schmits.org: hobbies archives

Ten-Year Reunion

Two years ago, I attended my ten-year high school reunion and took a handful of pictures. I figured it was about time to share them; here are some photos . We had a great evening that started at Santangelo’s Restaurant. What was anticipated to be a gathering of a dozen or so turned into a crowd of 70 or more people. We’ll see what is planned, and by whom, for the 15-year reunion in 2007!

In 1992, I graduated from Cicero-North Syracuse High School; located in Cicero, New York; part of the North Syracuse Central School System. We had a graduating class of 451 people, according to the local paper. So, a turnout that of 70, which included significant others, is still a small fraction of the total. The first official count I knew for our class was 579 in the fall of sophomore year. We saw small decreases to 568 in the fall of junior year and to 560 in the fall of senior year. And then, a drop of more than a hundred occurred! I don’t think it could be a typo (e.g. 541) because less than 500 names were listed in the graduation program.

It was surprising at our reunion in 2002 to learn that people had not heard about the event until the day before. We advertised in the local newspapers, sent out emails, encouraged people to bug their friends, and even tried to contact some people directly. Our class website cnsclassof1992.com, is now defunct. But a couple of tools still exist for future communications: Wendy Meyer’s Page and Classmates.com .

Leading up to our reunion in 2002, a number of different plans were tried. It started as a summer picnic, changed to a Friday night event at the Hotel Syracuse, then to a Saturday night event at the Everson Museum, and finally occurred as a show-up-if-you-want-and-pay-out-of-your-own-pocket event at Santangelo’s Restaurant.

I certainly enjoyed getting a chance to see some folks I hadn’t seen in years and meeting some classmates that I didn’t remember every having met before. I didn’t know who Trevor was until he identified himself as the guy who had the mohawk in high school. And quite a mohawk it was (then not now)! I didn’t know him in high school, but I knew of him.

A 15-year reunion for the CNS Class of 1992 is not too far from now. Anyone want to take bets on whether it will happen? As the date approaches, drop me an email and I’ll let you know if I hear anything about the plans.

Double H Ranch

I recently returned from a trip to the Double H Ranch with Boy Scout Troop 501. It was an amazing seven-day, six-night high-adventure backpacking trip. We didn’t know what to expect since this was the first year that the Double H Ranch was operated as a national high-adventure base. Located in South-central New Mexico, the terrain is somewhat similar to that of Philmont. While the Double H Ranch can’t match the grandeur of Philmont, its strengths lie elsewhere. At the Double H Ranch, other than Martin Camp, the single staffed camp, there are no trails, no designated camp sites, no latrines. It is up to the crew to determine how best to get to their camp for the night using a map, compass, and GPS. The chosen path may follow a road, a dry river bed, a canyon, or a straight line over whatever lies in the path. It is up to the crew to decide where to setup camp; hopefully, not too far from a water source. This freedom is what sets the Double H Ranch apart from the more stringently regimented Philmont experience. While bushwacking across the ranch is the highlight, there are also program activities. A wilderness guide is assigned to each crew for the duration of the trek. The wilderness guide presents programs such as astronomy (we missed this due to the weather), Leave No Trace, GPS navigation, and search and rescue. At Martin Camp everyone has the opportunity to fire black-powder rifles. The weather for the first couple days was unexpectedly rainy and cool. The weather the rest of the week was more sunny and hotter although never really that hot. Despite the fact that this was the first year of operations, everything ran rather well. Most of the programs could use more content and everything could be a little more polished, but, in general, the staff did an excellent job. For a troop or crew looking for a unique high-adventure opportunity, I would certainly recommend the Double H Ranch.

The Speed of Academia

Earlier this year, two articles based upon the research that comprised my dissertation were published in Chemical Engineering Science (Vol 59 p 1255-1266 and p 1267-1283). It took nearly two years for the review process to occur this time. Our original submission was received on 29 April 2002. The revised version received on 22 July 2003. The delay was primarily on the side of the journal. It took greater than a year for us to receive reviewer feedback. Not the speediest process. The article was finally accepted on 14 September 2003. And we received proofs on 18 February 2004, prior to publication.

If you’re interested in reading the abstracts, they are available online:
Investigation of X-ray imaging of vapor–liquid contactors. 1. Studies involving stationary objects and a simple flow system and Investigation of X-ray imaging of vapor–liquid contactors. 2. Experiments and simulations of flows in an air–water contactor

To view the entire text, a subscription to the Elsevier journal is required, or you can visit your local engineering library. If you are really interested, and don’t know where to find the journal, drop me an email.

I published my dissertation through UMI. Only the citation is now accessible to those who are not part of a subscribing institution. If you are, you should be able to download at least the first 30 pages or so. Unfortunately, I can’t test this. I would not recommend buying a printed copy of my dissertation through UMI. The graphics are all black and white, rather than grayscale, which makes them virtually useless. If you are interested in more about my dissertation, drop me a note.

If you are interested in knowing how the research has proceeded after I left the Department of Chemical Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin, contact my research advisor, Bruce Eldridge, who is part of the Separations Research Program.

A Wish for Writable Dates in iPhoto

brian d foy started an iPhoto AppleScript Wish List. What’s on my list? Make the date property of the photo class writable.

The last time the time changed, I forgot to change the time on my camera. As a result, a number of pictures that I took had the wrong time before I realized my oversight. I was hoping that iPhoto 4 with its ability to make changes to multiple photos at once would help me address this problem. It didn’t because it would only allow me to change multiple photos to the same date; not to subtract an hour from each photo. Given the number of photos involved, I tried to write an AppleScript to automate this process. Unfortunately, the date property of the photo class is read-only. If this property was writable, I could have automated what was a very tedious and error-prone manual process. In hindsight, I should have done what I usually due when I’m faced with a tedious and error-prone task on my computer. Use Perl.

Oh, yes, I did submit this feature request to Apple using the “Provide iPhoto Feedback” menu item in the “iPhoto” menu.

Dylan’s Room

While Dylan won’t be the topic of every entry, he does still get to share this one. Last summer, we purchased a house and decided to paint all three bedrooms and the upstairs hallway. The room that we started with, but that was finished last, was Dylan’s. It was pushed back in the schedule so we could paint our room before we moved into the house. Dylan’s room was finished a week or so before Thanksgiving 2003, and we took pictures at various stages of re-doing the walls and ceiling.

Welcome

Welcome to schmits.org. Carolyn and I have set up this site to share news and photos which family and friends.

On the left side are links to various categories of photo albums: family, vacations, and woodworking. Each category contains an index of albums. Below the categories of photo albums are categories of journal entries: family, hobbies, poetry, and soapbox. Most of the journal entries will be topical except for the poetry category in which I will post, over time, various poems I have written in the last 20 years.

This entry is posted under the hobbies journal category since this web site has now become a hobby of mine. For those who may be interested, this web site is powered by Movable Type, Apache, MySQL, and Mac OS X. Content is created in BBEdit and iPhoto with the help of BetterHTMLExport. All content on this web site, unless otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons License. This web site’s markup should validate as valid XHTML; its layout, valid CSS; and its feed, valid RSS. If you have a modern, standards-compliant browser, and this site look odd, please let me know.