Instantly Freezing Water in the Air Experiment

I was a little bored this morning and I decided to take advantage of the sub zero temperature to make water freeze in the air. Please be kind with the video, it was self videoed and the auto focus failed in the cold at the end. I think I'll try again later with someone videoing from the inside. Enjoy.

Temp: -15°F / -30°+F wind chill

Freezing water: take 2

This is my second try at the freezing water trick, I left the camera inside to avoid the frozen auto focus (and shakey camera). I think this is my best one yet... Pay no attention to the silly running at the end... It was cold.

Quick build...GO!

I was busy looking at server and network stats, since that is boring I looked to my small "desk-sized" container - 'o - Legos for inspiration. I gave myself 2 minutes to build something recognizable.

18 Lego pieces later and I have a pretty neat office building with a front façade and a "light-tower" at the top.

Here are the Lego's I used and how I put them together. 

Picture Directions

1.  base plate and 1st two blocks	2.  2nd tier of blocks	3.  3rd tier of blocks
4.  Cap it with a penthouse suite	5.  add the first circle clear piece	6.  top if with two green clear pieces
7.  facade first layer	8.  last layer with pizzazzzzzzzzz

what do you think?

I think I'll call it the 2 minute challenge. Grab a handful of Legos and a timer, and build.

What happened exactly?

Earlier this week I was angry I ranted and posted and had several words exchanged between myself and Project Glass regarding my invitation status and all of the issues that surrounded the process as it pertained to me, and undoubtedly many others (at this moment I'm working to confirm this).

Let me just start by saying that this is undoubtedly a "first world problem" in the way that no one really needs Google Glass to survive. I should also mention that, in my desire to stay on top of the latest technology trends, and my desire to extend my knowledge, I felt that I should get the Google Glass if only to feel that I was contributing to technological progress. It was because of these factors that I felt, not that I was being left out of the fun, but in large part that I was extremely inconvenienced through the process. That even though Google and Project Glass "wanted" my help, and the help of hundreds and thousands of others to test their devices, they sure didn't make me feel like they wanted my input (as small as it would have been)...at first.

First hint that we wanted answers

When the process first started, I had given them a call and talked with an adviser and explained just how inconvenienced I felt, and how I felt like Google didn't care. I also felt that, rather than have the unfortunate 14 day process run out and hang over my head and feel "down" that I wasn't being part of the process, I had them take me off of the list so I could put it out of my mind. The rest of the conversation blew my mind, not only because of the fact that they are part of Google, but also because it had the distinct ring to me that they had no clue of what they were doing...at first.

The adviser and I spoke about how none of my private posts on Google Plus had been answered, or the fact that I had received zero information after the word "GO" in terms of how I would be able to plan this excursion...you know...up until I got word that it was available. He informed me that they answer all emails and all private messages almost as fast as they can. He also informed me that they push out as much information as fast as possible. I, however, did not see any of this, and from my point of view the exact opposite was happening. To my relief he informed me that he was going to go to Social Media Right away.


WHAT I FELT THE PROBLEM WAS

Flash back a few months, to get a small idea of the mounting confusion that many people like myself were having. Their post on May 22nd indicated that many people wanted answers to a whole slew of questions: how, when, and why. With nothing to go on, many people began, it seems, to get a bit closer to the angry side, such as myself. As a matter of fact, if you go back through their stream there does not seem to be any information about the program itself, the mysterious program obviously had been given life somewhere, but hidden behind the "already haves" and the "really wants" were absolutely nothing, especially no "private" messages depicting:  who, what, where, when, or why, or even what to expect in the coming months...or even how the process works up to the point that your link is generated.

seriously

April 2nd -- End of program,  April 17th -- Hype,  May 3rd -- User Story, May 14th -- User Story, May 17th -- Hype,  May 22nd -- Interview, May 31st -- Facial Recognition,  June 4th -- Hype,  June 10th -- Team Member Story,  June 13th -- Tear Down,  June 17th -- Project Loon,  June 18th -- Academic Users

June 19th -- My link, Not one single bit of literal information depicting the Who, What, Where, When or Why, or How, either publicly (which is not what I expected anyways) or Privately (which is what I would expect from such a large project.) depicting a timeline of the process, what's involved, and when I can expect to go through the process. Not necessarily when I was certain to get them...big difference.

