This is Exhausting

Well I am glad that one more week is coming to an end. Well, almost -we have to go the the Highland Observatory for the field day tomorrow.

This week we had our first real test of getting things done on time by addressing all the required elements. Of course I am referring to the Pre-PDR feedback from the PACER group - and we certainly did not fair well. I hope everyone got the message and will get whatever needs to be done to meet the next milestone, ie, PDR on next wednesday.

Anyhow, I am planning to get a lot of sleep at least for tonight though I am planning to spend some time at the library tomorrow. I have to go the the observatory also though I have no plan for sleepover there.

Catch you next week!

Back to the grinding wheel!

Well, I came back from Austin on Thursday evening. My paper was very well received. I had a westpoint professor asking question and next day at the exhibition floor another attendee cornered me with his questions. Anyway, I was so tired Wednesday upon my return that only thing I could do is go to bed. I did not even had supper.
Next day, I found out what my students were doing when I was gone. I had a pretty good idea of that anyway. With Thursday and Friday's lectures the balloon design course component is now over. The only important task that got done today was that we had signed our contract after going through atleast one major rewrite. I had to impose a certain sense of order and responsibilty to our group and I hope it will avoid future headaches.
At this point the guys are working on their science background. I should be able to look at it by
tomorrow. In the meantime I will catch up on the project management side and will get an handle on the breakdown of tasks.
Rest will be next time. A few photos of Texas Capitol and ASEE conference is enclosed.

Hello from Austin!

Hello all,

I arrived in Austin Saturday night and by the time I reached hotel it is past 10:30 pm. Sunday I attended 3 workshops, one on "hands-on Materials learning for K-12 students", one on "self-assesment on ABET accrediatation" and one on "recruitment & retentions in 4 major universities". As is usual for ASEE, they arrange a get-together (paid by the participant) in the evening called "picnic".

Today I attended two plenary talks including one from the national chairman of NSBE Dr. Carl Mack and Dr. Bin Gu, President of China's largest engineering university. Mack is a very energetic speaker and he can really motivate the audience to the cause of NSBE and how everyone can get involved . Since then I attended 10 technical presentations. Now I am going to get back to hotel. I have to attend a 7:00 am session tomorrow morning. My moderating session is at 10:30 in the morning and my own presentation is in the afternoon.

See you all after I get back.

Hello from Austin!

Hello everyone,

I reached here Saturday night and since Sunday morning I have attended 3 workshops, 2 plenary talks, 10 technical lectures, all in two days. I have two more days to go and lots of things lined up to do. I have to get up at 6 tomorrow morning as I have a session to go at 7 am.

I will get back to you all after I returned to Baton Rouge.

The Heat is On!

Well, things have started to heat up. As the mercury climbed outside, so has the pressure to get more work done in a limited time. We are so far keeping up with our software building task and have been able to complete writing a more or less flight ready code which of course has to be tested. Our ham classes and initiation on hands-on transmitting is also going on well.

But it is the multitude of tasks that I have to take care off is getting on my nerve. Apart from normal house keeping tasks here I have to take care of some of the normal house keeping tasks of my Albany home like paying bills on time after verifying the charges by phone conversation with my wife and sometimes ending up arguing with the bank associates late at night. Not to mention I still have not finished finalizing my schedule while I will be in Austin starting this Sunday. I need to have another attempt to fit my own presentation in the 20 minute slot they will give me. It will be even more trying time than here as some of the early sessions will start at 7 o'clock in the morning and will continue till upto 8 in the evening. But overall I am still looking forward to my Austin trip as I will get to listen to the educators throughout the country and abroad talking on the new techniques being developed and applied on teaching and learning. There will be some industry leaders presenting the plenary talks on all of the three days of ASEE conference.

I am also getting somewhat concerned about how our group is going to fare when I am out of station particularly when they have to start working on their PDR within a week of my coming back. I have given them some assignments and hope they will get some preliminary research done.

Let me share some of the photos that I took last week when I got a chance to visit downtown before signing off. I will try to make at lease one post from Austin.

So long!

My first weekend at Baton Rouge

So, I spent my very first weekend at Baton Rouge. Well, this is the first time I got a chance to get out of the campus other than obligatory visits to local WalMart to get grocery. Friday I went to one of the many YMCA in the city and spent more than an hour on treadmill and other cardio machines. Saturday, I went downtown to see the normal touristy staff. I did not spend much time, but I like the riverfront including the very imposing USS KIDD. Hope to come back soon and this time I will go inside the ship. I believe the navy airplane outside is A6 Corsair or it may be A7 Vought. I am not quite upto my airplane recognition ability nowadays.

I did get some other staff done as I planned including what are the sessions I will like to attend at Austin next week. AIAA national conference is such a huge event that without a plan one get completely lost as what happened to me when I first attended two years back. I practiced my own presentation once but I need to get a couple of more dry runs to get it down to 20 minutes that I will be allowed.

It is already past one in the morning and I better get to bed to be on time tomorrow.

One week down, Eight to go!

We just finished the first week at PACER. How time flies! Seems just like yesterday that we drove into the campus after it was already dark and was desperately looking for ECA apartments at the end of our ten hour drive. Add anohter five for Jeremy.

I am really getting down to it though I must say I am spending way too much time and have hardly any free time at all. I spent the major part of yesterday to write the program using random number generator to spell my name inspite of my tweny years of programming experience. It shows how rusty I am as I have not done any serious programming since I left industry in 1990. But I finally got it working which is a relief as I was having some serious self doubt.

While talking to my wife yesterday I found my dog is somewhat distressed as she is very attached to me. She would wait for my return everday to take me for a walk no matter how late it is. Afterwards she would give me a hug. Seems she still waits at night around 8 o'clock for me to come back from work looking at the door. She is not eating and throws her food around. Now I am distressed. How do you make a dog understand the reality?

All in all everything appears to be going fine now. I need to get ready this weekend for my presentation in the ASEE conference on June 16th. This weekend is going to be very busy as I need to do some housekeeping duties as well as, cooking, laundry etc.

So long for now.