On Visions of Home

Yes I haven't written a thing in almost a year. Too bad! Hey you try holding down a full time job, renovating the house (money pit!) and being the father (thank god for mothers! truly the toughest job in the world.) to three children the oldest two just hit 18 whole entire months of age. (The baby, Chloe... oh yeah, my wife was pregnant, somehow we found time around Christmas last year and now there's a third.)

Anyway enough personal stuff. I wanted to talk today about something that started in August of 2011.

On August 5, 2011 an American  Atlas V with a Russian designed RD-180 main engine and five strap on SRBs (Solid Rocket Boosters) thundered aloft from Cape Canaveral. The Atlas carried a Centaur second stage up for 4 minutes 26 seconds (266 seconds). The Centaur ignited and burned for about 6 minutes putting a a satellite into a parking orbit. About 30 minutes later the Centaur was re-ignited for a second 9 minute burn. The satellite was now effectively in solar orbit with a aphelion out past the orbit of Mars and a Perihelion inside Earth's orbit.

More than two years later, on October 9, 2013, having achieved aphelion the satellite coasted back towards Earth and using Earth's gravity as a sling-shot the spacecraft shot past our fair planet on a new trajectory towards Jupiter, the spacecraft, Juno, is expected to perform her Jupiter orbit insertion on July 5, 2016 at 0230 UTC, or late in the evening of July 4 for those of us in the Americas. But just before departing Earth forevermore, NASA engineers trained one of Juno's Camera's on her point of origin.

October 9 was a while ago, it was a Wednesday, but if you can remember what you were doing, prepare to feel small. These images were taken as Juno approached the Earth.

On Renovations

Yes I haven't written anything in ages. I have several excuses.

One, twins. Anyone out there who is a parent, take the total effort you put into child rearing and multiply by... probably three, one baby is awake, the other is asleep. Or even worse, both want something and are screaming about it, at the same time. (And we're lucky, the boys are actually pretty good, and usually its easy to tell what they are fussing about.)

Two, the move. With twins in the picture we had to move, we needed a much larger home. Our plan was always to move, after the second child was born, we thought there would be a couple years between the children, not a couple minutes.

Three, the renovations. It turns out, to get a large enough home that we will be able to live in for, hopefully the next thirty years, and get it near Dawn's family (Mississauga, suburban Toronto - which is considerably more bicycle friendly than Toronto by the way, and although has comparable population density to Toronto is not nearly as pleasant to walk in -lack of street life-, which is a shame) we had to buy a fixer-upper.

So far our contractor has gutted and pretty much rebuilt (just needs to hang a mirror) our main bath. Some friends and I installed hardwood flooring in the living room/dining room, office (third bedroom), upstairs hall. We had a carpeting company install broadloom in the rec room, the stairs and the bedrooms. The contractor ripped up both the ceramic tile and the linoleum under the ceramic in the kitchen then he put in beautiful new 12x24" porcelain. My HVAC guy installed a gas line to the backyard (barbecue) and a gas line to the kitchen (new range). I replaced the very dated hotwater tank with a tankless system (a rental, which is the norm, at least in the Greater Toronto Area). All new appliances, so far the washer and dryer are connected in the basement, as is the upright freezer in the basement. The other appliances are in boxes waiting for the kitchen reno to be completed. Oh yes some friends and I gutted the basement, found a lot of alarming things in the walls, and then I had basement sprayfoamed. I painted the concrete floor of the basement. (I still need -well this goes to the contractor- to put up 1/2" drywall, as code requires a 15 minute fire barrier between sprayfoam and the house.) I had the old fuse box replaced with a modern 100 amp electrical panel, finding an electrician willing to do residential work was really hard. A friend helped me to run a bunch of new circuits, actually just this evening (Saturday night) I cut about 20 more holes in the basement ceiling joists for the new circuit that will provide power to the fridge (as a fridge should always have it's own dedicated 15amp.)

