This is rant. You’ve been warned. This will hopefully be the last time I ever mention Pacific Nautilus on this blog. Also this is my personal opinion and may or may not be representative of the San Diego City College Robotics Engineering Club and its members. For background read my last post.

It looks like Pacific Nautilus is trying to assemble another team. Actually, when I say Pacific Nautilus it should be clarified that I mean Chris Carter. There is no one, to my knowledge that is still apart of his pseudo-organization. For a second year in a row, an entire team has left Chris. So when Chris writes “we” he is being optimistic. Let me detail why this year’s team left him.

During the first day of the competition Chris and I were the only ones actually at the facility from our team. The first two days are set aside for testing and is also when you have to actually qualify for a spot in the competition. Like many schools, we were having some problems. During this time, there were various people coming around to see what teams were doing and asking questions. While I was trying to trouble shoot the problems and eventually fix them he took every opportunity to tell each and every person that passed how “they”, meaning the team, “wouldn’t listen” to him and hadn’t “kept it simple.” After hearing this 5 times, I was extremely irritated. After 20+ times I was infuriated. Still, I said nothing. I wanted to keep everything as professional as possible. Basically, I was there for 12 hours trying and eventually getting the sub to work all while Chris stood around and talked shit about the work that the rest of the team and myself had put hours upon hours into.

The next day the sub was working and with a few quirks we made it straight through the gate to qualify. At this point Chris starts to change his tone. Instead of “they” he starts to include himself in the teams work by using “we.”

Now lets talk about sponsors. I had identified a source on the Internet for possible sponsorship of hydrophones. I gave Chris the information and he contacted the organization and eventually the guy in charge. This turned out to be a gold mind. The guy made us a set of 4 custom-made, matching hydrophones. he also sent us an adjustable pinger made to match what was used in the competition. Now, however, our team has no hydrophones nor a pinger. These are all in Chris’ possession and, although I’m sure the sponsor was donating them to “the team,” we have no access to these because instead of donating them to the Club they (we believe) were donated to Pacific Nautilus. The same thing happened to a $2500 camera that was donated to the team.

The main difference between Chris and the other team members is that he wanted to have ownership of everything. He wanted to have City College pay for as many things as possible (shirts, entry fee, etc) but he wanted Pacific Nautilus to own the Sub. I and many others wanted to be apart of a project that the next generation of students could work on. Chris hated the idea that what he started could later be controlled by someone else. I had the feeling the entire time that Chris would not be apart of a project of which he was not the leader. We had and have an extremely good team but Chris was never interested in being a team player and I therefore don’t consider him to ever have been apart of “the team”. He was interested only in being the leader.

So now let’s talk about the Pacific Nautilus website. There, Chris lauds the achievement of 2007 team for placing 11th out of 27th. I’d like to correct him. We actually placed 9th as the there was a error in tallying the final score. This will be officially corrected soon. He also lists a fictitious UCSD team which he has been talking about for a year. Chris uses area schools to make Pacific Nautilus sound more reputable. He falsely represents Pacific Nautilus as being somehow in cooperation with San Diego academic institutions. In reality, Pacific Nautilus acted as a barrier in the case of our team. City College was extremely wary of this outside organization that would offer no written agreements. The Club tried on several occasions to get Pacific Nautilus’ relationship with the Club formalized in writing. Chris never wanted this and it never happened. Having formal agreements didn’t allow Chris the flexibility to take his ball and go home. Now that we have completely broke with Pacific Nautilus (and I’m sure because of our success), the school is more willing to offer support.

After a certain point we, the team, all kinda decided that we would put off the politics in order to put together a working sub for the competition. We knew it wasn’t going to be pretty once we expressed to Chris that we no longer desired to have him in charge. We actually never got around to telling him that due to the somewhat dramatic conclusion to the competition.

Wow, this is getting long. Even though I have more to say, I think I’ll cut it short here.

In closing, if you’d like to join or sponsor one of the Autonomous Underwater Vehicle teams in San Diego, you’ve got 2 legitimate teams to choose from: The first team that broke from Pacific Nautilus - San Diego iBotics or the second team that broke with Pacific Nautilus (my team) - San Diego City College Robotics Engineering Club.

Update: We actually placed 9th out of 27 teams. There was an error in the tabulation of the final scores stating we placed 11th. This will soon be changed on the competition website.

