Basement Update

So things are still moving along down under. Trim is nearly finished (that means nailed up, caulked, painted, the whole 9). Last weekend I finally installed a cabinet and utility sink in the laundry room. Too bad we didn’t have it a few months ago when we were doing major painting. But it’s nice to have now! Also last weekend we (with the help of Slick) finally painted our last room. It’s a really small room, but with three different colors on the walls it took some time. Currently, we’re painting doors and waiting for carpet which will finish up the flooring. Soon that will leave only building the movie screen and some decorating. Still I wouldn’t be surprised if we’re not calling it “done” until July. We’re really only working down there a couple nights a week – and probably only every other week at that.

Here are some shots of the latest. First up, the hallway all trimmed out:

It took some time to figure out all these angles around the stairs!

Our exercise / hobby room – very hard to get a good photo cause it’s small:

Filed under Basement

To avoid fainting, keep repeating “It’s only a movie…It’s only a movie…”

About a week ago Donna and I finally got around to watching Hostel – a movie from 05 produced by Quentin Tarantino and directed by Eli Roth. I wouldn’t classify either of those guys particularly as horror film makers but I guess they’ve flirted with it (Tarantino’s From Dusk Till Dawn and Roth’s Cabin Fever). None the less this movie seemed to leave its bloody mark on the history of horror movies so I’ve been wanting to see it.

If you haven’t seen Hostel, it’s about a couple of American guys who backpack to Bratislava to find a particular hostel supposedly overrun with gorgeous girls. Then things, of course, go horribly wrong. Stupid horror plot – check! You-have-sex, you-die horror cliché – check! Seems like all the pieces are coming together.

By the way, what’s with Bratislava getting such a bad wrap in movies these days? Forget Kazakhstan, Bratislava is Hollywood’s whipping boy. Between Eurotrip and Hostel they can’t be doing too well in the tourism department.

So back to the movie. As things progress, the flick quickly goes from creepy to just plain sick. No, I mean holy-crap, are-they-f’in-kidding-me sick! And this was the full gore, director’s cut DVD mind you. I wouldn’t ever call the movie scary – but hells yah it’s disturbing. It’s easy to look down on the movie as another Tarantino shock-fest, or another Roth blood-fest, but it’s the evil of the human animal that really makes the movie. And makes it disgusting.

Last night we watched Wes Craven’s first film, The Last House on the Left. This is from 1972, and has the film quality, wardrobe, and soundtrack to prove it. But once you’re past those dated references it’s an interesting (don’t know if you can say entertaining) horror film. It was a small, low budget movie shot with inexpensive equipment. In a “making of” feature, Craven explained that their only previous filming experience was with documentary filmmakers so the film shoots played out much like docu re-enactments. This all ends up working for effect … and it reminds you that all the high end production used these days in moviews actually makes a lot of stuff more safe, because it’s less raw.

Last House is essentially about a couple girls who set out for a concert, but on the way… you guessed it… things go horribly wrong. Rape, torture, murder, yep this movie has it all. And it isn’t afraid to show it. The gore factor is actually pretty low, since the budget and technology for special effects was non-existent then, but it’ll turn your stomach all the same. Even the lamer parts of the movie (the unnatural dialogue, the slapstick comic relief) work to build on the unsettling experience.

After the shock wore off, it was interesting how similar these movies are – despite being 30+ years separated. They both show really horrible acts done to regular people, by regular people. No Freddy; no Michael Myers; just that guy you said hi to this morning. There’s really some brutal scenes in both, and the violence always happens close, face to face. And the story arcs also depict victums pushed to the point of committing horrible acts of vengence. And by the end you cheer (at least a little) when the baddie gets the chainsaw taken to him – yes, in both movies.

We like horror as much as anyone, but whew, I think we’re due for a romantic comedy!

Filed under Movies

Basement Update

With the robotics season over, I’ve finally made a return to the basement. We’ve starting the trim work now. It’s a little funny transporting 16 foot pieces of molding with the Aztek, but it works. So far we’ve put casings on four doors (one to go) and put up all the base in the laundry room. Stay tuned for some pictures after we make a little more progress.

Filed under Basement

Happy Spring

Warm temps are back again and our yard is coming alive!

Filed under General News

Domo Arigato pt. 2

The UGS/Live Oaks FIRST Robotics Team 158 competed in the Buckeye Regional in Cleveland this past weekend. This was the team’s second and final competition of the 2007 season. The size of this regional was much larger than our previous event in Pittsburgh (58 teams instead of 35) and the game play was very tough. Most teams (like ourselves) had already been to another regional and were either adept at scoring or playing aggressive defense.

The team made great use of our Thursday practice day by passing inspection, warming up their driving skills, and fine tuning the robot’s mechanics and programming. As we practiced, other teams got an early appreciation for our scoring ability and maneuverability. Although we had had completed one ramp and successfully tested its deployment, using it would’ve put us overweight by 3 or 4 pounds so we decided to proceed with only the scoring arm.

The game is played between two alliances of three robots each. Every qualifying match you play is with (and against) a new randomized alliance. Sometimes you get lucky and draw strong, complementary robots for your alliance, other times you must make do with less. In each match we played, the students were happy with our performance and contributions to the alliance. In some cases we played the role of primary scorer for our alliance; in other cases teams called upon us to play solid defense.



We competed in 7 qualifying matches on Friday. The students worked hard on and off the field and were very satisfied with our success throughout the day winning 4 of 7 rounds and tying for the highest match score of anyone that day.

