Computers

March 1968, Jersey City, New Jersey.

Public Service Electric and Gas, Hudson Generating Station Unit 1 control computer.

Posing in front of this massive computer is a 20 year old engineering student from Bergenfield NJ. He is nearing the end of his second co-op assignment. As a sophomore at Drexel Institute of Technology (later to become Drexel University) he is very interested in computers and only mildly interested in the electric generating station where he works.

The computer was custom built (I think by RCA) for this application.  The design predates integrated circuits which is why this thing is so large.  My guess is that it has less memory and is significantly slower than my smartphone today.  

It received all sorts of data from the plant indicating the position of many valves, the temperatures of boiler feedwater at various stages of the cycle, and the status of the turbine and generator (i.e. temperatures, speed, control valve position, lube oil pressure, etc.).  When given control of the unit (which seldom happened while I was there) the computer could control valves and other peripherals to maintain the unit at peak efficiency. All output from the computer was logged through an IBM selectric typewriter which was the only human readable interface. In addition to the computer control there was a complete analog control system operated by plant staff.

Sailing Adventure

Tuesday morning Sonia left for work at her usual time but didn't come home.  That was expected.  She flew to Columbia South Carolina to attend a class presented by a power cable manufacturer.  She is due back this evening (Friday 11/11).  I decided that yesterday (Thursday) would be my day to take Teazer to the lake and do a little sailing.  

The weather forecast was for temperatures nearing 60 with winds 10 - 15 mph.  I wandered down into the garage around 8:30 and got everything ready to leave about about 9:00. Off I went on the nearly hour long drive to lake Logan Martin to Sonia's Aunt Polly's home.

View Larger Map

I got Teazer launched and tied off at the somewhat dilapidated dock that serves the launch ramp.  Once I untied the painter from the dock the wind was blowing out of the north was trying to drive my little boat against the rip-rap lining the shore line. I rowed out some 50 yards or so and got the dagger board and rudder in place.  I raised the sail and off we went.  It was an exhilarating ride.  I steered NNE with the wind off my port bow and Teazer took the wind and ran.  I had started with the short tiller I made this summer and found that in that wind I needed the leverage and length of the old tiller.

I came to into the wind and changed out the tillers.  Now we took off in a northwesterly direction with the wind and spray coming across the starboard bows.  I was sitting on the bottom of the boat as far to starboard as I could go.  I had my GPS unit out just to track my speed.  I must admit it took a good bit of coordination to handle the sheet (the line that controls the angle of the boom) and the tiller.  The wind was a little gusty causing Teazer to really lean over to port when the wind gusted.  Lean over enough to make me decide that I needed to either steer a bit away from the wind or let the sheet out to luff the sail and slow down.

I could not pay close attention to the GPS but I did see 5.7 mph on a tack and 4.9 sailing downwind.  

I guess I'd been sailing back and forth for nearly an hour.  I was heading east just north of the marina that is in the southeast corner of the map above.  The wind was strong and I could feel the pressure on the rudder through the tiller.  All of a sudden I heard a sound like cracking splintering wood.  The boat gibed the swinging boom knocking my hat off my head as I ducked just in time avoiding a nasty blow.  I tried to correct the direction of the boat but every time I moved the tiller I heard the sound of splintering wood.  I looked back and saw that the tiller was broken.  One of the mahogany plywood cheeks cracked and broke.  I hurriedly replaced the tiller with the short one and got the boat back under control.

I tacked back around and headed out to more open water so I could have a few minutes to calm down and get settled in.  That's when I realized that the boom had taken my glasses off of my face when it took the hat.  I had not even missed them for the few minutes it took me to get the tillers swapped out and the boat under control.  

I decided it was enough sailing for the day and headed back toward Polly's.  That leg of the trip was completely uneventful.  I sailed the boat to about 20 feet from the dock, pulled the dagger board and rudder, lowered the sail and rowed the last few feet to the dock.

I loaded Teazer up on the trailer battened every thing down and headed home.  Once home I realized I was whipped.  It was only 1:00 pm and I felt as if I'd been at hard labor for 10 hours.  

10 - 15 mph winds may just be too strong for me and my boat.  But lesson learned.  No one was hurt and no real damage to Teazer.  Now I have a winter project to repair or replace the tiller.

