Richard's Page

UConn Workshop

2010-03-10T09:24:00.008-09:00

I'm currently teaching a IPv4 Multicast Workshop at the University of Connecticut. Since we need layer 2 access for some of the labs, all of the equipment needs to be shipped and set up at the location. The group is 100% local, that is quite a change from many of the other workshops I've done. This is only my second visit to Connecticut. Too bad there isn't more time to look around. We usually don't get finished until late in the afternoon or evening and I'm pretty tired by then. Maybe this evening, we'll have some time to look around. Todays class is scheduled for 9 hours and that is a long time to be focused on highly technical content.

The venue is great, there is plenty of room to spread out and have all of the noisy equipment in a different room. For these workshops, 22 Cisco and Juniper routers are shipped along with a pile of laptops and cables. Everyone who attends has an opportunity to configure a variety of routers participating in a variety of roles within a network. The workshop is designed for network engineers from providers and regional networks but most of the attendees are campus. It is a stretch for some as the routing protocols and policies are different. There is one motorcycle rider in the class and he is a "rounder" i.e. he rides year around. Aerostitch suit, full face helmet and riding a Harley just about every day unless it's snowing. He doesn't claim to be a typical HD rider.

My knee is still doing fine. I used the hotel treadmill again without any issues so I'm still convinced that the joint pain was a side effect from the Januvia. There may still be an actual injury in my knee but it isn't preventing me from participating in some activity. Running is very stressful on joints so I may avoid it until I lose a bunch more weight.

Wednesday evening - Walked downtown this evening to dinner then walked on the treadmill for 4¼ miles before heading to bed. Tomorrow should be much shorter day than today. I really enjoy teaching these workshops.

Is Januvia the Problem?

2010-03-07T10:49:00.005-09:00

Not being able to walk the terminals is causing this trip to feel much longer. Right now I am sitting in SeaTac waiting for the fourth leg (of five) to Washington Dulles. Then just a short hop to Hartford, CT. Two of the legs were on Alaska Airlines and the other three are on United or their partners. I'm not looking forward to the next leg at all.

I read on the Internet, and we all know how reliable that is, that joint pain is a known side effect of Januvia, one of the medications that I have been taking for the last couple of months. Yesterday, I went back to Byetta instead of Januvia to see if it makes a difference. It's significant that my knee is no longer sore. On Friday, I was barely able to walk due to my knee. Today, there is no pain in my knee and I'm still having to walk quite a bit to get from gate to gate. Some muscles are now sore probably from me trying to move while minimizing stress on my knee. The Byetta has some other issues but not being able to walk wasn't one of them. I'm thinking that Januvia was the problem. Up until last month, the only joints that were sore were ones that were "stressed" at some time in the past like my right shoulder and hip from my fall during the Equinox Marathon. Running probably added my knee to the list of "stressed" joints.

Monday evening - This afternoon, I used the treadmill at the hotel fitness center and did 2 min jog/2 min walk intervals for 50 minutes to see how my knee was doing. Absolutely no issues. Calf muscles were a little sore but that was about it. I feel confident that I found the culprit.

Since I wanted to use the fitness room at the hotel but I forgot to bring a pair of running shorts, I needed to find a shopping mall. Fortunately, there was a Cabelas superstore nearby next to the UConn stadium. This is a shot from the front door looking towards their two story display. It was a fun store to look around in. I managed to leave with just the one pair of shorts.

Dry Spline

2010-03-04T21:18:00.022-09:00

I am finally getting around to some bike maintenance. The transmission input spline needs to be greased roughly annually. To get this far, I removed the tank, seat, air box, battery box, swing arm pivots and several emissions hoses. Then the bolts holding the trans to the engine. Pull the clutch lever to separate the engine and the transmission. It took about an hour to get this far.

