The second part of my posts in anticipation of Midsummer Night’s Dream as performed by Oregon Ballet Theater: TuTu Facts. Thanks again to the OBT website for supplying my information
Every tutu takes approximately 140 hours to make by hand and costs about $2,000.
In anticipation of this weekend’s performance of Midsummer Night’s Dream, I’ve lifted the following facts, from the Oregon Ballet Theater website:
One pair of pointe shoes costs about $80 and typically lasts for only 8-12 hours.
I have a sort-of a spit curl. I didn’t when I was younger, but I have one now. Somewhere in my mid-30’s, my hair developed a 
touch more wave and curl. Right over my forehead, I have a lock that likes to cascade forward, forming a C just over the bridge of my nose. Sort of a Superman thing, or so I’m told by those who love me. The photo here shows an example of what I’m talking about. We were at the beach that day, the salt air made the curl lazy, but incessant.
[UPDATE: some classmates from grade School and high school have lovingly pointed out that I have always had that curl. I stand corrected.]
Some days, the spit curl effect is less pronounced. Today, for example, only a few stray, persistent hairs are stubborn enough to fall down and make the curl. They’re probably not noticeable to others, but I can see them. Oh boy, can I see them.
As anyone who’s been on the inside of a head where the hair falls over the forehead already knows: the hair is visible in your peripheral vision. Not a big deal. I don’t mind that at all.
Except today. Today I do mind.
Because today, the stubborn spit curl hair has suddenly turned GRAY.
It wasn’t gray BEFORE. Today it is (really? WHEN did it change? The whole hair? When?). Not the whole lock; I don’t have this big Jay Leno style color change at my widow’s peak. Instead, it’s just the straggling few that refuse to get out of the way. They sit there, glowing white in my field of vision, daring me to pay attention to them and making me immediately go cross-eyed as soon as I try to focus on them. Sweep them up and away with my hand? They’re back within 30 seconds. Distracting me again.
They taunt me – their grayness shouting ‘NEENER NEENER NEENER!” at me. Always there; always in front of me. Reminding me what my real age is. I rather like my real age. People have historically been surprised by how much older I am than they thought I was. But that may change with all that gray coming on…
I know (see earlier posts to the blog) that gray hair is caused by a build up of Hydrogen Peroxide in the body. Scientific fact. But I don’t have to LIKE it, do I? No. I don’t. Superman wouldn’t have liked gray in his spit curl, either. Not one bit.
So, I didn’t go on this excursion. But it’s clear that R and the boys had a great time.
The theme to the Klondike Derby was ‘Pirates’. Troop 22 won the race, and they won the award for most spirit. I have to say, the sled is a darned fine example of Pirate-y decoration!
From The National Geographic News, Feb 16, 2010:
“King Tut may be seen as the golden boy of ancient Egypt today, but during his reign, Tutankhamun wasn't exactly a strapping sun god.
“Instead, a new DNA study says, King Tut was a frail pharaoh, beset by malaria and a bone disorder—his health possibly compromised by his newly discovered incestuous origins.”
Over the weekend, R finally got to the mythical Red Cross first aid class he needed. This class became the bottleneck to everything for him in scouting, it seemed. The class would earn him First Aid merit badge, finish his first class rank advancement, and finish off a minimum of one (and maybe as many as three) other merit badges he has in a partial status.
Ostensibly, this class is held each month at the Red Cross. The Red Cross has cancelled each class since October, 2009. So we’ve only been waiting five months to make this happen.
All we can say is “whew!”
Perhaps – speaking entirely as a parent – this breakthrough will motivate R to wrap up the stragglers in three other partial merit badges. Assuming he does, he could roll into his third summer camp looking like this:
Oh, and he’s still twelve. He still has five and a half years left in his Boy Scout career. Shoot. He’s only now hitting his stride!
Private fencing lessons were worth it. Inevitably, some one-on-one time with an instructor becomes a valuable thing. After eight weeks of group lessons twice a week, 30 minutes of solo time with a great instructor, Len, was a big impact.
And yet, as is so often the case, we worked only on the most very basic skills during our session.
Len and I hadn’t ever worked together before. So he started me with my en guarde position. He tweaked the position of my feet a little, and we moved on to how I hold my foil.
