Phoenix/Sedona Thursday: Nostalgia and Red Rocks

The day started off with attempt to eat at one place: Sunrise, but actually ending up at another place that was mediocre at best, and shall remain un-named.

There was a round of packing, and then a bunch of waiting, because our car rental pickup wasn’t until 11 or 12.

Chaotic Turo Car Pickup:  “We’re here!”  which lead to a mad dash with our stuff down to .. a ½ block ride in a BMW to .. our rental Model S!  We were blocking traffic, so we did a very fast transaction to start the rental (I have only done Turo once before) and then we were off!  Driving a Model S P85D in Chill mode towards ..

Nostalgia: Where Molly Met Good Olives.  Romanelli’s Italian Deli. There was an Italian Deli with olives that Molly used to go to.  It was still there.  It was still delicious.   And a really good tea: Just Peachy Peace Tea.

Nowadays, whole foods at home has such an Olive Buffet.  

Nostalgia:  Where Molly used to work.  Vacant now.   Molly has the story.  People say it was becoming a bad neighborhood, but .. it didn’t look too bad to us.

Nostalgia: Molly’s commute back home from the office.

Nostalgia: Where Molly used to live.  Populated now. 

First Charging Stop on the way to Sedona: Take pictures of Cactii for Mom.   Got some really horrible tasting candy or drink or something (honeydew?).  The fun memory is our adventuring to discover and our horror at the taste.  Thumbs up for adventure!

On the way up I got to test out the previous version of Autopilot in a Model S from 2015.  More about the Tesla in a separate post.

Montezuma and Fry Bread:   On the way up we stopped at Montezuma’s Castle  And on the way there, we got some Fry Bread.  I want more Fry Bread in my life.   Plain even.

I loved the white trees at Montezuma – they are Arizona Sycamore.   They cannot grow in KY.

The Drive To Sedona: Rounding a corner and seeing the buttes.. took my breath away. I need to tell you about the jigsaw puzzle I had when I was a kid.

Arrival at Cedars Resort:  It was straddling the roundabout!  I didn’t see the sign and had to double back.  Heck of a time parking with no lines .. turns out the lines were denoted by different pavers used on the ground.  

Wildflower Bread Co:  For Dinner we walked across the street and found a little restaurant.  It was fricking amazing, I had a Salmon Chowder.  It was so good that we went back a second time, which is unheard of with our adventuring souls. 

Night time exposure, hand held:

Phoenix Wednesday: Taliesin Barrio Queen

This is continuing my practice of gratitude, all the good things in a day.  This happens to be while we’re on vacation.

My intention when I wrote these posts (in Word, local, on the airplane in airplane mode) was to add all the links later.  I may not get that time, now that I’m back at busy life, but what I’ll try to do is post these first, and then go back and edit them if I can, one cool picture at a time.

Coffee: No special coffee today.  Instead, Molly and I went to Breakfast Bitch and had some delicious foods.  I chose to skip coffee due to my overdose the night before.    Their location is in the Cambria hotel.  This hotel seemed to be a very cool artsy place. Reference an artist whose work was shown: Antoinette Cauley.

Bless a driver: Trip to next location, Justin, he wants to buy an acre out east and build a house there.  Bless him, may his dream come true.

Taliesin: Then we were off to Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin West, architecture house tour.  Molly loved it.   Best thing there for me might have been the room with all the sitting chairs, but also just a feel of how those folks lived, their feeling of hard work and community.

Water Side adventure: we didn’t bring any water.  They don’t sell water, but they sold a collapsible water bottle.  Bought it, used it, loved it.

Lyft side adventure: We had a driver with specific opinions that we possibly disagreed with, so we stopped talking, and he kept on talking.  Bless him.    

Adventure to a Thrift Store:  The adventure was fun, the store was bleah. Thai restaurant nearby, yum. Moving on.

Sugarbowl & Shopping: The we headed south a bit to Sugar Bowl, famous from Family Circus comics.  where we met Tom and Jami S .. they were stuck around their waiting for their AirBNB to open. 

