Last Weekend

I better summarize what I did last weekend before another weekend has come and gone.  Last weekend I went to the cheesy state.  It was a very nice, relaxing time with some good friends and some woikas.  A few highlights:

1. Kayaking on the Milwaukee River (which included some small rapids)
2. Seeing (and pestering) Uncle Bex
3. Seeing Jax
4. Seeing Jenx
5. Getting to know Dictionary and Beanie better (Jax's current sistah woikas).
6. Buying more spices from Penzey's
7. Wildlife sightings on the river
8. 4th of July plans made
9. Delicious sunday lunch - it involved grilled hamburgers, deluxe salad (with bacon), sweet potatoes, summer squash, and brownies.  The burgers were deluxe with options of cheese, avocado, grilled jalapenos, mustard, ketchup, mayo, lettuce, tomatoes, etc.
10. Playing (and winning) Settlers of Catan.  It was a very close game, and it didn't look like I was winning at all until the last couple turns when I got lucky.  It was getting late (like 10:00 PM) and Bex and Jax were getting cranky, so it was good the game finished before it came to blows.  ;-)
11. Dictionary told me that "nerd" was not the first thing that came to mind when she met me.  I think that's a good thing.  Unless the first thing that came to mind was worse than nerd.  She didn't actually say what it was, so maybe it was worse than nerd.
12. Bonus bullet:  Hearing LinD belt out the hymns over the speaker at GM.

Jax had to work so didn't get in on the kayaking.  She deputized me as group leader.  That may or may not have been good judgement.  :-)

Some pictures to help you visualize:

From left:  Dictionary, Beanie, Jenx, and Uncle Bex.

Same kayakers, same river, different spot on the river.

Stone bridge.

Blue heron seen on the river.

Flat MelBMarvis goes to eat Mexican food in MKE.

 That's it for now!  Toodle-oo!

Up In Arms

The big hulabaloo at work the last couple of weeks has been the e-mail from human resources (HR) asking us to sign a non-compete agreement.  Not everybody is required to sign it, but a good portion of the engineers got the e-mail because they are considered to have business critical proprietary knowledge.  When you start working there, you have to sign a non-disclosure agreement, which basically says that you won't give company secrets to external people and that any inventions you create while at the company are the property of the company.  That's pretty standard stuff.  The non-compete agreement takes it one step further and says that not only will you not give away company confidential information, but you won't go and work for a competitor for at least a year after you leave the company.  And, it also prohibits you from starting your own business and competing directly with the company in the same industry.  Supposedly these are fairly standard in industry.

There are some points of the agreement that are more inflammatory and caused extra discussion and HR communication meetings.  The year of not working for a competitor applies even if you are fired by the company.  If the company sues you for violating the non-compete agreement and wins, you have to pay the company's legal fees.  However, if you win, the company does not pay for your legal fees.  And, you must notify the company and get approval for any new job you take within the year of leaving the company.  This allows them to assess if there is risk of violating the non-compete agreement.  And yes, this applies if your new job is being a greeter at Wal-Mart.

I signed the document and sent it back the first day I got it because I knew it was one of those things I could easily forget.  Plus, if I ever leave the company, I don't plan to go to a competitor.  First of all, it seems unethical and would come with too many complications, so I would avoid it.  I also have several other standing job offers in other industries that I would be more interested in than going to competitor.  I think it's debatable whether a couple of the clauses in the agreement would really stand up in court, so I'm not really worried.  And, I don't think the company is going to bother suing most people unless there was some grievous breach of confidentiality with a competitor.  On top of that, signing the agreement is a non-negotiable condition of continued employment.  That pretty much narrows it down to one question:  "Do you want to continue to work here or not?"  If yes, then sign it.  If no, then you better start looking for a new job.

What kind of surprised me was the variety of things people took exception to.  Kadmium objected to the company assuming he would be unethical and the implied lack of trust.  For me, that's not one of my hot buttons.  I figure there are always dishonest people, and the company has to protect itself against those people.  What gets my goat a little more is that I would have to notify the company for a year of every job I took.  I don't like the lack of independence that implies.  Others didn't like that their options were being limited.  Their thought was, "what if the only job I could find was with a competitor?"  I'm with the HR guy on this one whose reply was that most people's options really are not that limited.  There are some people who are still contemplating being stubborn and not signing it.  In my opinion, this is not a hill I care to die on, but I imagine that some people might decide that it is.

