As a child, I loved going with my family to the Museum.  I could spend hours perusing the trains, cars, and airplanes that littered the giant warehouse of wonders.  I can still remember details of some of the steam locomotives, and quite a few of the airplanes they had neatly lined up beyond those low rope barricades.  A lot has changed since those days, but many of my memories are intact.

I was reminded of one of those memories today, a particularly vivid one.  At the time, there was a children's area set up in an otherwise empty section of the floor.  They must have had coloring books and puzzles and various other things to touch and play with.  What I particularly remember are the computers.  This was before my family even thought of purchasing our own computer, so these were something of a curiosity for me.  Of course I had to spend at least a little time sitting in front of one.

They had them set up so that children could play an early computer game.  The game involved driving construction equipment which also piqued my interest.  I was just starting to get the hang of pointing and clicking and generally playing the game when one of the virtual hosts in the game instructed me to drive a steamroller over a pile of pop cans or some such thing.  I dutifully put the thing in gear and off to work we went.  To my horror, I had barely flattened the first can when the other virtual host character shouted in dismay that I was crushing his prized collection of cans!

I felt terrible.  I had only wanted to have fun driving the construction machines around for a while; I didn't want to destroy anyone's property, let alone their prized collection.  Yet the game would only allow me to continue operating the machinery if I would continue to destroy this poor character's cherished belongings.  Soon I couldn't take it any more.  To this day I still feel bad for destroying those virtual cans and whatever else they wanted me to do.  I know it's only imaginary, but it just doesn't seem ok to have fun destroying things in which others, even virtual others, place value.  Why couldn't they let me actually build things with those construction machines, or at the very least just let me drive them around a field.  I guess we have to teach our children that being constructive isn't allowed to be fun.

The Photon

It’s just a photon.  It began its journey at the sun, like most others that reach the Earth’s surface.  Along its journey it almost landed on the planet Venus, but not quite.  It almost missed the earth too, but not quite.  To be fair, it never really hit the earth, but was intercepted before it reached the grassy embankment most of its companions found at the end of their journeys.  Even of those that were nearly on the same path as this photon, many were bounced back into space or absorbed by a silver coated piece of glass.  Still, this photon continued.  It found itself bounced off some mirrors inside a cardboard tube, and passing through some lenses before ending up in a human eyeball.  The photon’s journey ended there, but the human’s feeling of awe upon considering the photon’s mundane but unlikely journey was just beginning.

It seems so distant now, a couple of lifetimes ago at least.  My then scoutmaster was also the school cross country coach, and the junior high team was very small.  If I would join the team, they would have enough members to officially compete.  It was a tough sell, as I hadn't been too interested in competitive sports before, quitting a soccer team ostensibly because of the excessive running during practice.  As it turns out, I stuck with the cross country team and did quite well through my high school years.  Over those seven years the team grew and shrunk, and we ate through at least four coaches.  Some were good, some were bad, and a couple were key in driving us to winning a state championship my senior year of high school.  I was never the standout athlete of the team, but I managed to keep up with the pack, and was most often in the top 7 (5 out of 7 score points in varsity races, and the 6th is a tie breaker), and was the fastest 6th man from any team at our winning state meet.

After our state-winning race.

Moving on to college, I made a very conscious decision to not run competitively.  I could feel the strain of keeping up with such a great team, both physically and mentally, and I could sense that it was time to ease off a little.  Since I was planning to pursue a degree in Mechanical Engineering, I also saw that winning the state meet would probably be the highlight of my athletic career in any case.  I would still run, to be sure, but it was very nice to be able to train and run races without having to worry about anything but my own satisfaction.  It also allowed me to focus more on running longer races, and I completed several half-marathons.  Still, I felt that I wouldn't be able to keep it up forever without getting hurt.

Approaching the finish of a half-marathon.

