School started for the kids on Wednesday. Kyle is in the seventh grade now and Nicole is in the fifth grade.
We took a small vacation last weekend to celebrate the end of summer vacation. We went to South Carolina. The girls stayed at Folly Beach while Kyle and I looked for fossils. Summerville South Carolina is well as being a good place to look for magalodon teeth. Unfortunately, Kyle and I only found small pieces of megalodon teeth. But we were able purchase a nice specimen from a local guide.
It was nice being back at the beach. I grew up in Savannah and the Folly Beach area reminded me a lot of were I grew up.
A research team recently discovered that the DNA of individual human brain cells varies from cell to cell. Apparently, there are certain segments of our DNA that can get copied multiple times in our brain cells. In other types of cells, this mechanism is turned off. This seems like a very important discovery. Until now, we thought that the DNA in our cells was relatively static. Now it seems, the DNA of our brain cells is dynamic. This mechanism must serve some purpose, but that has not been discovered yet.
For anyone who has not been following the progress of the Japanese robot industry, this video below might be a bit of a shock. In a decade or two, the humanoid robot industry will be in full swing. Millions of theses robots are going to be sold. The home robot industry may rival the auto industry in size. If I am lucky enough to live into old age, I am sure a descendant of these robots will be looking after me.
Back in 1982 a movie called Tron was released. It was one of the first movies to feature computer graphics. Back in 1982 it was extremely rare to see CG used in movies. The computers simply were not powerful enough. The plot of the movie was specifically designed to help the viewer accept the primitive graphics. The CG was used to bring the viewer inside the computer. It was used to represent programs interacting as avatars. I was a junior in high-school when the movie came out. It influenced my decision to study computer engineering in college. At the time I entered Georgia Tech, there was no computer engineering degree program. So I majored in Electric Engineering with emphasis on computer engineering and high performance/parallel computing. To this day, 27 years later, I think of the movie almost every day. (Yes, I know that’s hard to believe, but it’s true.)
Even though Tron is relatively obscure today (except with computer nerds like me), it is a very significant movie for it’s use of CG and for incorporating computers, computer programs, and computer programmers and into the plot.
In 2010, Disney will be releasing Tron Legacy. It will star Jeff Bridges who will reprise his role (28 years later) as the lead character, Flynn.
Tonight I took Kyle to see the bass guitar player Billy Sheehan. He has played with David Lee Roth and Steve Vai and is a member of the band Mr. Big. He was giving a clinic sponsored by Yamaha at the music store where Kyle takes some of his lessons. He was very entertaining. We had a good time.
I want to plug one of my son’s guitar teachers, Barry Richman. Many people consider Barry Richman to be the best electric guitar player in Atlanta. Please check out his web site (www.barryrichman.com) and buy some of his CDs or go listen to him in person. You can also see some of Barry’s performances on YouTube, however the audio quality of the clips I’ve seen don’t do him justice. You really have to see him in person to understand how amazing he is.
I have been interested in canoe camping ever since I went on my first canoe camping trip in high school (in about 1982). My high school biology teacher organized the trip. We went on a two-night, two-day canoe/camping trip on the Suwanee River. I was completely unprepared. I knew nothing about camping and was ignorant as to my degree of ignorance. I did not have a sleeping pad. I did not have any real food. (I brought a couple of boxes of energy bars.) I did not have enough water. Basically, I perceived the trip as an extended field trip. I was in for a shock.
The trip was during the fall (or winter) and it got very cold on the first night. Since I did not have a sleeping pad, I was loosing a lot of heat to the ground. My kid-style sleeping bag was only really suited for indoor use and it probably got down to the low 40s that night. I barely slept at all that first night.
In the morning one of the adults gave me some warm oatmeal. Once we started off on in our canoes I felt at home. I had lived on a salt water river for several years and had spent many days paddling rafts up and down the creeks of the island. I really enjoyed paddling down the river. Every bend in the river promised new discoveries. I felt like an early explorer in a new world. It was wonderful.
After a full day of paddling, we found a large sandbar and setup camp. We built a fire and sat around talking until late into the night. I distinctly remember that at one point while we were talking, we heard a large splash in the river. We shined our flashlights in the direction of the sound, but saw nothing. The second night was not nearly as cold as the first. I managed to get some sleep. We paddled until about noon the next day to get to our take out point.
Over the years I thought about that trip many times. I longed to repeat the experience. But I kept putting off taking any action that would get me back on that river. It was easy to find excuses. I was busy with school, work, and a young family. Finally in about 2005 at the age of 40 I realized I had better start taking actions to make my dreams come true. I bought my first kayak. I really did not know what I was doing, but I decided that if I continued to let that stop me I would never act. So I bought my first kayak and I learned. I bought camping equipment, I bought books, and I subscribing to camping and paddling magazines. After a few short day trips and a lot of reading I decided I was ready for a longer trip. And of course that trip had to be on the Suwanee River.
Several months back I experienced a hard drive crash on my primary computer. At the time of the crash, my web site was hosted on that computer. For the past several years I have been considering using a web hosting company to host my web site. The crash was the final straw that prompted me to make a move.
This site is now hosted on a Liquid Web virtual server. They provide an excellent service.
I did not loose any information when my disk crashed. I plan on re-posting all my old web site content eventually.
I apologize for my absence. Let the blogging resume.