Anyway, just some food for thought on life in corporate America.

2013 Journal of Amazing Things - Week #25

Things I found amazing this week:

1.  Flowers

 

2.  Wildlife - pictured here are a giant frog and a great blue heron that we saw while kayaking on Saturday.

Spies On Us

I'm sure most of you are aware of the Edward Snowden thing and how he revealed that the NSA has been spying on all Americans for some time now.  Unfortunately, I can't say that totally surprises me, but at the same time it also makes me angry and more paranoid.  Here is my general rant on that and other issues related to internet security.

I've always been wary of posting too much personal information on facebook.  And I do post a fair amount of personal information on this blog, but in general try to not to make it super obvious what my true identity is. If someone really wanted to, of course they could figure it out by reading seven years of posts.  It's not that I have anything to hide, but there are identity thieves out there trolling for information.  And not only identity thieves - governments, corporations looking to learn your preferences, etc.  Don't be naive.  Anything of a personal nature that is on the internet can eventually be read by anyone who is determined to collect that information.  Some of it may be harder to get to than others, but eventually they can probably get to all of it unless you're some kind of super encryption wizard who doesn't use any "free" services offered on the internet and makes not purchases over the internet.

When critics of Facebook cite privacy concerns, the founder of Facebook says that he's not concerned about you sharing all the details of your life because you shouldn't be doing things if you need to hide them.  It's not a matter to trying to hide stuff.  It's a matter of liking privacy and desiring to exercise my right to privacy.  It's also about not wanting my identity to be stolen.  It's the same thing with the NSA.  Supposedly they only collected meta data.  Well, you can learn a lot from data.  I object to the government wanting to know all that.  If I look at your phone records, I could probably tell you who your good friends are, what time of day you like to call your friends and family, who your doctor(s) are, if you and your family are healthy based on the number of times you call your doctor, what types of illnesses you might have based on what type of doctors you're calling, when you've had maintenance issues with your house, issues with your car, etc.  The list is nearly as long as your phone bill.  Yes, the government can get this information anyway if they get a warrant.  But, in my opinion they should have to get a warrant and have probable cause - they shouldn't have carte blanche to collect all data on everybody.  To me, that's a lot of power at hand with too much temptation to abuse it, regardless of who is running the government.  The only exception to this is if God is the king of your government.  There's only one kingdom where that is the case, and none of the countries on the map are that kingdom.

Knowledge is power, and all that knowledge can be used in the wrong way.  Most likely it could be misused to blackmail people, to change political candidates and affect voting outcomes by threatening to expose things, to harass someone who disagrees with the status quo, and so many other things.  Human nature could think of endless things to do with all that information.  And speaking of human nature, let's be realistic.  Everyone has done things they don't want everyone else to know about.  So there will always be some kind of data to threaten somebody with if the government is allowed to collect it.  Unless you're Jesus Christ, but he left this earth more than 2,000 years ago.

To me, all this oversight by the government is feeling a little gestapo-like.  Speaking of that, I heard an ad on the radio yesterday for the federal government's website usa.gov.  Really!?!  That's how they spend my tax money?  By advertising their website in an effort to make people even more dependent on the government?  The ad included a phase to something of the effect "you'll be surprised how much this website will become your source for information."  Ummmm.....no, I won't.  Because I don't plan to interact with the federal government that much.  I have to renew my passport through that website and pay my taxes to the IRS.  And maybe check on travel advisories to other countries.  But other than that, I'm not planning to accept more propaganda from the U.S. government by voluntarily visiting their website, thank you very much.  I'm sure every time I have to go to their website they collect meta data on me, just like every other website on the internet.

