Back in Ruston

Well we all made it back to Ruston without too much trouble. Pittsburgh turned out to be a pretty cool place. We were staying downtown so we walked to the convention center and such. One minute you would be walking past a modern skyscraper and the next you would pass a 200 year old stone building. It was a pretty cool place. The conference was interesting, we made our presentations and generally impressed the crowd. We won a second place award for Best Paper in one of the divisions and I have a nice plaque to hang on the wall.

I also got to watch the Pirates play the Yankees - Pirates won easily. It was a sold out crowd which was really fun to experience. I hope I can say the same thing when MSU comes to Ruston to play the Dawgs in August. There are lots of cool bridges around Pittsburgh, as there are three rivers that converge right at the city. I didn't get pictures of all of them but they were interesting at least. I should have taken some pictures to use in class - I teach one class where the students analyze bridges (trusses actually) and see how strong they are. We also took a ride on one of the inclines they have there. It is sort of like a ski lift to get you up the mountain face (really a big hill I guess.) The only problem with the trip was that on the way back to Ruston we were stuck in Houston from rain delays. Other than that, it was a good trip. Next up is Saratoga in the Fall - never been there either.

News from the front . . .

So the first day of the conference went well. I listened to a few presentations including on from Tech. The were ok, but in my opinion the Tech one was the best - and I am trying to be unbiased. Honestly though Tech can hang with any of these colleges. We have two presentations tomorrow so we will see if they are just as good as today.

The picture is one of the new truss demos from some company. It is sort of neat, but something we are already ahead of at Tech. I am telling you, we are on the front lines with a lot of the stuff we are doing. In one if the presentations earlier today, a school was describing their new program and it is pretty much University Seminar that we have had for a while now. Another was describing something we started doing 12 years ago.

Now it is time for my "woe is me story of the day." We went to eat at some famous sandwich shop where the sandwiches have french fries and cold slaw on the sandwich. I know that I tend to get stuff all over me when I eat messy food so I was being very careful not to drop food on me since I was going back to the conference. I actually made it through the whole meal without incident and felt quite proud of the accomplishment. Well a lady from across the room drops a bottle of tobasco and it splatters on me jsu as I am about to get up and leave. So I guess it really just doesn't matter what I do or how careful I am, I will leave any restaurant with food on me.

Made it to Pitt!

Well I made it to Pittsburgh with no troubles. The plane from Monroe was a little late, but no big deal. This is my first time in Pennsylvania and it is a nice place so far. We are getting ready to go eat, but everything is closed on Sunday - at least all the good places. I got registered for the conference and will attend a few sessions tomorrow. I don't have to present my papers until Wednesday so I have some time to actually get the PowerPoints ready. It looks like it is about to rain so I am hoping that the group makes a choice on where to eat soon. Maybe tomorrow I will have some inside information on the latest in engineering education - if you are lucky. ;)

Is it a conspiracy?

I am beginning to wonder if there is a conspiracy or something against me. I got a letter from the IRS yesterday stating that I owed them $1300 for some unreported income from back in 2006. Apparently, Louisiana Tech paid me some money, but not as a regular employee and the IRS thinks I should pay some (and by some I mean 50%) tax on this money. First of all, why would Tech pay me money as a non-employee? Second, the source of the money is not the same as my normal pay check, it is some type of foundation account. Finally, why did I receive this money in the first place? The only thing I can think of is that there was some sort of reimbursement (which would not be income by the way) that was paid to me through this foundation account. I looked into it briefly this morning, but so far no one knows anything about it. I will continue my investigation. Oh and even though this occurred way back in 2006, the IRS suddenly wants all "their" money in less than a month!

I also sent in my formal appeal to the City of Ruston today:

I, Kelly Crittenden,. . . am filing an appeal of the decision to deny my previous appeal for case #08-62. This case is concerning the City of Ruston Abandoned/Nuisance Vehicle ordinance. My 1965 Mustang . . . was determined by the City to be in violation of this ordinance. I am formally filing an appeal of this decision.

