With minimal damage too! Two of our side fence panels popped off, one on each side. Both have already been repaired. Several sections of the back fence didn’t fare as well. I’ll have to replace some posts to fix that.

The only other casualty was the gate. I’ll have to build a new one and I’ll probably replace the posts while I’m at it.

Other than that, it’s just some minor cleanup from all the small branches blown off the tree and shingles that came from my neighbor’s roof.

Time to unboard windows and set up the generator!

Hey, @Brickman, how are things down there?

Well, Hurricane Ida looks like it's going to be a wild ride. They are saying that we haven't been hit by a storm this intense since 1850. Katrina - you remember Katrina, right? - was a category 2 storm. Ida is predicted to be a Cat 4 by landfall tomorrow. That's sustained winds of 130+ mph.

So, we did the right thing and covered our windows and secured any/all items that can be blown around.

I originally cut these panels back in 2008, when Gustav paid us a visit during our first year in Louisiana. This is the third time I've put them up. The thing that's crazy is that we are the only people in the neighborhood to board up. Seriously. I took a drive to see for myself. I found exactly one other house a 1/4 mile away with the windows boarded up and one other house with real shutters that were closed.

I'm not sure what these people are thinking.

What I do know for sure is that there will be flooding. We went through a major flood back in 2016 which was caused by about 17.5" of rain across the Amite river catchment.
Sorry for the legend - this is the 2-day estimate and the area in white is the 10-15" rainfall range. There was one more day, but I didn't find a map for it.

Ida is predicted to drop 10-20" of rain in the same area.

There's been a lot of discussion about where to park cars that will remain dry. The general consensus is to park in the new neighborhoods. What they don't realize is that the houses have been built up to avoid flooding, but the streets have not. In fact, many of the streets are designed specifically to act as a detention facility during extreme events - holding water so the neighborhood doesn't just dump all that water on their neighbors. Here's what my neighborhood looked like in 2016 the day after the peak:
My advice to them is to avoid parking in the streets if possible, especially in the new neighborhoods.

Well, if you've made it this far, you realize things are about to get really windy and really wet in South Louisiana. Keep us in mind and we'll try to keep everyone updated.

Yes, I got my WRX back! As to why the body shop parked it in their handicap spot, I don't know. There was a corvette parked in the adjacent handicap spot. They probably don't enforce it. Someday, that choice will get them in trouble.

They had to take off the bumper as part of their other repairs and I asked them for an estimate repair the chips on the bumper and hood. I knew it would save me a little in labor since the insurance was going to cover removal and reinstallation of the bumper anyway. We came to an agreement to have both painted. Unfortunately, someone didn't think through everything and they didn't paint the inserts, so they're a slightly different shade of silver. Very annoying.

I think this is an opportunity to upgrade to fog lights or get contrasting color pieces. Maybe I'll try dipping the existing ones black. This is what they would look like:

It's something to think about. I will have to wait until I get some of my money back from Enterprise.

[Update] Yeah, I'm sticking an update right in the middle of the post since that's where it belongs in the story. It's about the scan. The body shop eventually gave up and drove it over to Subaru. They replaced the battery and hooked up their scan tool. Everything was fine. No codes. Why? The only guess they had was that the battery was causing issues. Whether that was the real problem or not, they didn't charge for the scan. The body shop guy drove it back and it was fine.

Everything wasn't perfect. On the last night I had my rental, I was hit while I was going through a roundabout. It was night and the great-grandfather who hit me said he couldn't see me. He just came on into the roundabout while I was there. His left front hit my right rear. The damage wasn't too bad, but it's going to need a repaint.

Here's the damage to his truck:

I learned something about how the companies handle the claim. If it's a third-party at fault, Enterprise will still file a claim against the renter's insurance and they expect that the renter's insurance will subrogate that claim against the third party. It sucks because it meant I had to shell out my $500 deductible in order to return the rental car. Now I have to wait a few weeks to get reimbursed on my claim.

I'm not letting it bring me down. I have my car!

Howdy, Oppo. It's been a while. My apologies, it's been a hell of a summer and things aren't slowing down anytime soon. So here's the quick update.

In late spring we responded to several RFPs for seeking a firm to manage grant programs. Well, we caught three of them. For those not familiar with the process, there's a rolling cycle to these things. Every couple of months, a grant program opens and everyone typically has 60-90 days to complete an application. The new Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) threw a bucket of gas on the process. There are over 380 programs in that law, some old, some new. Now everyone is scrambling to get their pot of gold before the gold runs out. The application process isn't just filling out a few forms. We are in competition with all of the other applicants, so we have to prove that our project is more worthy than the next guy's. Our last successful application was one of 30 selected in a pool of 900 applications.

