my blog.

Another Presentation

noreply@blogger.com (francisco) — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 21:24:00 +0000

Last week i presented to CST 155 on data center power and cooling - here are the slides. Only 9 slides but the presentation took 40 minutes, guess you needed to be there. Instructor says he'd like this to be a repeating event; maybe next time i'll add some gfx, that way i don't have to be as entertaining.

How to say

noreply@blogger.com (francisco) — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 04:25:00 +0000

How to say goodbye to a good friend?

This is the memorial i built for Gato Simba Roque. The tree is a Franklinia Alatamaha, an American tree that has an interesting history - named after Benjamin Franklin - and no longer exists in the wild. It is said to be difficult to grow, so the bed is specially prepared, mixed to a 3' depth with lots of compost and acidic modifiers, plus a small combination french drain/dry well to prevent standing water.

The base is two layers of 4x4's, five layers of 1x4's, one more layer of 4x4's and a 1x6 cap covered in copper and soldered at the mitered corners. All the wood is pressured treated and the layers are connected to each other and the ground by 2' long 3/8" rebar at the corners and in the middle, plus the 1x4 layers are connected by 3.5" screws (dimensional lumber, 1" really equals .75" so 3.5" screws goes through all 5 layers). Those 1x4's... their placement/stain/crown combines a couple mnemonic codes that spell out a couple phrases related to this project. But the real gem is in the cap: on top of the wood i carved an epitaph in a font specially made for this memorial.

The hand-drawn font is somewhat styled after Engravers MT but redone to reflect Gato's essence. I hope to make it into a real font, something i've never done before.

This rubbing was made shortly before i covered the cap in copper.

The idea is one of change over time. My hope is that the copper will wear differently over the carved letters than it will in other spots, so that over time the letters will slowly appear, perhaps only a hint of the letters in spots, perhaps all the letter in others, so that twenty years from now visitors might wonder if their eyes are fooling them - are those really words on that metal's surface?

The overall colour of the wood will change over time as well. The stain will fade and the rebar should rust in an even pattern around the base. I've also placed nails (not galvanized or otherwise weather-resistant) in certain places to add distinct rust stains. Plus the copper should streak some green as it patinas.

Yes, the design contains a lot of conjecture, a lot of effort for something that might not work, but for Gato i'm happy to have put in the hours.

Dead Cat No Fun

noreply@blogger.com (francisco) — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 10:23:00 +0000

The last photo of Gato Simba Roque alive.

He died September 12, 2011. I had him killed because his cancer advanced to the point where the last 2 days he could not eat or drink, could barely walk a few steps without collapsing, gazed into the nothingness, and was just generally unresponsive. He only meowed once in his last three days - when i loaded him in the car to go to the vet.

Shortly after i took this photo my mother called me from Addis Ababa, so her and my father were able to say goodbye to him. It was the first time in days that i saw him lift his head and look around.

Gato was a very distinct cat, and the kind that makes anthropomorphism easy. More than a friend, he was a mentor and guide, and seemingly in touch with his Buddha nature. He was there when i dropped out of school, the first time i shaved my head, through all the failed relationships, and more - for 17 years he took all our emotions and turned them into purrs.

I made his coffin out of some spare wood, wrapped him in a cushion cover my mom made, rested his head over a can of tuna, and put his legs around some dry food, toys, seven coins, and some other trinkets. He is being buried in an undisclosed location in Michigan.

I miss him so much.

Berlin Dreams

noreply@blogger.com (francisco) — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 03:53:00 +0000

Spent the night in an apartment built on top of Hilter's bunker, where he commited suicide. It was restful sleep; ain't no problems here no more.

Housing Density

noreply@blogger.com (francisco) — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 09:51:00 +0000

Impromptu conversation with an appropriately named coworker reminded me about the bees, the solitary bees. Just in time for the season, i'm making a few bee boxes.

3 4x4's (scrap i'd kept for way too long) cut 5" wide and glued together, the top one then cut at 45°. Both sides are drilled 3-4" deep according to this plan (1/8", 1/4" and 3/8" holes). The holes are offset so as to not intersect, though i really need a drill press to avoid intersecting tunnels. Top is plywood covered in copper with a 1" overhang to keep them dry.

Still waiting for inhabitants, this housing market really is slow.