Now the house originally had a disgusting electric range. (The house had been a rental property, according to my new neighbour for at least the last 16 years.) As I mentioned, we are installing a gas range. Now my HVAC guy has already run the gas to the kitchen but I still need power for a gas range. Remember, yes a gas range gets it's heat by burning natural gas, but it still needs to run the clock, the oven light, the fan (convection oven) and most critically, the igniters. So if you are redoing a kitchen and want gas, which is way better than electric and I would argue, if properly vented, much safer (you know when gas is hot, electric coils can be hot for a long time and still appear stone cold.) Anyway if you want gas, or if you want the option to use gas later, you need not just the proper gas line, but also a 15amp receptacle. Well I did a search all over the Internet and everywhere I looked people said they ran a new circuit when they upgraded from electric to gas. Not necessary, a friend in Milton told he he got something at Home Cheapo, he also suggested both Blows and Blona (for those of you who haven't suffered enough in the home improvement stores, Home Cheapo = Home Depot, Blows = Lowes, Blona = Rona) should have this dandy adapter/step down transformer.

Well I will not go into a rant about the complete and utter imbecile I dealt with first at Blows, who first tried to sell me a 240 volt, 40amp receptacle. When I finally persuaded the Blows imbecile that what he was showing me was pretty close to the exact opposite of what I wanted and when he understood what I was after he said he'd never heard of what I was asking for. So I drove to my buddy's place, in Milton, looked at his shiny almost brand new, inspire green with envy, Wolf range (it's really sexy) and saw the adapter. Next I went to Home Cheapo in Milton, described what I was looking for to the guy there and he pulled something off the shelf.

If you are moving from electric to gas, this is $30. Sadly the battery for my SLR died before I could take more pictures, but it's on the Home Cheapo website. Factor in the cost of one 15amp breaker, 30' or 40' of 14,2 electrical cable, a box, a receptacle, unless your time is literally worth nothing to you (considering by my math the parts I just listed should end up costing about $30 as well), this is more cost effective than installing a new circuit. And if you are like most people and don't know how to install a new circuit, this is probably one tenth or so the cost to bring in an electrician (and if your basement is finished and you need to fix the drywall after the electrician does his thing...) Oh and best of all, when you go to sell your home and the idiot buyer says "I don't like gas, it's dangerous, even though its totally not any more dangerous than electricity", or "I'm stupid I don't like gas", or "I want to spend more on electricity heating my food than it would cost to run on gas", or "I like putting a bigger burden on the grid at peak time, i.e. dinner time, thus probably causing more damage to the planet". Then just close off the gas supply, unplug this adapter and tell your home buyer to get themselves a shiny new electric range and plug it in.

On Les Mouvement souverainiste du Québec

Yes I know, I have not written a thing since September. Couple reasons, one we moved (moving is a big pain for anyone who has managed to escape that - if you have please call and explain how!) Two the house we moved to is a massive fixer-upper. If having infant twin children didn't keep us busy enough, fixing this house has done a splendid job!

Needless to say, I haven't been for a bike ride in ages.

But I do have something to report on that's driving me crazy. Earlier today I noticed an advert for Quebec Tourism here in the Toronto area. So I have a public announcement to make to all Quebecois. You vote a Federalist party into office in Quebec city, be it the Liberals or someone else, and I'll consider spending my tourist dollars in Quebec. Keep ole M. Marois in office and lets just say as a Canadian I consider it a slap in the face, and asking me to visit and spend money in your province, is pouring salt on it.

Guys, think about it, this talk of seperating from Canada is, besides really tiring, rather insulting. What you don't like our country? (Actually I suspect there are litterally billions of people in less developed nations who would find that sort of talk down right crazy.) Anyway you don't like this country we've built? Then work with us to change it, it's a free country you know, but to say, oh Canada, it's so bad we want out... well that's really mean and I'm offended.

