Just Asking

Thursday, December 28, 2006

What I am and what I am not

I consider myself to be halfway between an engineer (who actually designs and oversees construction of things) and a scientist (who collects and analyzes data on scientific topics). I think of myself as a "Physical scientist" and I prefer to work in the world of Newtonian physics (no relativity, no high-energy physics).

I am certainly not a computer software guy, but I have worked on a lot of software development projects. I mostly use the most user-friendly calculation software out there (Excel). I have worked with a series of computer guys over the years, and even the system administrator guys know so much more than I do, that they can hardly explain to me what they do to keep our networks running. I floundered trying to understand the firmware that a fellow wrote for my wireless network (in a rudimentary language called TinyOS). I struggled to understand what goes on behind an interactive web page when I was helping build them. And I cannot imagine the steps required to write real software (like computer games, MS Excel itself, printer drivers, etc.).

Tuesday, December 26, 2006

New computer

I built a new computer today from about $800 of parts (Chassis, motherboard, 4600 MHz processor, 2 GB RAM, 300 GB HD, and DVD/CD/RW) with a little bit of telephone support from a good friend. With more phone support, I loaded Windows XP Home, in about 10 minutes. I recall it taking hours on my old (450 MHz) computer.

I'll let you know when I have the new one connected to the Internet. Lots of setup to do first.

Collapse

Whew, they all left! I love our Christmas traditions, but they are exhausting. My wife is napping. My daughter, son, and his fiance arrived on Christmas Eve, and stayed for two days (just left). And we hosted a Christmas dinner party for 13! 21.72-lb turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, yams, gravy, green salad, cranberry-marshmallow jello "salad", green-marshmallow jello salad (family recipes), wine, sparkling cider, pumpkin pie with cool whip, chocolate cake, coffee, tea, and delicious cookies. Team cooking and team dishwashing made all the preparations and dishes go faster. Thank you, team!

Friday, December 22, 2006

Winter Solstice

Hurray! Today is the shortest day of the year. It is a good thing, because we have hardly seen the sun in Seattle since the first of November, when the heavy rain started.

There are still close to 100,000 electric power customers without power in this area, over a week after the storm. I am feeling very fortunate that we lost power at our house for only 36 hours!

Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Progress

Wow, for the first time in a week, all of the stoplights were working on my regular commute route to work. Puget Sound Energy is making good progress, despite the fact that PSE still has over 100,000 customers without power.

Tuesday, December 19, 2006

Tara Conner

I'm thinking Donald Trump has a soft spot for georgeous young women. He couldn't fire Tara Conner when he really needed to.

Saturday, December 16, 2006

Our Power is Back

There are still about 400,000 utility customers still without electric power in Western Washington, but ours is back on. We were without power for 36 hours. The overnight low was 28 F, so the inside temperature of the house got down to 51 F this morning. I started a fire in the fireplace, but it has just enough heat output to hold the temperature constant. At 11:30 this morning, I borrowed a neighbor's generator and used it to run the gas water heater, the freezer, the refrigerator, and charge the cell phones. The freezer was up to 28 F and the frig up to 50 F. After an hour, the water was hot, the freezer was down to 8 F (set point is zero F), and the frig was down to 42 F (set point is 38 F). Then the power came back on. The big gas furnace in our house brings the inside temperature up at a rate of 6 F per hour, so it will need to run at full force for about 3 hours to bring the house back up to normal temperature (68 F).

Electricity is WONDERFUL!!!

Breakfast during a power outage: Boiling water for oatmeal and cocoa in a tea kettle on a backpacking stove


Refrigeration during a power outage: Camping cooler sitting on the back deck (works best when it is below 40 F outside) (a latching lid is necessary to keep the critters out of it)

Friday, December 15, 2006

Windstorm

With all the trees in the Puget Sound area, a windstorm with over 60 mph winds makes a huge mess. After last night's storm, we have over a million electric utility customers without power. On the way to work this morning, I only saw about 3 working stoplights out of about 30 stoplights on the route I drove. Every light was treated as a 4-way stop, and some had long backups. Lots of limbs on the ground and a few bigger trees, but there was an unusually large number of ornamental trees tipped over by the wind. Homeowners were out cleaning up the mess. We lost our power at 12:30 AM. Oddly, we have phone, cell phone, and water service. I had an early morning conference call, which I took from home, and left for work at about 9:10. I got to work at 10:45, with an empty gas tank. No gas stations were open (I later got gas after a half-hour wait in line). A coworker, who left his house at the same time as I did, arrived at 11:45!

Wednesday, December 13, 2006

Power Outages

We had a Mamurdian windstorm last night and this morning, with rain falling sideways. We lost our power for about a half hour. This is why I have battery backup on my VCRs, so I don't have to reprogram them after the power outage. :)

Monday, December 11, 2006

They're Back

Sea-Tac airport put all of the Christmas trees back up tonight. Sea-Tac said the rabbi withdrew his lawsuit. Based on what I already reported, I think the rabbi finally convinced them that there was no lawsuit. Sea-Tac did not set up a menorah display.