Then a few more changes came along.  I graduated with my bachelor's degree, got married, and moved on to graduate school.  Most semesters in my undergrad, I lived within walking distance of campus.  For grad school, we bought a house a few miles away from the lab where I work.  This prompted me to start riding a bike to work when the weather is conducive (most of the warm months).  Growing up, my family was into cycling in a big way.  When I was quite young, we rode in a couple organized weeklong tours of Ohio on our custom made three person bike.  Later, we rode single bikes on weeklong rides from Lake Michigan to Lake Huron/Erie across Michigan's lower peninsula.

Filling up the gas tank on a weeklong ride across Michigan's lower peninsula.

Something clicked.  I dusted off the old road bike I'd acquired through some kind of squatter's rights from my dad.  On a trip home, my parents caught me eyeing up the ancient Schwinn tandem that had been collecting dirt and rust in the barn since I could remember.  They decided that they probably would never ride their slightly newer Dawes tandem anymore, and it was in much better shape.  We managed to get it down to Indiana, and I spent several weekends replacing cables, adjusting brakes and saddles, and tightening chains.  My wife Ashby was a good sport throughout the restoration process, once walking four miles back home with me after a snapped chain stopped us cold on a steep uphill.

The chain in use here is probably the one that stranded us recently!

Now the tandem seems to be in reliable shape, and we're set to do our second Wabash River Ride toward the end of this month.  Last time we managed the shortest 33 mile route on our single bikes, but this time we're hoping to do one of the longer loops.  It's nice to have found a sport I can do with Ashby thanks to the tandem.  She's even worked up the courage to do solo rides on the back roads near our home, and I've noticed that she's much more confident riding her single bike now.  She tried running several times, but it just wasn't her thing.  Now I think we've finally found a sport that we can do together.  It's nice to have rediscovered cycling.  I plan to continue running the occasional 5k, but I'm having too much fun being back in the saddle to think about that right now!

The questions came so often as to become increasingly annoying as the day went on. “Is that a waterproof camera?” “How do you keep your camera dry?” It was with much thought and deliberation that I had decided to bring along my rather new, fancy, expensive camera an a canoeing trip on Michigan’s Ausable river. After all, a single dunk might incapacitate my new favorite toy, maybe permanently. Still, I’d decided to take it along to capture the beautiful scenery we’d be floating through. I figured the risk was worth taking, especially since I could trust my wife not to rock the boat (she rowed competitively in high school).

We weren't feeling too competitive that day.

As we set out from the livery in the morning, we quickly came upon a bridge running over a shallow patch. A couple of canoes and their occupants were getting off to a good start jettisoning the day’s lunch and everything else including the human cargo, all while doing an admirable job of blocking any reasonable passage under the bridge. By some minor miracle we made it around the ongoing carnage without so much as scraping bottom. It made me a little nervous about my decision to tote the camera, because I realized that the greatest danger may not be within my control, but in the hands of the many people on the river who seemed to be experiencing much consternation in their efforts to float successfully with the current.

Yes, I do happen to be related to most of the people in this photo...

Now, I don’t consider myself by any means an expert river runner. I’ve piloted my share of small watercraft, mostly of the human powered persuasion, but the last time I’d been in a canoe was over a year ago. Still, every time we passed a raft of canoes clinging desperately to one another for defense against the inevitable collision with shore, floating debris, or another such conglomeration, we’d always get a compliment on how expert we appeared, along with an inquiry into the water resistance of my camera. It began to strike me that it doesn’t require much beyond a mote of ambition and a willingness to learn in order to keep a canoe’s bow pointed safely downstream. What’s more, once you aren’t constantly trying to avoid taking an impromptu bath as a result of an unwanted rendezvous, you end up able to enjoy the scenery to a much fuller degree. Why were we the best at this?

There can be no good outcome to this situation.

After lunch, as we continued on our way to the extraction point where we’d meet the summer break high schooler in a decades old Ford van who’d take us back to the livery, the comments about the camera and it’s abundant dryness kept coming in. About this time I started replying, at least in my imagination, that I kept the camera dry the same way I kept everything else on my person and in my vessel dry. I found it hard to believe that so many people who presumably were able to successfully navigate the interstate highway system and a labyrinth of back roads to arrive at this remote stretch of river could be so helplessly unable to control their fates once afloat and responsible for their own route planning and safety within the confines of the river banks. What was it? Is there no more desire to be proficient? There seemed to be an unspoken mournful acceptance of mediocrity, to which we were the exception; us, with our vast canoeing experience of many hours.