On Car Problems

I just sent the following to Audi Canada, if anyone has suggestions of where I might get a rapid response I would welcome it:

To whom it may concern,

In early June of this year my wife gave birth to identical twin boys. Dues to the physical size of modern CSA approved car seats our previous car, a VW Jetta was too small for the two car seats so in late June I purchased (financed) a Certified Pre-owned Audi Q7 (VIN: WA1Cxxxxxxxxxxxx).

By in large I am satisfied with my purchase, it is one of the few vehicles large enough not only for my wife and I, our two children, their car seats and a stroller but it even has room for a few groceries after all of the above. However, the truck does have one very serious deficiency, specifically, the automatic door locking after 60 seconds of inactivity, I call this a defect because this “feature” could have killed my children on the afternoon of Friday September 21.

On that Friday afternoon, my wife had loaded the car seats and babies, into the car and realized she dropped her car keys on the ground. She shut the car door, and walked over to the keys, only then realizing she had in fact dropped her house keys (the garage door key fob looks like an Audi car key and was on her house keys), the car keys were in the car. By the time she returned to the car, the doors were locked, with, as I already noted, the car keys inside the vehicle.

Ultimately, and luckily for my wife, as I was at work at the other end of town, a tow trucker driver was near-by, he spent about twenty minutes trying to jimmy the door lock, as both my sons and my wife became more hysterical, finally, he smashed the passenger side front window.

Frankly I don’t care about the damage to my vehicle, it’s a machine, it can be repaired or replaced, my children are, my children, there is no point of comparison. When I found out what happened naturally I got to my wife as quickly as possible, luckily the boys are fine and the car is at a shop getting new windows and repairs to the door.

As one might expect I contacted my dealer (Crosby in Kitchener ON) they told me they had never heard of this happening before, which is very strange as the tow truck driver told my wife he sees this all the time. The service department at Crosby told me there is no way to disable the auto locking feature on Audi’s, this is apparently an anti theft measure, as there are a limited number of frequencies for key fobs the concern is two similar key fobs in the same car park could result in one car being left unlocked.

As a computer network engineer by training and network security professional by trade I appreciate the need for strong security; however, I find this situation totally unacceptable. In less than three months of owning the Q7 a reasonable set of circumstances conspired to leave my infant sons locked in the vehicle until someone smashed a window, scattering glass all over my children.

I believe that if I pursued this matter in the civil courts I could ultimately, after some great cost, find financial restitution; however, as an engineer I do not see any sort of civil action as an effective resolution of the fundamental problem, namely the car locks itself with the keys inside.

As an engineer I would therefore request the following changes be made to the existing auto lock feature, or if it cannot be made with a firmware update then future models have the following changes:

1. If the car is unlocked with a key inserted in the door, the car stays unlocked until locked from a fob or by the key being reinserted. (It would be an easy habit to get into, not to use the fob to unlock the door, up until the mid 1990s that is how all cars worked.)

2. Give owners the ability, either through a dealer provided configuration change, or a owner performed change, to alter the auto lock timer, in short allow me to decide if I want more than one minute to get in the car after I press the button on the fob.

3. Use CHAP (Challenge Handshake Authentication Protocol) with the key fob serial, VIN and a date/time stamp to properly certify that the key fob is truly the fob intended to open the car door. (This is a somewhat technical solution but I was able to design, in my mind, a very secure authentication exchange between a key fob with a very limited processor/battery and the car that would be virtually undefeatable yet ensure total uniqueness of the key fob without switching radio frequencies or otherwise stretching the limits of existing technology.)

As I noted, I don’t want to treat this as some cause for a civil case, frankly I think Audi’s are generally pretty well made machines, and civil cases are for people not interested in actually solving problems. My wife and I both enjoy the Q7 and are, or were until Friday, considering replacing our CPO model with a brand new Q7. I would be more than happy to speak in greater depth to my three recommendations. I look forward to your prompt response.

