Ellipses...

Missing my dad pretty badly today on Father's Day.  Well, really pretty much still every day...  The NBA Finals this year are like a heavyweight prizefight: hay-maker after hay-maker...  Finally got to the Doctor Who on the DVR.  I never would have thought I would say it, but I might be done with Doctor Who...  Today I finally hung one of the cabinets I bought over a year ago for the garage.  One down, one to go...  Getting the summer projects going...  Looks like probably no Dinosaur workshop or Automation workshop this summer...  Is it cheating on the Penguins if I keep watching the NHL even though they're out?  I think it should be ok...  I think I am going to have to start looking for some friendly Ultimate games...  If I had to decide, I don't think I would call Snowden a hero or a traitor...  Kind of neat to see former students and classmates on TV.  If you aren't watching Tait Stages you should be...  The new Tweetdeck lets you shrink the window down to two columns.  I had been waiting for that...  Does the world really need two fish tank fabrication TV shows?  Do I need to watch two fish tank fabrication shows?  Maybe I will just pick one or the other...  Trying to make a change to the Technical Direction Shop Biographies project.  Be nice to have a standing wiki...  Fairly certain I don't want the NSA recording the nature of all of my phone calls, I'm really certain they don't need my browser history...  Now that Google bought Waze does that mean it isn't cool anymore?  I don't want to have to find a new nav app...  Mrs. TANBI is instituting a fairly rigorous schedule of entertaining.  She's good at entertaining...  I had the burger at Eleven.  I must confess I didn't like the burger at Eleven...  I'm supposed to be thinking about my next professional step should be.  Not really sure I'm getting someplace...  Sure would be nice to see some summer pictures on the Tumblr...  There's something knocking in the back seat of my truck.  It's driving me nuts.  I may be too easily driven nuts... 

RAPID

Today I went down to the convention center to the RAPID Additive Manufacturing show.

After passing a long line of people waiting for the Megabus, I took this picture under the convention center:

I got into the show for free with my school ID - woohoo!  The show floor was pretty cool.  About half the vendors were scanning companies and half people that do fabrication or sell fabrication tools.  There was one company with a 6' tall dino skeleton.  I showed them a picture of me 14' project, which they thought was cool, but not as cool as theirs since theirs was made of 1" plate aluminum.

There were a bunch of 3D printers.


But i didn't spend a whole lot of time looking at them since we have already purchased one.

There was this one company: Mcor Technologies.  They had a 3D printer that was pretty different.  Instead of using resin theirs uses paper.  Not only that, but they've combined it with an inkjet printer so that you can print in full color.


That will definitely be worth checking out for the future.  Someone should tell them to come to USITT.

Mexico, June 2013

How about some pictures from Mexico?

Mrs. TANBI and I got some time away and actually left the U. S. of A.  We spent a couple of days on the Mayan Riviera.

Here's the view from the lobby...

The resort is actually pretty far from the beach.  It's there, just at the edge of your view.  The bulk of the rooms are actually cottages spread out around this lagoon.  To the far left in the image you can see the hotel proper and a hint of the first of five pools (there was almost never anyone at that pool).  To the left of the small bridge is "the island" which is home to most of the pools and one of the restaurants.  You could even take a boat ride around the lagoon although we passed.

There was a fair amount of nature around.  Lots of different kinds of birds in all the trees and turtles and fish in the lagoon.  Here's a small iguana...

and here's a bigger one...

There was also a kitten that seemed to live on the patio of one of the restaurants, and we also ran into a raccoon one night on one of the bridges.  Also we saw something that we decided in the end was a lemur one day while we were out walking.

Here's the beach...

We went to the beach one day.  It was nice enough, but neither of us remembered to bring our reef shoes and under that beautiful surf are intermittent (and pretty much invisible) stretches of fairly sharp rocks.  Were there no alternatives it would have been ok, but there were a bunch of really nice pools, so most of the time we did that instead.

Here's a water level view of the main pool...

We spent most of our pool time off of one of those little niches on the right...

Lounge chairs, sun umbrellas, many, many towels, and cocktail service.  Very nice.  Mrs. TANBI's feet on the left, my goofy toes on the right.

Here's the bottom of Mrs. TANBI's feet...

Actually, the nicest pool was at the spa, but I didn't bring my camera there and pretty much never brought my phone anywhere.  We pretty fairly had the spa pool to ourselves on two afternoons.

The trip had an unfortunate amount of rain in the second half and that really reigned in any plans to go exploring away from the resort, but we managed to have a great time anyway.

Here's my best sunset photo from the trip...

Maybe next time we'll get better weather.

Ellipses...

I wonder if PRISM keeps track of my blog and if I have any fans at the NSA.  Probably not... We're back from Mexico.  It rained a lot, but we still had a good time...  I am desperately trying to spend a huge amount of money by the end of the month.  I am pessimistic that I will be able to make it happen...  There was a moment in the Tony opening last night when NPH traveled about 80 feet out of view of the audience in less than 15 seconds.  Pretty impressive...  The folks that aren't upset about the NSA surveillance, I don't think they really understand what's possible.  People should read more science fiction...  Hilary Clinton is on Twitter.  She must not have a lot to do in retirement...  I was really very happy with pretty much everything in the first season of Orphan Black...  I was going to do movie reviews here, but I'm up three movies and I haven't written about them...  While I was away I read Ready Player One.  If you grew up when I did you should absolutely read it...  Might be time to make a summer to do list - although last summer I tore up the list as soon as I made it...  They've heard from the IRS folks and it does sound like rather than being political, the keyword searching was mostly pragmatic...  The Bulls are out of the NBA playoffs and the Pens are out of the NHL playoffs.  Might be time to catch up with the Cubbies...  The 1314 folder in my inbox now outnumber the remaining 1213 folders...  I seem to spend a whole lot of time watching MSNBC lately.  I used to really dislike it; I wonder what happened...  Do you think if I put a cookie sheet behind my wireless router that I could improve reception in the opposite direction?  Might be stupid enough to work.  Maybe not...  Still not making really good use of my mornings.  I should do something about that...  Any ideas on how to get a cat to the vet for a checkup if I can't even get her in a carrier?  Really can't even catch her...  My alma mater did pretty well at the Tony's last night...

Congrats Mrs. TANBI

Tonight Mrs. TANBI graduated in the 20th class of Leadership Pittsburgh's Leadership Development Institute.

She is now an official emerging leader, which is something I have known all along.

One speaker at the graduation said LDI is the equivalent of many MBA programs.  So that's way cool.  I am very impressed.  Everyone should congratulate Mrs. TANBI on the achievement.