This is what my vision looks like 3-days post PRK. Yesterday it was 20/30 and sharp!
My PRK Experience: Surgery to Post-op Day Two
FIRST Team 3711 Robot Basketball Dunk
She would not let go of this thing!
I’ve spent the past few weekends mentoring a FIRST team at our local high school. FIRST is an international competition aimed at inspiring high school students to consider a career in science or engineering by exposing them to the engineering process from design to functional prototype. Every year the rules of the competition change with the common element being the use of an autonomous/teleoperated robot working cooperatively with other robots to achieve a goal. All FIRST teams are given the rules of the game in early January and are given only six weeks to design, build, program and ship their robot. This year the game is Logo Motion.
For a rookie team, I think we are well on our way to fielding a compeitive robot. We set a goal to have our robot dunk a basket at the final game of the season in order to demonstrate the arm and claw mechanism we designed. During the actual competition our robot’s arm will be used to manipulate and place the inner tubes to score points in the game. As you can see from the video we set and met our goal – Team 3711 for the win!
Siena Playing in Autumn Leaves
My wife snapped this photo with her cell phone. She was amazed that she had actually found dry fallen leaves in Oregon. Siena had a blast.
Welcome Home
Today I heard from my cousin that he is back in the States after serving a tour in Afghanistan. This is great news – and coincidentally, its Veterans Day!
Halloween 2010: Ducks, Airplanes and Baseball
My parents have been visiting for the past week from California, planning to head home in a few days. After our flight to Madras and other plans were derailed by weather, we tried to make the most of this sunny Sunday. We began by taking Siena to a local lake and letting her feed ducks and play in the fallen leaves. She had so much fun here that when it was time to leave she tried every stalling tactic in her book.
It was here that I realized that I could still take my parents flying, so we headed to the airport and spent the next hour viewing the valley from the air. The fall colors were incredibly vibrant and the angled sunlight made them pop like a perfectly exposed postcard. I took my Dad up over Lost Lake at the base of Mt. Hood and later took my Mom around the valley for a quick 20-minute loop. They both had a great time while Siena was safe on the ground walking the flight line and pointing out air traffic. After I landed the second time, I stepped down out of the airplane and Siena came running toward me shouting “Daddy flies airplanes!”.
After dropping my parents off at a local restaurant and bar (so they could watch the World Series), LRH and I took Siena trick-or-treating. She was dressed up as a little dragon this year and she spent the 15-minute entrance wait perfecting her roar. Our little nugget made off with plenty of candy for her second run! Later, we returned to the restaurant and joined my parents just in time to watch the SF Giants completely dismantle the Rangers… again. My Dad is (and always was) a die hard Giants fan and that rubbed off on me. I still cheer for them, which brings to light an interesting contradiction. This is the only time I will cheer for San Francisco against George Bush and Texas! LOL.
Scenic Flight to the Bonneville Dam
Earlier today I took the Cessna up for a solo scenic flight to Cascade Locks and the Bonneville Dam. I departed the airport and almost immediately encountered heavy crosswinds and thermals. The ride was bumpy until I reached my cruising altitude of 6500 feet. After that, it was smooth sailing on a beautiful day with perfect visibility. The sun was low (2 hours from sunset) so all of the valleys and terrain features were nicely lit with deep shadows. Cruising above the timberline while listening to Sabaton and taking in an amazing vista: life is good.
I snapped a few iPhone photos along the way:
Adventures in Mexican Food
So, I was adventurous and tried a new dish at our local Mexican restaurant. It was called a Mojarra Frita and was described as a fish recipe garnished with lettuce, tomato and pico de gallo. Sounds delicious, right? Well, maybe not…
Before the waitress could put the dish down on the table, Siena start exclaiming “fish, fish, fish!”. Yep, she recognized that her Daddy had, in fact, ordered a fish (quite literally). At least it wasn’t a total loss: the rice and beans were good.
Hawk in Winter Earned His Wings
It’s official, I’m a private pilot. Exactly one year from the day of my first flight, I took and passed my checkride. I arrived at the airfield at 8AM and proceeded to endure a seven hour test that I can only describe as brutal. The checkride consisted of an oral exam on the ground covering all areas of aviation knowledge and concluded with a few hours in the air including navigation and demonstrating maneuvers. After the ordeal I was exhausted, but pleased that I completed my goal.
My first passenger was my beautiful wife. For her birthday, we took a scenic flight around the local valleys and she captured some of it on her cell phone camera:
Here are some shots from my solo cross country flight to Madras, one of the requirements I had to complete to earn my private pilot certificate:
Flying is always exciting, especially when a huge forest fire has the next valley over ablaze and a TFR (temporary flight restriction) is placed directly above your home airport.
Exploring the Ape Cave on the Slopes of Mount St. Helens
For my wife’s birthday I took the day off work, arranged child care and gave her a choice between two adventures (both about 2 hours away). Her first option was a hike to Ramona Falls in the Mount Hood National Forest, a 7-mile forest stroll with an impressive waterfall. Her second option was a visit to the Ape Cave in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest near Mount St. Helens. She had been to Ramona Falls many years ago and the Ape Cave seemed more adventurous so her choice was simple.
Formation
Flow Ledges
The Ape Cave is a lava tube, a type of cave commonly found throughout the Pacific Northwest. Lava tubes result from flows of low-viscosity basaltic lava, called “pahoehoe” flows, which are drastically different than the explosive pyroclastic flow resulting from the Plinian eruption of Mt. Saint Helens in 1980. As the lava is expelled from the volcano, its surface hardens and forms a crust enclosing a conduit of smooth flowing lava. Eventually the conduit drains leaving a hollow tube and step marks on the walls, called flow ledges, denoting the depth of the flow. After the tube forms and drains, the ceiling of the tube may fracture and create rock-piles that cover the floor. This, along with natural erosion, eventually creates sinkholes and skylights allowing access to the tube.
Lavacicles
When most people think of caves, they envision limestone caverns created by water slowly acting on soluble limestone over thousands of years. Features such as flowstone, stalactites and columns are common to such caves and they are very non-linear with many unique rooms and chambers connected with crawlspaces. Many have active rivers running through them and hold underground lakes. Lava tubes are completely different. Their formation does not involve water and happens relatively quickly. They tend to be very linear, sloping down (with the lava flow) and retain a mostly uniform tube shape. Their features may include stalactites (called lavacicles), lava columns and even lava balls. The Ape Cave is one of the few known tubes to contain a lava ball, a large circular piece of hardened lava wedged between two flow ledges. Where limestone caves have waterfalls, lava tubes have lava falls that have since hardened, creating an abrupt drop-off to a lower section of the tube. Because they exist near the surface, lava tubes are damp and feature dripping water that moistens the cave walls nourishing a type of fungal and bacterial life called “cave slime”. [Read more…]