Followed by some shoppy-ing..   found a really nice little day bag that won’t pull my pants down .. and then we found dinner:

Barrio Queen: Fricking amazing. I remember the Elote and the Table-Side Guacamole.  There was a Mexican Chocolate Mousse in there somewhere too.

Then back to the hotel, driving through looming hulks of hills in twilight.  It got pretty dark.   Driver was very quiet.  We went back roads to avoid the traffic on the interstate, it was neat.  Van Buren almost all the way back to the hotel.

Phoenix: Tuesday: Scootering Heaven, Caffeine Overdoo

Coffee: Cartel Roasting Co, probably the most coffee-passionate coffee shop of this trip. Drip coffee, “Raw process”. Learned that there’s another method called “Honey Process”, but they haven’t had one of those for 3 months, very rare. This was also a day of a lot of caffeine.

On the way back, I got Molly’s Tea at Press, but: turns out they change flavors every day. Today was Hibiscus-Black. Did not go well. I believe I also tried a Cortado there (coffee #2).

Then, there was a trip out to the grocery store to get gallons of good-tasting water and some Think! bars. Mission accomplished. Btw, Fry’s is part of Kroger so our phone number worked there.

Scooter: I wanted to at least try it. After Molly left for her conference, I got a $10 pass for Lime Scooters (also available: Bird, Spin. Specific parking zones which are the only places you can start and end rides) for 60 minutes (I used 55 of them to go 5.3 miles over 28(!) trips), and I used it to travel north to the Roosevelt Arts district, wanting to get her some stuff for her birthday. Scootering was fun! but, I got there way too soon, so I killed some time hunting down.. a coffee #3 at another coffee shop, Kahvi. It was located in a co-business space where a bunch of businesses all shared the same building, building possibly made from shipping containers. Wandered around, found a hat shop, and then found a treasure trove at MADE arts center. Scootered back, prepped her gift for her return, and then checked in with my guys…

… and they were scootering too! Scooted up to visit them near The Churchill (which is another container place). Today, Matt H joined us as well (yesterday he was helping his daughter who is local). They had just gotten done eating wings at ATL and then possibly a beverage at (something else). We went on an adventure up to a Safeway (just outside the scooter zone!), to see if they had fancy Bourbon at MSRP. (They didn’t).

On the way back, had some unplanned adventure: Matt H stopped to ask Hey where are we going. I slowed Way Down. Matt LP didn’t slow down. Boom. Timber. Nobody was disabled. Matt LP got a scrape.

We then ended up at Churchill at a Bar there. I was still recovering from the Spicy Margarita drinks from last night, so I went for a pitaya/something bowl from Foxy Fruit. A bit later, I felt the nap calling my name, so back to the room I went.

Coffee #4: I woke up from my nap at about 3:30pm, and knowing that coffee shops shut down by 4 or 4:30, I scooted to the edge of the scooter zone to visit Xanadu. recommended by the Cartel folks. Good coffee.

Tempe Trip – When Molly got back, we took off via Lyft to Tempe to visit the Blick Arts Materials store – one of Molly’s favorite things to do, is visit art supply stores. Then we visited a Taco shop splat in the midst of student town (where it felt we were the oldest people there for a while) and then Lyft back to the room.

Lyft side adventure:  While driving, our ride got a rock smashing into the front windshield.  Sounded horrible.  Circular crack.  While we were all looking at that, slam on the brakes due to stopped traffic.  Most eventful Lyft I’ve been in so far.

This night, btw, I couldn’t sleep (I wonder why!) and I ended up looking at some code that I wrote a while back for a Space Mud game, and I thought about what I wanted the game to be like now if I were to resume working on it. I think i got 2-3 hours of sleep. Its okay, i was already charged up on sleep from the nights previous.

