I'm home, with barely a sound in the house. My wife and kids have been fast asleep since 7 pm, and I've been reading, checking email, and aimlessly web surfing since. It's nice to have the absolute quiet once in a while, except for the occasional rattle of wind against the windows. (Note to self: fix that someday.) Not a particularly good or bad day, just better to be almost over. High point: shoveling snow with my daughter and then pulling her around the yard on the sled while my son was passed out cold on the sofa.
Yesterday we went on our first skiing trip. I've never been on downhill skis before, though I used to cross-country a little in high school (in the 80's). That may as well have been someone else. The kids did well for their first day, and didn't mind the occasional fall. (My daughter got a ski tip in her face, and now has a bit of a black eye. She looks pretty tough now between that and a missing tooth or two.) But, they at least mastered two all-important ski techniques of "pizza" and "french fries", crossing skis to slow down and keeping them parallel to speed up.
Eating in the lodge, that's pretty much was me and my son had for lunch: pizza and french fries. It was a bit greasy, and bothered me a little during my lesson that afternoon. Next time, we bring lunch.
With what amounted to a private lesson (nobody else signed up for beginner adult ski lessons in the beginning of a snowstorm) I had a good two-hour practice that even led me from being barely able to maneuver on skis to two trips on a chair lift down the mountain. On the first time down the mountain, we took a trail named the "Bunny hop". Yes, it was. At least I didn't fall on my face for that one.
The second time, we tried an intermediate trail. Not so good. I didn't do so bad until I had a good look at the drop. I choked. It was pathetic. In reality, the drop was probably no steeper than my driveway, though a bit longer, and pretty obscured by the snowstorm. (My driveway is a bit of a hill for about 10 feet, after all.) My skis kept getting caked with snow (the rentals desperately needed wax) and frequently got stuck, another reason why I fell down a few times.
The third time I fell, I looked up to see a couple of little girls who looked about my daughter's age whiz by past me, doing a "pizza". The instructor suggested I try the same. But I fell down to or three times after that, after which he took me on a shortcut through the woods back to the bunny trail. After the initial embarrassment of watching more preschool-looking kids whiz past on the expert trail, I started to think about my daughter's instructor calling out "pizza!" and "french fries!" to get the kids to practice skiing down the tiny kiddie hill.
I went Pizza the rest of the way down, until I came to a near stop and had to switch to French Fries to meet my wife and kids back in the lodge. So far, downhill skiing seems more like an exercise in slowing down and not hitting things while sliding down ice and snow on skis waxed to minimize friction even more. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense. On the other hand, it would be cool to be good at it, or at least better at it than most of the kindergartners.
Friday, February 23, 2007
Friday, February 16, 2007
Slow Down!
My daughter missed the school bus this morning, largely because a different bus came, it came late, didn't stop where it normally does, and didn't wait. So I drove her to school.
What normally takes about 15 minutes took 45 this morning. What makes it worse is that, somehow, people who live in Albany seem to forget how to drive in snow every year. Having grown up in the foothills of the Adirondacks, and gone donutting many, many a time in parking lots with a 70's Caprice Classic back in the day, I've learned a thing or two about how to drive in this weather.
So, I'm compiling a list of things to remember when driving in snow to help out my fellow Smallbanians:
What normally takes about 15 minutes took 45 this morning. What makes it worse is that, somehow, people who live in Albany seem to forget how to drive in snow every year. Having grown up in the foothills of the Adirondacks, and gone donutting many, many a time in parking lots with a 70's Caprice Classic back in the day, I've learned a thing or two about how to drive in this weather.
So, I'm compiling a list of things to remember when driving in snow to help out my fellow Smallbanians:
- Snow is slippery. You can't drive, turn, or stop as quickly as you think.
- When you hit the brakes, you will continue to move in a straight line. Your brakes only stop your wheels, not the car...
- Don't turn and brake at the same time. Slow down all the way before you turn. If you don't, your front bumper will be eating snow (if you're lucky.)
- It takes longer to go anywhere. Plan accordingly.
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
At another junction
My new favorite part of the day is getting home and spending time with my son building complex train networks. He has a Tomy train set, with plastic rails and battery-powered Thomas the Tank Engine trains, along with a scattering of other compatible sets and rail cars we brought back from Japan.
Mostly, I try to set up complex networks that use a few rail juncitons with working switches. Scott likes to monitor the train, rushing back and forth and throwing switches to make the train alter its paths. Sometimes, the tracks cannot be joined. There's a special piece that must be used to join tracks when they don't match-- usually it happens when we use the 3-way splitter switch.
I've been wondering if there's a pattern language that can be made out of the different kind of pieces, and a simple ruleset to describe varying combinations that tracks can be assembled to make a complete circuit. And having said that, there most likely is, though I'm just not enough of a math geek to figure it out off the top of my head. Nor have a taste for writing big sloppy linear programming models to generate lists of completed circuits, either.
At timnes, it's frustrating to see myself surrounded with information science issues, and yet not the time or energy to give more than a passing thought about it. I guess the fact that I'm even aware of those issues must mean something. Before heading back to pursue the ever-elusive PhD, I'd have considered it vaguely interesting before moving on to other tasks at work or home. Now, I'm aware that it's something that'd be interesting to study if I had any time (or enough sleep) to really think about it.