As John Adams, one of our founding fathers stated, "It is more important that innocence should be protected, than it is, that guilt be punished; for guilt and crimes are so frequent in this world, that all of them cannot be punished.... when innocence itself, is brought to the bar and condemned, especially to die, the subject will exclaim, 'it is immaterial to me whether I behave well or ill, for virtue itself is no security.' And if such a sentiment as this were to take hold in the mind of the subject that would be the end of all security whatsoever."  I think I agree with this.  If the government is going to be able to prevent all violence in our country, they will be so oppressive that we will lose our freedoms.  Take China, for example.  Their crime rate is reportedly very low.  The amount of freedom they have is also very low.  And all that oppression still doesn't prevent all crime.  The government is still corrupt, and crimes like human trafficking, fraud, and counterfeiting still occur.

Life doesn't come with a guarantee of complete security, so why is the government trying to make it that way?  I vote for freedom with higher risk rather than less freedom with lower risk.  We should be reasonable and try to catch terrorists, but let's not lose sight of what is really important.

I was listening to the radio yesterday and today when the reporters were talking about Edward Snowden and how the U.S. government is trying to extradite him because of what he did.  To me, this seems over the top.  As long as he didn't reveal really deep national secrets, what is the difference between him and every other government employee that leaks information?  Every day you can look in the newspaper and read an article related to the government where some government worker is cited giving some inside information, but the source is not named because he/she was speaking on conditions of anonymity because they weren't authorized to discuss the information.  Why are we not rounding up all of those sources of leaks too?  To me, this seems like a bit of a witch hunt.  If they're going to prosecute him, they should be prosecuting all those other leakers too.  Yeah, he shouldn't have broken the confidentiality agreement.  But the federal government shouldn't be breaking the trust of all the American people.  And if he couldn't in true conscience watch the government continue what he was doing, then good for him to reveal those wrongs.  This country was founded by people who objected to the tyranny of government interfering in people's lives.

Ranted out.

Time for Reflection

I happened to go back to one of my posts from several years ago.  It seems to me like I was funnier back then.  Now most of my posts are travelogues or something.  Or, maybe a brag book of my travels and kayaking excursions.  Have I over-stayed my humor on this blog?

That's about all I know.  I'm soon off to do more traveling and kayaking!  Did I mention the three main themes of this blog?  No?  They are as follows:  travel, kayaking, and robots.  Just FYI.

Farm out.

Poking Along

Last weekend I went to the land of cowpokes.  I always enjoy traveling there, and it's fun to get re-acquainted with some of the nice folks out there.  It also made me think of this song.  As a double bonus, 'vention was happening.  A few highlights:

1. 75 mph speed limit
2. Open space
3. Beautiful skies
4. Seeing dad on Father's Day for the first time in years
5. People - seeing Ananias, Pops, Mom, Gin, B-Dubs, faithful reader Linda L., Dorene, Glenn, Brent, B&K, J&E, and many more.
6. Soul food
7. Feeling that pioneer spirit
8. Dryness - Most of the time I felt like I could hardly get enough water despite drinking like a camel.  I think it helped get rid of that lingering cough I had from my cold.
9. Hearing cousin Jake speak from the platform for the first time
10. Navigating the tricky waters of well-meaning match makers

I didn't take very many pictures over the weekend.  I only had my phone/camera out on the drive from the airport to 'vention.  I don't have any good people pictures.  The scenery below almost makes up for that lack though, doesn't it?

2013 Journal of Amazing Things - Week #24

Things I found amazing this week:

1.  Sky Beauty - One of the biggest and clearest rainbows I've ever seen.  It was a good end to the drive to 'vention.  If you look closely, you can see the double rainbow.

2.  Soul Food - It was even better than expected.

2013 Journal of Amazing Things - Week #23

Things I found amazing this week:

1.  Mother Nature - I think this is a baby squirrel.  At first I couldn't figure out what it was because I was assuming it was an adult of some kind of animal.  Upon further observation, I decided they were baby squirrels.

