Merry Christmas!...and the big robotics post!

Hope everyone had a nice Christmas! Yesterday was our third day to go into town for supplies food-wise, hehe. Delivered a few gifts on Wednesday, bought hay, etc. Christmas Eve was deeply foggy all day, and turned icy later which helped in the decision not to go to Midnight Mass, somthing I've always wanted to do. Went to an evening church service, opened a few presents and I went to bed late. Before going to bed I heard a couple of owls hooting at each other outside, and a third one maybe half a mile or so away :)

Woke up late also, to sunshine and the smell of bacon wafting upwards, a great rarity...natural bacon is rather pricey.

Had lunch at grandmother's house, outside in the sun at the 45th parallel! Good times.

Just spent an hour or so on the Autodesk website, being annoyed by the apparent impossibility of registering. Finally got that all straightened out, then found that their software is only compatible with Windows, I'd have to partition Eddie's hard drive to run Windows (which has to be BOUGHT of course!) in order to run the software (animation, helpful for robotics stuff). Rowr.

And about that robotics stuff: I keep promising an in-depth post on what exactly I am talking about when I wave terms like "build season", "regionals", "what on earth is a lugnut", "FIRST", "ship date", and "scouting" around in the aluminum-shaving-filled air.

Sooooo....FIRST (For Inspiration and Recognition in Science and Technology) is a nationwide organization. They have several branches including Lego-league robotics competitions for middle schoolers (such as I helped with a few weeks ago) and FRC (FIRST Robotics Competition) for high schoolers.
My dad is the team coach/leader for our team so I tend to get sucked into the madness :P

I went to a competition in CA at the age of 13 and sort of got hooked...this will be my third year on the team to some extent.

The kickoff (Jan. 9th at an early hour of the morning) consists of the teams from all over the state coming to La Sells auditorium (goaded by coffee) and watching a live streamed broadcast of the kickoff in New Hampshire (where the founder Dean Kamen has his lair). The stream tends to go down sometimes but that's all part of the fun, hehe. Role-call: all the teams that made it over the dangerous high mountain passes and such give rousing cheers and so on.

There we learn what this year's 'game' will be: whether our robot will have to be designed to herd balls, go up ramps, throw things, or etc. We also listen to a lot of inspiring speeches by Kamen and Woodie Flowers and all those folks as to why we do this, the benefit that engineering is to the world, "gracious professionalism", and how we are going to have the best season ever. Then we all head over to the other university building to collect the kit of parts: the "Kamen tote" and the "Flowers tote" (Woodie Flowers, another beloved founder) and pack the industrial-strength wheels and metal and motors into the van and head out to school for the first day of the build season: planning.

Please note that I am not mechanically-minded in the least. My role on the team has pretty much been confined to 'scout': at the 3-day competition in March I do the whole PR bit with the other teams, convincing them that our team would be a good partner (the games are always played in alliances of three teams)--teamwork is one of the big goals of FIRST. I also do random stuff like team buttons, graphics, etc. This year I'll hopefully be helping more with the build, you know, holding bits of metal whilst people drill them :) Also doing the work for Chairman's Award (animation, essay, etc), and more communications/facilitation stuff like figure out accommodations for the competition and so on.

Competition: AKA 'regionals'. AKA three days of insanity. WHOOHOO! Portland (2 hrs away) is our regional...50 teams...one scout to interview those fifty teams (ME)...'The Coliseum' in Portland is rented for the three days...we go up early Thursday morning. Thursday is more or less practice, repairing robots that have glitches, that sort. Some teams pack up the bot at the deadline and are still tinkering with it (saws, drilling, soldering, you know, light little adjustments :P ) on Thursday. Thu. is also scouting heaven, not too stressful: I try to get around to all the teams by Thursday night and have some form of database up and running, be it ever so humble (notebook, last year. Laptop this year, hopefully).
We spend the night in Portland usually but funding is an issue this year. We may have to commute from home (groan!) but I'm looking into an offer of free housing in Wilsonville (friendly robotics team/supportive town = :)

On Friday the intensity reaches a whole other level. There are three areas of concern: The field, where 6 robots (and attendant teams) compete at one time. In the stands we have much-maligned and under-appreciated but very-important scouts watching the teams and jotting things down on clipboards. Music blares louder each day. The pits are the third and most chaotic area: big, big conference room downstairs, full of 50 teams (an average of 20 people on each team), their robots, and whatever their 10x10 assigned homebase has been decked out with (clock, table, toolkit, etc). Noise, noise, noise. Announcer saying who's queuing up next, scouts and team members hurrying to and fro, horrible metallic screeching sounds (remember the last-minute repairs?). Usually several 'bots on their little carts (gotter save the wheels) being shuttled out to the field.