I'm, like, a regular voyageur or something.

As we pulled our canoe onto the river bank at the end of the day’s trip and waited for the van, I took note of the overwhelming dryness of my camera. My plan had succeeded, and I had captured many wonderful images of family and friends and the scenery along the way. It still bugged me that so many people considered it an impossibility to maintain an upright position while canoeing. I know some people aren’t as coordinated as others, but it seemed to me that many people weren’t even trying. Is it that they don’t want to make others feel bad, and so degrade their own performance in a self reinforcing spiral of sudden immersion (not unlike the one that forms when you drain your bathtub…)? In a desire to commiserate about the difficulties of maintaining an upright orientation, do people actually strive to compromise their stability? Shouldn’t we strive to be a better one, whatever we are?

There, that's better. See, it wasn't that hard.

See, the way to prevent your camera getting wet is to keep it out of the water.

Driving Back to School

How time flies. It seems like only yesterday I was making this drive for the first time. Now I've driven it for the last time. Somewhere on a lonely northbound stretch of interstate I found myself thinking back to that drive, a few years and a lifetime ago. I was in the same car, driving on the same roads, the back seat and trunk filled to the brim with boxes. Both times I found myself looking to the future with excitement and anticipation for the opportunities that would await me in the place I would spend the next several years. Both times I experienced the melancholy of leaving the familiar behind and facing the great unknown.

Of course, my first drive up to Tech was quite different from this one. With my bachelors degree almost behind me, I'm now making plans for graduate school. The familiar town I'll now be leaving this time is not the town where I grew up. Most importantly, this time there's someone in the passenger seat who's coming with me.

Things that Last

To my mind at the time, permanence was both a given and a foreign concept depending on the context. Some things around me like my house, school, and yard seemed to be perpetual. Most of my possessions on the other hand were seemingly transient. Clothes no sooner fit than were too small; some toys just weren’t as fun to play with as they were in the past. Then, I got my backpack. It was a nice one; with two cavities to keep my books separate, padded so my shoulders wouldn’t get sore, and even had a water bottle holder. Oh, and it cost more than I realized you could spend on just about anything. This was something I’d have to take care of.

Since then my backpack has traveled a lot of miles, though a few less than it’s owner. It’s been on beautiful mountain hikes, climbed the Eiffel Tower, and of course attended classes. It’s survived the ravenous jaws of middle school lockers, treacherous northern Michigan winter walks to school, and been unceremoniously crammed into the back of various vehicles for the long treks home from college. Still, apart from losing a couple of the frilly bits on the zipper pulls, it’s always ready when I need it.

Memories on a Run

My run today took me past a place long familiar; a place where my cousin and I once climbed vast jungle gyms and scaled giant concrete pipes. Memories of building block towers and scavenger hunts abound there. The lawn is overgrown now, and the metal jungle gyms and concrete pipes have long ago been removed lest children be exposed to the hazard. In their place a plastic play set sits unused on its bed of recycled tires. Inside on the floor once strewn with blocks and other toys are scattered shards of broken glass, while vines make a steady, beautiful assault on the sidewalks and brick columns. As I ran by, I realized that my hometown is changing and so am I. My kindergarten is for sale, but my memories will remain.

Misplaced Priorities?

I saw the Apple iPhone ad linked below on TV last night. While I would be very happy to have an iPhone to use (read: play with), I did take issue with some of the scenes presented in the ad. Specifically, in a couple of scenes what looks like a businessman in a hotel room is using the video-call function to view either his child crawling or his wife. While this is an undeniable advance in wireless connectivity and should be celebrated as such, couldn't such technology be put to better use?

Being separated by about 600 miles from my fiancee this summer due to internship assignments, I would like to be able to video-chat with her occasionally. On the other hand I would much prefer being able to telecommute to my job so that I could be with her in person. Why isn't there 'an app for that'? Shouldn't we be making it easier to stay close to our families rather than making it more convenient, even seemingly attractive, to be apart?

