fdsailor.blog-city.com — April 2004
12:05 pm
OK, just got back from my weekly weekend morning walk on the Trolly Trail. The TT is actually a pretty good place for birding (multiple habitats along the 1 mile length I walk), and in the spring (April until May) I try to walk there each weekend and log what I see - that way I know spring is coming because all of the birds come back. Here is what I saw this week (in the order I saw them):
- House Finch
- Downy Woodpecker
- Killdeer
- Song sparrow
- Northern cardinal
- Red-winged blackbird
- American robin
- * Ruby-crowned kinglet
- * Eastern Meadowlark
- Northern Flicker
- * Ring-necked pheasant
- Swamp sparrow
- * Brown-headed cowbird
- * Common snipe (multiple)
- Canada goose
- Gull species (no clue, far off)
- American goldfinch
- Mourning dove
- Blue Jay
- European starling
- * Rusty blackbird
- Common grackle
- Mallard
- American crow
- * Belted kingfisher
- * Tree swallow
- Turkey vulture
- Eastern Phoebe
- * White crowned sparrow
- * American turkey
The starred species I did not see last week - however not all are new arrivals (it would probably take the energy expendature of a small town to propel a turkey to Florida for the winter - they fly like feathered basketballs!). However if you exclude the turkey and the pheasant, I think you are seeing recent arrivals or migrants.
It was a misty morning, around 50, and there was distant thunder. Maybe today we'll get our first thunderstorm of the year. I would love that, but I'll save my unreasonable enthusiasm until one happens.
11:51 pm - new color scheme
OK, so it's far from perfect - but believe me, this is not simple. As it happens there are a lot of screen areas, each has its text and background color, etc. An example of this problem - the date for each entry is below the entry itself (and inexplicably their clock is always off) needs to have a background color that matches the entry, or it looks like it goes with the entry below it. But this same field color also surrounds the date field, so that looks sort of funny.
Hey, at least we've got color here - I was getting rather tired of just white.
But now I'm out of time, so that's all you get tonight. 'Nite!
3:49 PM
Other than that, its a Monday - what more is there to say? Rehearsal tonight. In fact, since I have a concert this week, this is going to be a busy week - Monday wind symphony rehearsal, Tuesday ballet, Wednesday - trio rehearsal, Thursday "free", Friday - dress rehearsal and concert. Whew! No rest for the weary.
10:05 PM
Groan - I seem to be stuck in a rut, at least this evening. Work today was non-stop, very interesting stuff, but very tiring at the same time. A company we are working with on a multi-company effort (hundreds of people in total - probably 300 in the entire effort) had published an interface document on how to use a particular software service (I won't name specifics to protect the guilty). Well, it was a good start, talked all about how in general this service worked, but did not bother to mention the specifics of anything, and when it did, the specifics were seldom right. Well, what to do? I could just rewrite the whole thing, but a) that is not our company's role and b) it would take forever, and c) it wouldn't be adopted anyways. Instead, I took the diplomatic approach and composed a bunch of questions about the things that were not clear. We are talking 30 - 40 questions - 4 pages worth. I don't know how this will be received by the specs author, but it is hard to get out of answering reasonable questions - after all, we really need to the answers. I don't expect the spec itself will ever be revised or corrected (it has already been formally delivered...), so I expect that my questions and the corresponding answers will become in effect a FAQ sheet. Indirect, but it works. But boy that takes a lot of concentration - "ok, that's question 12, probably 20 more to go....".
So the brain is dead. Met G at Wegmans for pizza (yummmm...), crashed for a bit (can you say hot tub?), managed not to drown when I almost fell asleep there, then changed for ballet. This for some reason this week was harder, I was less focused, or something. Most of the class (for me), consists of trying to follow the teacher - she will demonstrate something as we all watch, ask if we got it (everyone but I did), then we all do it to music. Those funny things where you tap and drag your toe around on the floor in various patterns are at least possible, but when it gets to floor work it is all hopeless. Luckily no one has any expectations from me, and I do amuse them, so they put up with me. Perhaps each week I'll learn a bit more of something. The only thing-- really, the only thing-- that matters to me is that at some rate I keep getting better.