In the picture above, the transmission is on the right and the engine on the left and you can see the spline roughly in the center of the photo. The shininess isn't necessarily good. It means that it doesn't have any grease on it. Now I need to pick up the appropriate grease and moly 60 and some sort of brush to apply a thin coat of the grease/moly mixture to the spline then put it all back together. I probably should lube the swing arm bushings and they did have plenty of clean grease. I will be teaching an IPv4 multicast workshop at the University of Connecticut next week so I need to get it all back together tomorrow. I'll get to stop and visit my parents in Corvallis, OR, on the way back home next weekend. That'll be a nice break as I haven't seen them since last summer.

On another note, I visited the clinic to ask about my sore knee and mentioned that it started hurting when I started jogging. The doctors response was simply "don't jog". I can live with that as my only motivation was to try and recover some time. Today I walked about 1½ miles and it was starting to get sore. My upcoming travel should help my knee get some rest. I think my miles for the next couple of months will be low...

Friday Afternoon - This afternoon, I stopped at the local Harley/Honda/BMW dealer to try and pick up Honda Moly 60 and it didn't look good for a while. The guy at the parts counter had never heard of it. Fortunately, someone else walked by who knew exactly where it was. A couple of tubes in a cardboard box under a counter. It was something the guys in the back used in the shop. Rarely does anyone actually ask for it at the counter. I suspect that this tube should last a lifetime as it isn't used for a lot.

Friday Evening - Yum, a mixture of Unocal heavy grease and Honda Moly 60 paste. This is what I spread on the transmission input splines. When I started to clean them, I found a thin layer of grease so I was glad that I didn't wait too long to do this maintenance item. I assembled the rest of the bike but didn't adjust the swing arm bearings. It needs to be centered in the frame and I need don't have time to do it today. I just reassembled the swing arm so the pieces weren't laying around catching dust. I'll center the swing arm within the frame and adjust the bearing pre-load when I get back from Connecticut.

Sore Knee

2010-03-01T15:34:00.006-09:00

I went for a jog/walk this afternoon and I now have a dull pain in the middle of my right knee. I guess, I should avoid any kind of running for a while and just stick to walking. I guess that is what I get for trying to increase my activity level. The last thing I need is some sort of knee injury. No significant activity over the weekend except for a diabetes conference on Saturday and a wedding on Sunday. Kind of made it difficult to get in any sort of exercise (that's my excuse and I'm sticking with it) except for walking to church. I was originally trying to jog/run since I can cover the same distance in less time. From everything I've read, your Calorie consumption per mile was pretty much the same whether you are running or running. For some reason, I have a hard time believing that since it is so much more difficult to run.

Since it will be warming up this week, I plan on finally getting some work done on my motorcycle. When it is below zero outside, the garage is just too cold to work on things. Just some routine maintenance that, for me, only needs to be done annually. I still need to address the difficult starting and rough running in rainy weather last summer. From reading Charlie6's July 2008 post, the problem may be very small hairline cracks in one or both of the coils. There are a bunch of other things as it is an old BMW airhead. I think they are known for needing a lot of routine maintenance. But, at least the average person can actually do the work. No need to take it in to the shop for most things.

Dead Nike+ Sensor

2010-02-26T10:20:00.008-09:00

Not in Barrow anymore. The blizzard let up long enough for the plane to make it in. The ride into the airport from NARL was pretty exciting. The snow drifts across the road were averaging about 16" deep and driving through them felt a little like sailing on the ocean. Every time you blast through a drift, the snow would blow over the hood and cab. It was very warm when I got back to Fairbanks. Extremely slippery conditions with freezing drizzle and cars in ditches all over town. Even though it has since cooled off (-17°F), the slick conditions are lingering on. Not good weather for trying to jog outdoors.

Earlier this week, my Nike+ sensor died. Actually, it was just the battery but it is a sealed unit with a non-replaceable battery. I would normally not bother with such a device but it does last for about 1000 miles so they don't need to be replaced very often. About every five months for me. I had a spare sitting on the shelf at home so no big deal. The annoying thing was, I lost about 7 miles. Since my mileage has been way down between travel and getting sick, it bugged me. Odd behavior...