Literally almost everything in the world has lead-time:  package tracking, vacation planning / planners, wedding planning / planners, corporate retreats, church retreats...etc. There is always something sent to the participants WELL in advance to give them a welcome heads-up. With Glass I got none of that.

I know that I can't be the only one, but right now I feel like I'm the only one being vocal.

THE CONVERSATION

After social media was attached to my situation it didn't take long for someone, Sarah Price, on the team to get in touch with me. In fact, it was mere minutes. Speedy service let me tell you, but I'll tell you, the person they decided to attach to the situation was probably the best suited to attempt to speak in response to my letter to the team admonishing their process for the program for the deficiencies I felt were in directly opposed the normal openness of Google. Sarah immediately went to work at first asking me why I wanted

to leave the program, and attempting to figure out the thought process behind my complaints.

At first it was obviously inconceivable as to why someone would go ahead and turn down what is quite possibly the coolest most sought after piece of technology in the wild today. So I explained once again that the inconvenience of suddenly dropping the invitation on me at the last minute. In what seemed like an incredible turn of events they offered to extend my window for purchase and pickup through August, but could not confirm any later dates. While the offer of extension made me feel better about the program, it still was outside of anything that I was able to concede to because of the National Guard.

I continued to declare my disdain for their process, and my regret for having to drop out, and offered the only advice that I could offer as a citizen of the internet, "The only thing I would change about the whole program would have been an increased lead-time (even if it was a general time frame many months out, with more specific information aimed at the participants as time went on)." If there was anything that I had hoped would change, it would have been to offer more convenience to the future participants. If anything my discomfort with the situation would lead to a better result to others.

THE PROCESS

After I thought that the conversation had ended, Sarah came back with a little bit more than I had hoped for, the essential process that they go through when getting the devices into the public. Sarah had explained that the process of lead time was difficult because they wanted to make sure invitations were sent out as the devices rolled off of the assembly line and into their hands. Sarah explained that while they could have kept the devices on hand and waited for a larger deployment before sending them out, they wanted the results as soon as possible and decided that a rolling approach was the best way to get the devices into the hands and
on the heads of the users.

CONCLUSION

I feel that I now understand the process better, I still feel that the process can be improved in terms of distribution and customer communication. Perhaps they could delay some units to afford some buffer room, in order to communicate with the next few groups of explorers. Perhaps they could give more private messages and alerts to the potential explorers. Perhaps they could allow for potential explorers to push back their date for pickup (up to three or so months before the end of the program) and allow for a much, much larger window (5 or 6 months) depending on the program length. Whatever, if anything, they decide to do in order to improve the process I feel that more people will benefit ultimately.

Finally, I'd like to thank Sarah Price for easing and explaining the situation, as bummed as I still am about the whole thing, I do hope she gets recognized for her work, and she could probably stand to get a promotion (*nudge nudge* Google?).

Enjoy the New Look

WOAH!! All of a sudden stuff changed...it's okay...It's a new look

I like it, minimal, and accentuates the posts.

Don't like it? Let me know.

Father's Day Gift Project Part 1

So, on Father's Day I received what can only be described as the coolest present ever, a "lego compatible" Coffee Mug from Think Geek. Not only does it look like the coolest 8-bit representation of a Coffee Mug, but it can fit Legos and multiple other types of building blocks.

I also received the Vader's Little Princess book, which is a whole other story in itself. Perhaps I'll talk about it later, but it's definitely sufficient enough to say that this book is a definite must-have for any Dad who is a fan of Star Wars. Not only does it portray the Darth Vader / Princess Leia story in a different tone, but it almost brings you to tears with both comedy and the realization that, even though you may not have an intergalactic princess, she will grow up much faster than you will want her to.

Any ways, the mug. Since it attached to Legos, and there just "happens" to be a Lego store within a 5-minute drive of where I work, I decided to personalize the Mug with Legos to make it as Geeky as possible. I thought Star Wars, but that much of the Star Wars designs and emblems just won't fit too well onto a rectangle mug, I thought I would go with an 8-bit character from Nintendo. The mushroom (1-up, of course) will do nicely.

Now I can't very well just go buy a bunch of Legos and go to town on this thing, especially since: A.) I suck at 8-bit pictures, and B.) the Mug front is just a "little" too small for representation of the mushrooms. Sure I could cut out a few pixels, but then it might just look silly. then I came to the realization that the mug fits Legos all the way around it. This led me to the realization that I could attempt to design a 3D mushroom by implementing colored Lego blocks all the way around it (fixing the pixel size issue) and adding to the cool-factor.