And now I am here at home an feeling utterly useless. I tried to practice oboe - the playing went all right, but I am really in a reed slump. This is starting to be a serious problem, because the reed that I am using to play with certainly is not getting better with time, and I should have several successors in line, but don't. At first I thought it was a reed stock problem - some how I got stock that was about .4 mm too wide (7.4 vs 7). I changed brands and indeed the width is better, but so far 2 have cracked on the staple when wound on (sorry, I know no one has a clue what I am talking about - think of it as my self-therepy). I still used these to learn, but no good reed will result in the end. So tonight I will tie a few more, and keep trying. Otherwise I will have to put my tail between my legs and go limping back to my teacher to help me on reeds. But even there we just have different approaches. Yes, I know it doesn't make sense, but I tend to make a different style reed than she does, and I am stubborn in my ways. So yes, I can make a difficult student. Luckily we have great talks about mechanical engineering, the physics of acoustics, etc. And occasionally learn some music (she is particularly a wizard when it comes to baroque interpretation - so much to learn from her without even playing a note)!
Gee, unfortunately for the reader useless does not seem to keep me from being verbose. And I have cooked tomorrows dinner in the last hour or so, so maybe things are looking up.
Since I finally figured out how to change the title of my blog, I like the title I chose. Let's talk about obsessions - and believe me, these are in no order whatsoever - their priorities change by the minute... Well, we have:
- Figure skating
- Birding (for some of you this is known as "bird watching"
- Sailing
- Canoeing
- Listening to music
- Playing or singing music
- Reading the news, especially science / medicine / physics, stuff like that.
- Researching buying things - anything, in fact
- Occasionally actually buying things
- Walking and hiking
- Computers in general
- Administering our computers (backup processes, keeping the SW running, etc)
- Learning (just about anything)
- Reading in general
- Teaching (whoever will put up with me - I'm actually pretty good at it)
- Engineering (luckily, since that's my job!)
- Software and software design
- Photography (occasionally)
- Writing blogs (a new obsession, obviously a bit out of control this particular hour)
- Being cuted by my dog Anya.
- Surfing the internet in general (I only rarely watch TV or movies)
There - that's a good start. And like a good INTP (I'll explain some other day for those of you not in the know), when I obsess, I can do it with abandon. However, I think in my past I must have also been ADD, because I can flip from obsession to obsession (and yes, don't worry, I don't use that term clinically - just for fun) every 5 minutes.
Well, its already 11 pm, and I guess I should get on to something else so I can sleep tonight. Enough obsessing.
11:14 pm
A couple of interesting things today. After work joined the other two euphoniums at U/R to practice the three (short) trios we will play before the wind symphony's concert this friday. This time we actually had three players, and made some pretty good progress. Not perfect, mind you, but pretty good. This is the first time in a long time I have even had three good players in one place at one time, so am counting my blessings. Let's hope for good luck this Friday.
It has been raining (actually several good thunderstorms, which I love). A couple of creatures to report. First, the frogs and toads are back. I have been watching for them (they always come out to commit suicide by trying to cross the road), and until today, nothing. But tonight? Yup, out in full force! We are talking a pretty big toad (10 cm) every 150 meters or so, with other smaller ones. So a bumper crop of toads.
Then we found a snake - this guy was really trying for the suicide award, as it was taking a nap in the middle of the road, all stretched out. And since it was a 80 cm snake, the probability of death was high. So we stopped and looked at him - pretty big snake compared with the ones we see every day. I picked him up with a stick (it seemed too cold for him to move very quickly) and brought him over into the grass. Later (after watching West Wing - my favorite) I want back and photographed him - see the photo album in the gutter of this page. We keyed him out and he was an eastern milk snake - non-poisonous, but a great threat to toads and other creatures dumb enough to get eaten by a non-poisonous snake.
Yesterday we saw a rare entry in the cutest creature contest - a baby fox. It was at night, and the guy was staring at us in the middle of the road. He eventually moved into the grass, where we looked at him in car lights for about 30 seconds. Really cute! Don't know where Mom was.
Great weather for the last several days, when it hasn't been raining - highs around 22 C. Bed time now.
