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| Well, it has been quite a while since I last updated this. I had some things I wanted to write about, but just never took the time to sit down and write about them. Maybe I will recap sometime later. But for now, last week was quite eventful, so I guess I will write about it.
The best way to describe last week is the word "crazy." First of all, I worked 52.5 hours to put me at +16 hours for the month (over full-time, 8 hours/day). And that was over 5 days and only working 5.5 hours on Friday. 52.5 hours on the clock translates to quite a bit more time away from home when you consider travel time, meals, and just general flux. The plus side is that I will get a slightly larger paycheck in a couple of days. I have been looking at getting another lens and this seems like a good excuse to go ahead and fork over the money for it  .
The reason for the long hours at work is that we were busy doing testing for one of our programs. One for which I am the main software developer. Oh, as well I had other responsibilities, like firmware developer and just general troubleshooting guy. The exact arrangement is somewhat complicated and I won't go into it here. Suffice it to say that I not only had to be concerned with developing our software, but with helping out everyone to get things setup and working. I am not complaining, really. Everything just added to the busyness and slight stress of everything.
We were running tests in the Flight Robotics Lab (FRL), a NASA facility out on the arsenal. I always enjoy going out there. NASA and space are a huge part of me and getting a chance to be involved with the space program is just an amazing thing for me. The program I am working on is an experiment called RNS (Relative Navigation Sensors) that will be done during Hubble Space Telescope (HST) Servicing Mission 4 (SM4). Basically, as the shuttle approaches (and the after it releases) the HST, our instruments will be looking at it using three cameras, attempting to determine the relative position and attitude (termed "pose") of HST. To test the hardware and our algorithms, we fastened a full-sized mockup of the aft bulkhead of HST to a 6-degree of freedom (6DoF) arm in the FRL facility and moved it around along some various expected trajectory paths. Check out the first three links here for some more info on SM4 and RNS. The first link is a forum post by one of the people I worked with over the week. Funny what you find with Google .
The FRL facility itself is very impressive. It consists of a flat floor and the 6DoF arm. The flat floor is a huge, umm, *very* flat floor. It is made of epoxy so it is perfectly flat. To walk on it, you must take your shoes off so as not to damage it. That part of the facility is use with an air sled (think of an air-hockey table, but instead the "puck" is blowing air, not the table) to provide 3 degrees of freedom. The 6DoF arm is a huge arm that can move in all 6 degrees of freedom (up-down, left-right, front-back, roll, pitch, and yaw). As I said, it was this 6DoF arm that we used in our testing. I will try to post some pictures later, so maybe that will help.
All-in-all, things went fairly well. We had a few hitches (a couple of them major) and stayed late a couple of nights (I got home about 11pm on Wednesday night), but we were able to gather a lot of data, which was one of the main objectives. Our algorithm (which involves the correlation technique I have mentioned before) did alright, but it was not stellar. But that is okay. This was our first major test and we will take what we can learn and improve things so that the next phase of testing will go better, and hopefully flight will be a resounding success. We shall see . As it is now, we have about 80 GB worth of data (video mostly) to process to see just what exactly happened.
To round the week off nicely, Mom and I went over to Florence to help Jana move apartments. So Friday evening (after the shorter work day), Saturday, and part of Sunday were spent moving everything from one apartment to the other and then arranging things in the new apartment. We got everything moved and Jana mostly settled in to her new place. While it was tiring, it was great to see Jana and it was a good weekend.
This week should not be as bad as last, though it will still be busy. I will be mostly working on another project (in a small company, you rarely ever do just one thing) as another person processes the 80 GB of imagery. I can't (and won't) complain, though. There is never a dull moment, and that is much better than the alternative.
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| Happy New Year, everyone! May the Lord bless each of you as we begin this new year. May He fill us more and more with His love and grace!
Thanks to all for the comments about my car. It is cool and I am enjoying it. I will eventually get around to writing another real post here. I have some topics in mind, I just have not taken the time to sit down and write.
Jonathan
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| Well, I have a bit of news. Yesterday I bought something. I agreed to buy it a couple weeks ago, but it had to come in first, and then I had to get back home (more on that later). I finally got to pick it up yesterday. What is it? Drum-roll please....
A new car! Okay, I've been trying to come up with a dramatic way of saying this, but was not terribly successful. Oh well. Well, it is a 2007 Toyota Yaris sedan. The Yaris was just introduced in the US in a "liftback" (Toyota's euphemism for a hatchback) and sedan version. The liftback is cool, but I opted for the sedan because it has four doors, making it more versatile. I got the Jade Sea Metallic color (a shade of green) which I really like. There are very few Yarii (plural form?) out on lots to see, so I had to pick the color from pictures on the Internet, most of which weren't that great (the pictures). On the inside, I got the power package, which includes most of the mainstream options like CD/radio, power door locks and windows, cruise control, etc., and additionally side and curtain airbags. I also got fog lamps since it seems any Yaris with the power package also has fog lamps. Okay, enough verbiage and time for the pictures!
 On display at the dealership waiting for me to pick it up. Yes, of course I took my camera to the dealership...
 Me and my new Yaris.
Front angle, at home in the driveway.
Rear angle. The styling is very close to the new Camry, just smaller.
The interior. Notice anything... different? 
