Category: Other

Eastertide

Geese at Peepers Pond.

Geese at Peepers Pond. Full size at Flickr.

Another Easter has come and gone. This year I was sick, with a bad cold that came on suddenly after our first performance of the Kancheli “Dixi” and didn’t abate until partway through the day… after I had sung two services at church. There is something restorative about singing the Hallelujah Chorus, if it doesn’t kill you first.

I’ve been thinking a little about something one of our student ministers said yesterday to the children. He talked about Easter and the opening of the cave as a promise from God to us that we can all have that resurrection experience—not just in the context of literal resurrection, but as a second chance, as the removal of the metaphorical stone keeping us in whatever cave we currently occupy. I think about that as I look out on a cold, drizzly spring morning. I’d like to find some sunshine.

Columns for microscale Lego buildings

As my cryptic post the other day hinted, I’ve gone full on AFOL – that is, Adult Fan of Lego. It started slowly, with a few Star Wars sets and some of the modular buildings, but over time I got drawn in more and more. One of the big things that pulled me in was the Lego Architecture line. The simplicity of the projects combined with exposure to some advanced building techniques was a great way to learn

As teased last week, my current obsession is applying what I’ve learned about Lego architecture to landmarks that I know well. Without giving away the whole game, let’s say that an important part of the project is building convincing columns in Lego. There are several good how-to resources available for building medium scale columns (a Flickr pool, a couple of YouTube videos, some more elaborate and authentic tutorials focused on Greek and Roman styles, some really elaborate stuff on the Corinthian order specifically), but not a whole lot summarizing the options for building Architecture-scale columns. By Architecture-scale I mean miniature models such that the scale might be 1 brick height = 5, 10, or even 20 feet, as is the case with some of the moderate size models in the line.

Fortunately the Architecture line itself provides a pretty good set of options, and there are a few others that might be worth your consideration. Let’s explore!

Note: There’s a whole ‘nother topic on capitals. We’ll come back to that another time.

Cylinder bricks

lego cylinder columns

The humble cylinder brick (aka Brick 1 x 1 Round, #3062a or #3062b), which I first encountered in trans yellow and green in the classic Space days, has both advantages and disadvantages for building columns. Pro: you can stack it to create whatever height you like. Cons: if all you have is the common grooved model (as opposed to the older variant with no bottom lip), the groove can be distracting.

Bars

legoBarColumns

This approach combines the Bar 3L (#87994, also available in 4L version) with the Plate 1×1 Round with Open Stud (#85861). You simply push the bar down into the open stud and off you go. Bars are versatile for columns, as you can also use them with clips (e.g. #4085) to hold them to a façade. I’ve topped the columns with simple round 1×1 plates (e.g. #4073), but see my note about capitals above.

Telescopes

legoTelescopeColumns

The minifig telescope (#64644) provides surprisingly ornate, if small, columns, as seen on the Lego Architecture Louvre set. Here I’ve paired them with #4073 again.

Fences

legoFenceColumns

There are a couple of fence-type items that make good, if plain, columns. The spindled fence (#30055) is probably the most straightforward.

Arches

legoArchColumns

For cases where columns combine with arches, using an arch part (like this Arch Panel, #90195, also known as a “castle window”) can work just fine.

Handle bricks

legoHandleColumns

If you’re building in a really small scale, the Brick with Handle (#2921) can do the trick. The disadvantage is that you have to raise the brick, since the handle extends the full height.

There are probably more options, and I’ll probably figure out a few more as I build, but I thought I’d start this list and see if anyone else has additional ideas.

N.A.D.D.

Rands in Repose: N.A.D.D. I somehow managed to make it this long without reading this seminal essay (which Rands linked back to yesterday). My current attention stack:

  1. Writing this blog post
  2. Updating internal wiki page
  3. Updating internal BI dashboard
  4. Listening to Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds play “Song of Joy”
  5. Watching Slack
  6. Working on slides for a webinar at noon
  7. Double checking my shopping app to replace the shirt whose elbow tore on me yesterday
  8. And Bricksmith waits in the dock for when I have a spare moment
  9. And I’m sure I’m forgetting something.

(Aside: what is it with men’s dress shirts and elbows that tear? I’m losing track of the number of good dress shirts (thankfully, not the bespoke ones) I’ve had to dispose of because of elbow wear.)

So yeah, I’ve got full blown N.A.D.D. The good news is that I can also hyperfocus when necessary. Now to go off and find the thing that’s going to trigger the hyperfocus today…

First month driving report: 2012 VW GTI

Long time readers of the blog may be surprised to learn that, when it was time to purchase a new car, I got a new Volkswagen GTI. After all, I had a very poor experience with my 2003 Passat, which even before I drove it off the lot suffered from a broken windshield wiper and later experienced several ignition coil failures while I was driving.

