Sepcot.com Blog

Twitter Updates (16-28 February 2010)

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 18:24:58 +0000

Just ordered myself a @vholdr ContourHD 1080p camera (http://bit.ly/a8kICp). Should be a fun #skydiving season! 11:42 AM Feb 17th
My application is in to try and get on one of the SDC Rhythm XP 8 Way teams! http://rhythmskydiving.com #skydiving 04:14 PM Feb 18th
I really like the http://www.vancouver2010.com mobile site, but why does the Shedule & Results page have to default to tomorrow? #olympics 05:15 PM Feb 19th
Went to the Over Easy Café for breakfast. Applewood-bacon pancakes, eggs over-easy, and sausage links... mmmm 10:26 AM Feb 20th
Finished reading "The Zombie Survival Guide." Fun at first, then it becomes a little drab. I'm still interested in reading "World War Z." 07:38 PM Feb 20th
There is something therapeutic about reorganizing a bookshelf. http://yfrog.com/1elwqwj 10:11 AM Feb 22nd
Adding another web comic to my ever growing list: http://notinventedhe.re/ 04:40 PM Feb 22nd
Nice! Super Mario Galaxy 2 with a release date and trailer today: http://bit.ly/blWsO2 | http://bit.ly/cCvKD3 04:39 PM Feb 24th
iPhone headphones died yesterday. Any suggestions for a replacement? 08:43 AM Feb 26th
@andrewbloom I can't buy headphones without the mic and remote... I've become dependent. 09:22 AM Feb 26th
Trying out the V-Moda Vibe Duo headphones... already missing the volume button on the remote. 02:44 PM Feb 26th
Heading out to the Chicago Improv tonight with some friends. 07:11 PM Feb 26th
Danny Bhoy and Nathan Timmel were really good at the Chicago Improv last night. 05:01 PM Feb 27th
Watching the Karate Kid marathon on ABC family. I don't remember these plots at all. 12:08 PM Feb 28th
Just saw Cop Out, the new film from @ThatKevinSmith, good laughs, lots of fun. 08:10 PM Feb 28th

Twitter Updates (1-15 February 2010)

Sat, 20 Feb 2010 03:07:27 +0000

Just submitted my Application for Graduation! 10:55 AM Feb 1st
@ Northwestern Memorial Hospital w/my wife. She had a few ovarian cysts rupture, so they are going to watch her throughout the night... 07:04 PM Feb 3rd
Steph's back at home with a handful of perscriptions to help deal with the pain. Just a waiting game now until the body repairs itself. 07:14 PM Feb 4th
@andrewbloom Happy Birthday! 08:42 PM Feb 5th
mmm... Cupcakes from A Taste of Heaven for dessert :-) 08:49 PM Feb 5th
Just finished reading "Coders at Work." Good read. The book contains some really interesting conversations with programmers. 11:00 PM Feb 5th
Not really liking the new Rob Zombie songs... I don't think I'm going to pick up the new album. 12:13 PM Feb 6th
I love Hawaiian burgers: beef, cheese, bacon, pineapple, and barbeque sause on a seasme seed bun. A great combination. 08:27 PM Feb 6th
After the Deadline (@AtDdev) looks like a nice spelling/grammar checking tool. I think I'll write a Ruby port of the library to try it out. 02:01 PM Feb 7th
Pathology report on the lump they removed from my forehead: lipoma, nothing to worry about. 04:56 PM Feb 9th
Time to dig out my car and head up to MN for the @MobileOrchard iPhone workshop tomorrow. 04:58 PM Feb 9th
@club_is_open sorry to dissapoint ;-) 05:00 PM Feb 9th
Made it to MN just fine. Light traffic and clear roads. Time to get what little sleep I can. 01:18 AM Feb 10th
Lito's Empanadas for lunch - deep fried goodness. 03:33 PM Feb 13th

Twitter Updates (16-31 January 2010)