I'm in the process of reviewing the slide deck for the Internet² Multicast Workshop. I haven't looked at them for over a year and haven't taught from them for maybe 2 years. I think I'm going to have a busy weekend.

In Barrow Fighting with the Network

2010-02-17T21:37:00.011-09:00

I haven't posted for the last couple of weeks not because I was stuck somewhere in the Seattle airport but there just isn't much going on. I picked up a virus in Salt Lake City and I'm finally starting to feel "normal". This week I'm in Barrow setting up new network gear in a old building. This evening, I finished the hard part this and tomorrow I get to run around the NARL campus setting up some more wireless stuff. Nothing real exciting. The wind has been blowing and there is a lot of snow drifting across the road. Maybe I'll have time to get some pictures...

Very little exercising as walking around outside is discouraged due to occasional polar bear sightings. I haven't seen any on the NARL campus but one of the cooks at the college mentioned there have been almost a dozen seen around the campus. NARL was originally built back in the 40's as the Naval Arctic Research Lab and was finally closed in the late 80's. The run-down buildings are now occupied by a variety of organizations including the Barrow Arctic Science Consortium (BASC), Ilisagvik College, a handful of businesses and some residential units. If nothing else, it is an interesting place to visit and is located about 1/3 of the way between the village of Barrow and the Point Barrow, the most northern land in Alaska. Between here and the North Pole is just sea ice.

Thursday Evening - One of the best things about having to go to Barrow is Osaka. Easily one of the best Japanese restaurants in Alaska. No kidding, better than all in Fairbanks and Anchorage. Decent selection of sushi and sashimi but the prices are, understandably, kind of high. No luck getting pictures today as the blowing snow was obscuring just about everything. Visibility was about ½ mile and the light was really flat. In fact, it was a little difficult seeing where the edges of the road were. Still trying to debug some wireless gremlins. This is on a 5.x GhZ point to multipoint network servicing an area about ½ mile radius from one of the main buildings. Multipath is a real problem here due to all of the metal roofs and metal siding on the buildings. Many of the buildings are quonset huts made of corrugated sheet metal from the 1940s. Fastening an antenna mast to them is more than a little challenging due to their shape.

Friday Evening - The weather is even worse today and now it is even a question whether the blizzard will be over by the time I'm supposed to be heading home (Saturday evening). This is a shot from the steps of NARL building 360 and the "NARL hotel" is the structures on each side. It's kind of hard to capture the blowing, drifting snow and the 35 mph wind in a still photo. One of these days I'll learn how to post video. This evening, I even passed up an opportunity to get some sushi and ended up having dinner at the college cafeteria. The conditions really were that bad. The road behind the building had drifts over a foot deep crossing the road. The last thing I need is to get stuck in a blizzard. I guess the weather back home in Fairbanks is creating treacherous driving conditions due to the warmth. Warm. moist air and very cold road surfaces means lots of glare ice.

Getting Ready to Leave SLC

2010-02-05T11:32:00.010-09:00

The ESCC/Internet² Joint Tech meeting is over as well as the IPv6 workshop I was team teaching that was attached to the meeting. Time to head home. Many of the students in the class were finding that their flights to the east coast were being cancelled due to weather. At least I don't have to go through all that. The University of Utah has been a great place to hold the meeting and the campus is huge. I have come down with a cough and a cold while here but I think it is something that has been incubating for a couple of weeks. The temperatures here have been generally cool, floating right around freezing which has made walking in the morning a bit treacherous. Starting Tuesday, evening meetings, dinners, etc. has limited walking opportunities but I think I needed to focus on not letting my cold get any worse. I had let myself get pretty chilled one evening and that was probably let the virus get a foothold. I even took the shuttle down to the student union this morning instead of the leisurely 1¼ mile stroll.

The University of Alaska will be hosting this meeting in about 17 months so I really need to get moving on logistics. Ineternet² has already made a site visit and seem to be satisfied but since I was the one who initiated bringing the meeting to town, I think I'm going to be busy.

