Blink and It's Gone

It's like that. You blink and a month has gone past. Incredible.

From my last post to the middle of June, I was busy writing a proposal for a recent set of DoD Small-Business Innovative Research (SBIR) solicitations. It was the first proposal I had spearheaded (I'd contributed to one before, but the level of involvement there was significantly less) and it was in an area outside of my usual stomping grounds. So there was a lot of work to be done there. I'm pleased with what we submitted, however: it has great potential to make a real, solid research contribution and is also practical for near-term application. I'll find out if it's funded in October (at which point I can even share more details!).

The week after that was a lot of scrambling on projects that had been shoved aside during the proposaling. I had my annual performance review (my first ever). I caught up on stuff around the house.

This past week, I've been slamming another project as hard as I can: it was funded a month and a week out from its due date, when we initially planned for a two-month effort. Furthermore, I've two weeks of vacation planned in that time slot, so I basically have 3 weeks to complete the effort. If you consider that I have 2 other projects, neither of which I can drop completely.... Bottom line: I was given 2 weeks to complete the bulk of the work; after that, I'm in a supervisory role, delegating tasks out to other people and doing minor tweaking on the product.

But: vacation. Next weekend (July 6th) I head to Litchfield Beach, SC for a week with my family. Expect pictures and news after I get back. Then, on August 4th, Tracy and I leave for the O RO Ranch for 10 days. Again, pictures and news will follow.

And I expect to post and such between now and then. But then again, I never expected to take a month break from posting.

New!

The long hiatus doesn't actually mean cool stuff stopped happening. It actually means that I went from being generally bored at work (on account of having little to do) to being very, very busy. I am now on 3 projects plus spearheading a SBIR (Small-Business Innovative Research) proposal for the OSD (Office of the Secretary of Defense). It's been busy. Not that busy is bad - it's much, much better than sitting around bored.

I did, however, do cool stuff. For instance, I went to Little Washington (also known as Washington, VA, and the home of one of the best restaurants in the world) with my family and took some mediocre photos (example above). No, we didn't eat at the Inn. That was three weekends ago.I went kayaking a bunch two weekends ago with various people. That was fun and the weather was spectacular. And this past weekend, I built a new rack for my tandem kayak and modded and moved the rack my dad and I had built for the other boats. Check out the picture of my setup.

And I bought a helicopter. I'd been toying with the idea, voiced it on Friday, did some research with a friend of mine who flies helicopters (big little ones - on the order of several feet and able to lift several pounds) and discovered 1) they are far from simple to get set up and 2) they are quite expensive. 1 is because they're aimed at hobbyists and therefore come in as many pieces as is possible. The battery's separate from the cell balancer which is separate from the temperature probe/protection circuit which is separate from the charger; the servos and the receiver and the transmitter might be packaged together, but need not be, and anyhow each typically uses a special battery that needs a special charger; the chassis might or might not include main and tail rotor blades, the engine is separate.... You get the idea. Lots of pieces. Lots of money. Great once you have a setup, 'cause you can grow it a piece or two at a time. And great when you crash, 'cause you can easily replace whatever's broken. But daunting for someone who wants to start. And more expensive than if I bought another polyurethane boat.

So I bought a little one. A really little one. Like 8 oz. kind of really little. And it was much, much cheaper than the alternative (cost less than the transmitter I was looking at) and came in a box with everything I needed. And I'm really, really bad at flying it and have crashed a lot and, consequently, am really, really glad I got a cheap one. Oh - and this one has coaxial counter-rotating blades and hence is supposed to be easier to fly than a single-rotor heli with a tail rotor.

But it's fun. Lots of fun.

Oh Deer

Kayaking Wednesday evening, Tracy and I paused next to a small island to try to take a picture of a rather shy bird. Just as we were about to turn and continue downstream, the deer that we had seen on the island leapt out from cover and jumped through the shallow water to shore. Since I already had my camera in my hands, I took as many pictures as I could, as fast as I could.

The settings weren't really right for action (the shutter speed was really too slow) and we were rather far away, but still, they came out better than I'd expected.