But first I have to design it.

This should work for me to be able to design it. Drawn representations of the Coffee Mug front (and back) and the Left (and Right) sides and the handle. They're all identical to each other in the fact that the Front and Back and the Left and Right are the same number of "pixels" each. This allows for me to wrap the mushroom around the mug  for the full effect. The only issue remains what to do with the unfilled pixels, which I will probably keep as the base color (gray) until the last minute when I can decide what color to fill in around the mushroom.

Pictured here is a better view of the mug representation that I will be using to design the mushroom around the mug.

As of right now, this idea has only started, and since I have a lot of actual work to do at this moment I will have to work on this off and on until I get the design right and then it's off to the Lego store to get the required supplies.

Stay tuned to the progress of my "Mushroom Mug" and we'll see just how awesome this turns out.

Oh  yeah, and a happy (late) fathers day to all of the Fathers out there.

What would you get YOUR Father for Father's Day?

My Family is weird...That is all that I have to say.

Below is an actual conversation that I had with my family about what we were going to do for my Father for Father's Day. Needless to say things got out of hand...and hilarious.

color coded so you can enjoy the conversation:  Red - sister 1, Blue - sister 2, Orange - Brother 1, Green - Brother 2

Limeade Blast Review

If you haven't read my initial first look review you should take a look at it HERE and see what I thought of it when I first opened the package. It's been a continuous little trial as I've become more and more intrigued with my little battery as more and more people become apparently hostile at the Kickstarter Page.

I thought, in addition to my little first look review, why not run it through some paces and see how I think of the Limeade when I use only the Limeade in simulated situations.

Here is what I've got:




So, as you can see, my continued review is just as positive (maybe more) than the first look. Now as you could see from the video I've simulated several days of use through continued HARD usage in order to charge it back up and get a feel for what it does.

Let's just say that it doesn't disappoint. Furthermore, you should buy one HERE if you haven't already.

peek - a - boo I see you

more Lily cuteness, as she plays peek - a - boo with me. I love her so much.

Smoke free day 1

Damn, I would  really like a cigarette.

YAY, since I cannot do this myself, I figure if I get hundreds or thousands of people to yell at me I can stop. It's not the nicotine that kills me, it's the situations where I would normally smoke...you know...like when I have a huge download to the server and some time to kill.

I will not, however, go away from caffeine...just putting that out there...coffee is the only thing I will not let go of.

picture day 1

What DOES my Traffic Say About Me?

sure I cut off Internet Explorer, no one
likes them anyways.

     Now, I wouldn't call myself a particularly vain person, but I am actually curious as to where the traffic that views my site comes from. Not that it really matters, or that it is a popularity contest, or that it makes me feel better about myself based on the traffic arriving at my site; it's just plain curiosity.

     So, when I looked at the traffic that my site received over its [two] lifetimes, I've come to slowly realize that apparently: 1.  while biased as I am against Apple, quite a bit of traffic appears to come from them. 2.  The operating system section looks like a peace-sign. I'm not quite sure what to make of that second one, but it has to be good...right?

SO WHAT DOES IT SAY?

I prefer to think about these graphs as a, "Thanksgiving dinner at a dysfunctional family's house." Where big brother Windows  and Macintosh (who have a long standing grudge against each other) are at the table keeping the little siblings:  Android, iPhone, and Linux; away from the adult-table. All of this while cousin Firefox is being eyed suspiciously because he's waving a lighter at the frilly lace table runner by his brothers: IE, Chrome, and Safari crack their knuckles and try to surround him.

In all, I am starting to think that I have an over-active imagination, but that I have a well-rounded supply of viewers even though I'm a little heavy on the big-boys. All I have to say is "Thank you readers" for making my information gathering more fun.

So now the question is:

WHAT DOES YOUR TRAFFIC SAY ABOUT YOU?

Feel free to take a look at your traffic and make your own stories and send them to your friends, or to me. I'm sure we can all have fun with it.

Lily Can Skate

Greetings ***Random internet viewer:  61345***

In keeping with the very recent theme of mine where, I show my daughter do amazing things, I have now  even completely blown my own mind. My daughter, less than 18 months at the time of this writing, has taken to roller skates rather quickly (as evidenced by this wonderful video).



