Category: People

Lawnmower Man

One side effect of all this travel and work was that my lawn was way overdue to be mowed. My lawnmower was kinda old and had a couple of spots in the main shell where it had rusted thru and I’d patched it over with duct tape. Last time I mowed I heard a ka-rack noise, and after that the engine seemed a bit wobbly. After I was done mowing I peeled off the duct tape to see that the rust holes had joined to form a C-shaped void that left the engine attached to the shell on only one side! I thought for a while about various ways to fix it, but they all seemed potentially unsafe, or not worth the hassle. A replacement shell would have been $110 anyway, without knowing the availability. So I decided to go shopping for a new lawmower.

The sales people at Sears were dreadful and didn’t even know the diff between a 2- and 4-stroke engine. In the end, I guess a lawnmower is a lawnmower, and I ended up getting a basic one. Even though I’m a former professional landscaper, my yard is petty small so I figured the simpler the better. It took a while to put it together and siphon the gas out of the old mower into the new one, and by the time it was ready it was almost dark. The days are getting shorter already. The new mower started up on the first pull, and it’s lighter and more maneuverable than my old one, and mows more evenly, so I’m pretty happy with it. Now to figure out what to do with the old mower. I has a perfectly good engine, which I guess I’ll save to use in a robot someday.

Saturday was all kinds of yardwork and random tasks. I finally got to doing the gutters with Lizzy helping out with the ladder. Since we cut down the trees on the north side of the house it’s not nearly as bad as it used to be, so I removed the gutter guards. Sunday I got a chance to get back to origami and music. We also had a surprise visit from my homeslice Mark, in town from the Adirondacks to try and line up new tenants for his place in Brooklyn.

The Adventure Continues

This was the first weekend I’ve been home in a month. So here’s a quick post to bring you up to date. After our big vacation in mid July, we spent last weekend camping with Martin’s and Nick’s. It was a great time, and great weather. Just a bit of rain as we were setting up camp, but then it cleared up. We were lucky; they were predicting a major storm. The whole thing was nice and mellow. Did some hikin, swimming’, barbecuein’, storytellin’, and just hangin’ out. Charlie is bright, well tempered and energetic, and getting big fast. Martin is moving on building his new house, so it’s only a matter of time until asks for his guitars back.

When I’ve been home I’ve been crazy busy at work the last two weeks, staying late and going back to work after the kids were in bed. Friday was our big demo. It was a tree browser for related records in our content management system, with all kinds of complex functionality for auto-expanding the tree and including related records, and managing duplicate records, circular dependencies and other kinds of relationships. I was pair programming with a colleague much of that time, and it was an interesting experience trying to build a huge, complex feature set under time pressure. We didn’t always see eye to eye on the approach, but in the end what we came up with was probably better than what either of us would have done on our own, and certainly faster. Olga is clever at using hash tables to speed things up, and good at low level implementation. On the other hand, her communication skills aren’t great, and I had a better understanding of the feature requirements. So I was focused on the architecture, the classes and methods, and how to keep it forward-maintainable, which often gets sacrificed in these situations. A well-written application should read like a good story. I ended up rewriting a substantial portion of here work to put all the business logic in one place so it could be easily read and (if necessary) modified down the line. Anyhow, we made our deadline and the application looked great and performed fast, so it was a big success and things will hopefully get back to normal.

Next up: I need a new lawmower.

1655 Trip Miles, Part 4: Mountain Jam

Friday afternoon we departed the Thousand Islands for the high peaks of the Adirondack Mountains. Our friends Mark and Kelly, who live in Saranac Lake were our hosts. You may recall Mark was recently in NYC for a gig with his band Crackin’ Foxy. It was a pretty chill hang, and great to catch up. We stayed up talking late into the night about life, music and the internet business. (Mark runs whiteface.com and other ORDA sites.) Saturday we did some sightseeing. Drove up to the top of Mount Whiteface. I’d tried to get the top of Whiteface quite a few times before, in both winter and summer, by car, tram and skis, and every time the weather has forced me to turn back. But this day was perfect and clear, and you could see for miles and miles. Lake Champlain the east, the high peaks to the south, and the St. Lawrence river to the north. Totally spectacular. Plus a cool little trail from the parking area to the weather station at the top, featuring carved stairs and solid stone architecture. Later in the day we went blueberry picking, which was a real treat for everyone, especially the kids. We brought home a big jar of blueberries which I’ve having for breakfast every day this week.

That evening we went to see Harry Potter 7.2 in Lake Placid, for the second time (first time in Buffalo). It was the best movie of the whole series IMO, and in some ways even better than the book. Placid was really jumpin’ that night cuz the triathlon was in town. Took a nice walk around the main drag by Mirror Lake after the movie.

Sunday was the big drive home, but we still got one more visit in. We stopped in Albany for lunch with Marin, Kathleen and Charlie, checked out some weird/cool book stores and toy stores, and even got a little shopping in. The ride home was smooth and devoid of major traffic jams.

It’s been a crazy week at work, trying to meet a deadline. Looks like we made it. Also back to working on a live set of music. I finished my Adirondack Moose diagrams, but no time for new origami this week. Still, I now have 10 models laid out for print, including three that weren’t in my ebook.