This year I and some friends from San Diego City College Robotics Engineering Club took part in the AUV Competition here in San Diego. For the uninitiated, this is an international event that has some of the top engineering schools in the country, and a few abroad, competing against each other. The goal is to build an autonomous vehicle that can navigate an underwater course and carry out specified tasks.

This year our entry, The Seahorse, did extremely well. While the final results have not yet been posted we heard from a good course that we were 11th out of 28. This is exceptional considering that the entries that placed around us had about $20,000 invested in their subs while we spent about $3,000. Additionally, we won the award for Most Improved entry. This year we easily passed through the gate almost every single time and came within inches of surfacing in the octagon several times. We are currently planning for next years event and are confident that we can place even higher.

Our team has also severed ties with Pacific Nautilus. After the close of the event, Chris Carter, who IS Pacific Nautilus, tried to usurp control of the sub although City College and our various team members have receipts for almost every part. After a slight altercation, the sub was taken by the event coordinators. Our Dean of Engineering contacted the event coordinators and the sub is, or very soon will be back in the hands of the school. Thus, it will be available to us for next year’s event. The one or two parts that may belong to Pacific Nautilus will be returned once ownership is clear.

Unfortunately, the products that our sponsors donated - the custom-made hydrophones and titanium underwater camera - are currently in the possession of Chris Carter/Pacific Nautilus. We will soon be in contact with said sponsors in order to let them know what has happened to the products that they intended for the team.

This is the second year in a row that Chris Carter has lost an entire team. The other team reformed as San Diego iBotics and competed in this years event as well. Although it is tempting to join forces, it is obvious that our teams have differing design philosophies. We do wish to cooperate with them in the future, however.

I’ve completed 10 days of the Master Cleanse and am now going for 14 days. 21 days will be the maximum regardless of how well it’s going. I’ve been wanting to try this since working at Deep Roots in 1997. So I’ve finally done it. Yeah.

The whole process has been extremely painless. After a couple days you don’t feel hungry and because of the lemon juice, maple syrup, cayenne pepper drink I haven’t felt fatigued. I’ve only done the salt water flush a few times because I go to school in the mornings but that was also painless.

My body has been responding positively. I’ve lost about 15lbs so far. I’ve also stopped having pain in my knee that I’ve had for a while now. My eczema has mostly cleared up, as well. Maybe it’s all in the mind.

I’ll post to the blog when I’m off the cleanse.

The Lying Game from Balls of Steel

So my first semester back at school ended a week ago. I’m going to San Diego City College right now with the intention of transferring to San Diego State or UC San Diego for the last ~2 years. My intended major is Computer Engineering.

I took 21 units (12 is considered full time) so I was kept rather busy. While 21 units seems like a lot it doesn’t really give the whole picture. I had a German III class that was 5 units which didn’t really require effort. My other classes were Precalculus, Scientific Programming (Java) w/ Lab, C/C++ Programming and Honors Sociology: Social Problems From a Feminist Perspective. We don’t get our grades for a few days yet but I think I got an A in everything.

I really liked Precalc and Sci Programming. The instructors for those were really nice and helpful. I’m ready for Calculus now!

The Sociology class was LOTS of work. I probably wrote about 1000 pages for that class. The feminist aspect of the class was really interesting. Too bad the term makes so many people cringe.

The C/C++ class was absolutely horrid. It was done by the laziest professor of all time. The Sci. Programming class and the C/C++ class were both online but that’s were the similarities stop. While the Sci. Programming professor was always giving feed back and prompting participation, the C/C++ professor only showed up to post the assignments and quizzes. Once you submitted your assignment there was NEVER any feedback. Nothing is ever graded except the test which is all automated. The tests consistently had errors and when notified of the errors he wouldn’t take the effort to change the grade (at least for students to see). When another student and I went to confront him about these issues he made these excuses that it’s not realistic that he give feedback on everything. Fine, unfortunately it wasn’t realistic for him to give feedback on anything. Oh, and for the programmers out there, we didn’t even cover pointers, structs or classes!

Apart from that one bad class I’m really impressed with the level of education at City College. Many more students follow the 2-year-then-transfer path in California than in NC. The student are more serious and also a bit older than in NC. I’m meeting a lot of really cool people that are in a similar situation as myself; a mature student going back to school after experiencing a bit of life. There is also a tuition waiver program for po’ folk that I qualify for. That is saving my $400+ a semester.