Now we are running three programs for clients. And with success begetting success, we caught other contracts for our road, water resources, and bridge teams, so the people who were helping me with the analysis and writing are all now busy on design work. Our office is outgrowing our space, but our new office won't be ready until next year. We threw out our flat filing cabinets and put in temporary tables to get space for six new hires and our office leader is giving up his office so we can put tables in that space so we have a place for six more. Yeah, it's getting crazy around here.

On top of that, COVID ran rampant through our household this summer. In July, it hit my wife and son. My son recovered pretty quickly. My wife had a few rough days then felt better, but we kept her quarantined until she tested negative - 11 days in total. I managed to avoid it that time, but in August we had a big client meeting where someone brought COVID to share. Like my wife, I had three rough days, but then I was quarantined for 12. I did my best to keep working from home for the duration. Unfortunately, the timing was particularly bad since both of my kids were leaving for college. My wife ended up helping both of the kids move while I was stuck at home. The biggest problem is how it's affected my sleep. I went from sleeping 4-6 hours a night to now needing 6 to 8 and I find that I get tired easily. It's eating into my time to get stuff done.

In other news, I declined an opportunity to teach this fall. The university wanted to keep an active connection so I'd be available to teach in the spring. They offered an opportunity to do some climate modeling and I couldn't pass it up. There's a lot of geospatial analysis involved, so it's right up my alley. The primary researcher wants to be able to ask questions like "how many days per year has the temperature exceeded 100°F, has that changed over time, and how is that likely to change in the future?" The answers to questions like this have implications in many fields. For example, processes that are temperature-sensitive (like severe storms or hurricanes) will change in frequency, severity, and extent as the climate changes. We can also look at the expected spread of invasive species like fire ants and pythons because both are sensitive to low temperatures.

I have three big tasks: build the models to query the dataset; reconfigure the server cluster (9 servers!) with the appropriate software to automate as much of the process as possible; and build the tools to make it easy for the research team to pose the questions. The data is high enough resolution to require some serious processing power. I'm testing on a high-end desktop and it takes about 30 hours to get the answer to one question and generate the associated maps. I haven't built out the tools to create all the charts & graphs and run the statistics. That's my task for the fall. At least the maps it's spitting out right now look really cool.

On top of all that, I decided to take on a project. Since my son has taken his truck to college, it's time to get my old truck running again. We don't have anything to pull the utility trailer, so I have no way of moving any bulk materials. The truck has been parked for quite a while so it needs some work to get running again. Step one is cleaning out the fuel tank and replacing the fuel pump. I thought I'd be able to drop the tank, but my truck has the larger tank and it won't come out without unbolting the rear suspension and sliding the rear axle back about a foot to make room to slide the tank back so it clears a crossmember that's trapping the front of the tank between it and the cab. After struggling with it for a weekend, I finally decided to just remove the bed and get to it from the top. New pump is in hand and a new filler neck too. Now I just need a dry weekend so I can finish. I thought Labor Day weekend was going to be it, but the weather said, "dry days this weekend? Sure, you get just one."

With that, I have to sign off again for a while. I have stuff due back to other people this morning and now I'm behind schedule. I miss my Oppo friends and the time I used to spend chatting with everyone! Perhaps things will slow down later this fall and I will be able to get back to posting. I'll check on this post over the weekend. Until then, I really need to sign off again for a while. Take care everyone!

I always admired one of my professors for his ability to straddle the line between the academic and professional worlds. He held a full professorship but also worked as a consultant. I've always wanted to do something similar and made progress in that direction by doing guest lectures in both academic and professional settings. Guest lectures have now become paid lectures as I have officially accepted an offer as an adjunct professor!

The hard part here is going to be keeping myself from getting sucked into the academic world too deeply, especially since they aren't paying me for responsibilities beyond teaching a single course per semester. The other professors are already asking me to collaborate on several research projects and advise a couple of graduate students. Sorry, fellas, extra responsibilities cost extra. Let's not forget that I have a day job!

The class will be held in the early evening, twice a week. I'm already gathering materials and planning the curriculum. I'll have to maintain office hours, so I expect that I'll have to make myself available a third evening every week. This spring should be busy!

Share in my joy, Oppo!