I know what you're thinking, "so what! She's got those toddler skates on, they're probably locked out and she's walking!" You are correct in that statement, random Internet viewer you, however, those skates also have a rather impressive ability to unlock the wheels. Those wheels, by the way, are pretty loose and you can get pretty fast in them.

Cut to the video, BAM!!!! she's got the wheels, unlocked, ready to rock, and she's rolling like she came out skating.

Be amazed, be very amazed.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: My daughter did, in fact, not come out skating...just saying ;

Daughter dances to "Gangnam Style"

I thought I should place this here, frankly, because my daughter is hilarious.

A little back story:

we were dancing to some music in our living room (where she obviously plays with all of her toys), and when ever I tried to video her dancing to the music I was listening to she would want to play with the phone. It was at that moment I was like, "hey! the computer has a web cam on it!" and this video was made. I, however, did not separate the music play back from the video recording so the sound sucks. There is also a section of he video where she decided she wanted to be curious about the video recording and gradually worked her way up to the couch to watch her self...watching herself...and do a little bit more dancing.

Once again, hilarious.

This tech guy hates... (rant)

It's not mine, I'm holding it for a friend.

*WARNING RANT LOCATED*

Apple, That's right, Apple. No, it's not just a hatred of their business practices, their closed attitude, or the fact that everyone who uses an Apple can be grouped into the stereotype of being a: "hipster", or a "graphic artist", or a "smug bastard"; although those reasons are the easiest ones to pull from a hat when someone asks me why.

No, the real reason that I hate Apple is because of the fact that they insist on printing EVERYTHING in a "post script" mode by sheer default. If I asked you to look at your printers right now, right this very moment, you would probably think I am a crazy person (If you didn't already). Your printer drivers for your machines, assuming all of the current readers aren't on a Mac, are most likely of the PCL5 or 6 variety. Why does that matter at all?

Technically the type of printer driver doesn't really matter, except for the fact that nearly everyone in the world uses Printer Control Language (PCL), in fact it is so widely used that most people do not know that there is anything else. I work for Sharp in one of their buildings that sells: copiers, printers, and other such. Since I live and work within the world of printers, I come across printers and MFPs from almost every company imaginable and it is very hard to find a printer driver in a production environment that does not use PCL6. Post script is so rare in this line of work that special add-on software and firmware packages have to be enabled in order to allow the printers to function in that mode for almost every device.

Normally I would not care, except for the fact that when I have to help a customer (being both a network admin and a copier connection specialist) who wants to print on a Mac. A whole 99% of the time the users who purchased a Mac expecting that they will "just work" like the ad in the paper said. Most of them have heard fabled stories of people coming back from the "Great-Apple-Store-in-the-Fashion-Mall" and all of their devices magically work for them. These stories, usually involve someone and their iPhone and their Music collection . . . not the usual office production environment. So it comes to them as a surprise that they must not, not only download a whole new set of printer drivers, but also purchase an add-on (which aren't cheap) to get the Post Script option to work.

Now I know what you're thinking, "Gee, Wes, if this happens so often then it isn't a rarity!" And I would say, "shut your mouth" and you would probably get angry with me. Most of these users are the one-off worker in an environment of Microsoft machines that now needs to be catered to, costing me my sanity as a Copier connection specialist, and causing friction between my new IT contact in the building (who now hates me because I have ensured that he will now cater to the unusual needs of the Mac).

Why do I hate Apple? BECAUSE They're different enough to cause problems. I don't care that they want to be different, I don't care that they insist on being different (look at me), I just wish that they would allow for backwards compatibility, to relieve me of my headaches, and ease the transition of others.

*END OF RANT*

Anniversary for this tech guy.

Well, it would seem that today is the day that, not only am I thankful for my wife (which I am everyday), but also the day in which we celebrate our anniversary. Now since I'll reminisce about that day, you'll have to excuse me if there are no pictures of the events to which I'll describe, I'm just making up the pictures as I go along.

 Two years ago today we were married, and if you're doing the math on how old my child is...well...then you can probably figure out just how quickly we went from: "married on our own" to "married and expecting" if you can't figure it out...well then YOU need to go back to health class.

Here's a hint

All kinds of memories are fresh in my mind (and they should be, it was only 2 years ago): Bachelor party, the heavy drinking, the broken furnace. 