Sat, 20 Feb 2010 03:06:28 +0000

Finally saw Avatar, I think it actually lived up to the hype. Really good movie. Good use of 3D as well. 06:04 PM Jan 16th
Planet Earth Extremes seems to be the original series recut with Mike Rowe narrating. Not that there is anything wrong with that. 09:48 PM Jan 17th
Looking forward to watching Life in March. I would prefer hearing Attenborough narrate over Oprah, but the DVDs should set that straight. 10:07 PM Jan 17th
Watching "Throwdown with Bobby Flay" and I really want to try a liège wafel now. http://www.wafelsanddinges.com 08:16 PM Jan 20th
Office party for Viewpoints last night at English was a lot of fun. 11:32 AM Jan 23rd
Couple's night out w/ my cousin & his wife. We went to see "The Book of Eli." Never really captured my interest, spend your money elsewhere. 11:16 PM Jan 23rd
Catching up on Fringe... A suggestion to Fox for playing episodes out of order: when somebody dies, they shouldn't be in any more episodes. 01:37 PM Jan 24th
Been playing w/ Selenium 2 and RMagick for a school project on User Acceptance Testing. I might try out ChunkyPNG as an RMagick alternative. 06:02 PM Jan 25th
After six years, I finally got the bump on my head removed. Now I have stitches and a headache, but no bump :-) 07:38 PM Jan 26th
The swelling in my forehead seems to be going down, literally, it has shifted down around my eye. 06:52 AM Jan 29th
Swelling significantly reduced. Just a little puffy under my eye. Should be back to normal, albeit with stitches, soon. 12:39 PM Jan 30th
About to sit down and watch the last two episodes of Weeds S2. We started watching the DVDs a couple years ago, time to get back into it. 06:33 PM Jan 31st

After the Deadline - Ruby Wrapper

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 20:05:31 +0000

For school this semester, I am exploring the static analysis of web sites as a means of user acceptance testing. In the world of web development, all of your hard work and time invested in a project means nothing if your users have a poor experience. When it comes to testing a web site, acceptance testing gets the least amount of attention and actually can cause the most amount of damage. There are a number of tools available to aid in the writing and executing unit, functional, and integration tests, but the burden lies on individuals over tools when it comes to proofreading content and examining the structure and appearance of a web site.

In one part of this project, I am looking at the content of a web page and want to feed the text through some sort of spell checker. I started working with Aspell at first, but I was a little disappointed with the built-in dictionary and capabilities of the service. Instead, I decided to work with After the Deadline. After the Deadline is a cool new spelling, style, and grammar checker that uses artificial intelligence and natural language processing to detect errors in your text. AtD is an open source service that has an easy to use web interface and is gaining a lot of exposure through its TinyMCE, WordPress, and Firefox extensions.

For my project, I have written a little Ruby wrapper on top of the web service to make it easier to work with. The source code is available at: http://github.com/msepcot/after_the_deadline. I plan on creating some helper methods to integrate AtD with Ruby's testing framework, so watch my GitHub repository for future updates.

Twitter Updates (1-15 January 2010)

Sun, 17 Jan 2010 23:45:46 +0000

Twitter updates for January 1-15, 2010. This gets me caught up to current (on a bi-monthly schedule). Let's hope I can find time to script this before the next update is due!

Just finished watching the first season of Dexter... Wow. Looking forward to catching up with the series. 2:41 AM Jan 2nd
Temperature when we leave Arizona: 70F Temperature when we land in Chicago: 11F 1:56 PM Jan 3rd
Stopped to swab down our rigs, but went quickly through airport security. Our first trip carrying our gear went smoothly. 2:34 PM Jan 3rd
Wow, caught a train and bus immediately. Chicago must be paying me back for the 60 degree temperature drop. 8:36 PM Jan 3rd
Missed out on SparkFun's Free Day - their servers were slammed, I should have prebuilt my cart :( $100K worth of product gone in 1h 44m 50s 12:05 PM Jan 7th
Nice! Free movie rental from @redbox tonight. Went with "State of Play." 8:14 PM Jan 7th
Just uploaded my backflying videos from SkyVenture Arizona: http://www.sepcot.com/blog/2010/01/first-trip-wind-tunnel (30m over 4 videos) 10:23 PM Jan 7th
Looking for examples of websites with layout bugs... If you know of any send some links my way! #JavaScript #CSS #HTML #bugs 4:05 PM Jan 9th
Just finished reading "Speaker for the Dead." If you haven't picked up the Ender's series, I highly recommend doing so. #books 11:28 AM Jan 10th
Really considering going to the next @MobileOrchard workshop http://bit.ly/8DMV9K 9:23 PM Jan 14th
This mornings @xkcd mouseover reference has put me in the mood to watch HACKERS :-) http://xkcd.com/689 9:09 AM Jan 15th
Nickelback tickets secured. With GA tickets at $85 a piece, I can't go to as many big shows as I used to... #music #concert 10:33 AM Jan 15th

Twitter Updates (December 2009)

Sun, 17 Jan 2010 23:33:15 +0000

I finally hopped on the bandwagon and joined Twitter last month. You can follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/sepcot or you can watch here for weekly or bi-monthly updates going forward (when I get around to scripting it).

