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WEEK 13 2011

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Saturday 2 April 2011
Saturday - not feeling 100%, just hanging around mostly. I did run some chores, returning books to the library and getting the oil changed in the Explorer. Also had lumch with some friends.


Book #32 was Milor!, by Thomas De Prima, book V in the A Galaxy Unknown series.

Friday 1 April 2011
Friday -  I worked on the boat in the morning, sanding the portside interior paneling with 220 grid, so that I can re-varnish it. I hit the starboard side again, the side that I gave a coat of varnish a couple of weeks ago, with some 320 grit. I'll varnish the port side, wait four hours or so, then re-varnish it and the starboard side at the same time, so that they both have 2 coats of the clear polyurethane.


The overhead needs scuffing too, but I got a call from the boss and had to head into the office in the afternoon to translate some WGS84 coordinates into NAD27 Zone5 coordinates for the draftsman.

I wasn't actually sure what the old "state plane" coordinates consisted of, but a bit of googling showed how the concept works. Essentially you use a virtual cone with it's apex somewhere high in space over the north pole to project your actual spherical coordinates onto. The cone is set to be tangent to the center of several narrow strips (7 for California, Ventura being in Zone 5) so that the deformation isn't too big as you move away from the tangent latitude. Once projected you can "unroll" the cone to flat, and calculate the "easting" and "northing" value, in feet, from one corner.

Kind of old fashioned, but for the surveyor with only a slide rule and a pencil it was the best method available.

So, there are a couple of things going on. Firstly WGS84 to the  NAD27 ( North American Datum 1927) using the "Clarke Ellipsoid of 1866" as it's latitude/longitude basis; and then the projection to the cone as described above.

What I actually did to transform the points was to import the GPS points into Manifold, then reproject into NAD27 Zone5, and export.


Then I headed home. It took hours longer than it should have. I always check the 101 and the 405 traffic reports at sigalert.com before leaving, and they were reasonable. But I haven't been checking the Fwy-14, and it turns out that there was a fatality accident that shut down the northbound lanes for hours, starting about 4:00pm. From about 7:30pm at Via Princessa to about Sierra Hwy it took me nearly two hours of stop and go traffic. The accident had long since been cleared, but the residual congestion was terrible almost the entire way. I saw several vehicles over on the side, probably rear-end accidents from the stop and go, and a number of other vehicles that probably overheated.

A pretty miserable drive for me, but much worse for a number of other people.

Thursday 31 March 2011

Thursday - working away in Ventura.

Wednesday 30 March 2011

Wednesday - Working away in Ventura.

Book #31 was Origins of Life, by Freeman Dyson. Another very interesting book. Origin(s) is plural because Dyson espouses the idea of a dual origin of life, firstly a non-exact cellular replication stage, then a stage where DNA (or RNA) adds a near exact replication. Interesting ideas, particularly as my rudimentary biological science knowledge dates back to the late 1970's and a lot of what he was talking about was new to me.

Tuesday 29 March 2011

Tuesday - Working away in Ventura. Plans and specs for a couple of projects, Grimes and Matilija Canyons, mostly.

Monday 28 March 2011

Monday - I've been wearing a prosthetic, a boot like device, one that keeps my ankle from bending. I keep mildly re-aggravating the Achilles tendon, and this should help prevent that. In the morning I almost forget that it's on, but by evening I am so ready to get the damn thing off!

Sunday 27 March 2011

Sunday - Books so far, this year:

#1 Lords of the Sea
#2 Kris Longknife #1: Mutineer
#3 Kris Longknife #2: Deserter
#4 Kris Longknife #3: Defiant
#5 Kris Longknife #4: Resolute		 #6 Kris Longknife #5: Audacious
#7 Kris Longknife #6: Intrepid
#8 Kris Longknife #7: Undaunted
#9 Little Women
#10 Good Wives
#11 Empress of Eternity
#12 Quarter Share
#13 Up Jim River
#14 Betrayer of Worlds
#15 The Bounty*		 #16 Half Share
#17 A Yacht Voyage to Norway, Denmark, and Sweden
#18 The Wreck of the River of Stars
#19 Citadel: Troy Rising II
#20 Live Free or Die
#21 Surface Detail
#22 How the Irish Saved Civilization
#23 The Name of the Wind
#24 The Wise Man's Fear
#25 A Galaxy Unknown
 #26 Valor at Vauzlee
#27 The Clockwork Universe
#28 The Clones of Mawcett
#29 The Sun, the Genome, and the Internet
#30 Trader Vyx



Book #30 was Trader Vyx, by Thomas dePrima. This was the fourth book in the series, and, you know, sometimes I hate myself for not being able to stop reading a series...


Picture of the Week
llamas in somis
Photo Notes: Llamas in Somis

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