I wanted to post Kelly’s Master of Science in Business Administration diploma as it is the current high mark in her educational efforts. She is almost certainly not done yet (talked to one of her professors last night about next steps), but she is at work now in a good job in downtown Seattle learning new stuff, loving her job and her new co-workers and on the way to figuring out what she really wants to do as a vocation. We are very happy and excited for Kelly.
Kelly picked me up at the airport in Seattle this afternoon after her work. I am going to meet with a company tomorrow morning that, amazingly, is located on the 19th floor in the same building where Kelly works on the 3rd floor. Tomorrow evening we will head down to Portland to visit Grandpa Milo and Grandma Sarah. The motel I found close to where Kelly lives turns out to be an apartment building built in 1961 that the Seattle city government would not let be used as apartments, so they turned it into a motel and never looked back. It is a great little price with one of the lowest prices around.
But Lorena did not let me keep it even though it was pretty much out in the middle of the street and we could not find the owner. She said, “I know what needs to be done with that!” I am sure she does.
Last night, for the first time in Chapman family history, we entertained no trick-or-treaters on Halloween. Maybe yesterday’s diatribe drove them away, but I think it is more likely the apartment where we live does not allow it. So with impending big changes in the works, I sat around and read a book that was recommended by Marvin Olasky in 2015 called The Book of Strange New Things. It is definitely an odd book written in English by a non-English speaker and you can tell that from the use of the language in the book as well as the markedly Western European worldview it manifests. I am still trying to decide whether or not I like it. There are some very, very good things about the book, particularly its treatment of things Christian, but it is a little bit of a slow read in places and does not ring true (or maybe real is a better word) in others. Still I am glad to have the time to read it because I think those opportunities are going to decrease dramatically due to said “impending big changes in the works.”
I have not been much of a fan of Halloween since I got to big to solicit candy door to door in our neighborhood when it was relatively safe to do that back in the early 1960’s. It was never a great holiday, but now it just makes me tired and kind of sad for our culture. I have to admit I still enjoy the clever, well-executed costumes some of the kids create and I love giving out candy to the smaller neighborhood kids, but it is soul deadening to watch junior high schoolers to adults exercise their fantasies–some of them, even at the low end of that age group, leaning to well beyond PG-13 ratings. Even at the surface level where the celebration seems to be about death, narcissism and extortion, it has never been, in my mind anyway, a good thing. Oh well. I will endeavor to not be a Halloween Scrooge (excuse the mixed metaphor), hand out candy and keep a smile on my face this evening.
I fly to Seattle on Thursday night for a business meeting on Friday. Friday night, Kelly and I plan to drive to Portland to see Grandma Sarah. She is eating very, very little and is getting closer to the end. This is part of the reason I have not written so much. There are lots of things happening and not so much happening. I get up every morning to go to work through the week, then Lorena and I go to the Snooty Pig on Saturday mornings for breakfast and to our church meeting on Sunday morning. In the meantime, Grandpa Milo and especially Grandma Sarah approach the end. This might be the last time I see her if I make it on time, but she might linger for longer than we expect. It is a time for introspection.
In the whole scheme of things, maybe what is going on in our lives is not so eventful. Still, it is important in the trajectory of our lives. There will be changes soon. We are not sure whether they will be a result of momentous geopolitical events or as a result of our desire to make some changes to get closer to our loved ones and/or “do the right thing.” I hope to be able to write more in the coming days about all that is in process.
Note: The picture is in celebration of National Cat Day.
Kiwi continues to help me with my work on the Gaugecam project. We all recevied an email yesterday describing some of the new information that will appear in the next refereed journal article. Some of it will have an impact on my work–we will know what to do to make the system even more accurate under changing conditions. It is slow work since I have so much other stuff going, but my hope is that I can turn this into my retirement project. I hope to have a demo of some of the stuff we are doing to put up here within the next few months.
The shibboleth of Christian fundamentalism is way past its expiration date. It is the go-to straw man for the unthinking pop-culture, pseudo-intellectual intelligentsia that make up the mainstream media, the vast bulk of academia (primary, secondary and post-secondary), the political class, and large swaths of the rest of America. It is almost impossible to talk about objective morality, abortion, traditional marriage, origins, euthanasia or any other topic of moral import without a self-righteous demand to account for the actions and thought of extremists who make up less than one percent of those who call themselves Christian.