Anyway, here are my tweets from December 2009:

Picking up Steph at O'Hare, then off to the Skydive Chicago formal Christmas party. 4:03 PM Dec 5th, 2009
I've got a matrix keypad attached to an Arduino. Now time to get the Arduino to communicate keypresses via XBee to another board. 11:11 AM Dec 6th, 2009
Just picked up a copy of The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks. Now, only a take-home final stands in the way of me dusting off my NDS. 6:28 PM Dec 8th, 2009
heh, I have the TMNT OST on my iPhone and it always puts a smile on my face when 'Turtle Power' or 'This Is What We Do' turn up on shuffle. 6:59 PM Dec 8th, 2009
After an 8 hour marathon to finish my 5 question take-home final, my brain can now rest. Take that Wireless Networking - I'm done with you! 7:03 PM Dec 9th, 2009
Currently 2F w/22mph winds (-20F). They don't make appropriate indoor/outdoor clothes for this. Freezing commute, but boiling at work. 7:39 AM Dec 10th, 2009
Just booked an hour of tunnel time for me and Steph at SkyVenture Arizona on New Year's Eve. :-) 7:32 PM Dec 10th, 2009
@kevbo iTunes has a free Holiday Sampler for your Christmas collection: http://bit.ly/5zzAfQ 9:53 AM Dec 12th, 2009
Sitting at California Pizza Kitchen, taking a break from Xmas shopping. Woodfield mall is exhausting. 3:30 PM Dec 12th, 2009
Christmas Light Hero, made by a former Disney Imagineer, simply amazing. http://bit.ly/4WEhVO 7:53 PM Dec 12th, 2009
Had lunch at The Counter. Custom burgers were pretty good, but the fries were more impressive (50/50 regular and parmesan) 5:01 PM Dec 13th, 2009
Played some Spirit Tracks on the bus today. The game makes us of the DS mic a lot, so the ambient noise makes playing a bit more difficult. 5:50 PM Dec 13th, 2009
Even with the fall semester complete, there is still not enough time in the day to do the things I want... 10:00 PM Dec 15th, 2009
Nice! Now I feel confident jumping with my camera ;-) http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic/845602 10:53 AM Dec 16th, 2009
Nintendo, the DS is a portable system. I can't always shout into the mic. Why does Zelda rely on that functionality to continue the story? 6:21 PM Dec 16th, 2009
RT @hawkster Iron Man 2 trailer is out! http://tinyurl.com/2nmhb3 8:01 PM Dec 16th, 2009
mmm... Tapas Las Ramblas for dinner tonight. 6:14 PM Dec 17th, 2009
I love Celebrity Jeopardy, I can actually answer quite a few questions... or is that question quite a few answers? 8:17 PM Dec 17th, 2009
Off to Kentucky to spend a Christmas weekend with relatives. 11:31 AM Dec 18th, 2009
Baby back ribs at Logan's Roadhouse were disapointing - dry and flavorless. 8:40 PM Dec 18th, 2009
Wow, data over EDGE sucks... I have a new appreciation for 3G now. 3:18 PM Dec 19th, 2009
#Books added to my collection this weekend: Dilbert 2.0, Heat Wave, and Xenocide. Also got It's Always Sunny season 4 on DVD. 9:48 AM Dec 20th, 2009
Back from Kentucky. A few days of work, then off to Minnesota for Christmas. 6:14 PM Dec 20th, 2009
We got a new board game for Christmas: @SortItOutGame. It was a lot of fun, but programmer in me kept thinking about an iPhone port :-) 7:00 AM Dec 22nd, 2009
Perfect snowball weather outside. @leonc Can we cancel work for a company snowball fight? 8:49 AM Dec 22nd, 2009
Made it as far as Tomah last night with only one spinout! 6 hours to complete the first 2/3rds of the trip... time to get on the road again. 8:30 AM Dec 24th, 2009
Made it to Minnesota in one piece. Not that the weather didn't try to take us out on the way... stupid winter. 12:13 PM Dec 24th, 2009
Merry Xmas! Remember to secure the perimeter and stay indoors, Robot Santa's coming to town. #futurama 8:51 AM Dec 25th, 2009
Got home safe from Minnesota, a days rest, then it's off to Arizona for the New Year. 6:43 PM Dec 27th, 2009
CO detector has 3 indicators: battery, service, alarm. 3 chirps while flashing alarm, what does this mean? Time to buy a new alarm. #fail 11:32 PM Dec 27th, 2009
Nice night out on the town: Sherlock Holmes and dinner in the city. 7:57 PM Dec 28th, 2009
Gah! I need to get to bed, got a 5am cab ride to O'Hare in the morning. 60s and sunny weather await in Arizona :-) 10:07 PM Dec 28th, 2009
Woo-hoo! Made it through airport security with my parachute without a problem. Skydiving on Thursday :-) 6:02 AM Dec 29th, 2009
En route to Skydive Arizona. First some tunnel time, then some skydiving. 9:35 AM Dec 31st, 2009
The wind tunnel at Skyventure Arizona is amazing. I could easily spend all of my time (and money) there. Jon Walker was a great coach. 5:58 PM Dec 31st, 2009

