News and Views From my kids accomplishments, to my heretical perspective of the world

January 23, 2012

Taiwan and Thailand

Filed under: Family Updates — Daryl @ 8:41 pm

We’re going on a trip.

Wednesday morning Gisele and I leave for Taiwan where we will spend a week (and part of the Chinese New Year holiday) with Devon.

Then we go to Thailand for a week, where Gisele’s nephew is getting married. The wedding is on the resort island of Phuket, but we will also visit the famous city of Chiang Mai, and spend a couple of days in Bangkok.

Finally we go back to Taiwan for another week with Devon before returning to the states.

Derek unfortunately has classes and is not able to travel with us this time. He and Apollo will have to keep each other company.

January 13, 2012

Devon the Demon Slayer

Filed under: Family Updates — Daryl @ 10:34 am

Devon was the main actor in a commercial for a new video game. The commercial was just filmed yesterday and won’t be published for a couple of months, but here’s a picture of him in costume.

Devon the Demon Slayer

I didn’t recognize him at first. He said it was just about the most fun he has ever had. He was flying in a harness, and there was lots of green screen work that will be filled in later with CGI.

The game is “Maple Story”, by the way.

January 9, 2012

Cryptography Contest

Filed under: Computers, Tech & Science — Daryl @ 3:59 pm

Derek’s university, ASU, held a campus wide Cryptography contest, where the students competed to solve a series of ciphers, or codes.

40 students entered, and Derek and a partner took First Prize.

You can see a brief note on it here. Look for “Crypto Rally Recap” a couple of items down.

I have fun solving the simple substitution ciphers in the newspaper, but these were significantly more complicated challenges. I’m afraid he’s out of my league now.

Solar Update

Filed under: Computers, Tech & Science,Family Updates — Daryl @ 11:30 am

Here’s a graph showing the energy I’ve used since installing the solar panels two and a half weeks ago. The blue is energy I have bought from SRP, and the red is energy the solar panels have generated.

You can roughly infer the weather from looking at the graph. The sky has been clear except for some high thin clouds on January 3rd. The solar energy is down a little that day. And the total energy used each day has fallen as the temperature has gone up, until yesterday when it was cooler.

Cumulatively, I’ve bought 412 kWh from SRP, and generated 580, or about 61% of my total consumed energy. There are cooler days forecast, so that ratio is probably going to come down.

Graph

(Right click the graph and select “View Image” for a larger version.)

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