Basically, I am just buying time to get more work done so that I have the car up to code before the appeal date (July 21). It is a bit of a pain though because I am supposed to have to pay for "advertising" costs because apparently you have to advertise in the paper that you are making this appeal. The thing is that they don't even know how much these costs are. I have been good about biting my tongue with these people for quite some time now, but I am not sure how much longer I am going to be able to hold out. I think the City is trying to get rid of me . . .

Oh, I thought I would add a picture of my nuisance car just so everyone was on the same page with what we are talking about here.

To top it all off, this morning was trash pickup day and I had one cardboard box that was just a little too big to fit in the full-to-the-rim garbage can. So I set the box beside the garbage can thinking that the garbage men would just pick it up and put in on the truck. But what do I find this morning? I find that the garbage can was emptied and the cardboard box was neatly propped next to the can just the way I left it. Really?!? Whatever - I am seriously ready to move out to the country where I belong.

Denied!

I had my appeal hearing for my Mustang this morning, and I was denied. Actually, I sort of expected that and it is an ok thing - not a good thing, but ok. In the end what will happen is that I will file another appeal and in the meantime I will get my car "legal." It just means that I have a lot of work to do and a lot of money to spend.

I am trying to do as much of the work as I can in order to keep expenses down, but I am going to have to farm out some of the work so that I can get it done in time. Mainly, I will get some of the engine work done at a local place. I don't have the necessary equipment for the machining work that the engine block will probably need so I am going to have to have that done for me. I really don't like that, I would much rather do it all myself, but drastic times call for drastic measures. Also, it is not going to be cheap, we are talking in the $1000 to $1500 range. Why would I spend that much on an old car you ask. Well, this isn't just any old car, it is the car that daddy and I built for me to drive and there is no way that I will let someone just haul it away because it doesn't suit their fancy.

More to come soon, at least I hope so.

At the ole ballpark . . .

So we made it to the game and it isn't raining so all is well. So far there is no score, but it just started. I have to say it is pretty fun, not basketball or football mind you but fun none the less. The weather is great too, nice breeze.

Mobile blogging . . .

so after much pressure to blog, i am experimenting with mobile blogging. if this works I can blog from anywhere at anytime.

Multimedia message

Only Two More Days!

There are only two more days until the first Tech football game of the season! I did notice that there were some games on tonight, but didn't pay them too much attention. I did tune into the end of the NLULM game just to make sure they were losing and they weren't letting me down. The tigers were winning big though, but I guess that is ok for now. The mayor has declared that Friday's are "Code Blue" days and that all businesses are encouraged to show their support by wearing blue. . . sounds good to me! Although, I think Code Blue may not have been the best name choices because Code Blue is the hospital code for a person not breathing I think, but that may be appropriate for some of the local Tech "fans." Nothing bugs me more than to see someone at Tech or in Ruston decked out in full LSU regalia but yet has no affiliation with LSU at all! That reminds me of one of my favorite pictures, I don't have it on this computer so I can't post it, but I will try to post it later.

It is also getting very close to time for school to start back. I am teaching a couple of classes this Fall and I am looking forward to getting started. I am teaching one of the sections of our new Freshmen Engineering Curriculum and it is pretty cool. The students are going to be building some really sophisticated things - some robots, sensors, some micor/nano fabricated stuff, control systems and all as Freshmen! I am also teaching the seminar class that goes along with that. Possibly the most fun class is going to be my IMPaCT class. This is a class that I (with the help of plenty of people) started a two years ago. The class is a multidisciplinary design and product development class. We are looking at some pretty interesting projects for this year. One of the possible projects involves a lunar orbiter for NASA. Last year one of the projects from this class was licensed to a regional company for a significant chunk of change (something like 1.2 million shares of the company stock). Anyway, more on school on a later date.