2009 Reading List

Mon, 11 Jan 2010 02:59:39 +0000

A little over a year ago, I started using the "Reading List by Amazon" application inside LinkedIn to track the books I read. I may have forgotten to add a book or two, but here is the list of books I read and logged last year:

Magnificent Failure: Free Fall from the Edge of Space by Craig Ryan
Anathem by Neal Stephenson
The Bancroft Strategy by Robert Ludlum
Under the Black Flag: The Romance and the Reality of Life Among the Pirates by David Cordingly
Fool: A Novel by Christopher Moore
The Diamond Age: Or, a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer by Neal Stephenson
The Pixar Touch by David A. Price
The Merchants' War: Book Four of the Merchant Princes by Charles Stross
The Secret Life of Houdini: The Making of America's First Superhero by William Kalush, Larry Sloman
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
The Parachute And Its Pilot: The Ultimate Guide For The Ram-Air Aviator by Brian Germain
Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex by Mary Roach
Wireless by Charles Stross
The Cobweb by Neal Stephenson, J. Frederick George
The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown
The Passionate Programmer: Creating a Remarkable Career in Software Development by Chad Fowler
Deja Dead: 10th Anniversary Edition (Temperance Brennan Novels) by Kathy Reichs
Pirate Latitudes: A Novel by Michael Crichton

I have already finished one book this year, with two other started, a stack of 12 waiting to be read, and a few Borders gift cards waiting to be spent. This should be a good year for reading :-)

First Trip to a Wind Tunnel

Fri, 01 Jan 2010 00:45:15 +0000

Steph and I split an hour in the SkyVenture Arizona wind tunnel this afternoon. It was amazing - a ton of fun. We took turns learning how to backfly properly with coaching from Jon Walker. He is a great coach who knows when to step in and when to let you work things out for yourself.

We also made our first skydive away from Skydive Chicago, closing the year out with 105 total jumps for me, and 79 for Steph.

More details of our trips coming when we get home :-)

Backflying at SkyVenture Arizona (Michael)

30 minutes in the tunnel, broken down into 4 videos:

Backflying at SkyVenture Arizona (Stephanie)

Another 30 minutes in the tunnel, broken down into 4 videos:

Thanksgiving in D.C.

Mon, 30 Nov 2009 23:47:49 +0000

We just got back from spending the Thanksgiving holiday in Washington, D.C. The twelve hour drive across five states went by surprisingly quickly. I've come to discover that there are only a small number of distinct landscapes in this country when traveling by highway. Driving into the nations capital was like driving into any other major city I've been to. The main reason behind our trip was to spend time with my sister and see our new nephew! Trey wasn't coming home from the hospital until Friday evening, so we were able to get some sightseeing in on Thursday and Friday.