I’ve been told that I hold my foil way too close to the center, that I need to keep my foil much more to the outside when I’m en guarde. Len helped me really ‘feel’ the correct position, and gave me some insights as to the ‘why’… and ‘why’ always helps me to maintain an unfamiliar skill until it becomes familiar muscle memory. In the case of my guarde position, having my foil so far toward center means I open up the whole of my ribcage to an attack outside my blade. Not good. Len made sure my foil and forearm are in proper alignment, fixed my hand position, and we moved on to my basic footwork.
Len had me advance and retreat, then he had me lunge. We pretty much stopped at the lunge for the rest of the lesson. Not that my lunge was bad. Len told me to my face that my lunge was pretty good and had good extension (what he said to Zach after I’d left might be something different <GRIN!>) but that I had to be wary of some mechanical issues to avoid injury. This is especially important given that I’m coming to fencing relatively late in life. With that in mind, Len fixed the following in my lunge:
And that was the whole 30 minutes. There’s a huge long list of things wrong with my lunge, but if I just fix my foot (further out, no pronation) then everything else migrates back into proper alignment.
By the end of the session, I was already feeling how my form was snapping ‘to’. I’d never really felt a good form, so it was great to actually feel it for a few consecutive minutes. It was a lot like the first time I stitched together a half dozen turns on alpine skis: uncomfortable and awkward at first, but once I’d felt how a good turn set up the dynamics for a successful subsequent turn, my technique locked into place. Same thing here. Sort of.
R took a private lesson, too. His feedback? It was boring. All he worked on was lunging and parrying, which seemed stupid and a waste of time to hear R tell it. R wasn’t so impressed. But then, R is in it for the ‘battle’. He’s twelve. He’s impatient. He delights in flailing away with a sparring partner as his learning mechanism. And, that technique works for him. Shoot, it worked for me, too, when I was his age. Afterall, a five minute lesson with a splitting maul and a wedge was all I needed. After that, they just let me flail away until I could read the weakness of the wood all by myself, and split tree rounds that others had given up on. That’s where R is in his life. I’m very clear that I’m no longer in that place in MY life any longer. I’ve learned to love the repetition of the drill. My body needs more opportunities to get it ‘right’.
Nevertheless, I’m betting that the information from the lesson will sneak into his fencing this week. Whether he would admit to it or not.
Earlier this week, I blogged about my first experiences with a Motorola Droid phone. In that post, I mentioned that someone had ‘relieved’ me of my Jabra Bluetooth speakerphone.
I didn’t go into details, but what I *think* happened is that I left the Jabra in the car as I turned it in at the San Jose airport. The care was then rented back out almost immediately. When I realized my mistake, I contacted the rental agency only find out that the car had been rented/returned in the interim and that my Jabra was nowhere to be found.
Well, since that post, the car rental agency I used – Thrifty Auto Rental – contacted me with the good news that my speakerphone reappeared and that they’re mailing it to me.
Seriously wonderful kudos to Thrifty for excellent customer service and caring about others’ possessions.
So my handsfree car experience will improve next week with the Jabra speakerphone reunion. In the interim, I’ve learned that mounting the Droid on the center of the windshield dramatically improves the built-in speaker phone experience while driving; mounting next to the door was much less effective.
From last week’s DesignCon trade show. Hard at work with a PCB Designer/Engineer visiting the National Instruments booth.
That’s Bhavesh, my colleague, in the left-center of the shot. I cut a couple video interviews during this show, too. I posted them to the ‘professionalism’ side-bar on the family blog; you can watch my funny mug say incomprehensible things on your computer screen by following the links there.
MSNBC is running the following article by Alan Boyle in Cosmic Log, “Hairs Trace Human History” [link]
(Image from MSNBC article)
“For the first time, scientists have deciphered the genetic code of an ancient human from a long-gone culture, using the DNA from just a few tufts of 4,000-year-old hair preserved in Greenland's permafrost.
“Thanks to the rapid advance of gene-sequencing technology, researchers could tell the hair belonged to a brown-skinned man whose ancestors came to the New World from Siberia around 5,500 years ago, during a previously unknown migration. And that's not all.”
Here’s what else they learned about this guy (quoted from the article):
We’re on the verge of adding information like this to the human body of knowledge:
“…the geneticists also said sequencing techniques were improving so much, for ancient as well as present-day DNA, that other long-dead cultures could be studied in the future. What skin color did the ancient Egyptians have? What genetic diseases afflicted the Etruscans? How did humans settle the Americas?”