For those who are interested. I plan to update it as interesting things happen. I'm hoping @Brickman can drop in with his perspectives. That is, if he still has power.

7:30PM - Rocky insists on going outside, presumably to do his business. After making the rounds of the yard, he decides that the downed tree branches are gifts from the gods which should be brought inside. New stick selection is problematic because all of the branches are just too big. He proceeds to lie down so he can chew his way through a branch and make it a more reasonable size. That’s when I insisted he abandon his quest and come inside for a very thorough toweling. Awful photo taken in near-dark conditions.

7:00PM - Still here! The winds are getting stronger and we can hear the load shifting in the rafters of our roof. Our neighbors have some tall trees that are taking a beating. The trunk of our pecan is actually swaying in the wind. That’s a first. At least the winds are out of the north since we’re on the west side of the storm. If the pecan falls, it will be away from the house.

It’s moving about 10mph, so they’re saying it may take four or five hours to get past us. Definitely the most intense storm I’ve experienced!

4:15PM - Ad now the power is out. I'm making my last post from my laptop. Here on out will be my phone as long as the big battery lasts. We'll probably fire up the generator tomorrow morning to get the refrigerator cooled down, charge up phones, etc. and get the window a/c unit installed and cooling. Right now, the house is freezing cold and the alarm is alerting me that the power is out. Now to remember how to disable that alert....

The eye may be going east of us. I just don't know.

1:00PM - We are starting to see power glitches at our house and that prompted me to check the map. We live on the south side of Baton Rouge. We still have power, but areas nearby have gone dark.
Frankly, I'm surprised to see that parts of New Orleans still have power. I'm guessing it won't be long before we lose power here.

The skies are cloudy and rain has been spotty, but sunshine keeps peeking through the gaps. It looks like we'll be getting some heavy rain pretty soon.
owlt

I'm working my way through some training to keep my GIS Professional certification. The training is on image analysis. I figured most of it would be learning the same old stuff in the latest version of the software and that's the way the course went until a couple of days ago. Now we're working on a module which shows how the latest photogrammetric processing is being used to build 3D models. This stuff is just too cool not to share.

Let's start with the basics. A drone was flown over a construction site and was used to capture "nadir" imagery (that's looking straight down). The images had significant overlap so that photogrammetric techniques could be used for calculations. Three control points were established within the area. That's three easily-identifiable points where the lat, long, and elevation are surveyed. When the data is brought back into GIS, it looks like this:
The orange line is the flightline, the blue dots are the points where images were taken, and the green crosses are the control points.

That's a good start, but after some processing, a 3D mesh can be generated from the images. The meshes contain millions of points. To display them, they must be filtered. It's hard and takes an unreasonable amount of time to display the full dataset.

The points are being displayed with "cool-warm" symbology - lower elevations are blue and higher elevations are red. It's easy to see the rooftops of the houses. It's also easy to see that the general slope of the site is higher in the southwest (lower-left) and lower in the northeast (upper-right).

From the point cloud, the software can generate a surface. This lets us see a lot more detail without having to zoom into the point cloud.

Note that we can see the forms for the concrete pads which will be poured soon.

After the surface model is built, the software can be used to remove the buildings. If you've ever seen one of those shows where they use LiDAR to see through the trees and expose the ground beneath, this is the same math but the source data is different. Anyway, here's the ground.

And now for the really cool part. All of this data can be used to create a fully interactive 3D scene.

Keep in mind that all of the images were taken from directly above, so the sides of the buildings weren't captured directly. If we wanted that additional detail, the drone would have been set to make a second flight with the camera pointed at a 30° angle so it could take pictures of all four sides of the houses. Now for the really, really cool part. We can interact with the mesh and take measurements like the height from the ground to the roof.

Or get the area of a driveway.

Or see what the shadows are like on September 18th, 2021 at 9:00am.

In the map, we can bring in whatever background we want to provide context. Here's the model sitting in the middle of the most recent aerial imagery.

It's hard to emphasize how incredible this is. Processing the images took about 45 minutes and the bulk of that was me reading through the instructions. Let me run through it a few times to get familiar and I could get that down to 20 minutes, including computer processing time. The drone flight was pre-programmed in the office (the training materials included video on the setup and image capture process), so capturing the images was a matter of setting up the drone at the site, turning it on, and pressing the button to start the flight.

Making the data capture and processing this easy creates an opportunity to watch things change over a shorter period of time. In the example they provided, a project manager can watch the progress of a site weekly with little cost. Of course, this could be applied to just about any industry from construction to environmental monitoring. It's amazing.

