• Re-Re-Re-Litigating

    Posted on by Don Comment

    I saw recently that FreeCAD, the engineering program I played with once or twice in the past (it wasn’t ready for prime time), well it finally just reached its first official release version. I thought I’d give the new version a try, so I installed it (using Flatpak — probably a mistake, but it was the easiest choice in the moment) and got it running pretty quickly. The program looks the same, maybe a bit more polished, but it definitely works much better. That got me thinking…

    There was a work project I automated years ago, then extended the automation; and then (after I retired) I decided to re-do the whole thing using FreeCAD and Python. Looking back, the actual project was a little bit boring, but playing with the programming was fun, and so I found my old programs, re-worked them a bit, and it worked great.

    I won’t bore you with new pictures.

    One difficulty I did run across was that FlatPak builds apps isolated in their own little sandboxes, with their own version of everything they might need in the sandbox with them, and the version of Python shipped with FreeCAD did not have some of the library moduless my original script needed. And I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how to install a library module in the sandboxed version of Python.

    All I needed from the library module was a root-finding function, and in the end it was actually easier to just write my own function than continue messing with the libraries. Strangely enough, my script now runs slightly faster despite my function being less efficient (bisection in Python vs Brent’s Method in C++ or whatever), probably because I got rid of the of the slowdown of having to load that library. Once again, for small problems, small brute-force solutions have their (small) advantages.

    (I don’t remember where I got the idea, all those years ago — I may have pulled it out of my ass made it up myself — but back in school I always thought that the magic number was 3000: when dealing with less than 3000 items, just use the brute-force approach.)

    I also went looking for some of the models I made in my last go-around with FreeCAD. I found a few and moved them from my old laptop to my new one — backing up the old laptop along the way, I don’t think it’s long for this world anymore — but the one I wanted to find, a model of a forged tee I made, was nowhere to be found. Oh well, I guess I can re-litigate that one too, if I really want.


    📂This entry was posted in looking back tech talk

  • Obligatory…

    Posted on by Don Comment

    So here’s my (by now sort of traditional) Thanksgiving offering:

    Enjoy! And for those who may prefer a more traditional holiday, uh, tradition:

    Happy Thanksgiving everybody! Don’t eat too much, that’s not the point.


    📂This entry was posted in day by day

  • Some Downtime

    Posted on by Don Comment

    I’m out on the town right now on a tour of coffee shops. I’m currently at Johnny’s Bagels, after a visit to Bitty & Beau’s, just tapping away on my laptop and enjoying the human parade in front of me — or “enjoying;” the people near me are squabbling about their food at the moment. Anne is still out of town through tomorrow.

    I visited my Mom yesterday. It wasn’t a working visit, just a “visit” visit but I did help her with a few household tech things (printer, etc); I also gave her the digital picture frame I picked up for her a few weeks ago. (I put my photos on it, the ones of my dad I brought to the funeral, and also the ones Chris brought.) I think she was pretty happy with it.

    On the way home last night I started thinking about historical markers, especially the ones relating to the Walking Purchase (my drive home essentially follows the route of the walk), so when I go home I went to the Pennsylvania Historical Marker Program, downloaded the Walking Purchase marker data, and added it to the geodatabase I started for the Walking Purchase. (Technically it’s a geopackage, and I currently keep it as part of my Native Paths project. Speaking of which, I am starting to see the end of what I’ve been doing with the native paths. Not sure what comes next.) I was reading “Promised Land” this morning, but that’s a little too depressing to read in big chunks.

    I’m getting ready to head back home, and watching the windy street out the window. It looks a lot more like November now, cloudy and blustery, and cool if not absolutely freezing. After weeks of warm and sunny, which was nice at first but became more disquieting as the weeks passed (and the drought conditions, and the wildfires and burn bans worsened), it was a pleasure to have two days of “wintry mix” last week. Even walking in it was nice — of course, I was dressed for it.

    Well it’s not raining right now, but I’m dressed for what we do have. Off I go.


    📂This entry was posted in day by day

  • Getting Ready for Thanksgiving

    Posted on by Don Comment

    This is what I wrote, twenty years ago.

