Summer 2007

So it's root, root, root for the home team...

July 18, 2007

they won so it isn't a shame... Gabriela and I ran some errands after class today and then made it to the Charlotte Knights baseball game in the middle of the sixth inning. Luck for us, the game went 12 innings, so we still got our money's worth . The Knights pulled out a final [...]

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Riding the human air puck

July 18, 2007

Today we rode the "Human Air Puck." You sit on a piece of plywood with a vacuum in your hands. The vacuum blows air through a hole under the plywood, and you float along. You can see a video of me riding it here. Caution: It's a big file (2 MB). I'm not sure the [...]

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It's too late to write much...

July 17, 2007

I've been getting up on east coast time, but going to sleep on west coast time. This only leaves a few hours of sleep. Today I got back from the workshop and took a two hour nap. Then, it was off grocery shopping with my dorm neighbor Gabriela, and a quick stop at the coffee/bagel [...]

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Another day off, another park

July 15, 2007

Today I ventured east to Crowders Mountain State Park, about 40 miles away. I got a later start on the day, so I didn't get there until about 2:30. Right when I got there and ready to hike up to King's Pinnacle, a thunderstorm rolled in. I waited in the car for a while, trying [...]

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A day off, a forest, and a hike with Carrie

July 14, 2007

Well, it's late and I'm whooped, so I'm not going to write much now. I'll probably add more tomorrow while I'd doing laundry. Today Carrie and I met "half way" in the Uwharrie National Forest. Carrie's living in Carrboro (the "Berkeley of NC" Carrie says), and telecommuting to her job. She's working in Human Relations [...]

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--smmmmokinnnn-- or "we're not in CA anymore, Toto"

July 12, 2007

It's amazing how used to non-smoking environments I am. Today I had dinner at a burger joint with a bar in it, and folks were smoking all over the place. At the bar, at the tables inside, at the tables on the enclosed balcony. Yuck. I guess we're moving the country a little bit at [...]

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Cruising with cruise control

July 11, 2007

Today I got cruise control installed in my car. This will be about the only automatic thing on the car since the windows, door locks, and transmission are manual. But I'm not gonna drive across the country without it Tomorrow I get new tires installed...

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Another day, another whiteboard

July 10, 2007

Today we did a lab where we examined the variables in the swinging of a pendulum. We changed the length of the string, the mass of the pendulum, and the angle it was released from. We recorded the period (time) for each trial. I won't spoil it and give you the results, so you can [...]

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So what is "Physics Modeling" anyway

July 9, 2007

The bulk of my trip this summer is being spent in a training in the Modeling Instruction in Physics technique. The term Modeling comes from the perspective that physics is a set of models of the physical world. These models can be mathematic (equations), diagrams, and literal. More details from their web site: The Modeling [...]

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Taxi rides and lost drivers

July 8, 2007

Last Friday I took a cab from the Wilmington airport to the car dealership to pick up my car. As the meter kept climbing over $20, I started to worry about how far this place really was (I hadn't thought it was that far). We finally got on the road that dealership is on, and [...]

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