Besides the classes, I also started a Computing Club on campus. We’ve got about 10 members and will probably increase that quite a bit when we participate in our first club rush in the Spring. I’m President of the club and have given a few presentations on Firefox, Linux, and Web Development. We’ve also had people give presentations on Maple/Mathematica, The GIMP and the Autonomous Underwater Vehicle Project, of which I’m also a part. It’s purpose is to be a place were we each can learn from the other.

The AUV Project is apart really interesting for me. Basically, the goal is to build a robot that can navigate an obstacle course. Last year the City College team got 17th out of 21 participating schools which is pretty good for a first year. We are the only 2-year school involved. There is also a High School participating. The other schools are 4-year engineering schools: MIT, Georgia Tech, Univ. of Florida, Cornell, Duke etc. Basically, we don’t satnd much of a chance to win but it’s all about learning. I’m currently building a GUI to display the readings of the bot. I’ll talk more about that in the 3rd part of this recap.

In November I finally got a job. I’m tutoring a blind student in German 10 hours a week. It’s quite a challenge. It’s made even more challenging by the fact that my student is newly blind and therefore doesn’t know braille or how to properly use a computer. I’ll be continuing tutoring him in the next semester. With that money I barely get by. I wasn’t exactly planning to get rich by being a student, though.

I’m looking forward to next semester.Actually, I also have an intersession class that starts in 2 days and is 4 weeks long. That’s just a Speech class requirement, however, so I ain’t really looking forward to that. Next semester I’ll be taking Calculus and Analytical Geometry I w/ Lab, Digital Systems, English 205 (ugh) and possibly Machine and Assembly Language w/ Lab.

In short, I’m lovin’ being back in school. Only 7 more semesters to go!

This is part one of a three part recap of what I’ve been doing these last few months.

So Annika arrived into Charlotte (as I mentioned in the last posting), visited my family in NC and finally flew out to her new home, San Diego, where Waid and I picked her up from the Airport. I had saved up all my absentee days at school in order to be able to spend more time with Annika since this almost two weeks is the only chance we will be able to see each other till March. We didn’t really do too many things; just enjoyed each other’s company.

Annika did, however, have an interview with the German immersion school around the corner. The result is that she has a job as a kindergarten (auf Deutsch: Vorschule) teacher starting in April. She won’t be a “real” teacher until she gets her credentials. She should be able to do most of the course work for that over the summer and be working as a credentialed teacher in the Fall.

The stuff worth writing about actually happened when Annika wanted to fly to China. We bought a one-way ticket from the Air China’s US website for about $500 and shortly thereafter received, via email, the confirmation stating, “E-Ticket purchase has been confirmed by the airline. No tickets will be mailed.” Great! So, on Wednesday, November 15th, Annika got the train to LA for $29. Josh was nice enough to pick her up from the train station, let her sleep at his place and even take her to the airport just before 7am.

When Annika arrives at the airport she goes to the counter with booking number ready expecting to be given her boarding pass and go through security. Instead, she is told that she has a paper ticket and without that she will not be allowed to board. Being that the airline doing the processing is United and the flight is also a United flight, they cannot do anything with tickets purchased through Air China. She’s told that she’ll have to speak to an Air China representative. So Annika hurriedly goes to the Air China desk only to find that the don’t open till shortly before her flight leaves. After a few more desperate attempts to get on her plane, she realizes that she has no chance and waits for the Air China desk to open in hopes of getting on a plane that day.

When she finally gets to talk to Air China people they tell her she’ll have to talk to the agent she bought the tickets from. She tells them she bought it directly from the Air China US site. They tell her that she actually bought it from Expedia. It turns out that, although there is no mention of this, whenever you buy a ticket from the Air China US site you are buying it through an outside agent. So Annika get in the phone with Expedia and they confirm that the ticket was booked through them. They also confirm that she ordered a paper ticket (although it clearly states “E-ticket” in her confirmation). In fact, the ticket had been delivered by UPS on the 8th! Annika calls and asks me to go home and check that we have the tickets at home. The ticket was lying inside a UPS envelope inside our screened-in porch.

The reason we hadn’t noticed the envelope was that it was lying right where we would normally put the paper to be recycled. I remember seeing the envelope but not paying it any mind because of where it was lying and the fact that we were not expecting anything. Initially, we thought that UPS delivery person had put it where it where we found it but I have my doubts now. I talked to our delivery guy an as I had though, he mentioned that he would never go inside the gate because he new we had a dog.