It's Been Too Long

It's been a long, long, long time... so a bit of catching up is in order. I see that the last post was in August shortly after Alex was commissioned and shortly after my elbow surgery. You might think nothing has happened in the intervening months but you would be wrong. Nothing as important as surgery or commissioning but still life goes on.

Three weeks following my elbow surgery (see blog post dated July 28, 2011) I started physical therapy.  Twice a week for three months I went to have my right arm warmed by sonic waves and heat packs, stimulated by a Tens Unit, massaged, stretched, twisted and exercised. Gradually, by fits and starts (and just a little pain), my right arm mobility and flexibility got better.  At the start of therapy I could straighten my elbow to -25 degrees or in other words I was 25 degrees short of a full 180.  Tuesday, after therapy it was 8 degrees.  So, will I ever be able to straighten my right arm completely?  Probably not.  But the goal is to have functional use of my arm, which I have.  And to be pain free, I'm almost there too.

When therapy started I could not open a jar or even shake hands without sharp pain in the elbow.  Even eating was painful because getting a fork to my mouth meant twisting my forearm in such a manner that the pain was too much (no, I didn't lose a lot of weight because I found I can eat left handed).  Now, I seldom have pain.  There are a few movements I can't do, like scratch my neck just behind my right ear with my right hand but I can reach there with the left so...  It doesn't hurt to reach behind my ear I just can't get my hand there.

The x-rays above were taken Wednesday October 26 during my final visit with the surgeon.  The top one was taken with my elbow bent about 90 degrees.  While the titanium screws are visible I can't see where the break was so I guess it is healed.  The bottom picture is two shots of the elbow with it straightened about as far as I can get it without a great deal of massaging and warming up.  The two shots on the second image differ only by how I twisted my arm.

The upshot is no more therapy, I will kind of miss that, and no more visits to the surgeon unless I start having problems.

What else has happened?  The first week in October I went up to Maine and spent the week with Doug at High Landing Camps in the North Maine Woods.  We had a really good time.  It was especially nice to be able to sit around with Doug and talk about old times, old friends, our family and to reminisce about our misspent(?) youth.  We even did a little hunting for partridge.  At least the locals call the bird we were hunting partridge.  It is really a ruffed grouse.  While we didn't bag our limit every day we did shoot some birds.  (Not the obscene hand gesture kind.)

The top picture is Doug with the first bird he got and then the bottom pic is me with the only bird I got.  

I guess that's all for this entry.  I will try to be more diligent in adding posts.

OCS SUYA

This video was made by another parent from the Navy OCS class 13-11.  You should be able to spot Sonia's son Alex.

Science Friday on Tuesday

A friend on Facebook shared this video and I just had to share it here too.



So even though it's not Friday we can once again be amazed by nature.

Elbow Day

Just a quick update, typed with my left hand only, to tell everyone that my alarm clock went off at 3:50 this morning so we could be at the hospital by 5:00.  After showering with an anti-microbial wash I dressed and we left.  At 7:11 I was wheeled into surgery a mask was placed over my nose and mouth then the next thing I knew it was 10:30 and I was back in a room with people talking to me.  All went very well but a little different than the plan.  Instead of gluing bone pieces back on I got three titanium screws.

Back to the doctor in a week.

 

The before x-ray is the top left.  Can you spot the piece they had to move around and screw into place?

Mother's Day

Last weekend we traveled down to Florida to visit Mom and watch the launch of the space shuttle Endeavour.  We flew down to Jacksonville early Wednesday afternoon, just ahead of the terrible storms that devastated so much of central Alabama.  We had quite a wind storm early Wednesday morning but nothing to compare to what happened in Tuscaloosa and other areas in central Alabama.  

Thursday we (Mom, Sonia and me) went to the Alligator Farm in Saint Augustine.  We had a great time looking at the alligators, crocodiles, birds, turtles and more.  There are lots of pictures on my web site at http://demellier.com/gallery3/index.php/Alligator-Farm.

Then Friday we headed down to Titusville to watch the shuttle launch.  We got there plenty early in order to get a good seat with a view across the water to the launch pad.  Of course the launch was delayed and we went back to Mom's place without seeing anything spectacular.