Up to date -

Well, this week is the week that I turn in my Tenure and Promotion package. Plus, this is the week that we have our six-year accredidation visit from ABET. Oh, and I am supposed to write a few proposals this month, and I might as well throw in a few paper abstracts for the ASEE conference while I am at it. I feel like complaining, but at least I have a job that is fun most of the time, and I think I secretly like all of the writing. 

I did get to go to the Tech/USL game last weekend, and that was pretty fun! This week the game in on Wednesday in Boise, which is pretty odd. Obviously I can't go to Boise in the middle of the week, but the game is on ESPN so I will get to see it. I just have to figure out how to get out of Wednesday night practice. I know that I can set the DVR to record the game, there is just always that lingering thought that for some unknown reason the DVR won't work. Or worse, I will see the score before I get to start watching the game! :( 

Speaking of Tech sports, it is time to buy season tickets for Basketball, I will try to go over this week and get mine. I would just buy them online, but I don't see where to get the faculty price, so I will have to go in person. I am thinking that this year should be pretty exciting for Tech Basketball. I think we will win 20 games or more, which is a drastic improvement from last year. I am not too much into the Women's Basketball, but I will get tickets to them also, just to support the team.

Oh, I almost forgot - I was nominated to be a deacon at church! I won't be actually ordained until November sometime, but I was still pretty excited. Daddy was a deacon back at my home church. I wish you guys had gotten to meet him. Anyway, I don't know all of the terminonlogy right now, but basically, I will be "active" for the next three years and then I am not sure what happens, but I think I rotate off for a while (or maybe not). I am looking forward to it all.

I have made some progress on my car. I posted some "before" pictures a while back, and now I have some "sort of after" pictures. It isn't ready yet, but at least it looks better in spots. Here is one of the engine. I took a little bit of creative liberty this time around. When I first restored the car, I did everything just like it rolled of the showroom floor. This time, I went with what looked good to me, I am not as concerened with factory original anymore. Next on the list is to install a new gas tank and fuel line, do some brake work, and get an inspection sticker. I have some nice shiny new parts for the interior too which will help out in there. The biggest thing on the interior was new carpet though. 

Lastly, it looks like the Saints may be on to something. They are handling the 'niners pretty easliy this week. I think Deuce has a lot to do with it, they were really missing someone to just run the ball up the middle - which Deuce can do quite well. I know it is just San Fransico, but at least we are playing well in all phases of the game. 

Well, that is all for now!

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 . . .

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.

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.)

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.