Rhubarb's Journal

Updatery on life in general

Fri, 12 Jun 2009 14:34:35 GMT

Despite losing my job, I'm actually quite happy with life right now. I met a girl named Mary and that is looking like it is going to be a long term relationship. I joined a roller derby team as a ref which is lots of fun. C-Ville is a great place to live.

Job

Mon, 08 Jun 2009 23:14:02 GMT

After close to 3.5 years, I'm done with Perrone Robotics.

Europe - Part 4 (Munich)

Wed, 14 Jan 2009 23:28:35 GMT

Europe 2008 - Munich

Europe - Part 3 (Berlin)

Wed, 14 Jan 2009 23:11:22 GMT

Europe - 2008: Berlin

Europe - Part 2 (Paris)

Tue, 30 Dec 2008 19:46:38 GMT

Europe 2008 - Paris

Europe - Part 1 (Brussels)

Fri, 26 Dec 2008 03:44:29 GMT

Here are some Europe pics... A couple from NY and then a bunch from Brussels - mainly Mini Europe (a park with a bunch of miniture buildings that are all popular places in Europe).

NY+Brussels

I figured I'd upload them in batches as I sort through them.

Sat, 13 Dec 2008 16:35:39 GMT

Happy b-day linus52

Oh yeah, btw I'm in Europe...

Sun, 30 Nov 2008 22:07:08 GMT

I'm half way through the 2 week trip! Brussels, Paris, Berlin, Munich, Fussen (Germany), and Rome are all done. I'm currently in a hotel in Rome, leaving tomorrow. Up next, Pisa, Marseille (Southern France), Barcelona, and Madrid.

I'm having fun and took TONS of pics... will sift through them and post along with more details after I get back to the states.

Halloween Party

Sun, 19 Oct 2008 19:59:01 GMT

If anyone is looking for something to do on Halloween and is going to be in the Charlottesville area, I am helping plan a party at the IX Building (a cool creapy building) that should be pretty fun. We got Mass Sabbath (they do Black Sabbath songs and only play once a year - always on Halloween), derby dames, a local DJ (DJ Dalivah), there will be a silent auction, and a some other stuff. There are a limited number of tickets, which are only $15, so you may want to buy tickets sooner than later. You can get tickets through me. We're expecting somewhere between 400 and 500 people to show up. If you need a place to crash for the night, you can do so at my place.

http://www.charlottesvillederbydames.com/masquerade-brawl/

For all you motor heads out there...

Wed, 01 Oct 2008 14:56:47 GMT

Neil Young and his team has started to do video updates of the Lincvolt project (which we are helping out with here at Perrone Robotics). Check out the "State of Linc Volt" videos if you're interested in hearing what he is doing - it's interesting even though he doesn't go into too much detail.

http://www.lincvolt.com/
The video update links are near the top, under the first picture.

CLAW

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 22:11:15 GMT

Derby dames know of all the best events in town! The Charlottesville Ladies Arm Wrestling group puts on a competition once a month as a fundraiser for a charity that changes every month. I helped out with security at the last event and will be helping again in future competitions. It's a lot of fun to watch. You can even bribe the ref to make a call one way or another.

The longer, less vague, but not as cool sounding version of what happened that night

Sun, 28 Sep 2008 16:25:12 GMT

I was at a friend’s house for dinner and we were all relaxing afterwards. They happen to have a pitbull (the bitch) that makes noises like Chewie from Star Wars. I was sitting on the ground petting the dog along with another friend. We were both making Chewie noises because that’s how you get the dog to make the noise too. They had done this lots of times in the past and I had done it one other time when I was there. For whatever reason, the dog didn’t like me doing that this time or I did something else wrong and she just decided to jump at my face. The bite almost went all the way through my lip despite it looking like a small cut. That side of the lip is all black and blue now, but it doesn’t really hurt that much anymore. The chipped teeth look a little funny, but whatever. Stuff happens. I’m not mad at the dog or the owners or anything, but they decided to send the dog to “anger management classes” since she growls at a lot of people and will snip at people’s feet, but this is the first time that she injured anyone.

The funny explaination of what happened last night

Fri, 26 Sep 2008 21:31:49 GMT

So there I was minding my own business, sipping on my scotch, making Chewie growling sounds, when some bitch comes up to me and bites me in the lip. She almost made it all the way through and she also managed to chip my front two teeth in the process. I'll have pics up eventually.

Wow

Tue, 09 Sep 2008 02:34:40 GMT

Harun Kolcak vs Weird Al??

Sun, 07 Sep 2008 12:40:23 GMT

Derby is going good. I got to be a ref for my first bout (game) yesterday. I wasn’t making any calls - I was doing scorekeeping. This is good since I’m still learning when to make certain calls and all the hand signals. Also it wasn’t a full game, it was an expo bout as a sort of fundraiser / community service which took off all the pressure of the whole first time thing. It was a lot of fun.

The team is considering putting me in charge of one of the committees already in addition to being a ref, which is a lot like a coach for practices. They want me to head the financial side of things, which would let me sit in on and have a voice in their management meetings. Derby teams are owned and ran by the players and they have to keep a certain percentage of their top people as players (ie women) so having a position that is essentially equal to the vp is a big thing for them since they can only have so many men that are that involved. Refs don’t count as players. It would be the highest I could go up the chain. I’m pretty sure I’ll do it, I just want to make sure I have the time to devote to it before I run (probably unopposed) for the position.