Last night, several of us from the class went downtown looking for some dinner. Something besides food from the university. At one building with a overlook from the 10th floor, there was a great view of the Mormon temple. We also saw that the Mormon Tabernacle Choir was practicing that evening, so we went in to listen for a bit. Great acoustics in the building.

Here is a shot of the practice session from the back of the building. They really did sound very good... BTW, all iPhone snapshots.

Snowy in Salt Lake

2010-01-31T16:13:00.012-09:00

I'm in Salt Lake City at the University of Utah for the Winter ESCC/Internet² Joint Tech Meeting. Fresh snow on the ground and temperatures right above freezing made for slow walking. The hotel is about 1½ miles from the student union where the meetings are being held. There are some evening meetings at the Marriot and I may just skip those due to the distance and the lack of transportation. The mountains surrounding the university campus look great with their fresh dusting of snow. One of the strangest things was the campus was absolutely deserted. On my walk this afternoon, I saw maybe 2 other people over a 45 minute period. Everything on campus is completely shut down. No food concessions open. This evening, I ended up having dinner at the student dining room (for dorm residents) as it was one of the few places available. The other choice was the hospital cafeteria. For some reason, hospital food didn't sound very appetizing. The dining hall was okay and it had a decent salad bar and offered quite a variety of food for $8.95.

I got very little sleep last night on the flight down so I think I will skip checking out the fitness center. Good night...

Monday evening - A pretty nice day today. Had a breakfast meeting with NOAA followed by the JT meeting until 4:00. I then took a tour of SCI, the Scientific Computing and Imaging Institute here at the University of Utah. Interesting place and a couple of researchers talked about some of their projects. They also had a 4x6 HD tv array for displaying some of their visualization products.

Instead of going to the connector and gigapop geek meetings at the Marriot, I felt like I really needed some exercise so I went for a walk/run. Some outside and some on the treadmill. 9 miles tonight and 10¼ miles for the day. No sore knees (or any other joints). Much of the snow has melted but didn't feel like wandering around looking for dinner or going to the cafeteria again. Settled for an apple and a Glucerna bar. Not much of a dinner but I usually don't feel like eating after running.

221.78 Miles This Month (Not on the Bike)

2010-01-29T15:19:00.012-09:00

I actually made my 200 mile goal (walking/running) for the month on the Nike+ site. I generally tend to slack off with the aerobic exercise in the winter but since I didn't have any significant work related travel this month, it was a good opportunity to try and get in a decent amount of exercise. This months total is still less than I occasionally manage in the summer since I really prefer to go for walks on the trails and roads instead of the treadmill. Today, it was significantly warmer at +16°F so I had a nice walk down to lower campus and back in addition to a morning jog on the treadmill. I may have to lay off the running a bit since I'm starting to feel aches in some of my joints. Even with all the aerobic exercise and strength training, I think I may have put on a few pounds this month. That isn't good. This is being made worse by a couple of work trips coming up. I hope there is some sort of workout facility where I'm staying at the University of Utah. I'm going down for the ESCC/Internet² Joint Tech meeting plus I'll be helping teach an IPv6 workshop after the regular meeting. Traditionally, this meeting is a wealth of information and well worth the time and effort.

Sunday afternoon - I updated the mileage in the title but didn't update the screen capture since I don't have the capture software on my netbook.

High Mileage Week

2010-01-24T09:36:00.004-09:00

This week was a high mileage week, especially for the winter. 70.4 miles is more common in the summer when there are places to go. I think the big reason is being able to run some on the treadmill. Lately, I've been able to run maybe half of the time usually doing intervals. Yesterday, the intervals were 10 min running and 5 min walking. Not bad considering that not to long ago, running 100 yards and walking a mile were real challenges. I haven't had a 200 mile month since Summer. Maybe this month. Only 40 miles to go...

Nike+ total just past 3500 miles. Ironically, this is probably about the same miles I've put on the bike during the same period.... I can't wait
'till summer.