2.  Focused Results - I can't show you the really cool pictures because I would be violating company confidential material.  But, I can tell you I was in a week-long workshop where we had a lot of good people coming together to focus on what would be the best path for the company in terms of design architecture and cost in the future for a new technology we're working on.  It's nice when you can put all the politics aside and focus on estimating PCA costs, wiring costs, strategy, etc.  Oh, and the "free" munchies and lunches were good too.  Most of the time it was me and a bunch of Brazilians in the room.  I need to learn Portuguese.

In the Year 2013, In the Fifth Month

I'm nearly caught up with life it seems.  May was a fairly low key month for me.  Other than going home to ND for my uncle's funeral, there were no other major trips involved.  Mostly I stayed home and worked on catching up from being so busy the previous four months.  It was a good change of pace.


When I thought about Uncle Orville passing away, my first thought was that I didn't know him all that well.  We for sure weren't BFFs or anything.  I know his wife and daughters much better.  But, upon further reflection, we did see him a fair amount.  I went on a tour of Europe with him and several other family members.  We went on a trip to Ireland and Scotland.  He was along for the cruise to Alaska.  And, we had many a Christmas or Thanksgiving meal together.  I was usually at the "kid" table, but still....you get a sense for a person after a while.  As we heard at his funeral, he was a man of routine.  Sometimes that might seem kind of boring, but it can also make for a very steady and faithful person.  Considering that he took all those trips when he was in his 70's or 80's, you have to appreciate his willingness to experience new things.  He also liked his afternoon naps and going home at a reasonable hour of the evening (although he didn't always get to leave at that reasonable hour).  On top of that, he has four very nice daughters that I enjoy spending time with.  At the funeral they had his Red Wing boots near the casket, and that kind of summarizes who he was.  A faithful, slightly gruff, down-to-earth farmer to the core.  One of his common things to say was, "Say...."

In Ireland in 2004.

Final farewell.

Here's a picture from an excursion with Kermit during the month of May.

 

And, on the Friday before Memorial Day, I met Bex in the Ill state, and we did some hiking.  We saw some cool waterfalls and just enjoyed the time in the great outdoors.  Of course we didn't climb any rocks because the sign said not to do that, although I may have moved laterally along a few rocks.

Starved Rock State Park

 

Matthiessen State Park - Lake Falls

That is all....except for the Memorial Day weekend, but that will come later.

Hacking

I'm just about over the cold I contracted last week.  That's the third one in 2013, which is fairly unusual for me.  Mostly there is just a cough left.  I'm reminded again how I hate being sick.  The other people at work who have had this cold say that the cough hangs on forever.  Maybe it's my imagination, but it seems like more of these "hang on forever" kind of colds have come around more recently.  Either that, or it's just recycled around the office because there are lots of people in close proximity all touching the microwave, coffee pot, and water cooler.  Supposedly diseases spread more these days because people travel so much more.  Those are reasonable theories.  Sometimes I also like to speculate more wildly and jump on the conspiracy theory trains.  These theories have been aided by reading spy/cop thriller types of books.  For example,

1. A virus escaped from one of the government biological test labs.  If this type of government incompetence is truly the case, this further confirms that you don't want the government to be involved in regulating more of your health care.
2. A virus "escaped" from one of the government biological test labs.  Or should I say, the government released a virus to test it on the general population without notifying the public and without getting your consent.  If you believe the government is very competent and capable of doing this without any leaks in this conspiracy, then you for sure don't want the government in charge of your health care.  Why would you want them to have the power to make you sick (and the lack of morality to do it) and also be in charge of deciding what they're going to pay for if you go to the hospital?
3. A terrorist is experimenting with a "practice" virus before they release their real biological weapon.  I read a book about this once.  It doesn't seem like it's out of the realm of possibility.  My hope is that getting sick with the "test" virus will make me more immune to the "real" virus.

Now I must go finish my tin foil hat.

Cleanup Stuff

In the end of April and first part of May, I was feeling industrious and did a lot of clean-up on my office.  I sorted through about three years' worth of receipts and insurance statements.  I found more of the flat surface of my desk than I had found in years.  And, I almost got my auxiliary table cleared off.  The goal is to eventually be able to put that table away again, but I have a few decisions to make about where to put my robotics and patent stuff and things.

As you can see, it's looking fairly organized in here.

