9/19/2007
After returning from the cruise to Alaska, I've managed to keep quite busy. Busy enough indeed to neglect this blog for over a month! Certainly not for lack of anything to write about!
I've got a bunch of progress on the autonomous car project (okay, someone think up a good name for this thing, quick!) but I think I'll hold off on that for a bit more until I can do a full write-up. I'll just note that I've got the i2c bus working across the board, which means that the sonar is hooked up and the thing can finally move! Quite exciting indeed.
Last Sunday I went on a mountain bike ride with Router Dave on a couple trails I'd never been on before. We Chicoans are so lucky to have such a nice park so close to us. After a ~4 mile trek straight down the canyon, I thought it would be a good idea to cool off by jumping into the creek at Bear Hole. It was nice, but when I was climbing a rock my foot slipped a few inches straight into a pile of broken glass where someone had smashed a bottle. Much blood and pain followed:
Sorry for the graphic image, but that's my foot after all! Please note that this happened about a mile above where the gate was locked and across the creek from the road, so there was a fair amount of gunk accumulated in the wound after a nice swim and bike ride down to Dave's waiting parents. (thanks again for the help!)
I am also in a fair amount of (non-physical) pain because my trusty MacBook Pro's keyboard and trackpad suddenly stopped working last week. Of course I feel naked without having a computer I can tote anywhere - sans external keyboard and mouse. After a couple phone calls to the Apple store, it was made clear that I'd have to send the computer in and sell my soul to pay for it. Did I mention I was just under 20 days out of warranty? *sigh*
I went to the bookstore on campus - our local Apple authorized reseller - and begged the manager to order me the part and let me install it myself. After 2 trips and much pleading on my part he finally gave in and ordered me a new topcase for wholesale price! What a nice guy :) Of course this means that I'm on my own for installation and I can throw any warranty out the window, but I love excitement. I'll keep you posted how the install goes next Thursday or Friday when the part comes in.
That's all for now. Until next time, keep on truckin'.
Labels: autonomouscar, personal