Chimera wire

Sat, 06 Sep 2008 16:58:28 GMT

I was looking through my bin-o-wires today looking for a power cord when I cam across a dongle that looked a little odd to me. On one end the wire Y-ed out into two plugs - the first being a yellow video cable for composite video, the other a round power plug that you might plug into a pair of cheap speakers or other relatively small device. The other end of the cable is a ps/2 end. At first I thought it was s-video, but upon trying to plug it in I discovered the true identity. It even has a picture of a mouse on it so you know which ps/2 port to use...

Not only do I not know what this goes to, but I have no clue how it even works.

Sun, 17 Aug 2008 18:19:07 GMT

This (body parts made out of bread) would be cool for Halloween.

Fri, 08 Aug 2008 02:28:01 GMT

Stolen from Linus...

Answer these questions using only song titles from one artist

1.) Are you male or female?
My Bologna

2.) Describe yourself:
White and Nerdy

3.) Describe your day?
Weasel Stomping Day / One of those days

4.) Describe where you currently live:
It’s all about the Pentiums / Hardware store

5.) If you could go anywhere, where would you go:
Alburquerque

6.) Your best friend is:
Gandhi II / Addicted to Spuds

7.) Your favorite color is:
Yoda / Velvet Elvis

8.) You know that:
I was only kidding

9.) What's the weather like?:
This is the life / Twister

10.) If your life was a television show, what would it be called?:
I think I’m a clone now / Gump

11.) What is life to you?:
Six words long
(Count the 11 as one of the words)

12.) What is the best advice you have to give?:
Everything you know is wrong / gotta boogie

13.) Describe your ex?:
She drives like crazy / Cavity Search

14.) Your current love interest is?:
Livin’ in the fridge

15.) What's your favorite hobby?
Couch potato

16.) When you think of your friends you think?:
She never told me she was a mime / Toothless people

17.) What do your friends think of you?:
Such a groovy guy

18.) What does your current love interest think of you?:
Close but no cigar

19.) What do you want to be when you grow up?:
King of Suede

20.) The best way to end a long day?:
Cable TV / Stuck in a closet with Vanna White

Lincvolt

Tue, 22 Jul 2008 17:22:13 GMT

It doesn’t feel weird to be on TV, but it feels a little weird coding late at night while watching tv and then randomly having Neil Young appear on The Tonight Show and start talking about the project you are working on at that moment.

Discovery Channel - Robocars

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 05:20:24 GMT

We are SO the redneck comic relief of the show, complete with our own theme music and everything. It's great! I thought they did a good job of keeping it interesting without going into too much technical detail. I can’t wait to see what they do for the next five episodes. I had a good amount of screen time, but no shots of the mustache yet. I had a beard up until the semifinals, so that should crop up in future episodes - probably around episode 3.

Sun, 06 Jul 2008 14:29:10 GMT

Some of these Chimaeras are pretty good.

Soccer (not in the Clark)

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 00:07:48 GMT

I just finished playing an awesome game of soccer. The other team was WAY better than us and by the end of the half it was 7-1 (them). Shortly into the second half, our goalie bends over backwards and hurts his back. He got off the field slowly and was fine by the end of the game, but I told him I would sub in for him as goalie. Later I was told about the conversation that some of my team had on the bench as the game started back up:

Girl 1: Has Dave even played goal before?
*Great shot by the other team
*Great save by me
Girl 2: Yeah, I’d say he has played once or twice before.

I had A LOT of great saves, but our team was tired and had pretty much given up near the end so there were a lot of 5 on 2 situations. If we were playing indoor soccer, I might have been able to protect the goal in those situations, but with a full sized goal and me not having played in probably 5 years (Linus, has it been that long since I stopped playing goalie?) I was a little rusty. In any case, I had a blast! I think the final score was 14-1. Next game I’ll probably go back to playing defense or mid field. They seem to just toss me in wherever they need someone.

Wed, 02 Jul 2008 11:58:50 GMT

At someone's wedding... An entire buffalo. That's one way to feed the people.

Robot quiz

Sun, 22 Jun 2008 12:56:18 GMT

This guy at work has a shirt with a bunch of well known robots on it. We can get most of them, but a few have us stumped... care to help out? The main one that has been bugging us has been the little round guy in the bottom left. This page has most of the answers, but we don't agree with what was said about the robot in question. We remember that robot as a cartoon, possibly from Adult Swim, but could be from some other cartoon. Does anyone recognize him?

Discovery Channel update

Thu, 12 Jun 2008 14:17:59 GMT

From Discovery....may be subject to change...

The first episode of "RoboCar" will be airing on July 14th at 10pm and then the subsequent episodes will be airing every week at the same time after that. There are 6 episodes in total, the first four are a chronological play-by-play of the teams getting ready and competing in the urban challenge, the fifth episode is a two-hour summary of the first four episodes and the sixth episode focuses on futurisitic car technology and also has excerpts from the urban challenge cut into it.

I have no clue what episode(s) our team will be in, nor do I know if I will be on tv at all, but it should be worth seeing in anycase.