    Right now I’m home alone. Anne’s sister Lorraine came down from Tamaqua last night (they were expecting snow), and they took off early this morning, picking up Laura on their way to a “sisters weekend” in Massachussetts. I might visit my Mom tomorrow, if I hear back from her, but otherwise I’m on my own… I am currently wearing a nice heavy wool sweater and eating fish chowder, and I will probably go for a walk in the drizzling “wintry mix” soon, to drop off some overdue library books. Thank goodness the weather has finally become more seasonable, though it is less fun outside now, and we still have a long way to go before the drought conditions are over.

    One other thing: I just signed up for Bluesky. I never subscribed to Twitter, and I’ve been on Mastodon for years but it’s kind of boring (though this might be down to how I use it); we will see about the new kid.


    📂This entry was posted in day by day looking back

  • Another One Bites The Dust

    Posted on by Don Comment

    So we flew out to Altadena last week, and saw this happen…

    Congratulations Ben and Jenny!

    We flew out early last Wednesday morning, meeting Emmi, Kyle & Iris, and David & Noemi, at the airport for our 6:30 flight. We were all flying together, Allentown to LAX by way of Chicago, followed by an hour or so drive to our hotel in Pasadena. (Anne and I also gave one of Ben’s friends a ride from the airport to where he was staying, but we were still checked in at our own place by around 4:00.) Dinner was at a local salad restaurant, and that’s where Ben and Jenny caught up with us.

    The next few days were sort of a routine: up early and breakfast at a local cafe, then fun time with Iris — we really got to know the local parks and playgrounds. Afternoons were spent doing touristy things: Thursday at the South Pasadena farmer’s market (followed by a dinner party at Ben and Jenny’s), Friday at the Santa Monica Pier, including a trip to the aquarium where I got to pet a shark. (Coming home Friday night was also our first real taste of LA traffic…)

    Saturday started with our typical morning routine, then we were off to the wedding venue, a park near Ben and Jenny’s home in Altadena. We got there a bit early and helped with setup, met more of Jenny’s family etc, and finally the big moment came. The wedding ceremony was lovely, and very personal, a mix of Quaker and Iranian Jewish traditions, with the mountains of the Angeles National Forest as backdrop. Afterward we all went to dinner at one of their favorite local restaurants.

    This was unfortunately where Iris reached her limit. She’d been a real trouper up to this time — on the flights, in the hotel and around town, but she’d finally had enough and started melting down; Emmi and Kyle took her home not long after we arrived. We stuck around quite a bit longer — the food and the company were great, and Jenny’s family were an incredibly fun bunch.

    Sunday morning we were all scheduled to go to the nearby town of Ojai for some sightseeing and a visit to the hot springs, but Anne and I offered to stay back with Iris to give her some chill time (and her parents some grown-up fun time). She got in a three-hour-plus nap, and then we just had fun playing in the hotel lobby and watching cartoons (and eating cookies) in our room. The downtime did her, and us, a world of good.

    Emmi and Kyle came back to the hotel around 7:00, with Ben and a bunch of fun stories about their time in Ojai. We had dinner in our room, then went down to the hotel bar where we met Jenny and some of their friends from the wedding. This was a little bittersweet, our last time all together — we were flying home in the early morning — so we laughed and talked, and stayed up maybe a little later than we should have…

    Monday was a long day, and it was all business: driving to LAX through the leading edge of rush hour, flying to Newark, and finally taking a bus back to Allentown. We were home by 10:00 PM, and we were toast.


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  • Back To That Old New Thing

    Posted on by Don

    I’m slowly digging out, getting back into some of my usual shenanigans: I went for a towpath ride today (and one several days ago), and I’m about to go upstairs to play my cello — first time in a month that I even took it out of the case…

    I also found another computer chew-toy, not so much a new thing as a return to something I was playing with a few years ago: I’m looking at pedestrian crash data using R. This time around, I have my data in a geopackage, and am using a different library to access it, which makes the whole process easier; I’m also limiting myself (mostly) to location data, and keeping the geographic scope limited to Bethlehem, though I am looking at a wider date range: 2013-2023. So far I’m having fun, but who knows when I’ll lose interest?