This is when the harried scout feels the insanity. Most teams have 5-8 scouts, or people who can become scouts at moment's notice. That is because most teams have 20 people or so: for the last two years we've had about 5. That's usually the driver down in the field, a human player chucking balls (last year), and so forth. My first year I was THE scout, the one-and-only scout added at the LAST minute because there were so few people. Frantic. We didn't really need the scouting info that year because we didn't do too fabulously but I came back last year resolved to do even better. Had more people to help thankfully: and our team did very well. More on that later.
Yes, by the end of Friday it is essential to have full tabs on every team there: in other words, did their bot break down? Or stall on the field (even worse)? Do they pull a lot of fouls? Do they have a fabulous human player? Are they scoring a lot in each game?
Friday night the scout with full info (laptop with program and info input) rendezvouses with the driver to plot strategy for the final day of competition.
Saturday morning everyone is unbelievably pumped: the first half of the day is qualifying matches for the semis and finals in the afternoon. Scouts firm up alliances: in the afternoon the top-ranked teams go on to finals and get to choose their alliance partners. Last year we were ranked very high all competition until late Saturday morning when we had a series of mishaps. We were still getting courted by a lot of teams, I was in contact with the top-ranked couple of teams and getting things lined up. For the top teams, Saturday lunchbreak is stressful beyond imagining: go over your notes one more time, rank your top 15 teams or so, in case you can't get your first pick; agonize one more time....send your team captain down to the field after lunch with a piece of paper with team names on it.....collapse helplessly in the bleachers.

Last year we were ranked about 16...barely missed being able to chose our partners. We were hoping and praying to get chosen by the top team but the selection process allows #1 to choose #2, and so on. We got picked by a lower-ranked team, who also selected a team that I'd marked down dismissively. Thus placed on a weak team, we nevertheless played in semi-finals, where we played several games. There was an issue with the floor, and static electricity interfering with our remote-controls. Our team had conniptions in the stands as all of the teams on our alliance, by a crazy fluke, stalled from the static, and the 2-minute match went on, and the judges did not call the match (it had been happening all morning and they'd had to keep replaying matches). Needless to say, we lost resoundingly. We were positively livid with panic as they proceeded to have a long interlude....finally announced a rematch!! (getting adrenaline just remembering...)

I think we tied that match...lost the next one...the aforementioned weak team bailed, their robot was down.....that surely has to be the saddest thing that can happen. We got eliminated fairly quickly but there was such a great sense of relief that at least we'd had our chance, the judges hadn't gone with that failed match.

Late Saturday afternoon are the awards, creativity in design and that sort, and of course first place awards for the winning three teams who go on to the nationals in Atlanta. We've never gone, but one year we went to another regional in CA and finished about 4th...very fun stuff :)

And then the first game-hint came out yesterday.

It is supposedly a hint as to what this year's game will consist of. Last year's hint was a picture of a fish, for a game played on a slippery surface ^_^ There are already pages of speculations on ChiefDelphi, the hang-out place for FIRSTies. There seems to be a consensus that the game this year may involve soccer balls, possibly on some sort of raised pathway. That CAD-designed pic is now my desktop on Eddie :)


So! There is the run-down on FIRST and why I will be insanely busy between Jan. 9th and Mar. 6.

Hmm, this really sounds like I'm insane, doesn't it? FIRST is complicated beyond belief at first glance....sounds like a cult to outsiders :)


EDIT: Come, join us in the madness!!

holiday fun-ness

Now don't pounce on me for not saying Christmas, because I hate Happy Holidays as a greeting; it's just that the whole season from Thanksgiving to New Year's is one big round of one festival after another.

Let's see: First things first. Auditions for Romeo and Juliet went well (my week has been very, very busy). On Monday I gave my monologue which went pretty well, and did the dance audition which was VERY easy. Tuesday did not go so well: we did read-throughs and I was given a very small part, so I figured I wouldn't get a large speaking part. Did not go to call-backs on Wednesday; that night, however, the cast list came out and I'm a dancer in the ball scene. Fun stuffs! Hopefully the rehearsal schedule won't be too evil, and I get a pretty dress and get to be pretty much involved. I'm back in theatre business, I'm so happy!