Phoenix: Monday: A tale of Nettles

Coffee. I always start a vacation day with some kind of coffee adventure. This day, I got to Press EVB (East Van Buren) right as they opened at 6:30am (the other places opened at 7am .. Macki went to Cartel, which is where I went on Tuesday). I got Molly a Peach Tea and an Empanada.. found out later they switch their flavors around daily. I myself had an Americano, and it was okay, but kinda .. i don’t know, bright? Not my favorite. 2 blocks from the Hotel.

I bid farewell to my beauty as she went on her conference thing, and then an adventure started with the other spouses of conference go-ers. It started with a quick walk with Matt (LP), where we marveled at an outdoor sculpture which looks like a jelly fish but is called something way different, and then we picked up Tom (S), and we .. started walking.

Japanese Friendship Garden. We didn’t go. But we walked up to it, intending on going. And then there was construction. And walking through an underpass. And then .. we saw the Garden, it was underwhelming. So we got a Lyft up to Squaw Peak (also named Piestewa, but that’s what the locals called it), so that we could go for a moderate hike.

  • Stages:
    • A: Surely we will find the turnoff here soon. Followed by: Come on guys we can do this!
    • B: Realization that we were probably not going to make it to this summit, so plan B: Go around, it seemed downhill.
    • C: This is fun! … but we’re running low on water. Maybe we should deviate down this other trail marked on Tom’s hiking map.
    • D: We were talking so much, we missed the turn off and had to backtrack. Goal: Not to hurt the rest of the trip.
    • E: Descent on an almost unmarked trail, which turns out had been made private. We crossed _____ 50 feet to get to a cul-de-sac. We didn’t get arrested, we got back to pavement, and then hiked our way out the subdivision.

It was an adventure. We cooled down with some beer and some Cornish Pasty‘s which are like giant Empanada’s.

Nap. Personally, I love a Nap. I was on vacation. I had a Nap. And it was Good. There was Room on the Agenda for a Nap Like That.

Group Dinner. Then all the conference attenders got back, and we chilled, and then we went out for a Group Dinner.

  • Molly, Macki and I rode in a Tesla Model X up to the location (Culinary Misfits)
  • The Venue was Great. Food was amazing. I had some Meatloaf and some Ribs and … a gazillion other tasty things.
  • I didn’t like the Margarita (too strong), but the spicy margarita that Molly was drinking was perfect
  • Sat with some of the agents from the Central office, and it was good talkings.

And that’s some of the good stuff from Monday.

Phoenix: Sunday (intro)

I’m supposed to give a talk on Gratitude sometime in November.

I’ve fallen out of the habit of doing a gratitude list daily (well, twice daily).

I found myself on vacation, yet grumping about. True, there were some emotions to process.. but for my sense of positive-ness (some people seem to think I’m never sad, always upbeat .. this is not true) .. I decided to backtrack and make a list of good things for each day of vacation.

As a single post, that would be overwhelming, so I’m breaking it up by day. No promise on when I’ll post them, this is from current me to honor past me and represent for future me. Here is Good things from Sunday, in no particular order.

Easy Flight. We forgot to check in early, we got C-something in line, so we were lucky to get aisle seats across from each other. 4 hours in the air. Cute family with little ones nearby, little ones slept almost the entire time with no crying.

Train Ride. Rather than get an Uber, 9 of us went on an adventure to ride the light metro rail. (Later, 2 of them got chewed out by local relatives who are in law enforcement). I looked around and there were at least 4 or 5 conversations between us as a group and some locals going on. I love taking public transit, if its safe.

Our Room was awesome. Corner view, 3 windows, downtown.

In-N-Out. We took a Lyft to the nearest one (and back). Macki & Matt joined us .. I think it was their first time. Macki liked it. I re-discovered their french fries. I found out much to my surprise that Waymo is a thing in Phoenix (I had forgotten / not associated), but I found out that it was nowhere near where we were going to be, and you have to be a local resident to participate in the downtown testing.

So there we go, that’s Sunday .. first day of vacation. Molly was going to Gen Blue, and I tagged along for the fun. I’m glad Molly’s is a family owned company and spouses are included in things like this.