    We have Iris tomorrow, and Wednesday we’re visiting my Mom — I stop in to help her out with stuff maybe once a week. We’re also doing some backyard cleanup here, in preparation for the kayak storage racks Anne is building. Life goes on.


    📂This entry was posted in day by day tech talk

  • Anabasis 2024

    Posted on by Don

    We did our annual group ride and camping trip last weekend, beautiful Fall weather if not quite peak foliage (it was still pretty good), and some really nice riding.

    Friday: Up To Mauch Chunk Lake

    We started at the CAT office and rode up to where we could pick up the Nor-Bath Trail at Bicentennial Park, which brought us to the D&L at Northampton. We then rode the D&L all the way into Jim Thorpe, stopping for lunch at the Slatington Farmer’s Market, passing the newly repaired/reopened sections near East Penn and Weissport, and grabbing supplies in Jim Thorpe at the grocery store in East Mauch Chunk — the west side of town was a madhouse, the Fall Foliage Fest basically took over downtown. Luckily, we rode through the crowds easily enough and back into relative calm, and finally made it up to our campsites at the lake — we had three next to each other, and all along the lake shore. Sweet!

    CAT Riders at Bicentennial Park
    CAT Riders On The D&L
    Repaired Towpath Near Weissport
    Weissport: Foliage on the DL
    Lehigh River, Just South of Jim Thorpe
    Jim Thorpe from the Mansion House Bridge
    My Trusty Steed at the Mansion House Bridge
    Mauch Chunk Lake
    CAT Campers
    At the Campsite

    Saturday: Rockport and Back

    This was our recreational ride, up through the Lehigh Gorge to Buttermilk Falls, just little past the Rockport Trailhead. Our first stop was back in town, where we bought our lunches for later in the day, and from there we continued on to the Glen Onoko Trailhead, where a bunch of other people were joining us for the day’s ride.

    It’s a fairly straightforward ride up through the Gorge, beautiful sights all around and the occasional excursion train passing by. We were traveling at different speeds, and some with children and time constraints turned back early, but the bulk of us regrouped at Penn Haven and continued on to lunch at Rockport. A quick trip to Buttermilk Falls, and we were on our way back down the Gorge, and through town again, and back up the hill to our campsites.

    Some of the Saturday crowd set up camp with us, and others just went home after hanging out for a while, but this was our night around the campfire. The evening was gorgeous and the views of the lake and ridge were spectacular, but I couldn’t tell you more past sunset — I was in bed by 9:30.

    Home Sweet Home
    Meeting At Glen Onoko
    On The Trail
    Lehigh Gorge Trail
    The Crew at Luke’s Falls
    Jim Thorpe From Nesquehoning Bridge
    Nesquehoning Bridge
    Golden Hour at Our Campsite

    Sunday: Homeward Bound

    My Garmin ran out of juice some time before Sunday morning, but Sunday’s ride was mostly just Friday’s in reverse. We stopped at Hug in a Mug in Weissport for breakfast, and at the Slatington Farmer’s Market again for lunch, and when we got to Northampton Anne and I broke off to take the roads more directly home.

    Good Morning Mauch Chunk Lake
    Morning Mist
    Morning, Mauch Chunk Lake
    Lunchtime Bike Parking at Slatington

    And that was our trip!


    📂This entry was posted in the sporting life 📎and tagged

  • Rest In Peace, Dad

    Posted on by Don

    My father passed away last week. I really don’t have much to say about it here, but I think I have to put this much down to clear my mind — I have a more private journal where I wrote the details of his death, and my own thoughts and feelings, but I will not be sharing them, here or elsewhere.

    It was a pretty rough week: he was in the CCU for a few days before he was gone, and we were with him through to the end. His wake was Thursday and his funeral was Friday, and the only bright spot was that he’s now buried in a beautiful place in the iconic, historic cemetery in our old home town, which he loved. (An old school friend was at the funeral, and after the burial he showed us his wife’s grave not far from my dad. My school friend Mike is also buried nearby.)