Let's see. Wednesday afternoon I went to another (unrelated) theatre meeting; came home and spent four or five hours baking yummy stuff for various social engagements this week. The power had gone out in part of our kitchen: phone, light above the sink but fortunatley not the stove. Probably mice, chewing through wires. My dad was not enthused about crawling under the house; "You know, whenever there's an earthquake you just know that there was somebody under their house fixing something....do we need anything from the grocery store?" Hehe, that's a bit of a combination of his words with mine :)

Anyways, he and I managed to pretty much wreck the kitchen what with making cookies and pralines and Walnut Chocolates (ground walnuts mixed with powdered sugar, dipped in chocolate) and all sorts. There was an uncalled-for amount of hilarity :) As he spreads chocolate on the walnut-cake with a knife I ward off the waving knie-tip: "Almost poked me in the eye there!" "We're untrained, unskilled and dangerous." I was still up and cooking at ten PM...unheard-of.

Yesterday was bio and math and that sort....then off to goat 4-H club in the evening. I came down with a cold sadly; but it's not too bad. I'm going to a piano concert tonight, tomorrow is the first event of the local chapter of Improv Everywhere, (a tea on the sidewalk) and I need to do some Christmas shopping ;)

I'm really looking forward to sleeping in this vacation!! And rendezvousing with neglected friends :)

Happy Advent!

Hoo boy. Long post coming up.

First off: I did not win NaNo. :( 42,618 was the final count.

*A big than you to everybody who commented and supported the frenzied author during the time of need, you're the best!! :) *


The weekend was ghastly. I went for 46 hours without sleep.

My second all-nighter on Sunday night did not go well. I decided to hole up in the pantry because my room doesn't really have a door and my parents would probably have heard the tapping at the keyboard.

The parents did not go to bed til kind of late so I sat up in my room writing notes on paper. Then I snuck downstairs with the utmost furtiveness and ensconced myself in the pantry.
I soon learned that it is very very hard to use a laptop without any other light in the room. I ventured forth in search of a lamp; failed to find one (this was about 1 AM). FInally I absconded with an electric candle-thing which worked passably. I also learned that it is almost impossible to read pencil by the light of the little flashlight I had taped to a baseball cap, miner-like.

Went out to get carrots, cheese and bread, and of course more coffee. I have come to simply loathe coffee, chiefly after the first all-nighter.

I kept banging away at the keyboard, engaged in a lot of sprints and word-wars on the NaNo forums where a small group of nocturnal peeps attempted to up the lagging word-count.

As I gulped down more coffee I had an occasional qualm about how much caffeine one can ingest before effects set in.... o_0

Around 4 AM I was dead, absolutely dead. I think I may have been falling asleep for nanoseconds between words. I believe I was beginning to hallucinate slightly. I left the pantry to go to the bathroom or maybe get some more coffee, I forget which. In the hallway I encountered my mom. She did not see me at first (I was so disoriented that I had turned into the wall believing that the hallway ran the other direction). She did however see the light coming from the pantry which I had failed to turn off. FInally saw me and made me go back to bed.

I got four hours of sleep and faced the next day with renewed energy (sort of). Went through school in a daze. Wrote crazily all Monday.
Around 3:30 that afternoon I had a rather brilliant idea to have another character come into the story. This did not boost the word count as much as could have been hoped however.

I degenerated into having one of my characters reminisce over how she did NaNo one time...got about ten pages out of that...every fifth word might have been spelled right.
Parents made me go to bed at 9:30 or so; truth be told, I was not unwilling, I was exhausted.

The story is maybe 75% complete at this point. I'm fairly happy with it, there were some rather nice scenes and quite a lot of side-splitting humor. I'm fairly attached to my characters. Won't have much time to work on it though :(


Other stuff: Yes, happy Advent! Can't believe it's so close to Christmas! The excitement is filtering through from Kendra, I think :P

Theatre news: I'm likely going to audition for Romeo and Juliet at CHS!!! I'm really excited. Auditions are December 14 and 15, the show is at the end of February. I'd love to have an acting part but I don't know if I can fit it i, I'd really like to do robotics at my dad's school and it's during the same time-window. Might be able to do tech or costuming or something though. I have to memorize some Shakespeare for the audition.

Weather: is awesome. COLD and sunny. It started to frost almost as soon as the sun went down yesterday, and there are rumors of impending snow at the end of the week! I love this weather, I ought to move to Montana or something :)

Hay bales: I had to move a 60-pounder today, and I had the brilliant idea of backing up to the trunk of the car (where it was) and rolling the bale onto my back, holding it by the strings.

