my truck on August 12, 2006 (Yeah, just 53 weeks earlier).

Sunday, August 19, 2007

Termites and Traffic Accidents

So a second wall was torn down and rebuilt this weekend, unfortunately I did come across a few live termites, however chemicals solve that problem. That was a nice part of the weekend.
That night my truck got hit for the third time since I have owned . In all three cases it was parked, this time, however, I was in it. I had just parked in front of Theo's Pizza on Magazine (good grub) when a person in a "slightly altered" state rear-ended my truck. Once again a fiberglass and plastic front end of a car was no match of the solid Detroit steel bumper of my truck. Pics will be coming soon.

Tuesday, August 14, 2007

Is your boss evil?

Okay kids! Question time. As the title says, is your boss evil?

Mine may be. He has already told me he hired me because I was the most qualified person and at other times that I was the easiest to hire (long story short, that is not true). Today I found out that a project he assigned me to is a project he was explicitly suggested not to do. I will be working with a salesman who can best be described as a snake oil salesman. The last agency scientist to work with him had their career ruined when he disputed the results and went on a letter writing campaign against the scientist.
When a senior staffer of the agency asked my boss why he had accepted this project, especially assigning the newest scientist to the project, his response was "It is Chris on the firing line if it goes bad". The senior staffer at that point reminded my boss that part of his job is to protect his scientists...my boss was silent.
So I ask you: Is your boss evil? Mine might be.


Out of the frying pan and into the fire.

Government Fun!

I was at my old job in NO yesterday and was reminded of some of the fun reasons I don't work there anymore.
For starters, the Center Director aka Mr. Burns has finally decided to retire....effective in January.
The Agency has decided to allow the Chemistry group to replace a few people, my favorite being replacing someone who has not been fired but will be fired maybe although he has been on paid leave for 18 months at $129,000 per year and he can not be replaced until he is maybe possibly eventually fired. Confused yet?

Anyway, I was down there to interview candidates for a job. Neither candidate was an ideal fit for the job, but c'est la vie. The best part of all of this may be the list of questions my old boss wrote up for us to go through with the candidates, including:
1) Tell us about yourself?
2) What are your short-term and long-term goals?
3) Give an example of a real situation or activity where you had to overcome obstacles, barriers, or differences of opinion in order to resolve a conflict or difference in a satisfactory manner.
4) What is/was the biggest accomplishment in your life?

Oh yeah, for those who are wondering my old boss admitted to reading through HR manuals to make up his list of questions.

Thursday, August 9, 2007

P and NP Complete

There is a set of terms on computational math called P and NP. NP-complete problems are non-deterministic in polynomial time, or basically they are damn hard to actually prove the correct solution. Fuzzy logic, genetic algorithms, and other fun sorts of math must be used to approximate the solutions. For example, there is a problem known as the Traveling Salesman Problem (TSP). It sounds very simple: "Given a number of cities and the costs of traveling from any city to any other city, what is the cheapest round-trip route that visits each city exactly once and then returns to the starting city?"
The math in this problem is resolved readily into a solution space of (n-1)!/2 where n is the number of cities. This seems easy to brute force, after all if there are 3 cities then n=3 and the solution space is 1, if there are 4 cities then the solution space is 3. Not too hard, right? If there are 5 cities then the solution space is 12. A slightly larger set. That is the catch, if the number of cities is 6 then solution space is 60. For an example as to why this gets hard to solve, at 10 cities the solution space becomes 181,440.
The reason for all of this, besides the fact that I sat through classes on this crap, is that a scientist is using this problem as a possible trial for using photons to perform computations. A few years ago someone proposed using DNA, however individual DNA are too big to actually solve complex problems, because as you can see from above, you need incredibly large numbers to solve this problems. In the case of n=10 you would need 181,440 pieces of DNA, which is not too bad. However, when you get into larger and more realistic numbers, it becomes physically too large. For example, n=100 requires 4.7E+155 (for the non-math folks that is 47 with 154 0s behind which is a really really big number. Photons are considerably smaller then DNA, in fact they are so small they have essentially no mass but are merely sized by the energy they carry. A photon of visible light possesses 4E-19 Joules. 1 Joule = 1 kg *m^2/s^2. The energy is related to the speed of the mass moving in other words, 1 J also is equal to 1 Watt-sec (recall we pay for power by kilowatt-hour). So to solve a TSP problem where n=100 would utilize 6.72E+137 kilowatt-hours. At current Entergy rates in MS of 1kWh costing $0.007365 (less then $0.01) it would cost $4.95E+135, or more money then you can imagine.
Ok, I admit it, I am a huge geek sometimes!

