In the home stretch now.

So I only have a few days left to get the car to a marked state of improvement. I believe that things should be ok. The only problem is that I will be gone on a cruise when the deadline runs out. So I really need to get some work done these next few days to show that I have made progress. I should have a (temporary) license plate this week which should go a long way toward showing progress. I am going to get one of the Tech license plates - hopefully number 1965. I have a shiny new engine ready to go in, but I want to get the engine compartment cleaned up so that everything looks brand new. There is still quite a bit to do though. Some of the major things left are:

1. clean and paint the engine compartment
2. repair the power steering (I am waiting on parts for this)
3. run new wiring for the engine
4. plumb new gas lines for the new carburetor
5. get the alternator working
6. drop the new engine in place
7. redo the brakes
8. install new carpet
9. fix some rust and dents
10. new paint

Some of these things can wait, but others have to be done in order to get an inspection sticker. I hope to be driving this car to school this Fall. Once I get this one running, I can start working on my convertible Mustang - it has some problems that have had to be put on the back burner while I am focusing on the old one.

The next big thing is to decide if I want to build a garage at the house I am at now, or look for some land and build an entirely new house complete with garage. That is going to take some serious thinking to figure out. So if you are interested in how an engineer makes a decision of that magnitude stay tuned for what I am sure will be an enthralling dissertation on the decision making process - there will be charts and graphs!

edit - not a fan of the little flowers on the bulleted list, but I don't have time right now to figure out how to change that.

T minus 15 days and counting.

So I have now appealed for the last time in my battle with the City over my car. This last appeal bought me 15 more days. I think it is doable. It seems like all I need to do is show that progress is being made in the restoration of the Mustang. I have a lot of parts now, and most everything that is necessary to get the car back in running shape. There are definitely more parts that I want, but I think I have all the essentials. Now I just have to find the time to get out there and do the work. This picture shows the current state of the engine. It is just about ready to be pulled out - again it is just so HOT outside that I am not very anxious to get out there and do the work. Once the engine is replaced, I should be in good shape as far as the City is concerned. To top things off though, my AC in the house is going to have to be completely replaced. I patched it together to get it to "work", but there will need to be some major changes made in order to actually have cool air inside the house. Let me check real quick, umm . . . yeah it is currently 88 degrees Fahrenheit inside at 7 PM - not too pleasant to say the least. Fortunately, if you recall, I do have a small window unit in my bedroom so that one room is an ok temperature. So, now I not only have to spend money to get the car running, I also have to spend some major bucks to get my AC fixed. But, God does provide - I just got word today that Tech is going to pay me some more money for a summer camp that I did back in June. So it will all work out in the end.

You know, as a teacher I often get emails of students inquiring about their grades. I am not really sure why they bother to ask, but often they do. So if you were a student and I told you that it was mathematically impossible for you to pass my class no matter what you scored on the final, what would you do? Well, it turns out that if you were one of the students in an engineering class that one of my co-workers teaches, you would stick it out and see how things turned out. Really? My favorite though is when I get an email saying:

Dr. C, I was wandering bout my grade . . .

I really wanted to ask him if it was a long trip.

It is HOT!

So I fixed my air conditioner blower motor, but now my AC is low (or out) of freon - ergo it is HOT. I do have a small window unit in my bedroom so at least I have one nice and cool room in the house. It started me thinking though. We haven't always had AC, some people didn't even have ice back in the day! What would I do if I didn't have ice water? I mean, is it just one of those things that if you don't know any better then you are fine, but once you know that there is more out there you won't be satisfied with less? I guess there are a lot of things like that. I would hate to have to live without internet now. And a DVR, what about a car? It all makes me start thinking . . .

Anyway, now that I am on a technology train of thought, let me tell you about some of our newest additions in Bogard. From the very beginning of working at Tech, I have wanted to be involved in teaching (and doing) design work. Not your typical number crunching design work, but more of the "why don't we do something completely new" type of design work. So I have worked my way into a position where I get to teach an open ended, multidisciplinary design class and it is great (IMO). I am going to have to spend some more time this year working on the actual design (pun intended) of the course, but at least the framework is in place. So as part of this position, I get to seek funding for a prototyping lab, and we have been really successful lately and have added a rapid prototyping machine that I blogged about a long time ago, but since then we have gotten a water jet cutter, we have some CNC lathes and mills, a laser scanner, a powder coating machine, a vinyl sticker printer (you know, for making it look good), and a bunch of tools. We are getting to the point that we can make just about anything - which will come in handy this next year as we begin work on our new eco cars.


Last year (I tend to speak in school years, so bear with me) we built the "Blue Diamond" and carried it out to California to compete in the Shell EcoMarathon. We did ok, and got a lot of good publicity. This year, we are going to make some modifications on this car and re-enter it. But we are also going to build a completely new car to enter in the "Urban Concept" category. This new car will have to be much more car like - headlights, four wheels, room for two . . . I think it will be a lot of fun, err I mean a good teaching tool.

I like what I do! I just wish I fixed AC's, hmm maybe I can . . .

I thought summertime meant vaction time!

So our FrEP (Freshman Enrichment Program) started yesterday. Yes that is right, on Sunday. I thought that I was supposed to have all this free time during the summer, but I think I actually work more during the summer than during the regular school year. I was not originally scheduled to teach this FrEP class, but it turns out that I am teaching it now. It is pretty fun, but it is at 8:00 in the morning and I am just not much of a morning person. I guess it will be alright, the only problem I see right now is that I am not getting much done on my car. That could turn out to be a very bad thing, I have got to get it running very soon in order to beat the appeal. I just don't feel like doing very much once I finally get home - especially knowing that I am going to have to get up early (for me) each morning. Blah!

I did make a new guitar related purchase recently. I got a Line 6 Pod XT Live. It is a really nice effects board. I normally like to stick with all analog stuff, but decided that the XT was a much better solution even though it is a digital board. I went in the Ruston music store (Piney Hills Music), and talked with the guy about possible options and it ended up that I bought his XT board. I got a great deal and he seemed ok with it too. So if you have no idea what I am talking about, the effects that you run determine if you sound like U2, or Van Halen, or Elvis. Of course all the effects in the world don't matter if you suck. Anyway, I did add a picture of the board so you can get an idea. This is a stock picture, not a picture that I took, but you get the idea.Well, I need to go try to get motivated to work on my car - I really just want to do nothing for a while though.

4th of July!

Well, it is almost time for the 4th of July annual barbecue. I am looking forward to a lot of left overs to bring back to Ruston. I do have to find some time to get back to Ruston and get some more work done on the car. I am really running out of time to get the car running and back "up to code." I don't know when I am going to have time to do anything though. I have been roped in to teaching a second summer class at 8 in the morning Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday for the next five weeks. What was I thinking?!?


Oh, it is almost football season! I am really looking to this season. I hope that it turns out well. The first game is August 30 at home against Mississippi State. An SEC team in Ruston, that is a pretty big deal! If you plan on making it to the game, you had better get a ticket now, they are going fast. I have already ordered my season tickets and should get them in pretty soon. I think there will be a lot of people at this game, I am even thinking it could be the largest attendance in Tech history. I believe that I heard that MSU has already sold out there allotment of tickets and were wanting more. Go Dawgs!

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.)