Related to organizing, in the process of cleaning my desk, I also cleaned off a good portion of my kitchen counter (except the giant pile of mail - that's still waiting to be tackled).  In the process of doing that, I found a bunch of old watches where the battery had died.  I kind of noticed a certain pattern.  Not that I didn't already know what kind of watch I always buy, but....just saying....creature of habit.

2013 Journal of Amazing Things - Week #22

Things I found amazing this week:

1.  Proteins  (from a TIME magazine article)

In the Year 2013, In the Fourth Month

Now that I have Saipan summarized, I need to summarize April.  It's been partially summarized already by all the robotics posts.  April was one large blur of travel.  Transporting Ananias, robotics, and SM were the order of the month.  I think I spent only one weekend at home (recovering).  Here are a few memorable pictures and notes.

The last weekend in March was a mini tour of the eastern side of the cheesy state.  I crammed in short visits with Jax, Shax, Brudder Jeddles with wife and family, Cuz Mowla and her family, and gave Ananias a ride over to the Zoo while still recovering from jet lag.

Cuz Mowla and her family.

The following weekend was robotics and a drive to the center of the state for SM.  No pictures taken except the robotics ones you've already seen.

Next weekend up:  State robotics on the eastern side of the state followed by a trip across "The Bridge".  More SM in da UP, eh.  We stopped for a brief photo op as shown below.  And another one here.

Ananias rode home with me from the UP, so on Monday after work we took a hike up some sand dunes in the patchy rain and ate supper with my elders.  Tuesday after work I took Ananias to the airport, and then I took the opportunity to take it easy the rest of the week.  Whew!  that's a lot of travel.

Hike in the rain.

It was nice to have Ananias visit for a short time.  Even though it was such a short time, it's still nice to have family visit.  And, it was good to get so much SM to feed my heart.

In a little over a week though, it was back to the pavement to drive to St. Louis for World robotics.   And.....that was pretty much it....except for a couple local excursions the Sunday and Monday after returning from robotics.

Sunday evening walk on the beach.

Kermit and I went on a date on the water at sunset.

Search for Stuff and Other Things

Today I did a tour of the local hardware stores looking for a few items.  I must say that I'm disappointed with the lack of selection.  For example, let's talk about dehumidifiers.  Lowe's only had one brand available.  All you had to choose was 45 pints or 70 pints, and then whether you wanted a pump.  Home Depot wasn't much better.  I think they had three brands available, but it was kind of a hodge podge of volumes, and the display wasn't well organized.  I'm not even sure if there was a pump option.  Plus, two of the brands were GE and LG.  No thanks, just on principle.

Now let's talk about shower door guides.  Lowe's, Home Depot, and Ace all had one option each.  Take it or leave it.  Ridiculous.  Do they think all shower doors are created equal?  The good news is that during my search I found a new tub stopper, which I had been in need of for about six months.  So the search wasn't all in vain.

Speaking of shopping for stuff, check out this link.  This is highly relevant to my work every day.  Sorry for the ads, but it's worth it to endure the ads in order to see the comedy.  Watch from about 25:00 to 27:45.

While you're shopping for refrigerators, you may want to consider purchasing this one:

2013 Journal of Amazing Things - Week #21

Things I found amazing this week:

1.  Rock Formations

2.  Nature's Paintbrush

South Pacific: Part 11 of 11

Some other random funny stuff from Guam and Saipan that may include some inside jokes:

• "All Thumbs" massage - just because it's a clever name
• Mantrade store
• "Your shirt, it's so small"
• Going paleo
• Air con - I don't know why, but they all call air conditioning on the island this.  Maybe because conditioning is difficult to say for a non-native English speaker.
• Going like a goose
• Plumeria and hibiscus - Bex spent plenty of time documenting these
• Good grief - and Charlie Brown wasn't even around.  It's what you say when you wake up late for an early morning flight.
• Hafa Adai  (said like ha-fa-die').  It's Chamorro for welcome/hello.
• Nudis
• Clown fish - they don't exist!  Clown anemone fish do exist, but there is no such thing as a clown fish.
• Geocaching
• Sunburn - by the end of the trip, I was getting awfully tired of applying sun screen.
• Betel nut (said like beetle nut)
• Latte stones - what the Chamorro natives used to build their houses on. 
• Asian skin

Betel nut spitting is probably like the quivalent of spitting tobacco in the mainland U.S.