Thesis update: Onto the conclusions and working page 62 at the end of the day. Still have conclusions, future work, and appendices to do.

Wednesday, August 8, 2007

A Couple of Assorted Rants

I was at the grocery store today, one of the 2 in town, both of which are Kroger. Anyway, Kroger like every other damn grocery store has their own discount card. I have a strict policy of not bothering with those discount cards for several reasons. Most stores have cashiers who will use their own card if you don't have one, so it is not like I am losing out on savings. Today the original bill was like $24 and with the discount card it was $19. That is a pretty hefty bump in the prices if you don't use the discount card. I don't use them because everywhere I go is a different grocery and this is the first time I have lived some place that only has one chain of stores. I also hate to carry around the little card and don't want more crap in the mail. I could give out false information but I don't want to carry the card. What infuriates me is that if you don't use the card the store makes a lot more money on you. If you do use the card the store does still make a lot more money because they sell the data they collect. A couple of years ago when I was taking courses on data mining, the going rate for the checkout data was $10,000 per gigabyte. That is crazy, especially since the data is skewed.

My other rant is the reason I was at the grocery today. I am supposed to be in NO on Monday for work. I am interviewing some new people to run the test lab in NO. My boss approved of the schedule with my old boss last week, but he did not tell me until this morning. That would be after I asked him this morning if he had talked to my old boss. He said he had and he had written a note to talk to me about it but forgot it. A little while later I asked him when was the Delta Council meeting next week and he told me it was Tuesday morning.....that would be useful when you have me in NO for work on Monday. I guess that means a late night drive back from NO on Monday night. But it gets better, around 3:30 this afternoon my boss decides to tell me that a few weeks ago he made plans for a vendor to come visit he and I on Tuesday afternoon as well. This sort of information is useful....do not keep it to yourself! Because I will be out of town all weekend and not back until after 10:00 on Monday I had to get my grocery shopping out of the way for at least the early part of next week.....ARGH!

Thesis update: Working page 51 this afternoon. This section is nanocomposite nonwoven formation......oh boy!

Tuesday, August 7, 2007

Thesis Fun!

One of my goals when I took the job here in the Delta was to finally get around to knocking out my thesis and finally putting this little adventure through LSU Grad School behind me. Things have been a bit slow at work for the last week or two while I am waiting for a vendor to check out a machine and waiting for harvest time to come around. As a result of sitting in my office and having read a ton of papers on cotton ginning, I decided to start the thesis. In the last 5 work days I have knocked out 42 pages. I was averaging 9 pages a day until today. At this rate I am hoping to have the whole thing in rough draft form in the next two weeks.
Anyone who does not know what the thesis is all about can check the patent out.

And for those who don't know, I owe a huge THANKS to Leslie for doing probably 99% of the work! I was in the right place at the right time.

Monday, August 6, 2007

Tools!

As per my last post, I was knocking work out on the house and got to play with some of my favorite toys...umm I mean tools.
Joist Hangers are a wonderful invention and allow for one person to easily build a joist system and it is multiple times stronger then a traditional toe-nailed or end-grain nailed system.
Bostitch Palm Nailers are a great replacement for traditional frame nailers or a hammer for those who still use such things. It works great for working with the fasteners like the joist hangers above and for places a framing nail gun can't fit. It works with regular nails and is a nice addition to the tool box.
I still love my Framing Nail Gun, which is one of the most useful tools I own.
There has been a great invention from Bostitch for use in nail guns and that is the HurriQuake nail. A lot of work went into developing this nail which has received a lot of awards.
And finally, just so everyone does not think I only enjoy using expensive power tools, I do have a few more traditional tools that were handy this weekend. An upgrade to a 1 quart industrial caulk gun is useful when using construction adhesive. A standard caulk gun is 1/10 of a gallon, so a 1 quart caulk gun holds 2 1/2 times more which is nice when you are working fast on big pieces like say the entire rim joist of my addition. I do use a hammer some times, there are still good uses for one. I do have a framing hammer that I like to use.