Update, Part IV

noreply@blogger.com (francisco) — Sun, 12 Dec 2010 10:03:00 +0000

The project that got away. The one sidewalk slab that leads immediately up to my house is badly cracked. Whoever did it last thought an inch thick slab on top of plain ol' dirt would suffice. Could replace with a properly poured slab, but that sounded a little boring. Instead, a Sacred Cows convinced me to pattern out some concrete pavers.

The arrow pattern points towards the steps in an inviting way, while the words inform that the owner might not be so inviting. The brick shaped pavers should complement the bricks already laid to either side of the slab, while the colour should differentiate from either side while blending with the rest of the sidewalk. Or something like that.

I probably should have rented something to cut those bricks with, instead i bought a pitcher chisel and hand-chiseled the triangles out. Hopefully the shoddy workmanship will look "worn" instead of "crappy".

Unfortunately it took me too long to get all those cut, and the ground is now frozen. Will have to wait until next year to finish this up.

Update, Part III

noreply@blogger.com (francisco) — Sat, 11 Dec 2010 04:55:00 +0000

All that lawn work left me a little tired so i hired a company to install me some new gutters. It's an old house so half-round copper seemed the only way to go, despite the 7x cost. Luckily it's been years since i've had car payments and associated costs, saving me much money for projects like this.

Already dropping too much on the project, i also added in some nice curlicue brackets. Gives it all a nice, detailed touch.

With the change in material outside the house, i also had to replace the outside lamps to match a little better, as well as redo the outside steps. Still need to get a matching kickplate and doorknob.

In about 20-30 years it'll look quite nice, maybe get some burnt orange paint to complement the future patina.

Update, Part II

noreply@blogger.com (francisco) — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 09:17:00 +0000

My backyard is only about 500 sq ft, so over the summer i needed somewhere else to work as well. Luckily a friend had a house with a 3000 sq ft backyard that had over a decade of overgrowth. About half of the space was bring-your-machete overgrown. The rest had random stumps, shrubs and trees that needed removing. Time for the big guns: a chainsaw, a spud bar and gallons of sweat.

25+ stumps removed, ranging from 4' shrubs to thinnish 30' trees and even one 11" stump, all removed from the ground using a shovel and a spud bar. A few months of work and i'm convinced: the spud bar is a miracle tool - with muscles and a file it will remove just about anything from the earth.

Over a ton of old trash carried out. Not lawn detritus, just trash like old construction supplies. Over a ton of dirt carried in. I probably should have invested in a wheelbarrow, but the ladies like me shirtless.

Over 4 cubic yards of lawn detritus cut down, much of it composted - another friend of mine helped me build a compost bin one day (thanks again!). The bin is currently about twice as full as it is in the above picture. You can also see some of the logs from the trees that needed felling.

Unfortunately i didn't take before/after photos of the months of work. All i have is satellite images of the land before and during the work.

The left image shows some more green circles of trees that were cut, as well as general roughness in the lawn that was shrubs and tall weeds, now composting. The right image is from about halfway through the work. Still need to remove a few saplings, but the ground is a little frozen. Gives me something to look forward to next spring.

Update, Part I

noreply@blogger.com (francisco) — Sun, 05 Dec 2010 02:55:00 +0000

The more tech-savvy of you may already be aware that the date of my last post wasn't just coincidental. Time passes, here's a new post. I've been a little busy over the past few months and this is the first of a few updates.

My house needs lots of work, and top on the list at spring 2010 was the backyard. Small backyard - hadn't been touched in years and was essentially mini forest. My mother helped by pulling out many weeds and an architect friend helped with the design. All that was left for me was months of work. The backyard of a 100 year old house gathers generations of bones, bricks, and other debris. Digging it all up eliminates the need for gym.

Towards the middle of fall i was done as much as i'd be done. The beds are outlined in bricks i dug up from my backyard, the bit that took the longest (closeup in the above photo). I'm still not sure how well all the plants will do, especially considering the black walnuts, but i've done as much research as i can and hopefully next year will bring lots of greenness.

The left side is still undone. My design for that side requires lots of custom work and i'm still not sure how to do it all, need to talk to a welder friend. Plus there's the issue of an appropriate fence. Oh yeah, need to make those stepping stones and find/make some benches. Maybe the backyard will be done in 3-4 years. In the mean time i can start up a fire enjoy the part that's somewhat done.