Having fun with the camera. I have a few more pictures on my Flickr account in the Yaris set. I'll probably be adding more pictures there, so be sure to check it out. Jonathan | | |
| Thanks to everyone who commented on my last post. I apologize that it was so long and thus difficult to comment on. But many thanks again to those who read it and endeavored to comment on at least some aspects of it. For those who perhaps did not get a chance to comment, but would like to, please feel free to write comments on that post. I believe that Xanga should let me know if you do, so at least I will see it. Well, I just wanted to say thanks and put up another post of some kind. I'll try to get out a real post here sometime soon. Yay! Smileys are working now! Something was wrong when I wrote the last post and it wasn't working (hence the lack of them).
Jonathan
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| Okay, first of all, some explanation. I've thought about writing a post like this a couple of times. Recently, Pamela mentioned in a post that she and her parents were talking about whether, when the time comes, she would follow the dating or courtship path. Instead of commenting about it, I thought I'd write something here about it. This is going to be an interactive post: I'll present some of my thoughts, but mostly my questions. Hopefully, you will comment on what your views are on the questions. Also, I am going to approach this topic from a Christian perspective. I think most of the people who read my entries are Christians, but I'll make that clear here just in case someone else wanders on to here.
This has been somewhat of a hot topic during my adolescent years. The question was most posed in the form, "Should Christian young people date?" Some people argued against dating, and most notably Josh Harris' book "I Kissed Dating Goodbye" created a lot of stir on the topic. A few of my friends have chosen to pursue "courtship" rather than "dating" as an approach to relationships. I have not really studied the issue in detail, so many some of my conceptions are misguided. Perhaps this exercise will clear up any of those that I may have.
Let's start with a few basic questions. I want to clarify the focus of these questions after I present them. I'll number questions to make commenting easy. [1] What is "courtship"? [2] What is "dating"? [3] What are the major differences between "courtship" and "dating"?
The third question is mostly for clarification of the first two. I've heard some descriptions of what courtship entails, but I'm not sure I've heard a good definition for "dating". For answering these, I want to focus more on practice than theory. That is, imagine you are in a "more than friendship" relationship (this may take more imagining for some than others). [1-3] How are things going to go if you choose "courtship" or if you choose "dating" and how would things be different? (this question sums up questions 1-3)
I ask this to highlight a point. I've been putting "courtship" and "dating" in quotes (which I'll stop doing now, 'cause it's getting tiresome) to emphasize the same point: these words are both terms. Terms try to very succinctly classify something, in this case, a relationship is being classified or described. [4] But, can a term, a single word, adequately describe something as dynamic and complex as a human relationship? These are single words, but within their definitions, they describe something very detailed and complicated. There can be a couple of problems with terms: they can be overly simplistic or ill-defined, they can have different meanings to different people, and sometimes they can be inaccurate. Somewhat of a side note, interestingly enough, the great Wikipedia links both Courtship and Dating to the same article.
Again, I haven't studied the concept in detail, but to me it seems that courtship is reasonably well defined and the definition doesn't vary all that much. However, dating seems to be quite the opposite. Especially between Christian and non-Christian circles, dating may mean something very different. It seems like there is courtship and then there is everything else, which is called dating. [5] Does anyone else see it this way? It doesn't take a lot of TV watching to see that there are things that the world would include in dating that Christians are called to avoid. Thus not all dating is the same. We might make another distinction in types of dating: what we might call "casual dating" and "steady dating." "Steady dating" might be more what most people equate with dating: a couple who go on dates with each other exclusively and usually have a much deeper relationship. "Casual dating" would then imply a lack of exclusivity in a person's dating habits and that the relationships between the persons dating are more on a friendship level. Yet more ambiguity in the definition of dating.
It has seemed to me that courtship always involves a rather high level of commitment from the start. [6] Well, how do you get to the point of this level of commitment to begin with? Certainly two people should be friends before they decide to court, so there must be some interaction between them. [7] What does courtship say about the interactions of guys with girls during friendship? [7] How are you "allowed" to get to know someone, without courting them, if you court and don't date?
With this question comes the idea of a "date." [8] What exactly constitutes a date? We might say that a "dinner date" (where the couple goes to a restaurant for lunch or supper to eat and talk) is a fairly common form of a date. But, consider when two guys or two girls meet up to grab a meal together; certainly that is not considered a date. [9] Could a guy and a girl, then, agree to go eat a meal together as friends and it not be a date? What about the other extreme. [10] What should we call it when a couple who is courting goes and does something together? [10] Is that not a date, or something we could at least call a date? Again, this is another instance of terminology.
Of course, saying that courtship involves a high level of commitment does not imply that dating always involves little commitment. Certainly there is quite a bit of commitment in a steady dating relationship, in a couple saying that they will only date each other. Sure, some people approach dating with the idea that they can always get out of the relationship at any time. But I think we have already established that we, especially as Christians, should not incorporate in our idea of dating everything that is commonly associated with it.
I have said a lot here, and I think one of the main points I want to communicate is that human relationships (particularly guy-girl relationships) are complex and not easily categorized. [11] Why are we so quick to throw a term on a relationship and say that it has to fit inside the parameters dictated by that term or our perception of that term? You might have gotten the idea that I don't put a lot of stock in terms. I think what is more important is how a couple conducts the relationship, call it dating or courtship or whatever. [12] Why should a relationship not be defined by the two people involved through open communication between them? There are certain standards that I believe God has set in place for pre-marriage relationships, and these standards should be further reflected in the personal convictions that a person has toward relationships. [13] But why should these convictions have to fit a certain mold, like dating or courtship?
I am not sure how coherent all this has been. Many thoughts on this have gone through my head in thinking about and writing this, and getting them down has been somewhat a challenge. If you have made it this far, I would be very interested in your comments.
Jonathan
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