So, if you made it this far, I have a really, really, really cool treat for you. The viewer is available through a public website. Point your browser to here and have some fun.

Welcome to the future.

Early last week, my daughter informed me that the oil light came on in her car. I tell her to stop driving it (she was at home) and check the oil. As expected, it's below the minimum. We need to do an oil change anyway, so I tell her that I'll stop and get her some oil on my way home. But she and her mom had some errands to run, so they take the truck and on their way home, stop and buy supplies. When they get home, my daughter takes the initiative and tops off the oil so she has use of her car until we can do the oil change.

Saturday finally rolls around and I'm itching to get the oil change done but the ladies need to run more errands. On Saturday afternoon, they finally get home and inform me that the Outback isn't running right. My daughter tells me it hasn't been running right since she added oil.

Oh, no.

At this point I'm wonder where things might have gone wrong. Did she put the oil in the wrong spot? Wouldn't the oil light have stayed on if she had? Did she run it too long with the oil light on and burn up something? Inquiring fathers want to know!

So, I did the only thing I could and went outside to check the oil myself. I discovered that she added oil into the right place, but she added too much oil and it was over full.

To the uninformed, this may have seemed like No Big Deal (TM), but I'm here to inform you that it is a Really Big Deal (TM). The dealer adding too much oil is exactly how I ended up with a new engine in my WRX. When the oil level is too high, the crankshaft gleefully splashes around in what was once a shower but has become a kiddie pool.
The splashing turns the oil into foam, much like whisking oil and egg together to make mayonnaise. The poor little oil pump can't move air, so it stops delivering oil to those critical moving parts. They overheat and start disintegrating. Next thing you hear is a whole lot of tapping coming from your once pristine engine.

So, I do the right thing and call my daughter outside to take a look for herself. I tell her to check the oil and tell me what she sees. She recognized her mistake immediately. I ask her to go get the jug of oil so we can see how much she added. Two and a half quarts. Whoops.

Now we don't have enough oil to do the oil change. We also discover that she bought two different weights, one 5-quart jug of 0w-20 and two one quart containers of 5w-30. Cue another conversation about getting the right oil and she is completely confused. I'm telling her to buy one weight, "the car" is telling her to buy another. We discover that someone switched the oil cap for the one off a 2.5L which specifies 0w-20, not the correct weight of 5w-30. Thanks Subaru techs. You screwed it up again.

So, we take a trip to the Zone of Autos and buy some more. I show her again how to look up all of the part numbers and quantities and we get our supplies.

The next morning, we went about changing the oil. It's an oil change. Nothing new here. The only thing we did differently was have a conversation about knowing how much the car holds, how much oil it may retain, and how to sneak up on the right oil level.

On the post-oil change test drive, the engine was back to normal. Crisis averted. All is well once again. Now to address the rattle coming from the back....

Privacy is becoming a thing of the past and we, by the choices we make, are just giving it away. This little rant was prompted by the suggestion of a "face reveal" on our site this morning. Revealing your name and face on any website, including our beloved Oppo, should be something only done with thought and consideration and a good understanding of the ramifications.

With few exceptions, the internet is powered by advertising. The more information the marketers can capture about you, the more valuable your profile. Your profile is sold to people who are trying to get you to buy their product. If you don't think you have a profile, you should know that there are companies working really hard to create a profile on you, whether you want them to or not, whether you use their service or not. These are called shadow profiles.

Every piece of information they can grab about you can be used to inform the shadow profile. Websites you visit, things you purchase, personal information like name and age and income and where you live, all can be used to better understand who you are and what you might purchase.

It may seem silly to try to hide from all this "helpful" advertising, but there are good reasons for doing it. For one, anything that connects you to something that may be unseemly can and will be used against you. Whether that's to sell you some goods or connect you to an attempted insurrection, you can be sure that your information will be used.

You might notice a little company called Clearview AI mentioned in that article. This company has been scraping photographs off of the web and using it to identify people and their associates. This is quite literally a database of faces. Think that it has nothing to do with you? Well, if your face has been uploaded to the web, then Clearview has your image, even if you are in the background of someone else's photo. Speaking of being in the background - if you are in the same photo, then your face is associated with the other people in that photo and there's a connection made, whether you know those people or not.

The same is true for other forms of identification, including your license plate. Yeah, yeah, it's illegal to identify a person via their license plate. The fact is that the information is available, people have access to it, and the government certainly has access to it.