I was talking to one of my co-workers today about the whole PhD thing. He did point out that had I not gone back to try, I'd always be wondering about doing it. So now I know. I'm irritated with the school in quite a number of ways at the moment, some ways legitimately, some ways kind of childish and petty. But it all goes by so fast, and apparently, a lot of stuff falls through the cracks there. I guess you don't really get to graduate without twisting a lot of arms there. Given how appaling the graduation rate is (15 admissions, 2-5 degrees granted per year), I can see how people languish and then gradually drop out. But with candidacy dangerously close, it's too late to back out now. I just hope I'm not still saying that a year from now-- I had planned to be almost done at this point.
When Scott and I work on building our train tracks, he helps me, making suggestions, which I always incorporate. I explain what I'm trying to do, and hand him pieces to see what he does. We think a lot alike, it turns out. Apparently I've learned very little in the past 35 years. But on my brother's advice, I've started to incorporate more switches in Scott's track design.
Maybe Scott knows already what I haven't figured out. He keeps an eye on his trains, and is quick to throw the switch to change paths when he wants to. I've done neither, and feel a bit too close to derailing completely.
Mostly, I try to set up complex networks that use a few rail juncitons with working switches. Scott likes to monitor the train, rushing back and forth and throwing switches to make the train alter its paths. Sometimes, the tracks cannot be joined. There's a special piece that must be used to join tracks when they don't match-- usually it happens when we use the 3-way splitter switch.
I've been wondering if there's a pattern language that can be made out of the different kind of pieces, and a simple ruleset to describe varying combinations that tracks can be assembled to make a complete circuit. And having said that, there most likely is, though I'm just not enough of a math geek to figure it out off the top of my head. Nor have a taste for writing big sloppy linear programming models to generate lists of completed circuits, either.
At timnes, it's frustrating to see myself surrounded with information science issues, and yet not the time or energy to give more than a passing thought about it. I guess the fact that I'm even aware of those issues must mean something. Before heading back to pursue the ever-elusive PhD, I'd have considered it vaguely interesting before moving on to other tasks at work or home. Now, I'm aware that it's something that'd be interesting to study if I had any time (or enough sleep) to really think about it.
I was talking to one of my co-workers today about the whole PhD thing. He did point out that had I not gone back to try, I'd always be wondering about doing it. So now I know. I'm irritated with the school in quite a number of ways at the moment, some ways legitimately, some ways kind of childish and petty. But it all goes by so fast, and apparently, a lot of stuff falls through the cracks there. I guess you don't really get to graduate without twisting a lot of arms there. Given how appaling the graduation rate is (15 admissions, 2-5 degrees granted per year), I can see how people languish and then gradually drop out. But with candidacy dangerously close, it's too late to back out now. I just hope I'm not still saying that a year from now-- I had planned to be almost done at this point.
When Scott and I work on building our train tracks, he helps me, making suggestions, which I always incorporate. I explain what I'm trying to do, and hand him pieces to see what he does. We think a lot alike, it turns out. Apparently I've learned very little in the past 35 years. But on my brother's advice, I've started to incorporate more switches in Scott's track design.
Maybe Scott knows already what I haven't figured out. He keeps an eye on his trains, and is quick to throw the switch to change paths when he wants to. I've done neither, and feel a bit too close to derailing completely.
Sunday, February 04, 2007
PowerPoint Sucks
These posts take a negative tone at times.
Despite this, I felt the need to describe my feelings about PowerPoint right now. (Note: the two-word abstract of my feelings about PowerPoint can be found in the title, and immediately following this sentence.) PowerPoint sucks. I cannot fully describe the depths to which it sucks. But I can make a quick (non-exhaustive) list of things about PowerPoint that suck. In short, why would anyone need to:
Maybe it all goes back to the failure of MS Office (and OpenOffice) to understand what a structured outline is and why anyone wants to use one. And what is PowerPoint, but an annoying way to display little pieces of outlines, a few lines at a time?
Despite this, I felt the need to describe my feelings about PowerPoint right now. (Note: the two-word abstract of my feelings about PowerPoint can be found in the title, and immediately following this sentence.) PowerPoint sucks. I cannot fully describe the depths to which it sucks. But I can make a quick (non-exhaustive) list of things about PowerPoint that suck. In short, why would anyone need to:
- make the spacing between lines less than one line?
- be unable to make a default change to the spacing of lines that actually works across different slides? A default that only works on the current slide is kind of useless.
- change the font or size of a font within the same word?
- Remake summary pages manually out of a group of slides? If you cut and paste from the titles of some slides into another outline, the fonts get all screwed up.
- retype their text from Word, rather than somehow copy and paste without having to change the font, font size, and font color every single time? Some kind of automated export from Word to PowerPoint (say, by using Heading structures) seems like a no-brainer. I think I'll have to write some kind of crude one myself, once I think through the structure a little more.
- reinvent basic styling from one slide to the next? Can't I just make a universal set of rules for one kind of presentation?
Maybe it all goes back to the failure of MS Office (and OpenOffice) to understand what a structured outline is and why anyone wants to use one. And what is PowerPoint, but an annoying way to display little pieces of outlines, a few lines at a time?
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