Photo 365 Project - US Flag

A quick stop for gas on a sunny day with a little wind and the flag caught my eye. Independence day is coming up soon here in the states, so flag- consider yourself posted.

Photo 365 Project - MN Canoe

This was dinner. It is called a Minnesota Canoe; a flank steak wrapped around mushrooms, onions and swiss.

Photo 365 Project - Carriage Hills

It doesn't look like a six year court battle, but it is (or was). The lawyers have all gone home, now the bulldozers take over. This chunk of land was a golf course called Carriage Hills and will soon be transformed into a housing development called Stone Haven. I may catch more pictures here as things develop.

Photo 365 Project - Stormy Panera

Shortly after the latest storm blew through we stopped by a food place near Panera. I noticed the outside seating at Panera had gotten caught up in the wind, and am getting a little better at catching these moments with my camera. When we left the area a little while later the tables and chairs had been cleaned up.

Photo 365 Project - Lawn Mowing

About 1/3 of an acre to go...

Photo 365 Project - Panda Express

A new restaurant in town.

Photo 365 Project - Robo Stash

The Robotics team got kicked out of their storage room. Who knew building robots could generate such a mound of...treasure?

Photo 365 Project - Impaired Pedestrian

I've never seen a vision impaired pedestrian in this area, and I suspect they haven't seen me either (groan).

Alternate caption: Nary a bar in sight, not sure what this is about.

Photo 365 Project - Leaning Lamp

Another desparation photo. The day was slipping away with no photo logged. My iPhone doesn't deal well with photos having a dark foreground/light background (not good for most cameras, the iPhone doubly so). Regardless this leaning lamp caught my eye as I walked up to a bookstore.

Photo 365 Project - Pizza Oven

A coworker decided to build a dry-fit pizza oven. Dry-fit means it isn't permanent, just a proof-of-concept that will be used for about a year then replaced with a more durable design. In the meantime, pizza, pastries, breads and perhaps roasts will get their turn inside the wood fired oven.

Photo 365 Project - Road Stripping

The long running joke here (and probably everywhere else with similar climate) is "We have two seasons, winter and road construction".

I snapped this after grabbing coffee on the way to work. I'm amazed at how quickly these machines can strip an asphalt road. The ground up bits are taken to a local company called Bituminous Roadways where the asphalt is recycled into new asphalt.

Photo 365 Project - Something Wicked This Way Came

It's tornado season in the Midwest, but usually they don't all come at once. Before today, the most tornadoes confirmed in Minnesota in a single day was 26, that was in 1992. Normally, there are less than that in an entire year. On this day, that record is expected to be broken as dozens of tornadoes sprouted from a line of storms that raced from southwest Minnesota and off to the northeast and into Wisconsin.

It was getting late in the day and the sun had been hidden behind clouds since about 4 in the afternoon. It was storm building weather with a cool morning, lots of heat building during the day (what we call 'adding energy' to the atmosphere). If the sun gets down soon enough this stuff will dissipate, but these are the longest days of the year in this part of the country with over 15 hours of sunlight. There were storm warnings with dire predictions of hail and wicked weather so I ran some quick errands then tucked my car in the garage and waited for the drama. After much wind and gloominess, the light outside turned a very green (seriously, when the sunlight turns green nothing good comes from it) an hour later it shifted to an odd yellow color. I grabbed the camera and went out hoping to capture the odd color. Epic fail, the camera seems to have 'corrected' the color.

This storm continued to the northwest through the Twin Cities and ended up killing three people. An older couple fled their farmhouse and hunkered down in a ditch, only to get hit by some debris; the elderly gentleman was wounded and his wife was killed. In northwestern Minnesota a 58 year old man (on his birthday none-the-less) checked in at the convenience store where his daughter was working; he also worked there but was off that evening. A tornado whipped into town and the man covered his daughter as they ducked into the corner and the tornado hit the store. He was killed but his daughter survived. Also in north western Minnesota a woman was killed, details are sketchy as places hardest hit are cleaning up.

Photo 365 Project - Planted Field

This field has been left fallow for the last couple years. This year some cars showed up and people stood around looking very serious for a while. Later the field was plowed. Then more cars showed up. Then plants started to grow.

They've done a very good job creating these little plots of various plants. The current theory is the field workers leased the field and plan to sell the produce at a farmer's market later in the year.

Photo 365 Project - Kindle

This is what happens when you forget to take a picture of the day. I was lying in bed reading a book, dozing off, when it occurred to me I had no photo! I berrated myself for a while, considered taking a picture of the ceiling of my bedroom, then decided the kindle in front of me was a better candidate. I spend a fair amount of time looking at this kindle, might as well memorialize it in a photo.