EOF

noreply@blogger.com (francisco) — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 21:45:00 +0000

The thing about humane mouse traps is that they're only humane if you remember to check them every couple days.

In other news, today i found out i really enjoy using a chainsaw. If computers don't work out for me, life as an ax man or the Ash man doesn't sound that bad.

More Death

noreply@blogger.com (francisco) — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 02:02:00 +0000

This mouse died scared, not even able to force a little piece of feces out its anus. Little One, blurrily visible in the background, is turning out to be quite the mouser.

In other deaths, i enjoyed reading the story of Margaret Moth's life. Her whole spirit reminds me of Matthew Scott's Colombian escape and Aron Ralsten's Utah experience. I hope i can exhibit a tenth of their character - preferably while keeping my arm and mouth intact and never going too hungry.

Now if only he'd invade somewhere

noreply@blogger.com (francisco) — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 03:14:00 +0000

Congrats on the Healthcare work.

More History

noreply@blogger.com (francisco) — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 09:28:00 +0000

Listening to a WCC student's photo project reminded me of my first 15 minutes. Many years ago some friends and i decided to drive to Cleveland one night, to visit one guy's sister and brother-in-law, Brian Michael Bendis. Brian was writing and illustrating crime noir comics, taking photos and drawing from them for the panels. At the time Brian was working on Jinx, and he took a couple photos of us for an issue. I'm the "Frisco" referenced in the wikipedia page, "Street Loser 2" - the guy with long bangs in these panels:

Wonder who'll play me in the movie version.

Travails

noreply@blogger.com (francisco) — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 00:23:00 +0000

After biking through 6" of snow to get to work this morning, today's xkcd seems particularly funny. I even had to rescue a downed database when i got in.

Work Slides

noreply@blogger.com (francisco) — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 17:51:00 +0000

Later this week i'm presenting to my co-workers on benchmarking storage. As some of you may find them interesting, here is a pdf of the slides. The presentation assumes a rudimentary understanding of storage concepts and is only a 30 minute overview.

Random bits, not related

noreply@blogger.com (francisco) — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 23:18:00 +0000

My mom's new thermostat - the 15 minute install took me 5 hours across 3 days. Doesn't help that it took some heavy thought to figure out how to remove the original or that i used the wrong paint (whose fault?) the first time.

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Friday, on my way to work, heard a beautiful sound, kind of like someone hitting the bottom of a large empty metal coffee container. I filmed it and tried to filter out the background noise - here is the sound, i think i need to work on my audio editing skills.

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Last night i found a dead mouse in my basement, in my work area. At first i was sad that something in my house killed it - i purposefully use live traps. But as i boxed it up i thought maybe it was poisoned in a neighbour's house and spent its dying strength crawling to a comfortable place, where it knew i'd take care of its passage.

Frozen ground is hard to dig.

Topography of a Sunday

noreply@blogger.com (francisco) — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 07:02:00 +0000

Started making some potstickers and realised they were chicken vegetable, not just vegetable.

Bought some baba ganoush and happily started eating it until i wondered why it tasted unright, and then learned that some folks make it with mayonnaise.

Decided resuming basement work was appropriate, went downstairs, measured out some spacing and realised i had measured wrong last week, ordered too few supplies, and one project will now require %50 more funds.

Maybe it's the heat, maybe i've become too complacent. Time for another change?

Lemonade & Bicycles

noreply@blogger.com (francisco) — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 00:18:00 +0000

A friend of mine once said that one way to get over being in a poor mood is to smile a lot, but though i've tried this tactic numerous times over the last few years, i think it only succeeds in making me happy that i'm in unhappy, and thus since yesterday i'm still in a sour state.

In other news, over the past month i've mixed 80 lbs of concrete and 50 lbs of plaster. I estimate that's a fifth of what i need to fix the quarter of the basement i'm working on. It will look quite nice - if different and unuseable - in about two months.

Props

noreply@blogger.com (francisco) — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 09:33:00 +0000

Props where props are due: http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/africa/01/07/sudan.violence.report/ (note the quote at the end of the article). Sidenote: the lead photo is typical of standard intro photo class, railroad style. Hopefully my parents will be out of South Sudan before war breaks out again.

As for me, maybe someone will interview me for new insights into Dawn of the Dead or Unforgiven, like the maize background when we first meet Sally, the soot-darkened lantern at the last view, and are all the splits in other wooden backgrounds deliberate?