Of course, maybe if I had an iPhone I would understand...

A Different Perspective.

There's a place in a lonely desert that nobody on the planet has named. It stretches on for miles in all directions without any signs of civilization, or life for that matter. It is in this lonely wilderness that an alien spacecraft landed. The craft released a robot that went about collecting data to send back to the civilization that sent it. The civilization sent the craft to discover whether there is life here, and whether they might survive here if they came. Perhaps in the future they will send explorers or settlers here.

This is not science-fiction. The civilization is us.

My Best Photos

I've recently had the time to sit down and go through my photo albums searching for those occasional great pictures. The ones that surprise you with color or landscape and just beg to be framed. I can't post them all here, but you can view the album.

Labor Day 5K

This Monday I ran a 5K on the Tech Trails (mountain biking and cross country skiing trails near campus). I heard about the race at the end of last week and decided it would be a good thing to do. It turned out to be a small race, with only around 20 runners competing. The course was fairly difficult with hilly, narrow trails that made passing difficult. It would be easy to twist an ankle on those trails, and several people fell during the race, though I was not one of them. I was glad I didn't sign up for the mountain biking version of the race, as running those trails was hard enough. I finished well overall, 6th place and 22:10. Not bad at all considering the terrain, and the fact that I haven't been training all that consistently. Overall, a very fun way to spend the morning.

Getting ready for the start.

The starter told us "It will look like the trail ends, it doesn't!" This is what it turned into.

Coming in for the finish.

End of Summer Activities

I have been very busy seeing the sights this Fall. As I mentioned in the last post, Between the end of the Summer semester and the start of Fall classes, Ashby and I took part in a family canoeing trip down the Au Sable river. That was a very fun-filled, if cold and rainy, weekend. Luckily we all managed to stay relatively warm and dry even on the river. After departing our campsite near the river, we completed the shortened drive back to Michigan Tech, and stopped by Big Springs for a little sightseeing and to stretch our legs.

Once back in Houghton, we spent a day getting unpacked and then departed on our trip to northern Wisconsin and Minnesota. On the first day, we drove to Duluth, stopping on the way to hike in the Porcupine Mountains.

Me by Lake Superior in the Porcupine Mtns.

Ashby by the Superior shore.

The view from a lookout tower elsewhere in the Porkies.

After our hiking we stayed the night in Duluth before setting out to the long awaited mystery destination, which was a physics particle detector operating in the bottom of the Soudan Underground Mine State Park in Minnesota. Ashby and I really enjoyed seeing the detector in person, and learning about the physics being explored there. We also went on a tour of the historical mining operations. All in all, a very enjoyable destination where we learned a lot.

The Hoist Building.

The head frame, this is where we got into a 'cage' to be lowered into the mine!

The bottom of the mine: almost half a mile below the surface, the ride down takes over 2 minutes.

Our great tour guide, Pete, and the electric trains that take visitors back into the mine for the historical tour.

After the mine, we headed back East to the Baptism River Inn (by my Mom's suggestion) for the night. The other guests were very interesting; one couple was visiting from England. We talked much about the differences in culture between America and the UK. It made for a very interesting breakfast. In the morning, we made our way back to Houghton, stopping to see the sights along the way as much as time allowed.

The Sauna near the Bed and Breakfast.

The Baptism River, just a short walk from the B&B.

Split Rock Lighthouse, one of our stops on the trip home.

Amnicon Falls, our first stop in Wisconsin on the trip home.

Big Manitou falls at Pattison State Park.

The weekend after returning from our trip, we took a trip up the Keweenaw to see Fort Wilkins and do some other sightseeing. As always a very beautiful trip.

Sunset over Lake Superior.

Summertime in Houghton

On a trip with visitors (cousin Alex and his girlfriend Kaylin) to see the local sights.