But the company has come a long way in the last ten years, and I’ve been very pleased with the month (and about 1500 miles) I’ve spent behind the wheel of my new GTI. Specific notes:

  • I’m too grandfatherly a driver to really appreciate how fast this thing can get off the line, but it definitely comes in handy when you’re trying to merge.
  • I haven’t really tried “launch control” — the feature that lets you go from 0 – 60 in less than 7 seconds — but it looks like fun.
  • The car is pretty comfortable. I spent sixteen hours in it this past weekend and was less fatigued and sore than after shorter drives in my Passat.
  • Mileage is acceptable. I posted 30.9 MPG driving from DC to Boston in light Sunday traffic, and a lower 28.9 MPG in summer Saturday driving on the way down. In town I regularly get better than 25MPG between my house and my office.
  • I love the convenience of integrated Bluetooth in the audio stack. It’s perfect for phone. However…
  • …integrated Bluetooth for audio has some problems. Due either to a GTI bug or to my iPhone 4s, I usually only get one audio channel. So if I’m in the car for any length of time I plug it into the dock connector instead.
  • Cargo room is pretty good for my needs. I remember my 1996 Golf being more spacious, but that’s probably just because I drove that car before I drove the Passat with its more capacious trunk. As long as I’m not taking a family of four on a long trip it’s just fine.

So yeah, I’m kind of glad I gave Volkswagen another chance. So far it’s paying off well.

The Diamond Sea

I am often awakened these days at 4 am by our dogs. As I stumble over the pile of clothes I leave beside the bed for the early morning wakeups, our girl dog whines urgently. I take them outside in the early morning pearl-light and return to bed.

This day, like many, the next step is my son awakening at 5:15. My wife takes pity on me this morning and gets him, leaving me to unsettled dreams. I am just starting to get past the unsettled sleep schedule that has kept REM sleep at bay for almost a year, and my dreams crowd in resentfully when they are allowed.

This morning, after I rolled back over, I helped house guests down to our basement, where we walked through the tunnels that connected the house to Boston’s Red Line. Arriving a few stops later, we were in DC, where we walked past the Space Needle and along the booths of an outdoor festival. I spotted a pair of students from the University of Virginia, who helped me find graduation programs and band posters from the early 1990s. It struck me that it was like eBay but with sellers you could actually talk to. And then I woke up.

It seems as though the last 17 years, since I started as a young, know-nothing business analyst at American Management Systems, have flown by. It was only a few years after that that I picked up Sonic Youth’s Washing Machine and had the top of my head removed. I’m listening this morning to the uncut version of “The Diamond Sea,” and as always I’m floating in infinity, carried along by the interplay between Thurston and Lee. Then hits the point about 11 minutes in where the ripples have calmed and all that is left is the drone, until a new voice clusters around the second and diminished second in the chord. A storm has blown up. All I can do is hold on and ride.

Adventure looking forward

Chris Baldwin’s brilliant comic (I won’t belittle it by calling it a “web comic”) Little Dee ended today. He’s been winding it down for months, so it’s no surprise that it’s over. What is a surprise to me is how resonant the ending is, even in its first two panels:

baldwin_deefinale.jpg

It’s tempting, as I start to see forty up on the horizon, to think that all my adventures and all the beauty are behind me. Weeks like last week, when my father in law was in and out of the hospital and I was forced by illness to withdraw from a Tanglewood Festival Chorus concert run that would have taken me to Carnegie Hall, seem to reinforce that thought.

But then I watch my family, and I catch my breath a little bit at all the beauty that is yet to come.

Falling summer leaves

3701392690_91efe6898f_o

A day of work today as the sun came and went over the Berkshires. I spent the morning in a coffee shop and the afternoon in a hotel room. If I could have, I would have done all the work in the coffee shop, but giving demos and being on conference calls doesn’t lend itself well to public places.

So I work in my room and flirt with depression. This is a necessary but frustrating part about being in Tanglewood; one is removed from one’s normal routines, for better and worse, and dropped into a new world. Sometimes it feels like being plucked from a stream and heaved vainly gasping onto a dock. Today, I need to see it more as a falling leaf, one of billions that will fall without the world ending.

Successfully evading depression, for me, relies on my ability to recognize the warning signs and turn aside the behaviors. When my normal routines–which function as a daily defense mechanism against the Black Dog–are disrupted, I need to acknowledge the disruption and do whatever I can to fill the void. It’s something that’s done one day at a time.

Thank your local optometrist

I may owe my optometrist my vision.

I was running low on contacts and considered simply calling in an order, but thought maybe I should go and have my eyes checked. Normally I only change prescriptions every few years, but about a year ago I had an eye infection and a more indepth visit. While I wasn’t experiencing any real pain, I thought I should check in anyway.

It was a good thing I did. My optometrist used a number of diagnostic tools to check up on my eyes, concluding with anterior segment photography. She then said, “You have a corneal ulcer.” She went on to explain that my eye infection had recurred in my left eye, and that a slight cloudiness in my cornea was an indication that my white blood cells were fighting the infection and that the surface of the cornea was opened as a result.

She put me on aggressive antibiotics drops, told me not to wear my contacts, and asked me to come back in two days to check the progress. So I’m not out of the woods yet, but the prognosis is pretty good. On the other hand, if I had followed my first instinct and simply dialed in the order for the new contacts, I might have seriously damaged my eye.