I am through with making caveats. I am no more responsible for the abject immoral behavior of people who call themselves Christians but act otherwise than I am for the evils perpetuated on innocents by the likes of Planned Parenthood, New Atheists, Code Pink, PETA and the Democrat Party. Don’t ask me to account for any of that. I have my own sins to account for but these are not them. And do not expect me to just go along either. I hate ALL of this stuff because it is evil. Tolerance of evil is not a virtue.
This rant was partially motivated by my recent reads through Jeremiah and Ezekiel. It does not seem like their situation was a whole lot different from that of thinking Christians today. At any rate, thanks for reading my rant; it was actually quite cathartic.
I have not been so consistent in my writing over the last several weeks, but interesting things are happening. Not so surprisingly, writing in this blog helps me sort through things a bit. Lorena, her mom and I all attended a church convention in Georgetown this weekend. We saw a lot of old friends from North Carolina and Mexico, ate some great food and got refocused on what is truly important. One of the really fun things that happened was a talk I had with an acquaintance who works in the very area of the Quantum Topology where that won a Nobel prize for three physicists who came up with and developed the idea. Microsoft is currently funding a very big effort called Station Q to build a quantum computer using these concepts. It could have huge impact on what it is possible to compute if they can get it to work. It will be fun to watch this, especially now that I know someone directly working on it.
Lorena and I got married twenty-four years ago today. That was two days before the 500th anniversary of the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus. Lorena’s mother, Conchita–the best mother-in-law in the history of the world arrived in Dallas last night to help us celebrate. We are in a new era now that started a couple of years ago, but now we are really starting to accept that fact that the kids are gone, paying their own way and only really need us for moral support. It is a good place to be and I am thankful to be here with Lorena.
The following image speaks for itself. It shows the graph of water level from GaugeCam‘s camera viewing water level in a body of water near Goldsboro, NC at 6:30 AM yesterday morning in the face of flooding caused by Hurricane Matthew. There is an image that appears as you hover the mouse cursor (arrow) over the dots on the graph. It is an amazing visualization of the flood from which we are working on a video. The spikes in the middle of the curve are anomalies. On the far right side of the graph you can see the water rise dramatically.
This may not sound like such a big deal, but when Kelly sent us pictures of the new glasses she tried on today, it dawned on me that she will get her new prescription and her new glasses with her own insurance that she earns at work at her new job. She starts on Monday. They have all the normal, new employee meetings and paperwork as the obligatory, take the new employee to lunch trip. I love the first day of a new job and this is Kelly’s first, not in internship, not at school job where she plans to be there for a number of years at the very least. How cool is that.
So, my struggles about finding things to write for this blog will get even harder because now she is not only out of homeschool, she is out of school altogether. It is all quite exciting.
This is the semi-momentous announcement that marks an ending and a new beginning for Kelly. Kelly passed her PhD prelims (comprehensive exams) last month. That is a big deal because it moved her to PhD candidacy. She learned a lot in the last two years. She made significant improvements in her data analytics skills, especially with respect to applying them in the specific domain of Marketing. She also learned, though, that she did not want an academic career in Marketing. So she has decided to stop at an MS in Marketing, take a few years off to work, continue to improve here statistical skills (maybe even another Masters degree) and figure out what field might be in alignment with her career goals (probably something to do with Statistics). That is the big news. That and the fact that, after many, many interviews and some good offers, she has accepted a job that is just about perfect for her in downtown Seattle. All good stuff. So, in our homeschool journey, one kid is out of school for the time being and has a stellar “real” job. She might head back toward a PhD someday, but then again she might not. She is in a good place and we are thankful for such a great outcome even though it is not over yet. Gainful employment is always a good thing.
Some really good stuff is happening, some of which has to do with schooling and some with work. Lorena and I are spending most of the day indoors today, not because we want to be here on a beautiful sunny fall day (not to hot for a change), but because we have to work. I have taken on another project to help with a medical device for developing countries and Lorena is studying for her Statistics class. She has two classes this term, so she is pretty busy. That is all good stuff, but not the subject of this post. I just wanted to put up a marker because some good decisions were made to make a change, but the exact direction is not yet established. I think in a couple of days we can celebrate it and talk about it.
It is amazing to me that in our day and age, new physical evidence continues to accumulate that shows the Biblical scripture did not change in any meaningful way from what was originally written. An article came out yesterday about technological advancements that allow previously unreadable scrolls from the first century AD to be read reliably. That in conjunction with the relatively new ability to recover Biblical text from, of all things, mummies masks that also go back to the first century. There was little doubt before we had these new confirmations that the Bible we read today is very, very close to what was initially written–nothing of any doctrinal consequence with respect to the foundation truths of Christianity was ever in question. Still, it is nice to have them.