Photo 365 Project - Gas Pump

A little pic for our friends overseas. A truely american gas pump. Note the color television at the top (it starts a little newscast, weather report, and advertisement when the pump is activated), the digital display and pay-at-the-pump card slot (these particular pumps are open 24 hours, the gas station/convenience store closes, but people can still drive up and buy gas).

Not very photo worthy? Consider the oddity of it. Gas stations claim they make very little money on gas, the real profit is in the store. The gas is a "loss leader" that gets people to the store. Yet the gas stations provide these monoliths and make it very easy to bypass the store.

Photo 365 Project - Mushroom Lawn

Along with many days of rain comes mushrooms. These little guys pop up fast and in quantity. Fresh ones appear daily as the rain continues, and often in clumps like this.

Photo 365 Project - Bike Wash

It's been raining for several days here. When a break appeared and some errands needed to be done, I took my bike for a wash, I mean ride. Minutes after I got home (and snapped this picture for the Photo 365 project) the light rain turned into a down pour.

Photo 365 Project - Ditto Face

Wanna get your camera licked? Stick it in the face of a black lab. They'll eat (or at least tongue swipe) anything. Note: Dog slime is not a cleaning fluid, quite the opposite.

Photo 365 Project - Half Tree

Walking the dog in my neighboorhood I'm always struck by this sight. It's like the roadway has projected itself up and sliced off half of the tree. Everywhere else in the neighborhood the trees flow over the roadway, so odd tree-consider yourself photographed!

Photo 365 Project - Wednesday Comics

I didn't become aware of the concept of "Wednesday Comics" until last year, so I suspect it is worth a couple words worth of description.

On Wednesday's, new comics are put up for sale at comic book retailers across the country. As a matter of fact, last year a limited series called 'Wednesday Comics' was produced, the title acknowledging this weekly phenomena. At about the same time, my wife and I started taking Wednesday nights as a time to go out on 'date night'. The two became linked for a while and we made a regular run to the local comic book store.

We're not huge comic book collectors, but the people and atmosphere appeal to our casual taste. Wednesday trips to the comics store have since become a less regular stop for us, but this week we went and I thought I'd take a snapshot of the day.

Photo 365 Project - Ditto's Window Shopping

I planned better than the previous day for this picture. The idea was to take Ditto to the pet store with me to do some shopping for cat litter and food. While there I'd get a picture of the dog picking out cat food or litter. I had a nagging thought "how exactly am I going to frame a photo with a dog in the picture, while holding said dog's leash AND a camera, AND somehow capture the fact that this dog is in a store?"

Details be damned, just taking the dog shopping for cat supplies had enough going for it to make this plan worth executing.

The attempts at pictures with the dog sniffing at the cat litter, "making her selection" didn't turn out very well. The cat food was on too high of a shelf for the dog to really get involved (yes, there was other cat food on a low shelf, but there has to be some integrity in these photos and this one was already slipping into 'staged' territory).

Finally, the birds caught my eye. To be honest, and in the interest of full disclosure, Ditto didn't really care about the birds. She's not much of a shopper either, she was actually eying the exit as this photo was snapped.

Photo 365 Project - Sunset Clouds

The light of another day almost slipped away without getting captured on camera. This required a quick run out to the deck and a snapshot with a Nikon 3000s, something capable of dealing with the low light better than the iPhone that has taken most of the Photo 365 project pictures you see on this blog. That also introduced an unexpected delay in posting.

With the iPhone I can e-mail the photos to wherever I need them then post the pictures here. With the Nikon I have to find the sync cable, connect the camera to a computer, and upload the pictures. The sync cable was an issue in this case; I had tucked it away in a non-standard place, resulting in the aforementioned 'delay' as I hunted for it.

Problem solved, cable found, picture posted.

Photo 365 Project - Grand Old Day

Each year on the first Sunday in June, A long section of Grand Avenue in St. Paul is blocked off, vendors set up food, drink, and random merchandise carts, and a few thousand people wander up and down the road. After a cold winter, this is serious entertainment.

Photo 365 Project - Calypso Drink

The sunlight was fading and I realized I hadn't taken a picture for the day yet. So this is what a lack of prior planning will get you. This drink caught my eye in the cooler at the gas station when I stopped for some cash (yes, I went to a gas station and didn't buy gas; I got a crazy looking drink and some money instead).

Photo 365 Project - BuzzTime Trivia

A trip to Buffalo Wild Wings yielded today's picture of the day. Again, not exactly expert photography, just a snapshot to show something that I saw or did that day.

Photo 365 Project - Ditto in the Yard

Ah, summer. And lawn mowing. Ditto seems to approve of the cut grass, it seems to make it easier for her to pick up tennis balls. She's an 85 pound 3 year old black lab, mixed with an unknown donor.