It's Still Winter

2010-01-20T08:01:00.003-09:00

At -25°F, the temperature is still very "winter like" but warmer than it was last week. I'm still walking (some jogging) but not losing any weight. Kind of depressing. The Nike+ challenges have lost their motivational ability mostly due to people cheating the system and Nike not doing anything about it. On some challenges, there are people posting runs of 40 miles per day... every day. Or posting the same run 4 or 5 times in a row... every day. Kind of eliminates any desire to participate. I guess I'm the type of person that still needs motivation to exercise. On Monday, I ran intervals (2 min run followed by 2 min walk) for an hour then felt pretty good so I ran for another 45 minutes. I followed this with a full round of the weight machines and felt pretty good when I was done. Maybe I just need more days off. BTW, I don't think I ever got the memo that Monday was a university holiday. I showed up to an almost empty building on a deserted campus. But since I had plenty to do, I just stuck around and worked until mid-afternoon then went to the Alaska Club.

The new university sponsored program, WIN for Alaska Get the Point, starts up in a couple of weeks so maybe that'll help. I'm not sure what the awards will be this year but the last two were pretty good. A Garmim 305 gps one year and an 8 GB iPod Touch the next. Maybe this cold spell will let up for a while so I can start walking outside again.

Google -vs- China

2010-01-12T16:36:00.004-09:00

A very interesting story was posted on the Official Google Blog about the Chinese government's attempt to access activist's Gmail accounts. Google may terminate all China operations and pull out.

Believe It Or Not

2010-01-10T23:17:00.004-09:00

It looks like winter is settling in for a while. January and February seem to be the hardest months to deal with around here. No big holidays nor cheery decorations to lift your spirits. But on the positive side, I noticed that sunrise is starting to get significantly earlier. Sunrise is now around 10:30 compared to after 11:00 around December 20th. While walking down to church yesterday around 9:00, you could already see a fair amount of red on the south-eastern horizon.

There is little, if any, heat from the sun this time of year. Late last night, it was -38°F, this morning -42°F and now that the sun has risen, it is -45°F. Temperatures are not headed in the right direction. There is a significant inversion now as it is over 20°F warmer at moderately higher elevations and coldest near the river. Temperatures on the weather sites are reported from the airport which is next to the river. Obviously, the lowest point in the valley.

Tuesday Morning - I don't think it is getting any better...

Beginning of a New Year

2010-01-06T17:54:00.006-09:00

During the very quiet New Years break, I finally did get to some of the tasks on my list. Of the nine wires in the loom to the left rear door of my truck, 6 were broken. I guess Dodge must use some pretty cheap wire. Or at least wire that doesn't do well in the cold. The only intact ones were the heavier gauge ones for the window motor. To simplify repair, I just cut them and spliced several inches into all of them then wrapped the whole thing in silicon tape. I'll see how long that repair lasts. On the bike, a 1983 BMW R100RT, I was dreading removing the exhaust nuts as they are aluminum and threaded onto the aluminum exhaust ports. If they don't come off easily, they need to be cut off to avoid damaging the aluminum threads on the head. Fortunately, the previous owner or whomever was doing the maintenance, used anti-sieze and they came right off. It is my intent to pull the heads to take a look at the valves. This year and model has a known problem with valve recession.

I also removed the rear wheel to get started on another maintenance item referred to as a "spline lube". The transmission needs to be pulled back a couple of inches to get a grease/moly mixture brushed onto the input shaft of the transmission. This would also be a great time to take a look at the clutch to see how it is wearing. I've only had the bike for two years but have very little information on the work that has been done to the bike. All I've done since owning it is replace all of the fluids (some several times), grease the rear drive spline, and replace a couple of lights and the starter relay. I'm thinking that I need to invest more time and $$ if I really want to start riding it long distances. For example, the stock charging system is only 240 watts @4000 rpm, so there really is a reason for my wanting to take the scenic ride home... I need to ride long enough to charge the battery. Speaking of the battery, it probably needs to be replaced as well since the sticker says 5/2003. Maybe I'll try one of the Odyssey dry cell ones. Perhaps I should have looked for a newer bike but one of the attractive features is the simplicity when compared to newer machines. No computer or other electronics, no cooling fluids, a simple dry clutch, shaft drive and a reputation for being long lived. It should last a long time with a little preventative maintenance. It is completely stock and the only farkle is a RAM mount for my gps.