I may be getting a bit too controversial here, but wouldn’t it be interesting to run a maternity/paternity scan on all the European Royals? How many “rightful” heirs were actually interlopers? The answer to that question could create massive turmoil in the history of monarchies?
Separately, remember the concept of the Tricorder in Star Trek? The difference between that technology and this technology is that the Tricorder was a Field instrument. As of today, we have to test the samples in the lab. We’re getting closer by the year.
The steady squeezing with respect to email access when away from the office finally built to a breaking point during last week’s business trip. Time to get some help and stop the pressure. Granted, I didn’t get an R2 unit, but I have been experimenting with a Motorola Droid phone over the last three days. The experience has been a bit eye-opening, in unexpected ways. For example: here’s the electronics-related to-do list I was packing as I headed into the Verizon store to shop smart phones (with the preconceived notion that I was looking for a Blackberry, not droids):
Someone ‘relieved’ me of my Jabra Bluetooth speaker phone. That’s a $60-$90 replacement.So, I was looking at $310-$640 in gadget upgrades, the clutter of multiple devices (sucks on the road) AND a $30/mo data plan for the Blackberry.
That lead me inexorably to the Droid. Instead of all that, I spent $200 on a Droid, and got: my phone; a built-in, in-car speaker phone; a mobile email device; a voice-recognition GPS device; and all THAT. So for the cost of the minimal GPS, I handled everything. Work pays the data plan; I’m good to go. The guy at the Verizon store removed the restraining bolt from my new best friend and we took off.
And just in time to spend most of the weekend out in the urban jungle, testing connectivity and usability.
With exchange students at our house for a whirlwind weekend tour, things got started early. Friday night, while the phone sat on my car’s console getting its first charge, I headed to the Rose Garden Arena to accompany the family and students to a WinterHawks game. Missed the first three inbound calls because I didn’t know how to answer the darn thing (swipe your finger to answer the call. Yeah, now I know). The Verizon store had set up my gmail and google calendar, but not a connection to Outlook Exchange at my employer. Remember, I needed Blackberry-like push service.
So, as I sat down at the game, I gmailed the IT manager asking how to set up the Outlook and could I do it myself? He emailed me three or four settings, and I gave it a whirl. Three minutes later, my Droid filled with Outlook Exchange messages and I successfully sent an outbound email to coworkers. All before the end of the first period. Not bad.
On Saturday, I played tour guide. That was my first chance to use the Droid in the Field. The GPS overlay on Google Maps was natural, informative and extremely useful. 
The one accessory that was a wise choice was the in-car windshield mount. For me, I got the mount with the magnet inside, which signals the Droid to go into CAR MODE as soon as the device gets cradled. Car Mode uses a different home screen – essentially a GPS with voice dialing and interactive voice recognition search. In fact, Smart Device Central said this in their blog:
“Speaking of Car Mode, the Droid is the first phone to come with Google Maps Navigation, which provides free, turn-by-turn, spoken driving directions. Car Mode is a simplified interface that gives you a few large icons to poke at in your car; Verizon will sell a car mount for the Droid, as well. The combination may make the Droid the best GPS phone on the market.”
And here’s what Lance Ulanoff had to say back in October 2009 about the Google Maps navigation in Android:
“I'm certain that the execs at TomTom, Garmin, and Magellan all sat up and took notice of the little e-bomb Google just dropped this morning. According to the Google blog, the free app (still in beta, by the way), has constantly updated maps, voice-driven commands and search, free traffic details, search for points of interest along route, 3D views, turn-by-turn direction—well, you get the idea. It has a lot of what you'll find in the best stand-alone GPS devices. Plus it's coupled with a big touch screen and something most GPS devices do not have: a keyboard.”
Yup, all the functionality of that $800 d0-everything Bluetooth-enabled Garmin you wish you had. The Droid can rotate to vertical or horizontal in Car Mode. Works just fine.
I especially liked being able to use voice recognition to say “find ice cream nearby” and have Google Maps give me all the ice cream shops in the vicinity. It works GREAT that way for gas stations, too.
The voice guided directions are extremely accurate and helpful. Instead of the typical “exit. right.” as I approached my freeway off ramp, the Droid would say something like “in 1000 feet, take exit 280, I-205, West Linn, Oregon City”. While the map feedback is very good indeed, I found the spoken navigation directions were detailed enough (without overkill) to drive by ear alone. Nice.