My "cell" at Saipan 'vention.

The crew on the ferry over to Managaha.

A little hermit crab we found on the beach on Managaha.

This is our "corned beef" picture with Arnold.

Uncle Bex found two geocaches on Saipan.  This is the one partway down the steps to The Grotto.

It's not a vacation/trip with Bex and Mex if it doesn't involve an "imminent danger" photo.

On the trip home - the sunburn was in full peel.

That's it folks!  It's the end of our Saipan saga.

South Pacific: Part 10 of 11

10.  Asian tourists.  There were lots of them.  At the hotel in Guam, the majority of the people were Asian (mostly Japanese).  The breakfast buffet included kimchi and seaweed.  On Saipan, there were a lot of Asians too.  We learned the proper way to take a tourist picture.

For those who don't know.  This was posted in our hotel in Guam.

We saw Mr. Obama twice.  He was a little stand-offish and stiff, but it was still great to see the President.  :-)

This is actually my combination scuba diving/Asian tourist pose.  This is Uncle Bex's normal American pose.  The land mass in the background is Managaha, which is a small island within the coral reef lagoon of Saipan.  It had some super awesome snorkeling where most of the coral was less than three feet under the water.  You can walk around the island in about five minutes.

South Pacific: Part 9 of 11

9.  Japanese jaunt.  Actually, we had two of these.  The first was unintended.  Due to weather and resulting flight delays, we slept the night in the Narita airport.  On the floor/in chairs. The good news is that this helped us learn the layout of the airport and the process of getting a transit visa.  They were also very hospitable and provided air mattresses, sleeping bags, bottled water, and crackers.  So, on the way home when we had a scheduled six hour layover, we took the opportunity to explore downtown Narita a little bit.  How do you know you're in Japan?  You know you're there when the toilet seats are heated, and there are all kinds of electronic buttons associated with the toilet.

Part of the Narita-san Shinshoji Temple.  It's a giant Buddhist temple in downtown Narita.

Me outside the entrance to the temple.

We stopped to watch this guy gut live eels.  It was pretty cool.  Lay it out flat, cut the head nearly off but not quite all the way off, use the stake through the head to hold it in place, cut down the belly the full length of the body, cut out the guts, and cut it in half to make two nice fillets.  All done in 1 or 2 minutes.  Then the guy across from him would put little sticks into the fillet to prepare it for grilling.

You can't leave Japan without eating some ramen.

South Pacific: Part 8 of 11

8.  Feeling behind.  I sometimes have trouble being on time to things, but with the nature of my job, I have learned in most things to at least be prompt even though I'm not usually early.  Let me tell you, on this trip I felt perpetually behind.  Like Bex says, I was "high maintenance."  SAIC always likes to be really early, and Bex has a few tendencies that way too, so I was pretty much always trying to catch up.  This was a little bit of a switch because in my immediate family, as someone who is "prompt", I'm usually leading the pack.  :-)

Riding in the back of the pick-up truck.  One of the strange laws of the island is that if you ride in the pick-up cab, you have to wear a seat belt, but you can put as many people in the truck bed as you want without a seat belt.

South Pacific: Part 7 of 11

7.  Good examples of a servant.  I'm not talking about just woikas.  I saw some great examples of many people loving to serve and looking for every opportunity to serve.

Uncle Max and Susan made lunch for us one day.  It was quite the feast.  To keep things straight, Susan is married to Celso, not to Max.

Ernie, Celso, Auntie Tina, photobomber Arnold, Uncle Larry, and Alfie.

SAIC, Mum Sara, Marilyn, and Sara

Roasting the pig for Friday evening supper at Saipan 'vention.  The pig was the topic of some discussion.  It also was a very involved process and probably took close to an entire day to get it all prepared.

The pleased cooks.