After slacking off most of December, I've started to get more regular exercise. I'm trying to get to the Alaska Club at least three days per week to use their weight machines. I'm intimidated by the free weights so I haven't tried them at all. And also trying to get a fair amount of aerobic exercise. Usually the treadmill. It's easy, familiar and I have one that I can use at home. The ones at the Alaska Club are much easier to run on. Today, I actually tried running instead of just jogging but couldn't keep it up for more than a mile. Still, for me that is a real accomplishment. A year ago, I was walking about 8-10 miles per day but it was taking too much time. This year I'm trying to jog or run and that has dramatically cut down on the time as I just can't manage the same mileage.

Unhealthy Air Quality

2009-12-30T10:39:00.005-09:00

Another beautiful sunrise here in the frozen north. It's about 10:20 in the morning so it's still well before the sun actually rises, I think that will be around 11:00 or so. And it's still -17°F so there are absolutely no plans for a long walk in the woods. The mountains on the far right in the picture are still part of the Alaska Range though they are well over 100 miles away. A good visibility day in spite of what the EPA says "Unhealthy Air Quality Index". Apparently, too many people around here burn stuff in the winter (like heat with wood). Maybe that explains the great sunrise/sunset photo ops...

I looked for the full moon to the north but wasn't able to see anything. I guess the local geography, south sloping hills, is working against me. That must be why I have never noticed the moon to the north before the the beginning of December. BTW, this will be a "blue moon" as it is the second full moon of the month.

2009-12-27T18:11:00.004-09:00

The four day Christmas break is over and I didn't even start on any of the tasks that I was planning on. The exhaust nut wrench is still sitting on my desk, unused, the rear door harness on the truck is still disassembled showing the broken wires, and didn't even think about starting to pull the beemers tranny back to lube the intake spline. I feel like such a slacker. I did go to the Alaska Club twice during the break. Today, I racked up over 13 miles and jogged for about a third of that distance. I went back to my original workout routine using a much higher heart rate as a target since I didn't really feel like I was getting any exercise. Today, I did intervals alternating between 70% and 90% of maximum heart rate and now, I actually felt like I got some exercise. Maybe if I had done the lighter workout, I would feel like doing some of my tasks...

Merry Christmas to All

2009-12-24T21:35:00.003-09:00

And to all a good night!

Solstice Sunrise

2009-12-20T22:11:00.003-09:00

Today, or approximately today, was the winter solstice and this was 11:00 AM and about sunrise. It is an iPhone photo since that is the camera I have with me just about all the time. I kept playing around with exposure and I think it came out okay. The colors in the sky were great. Sunset occurred about two hours later but at least there was some sun. A couple of weeks ago, I took a photo at high noon in Barrow and the sky was darker than here in Fairbanks at 9 AM. In Barrow, there was only a hint of light due south at noon. Just a hint of red in the sky.

Welcome Home

2009-12-19T11:24:00.003-09:00

Besides the temperature, I noticed the little "3G" in the upper left corner. It said "E" when I left a week ago. That was nice to finally see in Fairbanks.

I Think it's a Dog

2009-12-18T16:03:00.002-09:00

Picture of the Alaska Airlines plane from my flight from SFO to SEA today.

Global Climate Change

2009-12-15T20:52:00.011-09:00

One of the things I did today was see a screening of an educational video documenting the trip of Tara, an expedition/research schooner that traveled across the north pole frozen into the ice. The trip started in the Fall of 2006 and was completed about 400 days later collecting scientific data along the way. It was a great video with explanations of climate change and its effect on the global environment. Some project that the north pole may be ice-free in the near future. I also attended a talk given by the director of the International Arctic Research Center at UAF on permafrost studies and the dramatic changes they are seeing in recent years. He covered many seemingly competing evidence I've been hearing over the last couple of years on global warming. These are just a sample of the many presentations I've been to while here at the fall AGU meeting. Today, there was also a another meeting on science in Barrow with the focus on logistic support.