I just read an article, ironically titled Question The Stories You Tell Yourself About Terror Attacks And Police Shootings, that said one’s chance of getting hit by lightning are greater than getting killed by a terrorist attack. That is neither true for the United States nor the world. On average, 51 people per year get struck by lighting in the US for 20 year average of 1020. For the years 1995 to 2014, 3264 people were killed in the US by terrorism for an average of over 163. Of course, that is greatly inflated by the 3000+ killed on 9/11, but the point remains. It is even worse for the rest of the world. It is hard to estimate the number of lighting strikes around the world, estimates ranging from 6000 to 24,000 per year. The number of terror attack deaths as estimated by the US State Department for 2015 was 28,328. This is a big and growing problem, not caused by the Amish nor the Lutherans.
I count this as a birthday gift from one of the blogs I read. The guy who writes the blog does not know I exist, but he is a fellow traveler, transplanted to Texas whose blog I visit at least a couple of times per day (h.t. Bayou Renaissance Man). To my friends in Klamath Falls, Southern Indiana and parts of North Carolina, this video needs no explanation (I did not mention Texas because that goes without saying). What is not to like about Ode to Joy on Glock 22’s, especially when Russians are involved?
I am about to turn 61. A lot of funny little things, and I emphasize the word little, because they are of almost no importance, have been going on in my life. On that birthday theme, I found out today a guy that I have been helping get a business started in Kansas was born the day before me–the day before, the same year. In addition and very randomly, through Facebook, we learned that his daughters roommate in California is the first cousin of one of my daughter’s best friends in Seattle. There was no connection whatsoever between the two, we just found out about it after the fact. There are a couple of other non-coincidences like that about which I really do not have license to speak, but it surely seems odd that things work out serendipitously for great good for no material reason.
The other thing that just seems very random in my life is that the guy in the office next to me is one of those autodidact guys who claims he is an atheist. I called him on it–I really know of no rational person who claims they are atheist. He backed off of his statement. You would have had to been there to understand the context because my calling him on it was not really a heavy handed thing, but an outgrowth of a (relatively) thoughtful conversation. It was about as thoughtful a conversation as one could have with someone who absurdly claims, “No one has given me any good reason to believe there is a God.” That has always seemed to be a profoundly irrational claim, especially in light of the fairly recent, but very clear understanding that nothing existed–literally nothing, not even a quantum vacuum, no time, no space, nothing–then something started to exist. At the very least, that calls for some level of agnosticism. Really, there is no good reason to think there is not a God–much more so than that there is not one.
Life just seems a little surreal right now, but that is not a bad thing, just a little disorienting.
Lorena and I were amazed the Rasperry Pi 3 I ordered from Amazon at 10AM yesterday morning actually arrived on our doorstep at 6PM yesterday evening. I am working on it now. My job is to get it running with a 5 mega-pixel camera. In reading about it, I found that it runs hot so I installed the two heat sinks that came with it. The heat will probably not be so bad for the work I am doing on my day job, but it might create a challenge for the GaugeCam project where we need to run our system outdoors in all kinds of weather. The CPU gets throttled if the system runs too hot and the reason we switched from the Beaglebone Black to the Raspberry Pi three was for speed considerations having to do with how we plan to use the camera. It probably will not be a problem, but it is another thing we will have to give some fairly extensive testing. The things that came in the $49.99 purchase were the Raspberry Pi 3, the wall-wart power supply, the heat sinks and the case. It turns out that if we put the top on the case, it runs enough hotter that the CPU throttles, so the case will not do us much good. The Beaglebone Black to the left is the one we are replacing. It honestly worked great with the exception that it was not possible to capture the large format (not that large actually-1280×960) images we need for our projects.
I ran into a brick wall on my Beaglebone Black (BBB) project. I love the BBB, but the hardware is not fast enough to do what I need it to do, so I looked around for something faster that could run the same code and thought I would try the Raspberry Pi 3. Amazon has a reputation as a terrible place to work, but the Raspberry Pi 3 I ordered has a promised arrival of this afternoon and I ordered it earlier this morning. Kind of an amazing thing. Also, the Raspberry Pi 3 is about the same price as the BBB, but has a quad-core, 1.2 GHz Arm 8 microprocessor while the BBB has a single core 1.0 GHz Arm 8 microprocessor. I looked around a little and had no trouble finding another board doing exactly what I need. I hope I can make it work.
Update: Just amazing. It arrived at 6:00 PM at my doorstep through the apartment security gate and it included the other stuff I had ordered the day before.