Sunday, August 5, 2007

House Renovation Fun

I am in NO for the weekend (shock!) and finally have a chance to get some work done on my house. The addition on the back is in pretty bad shape. It was added on in the 1950s and then was converted to a laundry room and 3/4 bath when the house was split into apartments 20+ years ago. The pictures show that moisture and crap wood combine to be a haven for termites. The flooring is redone now, but there is much much more work to be done on this addition in the next few weeks. There is also some lovely plumbing to be straightened out.
I thought you all would enjoy the pictures.

Also got to enjoy some good food while in town. Check out La Vita.

If anyone is a fan of the Food Network, in particular Alton Brown, check out his second series of Feasting on Asphalt. The first episode aired last night and was in New Orleans.

Thursday, August 2, 2007

Dumas, AR

So earlier this week I attended a Ginners' Association meeting Dumas, AR. Dumas, like Greenville, is in the middle of nowhere. It is pretty humorous when no one in the room lives in the town, even though a number of them work there. I do applaud the fine folks in Dumas for putting out a big bottle of Crown Royal and Jack Daniels before the dinner and meeting began. Good booze and good fried catfish, the combination was almost enough to make the drive worthwhile. One thing though, folks in the Delta do not make the best hushpuppies to go with their catfish.

Monday, July 30, 2007

The Simpsons

If you have not gone to see the movie, and you are a fan, make plans to go see it. It is good. I agree with one of the first reviews, "It didn't suck!" It is not the greatest movie of all time, perhaps not even the best episode ever, but it does the job. It is about 90 minutes long and some of the detailed scenes are impressive. The PG rating is sort of funny because it allows the Bart nude scene and Marge to say "Goddamn". I am sure you have seen the commercials about "Spiderpig", it is a recurring theme and I would advise you to stay for the entire credits.

In other news, Melissa's dog Nixon has a new name: Dingo. And here is a crappy picture of Dingo.

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Cingular/AT&T Sucks!

I had a Sprint cell phone for many many years. Upon moving to the Delta I had to switch to a different service provider. The options here are Cellular South and AT&T. That made it a no-brainer, so I transferred my number to AT&T. The transfer was not without complications, but I eventually got it done. This was done with no help from the local service reps at the one and only AT&T store in town. Two weeks ago my new RAZR phone went dead on me. Once I got it up and running again it worked but not 100%, it acted as if the cover was always open. This was an annoyance but I managed. That is at least until last night. I was on the phone and hung up and plugged the phone in to recharge. Suddenly the phone was acting properly! I got out the shower and went to take a look at the phone only to find it was dead. The phone was charging but would not turn on.
So this morning I drove over to the one and only store in town. The store's response was to call the 1-800 number for customer service. Gee, I could never have done that myself. AT&T's response is to ship me a new phone....so suck it up and have no service for a few days. The woman at the store assured me a phone could be delivered by tomorrow. The customer service rep said it would be 5 to 6 days unless I was willing to pay $7 for 2 day service. I bit the bullet and paid the $7. Of course I would like phone service in the meantime. So off to Wal-Mart I was sent to by a Cingular Go-Phone (prepaid service disposable phone). It was never made clear to me why I could not buy the phone at the AT&T store. I bought the cheapest one they had, so $20 later I have cell phone service again on what might be the smallest and crappiest cell phone made. Popped the SIM card out of my dead phone and into the Go-Phone and it is all good until my replacement phone arrives.

In other news, try the Muppet Personality Test:
You Are Animal

A complete lunatic, you're operating on 100% animal instincts.
You thrive on uncontrolled energy, and you're downright scary.
But you sure can beat a good drum.
"Kill! Kill!"

Monday, July 23, 2007

Redneck Home Renovation

So the backstairs on my house needed to come down. How best to accomplish this task?

How about a chainsaw and a sledge hammer?

Within a few minutes the stairs were down and a bit extra came with it. The landing was in pretty bad shape. The last picture shows rim joist being rotted/termite eaten. I missed the fence by just an inch or two. Within another 30 minutes the chainsaw had reduced the stairs to scrap.


In other news, Nixon is back from the vet/kennel. Melissa has changed his name to Brewski, however as of this afternoon it was now Jackal. It will be interesting to see what name she settles on.

