Old Friends

Today I drove to Newnan, Georgia to take a sorority sister to lunch.  Her husband of 37 years died in May and I had a final at the same time as his funeral.  I sent her a note, and made an agreement with myself to visit her before the summer ended.  We hadn't seen each other since we giggled so many nights away in Dorm C at Auburn, but it felt like we'd hardly been apart.  She is so much the Carol I remember--the same person she was 37 years ago--kind and thoughtful, with a ready smile and a contagious laugh.  I met one of her lovely daughters and her sister-in-law and brother-in-law.  We spent most of the afternoon reminiscing and catching up.  We promised to do it again before I leave Auburn.

I'm at a time in my life where I'm remembering those "gold" friends and wondering why I've let so much time go by without being with them.  The girls in the AOpi pledge class of 1969 were the most important people in my life for several years and they helped me adjust to being away from home at college.  We celebrated together when good things happened and we cried together when one of us thought the world was coming to an end;  then we graduated or got married or left Auburn for some other reason and lost touch.  I'm ready to get back in touch.

Homework Program

The homework program is finished(check it out in the link on the right).  We present it to our class between 2 and 4 today.  This was a good project; I learned a lot about the Python programming language, HTML and using a CSS.   We didn't finish programming until close to 10 pm last night (our deadline).  We ran into a problem trying to keep all of our various copies of the program straight.  We had about 20 modules in our project and all three of us made updates to all of the modules and then we tried to email the changes to each other.  No wonder we couldn't keep the updates straight!  Auburn has a program called Subversion that we could have learned as part of this class.  The program is designed for collaboration.  It manages checking out copies of modules and keeping track of all of the changes made by everyone.  That will be a suggestion in my review of the class.

The program was designed with non-profit auctions in mind.  Maybe next year the community fundraiser can use it for their auction.  It won't take too much work to make it production ready!

Pressure

I got this email on Monday:  "In order for Dr. Flowers to count the expired courses, you will need to take an exam to verify that you are "current" in the material.  I would propose a section on advanced statistics, a section on simulation, and a section on queueing.  I assume that you are Ok with this, right? the alternative would be for you to take the classes again.  Just let me know and I will arrange." 

So, I have a little more pressure added to my plate.  Dr. Maghsoodloo will do advanced statistics and I've spoken with him.  He'll give me some topics to study and a short take home test.  I can do that.  Dr. Smith will do simulation and he'll also give me a take home test of some sort.  I can do that.  I think Dr. Gue will do the queuing section and I'm a little bit concerned about that.  I haven't spoken with him yet so I don't know what to expect from him.  Hopefully, he'll also let me do something take home, but Dr. Smith suggested that Dr. Gue likes oral exams...that would really be hard for me.  And, they never teach Queuing Theory anymore except in the math department.

Fire

I awoke around 2 am to cracks and pops and when I opened my eyes I could see changing light.  Looking out the window I saw huge flames on the other side of the trees and bushes.  I grabbed my phone, went to the parking lot, and called 911 to report a fire at the house next door.  I woke up Coma and we walked two houses down where the residents were in their yard.  The small house abutting their fence was in flames and the fire was threatening the trees all around it.  Police came and blocked North College about half a mile on either side of the fire and four fire engines, an investigating truck and an ambulance arrived.  It took awhile to get water hooked up and flowing and the fire was quite stubborn.  Coma and I went back after about an hour when I was convinced the fire wouldn't spread to my house.  The couple I spoke with were pretty confident that no one was living in the house this summer--thank goodness.  I read for awhile and listened to the water continuing to drown the fire.  I don't know when the firetrucks left, but at 4:15 they were still pouring water on the house.

This morning there were two investigative trucks and the property owner's truck there, but I didn't go any closer.  I wonder if I'll ever find out what caused the fire?