I also like being able to perform a normal Google Maps type search, then ask for Navigation Directions from my current location. Because it’s Google Maps underneath, you can turn on the traffic density display, and help choose your route based on freeway flow. Minimal use in Portland; HUGE benefit in Seattle and San Francisco!
Over the weekend, while at home, I tested the accuracy of the GPS positioning by zooming in as close as possible, then walking around the house. Darned thing could pretty much put the location cursor right inside the correct room of the house!
Away from the car, I repurposed an old Dell Pocket PC belt clip to hold the Droid. It fits nicely and is well padded. Done. Belt holsters have to be thought of as disposable anyway; I’m happy to give an obsolete one new life…
How’s it work as an MP3 Player? Let’s see. I loaded a couple albums worth of music onto the Droid, using Windows Media Player. A free book reader app and a handful of free-distribution books from Cory Doctorow for recreational reading, too. Last night my bed time reading was Cory’s “Little Brother” and jazz on the headphones. Simultaneously. My personal netbook runs Ubuntu Linux. I’m going to play with syncing music to the Droid from that environment. I’ll report more later.
I haven’t tried pairing it with a Bluetooth device yet. Later. My car stereo doesn’t have the Bluetooth factory option (damn!), so I can’t pair the phone to the car stereo. But, I did learn that a FM retransmitter was an effective way to wirelessly connect my MP3s to my car stereo. I’ll be looking into that as an option.
For work stuff; I have access to my cloud storage on google docs. I have access to my google voice account. I have a free app that lets me view Microsoft Office documents and PDFs on my device. I can go to webpages willy-nilly. The Droid mounts via USB cable to my PC; Windows recognizes it as a removable storage device. Drag and drop file transfers to your heart’s content.
“But Nolan!”
I hear you.
“It’s a phone!” you say. “What about call quality?”
Everyone on the other end says it’s hunky-dory. “Hear you very clearly, I can,” was one reply. The Built In speaker phone may be just a little too quiet for in-car use long term, though. People hear me fine, but I need a bit more volume to hear the other person clearly. That may just be a function of placement on the windshield. Experiments are in order.
“Why not an iPhone?” I’ve been asked. I wouldn’t mind an iPhone, to be honest, but the Verizon network meets my needs very well and it would cost me nearly a house payment to move the whole family. As long as the iPhone’s tethered to “the DeathStar” for service, it won’t be an option for me.
TomTom has a GPS app for the iPhone. $50. Google Maps? umm… free?
Ulanoff finishes his column on Google Maps Navigation with this: “the arrival of Google Maps Navigation deals a major blow to dedicated GPS device manufacturers and one of the biggest, craftiest wins of Google's decade-long existence.”
Given that I’ve just spent half of my weekend talking about how good at GPS my …. PHONE …. is, my behavior agrees with him even if my brain may not. I guess it’s a new era in human-cyborg relations. At least in my particular corner of the galaxy.
Specifically, R’s science project. Hydroponics In Space. I’d blogged about R’s project before. This week is where all the hard work came together.
The big science project, I’m told, had two possible due dates: Feb 5 if you want to be considered for the State Science Fair, and Feb 19th if you don’t want to be a State candidate. R wanted to be a State Science Fair candidate, so we scheduled up to hit the earlier deadline.
And he did. As I left for work this morning, he was loading his Science Fair exhibit and his 10 page Science Report into the car.
My earlier blog post covered some of the details about the results and the analysis, so I won’t duplicate that here. But what was cool was how R endeavored to work ahead of his deadline. Here are some examples:
As luck would have it, I came across a technical publication describing a very similar experiment currently underway on the International Space Station. The lab module attached to the outside of the ISS is investigating the effectiveness of different plants and care strategies for space-bound horticulture. We printed out the article and attached it to the exhibit. Why? Because R’s work is directly related. We get to make the point(mostly to R, frankly) that he just did real science.
I’ll update with pics later. I’m proud of him; this turned out well.
UPDATE: R informed me last night that he was not selected for the State Science Fair. He was very apologetic that he didn’t make the cut. I assured him that, even though he didn’t get to go forward, he delivered real science, well communicated, and in his own hand. I’m proud of him anyway. There will be other opportunities.