Oh wait, I do have one cool thing to tell you about. Tech is starting a new tradition this year (oh and I have a really cool tradition to tell you about for next year). The Freshmen are going to assemble in Howard September 5th (the day before classes) and listen to some speakers (Derek Dooley for one) and be given a commemorative coin. Then they will take this coin and throw it into the Lady of the Mist. Then when they graduate they will get the coin back with their graduation date engraved on it. It seems like a pretty cool thing, we will see how it goes. Click HERE to read more about the tradition. The tradition that we will start next year is even cooler in my book, but I probably can't tell you about it yet.

For my last bit tonight I am just going to say that I hate to admit it, but I have been bitten by the reality TV show bug. I have been totally watching Big Brother 8, and I like it. I still don't watch any of the other reality shows, unless you count the American Hot Rod / Chopper type shows, but I am liking this one for sure. I am not sure who I want to win, but at least they got rid of Amber tonight, I was pretty sure I didn't want her to win. Well, that is all for tonight, stayed tuned for more . . .

Summer is Almost Over. . .

So, another summer is just about over and it is only a few days until school starts back. I am actually looking forward to school starting. This has been a busy summer and I need a break. I made trips to Florida, California, Colorado, and Hawaii and did nine summer camps, plus taught one class and helped out with one of our new freshmen programs. So I am ready to get back to regular stuff. Oh, and I made one trip out to Dallas recently to check out the Lovejoy Independent School district. Speaking of Lovejoy, if any of you live out near the Richardson, Plano, Allen area you definitely need to check out that school, they are doing some pretty amazing things!

I am also ready for football season to start! Tech plays their first game this coming Saturday and I am pretty excited. We should win this game, but after last season's pitiful performance who knows? I will be there though - Lord willing and the creek don't rise. That phrase reminds me of something else, did you realize that you can say just about anything about anyone if you just follow it with "Bless his/her heart"? For instance, I could say, "Look at poor Bart over there, he is about as ugly a person as ever has lived, bless his heart." See how the magic phrase cancels out whatever bad you just said. It is amazing.

Oh, I also wanted to point you guys to some cool computer stuff that you may want to check out. One program is called Comic Life. No it isn't about comic books, well not exactly anyway. What it does is take a photograph (or any image) and filters it in such as way so that the resulting image looks like a hand drawn and colored picture. For instance, here is a before and after of one of my Colosseum pictures from last year. I think it is pretty cool, at least something different. And yes, it will let you add the comic style writing and such if you really want to. You can go to www.plasq.com to download the program, it is free! Anyway, something to check out in your spare time.Did I mention that Tech's first football game of the year is only six days away? I hope some of you come out to the game. Oh, and basketball season should be great this year! We have a new floor coming in, some really great players and new coach. We may not make the tournament this year (although I am secretly holding out hope that we do), but next year is going to be something special with the players we have already signed and and next year's recruits. But first, we have some football games to play!

Virginia Tech

There were so many other things I wanted to write about today, but I can't ignore what happened at Virginia Tech Monday morning. I feel some sort of connection to them, partly on just a human level, but more so on a college campus level. It troubles me that things of this nature are happening in our world and not much is being done about it. But what are you supposed to do? How can you tell who is crazy enough to do something like this? I have had my share of students angry at me for sure, but am I supposed to report them to the police? That would be a little extreme.

I heard one criminal profiler say that she believed that we should arm the citizens. That doesn't sound like a solution to me, it sounds like the old West or the streets of Iraq. I don't want one of my decisions every morning to be, "Do I carry the nine today or do I go with the .22?" And of course, if I am carrying a gun I probably need a bullet proof vest too, and a vest is no good with out some sort of head gear, so here I am in full riot gear getting ready to go teach class. That is ridiculous!