So, if you post your face or your license plate on Oppo, then it's likely that your information will be connected with this site and everyone else who is a known associate of this site, for better or for worse.

After class yesterday, two of my colleagues and I went to have a beer and talk about some business. I don't drink very often, but when I do, I prefer something dark. So I ordered "the darkest beer you have on tap." I had no idea what I was getting myself into. Someone should have warned me. Someone should have at least shown me the label.

When she brought out our beer, the waitress made a joke about the perfection of our selection. One fellow had a blonde IPA. The next had something the same chestnut color as a nice leather interior. The stuff they brought me was the color of used motor oil. It had a thick head which had to be swept out of the way to get a taste. It was smooth and rich with enough heft to make me think it could be a fair replacement for a meal. I wish I had taken a photo but since I didn't, I shall shamelessly steal one from the internet so you can understand what I'm rambling on about.

It was so good, I wanted another. Someone should have told me to stop. I didn't need another. Really, I wasn't in a position to handle one. You see, this stuff isn't your typical grocery store fodder. In some states, you can only get it in the liquor store. If I had asked for a bottle instead of something from the tap, I would have had some warning. It wasn't until later I found out that the tall one they poured for me was 10.5% ABV. It was mid-way through the second glass that I figured out that something was a bit... off.

Everyone had after-beer activities to attend, so we went our separate ways after finishing the second beer. I had already planned on some down time before trying to head home. I just didn't know how long that would be. After I realized that I was in trouble, I called my wife to let her know I was going to be later than expected. Perhaps a lot later.

I decided that a nice walk around campus would do me some good. When I realized that walking a straight line was becoming difficult, I redirected my walk to a clear destination - the food court. Had I been at a real restaurant, I would have overstayed my welcome by a good margin. The orange chicken I had for dinner was ok, but I really wished it were a buffet so I could go back for something else. More than anything, I really just needed the time.

It took several hours for me to sober up so I could drive home. I spent most of it just walking. It's a good thing there were plenty of students out and about. I was just another harried student trying to get to my evening class.

Next time we go for a beer, I'll get another Outer Darkness. But I'll treat it with a bit more respect and plan for a ride home.

@bison78 said in Today I learned something about MAFs:

@BicycleBuck said in Today I learned something about MAFs:

@bison78 said in Today I learned something about MAFs:

@BicycleBuck

My first job out of college was working on a MAF concept. The idea was to use the deflection of ions in a corona discharge to measure mass air flow. It required 20-30kV in the MAF and I got plenty of shocks from working on the transformer design

The variety of people's backgrounds on Oppo is sometimes shocking.

I was working at Lucas at the time.

Did you secure a lifetime supply of replacement smoke?

@bison78 said in Today I learned something about MAFs:

@BicycleBuck

My first job out of college was working on a MAF concept. The idea was to use the deflection of ions in a corona discharge to measure mass air flow. It required 20-30kV in the MAF and I got plenty of shocks from working on the transformer design

The variety of people's backgrounds on Oppo is sometimes shocking.

@Demon-Xanth

Doesn't that only count if you started with a two-headed chicken?

@Green-Truck

Yeah, my green truck. After driving it for 18 years, it sat for 7 years before I brought it back to life.

Now I get that weird feeling every time switch between it and my car (the car is mostly staying at home for my wife to use). The clutches are different. The steering is different. The seats, the shifters, the HORSEPOWER.... Yeah, it's strange but familiar every time I switch.

@Demon-Xanth

Is that the equivalent of the chicken that was still alive after having its head cut off?

@AkioOhtori

If you don't care about safety or legality, 12-gallon plastic marine tanks are about $100. Just strap one down in the trunk, attach an external fuel pump and call it good.

@Huzer

As someone who knows nothing about hockey, this reference is lost on me.

@Qaaaaa said in Today I learned something about MAFs:

@BicycleBuck time was you could tune up a car with a book of matches nowadays, computers

I grew up admiring the dark arts of carburetion. The most I messed with was adjusting the various needles on r/c engines and lawn equipment.

Now I admire the dark arts of computer controls.

@Qaaaaa

I'm learning more and more about the dark arts of cars with brains.

@ash78 said in Today I learned something about MAFs:

It's either "BROKEN" or "FINE," but reality is always somewhere in between, and they just choose not to give you access without a third-party scanner of some kind.

On my OBDI vehicle, there's no indication whatsoever that there's a problem with the MAF. But it's clearly a problem.