I came to the conclusion that my profession is information technology but I really enjoy science more...

San Francisco

2009-12-13T22:03:00.004-09:00

Last night, I arrived in San Francisco for a series of meetings and the AGU (American Geophysical Union) fall meeting. I'm staying at a bargain priced (but very nice!) hotel only about ½ mile from Moscone and about 50' from the beginning of the Powell St. cable car line. Lots of people and lots of cars everywhere. This morning, I walked up and down streets, had dim sum in Chinatown, wandered through bookstores and camera shops and ending up with 0.01 mile more than I logged yesterday. The most annoying thing about walking around here are the number of people smoking while they are strolling down the sidewalk. It seems that 20% of the people in San Francisco must smoke, or at least that's the way it feels. You can see layers of smoke hanging over the sidewalks. Or at least those that hang around downtown. It was much nicer last night when it was raining i.e. not as many smokers walking in the rain. According to the weather guessers, it is supposed to be raining most of the week.

The Christmas decorations are out and the tree in Union Square looked pretty nice. The picture is kind of blurry. There were still a lot of people out especially at 9:00 on a Sunday night. I guess I'm not used to life in the city. Dinner tonight was corned beef boiled dinner and like just about every other meal I've ever had in this city, it was pretty good. Barrow centered meetings this afternoon and early evening and they are continuing intermittently throughout the week. So far, interesting....

Monday evening - First "official" day of the AGU and there are way too many presentations. The planetary science ones are always interesting as are the ones on climate change but this afternoon, I attended a series of presentations in the Education track on "Using Web 2.0 Technologies to Facilitate Science Communications". Pretty interesting presentations and discussions. Everyone seems to be so passionate about what they are doing. Quite a change from the administrative side of the university that I usually see. This is one of the reasons for setting up the podcasting capabilities in Barrow and yesterday, several of the researchers had additional things they would really like to see. I think I'm going to be busy.

I started listening to this audiobook on the flight down and got totally sucked in. I listened whenever I walk around over the weekend and last night, I ended up listening well into the wee hours and finished it up this morning. Excellent book. Earlier this month, it was being offered as a free download but it is no longer available.

Podcast Producer Experience

2009-12-05T16:23:00.008-09:00

This is all sort of unrelated to most of my other posts but I tried my first semi-official video podcast recording today. This is part of setting up infrastructure in the BARC (Barrow Arctic Research Center) for researchers to use while in the field. I had set up Podcast Producer 2 that is part of Apple OS X server and was having a lot of trouble with authentication. I shut down the Open Directory and the Podcast Producer services, deleted the databases associated with both services, and started over. After that, it worked flawlessly. I think it got messed up since I first installed Leopard Server then upgraded it to Snow Leopard. It didn't transition well. I also recorded the presentation in case I wanted to play with it later and this is the setup I used. Podcast Capture used the external iSight camera mounted to the DV camera and I took a feed from the audio mixer as my audio input. To do this sort of thing in "production", I see a need for at least 3 video feeds. One of the speaker, one from whatever is being sent to the projector and one of the audience. You can't hear or see the questions. Unfortunately, this then becomes a much bigger production. I'll need to think about it. The speaker didn't want me to publicize this video until he gets permission from his company but it was a fascinating talk on off-shore drilling platforms. The talk ended up being 1½ hours long and should be edited but I was trying to completely automate the post production process. The Xgrid is still chunking away encoding the video taking much longer than real time. I guess I need a bigger Xgrid (there is only one single processor machine in the Xgrid since this is an experiment) but it is only running at 20% of capacity. Maybe there are some controls to limit load. This is all new to me.