Mississippi Kite

On my way home this afternoon, I watched a Mississippi Kite soaring.  The bird was just a few feet above the trees and his swoops and glides were so beautiful and graceful; it made me wish I could fly.  I understand why people have tried to imitate birds (one of the things I love about Leonardo da Vinci).  I've seen Mississippi Kites soaring  and sitting in the trees in Audubon Park in New Orleans.  They are in the same family as hawks, but they have thinner wings (like a falcon) and are sometimes seen in small groups VERY high in the sky.  I heard a bird whistling while running at 5:30 one morning and searched until I found it--it was a Mississippi kite sitting in a very tall tree and it didn't sound like any hawk I'd ever heard.

A good day

Productivity is a such a great feeling.  I accomplished things all day long and as hot as it was, I felt like skipping home!

This morning I was able to ride the unicycle about 15 feet before losing my balance.  I didn't try again because I wanted to be sure to end on a high note!  I'm hopeful that tomorrow I'll  ride even further.

I was close to tears in Reliability class because I came to class confident in my homework answers, but his answers were much different from mine.  After class I found a few small opportunities for repair (It is important to only miss the things I don't know) and realized that his Excel columns were in a different order from mine.  My homework is ready to be turned in and it isn't even due until Thursday!

At our 1:00 meeting one of my project partners was able to install the imaging library on her laptop so we can now upload images to our auction program.  I'm pretty sure that the problem I had Saturday morning was permission related.  I've still not installed it on my Mac and I think I'm going to leave well enough alone.  I can build the project and test everything except uploading images without the library then transfer the program to her laptop for the image upload test.

After Cloud class I worked on my Double Row Layout Problem and was able to duplicate the objective function results from the AMPL program.  I've been working on re-writing the objective function code in my program all summer so this is huge!  Now I get to move to the Ant Colony part of the program.  I'm experimenting with the variations in the algorithm and the values of all of the parameters to figure out which combinations will lead to optimality in the least amount of run time.

I look forward to another good day tomorrow.

Michael Graeme

My friend Paula has a new grandchild!  He was born Saturday at midnight and weighs 8.5 lbs.  Mother and son came home today to be with Dad and his two sisters.   When I spoke to Paula this afternoon Michael was sleeping and Mom was playing CandyLand with Michael's sisters.  I remember those days, faintly.  AND, I miss my children tonight.  I look forward to the beginning of August when I'll be home and Brett will be home and we'll be together as a family!

I've been practicing on the unicycle.  Every morning I put on blue jeans, my wrist guards and my biking helmet, and carried the unicycle out to my car.  I put a brick behind the wheel and holding on to the car, mounted the unicycle and got my balance.  Each day, I could go a little farther.  And, tonight, I was MUCH better.  I'll be practicing each day this week as well.  Next week is my last summer semester class.

Auburn's Bass Sports Club

I've written about this group before--they gave over $40,000 to AU from their winnings.   And now, two Auburn students were selected for the first FLW College Fishing All-America Team.  Here's the article about them.

University student Shaye Baker and recent graduate Dennis Parker were selected for the FLW Outdoors Magazine’s first FLW College Fishing All-America Team. Baker and Parker, both members of Auburn University’s Bass Sports Club, were among the 20 members selected as the “Best of the Best” of the nation’s collegiate anglers. This selection was based on individual efforts and team contribution during the 2009 FLW College Fishing Series. The All-America team is featured in the August/September issue of FLW Outdoors magazine, which is currently available on newsstands. The list also can be viewed at the FLW website ( http://FLWOutdoors.com ) or this link ( http://www.auburn.edu/bass ).

Python Imaging Library

I spent 4+ hours yesterday trying to get the PIL (Python Imaging Library) installed on either my Mac or a computer in the lab.  It was so frustrating.  This is the first time I've not been able to easily make something work on my Mac.  There's more to installing the library than just clicking and I don't have quite enough technical knowledge to understand the directions.  I think the problem in the lab has as much to do with permissions on those computers as it does with technical knowledge.  I'll try to find help on Monday.  The PIL is necessary for our project because we can't put a picture of the auction items up without it.

I had a quiet dinner at Provino's with my Kindle last night...eggplant vegetale, a glass of cabernet, and The Fourth Paradigm--essays about the profusion of scientific data available today.

Capped!

