Category: General Page 10 of 116

Day 900 of 1000

With only 100 days left in our 1000 day count, my buddy Eric left a very interesting comment on my post about Elio Motors, the three wheel company. with a link to a strange three wheel car company called Twentieth Century Motor Car Company.  It is stranger even than the last, drug dealing days of DeLorea Motor Company and not in a good way.  The crazy thing is the two three wheel cars have a lot in common including a specification of 84 miles per gallon gas mileage and a very low price.  Maybe this idea’s time has come, but the leadership of the older company see more in line with the spirit of 2014 than the spirit of 1974.  It is an interesting read.

Betty Blonde #64 – 10/14/2008

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Day 897 of 1000

Betty Blonde #61 – 10/09/2008

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Day 894 of 1000

I read through Romans 12 today.  It reminded me again that the Bible is full of statements that shaped the world.

9 Let love be without dissimulation. Abhor that which is evil; cleave to that which is good.
10 Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love; in honour preferring one another;

15 Rejoice with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that weep.
16 Be of the same mind one toward another. Mind not high things, but condescend to men of low estate. Be not wise in your own conceits.
17 Recompense to no man evil for evil. Provide things honest in the sight of all men.
18 If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men.

21 Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.

There is an amazing standard of conduct described there.  It is uniquely Christian.  This is the standard to which we are all held.  Some do a much better job than others at upholding it, be we all fail–miserably–in the end.  It is always worth the effort to strive for this kind of conduct.  There are temporal benefits to attaining it, but the eternal ones are profoundly greater.

Betty Blonde #59 – 10/07/2008

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Day 889 of 1000

My flight to Phoenix arrived seven hours late yesterday, so I did not get to bed until 4:30 (6:30 Raleigh time) this morning.  It was not nearly as bad as it seems.  I slept about three and a half hours on the plane and got another three before I went into work.  This was a good reminder of why it will be nice to start living in the same town where I work.

Betty Blonde #54 – 09/30/2008

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Day 876 of 1000

Christian received the first response to his PhD applications yesterday from Arizona State University. They want to fly him out Tempe for “Recruiting Event” so he can talk to Electrical Engineering faculty and see the campus. They will put him up in a nice hotel and wine him and dine him a little. We are not sure whether he will go to ASU, but he will plan to go fly out to Tempe for this event if it does not conflict with another invitation–we hope he gets one or two more, but who knows? Here are a few tidbits from the letter.

Thank you for applying to the doctoral graduate program in electrical engineering in the School of Electrical, Computer, and Energy Engineering at ASU. The Graduate Admissions Committee is very impressed with your academic achievements and is very interested in you for admission to the PhD degree program…

We are hosting a Recruiting Event … on the Tempe campus for about 15 select PhD applicants and … would like to invite you to this event. You have been chosen from an applicant pool that is now at over 330 applicants.

At the event you will meet with faculty, students, and school administrators. Research opportunities and financial aid will be discussed while you are here. We have excellent financial aid packages for doctoral students. Campus and laboratory tours will be included.

I am going to try to coordinate my travels so I can pick him up at the airport when he arrives and drop him off at the Hotel. He is not old enough yet to rent a car, so he might have to figure out how to get back to the airport on his own.

Betty Blonde #42 – 09/12/2008

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Day 862 of 1000
Betty Blonde #28 – 08/25/2008

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We are making churritos to take to a New Year’s get-together tonight.

Day 854 of 1000
Betty Blonde #26 – 08/21/2008

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This is my last work day of 2013.  Tomorrow, Christian and I will start work on two of his undergraduate research projects.  I am not doing much other than provide a little programming support.  The first one is just the installation and final tuning of his blackbody source project which will be all Christian.  The second is a fairly complex image processing problem involving the integration of a couple hundred images into a single, higher resolution image.  It should be fun and educational.

Kelly’s and Christian’s cousins Dayanita and Jorgito will get here the day after Christmas.  We very much look forward to that.  We have tickets for an NCSU basketball game, plans of museum trips, and much more.  That also should be fun and educational.

Day 819 of 1000 – Betty Blonde #4

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It is kind of nice the weekend is over.  After three weeks away from home, I was ready for a relaxing weekend, but spent most of the weekend working on graduate school applications, work projects, and some volunteer programming.  I think life will be like this until the end of the year.  The kids are in their last round of midterms to be followed by finals.  After that, Christian needs to work on his last undergraduate research project and paper while Kelly prepares for a very busy final semester.  In the middle of all that, we need to assure that the college application process moves forward.  It makes me tired just writing about it.  I think I might go take a nap.

Day 818 of 1000 – Betty Blonde #3

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We filled out and submitted Christian’s first two graduate school applications yesterday.  It feels a little bit like the first step on a rite of passage.  It is really rough to get into either of the schools to which he applied so who knows whether he will get accepted.  There are two are two more schools to go for Christian and six for Kelly.  Still, to have paid the application fee and put the decision into the hands of others feels pretty good.  Christian has one more semester after this one, but there is nothing more he can do to improve his chances.  We did all we could and we will see if it is enough.