This profiler mentioned other things that I am more inlcined to agree with. She mentioned how much garbage we are allowing into our minds through the internet, movies, television, video games and so forth that we are creating a society that essentially grows sociopaths. I am not convinced that this is entirely true, but I am convinced that it is not entirely false. Evil has been a part of this world for much of its existence and it lurks around finding anyway possible to devour our souls. I think too much emphasis is put on eliminating particular methods and not enough emphasis is put on fighting the source.

Well, there is a lot more to write about, but I am going to have to think about things some more first.

Hardwired Morality?

So it has been mentioned that my blog is out of date. I have no idea why someone would think that! I just haven’t had much interesting to write about these days, well that is not the total truth. I really haven’t had much time to do any blogging of my own. I do try to make the rounds and read everyone else’s (well not literally everyone).

I end up reading a lot of magazines. I like pictures to go along with all the words so magazines are the way to go for me. I have magazines that cover all sorts of topics, plus every month you get a new one! Well, I ran across an interesting article the other day that made me think some so I will relay the information to you and see what you think.

The article was about having an innate moral code of right and wrong. Of course they were coming at the thing from a strictly evolutionary point of view so they started off base, but I still found their logic amusing. The following scenario was given:

A healthy man walks into a hospital where five people are awaiting organ transplants. The five will die unless they receive these transplants. The question is: Is it ok to kill the one healthy man to supply the five with the necessary organs to live?

Most would say that, “No, that is not an ok thing to do?” Then another scenario is given:

A runaway train is headed down the track and cannot be stopped. There are five people in the direct path of the train and will surely die if nothing is done. An operator can flip a switch that will divert the train to another track where only one person is in harm’s way. Is it ok to flip the switch?

In this case, many would say that, "Yes, it is better to flip the switch and sacrifice the one to save the five." So the question then becomes, what is the difference? Why is it ok to sacrifice one to save five in one case and not the other case? The author's point was that most people couldn’t say why so there must be some hardwired sense of morality in our thought process that has been adopted through evolution and natural selection. They even mentioned that religion had no effect on the answers to these questions.

However, I think there is a flaw in their logic. Actually, I think there is a flaw in the conclusions that are being drawn. I would argue that the results they are seeing are not a hardwired morality, but a reflection of how we visualize a problem. I bet if we asked the same questions with more detail the answers would not be so overwhelmingly lopsided. For instance, what if the one person on the train track was a child and the five were members of a notorious gang? Or what if the five in the hospital were five young adults with gunshot wounds and the one was the shooter? Or maybe the difference is in how the death occurs, one by a speeding train and the other by more direct human intent? Who knows? I think the more intersting thing would be to ask people what they envisioned when these two questions were asked. I at least found it interesting to think about. What do you think?

The Saints are Winners!

Oh Happy Day! The Saints will now officially have a winning record this year. Not only that, but they should make the playoffs. Who knows, they may even have a first round bye. We will just have to wait and see. It is amazing what a difference a year makes (and a new set of players and coaches.) Speaking of coaches, you have surely heard the Tech no longer has a football head coach. I have heard several names mentioned to replace Jack, some of them are very exciting and others are pretty depressing. We will have to wait and see how that turns out too. The plan is to have a new coach by this Friday (Dec 15th), but I don't see that happening. My inside sources tell me, that . . . well . . . they don't really tell me anything useful.

Due to the overwhelming response (at least one response already!) to my technical post (see below) I have decided to post another technology based item here. (I hope the sarcasm came across well). So basically I get to play with . . . I mean research . . . cool technolgy every day and right now I am working with some fuel cells. This particular project is less research and more trying to put together some projects for a high school engineering exploration thing we are doing. Anyway, I am building a fuel cell powered car (a small one, only about 10 inches long). You can see a picture to the right. Oh and check out the cool Louisiana Tech University ruler (it has both metric and US customary units on it). So I am sure you are thinking that I am really cool right about now so let me take advantage of this moment to explain a little about the fuel cell. Basically, the fuel cell combines hydrogen atoms (which are a proton and an electron) with oxygen atoms to make water (H2O). The trick is that the hydrogen electrons are stripped off and have to travel around a circuit to get to the other side of the fuel cell in order to combine with the hydrogen proton and the oxygen. And, well, an electron traveling in a circuit is an electric current. I am using that electric current to run the motor of the car. Here is a closer view of the actual fuel cell and the tanks. The tanks hold the oxygen and the hydrogen (and water too). Pretty cool, huh? Hello? Anyone there?