    I suppose I’d been preparing myself for this for a while, but it still felt like “not yet, not yet,” and I’m sad but mostly OK, but every so often the grief just comes out of nowhere and hits me again full force.

    Goodbye Dad, I didn’t want to say goodbye. I love you, I love you forever.


    📂This entry was posted in day by day

  • I Had A Good Run But I Run Too Slow

    Posted on by Don

    I don’t really know yet if COVID actually, finally, caught up with me, but something laid me low for the past few days. What I have seems mostly like a sinus infection: stuffy nose, chest congestion, slight fever, and just a tired, washed-out feeling. It could be anything really, but Anne just got over COVID and it seems an implausible coincidence that I would come down with something else right now. It feels weird to get it now though, after seeming almost magically immune these past few years, walking fearless through the valley of the shadow…

    I tested negative, for what that’s worth — I will take another test in a day or so before I go back out into the world. Meantime, I took my usual cocktail for sinus (Benadryl, Mucinex-D, and Tylenol), sacked out in bed for a day or so, and I’m already feeling better.

    What have I been up to? Mostly reading: I picked up Starfish where I left off, which is saying something for my boredom levels — I put it down months ago because it was such an unpleasantly weird psychodrama. Now it doesn’t seem all that bad.

    I also have been re-reading SSH: The Definitive Guide, and just got a book on PHP the other day. I’ve been searching for a new tech “sugar high” ever since I got that SSL certification automated. If anything ever makes me a Buddhist, it’ll be the cycle of buzz and crash that defines my relationship with technology.

    UPDATE: Yeah it’s COVID. Just took another test.


    📂This entry was posted in day by day

  • Jasper And Blue Jingles

    Posted on by Don

    This was a short bike tour we took, a loop south along the Delaware, then west and back home by way of Vera Cruz. We took some liberties, but it was at least nominally meant to follow some of the old native paths in the area south of us.

    Day One

    We left Bethlehem, heading cross-country over to Riegelsville, brunched at the Riegelsville Inn (we got there just as it opened), then we continued downriver on the New Jersey side, crossed back into Pennsylvania at Milford, and rode down the towpath to Tinicum Park, our stop for the night.

    Riegelsville Bridge
    Riegelsville Inn
    The Delaware At Riegelsville
    Riegelsville Bridge
    Riegelsville Bridge
    Anne On The Milford Bridge
    Delaware River
    Tinicum: Delaware River
    Tinicum: Delaware River
    Tinicum Park
    Tinicum: Polo Players
    Tinicum: Morning Deer

    Tinicum was fairly primitive as far as campgrounds go, but it was very pleasant, and we got to watch some local equestrians play polo for a while before we crashed for the night.

    Day Two

    This was another beautiful day. We got up and out early, got breakfast at a diner not far from the campsite (again arriving just as it opened), then rode down the towpath and Rt 32 to Point Pleasant.

    Point Pleasant is where Tohicon Creek meets the Delaware, and just above that is where Geddes Run enters Tohicon Creek. This area had a substantial native population once, and the mouth of Geddes Run was once a place where Native Americans worked a local stone called argillite (aka “mudstone,” or “blue jingles” as the local quarries later called it). The actual native quarry site is now on private land, but we could get a view of the general area from the road.

    Tohicon Creek
    Tohicon Creek
    Geddes Run
    Wismer Road At The Bridge
    Anne At The Covered Bridge
    Anne In The Covered Bridge
    In The Covered Bridge

    Our route from there took us west on the Point Pleasant Pike, generally following an old native path to Schwenksville, through scenic little roads, and into more built-up and heavily trafficked areas, until we finally made it to Green Lane Park, our second night’s lodgings.

    Day Three

    From Green Lane we went north, again following the general outline of a native path — this was the path from the Phoenixville area to the jasper quarries at Vera Cruz. The route was a bit of a surprise; I expected it to be fairly flat (something I’d heard was a hallmark of native paths) but it was actually fairly hilly and rolling.

    We got into Vera Cruz, stopped to explore Jasper Park (sorry, no pictures this time), and then we went into Emmaus to get lunch. We came home on our usual route from Emmaus, which was once also a native path. And that was our little holiday!


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