Michael Cole
B. Math (Waterloo, Co-op, Hons. Computer Science Major)
M. Eng. (Ryerson, Computer Engineering, Computer Networks)

On Internal Combustion and Other Things

I've been thinking a lot lately about the BCC, I've no idea why, well I've gone for my first few serious (i.e. 100km+ bike rides) since the boys were born. Anyway I was talking to Dawn about the BCC, she only rode with them once but was not impressed. One guy hit on her, another, upon learning that there was to be no networking opportunities with Dawn couldn't be bothered to talk with her, I didn't learn any of this until just a few weeks ago. I find it ironic, though, the guy that hit on Dawn, well Dawn thought he was ugly. Anyway Dawn was already living with me when this happened and now she's my wife and mother of my children.

If I can just address the guy who was hitting on Dawn. Really, hitting on another guy's girlfriend is a really classy act E.M. (I'll put his initials), but hey you've never been particularly pleasant to me which pretty much explains why I detest you. The hitting on the woman I would propose to less than two months later, that was just... well frankly completely unsurprising. That seemed like the sort of thing you would do.

I guess it's a shame though, there are some great guys in that club, Thi Ng, Ian Willcox, but truth is I'm okay with riding alone, riding is already a pretty solitary activity to begin with and with infant sons I find it impossible to hit the road on any sort of schedule. (I feel guilty seeing Dawn scrambling about organizing bottles and changing diapers so I generally help out until at least one of the boys has settled.)

At least I've been able to pack in a few rides lately, as I documented earlier, slowly I'm rebuilding my base. It's remarkable how much things have fallen apart for me (from a physical abilities perspective) since the birth of the two little ones. Though of all the reasons to loose a base, well frankly twins really are a blessing, they don't have colic (knock wood or something!) they are both gaining both height and weight with a remarkable speed. They are the cutest little things... big things, and yes they've turned my life inside out and upside down and I wouldn't trade it for anything!

I remember in 2010, I was riding all the time, I'd have to look at my calendar but I suspect in August and September I was averaging about 500~1000km/week. Now I'm not doing that in a month, but I'm not lonely and the T.V. is principally a source for background noise. (Though I still try to watch the Daily Show, when John Stewart covered the RNC I couldn't stop laughing... though perhaps I should be crying?)

Anyway I was reading some of my anti-SUV posts, I feel rather ashamed of my truck, but then I remember the grief I had trying to make something more modest work. The fact is, if you've got a family with twins you're going to need a really big machine, either a mini-van or an SUV and I just cannot bring myself to buy a mini-van.

Ironic really, I remember when my brother and I were young we didn't have car seats, back seats only had two point restraint, lap belts, and there were no airbags. Now by law children under a certain size or age must sit in booster seats or full on car seats and there are regulations for car seats that make the damn things so big you need a huge vehicle if you have multiple children. Maybe that's why SUVs became so popular?

That wouldn't explain the vegan I know who bought himself a Tiguan, he's got no children. But here's a random thought on veganism, suppose Dawn or I, or both of us were vegans (praise be Bovine god of steaks were not!), but anyway suppose there was a vegan in the family would the boys be allowed to have breast milk? What about women who are unable to produce breast milk, say for medical reasons? Would they be allowed to give their children formula which is basically vitamin and mineral fortified cows milk? What if their children had say, an iron deficiency, sure they can give their kids spinach but lets face it, you need to boost your iron levels have a steak! (Well liver actually is the most concentrated iron delivery food, but it tastes so bad and steak is only marginally lower down the iron content table, go indulge, have a double porterhouse at Harbour 60, its a medical necessity!)