Technology

So I said I was going to post a little bit about my new office toy. I had almost let the day go by without posting it, but I remembered just in time. My new toy is a Dimension SST 1200. It is one of the coolest machines ever, it is a 3D printer. It can actually print three-dimensional objects. I can create a computer model of anything and send it to the printer and it will print out a plastic copy of whatever I created. Pretty cool, huh? Well, I think so anyway. We use it for creating prototypes and such. For instance, one of my co-workers was working on an directional drilling machine and we printed out the parts he designed and he can used them to show the clients what ideas he has come up with so far. I have a picture of it here, it is basically a big gray box with some cool technology inside. The other picture shows some of the parts I have printed out. I can't show the directional drill parts (they are secret for the time being) but they are pretty cool too.

Saints and Deacons.

The Saints won again! They are now officially not going to have a losing season. After winning only 3 games last year, I am very happy for the team. They have really turned things around it appears. Tech on the other hand is dropping like a rock. The football team finished last in the WAC and last or nearly last in the nation in many catagories. Basketball isn't starting out very well either, I think the Techsters have already lost five games. That is more games than they would lose in two entire years back in the day.

Tonight was Deacon ordination night at church. I have always wanted to be a deacon, but so far it hasn't happened. I thought maybe it was because I wasn't married or something, but we ordained one guy tonight that was single so I guess that isn't it. Who knows? Anyway, I have always enjoyed the ordination services (except for the REALLY long ones.) I really like the part when the wife stands behind the soon-to-be deacon and the other ordained ministers come and pray with the ordainees. It means a lot to me to see a wife who supports her husband and is there to show it.

Oh, I think I will have a special suprise for any of you techies out there tomorrow. I have recently acquired a really cool machine a work and I will take some pictures and tell you guys about it tomorrow. I think even non-techie people will like it, so tune in tomorrow (or at least sometime soon.)

Almost forgot to add a title.

So I bet you thought I wouldn't make it four days in a row. But I did, I admit I am cutting it close but I should be able to make it before midnight.

Well, I just got back from the Techsters-Tennessee game. I had prepared myself for losing, but we got beat pretty badly, I think we only scored 15 points in the first half and Tennessee had about 42. The second half was better, but still lost by more than 20. I am afraid that gone are the days when we could truly expect the Techsters to win any game they played. Granted Tennessee is one of the all-time powers in women's basketball, but the Techsters just aren't at the same level that they once were. I really want to go to a game of any sort where Tech wins, it has been a long time. I think the bowling team has been doing pretty good lately. . .

So the first day of the new quarter is tomorrow. I am looking forward to it. I really like teaching, I don't know why, but I just really like it. I am basically teaching the same classes that I taught last quarter, and that is good. I have several new things that I am working on and if I had to try and teach new classes it would just be too much. Oh and we have Christmas break in just three weeks!

That's all for tonight.

Merry Christmas from Champ!

So you may know that my brother is an artist and all, well he sent me a Christmas card that he made. I thought I would share it with all of you Tech people out there. It is pretty cool, I had to reduce the size of it so that it would not take forever to download, but you should still get the idea. Speaking of Tech, the Techsters are playing Tennessee this Tuesday night, I plan on making it out to the game, maybe I will see some of you there. Oh, and yes this is the third post in a row. Just call me buttah, 'cause I am on a roll.

Oh Christmas Tree . . .