I couldnt sleep – Hyperdrive

It might be the 4 espresso drinks i drank earlier. But i couldn’t sleep. My brain was chewing on ways i could do a hyperdrive.

The idea is like .. a condor? big bird, floats on drafts/currents. Starts off on feet and wings, expends a bunch of energy getting up into the air, but once its there, it floats.

So, earlier, i wanted thrust in a direction to keep on building velocity. I would make it encounter a kind of resistance that goes up, so that there’s a terminal velocity that gets approached. Lets call that V=1.

Upon getting to that V=1, you kick in the … insert science fiction name here, but its the “flapping” part of getting flying. Say it kicks you into hyperspace, at V=1.3. If you get below V=1, you exit hyperspace. Maybe its the Hyperspace actuator. You can get better hyperspace actuators.

In hyperspace, there’s a different engine available. Its a directional “push” – you can push against what would normally be gravity sources in normal space. The closer the thing, the better the push. you aim your pusher beam against the target, and apply push power. This speeds you up well beyond into much better V’s.

However, there’s “friction” in hyperspace .. probably map-based. I’d probably do it as a function of how close you are to a star .. basically gravity wells have cleared out the friction stuff. So depending on where you are, you slow down. If you go far away from all stars, the distance to the stars = less push, and friction, makes it impossible to stay in hyperspace.

Would have to play with the numbers, but lets say that it would take 10-30 minutes to get between most stars at V=1. Lets take the 30 minute case, D=30 between them. Assume stars have mass M=1.

  1. Line up your current star with your destination star. Speed up towards your current star, getting to V=1. Gravity pulls you in as well. Beginning your run as it were.
  2. When you get close enough to V=1 kick in your hyperdrive actuator to boop over to hyperspace, maybe at V=1.5
  3. Pass through/past the star and then use your hyperdrive vector engine to target your star, and push against it. At distance D=1, you get a nice M/D push of 1 bringing you up to 2.. i did a quick excel thing to expound on this …

I lost my bullet numbers. I get a transit in T=10 instead of T=30.. I’ll probably have to make more oomph available at longer distances, so its more like a pole, but i really wanted it to be “if you’re caught between the stars, its hard to get oomph.” Also, with the above setup, your max distance from a star works out to about 60-70 units if the star has mass 1.

If i change it to be Mass/sqrt(distance), i get still 4 minutes, but the distance greatly increases. Hmm.

But, anyway, that’s the idea. As you get close to the target star, you push against it bringing your velocity back under V=1 and you pop back into normal space. And avoid those “dense” areas where max-v is lower if you want to float longer.

Okay, now maybe i can sleep.

Space Mud/Game Ideas

Long time no update .. a codebase. https://geekygulati.com/2016/03/12/dotnetmud-spacemud-optimizing-network-traffic/ is when I talked about it last.

I was playing Starcom Nexus, and it reminded me that once upon a time i was playing with flying a ship around in gravity. I looked, it was 7 years ago. I cloned it, I updated it, I ran it. I was amazed.

I’m not going to kid myself with “I have time to work on this” .. but, if I did, what would I make? This is like “If I win the lottery”, giving space for some creative stuff to sparkle. I would have planets that (slowly, unrealistically) orbit their stars.

I would have planet and sun gravity that draw ships in

But the ships won’t crash against the planet. Instead, there will be a “autopilot” bump that happens that assists the ships into a non-crashing orbit over time. (so a few times they’ll go through the planet, but eventually would end up orbiting)

ships can do a “land” feature if they are close enough to a city, goes into an automatic “shrink into the planet” type of thing. At that point, the game switches over to text mode of having landed, getting out of the ship, n/s/e/w to visit whatever places.

At first i wanted real thrust type stuff. But that can be very unmanageable.