Sunday, July 22, 2007

New Canine Family Member

Many of you know that I have a dog, Boozer, who is a lab mutt that was released by a college student in Ruston. She wandered onto my grandparents' farm and eventually ended up coming to live with me in Metairie. I moved to my house and Gretna and no longer had a yard so she moved to my parents' house. After Katrina she lived on the farm and then with my sister, Melissa, in her house by the Fairgrounds. She is now back in Gretna.
My sister in Philly has two Golden Retrievers, Acadia and Remoulade (Rummy for short). Melissa and Rene had a Great Dane, Mi Dawg, for a number of years but he died a few months ago. Well, as of this weekend they have a new dog.
The latest canine family member is Nixon. Pictures will be coming soon. Nixon is a Catahoula/Pit mix. He was abandoned in his crate with all of his papers and food and water in the Warehouse District of NO, in front of an apartment complex. Melissa and Rene were out to dinner and ran into someone from Southern Animal Foundation who had found him. He was quite nervous Friday night but as of Saturday he is healthy, happy, and in good spirits. He has been checked out by the vet and looks like he will make a great addition to the family.
For those who are not aware, the Catahoula is the state dog of Louisiana.

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Free Energy == Bad Science

So I got a video sent to me via email today. It it a 2 minute clip from a Cleveland news broadcast. This guy, a retired tv station owner, was inspired in the middle of the night to cure cancer. His idea is to inject nanoparticles of metal into the body and for some reason the metal particles will attach only to the cancerous cells and then when blasted with RF (Radio Frequency) energy the metal would heat and kill the cancer cells....ummm ok. Anyway, so this guy starts to work on this idea and then finds that if he exposes saltwater to RF energy he can burn the gas that is given off by this. To demonstrate this "amazing" achievement he puts his hand in the field and shows no ill effect. He then inserts a fluorescent light bulb (attached to nothing else) into the field and it lights up. Then he puts a container of saltwater in the field and lights a flame on top from the gas. He has the flame on the bottom of a small engine and it starts rotating. He goes on to say how this can solve the "energy crisis" and the newscasters are awed.
The guy who sent me the video, which I will post if I can figure out how, wanted my take on it. So here goes:
1) Perpetual motion machines, free energy, etc don't exist. You can't get something for nothing. That applies in life and in physics, especially in physics.
2) Is it possible for someone to cure cancer "by a dream" or other random piddling around? Sure! Is it likely? Hell NO!
3) When water is exposed to energy hydrogen can be a by-product and hydrogen is "slightly" flammable. However, the energy required to generate the RF energy to do it is more then the energy that you will recover from burning the hydrogen.
4) The fluorescent light trick is a standard phenomenon of fluorescent tubes exposed to RF fields. Many magicians use this trick. It is also a very good way to detect RF fields.
5) The little engine they showed rotating right along on the small heat input was a Stirling engine. Stirling engines are external combustion engines. They are very neat and work great on the small-scale but not too easy to replicate on a large scale. It is actually a popular science project to make a small one that runs off the heat of your hand....hmmm I know, lets harness people to create the energy we need....oh wait that idea was already done. They are neat to watch but can't actually put out much power.

*****RANT ON*******
I hate how the media promotes crackpots like this. That includes celebrities who think they know a few things about the environment and science, when most of it is bad science. For example, the maximum return on corn-based ethanol is 1.3 units of energy for every 1 unit of energy put into it. This sounds like 30% return, a pretty decent return when you consider that the standard power plant is doing great if it is running at 30% efficiency. However, when you take the total life cycle analysis into account and the energy of producing the corn and transporting the corn, you rapidly get into single digit returns. Cellulosic ethanol has maximum returns on the order of 16 units of energy per unit of energy put into it. This allows for realistic returns to make it worthwhile if the basic scientific problems with cellulosic ethanol can be solved. Note, that although you get more then 1 unit of energy out for every unit of energy put into the process this is NOT free energy. The extra units of energy are from the plant bio-mass which is extracted from nutrients in the soil. Carbon density of the bio-mass has a large effect on the process. This is not free energy because those nutrients must be replaced in the soil. Oh yeah, it is the same nutrient material that over long enough time and conditions can become coal, oil, and/or natural gas. Nature is funny like that. I still say go solar, wind (which is a form of solar), and hydroelectric (especially tidal) for big returns on energy investment.

And remember boys and girls, no matter what celebrities say, DO NOT run E-85 or other ethanol fuels in your car on a regular basis if it is not a Flexible Fuel Vehicle (FFV). Disregard this if you like the idea of your fuel injectors not working, reduced fuel efficiency because your car's computer can not call for the right fuel/air ratio, and my personal favorite your steel fuel lines corroding on you since a by-product of ethanol combustion is water! FFVs have stainless steel fuel lines and modified computer programs.