Ditto came to us from an animal rescue organization. She and her siblings, along with her mom, had been dumped in a ditch; we were told they were found when the puppies were about four days old. How do they know how old she was you ask? I did too. It seems puppies senses develop at a pretty consistent rate, and based on their development the vet hazard a guess at a number less than a week old. Puppies are born without a sense of smell, sight, or hearing (they do have a sense of touch and taste, smell and vision coming in at about 2 weeks for many breeds). Since she was 'rescued' before those other senses developed, we like to think she avoided detecting the oddness associated with such a rough entry into the world.

Regardless, we thought we could do better than a ditch, and gave her a home. Now she lives the sissified suburban life, with a (nicely mowed) lawn to play in and family to amuse her.

Photo 365 Project - Diffley Road

After the previous day's near failure to grab a picture and then resorting to a picture of grout work, I figured I'd take an "emergency backup picture" early in the day. The rest of the day came and went and the backup picture has been pressed into service. This was taken on my commute to work. Rather than the usual highway views found on a city commute, this section is rolling hills and a nice view with everything green. I've biked up and down these hills, not nearly as serene as cruising through in a car while sipping a mocha.

Photo 365 Project - Grout Repair

I almost went the whole day without taking a picture. I had spent the day at work and the evening at home scraping grout for a 'quick' repair job at the house. Not very photogenic stuff, but that's life. Some days the pictures are pretty plain when doing the routine things that keep a household going.

Photo 365 Project - Memorial Day

It's memorial day in the United States. This picture was taken at Fort Snelling National Cemetery, located in the Twin Cities. The cemetery is over 436 acres of land and has over 172,000 internments.

Photo 365 Project - Rainbow over Minneapolis

My first visit to the new Twin's ballpark in Minneapolis, and the first inning started with a light rain. The rain cleared quickly, never slowing the game down, and this rainbow appeared over the city. Welcome back to outdoor baseball in Minneapolis!

Photo 365 Project - Bonfire

Another nice night, a Saturday on Memorial Day weekend. This time we wrapped up the evening by burning things. A nice fire as the sunset and the day was complete.

Photo 365 Project - Down the Stretch

A nice evening for a visit to the races at Caterbury Downs. It is Canterbury's 25th year, I remember going when the place first opened. With the 25 year celebration, entrance is free- making for a pleasant evening watching the horses walk in the paddock then tearing down the track.

Photo 365 Project - Cat in Rail

She's not stuck, really. Apparently she just wanted to see what was "down there", below the railing.

Photo 365 Project - Door Handles

My wife and I had a date night and went to a familiar spot. Fans will recognize the door handles of this restaurant/bar chain, found across the United States.

Photo 365 Project - Cliff Road (Ordinary) Traffic

Working at my company's office, I commute along a very straight and occasionally backed up road. I snapped this picture waiting at a stoplight in one of the more jam-prone sections of road. It's significance? Nothing out of the ordinary. Of course, 20 years from now the ordinary may seem extra-ordinary. I know whenever I come back from a vacation trip and think back to what I saw, it doesn't ever seem to be the stuff I actually took pictures of. It is the ordinary stuff that pops into mind.

Photo 365 Project - Car Mirror

You may have heard of a concept that involves taking a photo once a day for a year. Here's an attempt. Some things come to mind that might help the success of this little project:

• Keep it simple. The photos are snapshots of a moment in time during the day. No hunting out the perfect picture.
• Keep the description simple. I don't want to catch myself saying "I'll post the photo later, when I have inspiration for writing the description"
• Easy accountability. I'm kind of complicating that by posting the pictures to Blogger, that's just another step (I could, and have to this point, just e-mail the pictures to myself).

The kickoff picture is a self portrait, of my index finger. In the mirror. Of my car. Showing the temp. It was actually taken with the intent of posting to facebook to get people in cold places to say 'wow'. Now it has another, more manageable purpose. Being the 365 Photo of the Day.

Robotics Team Structure

Getting Close to Robo-Time...

Robot Shipped, one last pic

This was taken well before the robot shipped but I didn't get around to uploading it. It's one of my favorites, so I thought I post it anyway. It shows the chain drive that powers the shooting column. As the moon rocks travel up the shooting chamber, each roller it encounters is moving faster than the previous set, thanks to the gearing shown here. With the creative routing of the chains, a single motor is able to power both sides of the rollers (one rolling counter-clockwise, the other clockwise).

Winter Driving Season Almost Over...Please?

I'm about done with this. And this photo was from the previous snowstorm. Since that one, we've had another that arrived at the perfect time to scramble traffic.