Next up: I have to fix my lawnmower.

1655 Trip Miles, Part 1: Shufflin’ Off

Just got back from a major road trip family vacation. Great to change your mode of living every once in a while. The last couple of years we’d taken flights to faraway lands, but this year, between having a new car and a desire to avoid any Imperial entanglements at airports, we opted for a car trip.

We started with a drive up to Buffalo a few ago Friday. The kids were already up there with my Mum, having all kinds of adventures of their own. Meanwhile Jeannie and I had a week to catch up on our work and our rest. So it was just the two of us for the drive up. Got an early start; it was smooth and mellow. Made great time and explored the satellite radio stations.

We spent a few days in Buffalo. It was a very chill scene. The kids went swimming at the local lake. I put new wheels on my rollerblades. Jeannie and the girls did some shopping. Went out to see the new Harry Potter movie one night. It was probably the best of the bunch. We hooked up with Larry and Jackie at a beach bar on the Lake Erie waterfront; it was a good time and good to catch up. Larry had the good fortune to see the circus elephant walk last time he was in NYC. Sunday we went out to Rochester for my niece’s birthday and swam in Denis and Sara’s pool. Sara made me a Jayne hat for my birthday. Awesome thanks!

Monday we went up to Old Fort Niagara, which is now a very cool living museum. It was established by the French in pre-revolutionary times, and subsequently captured by the British in the 1751, handed over to the Americans in 1783, re-captured by the British in 1813, and returned to the Americans a year later. Lots of history, old stone buildings and wooden furniture, cannons, muskets and bayonets. Re-enactors really brought the experience to life, garbed as colonial soldiers in layers of hot wool on sweltering summer day. They put on demos and answered questions about weapons, food, and lifestyle from back in the day, and were knowledgeable and friendly. The high point was the drum and fife exhibition by two lovely ladies in colonial military drag, followed by firing a cannon into Lake Ontario by a group of more veridical soldiers.

After that we headed down to the falls. Hadn’t been there in a few years and it was great to walk around and take in the views. We took the tour of the Cave of the Winds. It takes you down an elevator carved into the rock of the falls. At the bottom you can walk around on some boardwalks and get the view from the bottom. They give you sandals and ponchos because it’s really wet down there. The kids got completely soaked. It was an awesome experience.

Tuesday we lit out for part 2 of our trip, a tour that included several destinations in Ontario and upstate New York.

Crackin’ Foxy at the Jalopy

Last weekend I saw a show at the Jalopy bar and theatre in Red Hook, Brooklyn, featuring a bunch of old-time country and folk bands as part of the Brooklyn County Fair. This isn’t my usual genre of music, but in this day of electronic hypercompression it was refreshing to hear acoustic music done well by good musicians. All of the bands were excellent, and two of them featured a really amazing fiddle player named Jason. The first act was him and a bass fiddle player doing standards from the nineteenth century. Later he appeared in a four piece combo with male and female co-lead singers and an awesome pedal steel player.

One of the bands on the bill was Crackin’ Foxy from Saranac Lake, NY, led by my friend Mark H. The Foxies diverged from the format a bit by doing old-timey jazz and pop, things like Cole Porter and The Triplets of Bellevue.

They feature a lineup of three female vocalists, resplendent in black polka dot dresses and white opera gloves (for that show at least). Mark played ukulele, and there was an acoustic guitar, standup bass and a clarinetist who doubled on tenor sax. They group was really good, with great energy, style and musicianship. They had pretty complicated arrangements, with lots of vocal harmonies and instrumental sections, which they pulled of really well. Great group sound as well as lots of individual feature moments. The singers were all great individually and in harmony. After the set Mark told me they missed a few cues, but I never noticed. Crackin’ Foxy has been around about a year and are picking up momentum. They’re gigging out more and more, mostly in the Adirondack mountain region. If you ever get a chance to see them, go for it!

Also, the Jalopy is a great place to see live music!

OUSA ’11 Recap

With the 4th of July weekend right on the heels of the origami convention, it’s been a busy few weeks. So here’s a bit of catching up. I had a good time at the convention, and caught up a bunch of friends. I also to a very positive response to the release of my new eBook. I taught my Walrus, which turned out to be a big hit, as well as my Narwhal. I also taught my Stellated Octahedron with Color Change, which turned out to be very challenging to fold. I came up with several new models including my two interlocking cubes (I’ve been working out how to do it with a color change from a single sheet), and some new tessellations including a Quadrose tiling and a Penrose tiling. I bought some nice paper from a vendor from Ohio, Origamido-style but thicker. The plan is to fold a few of my complex models out them, including the Zeppelin, Dragon and War Elephant. I also got an idea to extend my origami-from-space series to include a Space Shuttle. Photos of all this coming whenever I get around to it.