Christmas trees at Sea-Tac airport

The local news headline is “Airport Christmas Trees Removed” 10:54 AM PST on Sunday, December 10, 2006, By KIM HOLCOMB / KING 5 News

She wrote, “SEA-TAC Airport - All 15 Christmas trees inside the terminal at Sea-Tac have been removed in response to a complaint by a rabbi. A local rabbi wanted to install an 8-foot menorah and have a public lighting ceremony. He threatened to sue if the menorah wasn’t put up, and gave a two-day deadline to remove the trees.”

I heard a radio interview this morning, and discovered that there was a big misunderstanding and this story distorts the truth. There is a man named Mitchell who works at Sea-Tac as a full-time consultant to the airport administration. Mitchell is not a rabbi, and it was Mitchell who asked the airport to install a menorah in late October. He explained that the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that both Christmas trees and menorahs are sufficiently secular to be displayed in public places. According to Mitchell and his rabbi, many public facilities in the Seattle area already have both, and Sea-Tac airport is the largest public facility in Washington State, and it did not have any menorahs. Mitchell did not want the trees removed; in fact, Mitchell would like to see them returned even if the menorah is not installed this year. Neither Mitchell nor the rabbi “threatened to sue,” but the rabbi did send a document to the airport administration showing the legal justification for installing a menorah. Neither Mitchell nor the rabbi “gave a two-day deadline to remove the trees.” Both Mitchell and his rabbi were saddened at the decision to remove the trees, and stated that they were not a part of that decision, nor had they spoken with any news reporters since the error-filled story broke.

Sunday, December 10, 2006

Sunday

1. Pretty good finish to The Amazing Race tonight. Too bad about Alabama. Do the second or third place teams get any prize money at the end?

2. Too bad the Seahawks could not pull it out. I wish them better luck on Thursday.

3. We got our Christmas tree up yesterday, and the lights on it today. A couple of weeks after Soto, but still a long ways before Christmas. It is odd; almost as wide as it is tall.

Friday, December 08, 2006

Great Quote

"Mexico's new president Felipe Calderon was sworn into office in Mexico City Friday with former President Bush looking on. They are an important trading partner. In addition to oil, silver and tequila, Mexico is the number-one producer of Americans."
-Argus Hamilton

Tuesday, December 05, 2006

I'm Bummed

About the election. Still. I blame the Republican Congressmen. For not taking prompt and firm action on the scandals, on the illegal alien invasion, on the social security time bomb, on balancing the budget, and on routing the bad guys in Iraq. All they accomplished was to pass bills full of pork, earmarked spending they call it, to buy themselves votes at home. Wow, we can see how well that worked with Republican voters.

Now we have the Democrats in charge, and we know they will not solve any of the above problems. They will be too busy passing tax increases, earmarks to assure their re-election, unfunded mandates (like forcing businesses to pay useless new employees more than they are worth, by raising the minimum wage), and chasing down oil executives for good profits (which are necessary to cover the cost of exploration under the contraints placed by the Democrats in past years), pharmaceutical executives (ditto), and members of the Bush administration, for just doing their jobs. We are in for a rough couple of years here. Maybe longer if the Republicans cannot get behind a new Contract with America.

I had high hopes (perhaps too high) in the summer of 2003. Our troops had eradicated Iraq of a cruel dictator and had started the reconstruction phase. There was talk of the people of Iran overwhelming the mullahs and making their country into a democracy. Now Iraq has warring factions (not really a civil war like Vietnam with opposing armies controlling vast portions of the nation) and Iran still has its mullahs and its yappy dog president.

:(

Friday, December 01, 2006

November 2006

Wow, Soto and Chunlin got engaged today!

But I digress. November 2006 will long be remembered in Seattle as the wettest month on record. At our house, we accumulated 15.52 inches of rain, breaking the old record of 13.16 inches by over two inches. Seattle had similar numbers. That means we averaged over 1/2 inch of rain per day. We had measurable precipitation on all by 5 days in November (and on one of those not-raining days, the construction crane fell down in Bellevue): 22 days of rain and 3 days of snow. The month also included 5 days with over an inch of rain.

Here is a chart of cumulative rainfall starting from October 1 of each year, our rainy season. The bright red line in 2006, showing that we have had more rain by the end of November that any prior year (in the last 11 years). In the days where the red line rises sharply, we had major flooding throughout the Puget Sound area.


At our house, we also set a record for highest low (warmest daily minimum) of 55 F, breaking the old record of 54 F. Our daily low temperatures ranged from 16 to 55 F, and daily highs ranged from 28 to 62 F. We averaged 3.0 therms per day to heat our home with natural gas and averaged 22 kWh per day of electricity.

This makes two months this year that we set new record rainfalls. The other was January, which had 13.10 inches of rain, breaking the old record of 10.65 inches.

December will be anticlimactic, except for Soto and Chunlin. :)