Most of Thursday was spent re-learning board games from our childhood. It is fun to watch my niece grow up and be able to teach me the rules to Uno, Chutes and Ladders, and Pirate-opoly (and watch how creative she is in trying to cheat at said games). In the evening we walked around Georgetown. It being Thanksgiving, most of the stores were closed, but we did enjoy some Häagen-Daz ice cream and walked around the Old Stone House. The night ended with a large feast that provided enough leftovers for the weekend and beyond.

We got an earlier start on Friday, taking the metro to downtown D.C. Our first stop was the National Air and Space Museum. I could have easily spent an entire day walking around the museum taking in all the information they had to offer, but our time was limited. We then proceeded down towards the Washington Monument, where wind gusts over 50 miles per hour were threatening to make little children into flying projectiles. The freak wind/rain storm lasted only a short while. By the time we were passing the World War II memorial the storm was winding down. The Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool was completely drained, so the ambiance of the walk between the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial was taken down a notch. After a visit to the Lincoln Memorial, we proceeded to the White House, making stops at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and the Memorial to the 56 Signers of the Declaration of Independence. The view of the White House from Pennsylvania Avenue is quite restrictive; from street level, you can only see the North Portico. Leaving the White House behind, we traveled to the International Spy Museum. The gift shop alone convinced me to purchase tickets for the self-guided tour of the museum. Upon entering, you are asked to memorize details about a cover identity. You are tested on your recall shortly after and at the end of the tour. Needless to say, both Stephanie and I were recommended for further duty. The exhibits in the Spy Museum kept on coming. There were training videos and computer programs throughout to increase your skills as a spy; spy gear throughout the ages, cryptography information, famous celebrity spies, a fully tricked out Aston Martin DB5 from the James Bond series, and much more.

The rest of the trip was spent relaxing with the family, playing board games, and getting to know our new nephew! Some pictures from our trip are up on my Flickr account in the Washington, D.C. set (note: most pictures are from the National Air and Space Museum; unfortunately, the International Spy Museum didn't allow photography).

Stephanie and I have a busy month ahead of us with trips to Texas, Kentucky, Minnesota, and Arizona planned before the year ends.

Cartoonists in Conversation

Fri, 06 Nov 2009 22:44:58 +0000

Last night, Stephanie and I caught Matt Groening and Lynda Barry give a talk at the Chicago Humanities Festival. For only lasting and hour, they sure packed in a lot of laughs. I managed to record most of the segment, Important Questions About Monsters, on my iPhone for your viewing pleasure:

Arduino - Morse Code

Sun, 01 Nov 2009 01:20:31 +0000

In my Sensor Network class, we are playing with Arduino boards and ZigBee chips to create a network of devices that communicate with each other to accomplish a common goal. We got our hardware a little while ago, and were told to test the equipment to make sure it was in working order. The demo program that comes with the Arduino board flashes the on-board light on and off in one second intervals. So, if you had a board that you can make a light flash what would you do with it? My first thought was to flash "SOS" in Morse Code, repeatedly! Cool, I worked. Now, what? Well, the Arduino connects to your computer via a USB cable that you can communicate with the board. Why not allow someone to enter any message they like and have the Arduino flash that message in Morse Code. I get a chance to make a more in-depth program, look a little deeper into the Arduino spec, and have some fun sending weird messages along the way.

I have my Arduino sample code up on my GitHub account. I'm going to be adding to it as we work on projects throughout the class, so keep checking back for updates.

Twenty-Six

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 12:56:20 +0000

Another year has passed me by. This time last year, I had just come back from helping my parents move to Arizona and I was beginning the 'A' License in a Week course at Skydive Chicago. I had just 11 jumps under my belt coming into this day a year ago, today I have 87. Some highlights from the last 12 months:

Stephanie and I are both licensed skydivers holding a B-License rating
I have started graduate school to get my Masters of Computer Science
My sister and her family have moved out to Washington, D.C.
My parents have begun work on their new house in Arizona
I am working for myself as an Independent Contractor and have my own company
My little cousins are not so little anymore, with two graduating and one entering high school this past year
Friends of ours have gotten married and a few more couples we know have gotten engaged

And this next year is shaping up to be even busier than last!