Our meeting room for the San Francisco meetings was on the 26th floor (about in the middle) of a very large building, but features an incredible view of the San Francisco bay. In addition to that, it features a very unique view of the statues on the top of the building next door. I cannot imagine too many people have access to the view of these particular statues. They were a little bit cool, but also very creepy.

Here is an article on their meaning in from the LA Times.

Day 810 of 1000

I flew back to Phoenix yesterday morning after four days of frenetic activity in downtown San Francisco.  We made lots of progress, but I am very happy to get back to life at a saner pace.  I fly so much, I get bumped to first class on semi-regularly now.  Something else new is that I have been tagged as TSA pre-check so getting through the security process is much easier now.

So I sat by a nice lady on the plane who has two children in high school.  One of them loves math and plans to do an engineering degree in college.  The other is great at math, but her mom is encouraging her to get a degree in film because she is so creative and has put up some amazing videos of her friends on Youtube.  What is wrong with this picture?  We were in a long enough conversation that it came out that our daughter, Kelly, is a quite good artist, but is also a pretty good mathematician.  It came up that I discouraged Kelly from an undergraduate degree in anything in the liberal arts, but that she plans to do something that could very well use her art skills in her graduate work.  My seatmate was a little bit offended and ended the conversation shortly after that.  It was nice to get caught up on my reading after that.

Day 804 of 1000

Lorena put this on facebook, but I needed to put it here too, for posterity.

Day 802 of 1000

The kids are getting closer in their progress through the graduate school application process to assurance of acceptance to programs they really want.  It requires a lot of effort to apply to a lot of schools by everyone in the family.  Of course the kids do most of the ground work while Lorena and I review statements and resumes, do lots of running around for transcripts and other documents, and, most of all moral support.  It is amazing how much collaboration can take place these days using DropBox, Google Docs, Skype, and other such tools.   The Lorena and the kids are also in their last round of mid-terms.

In the middle of all this, Lorena and I have to start figuring out where we are going to live next.  If the kids both get into good programs out West we will move there as soon as we can sell the house.  Christian has given some thought to staying at NCSU for an additional year–there is a fifth year Masters degree in the Applied Math program.  If the decides to go West, then we are going to really have to scramble to figure out where we want to go and line everything up.

Day 798 of 1000

I was able to pick up a friend at the airport today.  It was a joy to be with him.  He is an encouragement just by his very existence and the course he has taken for his life.  It is my hope that other people have someone in their life that they wish they could somehow repay, but do not have the means.  It is a feeling that is humbling, but very, very good.  Sometimes, I find myself in a particular set of circumstances where I want to be a help, but am unable to do it.  It makes me want to work to get the circumstances right to be able to be a help more.

All of this made me think about my brother-in-law, Rigoberto and his wife Minita. I told my friend that I picked up from the airport about them.  Recently, they had occasion to move to a place many hundreds of miles from where they were born and raised.  Rigo moved because he got a better job, but there was something bigger going on.  It turns out they found themselves in a place where they could be a very big help and encouragement to a lot of people and a huge example to their elementary school age children.  They miss out on a ton of stuff that being close to grandparents and nuclear family might help, but would not be possible if they were not a long way from home on their own.

I know this all sounds a little cryptic, but I was reminded of the need to be humble enough, willing, and ready to go anywhere I am called.  I do not know if this make any sense, but it seems like a lot more spiritual growth occurs when one is being a help then being helped.  I suppose it might have something to do with ones stage of life, too, but, for me, I feel a pretty big need to be up and doing, now, while I have time and opportunity.

Update:  The guercos in the picture are Christian and Kelly circa 2000.

Day 792 of 1000

I love everything about this article on the aptly named “Toilet Bowl” between Oregon State and the team never to be named in this blog.  That game was compared to the Obama/Democrat government shutdown.  Most of the Republicans, especially in the senate did not act with distinction either.  I am not sure if I was at the particular game described in the article, but I could have been and have lots of friends who absolutely were there.  In a state full of some of the best athletes in the world–mostly in track and field–it has not been a place where the football players have excelled even though they have gotten better over the last decade or so.  Note that I do not count that team in the town next to Springfield as an Oregon team.

Day 784 of 1000

We had a great weekend in Georgetown, Texas visiting friends and family from Mexico. There was even a contingent of other Mexcians from North Carolina. Lorena and I are sitting in the airport in Austin waiting to catch a flight back to Raleigh and the daily grind. We really wish we could have taken the kids, but that will have to wait until next year.

Day 781 of 1000

Lorena will be out of communication unti Monday afternoon at a church convention.  We are looking forward to listening to lots of good stuff, eating well, and seeing family and old friends.  It will all be in Spanish.  Not a bad way to celebrate our 21st wedding anniversary.

Day 780 of 1000

Lorena and I got married en the “El Tio” event center/restaurant 21 years ago today.  We are meeting in Austin this weekend to go to a church event.  Lorena’s father, mother, and some other family members will be there.  I am thankful for Lorena and thankful for the family into which I married.  I will probably be out of contact for a day or two.