Every few years it seems someone new arrives on the scene folding amazing stuff. In the last few years it was T.J. Norville and then Dinh Giang. This year it was teh charming Beth Johnson, who has lots of curvy, dimensions models such as a pinecone and sheep that make use of tessellations as a design element. You can see some of her work at http://bethorigami.wordpress.com

My publisher Brian gave a Monday talk about eBook publishing for origami. One topic he covered is the diff between eBooks and apps. After we got to talking, and I realized my Foldinator is almost ready to be an origami app engine (notwithstanding the issue of running a Flash application on iOS). I haven’t worked on it in a while, and when I left off I was getting deep into the heart of the computational problem of mathematically representing and manipulating a folded piece of paper. The whole thing can be greatly simplified by just using pre-rendered graphics for each step. This may be a bit of a cheat, but it’s a good hack, since I’ve had to create images for all the models in me eBook anyway. So soon I’ll be putting together a prototype. Meanwhile, Brain has been dusting off my OrigamiXML spec with an eye toward expanding it for use in ebooks and apps.

Also, now that my ebook is done I’m working on putting together a print book. I’ve been going thru and making page layouts. This well be a superset of the ebook, with 20 – 24 models compared tot eh ebook’s 12. Hopefully when that’s done I can move straight on to a second ebook.

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For the long weekend of the 4th we had out of town guests, a 70th birthday celebration for my father-in-law, a big ol’ barbecue the next day, plus trying to fit music and origami stuff and work around the house and yard. More on that soon. Back to the office today, which almost feels like a break. Lots more excitement coming in the next few weeks, with travel and adventure, so stay tuned.

Fire On The Mountain

In other news, my brother Jim and his family live in the mountains of New Mexico, where they’ve been experiencing the worst forest fires in the history of the state. About a week ago, the fire was threatening their town and everyone had to evacuate. After almost a week firefighters were able to contain the blaze at a road at the edge of town. Yesterday people were able to return home. Luckily their home was intact, if a bit smoky, and the threat to the town has been averted.

See Ya in the Funny Papers

It’s been a while since I wrote, because I’ve been busy folding for the origami conference. Now that it’s come and gone I’ll be writing a full update soon. Bottom line it was a great time and I got a bunch of new ideas. Meanwhile, the paper of record, the venerable New York Times, sent a reporter and photographer around to see if they could locate some human interest. They interviewed my family and me among others. The article was mostly good but a bit weird, implying (unfairly) that we’re a nerdy and scruffy bunch. Ah well, any publicity is good publicity I suppose.

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/26/at-this-gathering-everyone-knows-how-to-fold-them/?ref=nyregion

Summer Kick Off

After all that rain and cold, summer arrived full blast, just in time for Memorial Day weekend. It was in the upper 80’s and maybe even the 90’s the whole weekend. This is the earliest I can ever remember putting in the air conditioners.

I worked a half day Friday, and it seems like the first time since the new year I didn’t have something on my todo list that needed my attention. I managed to do some shopping: bought a new pair of shoes and a couple shirts suitable for work. Jeannie was with Lizzy in Philadelphia for a class trip on Friday, so Michelle and I had some time together to ourselves.

Saturday I had a gig, my first live appearance in quite some time and my first ever as a guitar player. It was a coffeehouse kind of scene, at the BeanBerry Café in nearby New Rochelle. Nice place. Erik and his cousin Jerry had worked up a set of music in the unplugged classic rock vein. I’d jammed with them a few times around the campfire, so they asked my to join in. They’d rehearsed together, but I was winging it. I gave Erik a list of songs I knew and he told me which ones he know too. And so I led a few songs including I’m Only Sleeping, Friend of the Devil and Wish You Were Here, and followed along with a a bunch of others. (Sorry, no Elvis.) The first song was a bit rough for me, cuz as soon as I started singing I realized the mic wasn’t set up right, but I (unlike with keyboards) I couldn’t take my hands off the guitar for even a second or so to adjust it. Erik and Jerry did a few originals from an album they’re writing. After The Fall was a standout. For me the high point of the show was Erik doing Wild Horses. I’m not really a huge Stones fan, but he really sang the hell out of that song. I didn’t know he had it in him.

After the set, Erik suggested we come back and do a set with me on keyboards, which is much more my main instrument than guitar. This got me thinking. More on that soon.

We went to a barbecue on Sunday at our friend Nick’s. Good time, but I got eaten alive by nosee’ums.

I bought a new digital stage piano Monday. I’d been meaning to for some time, and after months of spending my shopping cycles on utilitarian things like snowblowers and cars I finally had the opportunity. Spent the evening working on music. Felt really good.

Michelle Communion

One thing I can tell you is the kids are growing up fast. This weekend was Michelle’s birthday and first communion, and so we had a big celebration for her rite of passage. My parents came into town for the weekend. Got caught up on life and their recent trip to Hawaii. Martin and his family came down for the day, as well as lots of Jeannie’s family from NYC and Long Island and some good friends too. It seems you never get to spend enough time with family, and sometimes I really miss not having mine close by, but Jeannie’s are all such excellent people it goes a long way to make up for it. Anyway, it was a great party and beautiful day. Lizzy and her friend Ella played a duet for Michelle on flute and violin. Lots of good vibes all around.

‘Tis the season, and next weekend we’re going out to Long Island for Abby and Phillip’s communion.