Yahoo: I got yahoo IM, me address is bethie_forty_two :)

2012: Shardhana left a comment inquiring my views on 2012....a very thought-provoking subject, hehe. Let's just say I am attending "2013" ;) I don't believe it will be the end of the world, BUT I think there could certainly be unknown repercussions, for one thing I've heard about solar flares picking up then, who knows. I don't know if that could result in some form of EMP which might knock out power/communications, in which case we would be in rather epic trouble.
I'm not worrying about it too much. Would love to see the movie, though! :)

thanksgiving

Preparations begin for Thanksgiving! I've had the menu planned out for days, today I got up early and made pie-crust. When I came back from school I tackled the pumpkin pies. ONE little squash, that was all: it made five pies!! Good grief. Midway through the festivities we ran to town to get more cream and go to the last farmers' market of the season. At the Co-op there were a grand total of 4 cartons of Lochmead cream left, where there are ordinarily several brands. I snatched all but one :)
Cleaned up the kitchen whilst listening to 30s French swing (thanks to Top Hats!).

I am very busy working through my C++ book; finished the first chapter yesterday. Wrote a program to solve for the length of the hypotenuse. The really great thing there was that the original program used a set value for each of the opposing sides, but I made it a user-interactive program by applying what I'd learned in an earlier to chapter to allow the user to set the lengths of the opposing sides!
hehe, for those of you who aren't programmers that sounds ridiculously abstruse, and for those who are it is a definite no-brainer, but excuse me if I'm more than a little excited ;)

Am making a pot of black rice to go with the lovely chanterelle mushrooms I got at the market. Tomorrow I'll do the potatoes, vegetables, salad, etc. My grandmother is doing the bird (chicken), cranberry sauce (two types) and some other things. Can't wait.

And because I'll be too buy to do the traditional "thankful" post tomorrow, here's some things I'm grateful for.

-Food. I don't have to worry too much about where the next meal is coming from. Heard Michael Savage on the radio today, he said something very true: go back a few generations in your past and you will find someone who lived near starvation. Unthinkably true.

-family: I have reasonable parents and it is awesome. I know that doesn't sound very complimentary but you know it is if you've ever had to deal with unreasonable family members.

-mah budders....I have some pretty awesome friends. This time last year I didn't feel like I had many friends; now I've got lots :) Due mostly to filming the movie, and a few other things. Love you peeps! And starting blogging last June: thank you guys, you really are awesome!! :) -hugs all round-

-the weather this fall! We've had a lot of sunny cold weather which I dearly love.

-music. I never really went in for listening to music until this summer when I got an mp3 player. Started off in the summer with country; progressed to Celtic, Celtic-punk, and etc, moved on to Pink Martini, various esoteric foreign groups, and am now in French jazz from the early 20th century. And of course Beatles, Paul McCartney, and more Beatles.

-the NASA grant that our robotics team got: we can afford to go to regionals!

-the situations that have developed in the past year.

-TIm McGraw. LOVE Tim McGraw.

-the fact that I have to (oh dear) find room in the refrigerator for FIVE pumpkin pies

-Eddie. My Mac. What a niiice computer.

-the fact that I'm thankful......

good night folks!

I'm sitting on a very narrow and uncomfortable bench in front of our woodstove with Eddie [laptop] perched on my legs which are in turn propped up on a BEAST of an amp....there's a library copy of Life, the Universe and Everything [third Hitchhiker's book] on the floor.....another, smaller amp nearby.....Seeds of Change catalog....study guide for the Freshman College Composition test next to me.....test tomorrow, ugh. And rehearsal tomorrow--yayz!

I need to get hold of the fencing swords for tomorrow's practice but goodness knows how I'm going to get hold of them.....

Went to a photo shoot yesterday with the actors from Two Top Hats....great fun and it didn't rain :) We poked round excellent alleys. Feet hurt now from wearing those hot but painful high heels.....

Placed an order at our splendid local library for a C++ book......fun stuffs! Just the thing to hole up with over Thanksgiving. I really really want it to come SOON....

Which reminds me: who besides me thinks it is sad that there will only be 4 people at the table for Thanksgiving? :( :( wahhhh!


Just went out to get the mail.....in the dark and cold.....

Estoy muy occupado mañana.....sweet....I just said my first coherent sentence en español.....not really first, first after listening to erm erm what's the name of the CD set....oh yeah, Míchel Tómas....getting fancy with the option key, lol.....

And here's a cloud of Facebook words..... :) Who would have thought that rehearsal and awesome would be my top words? ;P

all hallows' Eva [lol...couldn't resist]

November 1
Happy All Saints' Day, everyone!
I'm covered in alpaca spit, my calf muscles hurt, I was away from home for 24 hours, I wore high heels for way too long, it was an awesome-awesome weekend!!!