We only had a single qualifying match remaining on Saturday morning. The previous day of aggressive driving had taken its toll on our drive system and we had to make some serious repairs to our transmissions. Luckily we got the drive train back in top shape just in time to take the field. Despite a hard effort we lost that final match giving us a qualifying record of 4 and 4, and a qualifying standing of 33rd of 58.
The elimination rounds began with the top eight teams selecting two alliance partners (like a draft in football or basketball) to take into the finals. Despite our modest ranking, we were recognized as a strong team player with a versatile robot, and the 4th seeded team selected us for their alliance. Considering that we had a much higher qualifying ranking in Pittsburgh (12th) and still missed the opportunity to play in the finals, the students were thrilled. In a best-of-three quarterfinal, our alliance won the first match by a large margin, but then narrowly lost the next two to keep us from advancing to the regional semifinal. All in all, it was a great finish to the season!

Filed under General News

From Pittsburgh with love

So it stinks our team didn’t get into the quarterfinals in Pittsburgh, but it was fun to watch. One of the things I’ll remember most is the sight of one of the winning team’s mentors…a big burly guy, maybe 6’5″ and 250lbs..wiping tears from his eyes, as he gave each kid on his team a big bear hug lifting them off the ground. Whoever said engineers aren’t emotional has never gone to an FRC event.

Filed under General News

Domo Arigato pt. 1

The UGS/Live Oaks FIRST Robotics Team competed in the Pittsburgh Regional competition this past weekend.

Thursday was a full day of fine-tuning and practice. Our team spent the entire day 8am to 8pm working on completing the robot to get it ready for the competition matches on Friday. Our driver and operator only got one practice round in at the end of the day, because there was so much left to complete. For those of you familiar with our design, we decided to focus on the grabber and worry about adding the ramps later. By the end of the day, we had completed the lift and grabber assembly, passed inspection, and (without ramps) passed the weight limit with flying colors (we were 100 pounds of a possible 120).

The competition matches began on Friday and our team got off to a rocky start losing their first two rounds. As we continued to fine tune the robot’s drivetrain and as our student driver got more experience we starting doing much better. The Cobras played some very impressive defense and consistently scored bonus points for climbing alliance robots’ ramps. Likewise we climbed in the rankings throughout the day as we won the next 5 of 6 matches. The team climbed as high as 6th place and ended the first day in a very respectable 8th place of the 35 teams in Pittsburgh.



When competition resumed on Saturday we implemented an offensive strategy to surprise our opponents (who would assume we’d continue playing defense) and consistently placed three scoring tubes. We split our two Saturday qualifying rounds, giving us a final ranking of 12th and a record of 6 – 4. Although the team narrowly missed the opportunity to advance into the quarterfinals, our drive team and our robot are in very good shape for our next regional in Cleveland in two weeks.

Filed under General News

Oscarpalooza

I don’t normally pay much attention to The Oscars (or any award shows for that matter), but this year I thought I’d catch up on the many movies I missed in 06 by watching a number of nominated films before the awards on the 25th. Maybe it has something to do with having a nice home theater this year 🙂 None the less, here’s a brief rundown on what we’ve watched lately:

The Departed

Here’s a movie I didn’t have very high hopes for, but was surprising good. Nothing too outside the Hollywood box with this one, but well done for a crime drama. Jack’s always a joy to watch and DiCaprio was surprising good. I wouldn’t give a statue to Markie Mark for best supporting, his character was way too flat. On the other hand, it’s a prime candidate for Best Director; it’s due time for Scorsese to pull one in.

Little Miss Sunshine

Not a bad pic by any means, but Best Picture? I don’t see it. The flick would be a great comedy if it weren’t so serious, but still watching the ensemble mess of a family was entertaining. It’s kind of a typical road trip movie – actually reminded me of Lampoon’s Vacation, without the Kristy Brinkley subplot. In summary, I’d recommend it, but I’ve see better comedies and better dramas this year.

The Queen

Another surprisingly good pic. All the buzz about Helen Mirren is justified. She really delivered on this one. After her, I think the acting drops off quickly, but it’s her movie so that’s OK. I wonder how this movie was received in England where the viewers are closer to the events and royals. For me and Donna I think it was as educational as it was entertaining. Best actress – yes, Best pic – nope.

Babel

Very much in the style of Crash which won last year, but I really dug the global backdrop to this movie. Intertwined stories with enough meat for interesting discussions. I thought some of the political commentary was a bit heavy handed, but not far off the mark, while other themes were left pretty raw without a lot of message handed to you. The Japanese story line was among the more interesting – there was a little more intrigue and depth of character there I think. Some of the sequences and shots were very memorable (like the night club in Japan). Well deserving of the Best Editing nomination and maybe either Supporting Actress…not my favorite movie this year, but out of the nominees probably my choice for Best Pic.

Pan’s Labyrinth

My top pick for the year. Only it wasn’t nominated for Best Pic! I’m sure not having much of a box office presence has a lot to do with it. And yes, you have to read subtitles for two hours. It should at least pick up a few other awards as a consolation (Best Foreign Language Pic, Cinematography, Makeup, Art Direction…). I loved the play between fact and fantasy and the darkness and danger on both sides. It has the hallmarks of kids’ movies these days, but assembled into a film for adults.

Filed under Movies

Stop, collaborate, and listen

Ice is back!

Filed under General News

Heh, heh, you said…

Siemens acquires software producer UGS for US$3.5 billion. With its acquisition of U.S. software producer UGS Corp., of Plano, Texas, the Siemens Automation and Drives (A&D;) Group will expand its product spectrum in automation technology to include industrial software for planning, design and simulation in Product Lifecycle Management (PLM).

My company has been sold again. I start learning German next week.

Filed under General News