MilkSnakeSmall.jpg
11:34 PM
Today was "the busy day". It started off in the morning with something a bit out of the routine. I sit on Rochester Institute of Technology's Software Engineering "Industry Advisory Board". This is a group of about 8 people from industry that one a year has both a dinner and a following full day with the RIT Software Engineering Department's faculty. We discusss where their SE program is going, the curriculum, the issues. The faculty use us to gain insight into what Industry (as a customer) wants of the students graduating from the college. It is actually pretty useful, because it in a way ties them to the "real world" for which they are presumably preparing students. It also makes us think too - not only do we get to see some future trends (and students) "in advance", but is it also interesting to hear what the other industry segments are doing and thinking.
One of the big topics this year had to do with offshore outsourcing - quite a few software jobs are moving to India, China and Ireland, where the skill level is high and the labor rates are cheap. The major enabling factor here has been much better electronic communications and general connectivity. The world-wide web is becoming so capable that I could really be working in the same physical directory as someone from across the world, talking with them on the telephone, and possibly seeing their picture as they talk. As a result, we are not talking simple "sub-contracting", but rather where individual team members can reside in differnet countries, working on the same code base. This is a much more powerful work model, and something we are gong to have to learn to embrace. Certainly some people are worrying about the loss of jobs, and this has tended to decrease enrollment in computer science, since people are worried that they may not be able to find jobs when they graduate. But there seem to be two points of view that temper this fear - I expect both are valid to a degree. The first is that the "high end" system analysis and architecture jobs will remain no matter what. The second point of view is to "just get over it and prepare for the next new thing" - software is becoming a commodity item, so let's start looking for what's next, identify it, and start training prople. I tend to agree most with this second point of view - even if if is not the dominant scenario today, five years from now there will be a next thing. Always has, always will. Just think of it this way - there are plenty of things done in Hong Kong right now that 20 years ago everyone was crying about - but we are doing just fine as a country (well, our current president put aside - I won't start there, but you can guess what I would say).
After that, I attended a dress rehearsal, ate dinner with G, then went to play our concert. This started with our brass trio (which when quite well, all told - good job guys!) and then the wind symphony concert proper. Short of playing for a music school, I couldn't have asked for more with this concert and this group. Was it perfect? No way. These are real people playing - if you think about it, even if a given person only makes a mistake (note or intonation) on the average three times a concert (and believe me, that is very hard to do - I can count my "note perfect" concerts on one hand), that is still 150 mistakes, or 30 per 5 minute piece. In short, professional orchestras and other groups deserve their pay, since you can often listen to entire concerts and only hear several minor mistakes - and this is with the better part of 100 musicians on stage. No, our concert when just fine. It was the conductor's last concert before she takes a new post at Cornell, and she went out well. On Monday the group will participate in the selection of the her replacement - the candidates each rehearse us for 20 minutes, then the group (and evaluation committee) writes evaluations, forming an inportant part of the audition process. Fascinating!
On a completely different note, yesterday night I saw the cute baby fox for a second time - again at night, and in the shoulder of the road. (S)he seemed to be trying to catch something like a grasshopper (or perhaps a toad - you never know what foxes eat..). I hope the Mom is about. I like the idea of foxes in our neighborhood.
This weekend looks like nice weather. It will be nice to also get some rest. Now time for bed.
12:19 pm
Hmm - let's see what's for lunch today... Wegman's Italian Wedding soup (yumm), a salad with cherry tomatoes (healthy so far...) and a package of Little Debby Swiss rolls (oh well, we know it wouldn't last!). My palm adds this up to 492 calories - still some room for an afternoon snack, albeit small.
Something really cool went on yesterday - it just wasn't around here. And estimated 1 MILLION protestors marched on Washington on Sunday, April 25th (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi
OK, off my soap box - and believe me, if you are reading this and disagree, I respect your opinion - I really do. We just need to keep people from levying their personal beliefs on others.