Started out on Saturday morning with market. Then to the Mac store where I posted the jubilatory post below this :) Yes, I am the owner of a MacBook Pro...getting used to the new keyboard o_O

Off to swing dance rehearsal which went well. We are getting pretty good :) Lisa and Felicity managed to nail the epic flip-over-the-back step, yayz! After that it was home for a few hours, packing, chores, before heading off to Eva's.
A side note here: the home-town team [the Beavers] won their game against UCLA!!!! It was evidently a close shave but still woot-worthy. U of O [rival team] won their game too: Oregon was well represented all round :)
Eva's family has 8 kids; it was a LOT more exciting than being at home :D When I arrived [in a rather pretty dress] they were in the midst of pumpkin-carving and the excitement [and pumpkin seeds] was thick in the air. I decided t ditch the pretty [and uncomfortable] dress in favor of jeans and t-shirt, and I actually never put it back on, lol

Dinner was frantic, in the tradition of Halloweens everywhere. We were going to make grilled cheese sandwiches, but there wasn't any bread. Settled on vegetable soup and canned chili and cheese and salad and potatoes. I had a potato...another potato....several potatoes...this wouldn't happen to be an abandoned potato, would it?
Then the younger element headed off for the nocturnal escapades, and Eva and her grandmother and I settled in with cups of tea and one ear fixed on the doorbell. Eva popped off to get a movie at one point. Then [near the end of the evening] I happened to look out and see people on the back lawn o_O It was about half of the family coming back :)
After seeing a batch of trick-or-treaters in mafia attire, I decided I wanted to be sketchy. Sketchy I certainly was. Borrowed a black trench-coat and baseball cap from Eva's folks. The rhinestone necklace added a quiet touch of insanity. My high-heeled black pumps added to the image. They also added to my trials going up the front stairs. Eva and I made one foray out up the hill, to be introduced to the new neighbors.

Later we watched the movie...."Imagine That". Very lame, please don't waste your time with it :D It was a bit funny in parts. Still had a good time :) Around 10:30 the family headed to bed. Eva and I talked for a bit and then decided we needed a midnight snack. Downstairs, very hush-hush, to have a bowl of cereal. Two bowls of cereal, in my case...I luv raisin-bran...
Back upstairs where we chatted about our various writing endeavors, and I mentioned NaNoWriMo in the most enthusiastic terms :)
Got to sleep around midnight, pretty good all things considered. We were sleeping on the floor and somewhere in the wee hours of the night I adopted the ancient family tradition if sleeping with one's neck on a rolled-up t-shirt.
I was up a bit before Eva [as is usual for me at sleep-overs] and meandered downstairs around 8 new time. Had a cup of tea on the porch. Eva's house has the most lovely view out over the valley. Beautiful clear morning. I poured more water on the tea-bag and did some yoga. Breakfast was a casual affair but tasty :) I only had the one tea-bag but I believe I had about 4 cups of tea all total. Hmm....is that an abandoned potato from last night??  

Off to church where I realized that Communion wine on an empty stomach [I'd eaten early and church was late :P] was possibly not the most brilliant idea ever.  (It was Eva's church, not the one I usually attend. Lutheran, hence the wine)
Potluck afterwards and some of the family, myself included, walked home in the sunshine which made me happy.
We had not been home more than about 15 minutes [enough time for me to scrounge another cup of tea] when it developed that there was an expedition to a local organic farm in the offing. I called home and got permission to go. Eva, her mom and grandma and another lady and myself all headed off [still in Sunday best]. The farm-store was closed but we went to the alpaca-farm and shop which was in the same area. 

Very cute alpacas....nice wool-goods in the store...darling alpacas....oh dear. Eva and I both got spat at by the darling alpaca. We were falling about with laughter and trying to wipe bits of partly-digested grass off each other, meanwhile resolving not to ever raise alpacas. We related the happy incident to her dad later. He observed that the grass had probably been around for a while since alpacas are [I think] ruminants. Eva mentioned that that was disgusting. Her dad said she was the one who'd brought it up in the first place. I, ever eager to display my wit, joked that the alpaca was the one who'd 'brought it up' first. Teehee.
Anyways, after the alpacas we decided to head off to the hazlenut farm. Samples. Yum. Hazlenut ice cream, an Oregon specialty. Even more yummy. It was 4 in the afternoon by this time and I'd intended to be home around 1. Oh well. My dad and I stopped at the Co-op on our way home. He'd brought the Mac [to show my grandma] and I was tapping away in the Co-op parking lot, and logged into the Co-op's free wifi. Happy day. I didn't get home til 5. I didn't go to folk dance alas.....it was just too much and I wanted to stay home with my Mac. 

Speaking of which....there seems to be a consensus that I need to name it. I was thinking maybe Eddie [Guide stuff :) ] but do you have any thoughts? Something short and perhaps a bit cute. 

In short, my weekend was beyond awesome!