Another Day

Another day come and gone,

I worked out a few bugs in the code, mainly figuring out the update rate of the USBL. I also helped my rents clean up for christmas

S.

Good Day

Today was an excellent day, I went to a job fair, met with Louis and had dinner with Travis. Job fair, was ok, a couple of companies were kinda interested in me, what is more important I got my name out. Louis' meeting went well got my shit together showed it off and looked great. dinner was cool to.

Post-Doc Has Begun

Well the paperwork has gone through, I have joined the mailing lists and I am doing the work. I am excited yet scared, but after the last couple of days I have shown I can handle the work. I guess what excites the most about this project is its inclusion of navigation and acoustics communications.

Sleepless in Baltimore

So here I am, done, complete and finished yet not tired. I wish but for love and support and I got both of these things tonight. Gwen and I went out to dinner tonight to celebrate, and had much fun discussing the future. It was fun. Tommorrow it begins anew. I must move to the next stage of my life, and begin my postdoctoral position. I must prepare for oceans. I must prepare to be married ---to grow up. It both scares and excites me, but in the end I can handle it.

Thesis Done!

I turned in my dissertation today to the binding office. It felt great walking down to the binding office, ready to be finished. Even the binding lady, who was uncaring to the other people who came down congradulated me when I was done.

Thank god its over!

New York Part 2

So Gwen and I returned to New York last weekend on the night bus. We reached New York at 4:00 AM, but this time we knew where we were and hit an all night diner with decent coffee and we had a hotel room where we could drop off our luggage.

Sights Seen:

1. Empire State Building
2. NYC Public Library
3. Broadway Show-Mary Poppins
   
4. Chrysler Building
5. Brooklyn Bridge
6. Brooklyn Botanical Gardens
7. Second hit at Sumile Sushi - Best Sushi ever!
8. Magnolia Bakery

Suggestions:

1. Do not try to walk to the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens (take the subway). Unlike Manhattan there is nothing going on in Brooklyn
2. Purchase Broadway tickets at the Boxoffice, its cheaper and better.
3. Magnolia Bakery is awesome, but going on Sunday before we returned served two purposes: (1) Shorter lines then Saturday. (2) Gave us something to do on the bus
4. In general you have to show up at the terminal early to catch your bus. If you show up at the bus terminal early, you might catch an earlier bus, even if your tickets are not transferable

New York part 2

Went to NY again, doing the 1:30 Bus. Was awesome. Hope to provide more details later.

New York Trip

So I have just returned from my trip to from New York City and as Gwen commented, I was like the Jerry from the old Tom and Jerry Cartoon. I was in total awe when I first hit the city and enamored with the lights and hugeness of everything. Details:
1.) Used Greyhound Bus to get to New York at 4:30 in the morning.
2.) $50 per person ticket

Although most people would flinch at the 1:30 leave time and 4:30 arrival, but keep in mind:

1. We had the city to ourselves for about 4 hours
2. We did the whole Breakfeast at Tiffany's
3. We hit and empty Rockfellar Center.
4. We walked through Central Park
   
5. Overall, we got our bearings very early (and didnt sit in traffic waiting to get into the city.)

Suggestions:

1. Bring a blanket in a bag, its a pillow and blanket in one for your bus trip and midday nap in the park.
2. Sunglasses are great for dealing with dirt in the air.
3. Bring a few water bottles; Bring your own anything makes things cheaper, and keeping hydrated will make the day nicer.
4. When you need to buy something from a restaurant to use the bathroom, go with fruit. We bought two banannas from a restaurant to rent the facilities and the potassium later in the day really helped.
5. When looking for food, have a place in mind, and walk towards it. Food is always an issue for the inexeperienced, but travel books are great for telling you where to go and if you run into something that fits the bill stop and go there. We did this and found the best sushi i have ever had in my life.
6. Another Travel Book
   

Sights To See Next Time:

1. Empire State Building
2. NYC Public Library
3. Broadway Show
4. Shopping in Greenwich Village
   
5. More Art Museums
6. 
   

Wii Fit

Another day, another work out or so it will be. I am getting back on the wii fit horse so to speak. At least I have worked out 30 minutes tonight plus two additional walks today.

S.

"Green Gardening"

So today I was looking around on the internet and I have discovered the following interesting points:

1. Used Ground Coffee is both a good fertilizer and ant deterrent
   
2. Baking Powder Can be used to both reduce pests on plants, and fight fungal growth on plants.
3. Baking powder and vinegar can be used to open up a sink like liquid draino
4. Herbs are a natural pest deterrent.

Upon discovering this, I figured one of 20 books on "GREEN LIVING" at the bookstore would have a more complete listing of these facts. I found this to be incorrect. In all actuality, most green living books actually turned the consumer to buying different pesticides or giving the commonly known facts that are broadcast on TV a thousand times a day (ie recycle, low wattage light bulbs, etc). So I have decided to start pulling together a new book of knowledge, and I am presently calling it, "Green Living, an engineers guide to practical and cost effective reduction of your personal destruction of the enviornment".

Wii Fit

Since, I have found that I have started to get very flabby and that I am not dealing with the stress with finishing up my distertation very well, so I have decided to get back into shape. Along with the normal eating better and cutting back on portions, I have also purchased a Wii Fit. I have to say after completing my third workout this morning this system is a real winner. PROS: I like that I am getting some feedback on my workout, and that I have a set goal in mind that is monitered by someone else. CONS: Some of the comments and suggestions get a bit annoying, and but at the moment the only major issues in my mind is that there is no mechanism to string a series of workouts together and that you can't have multiple people using the board at the same time. SUGGESTIONS: I would suggest getting a yoga mat for your Wii Fit, any ROSS, or other discount store will have them MUCH CHEAPER then the suggested ones on Amazon (mine was only 6 dollars) and get hand weights for the cardio workout (at the same place as the yoga mat).

My hope is that the CONS in this post are addressed by Nintendo in short order, because to ensure long term use of the system they should really fix those items.

Literature Review

So I was told by my advisor to review the control literature for my PHD thesis based upon the following criteria:

1.) Plant Model- what parameters did they use
2.) Task - What are trying to do.
3.) Control- What type of control algorithm have they designed
4.) Stability Analysis - Did they have one, what method did they use?
5.) Simluations: Comparative- Anecdodal
6.) Experiments: Comparative- Anecdodal

Now my response:
1.) You want me to rate their stability analysis? I dont know if the following statement is appropriate:

The authors report the development of an overly complicated control law, using an equation representing the dynamics of the robot that gets rid of all of the inconvient terms. The stability analysis is wrong or simply the author made it so convoluted that I cannot figure out what he was attempting to do. Then the author applied these equations to a set of simulations, and because simulations are doomed to succeed, they showed the robot doing what the author intended it to do. Then the author applied the control algorithm to an actual robot, but since the control algorithm they developed is over complicated they decided to make some simplifications to the control law by getting rid of all the terms that make it either unique or interesting, I should at this point out that the experiments reported is a special case and could be masking significant problems with the algorithm.

But I cant say that. I have to be diplomatic.

North by Northwest at the Charles

Tonight I saw the movie North by Northwest at the Charles Theater with Cary Grant. And I have to say, whoa, its so different seeing old movies on the big screen. Of course the implied relations between the Cary Grant and Eva Grant
and Martin Landau and James Mason are hilarious.

First Post/Bday

Today was an interesting day, I had my family's bday for me. I got to go to the farmer's for more herbs, had homemade breakfeast sandwiches, and got to do a planting. It was a great day. I have much to be thankful for, and I hope to enjoy posting on my first blog.