On more mundane subjects, the weekend was pretty laid-back. Not a whole lot happened on either Saturday or Sunday. I skated a couple of times, and do really feel that progress is being made. I no longer cringe at the thought of doing backward crossovers, and am getting better. They still are not very well controlled (i.e. I am a bit dangerous), and still pretty scary, since I can't think quickly enough to avoid last minute obstacles, like a skater coming towards me from my "blind" side and deciding to do a jump, landing right behind me - YIKES! Also working on Waltz eights - these are coming much better - I could probably test on them and squeak through if I was lucky. Backward edges still not to test standards - back outside doing OK, back inside not even close yet - can't even say I can do them.
Oh, time for some thanks - K, thanks for your note, and glad you enjoy the blog. N, really nice to talk to you, and hope to see you (and T!) in a couple of months.
Lunch time is over now, so I should get back to work.
5:37 pm
OK, just to put my obsessions in context with those of some others. Here is what one of my co-workers is apparently doing with his spare time...
OK, it started out like this - I found some interesting pictures on one of the engineering cubicles. I ask him what they are - it looked like a strange shaped kiln (since the cavity is cylindrical and about 6 inches in diameter - too small for pottery. Well, yes, indeed, it is a kiln - one to be used for melting crucibles of metal - in his case aluminum.
OK, and why did he want to do that - not your average idea of a fun time... Well, apparently he is determined to make (don't ask me why), his own lathe (you know, one of those things used to "turn" metal and wood into strange shapes). OK, you say, sounds strange but reasonable for an engineer. But where does the kiln come in, I ask? He apparently really meant it when he said he was going to MAKE his own lathe. Lathes are made of many metal parts - legs, beds, all sorts of things. He is going to make sand castings for all these parts, melt up bunches of aluminum and then pour these into the castings. He will then machine these into the usable lathe components he needs.
I asked him if he needed to use a lathe to do any of this machining - he just smiled and walked away...
We are talking someone with FAR too much spare time. I wonder what his wife and kids think about this project! (And yes, he has lived to reproduce). :-)
fdsailor.blog-city.com — April 2004
12:30 pm
Yesterday evening was interesting. The university wind ensemble I play in is looking for a new conductor for next year, and last night was candidate audition. I will skip specifics, but there were three candidates - all probably capable of leading the ensemble for the next year, and each with their strong and weak points. Simultaneously either of the three would do, and neither of the three would do - in some ways each had their own "dominant weakness", at least from my point of view. OK, it wasn't that bad, but rather each had limitations that could stand in the way of their developing the group as a university-level ensemble over the next several years. But the discussion between the students and the hiring administrators were very interesting and showed great insightfulness. For sure, one thing I am glad of is that I do not have to make a final choice myself - more than glad to leave that burden to others. We will happily play with whoever is chosen.
Work continues to be fun and challenging. I know this is a phase (we are preparing material for a proposal that may or may not ever get written), but it is fun while it lasts. Lots of research, problem solving, invention and innovation, with almost no paperwork or politics. Glorious. Reality lurks down there somewhere, but (fortunately for me) that is pretty tolerable also. G: I really DO wish that I could spread some of this fun stuff to you, as I know your work life is, shall we say, less satisfying at this minute - I really do feel for you here!
It is getting time to buy tickets to Russia - we are going to take a change and not wait for our visas to return - I seriously doubt they would be rejected in a way that could not be fixed. There - how's that for faith!
5:08 PM
12:51 pm
Last night G and I played hooky from Ballet class - instead we sat in the hot tub (it was rather cool out). Me then made a deal - G would go for a walk with Anya and me, and I would go shopping with her afterwards for a bit. With our various activities, it was actually nice to be able to talk with eachother, which is easier during "external" activities - otherwise we just get too absorbed in what we were doing.
G's serger arrived (a new obsession), and she spend the rest of the evening figuring it out (believe me, these are not trivial things to thread, or even understand what they do). She must have succeeded, because she immediately did some very cool edge stitching - the stitch that goes "around" the edge of a cloth so it doesn't unravel. Just look at the interior seems to say a pair of pants to see what I are referring to.
I have been working on trying to produce an oboe reed that works well - have been in a long slump in this area (see http://fdsailor.blog-city.com
Probably will confirm the Russia tickets today - G just gave me the go-ahead. So this trip WILL happen. The rest is just details.