Rails: Logging to STDOUT

Thu, 20 Aug 2009 21:27:08 +0000

Every now and then I'm in a situation where I want to see what SQL calls ActiveRecord is making without tailing the log file or jumping back and forth between a console and text editor. Recently, I've been working on crafting custom reports that query over rather large sets of data, so logging to the console is a little overkill, but looking at color entities in a text editor is rather distracting. Most solutions give you a nice method to switch to any IO stream, but none for switching back to the default logger. The method I use allows one to switch between the Rails default logger and STDOUT and gives the option to turn colorization on and off. In ~/.irbrc add the following lines:


if ENV.include?('RAILS_ENV')

  def stdout_logging(colorize = true)

    ActiveRecord::Base.logger = Logger.new(STDOUT)

    ActiveRecord::Base.clear_active_connections!

    ActiveRecord::Base.colorize_logging = colorize

    return nil

  end


  def rails_logging(colorize = true)

    ActiveRecord::Base.logger = RAILS_DEFAULT_LOGGER

    ActiveRecord::Base.clear_active_connections!

    ActiveRecord::Base.colorize_logging = colorize

    return nil

  end

end

Grad School Fall 2009

Tue, 18 Aug 2009 01:19:32 +0000

I'm halfway done with grad school with a 4.0 still going strong. The Fall 2009 semester starts on Monday and here is what I'm taking:

CS542 Computer Networks I Fundamentals
CS547 Wireless Networking
CS590 Advanced Software Analysis
CS595 Sensor Networks

After this semester, I still need to take one last course that will count towards my Software Engineering specialization in order to graduate. The problem is I took two of the six listed courses as an undergrad and cannot count those courses towards my masters. So I need to wait for one of the last two courses to be offered, or most likely take one as an independent study course. One cool thing about this upcoming semester is that it looks like I will be able to continue developing the Brookfield Zoo iPhone application through a Federal Work Study grant, so now I have something constructive to do during the four hour break between classes on Monday and Wednesday. And I think I'm going to be playing around with Arduino boards in my Sensor Networks class, which should be fun :-)

iPhone 3GS

Thu, 30 Jul 2009 21:57:57 +0000

After working all summer on an iPhone application for the Brookfield Zoo as a part of my Wireless Applications at the Zoo class at IIT, my AT&T contract was finally eligible for an upgrade. So, I upgraded. After a couple weeks with the iPhone, I'm completely satisfied with my purchase. Google Maps integration has been helpful on a few occasions to find out where places are and how to get around traffic jams. I'm actually starting to use the calendar, although, one complaint I have with it is that the dates entered into the contacts list (birthdays/anniversaries/etc) don't show up in the calendar. And I have a few fun time wasting games at my disposal.

I've had a few ideas for my own iPhone applications, so keep looking here for future announcements once I find time to start working on something =)

Skydiving and Summerfest 2009

Wed, 29 Jul 2009 16:21:43 +0000

Summerfest is in full swing over at Skydive Chicago, unfortunately, Stephanie and I have to work this week. We were there this past weekend, taking part in our first boogie, and hopefully we will get to go back next weekend as Summerfest wraps up. Some highlights of the weekend include: watching the 100-way relative work formations, jumping out of a Skyvan, and spinning like crazy on a 3-way hybrid jump with Matt hanging below the 2-way round Steph and I built. For those who can make it out to Ottawa tonight, they are doing a UFO jump followed up with fireworks, and if it is anything like last years show, it will be well worth your time to make it out there.

In other skydiving news, my sitflying is coming along, once I started focusing more on using my arms (rather than my legs) to stabilize myself in the air, I started holding the sit for longer. Stephanie and I are both proud owners of our very own rigs! Now it's just a matter of practice before we are able to pack our own gear. We have a tandem group setup for August 22nd, if anyone wants to join us and make a skydive, drop me an email and I'll get you the details.

One Hundred Push Ups Challenge

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 22:01:32 +0000

Stephanie and I are trying to get through the hundred push ups training program. We just started, so I'm posting this as a motivator. In about 6 weeks from now, we both hope to be able to complete the challenge and do 100 consecutive push ups. Just for fun, I'm going to log our daily progress and keep track of how many push ups we do over the challenge.

