| A Day Too Far |
[Nov. 18th, 2009|09:49 pm] |
Two twelve hours plus work days following a three day convention was just too much for my body. I had to drag myself in to work early today to be there if any problem would arise before the critical 9:00AM drop dead time for same day PCB delivery. There was only one simple problem with the board dimensions which was easily solved with a revised gerber plot.
I started to fade quickly once the board was on order. I stayed at work cleaning up the Bill of Material and generating the mechanical drawings. I was really too tired to think clearly on how to finalize the two low-pass and two band-reject filter design. I gave up on the filter design and other design issues after seven hours and went home. I am already three hours over for this week
I crash soon after getting home and only got up after four hours of deep sleep because Mike needed me to do shopping. |
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| Another Day Older |
[Nov. 18th, 2009|12:37 am] |
I worked sixteen hours today to complete the crisis pcb layout. I started this morning with only one room component placement done and ended the night with an "error" free layout with Gerbers all ready for the PCB manufacturer. I even clean up the Legend layer!
I still have a lot of work left on this project. I still need to make the simulation work right. I still have to define the filter components, right now they are defined as To Be Determine. I need to define the PCB mechanical dimensions and export a AutoCad file so a housing can be design and built. I still need to clean up the schematics, they are in four different formats.
Over the past two days I have almost work a full thirty-two hour week, but if this solution is going to get to the customer in time, I need to be at work for the remainder of the week. I might have to come in Friday (hopefully)to debug the prototype. |
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| Long Day Start for a Long Week |
[Nov. 17th, 2009|12:10 am] |
I was at work till very late today trying to get the crisis board laid out. I work for over twelve hours and I only just started to arrange the components in the first of five rooms. Tomorrow, I need to stay very late again if I have any chance to get a the design done in time for the board to be built and tested by the end of the week.
My main problem is that the design is not yet stable. I know that I still have to make serious design decisions and these changes are real time wasters.
I did not get to the cats till very, very late. There was still plenty of food and water. |
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| I Could of Play Games All Night |
[Nov. 15th, 2009|05:33 pm] |
It was too bad that I am in a crisis at work or I would of stayed and play games late into the night. This was the first Chicago Con in years which a large number of gamers were staying the night. I was tempted, but I need to get some circuit design completed before I get to work in the morning.
I still did a lot at WindyCon. I attended five panels and played a lot of games. It was a very good convention. |
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| Weasel Queen |
[Nov. 14th, 2009|02:24 am] |
The Highlight of the first day of WindyCon was the performance of the Phil Fogilo's "Revenge of the Weasel Queen". Revenge was done as a combination "radio" play and slides show. The performance was very funny and their was a lot of audience participation. |
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| Rush Job |
[Nov. 12th, 2009|09:23 pm] |
It does no good to rush through a design to get a PC board in a day if you can not get the parts to assemble those boards no sooner than a couple of weeks. Most of my work today was the in tedious effort of making sure that I can even produce the design in the time to meet the customer need |
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| Panades |
[Nov. 8th, 2009|06:43 pm] |
My version of Panades (Bread Soup) made with beer and cheese is one of the few dishes which I do not follow a publish recipe. ( Panades Recipe Evolution ) |
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| Blood Delayed |
[Nov. 4th, 2009|08:31 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | blood | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  accomplished | ] |
I had to cancel my blood donation that was schedule for a week ago from last Monday. I still had the headache got over that weekend. I even stay home a half day from work, which almost never happens. I reschedule the appointment for this past Monday and I plan to keep it if I did not develop a fever before the appointment.
I was still healthy when Monday came around so I was able to keep my new blood donation appointment. |
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| Turkey Season |
[Nov. 2nd, 2009|12:09 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | turkey | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  sleepy | ] |
Roast Turkey is one of our favorite meals. A whole Turkey has the right ratio of white and dark meat to satisfied everyone. I would cook Turkey more often, if it was not so pricey. During this Holiday season, I take advantage of the local stores promotional to stock up on inexpensive frozen turkeys. ( Turkey haul ) |
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| Golden Afternoon |
[Oct. 19th, 2009|07:10 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | friends | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  happy | ] |
Today was too beautiful of a Fall day to spend all of the day inside working in a windowless office. The dreary damp weather of last week was chased out by the sharp clear cool sky's of Fall. The trees were all cloaked with a mantle of bright golden leaves highlighted with bold red's and orange's. I wanted to spend some quality time outside to enjoy such a great day, so I jumped at the chance to get out when ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) cheshcat called to request a favor.
cheshcat and anarchist_nomad were in town for a very, very short time, just enough time to catch a flight from O'Hare to England. Both of them had two different flights. cheshcat had a ride to O'Hare because her flight was much later than anarchist_nomad. Because anarchist_nomad's driver bailed out at the last minute, anarchist_nomad did not have a ride to O'hare. I took a long lunch and drove anarchist_nomad to O'Hare early enough for him to catch his flight.
We conversed about many things during the trip to O'Hare, but mostly about the new Neutrino experiment in Japan. anarchist_nomad was very excited about the soon to be commission Neutrino source. With the Neutrino source up and running anarchist_nomad will have new data to evaluate.
I always love to listen to anarchist_nomad talk about his work. He can in a few minutes explain clearly complex scientific ideas in such simple and concise expression that anyone could understand with the detail that can satisfies the most geeky physic nerd.
I was somewhat sad that we had such good traffic that our trip ended too soon. |
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| Playing The Russian Game |
[Oct. 16th, 2009|12:02 am] |
| [ | Tags | | | games | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  curious | ] |
Tonight the BBC had a piece about a new game that is now a craze Russia. In the game teams of player search abandon industrial buildings and military sites for hidden clues to solve a puzzle. These clues are all coded messages. Once the team breaks the code they enter the information into the game web site which gives then gives the players new places to search. |
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| 7th |
[Oct. 15th, 2009|08:41 pm] |
Lately I been listening over and over the first part of the second movement of Beethoven's 7th symphony. It is simple, subtle and restrained. The slow build up of the strings with each instrument taking in turn the same simple melody building up to the first crescendo is subliminally brilliant.
I always love Beethoven's symphonies, the ninth is still my favorite, though the seventh and fifth are very close. |
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| Shadows in the Sky |
[Oct. 9th, 2009|08:17 am] |
| [ | Tags | | | sky | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| | happy | ] |
Monday's sunset was beautiful. The sun had just drop below the horizon, the sky was free of clouds and the western sky had many bold pink and blue rays emulating from the point of the sunset. I counted at least thirteen rays stretch from north to the south, reaching up about a quarter way up from the horizon. The rays last for about five minutes.
On Wednesday I saw another set of rays at sunset, but the rays were emulating from the northeast! I was driving into the city at the time and the rays were peaking out between the tall trees and buildings. The rays were also pink and blue, but were very, very faint. I could best see them with my sunglasses on.
These rays are Crepuscular rays, The rays are shadows from objects far away over the horizon being being reflected by particles high up in the atmosphere. Since we lack nearby mountains in Illinois the rays shadows must of been form by a line of very distant clouds bank. The shadows are really parallel, but appear to be diverging because of the effect linear perspective. The shadows emulate from the sun and can cross the sky to converge at the point in the sky opposite the sun! These Anticrepuscular rays is what I saw Wednesday night emulating from the anti solar point in the northeast sky. The rays pink and blue color was due to the sunlight scatter at sunset. |
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