I've spent the last seven weeks in Houghton taking classes and working for Michigan Tech's Summer Youth Programs. It's been a fairly busy time, with several groups of visitors coming to enjoy the summer weather here. It was nice to have visitors on some of the weekends since Ashby has been in Ann Arbor for the summer. For classes, I took a total of 6 credits which is close to a full-time load when it's condensed into seven weeks. I took 'Mechanical Vibrations' and 'Statistics for Engineers', both of which will likely prove useful in the future.

My job with the Summer Youth Program fit in very well with taking classes. I was responsible for chaperoning the students to and from Houghton on the weekends. Several times this meant driving a Michigan Tech van to a nearby town and picking up or dropping off a handful of students. Most often it meant riding a charter bus through the night two nights in a row on the weekend running down to Lower Michigan to trade the students who had finished their programs for ones on their way up to Houghton. A few times I was able to meet up with friends and family during the bus layover. Thrown into the mix were a few around town van trips for field trips as well. It was quite an enjoyable job and it kept me from excessive boredom on the weekends as a side benefit!

Now I'm in the process of preparing for final exams at the end of this week, after which I head home to Erie for about a week before coming back up. It should be a fun week, with a family reunion and canoeing trip in the works. I know it will go my much too quickly, but when Ashby and I return to Houghton, we plan to make a trip to Wisconsin and Minnesota to a 'mystery destination' that I'm sure we will both enjoy along with some state parks on the way. That will make the trip back more fun. Then it's back to school in the fall. I'm excited to be the leader of the powertrain ("engine") sub-team for the Supermileage team this year. I have some new ideas, and the whole team seems fired up to make more improvements after our impressive performance this summer.

Supermileage

Last week was the annual Supermileage competition hosted by SAE and Eaton in Marshall, MI.  I joined Michigan Tech's Supermileage Systems Enterprise (SSE) last fall, and have been working on our vehicle for most of the school year.  I decided to join the powertrain sub-team, and cut my teeth by helping to design a new rear end frame for our car.  I also designed and built an engine mount that is both adjustable and makes it (relatively) fast and easy to remove and replace the engine, along with a device for properly tensioning the drive chain.  As a final project before summer break I reconfigured the fuel system to take up less space and fit the new layout better.  The fuel system also incorporated quick-disconnects to facilitate simple and fast engine removal, a major goal of the design this year.

Needless to say I was quite anxious to see this vehicle in action.  During the year we almost never have the whole vehicle in one piece because we are making so many modifications.  Competition was the first time I saw the whole thing working the way it was intended to.  This was my first time being at a supermileage competition, and I got the swing of things fairly quickly.  The team's first goal is to pass the technical inspection.  We had to make some changes to our electrical system, because the officials were concerned about the safety of a few of our more advanced features.  Luckily we could function without those systems working and quickly made it through that stage of technical inspection.  We then had to pass some basic handling tests.  That's when our starter broke.

Our team in line for technical inspection.

Without a starter our car was dead on the road, and we brought it back to our pit area and dug into the problem.  It turned out that our starter bracket had cracked and broken at a weld.  Unfortunately we didn't have a welder we could bring with us.  Luckily our neighbors from South Dakota owed us a favor for borrowing our generator earlier, and they had a welder.  It took a while for them to get used to welding on our aluminum bracket but they got it fixed before the end of the day.  In our rush to try the newly welded bracket we plugged some wires into the wrong ports and got a surprise when our engine flooded with fuel in quite a spectacular manner!  Luckily we discovered our careless mistake fairly quickly and got the car running a few minutes before we had to leave for the day.

Working on our car in our pit area.

The next morning we arrived early and got ready to finish the handling tests.  As it turned out, our car ended up being one of the best handling vehicles in the competition.  In every test the judges reaction was something like "Wow, I've never seen anyone do that so fast!"  Once we cleared all the tests, we were able to get out on the test track and compete for mileage.  We had predicted a performance of 55o mpg based on our 456 the year before and the improvements we made.  On the first run an access panel flew open and stayed that way for most of the run, so we were flabbergasted when our result of 950 mpg was posted.  Our vehicle managed to complete three more runs without incident (which is quite rare for the competition).  We continued to tweak our settings and achieved ever improving mileages of 960, 1063 and a final 1140.  That last performance was enough to put us in 2nd place overall, which was a very pleasant surprise for this being only our second year competing.  I guess we're on the right track!  I, along with the other new members on the team, am now very excited to get back to work and make more improvements before we come back to Marshall next year.  Hopefully we will outperform our wildest hopes again!