Robot Construction Update, Integration Test

The robot subsystems are getting close to being integrated. As a visualization exercise, we stacked the parts close to where they will be on the finished bot.

Starting from the bottom, the drive train assembly (this was taken a bit ago but provides a good "baseline")


Next comes the electronics board "drawer". This was originally conceived to be a slide out drawer for easy access, but has since been redesigned with doors around the robot allowing access to reach in to the components rather than sliding the drawer out.


Next comes the Collector. This subsystem picks 'moon rocks' up from the floor and lifts them into a storage area. The rollers seen here will be underneath a band of material the 'moon rocks' (Orbit Balls) cling to.


Finally, the shooter. Still mounted in the plywood prototype, the shooter is a geared assembly, with each roller increasing speed, propelling the 'moon rocks' out of the top. Not shown is the hood and turret assembly, controlled by a camera to target the direction the moon rocks are thrown.

Robotics Drive Test

Just a quick note on robot construction.

The team hosted a programming workshop for 5 other teams. 4 hours of coding hands-on and idea sharing followed by tours of the construction process; everyone seemed to have a good time.

Build on the robot's test frame wrapped up with a quick drive test. The programmers were testing out several different acceleration algorithms to cope with the slippery surface the 'bot will see in competition.

Robo Prep Continues...

Preparation for the FIRST robotics build season continues. A test board has been assembled and refined. Tomorrow the game will be announced, then the plotting, planning, designing, constructing and revising will begin.

For now, this is how the test board looks. The actual robot is not expected to look anything like what is seen here, this is just a test platform.

Robotics Update

On a totally different note, the robotics team is transitioning to C++ this year from straight C. The communications system between the robot and driver control station is 802.11n. Each robot forms an on-board network between its controller (cRIO from National Instruments), camera (etherlink connected), and uses a game controller to talk back to the hub (Linksys/Cisco 802.11n wireless router). The router sits back at the "driver station" so it has access to line power to drive the router. Two USB joysticks (logitec) provide operator control.

I beg to differ

I had a backlog of InformationWeek newsletters to browse and had a slow moment so I dove in. Here is what popped up:

Google's upcoming Android mobile platform could spur consumers to widely adopt smartphones, according to new research from ABI Research.

The report, titled "Smartphone And OS Markets," said Google's platform could push smartphones toward standardization, which could eventually push smartphone adoption beyond the 14% market share it currently holds.

Maybe that is an idea that can only be accepted as true if the reverse is also true. The reverse would be that the lack of standardization has impeded adoption. I'm not buying it. Standardization in this context is referencing the operating system of the phones. We (referring to people of the planet Earth) have several operating system choices for phones; Symbian, Windows Mobile, Palm, Blackberry, Apple, and Android (probably others too, but you get the idea). The research seems to imply that if we could only have one more people would buy them.

When has that ever worked?

Neglected for NaNoWriMo

This blog is being neglected due to National Novel Writing Month. The normal level of neglect will resume after the month of November.

In the meantime, please enjoy this image of the Pages icon from Apple. I don't have a Mac at the moment (actually, I have a Mac Plus in the closet but even I don't think that counts), but tell myself that if I did it'd be easier to write a novel.

An unneeded photo, thankfully

I've been saving this picture for a while, waiting for an incident to write about that would match the photo. Thankfully, none have. So I gratefully dump the photo now and move on.

Hitchhikers Guide to make a Fowl stop?

Children's author Eoin Colfer has been commissioned to write a sixth instalment of the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy series.

Mostly Harmless, the last Hitchhiker book, was written by its creator, the late Douglas Adams, 16 years ago.

Now Adams's widow, Jane Belson, has given her approval to bring back the hapless Arthur Dent in a new book entitled And Another Thing...

Eoin Colfer, 43, is best known for the best-selling Artemis Fowl novels.

More at: BBC News

Fairwell to the Great Minnesota Get Together

With summer winding down and the days getting shorter I thought I'd jot something about the traditional 'end of summer' trip for us to the Great Minnesota Get Together. It's a big crush of humanity, all wandering around eating things we don't need to eat, buying things we don't need to buy and drinking things to survive the end of summer heat, and mostly just people watching.

With the fair's status as a swan song for summer, I thought this picture I caught as we headed home pretty much said the rest.

Live Update - Right Now.

Wow, Windows LiveMail apparently updated while I was reading a message, causing this notice to appear. What are the odds that they'd push an update in the middle of the afternoon? Isn't that something that should be done off-peak?

BTW, no - the update did not change the "We only spell check the first 2,000 characters" issue.

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ETA (November, 2008). Hotmail has done another update. This time the 2,000 character spell check limit has been removed. Good on you, HotMail, LiveMail, Microsoft, or whatever you're calling yourself these days! Nice job.