Week 1 Day 1	Michael	Sets: 6, 6, 4, 4, 7	Total: 27
Week 1 Day 1	Stephanie	Sets: 2, 3, 2, 2, 8	Total: 17
Week 1 Day 2	Michael	Sets: 6, 8, 6, 6, 9	Total: 35
Week 1 Day 2	Stephanie	Sets: 3, 4, 2, 3, 10	Total: 22
Day 2.5	Stephanie	Sets: 6, 8, 6	Total: 20
Week 1 Day 3	Michael	Sets: 8, 10, 7, 7, 10	Total: 42
Week 1 Day 3	Stephanie	Sets: 8, 10, 7, 7, 10	Total: 42
Week 2 Day 1	Michael	Sets: 9, 11, 8, 8, 11	Total: 47
Week 2 Day 1	Stephanie	Sets: 9, 11, 8, 8, 11	Total: 47
Week 2 Day 2	Michael	Sets: 10, 12, 9, 9, 13	Total: 53
Week 2 Day 2	Stephanie	Sets: 10, 12, 9, 9, 14	Total: 54
Week 2 Day 3	Michael	Sets: 12, 13, 10, 10, 15	Total: 60
Week 2 Day 3	Stephanie	Sets: 12, 13, 10, 10, 16	Total: 61
Week 2	Michael	Exhaustion Test	Total: 29
Week 2	Stephanie	Exhaustion Test	Total: 21
Week 3 Day 1	Michael	Sets: 14, 18, 14, 14, 20	Total: 80
Week 3 Day 1	Stephanie	Sets: 12, 17, 13, 13, 17	Total: 72
Week 3 Day 2	Michael	Sets: 20, 25, 15, 15, 28	Total: 103
Week 3 Day 2	Stephanie	Sets: 14, 19, 14, 14, 22	Total: 83
Week 3 Day 3	Michael	Sets: 22, 30, 20, 20, 30	Total: 122
Week 3 Day 3	Stephanie	Sets: 16, 21, 15, 15, 25	Total: 92
Week 4 Day 1	Michael	Sets: 21, 25, 21, 21, 32	Total: 120
Week 4 Day 1	Stephanie	Sets: 18, 22, 16, 16, 27	Total: 99
Week 4 Day 2	Michael	Sets: 25, 29, 25, 25, 36	Total: 140
Week 4 Day 2	Stephanie	Sets: 20, 25, 20, 20, 28	Total: 113
Week 4 Day 3	Michael	Sets: 29, 33, 29, 29, 46	Total: 166
Week 4 Day 3	Stephanie	Sets: 23, 28, 23, 23, 33	Total: 130
Week 4	Michael	Exhaustion Test	Total: 50
Week 4	Stephanie	Exhaustion Test	Total: 37
Week 5 Day 1	Michael	Sets: 36, 40, 30, 24, 43	Total: 173
Week 5 Day 1	Stephanie	Sets: 28, 35, 25, 22, 35	Total: 156
Week 5 Day 2	Michael	Sets: 19, 19, 22, 23, 18, 18, 22, 45	Total: 186
Week 5 Day 2	Stephanie	Sets: 18, 18, 20, 20, 14, 15, 16, 41	Total: 162
Week 5 Day 3	Michael	Sets: 20, 20, 24, 24, 20, 20, 22, 50	Total: 200
Week 5 Day 3	Stephanie	Sets: 18, 18, 20, 20, 17, 17, 20, 45	Total: 175
Week 5	Michael	Exhaustion Test	Total: 63
Week 5	Stephanie	Exhaustion Test	Total: 53
Week 6 Day 1	Michael	Sets: 45, 55, 35, 30, 55	Total: 220
Week 6 Day 1	Stephanie	Sets: 40, 50, 25, 25, 50	Total: 190
Week 6 Day 2	Michael	Sets: 22, 22, 30, 30, 24, 24, 18, 18, 58	Total: 246
Week 6 Day 2	Stephanie	Sets: 20, 20, 23, 23, 20, 20, 18, 18, 53	Total: 215
Week 6 Day 3	Michael	Sets: 26, 26, 33, 33, 26, 26, 22, 22, 60	Total: 274
Week 6 Day 3	Stephanie	Sets: 22, 22, 30, 30, 25, 25, 18, 18, 55	Total: 245
Week 6	Michael	Exhaustion Test	Total: 70
Week 6	Stephanie	Exhaustion Test	Total: 60
Week 7 Day 1	Michael	Sets: 45, 55, 35, 30, 55	Total: 220
Week 7 Day 1	Stephanie	Sets: 45, 55, 35, 30, 55	Total: 220
Week 7 Day 2	Michael	Sets: 22, 22, 30, 30, 24, 24, 18, 18, 58	Total: 246
Week 7 Day 2	Stephanie	Sets: -- Sick --	Total:
Week 7 Day 3	Michael	Sets: 26, 26, 33, 33, 26, 26, 22, 22, 70	Total: 284
Week 7 Day 3	Stephanie	Sets: -- Sick --	Total:
Week 8 Day 1	Michael	Sets: 45, 55, 35, 30, 65	Total: 230
Week 8 Day 1	Stephanie	Sets: 45, 55, 35, 30, 62	Total: 227
Week 8 Day 2	Michael	Sets: 22, 22, 30, 30, 24, 24, 18, 18, 80	Total: 266
Week 8 Day 2	Stephanie	Sets: 22, 22, 30, 30, 24, 24, 18, 18, 64	Total: 250
Week 8 Day 3	Michael	Sets: 26, 26, 33, 33, 26, 26, 22, 22, 70	Total: 284
Week 8 Day 3	Stephanie	Sets: -- Sick --	Total:
Challenge	Michael	Push Ups: 105	Total: 4153
Challenge	Stephanie	Push Ups:	Total: 2818