So make it manageable. Choose an object to travel to. Accelerates towards, the decelerates. Can be planetary. Can be a ship. Different levels of autopilot around this can be purchased. Fuel cost for the big accelerations, free small ones to prevent stranding. Standard given autopilot = bring self to a stop relative to object (so you can end up at your target)

But i don’t want acceleration to be good for interstellar travel. Not without putting in 10 minutes of game time or more. For that, i want a hypertravel mode, but with a twist:

In hyperspace mode, gravity is inverted at d^5 or something silly like that. So to send yourself to another star, you get close to your current star, switch to hyperspace, and get catapulted out that way. If you aim wrong you can still use your hyperspace drives to point yourself in some direction, but they can only slow you down or speed you up to some absolute value. (the stellar launch can exceed that value). spend more money for better vectoring and acceleration and maximum controllable velocity. You would learn about stellar launch the hard way, you could just go into hyperspace and start accelerating towards a star.

So you would theoretically line up against a star, go into hyperspace, get catapulted, get close, and if you did it just right you would get slowed down by the target star but if not you would drop out of hyperspace somewhere around your target star. You drop out of hyperspace only when your hyperspace velocity gets slow enough.

The rest of the game would be similar, i guess, to Starcom Nexus. You visit planets, you solve things, you get resources, you fight baddies, you mine stuff, etc. That’s the game built on top of the above. Except that planet visits are text adventures.

I’m writing this from a hotel in Phoenix, where i’m on vacation with my wife. Its only taken .. 2 days? of vacation time, to get my brain clear enough to where this stuff starts coming up for creativity. yay!

Missed Metformin Dose

I forgot to take my metformin this morning at 7am! OMG! What shall I do?

Well, according to Wikipedia, the half life is between 4 to 8.7 hours. I assumed 6 hours. Thanks to a little googling, the formula to use is below. I modelled it based on taking my morning pill at 5pm when I got home and skipping my evening pill (which is not at 7pm, but usually around 9pm to 11pm), and:

The formula:

I like useful math

Using Meater Wireless Thermometer

  • It turned out semi-okay. I didn’t let the steak get to room temperature before i started, I kinda hurried things along. I also misjudged the size of the pan to sear it in, so I didn’t get a good sear, and some juices escaped.
  • Note that Sear In Pan raised meat temp faster than Oven, even with lower ambient heat. That’s because the temp sensor is not on the bottom of the pan which is probably 400 degrees or more.
  • Note that the Oven said “400” when in fact it was maybe 180. “Enough hotter” that the temperature gradient is there in the food. Hence the “Preheat for a long time” when doing very sensitive recipes
  • Note the “Hotter while resting” inertia thing. Meater did warn me to take it off the heat 5 minutes before it reached temperature, and I still overshot it.

Looking forward to my next cook.

Quick Win: Small WPF App – Fast Finder Tool.

Since I don’t work on (interesting) large projects anymore, maybe I could write about the (small) places where (small) work = a (relative) win for somebody.

Returns (the department) is switching to the newer version of our ERP system. Its web based, and its a bit slow. For a customer, given a product, they have to either a) start from customer and what they bought, filter down to item, or b) start from item and go the other way. Either way its a few seconds to bring up stuff, another few seconds to apply a filter.

Solution: WPF app, doing a SQL query and using Telerik WPF RadGridView:

customerId <tab> item shortcode (Excluding size and color) <enter> (wait 1 second) – this brings up a filterable, sortable grid of when that customer bought that item (and the order numbers).

The code leaves the focus on the item short code highlighted so the next short code can be typed in. (Any customer will usually return several items – customers in these cases are businesses returning inventory for some reason – its a 20%+ return-rate industry, related to fashion.)

With this information, Returns can quickly know what prices to assign the return (the price they paid for it) and what order number to RMA against.

Returns came back with minor feedback: Colorize the rows for purchases vs returns in the grid that comes up. Done.

I’m on my home laptop, so no screenshot at this time.

Overall the screen for returns took maybe 6-8 hours spread over 2-3 working days over a span of 1 week, with 2 rounds of feedback. (These “fun” projects, i don’t start work on them till after 2pm, after I’ve worked on the less-fun more-demanding work in the morning and other misc stuff in the afternoon).