It is really windy today something like 26 knots. Blowing snow, lots of drifts and visibility is way down. It was a challenge just driving the truck from the BARC to NARL building 360 due to the low visibility. I suspect that my flight out tonight will get canceled.

Sunday evening - By the time I got back home, the encoding was done. As you can see from this graph of server utilization, it looks like it took almost 8 hours to encode the video. You can also see that the encoding was only being done on a single core of the server. I guess this is by design so that multiple jobs could be done simultaneously. But I have to admit that I wish it would've parallelized (is that a word?) the task. The 1½ hour recording ended up being almost 1 GB in size for the video and 100 mB for the audio. Wrong encoder choice I guess. I'll look at my selections tomorrow. Don't need stereo, 15 frames per second of less for a talking head, maybe a little editing of the file....

"Land of the Noon Moon"

2009-12-04T15:07:00.008-09:00

We always hear about northern areas being the land of the midnight sun but there is a counter to that and that is these same areas are also the land of the noonday moon. In all the years I have lived in Alaska, I have never noticed the moon directly north before. Here, I am looking due north out over the Arctic Ocean at right around 1 pm, and the moon is right there. Back home, we are on a south facing slope so there isn't a clear view to the north. I guess the phrase will never catch on since it almost doesn't make much sense. I really like the color of the sky when it is really clear and, yes, the color in the picture is pretty accurate. This is about as bright as it gets during the day as there won't be another sunrise here for another 1½ months.

I have all of the radios installed on the quonset huts now but I can't reach one of them today. Ping fails and another has about 40% packet loss. I looked at the base station and one of the radios has a red light blinking. Of course, there is no documentation and the manufacturer must not believe in the value of the Internet. On another note, I have also been working with Apple Podcast Producer 2 that comes with 10.6 server and it is pretty slick software. There is a science oriented presentation here in Barrow every Saturday, I think it is called Saturday School Yard, and I thought that it would be a good idea to try and capture some of these. Tomorrows presenter agreed to be videoed so I will try out Podcast Capture (comes with OS X) with an external iSight camera just to see how it comes out. I have been testing with a number of different formats and it seems to work pretty well. I haven't been able to get Podcast Composer to open the default workflows or upload new ones. I think I must have messed up the permissions somewhere along the line. Real documentation seems a little scarce.

Didn't feel like spending much time outside today. Air temperature is -22°F and with the breeze blowing, it was something like -43°F. I originally thought of bringing my insulated coveralls but they take up a lot of room in your luggage. I scheduled a short outage this evening to swap out a couple of UPS units and that went fairly smooth except for the problem with the point to multipoint radio system. I don't know if it was related to the outage. Dinner tonight was at Osaka's again and the donburi was really good and warming. Donburi is a savory stew, in this case made from vegetables, chicken and eggs, served over rice. Nothing really fancy but they do a really good job with all their menu items.

Sashimi Plate

2009-12-02T20:07:00.005-09:00

Today, I treated myself to the small sashimi plate at Osaka's here in Barrow. As an extra treat, they brought out a salmon skin roll to accompany it. It was, as usual, wonderful. I have never had that type of roll before since I didn't know what to expect. A little crunchy and very tasty. I think the skin was broiled or something maybe after marinating in teriyaki sauce for a while. I will definitely have it again. I don't know how they do it, but the sashimi tasted very fresh. They are near the ocean, in fact right on the ocean, but all of the fish must be flown in daily. I would recommend this restaurant to anyone visiting Barrow.

On another note, I set up phones today in the BARC (Barrow Arctic Science Center) necropsy lab. I believe that this part of the facility is used to dissect large marine mammals as the table is huge and there is a two ton overhead crane to bring things in. The whole room is designed to be hosed down so I'm not real sure how well the phone is going to survive but it'll be a good test. I'm just about done with these phones as I just have one more installation to do. It is on a quonset hut and those are always a challenge to find a good place to install the mast. Usually the end walls are flat so hopefully that will work out. I must have lifted a lot today as my arms and shoulders are pretty sore right now.