Category: Retirement PhD Page 2 of 6

I am off and running on the volunteer work I am doing for the GaugeCam GRIME Lab. I am now automatically downloading images from the USGS HIVIS KOLA camera site and plan to see if I can write Python code to measure the water level in images with only a very small octagon in them (less than the width of a typical staff gauge) to be used for creating a pixel to world coordinate calibration model. I did not think I would be so energized on this project, but it is very gratifying and a lot more enjoyable without the time pressure associated with the work I did for my PhD. We are going to try to start off just with small, finite length project with specific research goals in mind and see how that goes.

Now that my PhD schooling is complete, I have asked to stay on and continue the research that started at North Carolina State University back in 2009. Troy (UNL) and Mary (UNK) have positioned a much smaller target at the Kearney Outdoor Learning Center (KOLA) in Kearney, Nebraska. The idea is to investigate the stage measurement accuracy level when the octagon used for pixel to world coordinate calibration is small enough to fit on the top of a traditional USGS staff gauge. This fits into Troy’s and Mary’s research programmed aimed at reducing the conditioning (addition of objects solely to help measure) of water body images. I am in the process of porting the original code written in C++ to Python so it is easier for people in the hydrology community to use. Troy writes about it over at the GaugeCam blog: here.

Christian and Kelly took Lorena and I to the fabulous Boiler Room Restaurant in Omaha for a steak after the commencement ceremony at University of Nebraska–Lincoln. That is the same place where Lorena, Christian and I went after my dissertation defense back in June. Afterward, we all went to a craft cocktail bar named Berry & Rye and had a foo-foo drink before we went home. On the drive up from Lincoln we stopped in at something called the Holy Family Shrine–a roadside Catholic shrine that is an architectural marvel with flowing internal water features and spectacular views of the landscapes and hills along the I-80 freeway.

I have the diploma, my University of Nebraska email and Teams accounts are going away in a month or two, and there is a real feeling of finality to this enterprise of getting a retirement PhD even though I am not yet retired (thankfully). I have already started on a volunteer research project with the GRIME Lab. I am going to take that work at a much more leisurely pace. Hopefully, we will be doing something with the ITESM university system in Mexico, too, so it should be fun.

Lorena and I had an outdoor thermometer at our house in Centralia that we loved to check. Youngin’s parents wanted to get me something. Unbeknownst to them, they got us just the perfect gift. Lorena and I are looking for a bracket that will allow us to rotate the thing different directions so we can use in when we are sitting on the porch or in the living room. The best part is that it is a Cornhuskers branded thermometer. I almost laughed when I opened it because it was so perfect.

A huge note of thanks to my PhD adviser, Professor Troy Gilmore (top photo), at University of Nebraska–Lincoln and founder of the GaugeCam GRIME Lab where I plan to volunteer now that I have finished my degree. No words are sufficient to express my level of gratitude for his support through so many years of education and research and, even more, for his friendship. His wife, Youngin, made a spectacular Korean dinner for the commencement after-party with committee members, Aaron Mittlestet (bottom photo) and Mary Harner. I am just so grateful for it all.

Done. They handed me the actual diploma during the graduation. Troy and Youngin threw us an amazing after party. I will describe it all in a little more detail when I am not writing on my phone.

Today, Lorena and I are meeting Troy and Youngin for lunch in downtown Lincoln. This is probably my last day of school, ever. It has been an incredible amount of work, but every minute was worth it. Part of this had to do with me wanting to get a PhD, but honestly, the best part was the people with whom I worked. My committee consisted of 100% people of good will. My buddy John S. Started in the same program about halfway through my program and it has always been a joy to work with him. I’m going to enjoy continuing to volunteer with Troy, but it kind of won’t be the same. I just wish there was a way to adequately thank everyone involved.

Lorena and I drove up from Texas to Lincoln Nebraska today for my graduation. It was a really nice drive that we took pretty slow, stopping to eat whenever we wanted. I’m getting a little nostalgic about all of the schooling at this point. This really is the last time I’m going to do something like this. I’m glad I did it, it gave me great joy.

It is starting to pile higher and deeper now. I am now in the registry of earned doctorates kept by the NSF, NIH, and others. This is certainly not the diploma, but it says that I am officially complete. The actual point at which I “earned” the PhD as far as I can understand was June 8, 2023 when I was still on 67 years old.

Lorena got out my gown to make sure everything was as it should be. We are heading up toward Nebraska tomorrow, first to pick up the Kelly and Christian in Omaha on Thursday afternoon, then over to Lincoln for the night to be ready for the graduation on Friday. We were planning to make the whole drive from Texas to Omaha on Thursday, but decided we wanted to do this at a more reasonable pace so are leaving after the Fort Worth morning rush hour traffic to head out. I have to admit the cape and gown do look very cool. I am really looking forward to not only the graduation, but the festivities, too.

One little downside that showed up last week is that University of Nebraska–Lincoln is no longer going to provide lifetime email addresses for their graduates. That would not be such a big deal, but two of the professors on my committee and I are planning a fairly large research project to continue my work and it would have been nice to be able to do that without changing emails. I know that is a very small pinch point, but I would have enjoyed keeping my old email address. God willing, I will talk more about this new project that just extends my doctoral research. I will be pursuing this as a volunteer as long as I am able and there is fruitful work to do.

Lorena pulled out Christian’s PhD cap gown so we can take it along with us to Lincoln for my Graduation. We want to get a picture of he and I when I graduate. He only beat me to a PhD by 44 years based on age and 11 years by absolute date. AND, no question, his PhD is much more impressive than mine and he actually contributed greatly to my research and was a contributing author on both papers we published. He is a great son to me.

I thought the following table was pretty interesting. I created it in November 2020 after I had been in the University of Nebraska–Lincoln Ph.D. program for about a year. I did not have my courses approved by my committee yet, but I was trying to make a guess at how long it would take me to get through, how to get the credits all in and finish in a reasonable time. I was really not trying to go fast, but not slow either. There was a trade-off between the money Troy would have to come up with (shorter is better) and sticking around in the program as long as possible to move Troy’s research program forward. It is kind of amazing how good was my guess. The part that I did not really get so right was the amount of work it would be to write the required articles and the dissertation. Pretty much everything extra got put on hold for four years, including health stuff like eating right and exercise. There was no excuse for that, but I got through the program fine, Gracias a Dios.

Month 3 WEIGHT: 200.3 lbs. BMI: 31.4

Now that I am about to graduate, my Ph.D. adviser, Troy, and I have identified a volunteer research project on which I can collaborate. Troy’s GRIME Lab is working with collaborators in the U.S., Europe, and Latin America to develop methods for the crowd sourcing of hydrologically interesting water scene images. With this project, the biggest problem is figuring out how to extract meaningful information from the images. There is quite a bit of mostly failed work on extracting information from unconditioned images–that is, images where there is nothing in the scene to help calibrate the images so that measurements can be taken. Our plan is to take a step back, make minor changes to the staff gauges that are commonly in those scenes and see if we can start gathering more meaningful information than what is already there. The problem with that is the size of the calibration target (the octagon in the scene) is very small compared to what we used during my Ph.D. research. It looks, though, like I can find the target fine. The problem then is to figure out how to make the calibration right after the target is found.

I just got notice from the printing office at University of Nebraska–Lincoln that my dissertation print run has returned from the bindery and is ready for pick-up. Troy is going to run down there and grab them for me. It all feels pretty good and real now. I am very happy with how the dissertation turned out both in terms of content and the printing. I can hardly wait to get them signed and sent out to all the people who were so helpful to me.