So, this has been a long busy week for me - but still had some fun stuff happen. Anyone else have good things happen?
For me, the big win - finally spent some time digging into AdvantageKit for logging. Special thanks to Justin Tervay on 2713 for tolerating some of my stupid questions. I’m really glad I know people who put up with my being very slow sometimes.
I played a 12 bar blues progression on the guitar without looking at my hands, ten times in a row, without messing up.
Went to the Automate trade show this week. We made several good contacts for work and I plan to talk with several companies in follow ups. It was great to see what the industry is putting out this year.
I even got to see an original Unimate at the Kawasaki booth! I’ve only ever seen it in IEEE footage from the 60s!
I’ve been redoing my garage after it flooded a couple of times in the past. It hasn’t flooded in a long time and I’m ready to turn it back around again. I have a lot of old FRC props, some old team swag and my old decor stuff to put back up. But job 1 was cleaning it out again and getting rid of the junk that had been accumulating since I gave up on using it. As of last garbage day I had most of it removed and had enough room to stage a mock 10x10 pit if nessecary. I’m really hoping to continue this weekend and maybe I’ll add some pics if I do.
Finally at work they were able to put out a press release about one of our robots and I’m really excited for that one to get out into the world. We’ve been working on that one for a good bit and it’s nice to be able to talk about it publically now. Really good week!
I successfully (though not without loss of hair, and a few naughty words) resurrected a system that hadn’t been touched in about 4 years to full working order, and got its speed increased to “useful”.
I would ask if your ok, but I think your doing great?
*greyt
I have been wandering Northern Europe by train 
Zipping from city to city on comfortable fast trains, I got to see a friend in Frankfurt-Am-Main for a few days, had a wonderful time, enjoyed seeing a friend in Bruxelles, and seeing part of their pride celebrations, caught up with my parents in Glasgow via a transfer in London, and am now at my sister’s wedding in Scotland, thus the wicked awesome Kilt in the first photo
It’s been a really fun couple of weeks mostly on vacation. Also - men look great in Kilts, this really should be a more common thing. (Though maybe not the hour it took me to get into a full dress Kilt, that was hard 
)
I would say to stop rubbing Europe’s excellent passenger rail systems* in our faces…
…but you reminded me of a bit of a surprise win. I’m getting back into model railroading, N scale. And a new train showed up a hair early this week, and was fully operational within a couple minutes of arrival. Bonus points for anyone who can identify it based solely on a look…
*Compared to the U.S. system, which is best described as “we have a system? What’s a system?”)
It’s a Japanese rail inspection train for high-speed rail lines, colloquially known as “Doctor Yellow”.
As the club I often run at models a route through California, where voters approved a bond measure a few years ago to build a high-speed rail line and it’s still not in operation and is way over budget, this one is in prime position to throw some shade at the politicians. And blow a few doors off, speedometer says it’ll do 200 scale mph and that’s on a bad track for speed runs. 
So German High Speed rail (ICE) - at least the routes I rode - wasn’t really high speed - I think it was more like Acela - here and there it gets up to speed but most of the time is running on legacy tracks and doesn’t break 120kph. (75mph). Maybe up to 160 now and then outside the one or two truly high speed zones. Both Berlin->Frankfurt and Frankfurt->Bruxelles were like that. But Eurostar, Thalys, and TGV are legit high speed rail. You get on a train in Lyon and in 2 hours you have gone 500km straight up. Eurostar as well, 1hr:59 from Bruxelles to London. Those are pretty nice. ICE takes twice as long to go the same distance.
I have no idea how fast we were going in the UK, but it was faster than I thought trains went in the UK. (Avanti West Coast)
But overall, take a vacation on this side of the Atlantic and enjoy the trains in person
I wish Türkiye’s network was more extensive like this. I can take YHT (Yüksek Hızlı Tren - High Speed Train) from İstanbul to Ankara or Konya, but it’s more like ICE and Acela, which is why I often call it Yarı Hızlı Tren (Half speed train). 450km in 4 hours… not a great average speed. And beyond those cities its buses, extremely slow trains, planes or cars 
So I too am jealous of Europe’s wonderful intercity train networks, it is a treat for me I am hoping Türkiye will put more serious effort into their plans on paper which are for 52 of the 81 provinces to be connected by true HSR in the next couple decades.
I like the model train you have there though - it looks very nice
I met our team’s software mentor in real life for the first time! I’m excited to connect with him more in person.
(He’s currently studying abroad and mentors us through video calls)
I’ll take a framed and signed Dog Bored With Puzzle print.
I finished this semester of school with 3 100s and a 98!
Wow! Again, the dramatic quality of your photos give me the itch to go traveling again. If you come to Houston Championship and offered a talk on your photography techniques, it would be very well attended.
Good week at the lake:
We took almost half the team down to the CelebrAsian festival in Des Moines where we interacted with almost 1000 people including having a couple of really good conversations with a State Senator and a State Representative (here almost to 500).
We turned one of the cones into a candy bowl which is a great way to attract kids (and older!) to talk to you.
We let any team member drive and/or do buttons at this event, which the kids love (here our comp button operator teaching a new guy)
Had one guy in a motorized wheelchair offer to race us for pink slips. He owes us a 10 second bot now 
Also we were right next to one of the dance stages:
In 1 week, I will be visiting Japan for a cultural exchange program for 3 weeks
I think I see someone dancing in a pair of cones. Wait…
Yeah, those pants were definitely high-vis – suspecting maybe they weren’t traditional Nepali dress.