It is a record! I have now posted two days in a row. I don't think I will write much, but I did want to post a picture or two of my Christmas tree. I bought this little artificial tree a few years ago during one of those after-Christmas sales for like $15 or so. It is a little short, but I set it up on a table so that is looks taller. Oh, and those are real presents under the tree. They are just empty bags from years past. I have bought a few presents already, but I haven't wrapped any of them yet. Anyway, just thought I would show it off a little bit.

So in other news, there was a missionary from Turkey at church tonight. Listening to him really brought back some memories from back in the day. I wish I had taken more pictures from those days. I don't even know if I owned a camera back then though. I always thought that I would remember everything, but it seems like I can't quite remember all of those days like I thought I would. Who knew? It seems my forgetter is getting better all the time.

P.S. Do you guys spend as much time as I do just trying to rearrange the pictures so that they show up where you want them?

Catch Up

Well, my little experiment to have a post every week doesn't seem to have worked out to well. I actually started writing several posts from time to time, but after reading them I decided not to post any of them. So here we are over a month later and no new posts, the Mustang is still pretty much in the same shape, and it doesn't seem like I have gotten much done. That bothers me, I don't like feeling unaccomplished. I can't stand to waste time, although it does seem to be what I am best at. All of that aside, I will try again to keep up with my postings. I really do want to keep up with my blogging (you know, so the script writers and biographers will have some good material to work from in the future when they are writing my life story.)

So let's see what has been going on. Another quarter has come and gone, I think I have been teaching at Tech for over five years now. It seems like a long time, but just yesterday I was at home (in Many) for Thanksgiving and I found some of my old Tech stuff. I even ran across my packet from Orientation and that seemed like only a week or two ago. To steal from Dickens, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." College was great, but there was some hard stuff to deal with at the same time. Anyway, enough about that, let's see what else has been going on.

The Saints are trying to be a pretty good football team and that is exciting. Tech is trying to find every possible way to loose games and that is not so exciting. Oh, I got word that for the summer, I get to take at least two trips. I think I mentioned earlier that I was going to Hawaii for a conference, but now I am going to Boulder, Colorado too. The only bad part is that the trips are only a few days apart so it is going to be a little hectic. I got two papers accepted, so that is good news. (Technically, only the abstracts are accepted right now, but surely they will accept the papers too.) Don Piper (the 90 Minutes in Heaven guy) spoke at church a few Sunday's ago. That was pretty cool and there were a LOT of people there. Oh, speaking of church, I have moved instruments again, these days you can find me playing electric guitar (and for those of you who care: I am standing up . . . you know who you are.)

I don't have any cool pictures of anything to post so I am afraid that this will be a pictureless post, sorry. Maybe next time I will have a picture of something, who knows. Well, I can't think of anything else to write. I will have to call it a night. See you later.

She ain't Pretty, but she's mine!

Ok, so hopefully you see the pictures and realize that I am not talking about some new girlfriend or such, but rather my 1965 Mustang. This is actually my first car and a few of you may even remember it, I drove it at Tech for a few years. I have actually had it for about 20 years. She has definatley seen better days though, in fact this very car won "Best Mustang" at a car show back in the day. But as you can see, time has not been kind to my first car.

My dad and I actually took two cars (a 1965 and a 1966) and built this one. It was a long process of cleaning, painting and all sorts of work. There was one point where every piece of the car that could be removed had been (except for the dimmer switch, and I am not really sure why I never did remove it). We did all of the work ourselves and it turned out really nice. We built a lot of cars over the years, but this one was by far my favorite.



Anyway, I have some big plans for her. I am not too worried about putting everything back to stock-showroom-floor condition so that should make things go much smoother. There is PLENTY of work to be done without being bothered if I have the correct hanger for the muffler. Although, when we built this car we did go back to showroom condition.

Hopefully, I will have some updates soon, but we all know how I am with updates.

Oh, I almost forgot: Tech won! Now bring on the Aggies.