******RANT OFF***********

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

More Movies and a Really Good Laugh

I totally forgot about a great movie: Best In Show. Fabulous movie. Pretty much all of Christopher Guest's movies rock.

In other news. I was on my way out of work on Monday and it started to rain. I don't mean a light rain. I mean it was pouring down in incredible sheets of rain. I turned around and headed back up to my office and checked the weather radar. Notice the screenshots below:
If you look at this picture you will see an isolated bit of storm right by Indianola. Let's look a bit closer at that storm cell.
That one little pixel of intense red, just north of Hwy82 and just west of Hwy 61, just a bit north of Leland? That is my office! Yep, sheets of rain that you could not see through and not a speck of rain a 1/4 mile in any other directions.

Just call me Eeyore.

Monday, July 16, 2007

Must See Movies

I was flipping channels tonight at saw that Miller's Crossing was on. If you have never seen it, it is a must see. About a week ago I got a phone call from a friend, Foamy the squirrel, who was in a movie store and was asking me for the names of some of the movies I have told her she has to see. I am not a huge movie buff, but I like what I like. This list will not be comprehensive or complete, but a good first start at that list. I invite everyone to provide some feedback. Check IMDB for more info.

1. Anything by the Cohen Brothers and most movies by the Raimi brothers. The Cohen Brothers are best known for Raising Arizona, Miller's Crossing, Fargo, The Big Lebowski, The Hudsucker Proxy, Barton Fink and O'Brother, Where Art Thou?. All of these are great movies. The Raimi Brothers have had a bit more varied movie lineage. Their classic work includes the Spiderman movies, Evil Dead, and the great Army of Darkness. These guys are also responsible for some great trash television such as Xena and Hercules. Most of their work is directed by Sam Raimi and features at least in cameo, Ted Raimi and Bruce Campbell.

2. Boondock Saints. If you haven't seen it, you must. Especially good on St. Patrick's Day.

3. Bravo Two Zero. The book is better, but it is the true story of just how bad a military operation can go from the get go. The British SAS were reluctant to let the story out.

4. Siege of Firebase Gloria. This is one of the most amazing stories to come out of Vietnam and yet it is a little known film. It goes well with such classics as Apocalypse Now and Full Metal Jacket.

5. Heat. Pacino and DeNiro. I think anything with both of them usually works out pretty well.

6. Goodfellas. Enough said.

7. Casino. Very good!

And the list goes on. These are some of the movies I can watch again and again whenever they are on.

Saturday, July 14, 2007

Life around Greenville



I went out to the Greenville airport today while just driving around town. The airports official title is Mid Delta Regional Airport. It is located on a former Army Air base. The picture above is the airport, that is it, the terminal and parking all in one shot....impressive I know.

In government news, our Location Administrative Officer sent an email out to everyone at our location yesterday warning us about the dangers the can come with crossing rail road tracks. The email admonished us to be cautious when crossing the tracks near the office.....um good to know!

Thursday, July 12, 2007

My home town and random ruminations

First Jefferson Parish showed a lack of heart in deciding that all FEMA trailers had to go. This, of course, is after they told people to go ahead and invite friends and relatives who lived in other parishes and needed a place to put their FEMA trailers to come and stay on friend's property in Jefferson parish. Whoops! Get out!
Then Jefferson parish decided that the taco trucks and other food vendors needed to get out. This is of course after they have been issued licenses by the parish. Forget the fact that they are helping to rebuild.
Then there is the hypocrisy of Sen. Vitter and the prostitution scandal.
Now the DA is releasing more murder suspects, this time someone accused of murdering 5 people at once......NICE!
Morons! Lets throw them all out!
Check out NOLA.com for any and all of these stories.

In other news, my new boss is fixated on statistics. I tend to believe that statistics are overblown for most applications and that they serve to either confuse or baffle people. However, he has been on my case to make more use of statistics and requires a section on Statistical Methods for each Plan of Work proposal for projects. I did a little digging on the web and found a great resource from NIST on statistics for engineering and scientists. I highly recommend it. The best part was my boss asking me if I had help with my writeup. I am not sure if I should be offended or flattered. I don't consider doing a bit of reading to be having help. I explained that he wanted more stats so I read up on a few things before writing the proposal. It shut him up so I was happy.