I just got home from campus and was thrilled to see that the oil well has been capped!  How exciting for the Gulf.  Perhaps if we focus all of our combined energy on cleanup, the Gulf will survive.

Our project team in Cloud Computing is making good progress on the Auction site for the JCC, referenced on the right as Homework program.  We will be presenting it to the class on July 29, I think, so by then it will have at least some bells and whistles.  I've enjoyed working with the young women in my class.  They are much more skilled at object oriented programming than I and I'm learning a lot from them.

I'm off to play trivia at The Oyster House with some friends...

Life as an academic

Dr. J. Temple Black, professor emeritus in the ISE Department, spoke to our seminar today about "life as an academic."  He was quite inspiring!  I'm disappointed that I won't be taking a class from him.  He loves teaching; he writes prolifically; he plays tennis regularly; and he loves Auburn.  His presentation was informative, appropriately humorous, touching and motivating.  I'm willing to bet that he teaches his courses in the same style.

He began his academic career teaching while a master's candidate and knew from that early experience that academia was where he wanted to be.  I had a similar experience when I was a master's candidate at Auburn.  Teaching Fortran and Cobol computer languages when I was 21 was one of the most fun jobs I've had.  And, teaching Lego Mindstorms last fall was  a close second!  He told us that one of the best things about working in academia is being your own boss.  That has become quite important to me over the years and I'm not sure I want to work in an environment where I'm not my own boss.  If I can figure out funding, I'm probably going to pursue (from New Orleans) my PhD.

I just heard that someone in England has answered the age old question, "What came first...the chicken or the egg?  They've found a protein that is necessary to create an egg that only comes from a chicken so they say that proves the chicken came first.  This is the sort of things people in academia work on...

Aging and unicycing

One of the problems of aging is that we learn how vulnerable our bodies are and lose that inhibition and fearlessness that we have as children.  I would be riding the unicycle by now if I weren't afraid of falling.  I bought wrist guards (Allan wasn't sure how he was going to explain that I'd broken my wrist unicycling) and I'm using them in class.  But, I'm still relying on my teacher to keep me from falling.  I've brought a unicycle home with me, but I've been afraid to try it by myself.  I hereby set a personal goal this week is to try the unicycle in the parking lot outside of my house every morning.  Even if I only sit on it and balance, it's a start. 

Research

My research this summer is follow-up on the project I did last semester--Optimization of the Double Row Layout Program using an ant colony algorithm.  It is based on a published paper where the author used an exact algorithm to solve the problem.  He could actually only "solve" the simplest of problems--that's why I'm proposing the ant colony algorithm to approximate a solution when the problem is more complicated.  I've had trouble verifying that my calculations are correct since the data used in the other paper is not available to me.  The author randomly generated several matrices from a uniform distribution of numbers between 0 and 50.  Obviously if the random numbers are all closer to 0 that will create a very different solution than if the random numbers are all closer to 50.  So, for the past two weeks I've been working to learn yet another new computer program--AMPL.  Successfully running AMPL on the simple 6-machine problem will duplicate the author's research so that I can verify my calculations.  The program is a mathematical modeling language that is supposed to be intuitive.  I've spent hours trying to learn the language; I'm going back to campus this morning to work on my intuition.

Doodle Jump

I downloaded a game onto my iPhone tonight--mistake!  It is called doodle jump and it is such a simple concept; a cute little thing called a doodle jumps up the screen.  Slightly moving the phone side to side and up and down makes the doodle move to ledges which he jumps on and travels up.  If he misses a ledge, he falls down and ends the game.   Sometimes there are springs on the ledges; sometimes there is a trampoline on the ledge; sometimes there is a helicopter hat that flies the doodle up; sometimes there are rockets that shoot the doodle up; sometimes there are monsters that conk him on the head and he falls down, ending the game.  Of course you accumulate a score as you move up.  I'm at 12,378 as of 16 minutes ago.

The really amazing thing is that 5 million people have downloaded this app for $.99 per download.  The brothers who created the game get 70% of the profit so they have made $3.5 million.  And, I took Reliability Engineering instead of iPhone App Programming.