Went climbing tonight and did okay. Was not able to make time to help out the FIRST robotics team though. Work is stressful because I’m not making as much progress as I need to. Yesterday evening I had an hour that wasn’t accounted for and went out for a drive. I kinda miss zooming through the hills with some good music.
January 27, 2012
January 26, 2012
Dell!
I bought a Dell! And paid extra for fast shipping so I could have it this past weekend. It took them three weeks to get it to FedEx and it arrived on Tuesday.
I called Dell customer support and complained. They upgraded my 2nd day shipping to next-day-shipping-that-still-takes-2-full-days for free! Then they asked about calling me with up dates. I said no. They said, “We’ll make a note in your file to not call you.” Then they very politely called me three times to give me the updates that I asked to not get. Dell hired the best outsourced phone team possible to ignore my preference.
Still though, touchscreen laptop! 
January 16, 2012
Grr VB
Of course Visual basic has Arrays and arrays and they’re different things! <sarcasm>Who in their right mind would design a langauge with unambigous names? That would be silly!</sarcasm>
January 8, 2012
FIRST robotics begins again
Today was the kickoff for the FIRST Robotics Competition. I’d forgotten how much chaos there can be. In RPI’s DCC we had half a dozen teams doing quick builds to provide a feel for the work ahead of them. After the Albany team was sorted out, I bounced around to the other teams to make sure that they were making good progress. That’s when the real chaos began. Ever try to teach 10 kids you don’t know a dozen different skills interchangeably? Wow! I was really just paying bouncing. One kid looks bored, give him a task, show him how to do it, ask for more, move on, repeat. Chaotic, but fun. One bored looking father was milling about the edges and with a little coaxing turned out to be an electrician with tools in his pocket. Without an invitation, he never would have chipped in.
This year’s contest is basically basketball, with robots. Here’s the quick animation showing how to play:
January 5, 2012
Little Falls
This weekend, Kailey and I scouted out the climbing at Little Falls, NY. It looks like a lot of fun.
It’s about 1h15m from Albany to exit 29A off I-90.
View Climbing Little Falls in a larger map
I hope you don’t mind steel decked bridges where you can see through down to the water. This isn’t required, you can also climb some steel decked stairs that look down 20 feet to some solid ground.
This shot is just to show the elevation that we’re working with.
One climbable cliff face
There are two anchor styles, these old iron “U” in the rock style. (By the way, hello Lock 17 on the Erie Canal.)
And there are the new style steal plate bolted to the rock. Notice that we’re up above the lamp post. You can walk up to the anchor points then go down and climb up with the relaxed safety of a top-rope.
It does look like there are some climbs that are not protect-able. There’s one piece of cliff that doesn’t have any trees and doesn’t have any very trustworthy rock. This is most of the nook that people climb in. There are lots of picnic tables and benches. Hopefully that doesn’t mean the place gets swamped with climbers in the summer. That’s the city of Little Falls in the background.
January 1, 2012
December 22, 2011
Today’s victory

I added a hose clamp to the hanger rod in the laundry nook. This will prevent the rod from getting bumped the quarter inch that lets it drop all my hangers and clothes on the floor.
December 16, 2011
December 6, 2011
Drew
I have a friend named Drew. Nice girl, well read, writes for a newspaper, used to be a guy. She’s brave. Now, when I say brave, there are different kinds of brave. There is brave, like living-as-your-authentic-self brave. Then there’s brave like getting-painful-surgery brave. Then there’s really brave, like appearing-in-the-news brave. She’s all of those braves.
Appearing in the news has risks if really judgmental people see it and decide that you need to be hurt. Letting yourself be seen also shows the people who are terribly afraid and lonely that life can be different, better. There can be a lot of pressure on kids that don’t fit in to be normal, to be what strangers expect. Some people think that LGBT brain wiring is a choice. Somehow that makes it okay to be really, evil-mean to people. Her dad is very eloquent on the subject of choices, “To go through that kind of pain shows me she had no choice,” her dad said. “This was Drew’s essence all along. She absolutely had to be a woman.”