Kennedy Space Center and Kids in Space

Yesterday we spent the day at Kennedy Space Center (http://www.nasa.gov/centers/kennedy/home/) for part of Sam's tenth birthday.  It was really fun to watch the kids get even more excited about space and the possibility that they might be involved in the planned trip to Mars.  There are so many amazing changes going on at KSP right now.  The privatization of many of the elements of space exploration that would have traditionally been handled exclusively by NASA. Both SpaceX (http://www.spacex.com/) and Boeing (http://www.boeing.com/space/) are working on unmanned resupply craft as well as traditional space craft that will deliver astronauts to the International Space Station.

While we were there we discussed how to get children engaged in science and space exploration.  We have have also been interested in Raspberry Pi and I came across this post that combined the two (https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/#astro-pi-mission-update-6-payload-handover)

I am going to continue to work with Sam to share his ideas and expand on them on this blog.

I hope you will keep following.

Move to South Carolina

Wow.  It has been a long time since I have posted to this blog.  I guess that I must have been busy or distracted or something.  Well, I was just reading about become a better developer become a better developer and one of the recommendations was to blog more often.  So, I guess that is the inspiration for posting here.

Since I last posted we have moved to Greenville, SC.  Greenville is a really great town.  It is so much more manageable and affordable than San Diego was.  They have actual weather here with rain and cold days.  I did not know how much I missed the cold weather.  It is also great because we are close to Beth Ellen's family.  Her aunt has a farm about 20 minutes away and her dad is about 1 hour away.

We are really enjoying getting to spend more time with the family.  I know that Jim (my father-in-law) is also really excited.  The holidays are coming up and we are excited to spend them with Beth's family.  We are also going to get to see Paul and Danielle for New Year.  I will miss my family but we will see them next year.

Anyway, I guess that is enough for right now.

I hope to have more intellectual posts in the future.

American Lung Association and Farmers Market

On Saturday, I participated in a 5k walk for the American Lung Association with my office.  I wanted to meet new people and see the city.  The walk was from the Embarcadero to the USS Midway.  I did not tour the Midway because I am saving that for when the boys visit.

After my walk, I went to the farmers market that happens every Saturday downtown rain or shine (since it is San Diego it is mostly shine).  The marked was huge.  It is the only farmers market that I have been to where you can buy sea urchin!

On Sunday I checked out the First UU Church of San Diego.....

Going to work

Since my car was in the shop, I had to take the bus.  This has turned out to be fantastic.  I walk 2 blocks down the hill to the bus stop.  I take an express bus into San Diego (40 minutes) which takes about the same amount of time as driving.  Then I walk 4 blocks to the office.  I get to read, study, listen to NPR, nap, whatever I want.  This is the best way to commute ever!  I don't know why anyone drives.

Here is my walk past the museum of contemporary art.

Here is my new office building.  We are on the 5th and 6th floor.

And here is the back of the office.  They have painted an amazing mural on the back.  Of course it is going to be obscured by the huge apartment building that is going up

My new office

And the view from my window

Quite a bit different than Salt Lake City.......

My Shelf

It has been a long time since I have had to share a house with anyone besides my family.  Fortunately, I get a shelf....

San Diego Bound

Last Saturday I packed up to head out to San Diego.  I thought the kids would be sad to see me go but they were both so excited to play with their friends, Sam with Aaron and Charlie with Braham that they barely noticed that I was leaving.  Beth Ellen was still in San Diego wrapping up her training and I was all alone to finish packing.  Fortunately, Mary was there to give me a hug as I said goodby to Charlie.  I loaded the last of my things into my car and took off.

The drive south was uneventful.  I-15 goes through St George and then when you leave Utah and enter Arizona you go down through the Virgin River Gorge.  It is an amazing 15 miles of rough narrow canyon driving.  The amazing part of it is that you are dropping almost 2000 feet from the Colorado Plateau and not descending a mountain canyon.  So, that was the first time in almost 5 years that my little car had been below 4000 feet of elevation.

Then I made a quick stop in  Mesquite for dinner and onto Valley of Fire State Park in Nevada.  This was a beautiful state park that reminded me a lot of Arches.  I barely found a campsite as the sun was going down and decided to just sleep out instead of messing with a tent.  The stars were amazing and the moon was nearly full.  It was a great transition from Salt Lake City to San Diego.

The next morning was cool and I was up before anyone else in the campground.  I decided to take a short hike and found a very cool slot canyon to visit before starting driving again.

This area was also interesting because it had been the scene for a number of Hollywood movies before it became a park.

The rest of the drive, through Los Vegas, past Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show on the California border and into Poway (the city north of San Diego where I am living) was uneventful until the last 10 miles.  I got off the interstate, there was a loud BANG, lots of smoke and my car had almost no power.  I pulled over and called for a tow.  Then I called my landlord and he was fantastic.  Came right over and helped me get my stuff moved into his car, followed me to the repair shop and took me home.  They fed me a great meal and I shared with them a bottle of Malbec.  On Monday was my first day at work.

I wonder why there are not more websites focused on using GIS for Renewable Energy development. It seems like there are endless possibilities for using GIS in siting, planning, permitting, designing, and managing renewable energy projects. Perhaps it is because the developers do not want to share their analytic techniques. Perhaps there are too little data to really make it interesting. I don't know but I think I should put one together.