So, I eventually call Annika and tell her that the ticket is there. She is first told to have it faxed. I get on my scooter and while approaching 30th and University the back tire goes flat. What great timing! So I called Waid to have him pick me up, which he was nice enough to do. Luckily there was a place with a fax machine around the corner. Once Waid had picked me up, we went to the scooter shop so that I could also print out and fax the “E-ticket” confirmation. Keep in mind this is around 6:30pm. Annika arrived at the airport around 7am.

Annika had her meeting with an Air China supervisor at 8pm. In the meantime, while wondering around LAX, Annika ran into Thomas Gottschalk of all people. He is host of “Wetten, Das?,” a German TV show and one of the most famous people in Germany. She got his autograph and told him her situation, of course.

Well, back in the real world Annika went to her meeting with the Air China people at 8am. They had received the fax but insisted she have the real tickets in hand. It would not be a problem to give her another flight to Shanghai but the original tickets had to be shown. This meant that I’d have to deliver them. Annika told them she would have the ticket and booked a flight for the next day.

At 11:30 I went to Thrifty to pick-up the Economy car I had reserved only to find there was only Mini-vans left. Ugh! So I take that and drive through the extremely dense fog. I buy a couple Monsters to keep me awake and arrive in LA at 2:50am. Josh’s place was easy to find and and I was sleeping by 3:10am. At 6:40am we awoke and quickly made our way to the airport. The traffic was surprisingly a non-issue.

So there we were, at the terminal where Annika had just spent 15 hour the previous day. We get to the counter, show the ticket and are told not surprisingly that the ticket is for the day before. Annika explains and is told that this is not “their” (United’s) ticket and they can change it. At this point we both kinda make funny noises in despair/disbelief. Annika is a used to this by now and firmly explains the situation. Someone who dealt with Annika the previous morning comes over and confirms. After the supervisor calls the “international supervisor” Annika is FINALLY cleared to leave.

I stay till Annika is safely through the security check and make my way home. Annika spent over $20 on phone calls that day and I ended spending $75 for the rental and gas. As you can see Annika’s departure was quite eventful. I hope she’s able to leave China without all this hassle.

So, I’m sitting here in San Diego waiting for a call from Annika to give confirmation that she’s safely through customs in Charlotte, NC. You see, this is the first time she’s entering the the US on here permanent residency visa. That means she has to be processed and get final approval from the Customs (Border?) agent to get her Green Card. I’m crossing my fingers that everything is going OK. When she gets this, we will both finally have the freedom to work and live in the other’s country.

She’s going to spend a couple days with my mom and brother in Burlington, NC. On Friday she arrives here in San Diego but is only going to be staying two weeks. She has an internship at the University in Hangzhou, China to teach German till about the end of February. Then she’ll be here for good.

Exciting time for Annika.

UPDATE: Everything went smashingly!

I just read a post by Philip Van Hoof discussing his decision to not travel to the US. Having read many of his other politically-oriented post, I’d say we have quite similar political views. I take issue however with this last post however; not because of the political views expressed but rather the action (or lack thereof) taken.

First a little background. I left the US in 1999 largely due to my discontent with the American system. Bill Clinton was President at the time. I lived in Berlin, Germany until very recently and also spent quite a bit off time in the Sweden. Ironically, I moved back to the US at a time when the worst President in history is in office. The system and the President have only gotten worse. So why am I back. Basically just to get my education.

Actually, what I wanted to mention was the experiences that my wife, Annika, had when she told friends she was applying for a greencard to the US. Most of her friends responded with open disapproval. They couldn’t realise why someone like Annika would want to go to a place so backwards and with such a militant regime in power. Most all of the people who responded like that had never been to the US. Those who had been to the US where much more understanding of her decision.

A nice parallel when I hear people take this line is to ask them if they’d go to Italy (this was when Belesconi was in power). Most would answer positively and many admit that they had just recently been there. When you ask these same people if they thought Belesconi was more or less as bad as Bush, they’d mostly agree. There seems to be a double standard. Also with this logic the UK should be a no-go zone as well.

Another thing is that the US has a very large progressive community. Bush does not have the support of the majority of Americans. Nor does he or his regime give even a small picture of the US. It’s the diversity in the US that I longed for when in Europe. I believe you are only doing yourself a disservice when you cut yourself off from a full understanding of the US. For all its fucked-upness, I most admit it’s a very stimulating place.