I've thought about the vegan a few times, you see when he rationalized his purchase of the Tiguan he used something to the effect of "that 2L Turbo engine is very efficient". No it's not, I had one, well back then it was a 1.8L Turbo in my Audi A4 years ago. Anyway I guess VW bored out the cylinders a little, but the point is, that thing was a gas guzzler for a small sedan it had appalling fuel economy. (A full seven seater Toyota RAV-4 had better fuel numbers than the five seater A4.) But I just want to point out how a remark like "2L Turbo is very efficient" reflects a lack of understanding of basic auto engine design in particular the fundamentals of what a Turbocharger is and does. Okay, I know someone's bound to ask, so here's a link to turbo's or if you know me, just ask and I can give a more non-technical explanation as to why the remark "a 2L Turbo is very efficient" is such an idiotic thing to say.

And to think I'm contemplating trading up my 2009 Q7 for a brand new supercharged 2013 Q7, (I'm fed up with being cut off in the city), I know going from a 3.6L naturally aspirated to a 3.0L Super is going to be ugly at the pumps but I can live with that, the thing that's eating me right now is how unresponsive the truck gets when I mash my foot into the firewall. Yes, I've thought about all the torque in diesel, but I'm being cut off at speed, not from stop lights. Still I wonder what ole' Carroll Shelby "there's no replacement for displacement" would say about our modern super and turbo charged engines.

I should've been a mechanical engineer sure I don't really approve of internal combustion engines (for environmental reasons) but the physics of them sure are interesting. (Yes I know it's all 19'th century technology, but hey, there were improvements made, back in the 20's, the 1920s!) Anyway can't I be interested in painfully obsolete technology?

On American Political Humor

This is something that got emailed to me, it's brilliant!

On Being Out of Shape

Dawn has four brothers, two are older, two are younger. All but the very youngest are married with children (or a child in the case of the second youngest). Anyway Dawn's second youngest brother calls up about a week ago and asks if we could look after his daughter for Friday night and Saturday morning. Apparently before I got into Dawn's life she enjoyed the roll of being the family baby sitter, though I have to wonder how twins have changed that job title.

Now Dawn's brother lives in Shelburne which is about an hour's driving distance outside of the city and as it would turn out Dawn was able to enlist the assistance of her mother, so that it was three on three (it's not like we are going to hire a sitter to look after the boys while we run off to Shelburne to look after one girl!) Anyway I hit on the idea of biking from our short term rental, (oh did I mention we moved to a rental while we sell our smallish home and once sold look for a largish home - twins for you!) to the house in Shelburne.

Here is the route I took,

Apt_2_Brad_and_ElaineShare your bike routes @ Bikely.com

Because Dawn's mother, my mother-in-law, would be able to look after the baby we were more or less not required, still it might be nice to get out of the city for the day. So Dawn asked if I wanted to go Friday or Saturday. As I was able to get off work Friday it came down to a simple decision for me, ride away from the city during the morning rush hour, or on Saturday when the yahoo's would be out. I thought Friday made more sense.

It was probably a foolish move, it turns out there's an awful lot of cars on country roads on a Friday, one road in particular, Charleston Side Road, near Erin was horribly busy, and every time a 54 foot tractor trailer drove past, and more than one drove by, I really thought, I ought to up my life insurance. Anyway I think I've got a better route for next time, and here it is:

Apt_2_Brad_and_ElaineShare your bike routes @ Bikely.com

Sadly on this ride I realised how much things have fallen apart for me since the boys were born. (I guess I expected it, but still, expectation versus actual discovery of fact, it was upsetting). The ride was 137km, which is a nice distance for me, nothing really far, heck last summer I rode up to Lake Simcoe by myself a bunch of times and that was 180km, I even did a Forks of the Credit ride alone and that was just over 200km. Well this time I started a lot closer to the Forks and got there with 95km on me and I was tired, the knees hurt, the legs hurt, my rear end hurt. I stopped for a fluids break and resumed about 20 or 30 minutes later, hurting. It was a shame really, quiet country roads, lovely rollers, farm land, nice weather and I hurt too much to notice pretty much anything at all.

I'm not going to give the statistics, they are too upsetting, instead I'm going to go back to clean my sweet ride and hope that I can mount the saddle again soon, I've got to get back into shape.