If you wear contacts and you haven’t been to the optometrist in a while, you might want to schedule a visit–or at least write them a note. I think they’re underappreciated.

Ramagon 2: the toy in action

There are about 150 people who have stumbled across the Ramagon tribute I wrote last year, one or two at a time. I finally stumbled across some photographic evidence of the toys when I was scanning an old photo album last night. Here are some out of focus close-ups of three things I made with the Ramagon toy kits:

  1. ramagon2Sheath for a toy sword: I had a cheapo plastic toy sword which glowed in the dark, so it became both a medieval sword and a lightsaber. Since it wasn’t a real lightsaber, it needed someplace to stay when I wasn’t posing like Luke Skywalker, so I built a simple sheath for it. You can see the basic symmetry of the Ramagon toys in the photo: they did pyramidal very well, and it was easy to link them together into a strong boxlike structure.
  2. ramagon1Holster for a toy gun: Just as the Ramagon hubs could do pyramids, it was trivially simple to make cubes with them. Add a pyramid at the end to taper the gizmo, extend one end with a square for a belt loop, and cover the frame with the plastic snap-in panels, and presto: very uncomfortable and big holster. There’s a very cringe inducing “action shot” of the holster and the sheath on Flickr; in my defense, it was 1982.
  3. ramagon3Toy gun: This was the coolest of the three toys, and I’m sorry I don’t have a better picture. A combination of a long hex frame and some closely snapped together hubs, and the illustration shows the short connectors (the black piece here used for the “trigger” and to secure the close clusters at the end of the gun) that I had forgotten existed. “Action shot” here (not me in the picture).

Web birthday#8

This is my eighth birthday… since starting my blog in 2001.

Seems like it was an eternity ago. I didn’t even bother to blog on my birthday then–of course it was close to the end of my third semester of business school and I was going nuts. But then, I didn’t realize that I was starting a tradition.

I went back and looked at past birthday posts. 2001, as I mentioned before, wasn’t blogged. In 2002 I turned 30 and reflected on Bilbo Baggins’ birthday benediction (more on that in a minute). 2003 was gearing up for what turned out to be my last Microsoft Christmas party. 2004 was a reflection on over ten years of no one knowing you’re a dog on the Internet. 2005 was my quotation in Business Week over the Sony BMG boycott. 2006, a dinner with friends and reflection on mortality. And in 2007, turning Presidential and lining up my new iPhone.

This past year is definitely a year of change — new website, a shift to linkblogging, killer new job. But my birthday this year feels more like a homecoming. As my sister says, this is pretty much my first Facebook birthday, and the people I’ve reunited with over there are making it a very nice happy birthday indeed. In some ways, I think this is the first birthday in a long time where I’ve felt something like contentment. Probably a sign that vast upheaving changes are right around the corner.

It’s a wonder that I still know how to breathe

After months of following the Democratic primaries and cheering for Barack Obama’s victory, did I watch his acceptance speech last night? Did I scour the crowd for signs of my friends Greg Greene and Jen Sorenson, who were both in the crowd? Did I relish a speech well done, a fight well fought, and clear signs that the candidate is coming out swinging against a weak Republican nominee? Did I?

Well, actually … no. As Barack was starting his speech, I was getting 30 electrodes applied to my head and body and having a mask strapped to my face.

I’ve long struggled with snoring. My dad has legendary volume and persistence: a true Heldentenor of a snorer. In college my good friend Don Webb told me that he could hear me snoring through the 19th century brick wall that separated our beds when we were both residents on the Lawn at UVA. But recently it’s been getting worse, according to reliable observers, and to top it all off I’ve had decreased energy and an indomitable desire to nap whenever possible. So I finally manned up and scheduled a polysomnogram, better known as a sleep study, to see if I had sleep apnea. The first study was a few weeks ago, but I hadn’t gotten the results until last night, when I went back to try sleeping with a continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) machine.

The background: sleep apnea is a condition of repeated interruptions of breathing (apneas) during sleep. An apnea is defined as the cessation of normal breathing for 10 seconds or more, followed by a gasping resumption of breathing. The clinical threshold for an apnea diagnosis is 5 or more apneas per hour (5 on the AHI index).

My AHI score was a whole number multiple of the clinical threshold, meaning that I was experiencing oxygen starvation for an average of 2 minutes out of every hour. No wonder I’ve been grumpy and sleepy all the time (not to mention several other of the dwarves).

So last night I slept with a CPAP machine for the first time, and I feel amazing this morning: awake and alert, quick, and in a great mood. This despite the fact that I woke up three times (that I’m aware of) overnight–sleeping with the mask and all those wires isn’t easy.

Apparently I’ll be using a CPAP machine from now on, something that I’m actually looking forward to if it makes this much of a difference in my mood. Plus it apparently stops the snoring, which is a pretty significant bonus.

And yeah, while I’m looking forward to catching up with Barack’s speech, I’m kind of glad now that I skipped it in favor of this study. Both look like they’re going to have a big influence on my life going forward.