Our car being rolled out to the track to begin a 9.6 mile run.

Dexter to Ann Arbor

(That's me finishing in the yellow.)

Yesterday, I completed my second Dexter to Ann Arbor Half Marathon.  I completed the run about four minutes faster than last year, which was mostly because I knew what to expect this time around.  My training schedule was quite short due to coming home from college a short four weeks before the race.  I would have liked much more time to prepare, as I experienced a few aches and pains during my crash training program that probably could have been avoided given a more gentle schedule.  The race itself seemed to go by quite quickly.  The weather couldn't have been more perfect.  It was a clear, cool day with no strong winds.  Registration this year filled to capacity at 2500 runners, and having so many people all around running is a great motivator.  The course this year went back to ending in downtown Ann Arbor after construction blocked the way last year.  The downtown finish was fun (and less steep), but it does make for more congestion for spectators and runners trying to find their spectators!  I did end up finding everyone I came with quite easily after the race.  My dad and Ashby's mom and sister ran the 5K race, and everyone seemed happy with their times.  I found it interesting that the 5K started about 15 minutes after the half marathon, and ended while we were still running.  Everybody looked pretty tired after the run, and I spent most of the rest of the day laying on the couch too sore to move much and nursing my blisters.  I'm feeling much better this morning after a good night's sleep, and am already hoping that I'll be able to do the run again net year.

Projects

I've been fairly busy lately.  Classes are ramping up toward finals week, and my Enterprise team is working to build a running car by the end of the semester.  Beside all this I somehow managed to find the time to put together a few projects.  My future father-in-law gave me a circular saw for Christmas, so I've been putting it to use and gaining some woodworking experience.

The first project was a temporary door to separate Ashby's bedroom from the rest of her apartment.  I made the frame to fit snugly in the existing doorjamb and then wedged it in place with wooden shims.  Next was a bed-frame for Ashby's apartment.  I designed it to be unusually high so that there would be plenty of storage space underneath.  Finally, I built a combination of a workbench and locking tool cabinet.  Now I have a sturdy place to work on projects and to keep my tools safe and secure.  Ashby helped me make the door frame one weekend in January, and I completed the other projects between then and now.  Below are some pictures of the projects in progress and completed.

Ashby's bedroom door

The bed frame undergoing the 'some final assembly required' stage.

The victory photo... it supports my weight without budging!

Raw materials for the workbench.

Measure twice, cut once... over and over!  I've gotten

 a lot better at cutting the pieces to the right size.

Preparing to cut the workbench top.  This is the part that has to look nice!

Starting to take shape.

Now you can really tell what it's going to grow up to be.

The finished project!

Snow Run 2009

Last year I ran in the first annual Lumijuoksu (Finnish for 'snow run').  I had been looking forward to this year's event for quite a while although I only knew the details a few days ago.  Even on a few days' notice I decided to run.  It went quite well, considering my lack of meaningful training since early September.  In fact I came in a little under a minute faster than last year.  I ended up second in my age group (out of 2 I think, there weren't many runners this year) and won a loaf of Finnish bread (above).  I had hoped that our 'warm' spell would continue for the run, but the weekend windchill dropped down to the negative 20's.  The run is part of Heikinpaiva, the annual Finnish-American festival, so there are many other fun events going on such as the wife carry and the boot throw.  Unfortunately, by the time the awards for the run were over we were frozen stiff and headed back home.  Like last year it was a very fun morning.  To anyone who's in the area, I would recommend checking out the festival even if you aren't up for a run or competing in any of the other events.

Ashby all suited up for the cold.

That's me in the black to the left of the bank sign.

Nearing the 'Finnish'.

Home stretch!

Almost Done!

Rounding the corner to the finish line.

The Wife-Carrying Competition.