Oh yeah, the broken furnace.

So funny thing. I woke up at around 7 am that day, not because I was nervous, but because my house was colder than Hilary Clinton on a hot day (read: frost on windows). During the night my furnace decided to take a shit and die...well...die is such a harsh word...more like refused to work.

it was an old furnace

One thing leads to another, and before you know it, my house is mind numbingly cold. The whole party is now all trying to get dressed in our tuxedos and attempt to fix my furnace by telling it just how much we loved it and would cherish it forever. Not really, we gutted it and disassembled it on the floor and passed the pieces to each member of the groomsmen who were then scrubbing each and every piece until it shined. Meanwhile me and my friend are now elbow deep in the furnace (possibly inhaling the gas, not sure) seeing what else we can take out before we decide to put it back together again.

It goes red, red, blue, orange, blue, army-man-lodged-in-pipe, right?

After about 3 hours of on and off cleaning and rubik-tetris style assembly we had the whole thing fixed. All that was left was to let the furnace run (and burn up at least 100 dollars to heat the house back up) and get to the ceremony's location, oh, and feverishly brush off all of the dust and soot from our tuxes without looking like we were dusting off the soot and dust...because if my wife found out...crap she just did...she WILL most likely kill / maim me with interest up to today.

So if you're in the neighborhood, I'm probably in traction right now while me and the wife look back on all of the pictures we had taken of that day.

Seriously, help, my wife is.........

oh, hey...never mind.

The short of it is, this day is the best, and I thank the maker for everyday that I have with my wife. Now if you'll excuse me I have to schedule my Anniversary Dinner around Thanksgiving Dinner (becacuse if I fill her up on Turkey then my dinner will be cheaper...just kidding...I love you Christina please don't hurt me)

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY CHRISTINA EMMERT!!!

Fifteen month old knows animal noises

Well, if my daughter isn't the cutest thing ever, even though she's just fifteen months she already knows animals and their noises. Unfortunately the only one I was able to "voluntarily" get her to do was the pig noise, after that she realized I was videoing her and got shy. Regardless of the end result, it's hard to not be amazed at what this little girl can do.

Enjoy

Juggling "disaster" amuses my daughter.

What is this? Two posts in a day? well, unless it's a weekend, this situation may or may not come up a lot. The point is, you never know what I'll have to share.

Like today, when my daughter thought my little juggling routine was incredibly hilarious, I thought I'd video it and share it with the world.

Enjoy!

Non-Linear Blog

GREETINGS ALL

YAY!!! I've deleted all of my old posts in favor of starting anew...the only caveat is that I will not try to run my blog / site the way that I tried to in the past: up to the minute blogs, up to the minute opinion posts, etc; Instead I will post relevant information that I want to pass on.

While it is true that I can do that in Facebook and Google+ I feel that this would be a great forum if I anticipate my post on Google+ or Facebook would be just too long to bring up there. There have been several situations where I post a lot of information to Google and Facebook, knowing full well that when I hit post, most people will read the first few sentences and decide not to hit the "more info" link. I wouldn't say that it is because I'm a shitty writer or a crappy typist, but those venues tend to offer more in the way of relevant information as long as it is a short and sweet post.

So Like this post here, which would be entirely too long for Facebook or Google+ under normal situations, I will create it here and link to it.

Consider yourself warned LOL.

ABOUT ME

What is there to know about me? Well, the most important question is, what do people NOT want to know about me?

I'm sure that people don't want to know that I'm a raging Techno-geek, or that I crank up the bandwidth at my home watching Netflix almost all the time. I'm also fairly certain that people don't want to know my horrid back story spanning 27 years of weird-as-hell coincidences involving: prisons, car chases, blatant prostitution, and...well...those were all false, I just tried to make things seem interesting.

All except the 27 years.

I'm a computer network admin / technician for Sharp Electronics Corp. I'm married and I have my own house where I live with my beautiful wife and awesome daughter. Expect a lot of bragging about my daughter, seriously, I mean a lot. Why? She's 15 months and can already consistently verbally and non-verbally communicate and consistently convey her thoughts to me and my wife, enough of that for right now.

I spend my days working on computers and networks and my Wife spends her weekends (not all of them) doing Pure Romance parties, of which I believe she has more fun doing that just about anything else. Check her out if you'd like.

In the end, I'm just like you: lovable and cuddly (at least I'd like to think so).