Category: Tech

San Diego

September 5, 2011

During my stay in San Diego, this was my hotel room:

I spent a lot of time in there, working on the presentation (which went well) and the paper. The hotel itself was fancy and very, very large. Here’s a view from the 40th floor bar:

That’s looking south, into San Diego harbour. The convention center is behind the Marriot hotel. Those boats look tiny, but they are not! I doubt anyone with a little fishing boat could ever afford the marina fees there. Here’s the view on the other side:

Across the bay you can see an aircraft carrier. I forget the name, but that’s one of the current operational carriers of the US Navy. It’s stationed here in San Diego (along with 3 more I believe).

My room was on the 8th floor, looking toward the marina you can see in the above shot. Here’s a photo I took out at night:

Someone said the fireworks (which were being launched from a barge) were for Seaworld. I have my doubts though, since Seaworld is a bit to the North of here. At any rate, they were fun to watch 🙂

On one of my days there this guy came into port:

Although it serves a similar purpose it is not strictly an aircraft carrier. See the opening at the back? That’s to launch ships and amphibious vehicles. This carrier is specific to amphibious launches, and from the deck specializes in VTOL aircraft such as helicopters or harriers. The size was just incredible. Quite a spectacle to watch, and believe me the crowds had formed on the docks!

Whever I may roam, I seem to always buy an instant lottery ticket. I only won once away from home, and that was in England. And I never cashed it in! (Florence has it now… I wonder if she can cash it?)

So, this interim San Diego post (the next one will be about boats!) ends on a highnote:

Mouth-watering isn’t it? Well, it worked on me:

A (No Longer) Brief Post, Before My Trip

August 18, 2011

Yesterday I went to the Altamont fair with SFL. We got their before the midway opened, and started by checking out the animals:

That’s a photo of a brand new Doctor and a goose! The lemonade cost $5 with $3 refills, which we did three times. We both figured the lemonade carney was mad at the fact we actually carried the cup around so long.

This was the brand new ride at the fair, called The Stinger. This shot was taken when they were testing it before the midway officially opened:

With a stunning mix of bravado and foolishness, I rode the above ride. Here is a video of the entire experience (watch for my reaction at the end):

If you couldn’t see the video, here is a hint as to the effect The Stinger had on me:

Check out these art panels on the front of a very, very bad ‘haunted house’ type ride:

Nothing to do with haunting I know, but ultra-cool nonetheless.

After some time I had somewhat recovered from The Stinger, and we chose to go on a very mild looking thing called Avalanche (which we dubbed ‘Glacial Forest’). Basically you sit as seen in the picture and it goes around and around… how bad could it be?

All I’ll say is I was slightly relieved that SFL, too, got terribly nauseated by the above ride since if it had been only me I would have felt like an old man indeed 🙂

The day was very hot and we were there slightly over eight hours (time flew)! The fair seemed bigger than last year with a great deal of things to see, especially animals. Including beyond the usual – such as Kangaroos, bears and even coatimundi!

Oh, and I had my first ever taste of fried dough, which was delicious!

All told a very fun day, even if The Stinger absolutely ruined me for… almost 40 hours and counting so far 🙂

Later today I shall go to San Diego for SPIE. I will not have internet, so no blogging, but you can follow me on twitter.

If you’re not sure what twitter is, or how to access it, click on the ‘Me on Twitter’ link on the right side of the screen —>

The Next Three Months

August 13, 2011

I rarely talk about my (school)work on this blog, but today I’m making an exception.

This Thursday I’m heading over to San Diego to attend the SPIE Optics and Photonics conference. I have a paper in the conference, and will be giving a presentation on Monday the 22nd. The title of my paper is “Modeling Polycapillaries: Comparison between Simulation and Experimental Results”, and it concerns itself with the results of the polycapillary computer simulation that I have been coding (on and off) since 2002.

This work is finally coming to an end, since I intend to complete my PhD thesis and defend it (ie. graduate with my PhD) during this upcoming semester. This is not a lofty goal since I am more than half done with the writing (I’ve written about 65 pages in the last 3 months), but it will be a difficult goal because of the balance of my responsibilities.

During this upcoming semester I will be teaching again (a class of 135) as well as teaching a discussion group (class of 34). In addition I will be administering all of the (14) discussion groups as well as all of the (19) lab classes. This is a lot of work; more than I have ever taken on in a semester. Running everything to the usual level of perfection I strive for and finishing my thesis will likely keep me busier than I have ever been.

Truthfully it’s enough to get me down if I think about it. But I’m trying to keep my eye on the goal and take it one step at a time and know that once it is all done I can take a great big vacation and say to myself “Job well done!”

Robot Claw