Eve

noreply@blogger.com (francisco) — Fri, 25 Dec 2009 10:04:00 +0000

Standing in line with a 50 lb bag of concrete and a couple of crescent wrenches, the cashier asks me, "Not buying Christmas gifts this year?" I thought, if anywhere, Home Depot would have considered concrete worthy of being a Christmas gift. In other thoughts, i wonder how often Armstrong bikes home with 50 lb of concrete, and frozen brakes. I should really keep my bike indoors.

Gone

noreply@blogger.com (francisco) — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 09:39:00 +0000

At 9:15am on Wednesday December 16, 2009, i had my 4 wisdom teeth removed. It went rather well - i was at work 90 minutes later. Showed up with blood on my face and couldn't talk for hours, but no one at work seemed surprised by those details. 4 days later and i'm still doing quite well.

Stinky

noreply@blogger.com (francisco) — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 05:05:00 +0000

It's about as cheesy as a vegan can get - i'm quoted in this article on my work's website.

Reviews

noreply@blogger.com (francisco) — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 07:17:00 +0000

For those of you wondering how the 2 weeks volunteering in crocodile research went, here's the letter i'm sending to Earthwatch, maybe with some edits once i'm more awake.

An Open Letter to the Decision Makers at Earthwatch

I volunteered in the November 2009 expedition of Crocodiles of the Zambezi, run in the field by Audrey Detoeuf-Boulade and Kevin Wallace. The first time I met Audrey and Kevin was at the beginning of the expedition, and am writing to express my admiration for the two; they form a phenomenal, invaluable team.

Audrey and Kevin are both capable of handling a wide range of technical problems. Whether it is engine issues, food/lodging logistics, health concerns, or simply getting water, they are unfazed by the adversities of life in the bush, responsive to all problems that arise, and relentless in their pursuit of getting the work done. And both cook great meals, even with minimal utilities when necessary.

Along with fantastic field skills, both have the social and managerial skills to handle all manner of personal and personnel issues. They are enjoyable people to simply hold a conversation with but can take charge when needed. In handling employees, interacting with locals, or managing volunteers, Audrey and Kevin perfect that elusive combination of true professionals, great leaders, and wonderful friends.

And still there is more to Audrey and Kevin – they excel as scientists and teachers. Both show profound dedication to their fields, knowledge of their areas, a thirst to discover more, and a desire to better their environment. They are willing to explain all the details of their work yet are receptive to new ideas and suggestions. And while both demonstrate a deep understanding of the science, they are also capable of providing simplified explanations for the lay person. These are the kind of scientists that truly make the world a better place.

Thus, if Audrey and Kevin should ever ask Earthwatch for funding, please accept them without hesitation. And should they not come to you in the near future, it is in Earthwatch’s best interest to actively pursue them. This is a couple that will greatly benefit any organization they are associated with.

Sincerely,

Francisco Luis Roque

Yes, Kev and Auds are that cool.

Copenhagen

noreply@blogger.com (francisco) — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 23:13:00 +0000

Based on usage figures from the World's entry in the CIA World Factbook, some random calculation on the efficiency of solar panels and their cost, and some other figures on the conversion of oil and natural gas to electricity, i am looking to raise $201 trillion in order to solve our Climate Change (with the snow outside, that's a much better phrase than "Global Warming") problem - $200 trillion for the solar panels and $1 trillion towards utterly conquering Western Sahara, which will then be completely covered in the requisite panels.

Yes, that's right, today we can assure all our energy needs are met by renewable (for the next 5 billion years, give or take) solar energy by covering 262000 square kilometers with solar panels. Conveniently, Western Sahara is 266000 square km, is rather sunny, and doesn't have much of a government, so we can invade, set up a stable government and some solar panels, and save the world.

Still not sure how to distribute that power around the world, but after dropping $200 trillion on panels, i expect the vendor to solve that one for free. Then there's that incovenient conversion of existing petrol and oil devices to run on electricity, but i can't solve everything tonight - watch for a future post.

Acid Spitting Beetle

noreply@blogger.com (francisco) — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 16:23:00 +0000

By the next day, this blister was thrice as big and other blisters were forming on my leg and torso. I'm fine now, unfortunately other family members aren't. Goodbye, uncle.