To close I’ll quote, as well as I can remember, what an Iraqi who had asylum in Sweden said to me when I apologized to him for my countries bombing of his country. He said to me, “You know, it’s not about what those in power do. It’s us the people like you and me talking now. You have nothing to apologize for.” I still felt like I needed to apologize but what he said is exactly right. We can’t let the politics, no matter how fucked up, or lines drawn in sand separate what should rightfully be united: People. Polorization plays right into the hand of the neo-cons.

That said, if you want to refuse to come into the because of the finger-printing eye-scanning mumbo jumbo, I’m all with you.

I mentioned a few posts back that RyanAir also thinks the security measures at airports are a farce. Well, it also seems like they have a sense of humor about it. The following image can be found through this link.

The caption is “NEW AIRPORT SECURITY PROCEDURES, PUT FUN BACK INT0 FLYING”

UPDATE: Just noticed this was on Boing Boing.

Yesterday, Josh left after a short visit here in San Diego. He came over from Atlanta to do some interviews for design jobs. This was the first time we had seen each other for a couple years and also his first time on the west coast.

He arrived late on Tuesday after driving down from Redwood City, where he was visiting another friend, and interviewing for a job in LA. First thing we did was get a Little Caesar’s $5 cheese pizza and go to the park to eat and chat. The next day we went to Ocean Beach where we had to wait about 2 hours for the marine layer to break-up during which time we strolled along the main drag and eventually onto the longest pier on the west coast. Once the sky was clear, we discovered that the water in the Pacific is freakin’ cold this time of year. After forcing ourselves to get in, we quickly turned back. We had to be satisfied with just sunning ourselves on the beach.

For lunch we went to the best and one of the cheapest mexican places in town, Pokéz. This place is awesome for anyone but it gets plus points from vegetarians and vegans for thier great tofu and veggie options. I got a Chimichanga and josh got a Tofu Burrito. We ended up splitting them. After that we visited Waid and soon thereafter went to bed.

The next day Josh had an interview at a really snazzy design firm in Santa Monica so we got on the road at 7am so there would be no chance of him being late for his 12pm interview. While Josh was in the interview, I walked around The shopping area and ended up spending most of my time at Barnes and Nobles reading up about universities, majors and other school related stuff. Once we met up we headed to Venice Beach which turned out to be really cool. They have a very interesting bunch of street performers there. Unfortunately, when we where leaving Josh backed into a sign. But he has insurance for the rental car so it should be no problem; just a couple small scratches.

On Friday we were both a bit tired so we just hung out and surfed the net for half the day. For lunch we went to Pokéz again. It’s that good. We eventually decided to go see the Padres since we had nothing better to do. We walked to the park which takes about an hour from South Park. on the way Josh a six pack of beer that he wanted to take into the ball park. A couple weeks the folks at the gate had said nothing when I brought in a can of Root Beer so I though it’d be ok. Well, after buying our tickets, we went to the security checkpoint were the lady found the 6-pack and refused to allow the beer in. Josh was upset and said something like, “I just paid 30 fuckin’ dollars!” I took the beer and told here we’d drink a couple then come in. Of course, my intention was to go try our luck at another entrance. Well, the guy at securty checkpoint #2 was an old, probably, retired guy. He acting like he was checking the bag and let Josh through. We chuckled a little once we were through. We then chuckled alot when we found out that the free hand-out that night was a cup. So now, Josh had his beer and a cup to drink it with.

Surprisingly, Josh really liked the experience of the game. Our seats were in the upper deck on the right side. On that side you get a great view of downtown. To get Josh to go to the game I had to really stress that going to see baseball doesn’t have to be about the game. After the game he agreed. Actually we rarely watched the game. Just to the right of us there was a group of kids who were acting up. The two idiots of the group provided everyone with some laughs. For over half the game they had been play fighting and smoking. While “fighting” the two guys got entagled and ended up falling 2 rows into some empty seats. The guy that was sitting in front of them, who was already annoyed, just flipped out and started screaming. Once the guy as finished and turned back around the kids, along with most everyone else, all laughed under there breath. The two idiots decided to smoke another pair of cigarettes. The screaming man got out of his seat to look for security. At this point the group decided to leave the area and that was the end of that.

Other Josh’s obsessing over a small scratch on his rental car, I thought the visit went quite well. Now I’m here all alone again. But only 2 days till I restart my studies after 9 year break.