After a weekend of skydiving, Stephanie and I weren't able to make the 100 push-ups at the end of week 6, so we will repeat week 6 and try again until we get there.

Woo-hoo! It took a little longer than the 6 weeks, but I was able to complete the challenge with 105 consecutive pushups! Steph has been sick and sore lately, and will take a week or so off before getting back into the program.

Stephanie's Skydive Chicago AFP-in-a-Week Video

Mon, 29 Jun 2009 17:29:47 +0000

After playing with iMovie HD and iDVD over the past weekend, I was able to convert Stephanie's AFP videos into something suitable for the web.

Skydive Chicago AFP Part 1/2

Video footage from Stephanie's AFP (Advanced Freefall Program) in a Week course at Skydive Chicago.

Skydive Chicago AFP Part 2/2

The conclusion of Stephanie's AFP (Advanced Freefall Program) in a Week course at Skydive Chicago. NOTE: Looks like Warner Music Group doesn't like the use of Disturbed's Rise as background music, so the video has no audio until I can get around to changing it.

A Skydiving Family

Tue, 09 Jun 2009 22:59:57 +0000

Woo-hoo! Stephanie has completed the Advanced Freefall Program at Skydive Chicago and just received her A License in the mail! This looks to be a summer full of jumps with family and friends :-)

While Stephanie was busy going through the training necessary for her A License, I have been preparing for my B License exam. I went through water training a couple of weeks ago, a requirement for the B License, which involved jumping into a cold pond to practice getting out of your gear in a controlled environment. It was about 60 outside when I did this. Brrr. Other requirements for the B License include totaling at least 50 jumps and a minimum of 30 minutes of freefall time, and passing a written exam. As of today, I have met all the requirements and I am now waiting anxiously for my Class B License in the mail!

In further skydiving news, I am hopefully only about a week away from owning my own rig! More info on that to come shortly :-)

Blue Skies

Grad School Spring 2009 Wrap-Up

Thu, 21 May 2009 14:48:04 +0000

Well, looks like I somehow managed to get straight A's in my first semester of graduate school. Some tips for people taking the courses I was in:

CS525 Advanced Database Organization: start projects early and study the lecture slides for the tests
CS536 Science of Programming: know the difference between semantic and syntactic, study the homework problems for the test, and I would recommend against taking the night class (there is a lot of information that I found difficult to pay attention to over a three hour class)
CS549 Cryptology and Network Security: Google and Wikipedia are your friends, the lecture notes are pretty sparse for figuring out homework problems, this class is more about theory than application
CS586 Software System Architecture: attend the lectures and take notes

Up next, the summer semester with: CS542 Computer Networks I Fundamentals and CS595 Wireless Device Apps at Zoo.