I was lucky enough to get to see the debut of Ralphie VI at the Sept 3, 2021 University of Northern Colorado at University of Colorado football game and I will never forget it. See the great video below with a wonderful September Colorado sunset.

So today, I went with my father-in-law, Joe, to the Indy 500 Racing Experience. Which means we got to take 2 laps around the Indianapolis Motor Speedway at about 165 miles per hour in a two seater Indy car. It was so much fun to do this during speed week at Indy. 

We had a great time and had really good weather for it. I will not forget what it was like to go that fast around the track and see the stands and all of the items on the track go by in such a blur. 

We want to thank all of our friends at North Mechanical who got us on the list for such a treat.

I had a great trip this past weekend to visit with my mom and aunt, now that travel is a bit easier. Had a couple of great walks along the Reedy River in downtown Greenville, SC.

So we did get a chance to finish up my home networking project this weekend. My friend Conrad helped us rewire and straighten things up. By the end of the weekend, I have a new wifi6 setup (netgear mk86) as well as a 16 port switch that is activated on all the data ports in the house. See below for before and after.

Video of new switch up and running! (thanks Conrad :)

Home Networking Project 2021 from Robert H. McDonald on Vimeo.

I really love this set of images from 2018. Great times and fun photos!

So I just found out about the Joby Aviation vertical lift all electric car. Toyota seems very interested in it. I have pasted one of the first videos of the car flying below.

So my friend Conrad will be coming for a visit in the near future and we are working on a home network project that should take things in our home to the next level. Working to setup all of the cat 6 in my place to run through an unmanaged switch and help me connect my mesh network through a wired backhaul to the service provider.

Still trying to decide on which system to use for the mesh network. Looking at several options. I wish Eero my current mesh had better PoE options - but they only have a proprietary option that is difficult.

Instead will look at netgear nighthawk mk83 - brand new as of March 2021 and does wired backhaul as well as PoE and WiFi 6. Also will be using a netgear unmanaged switch at my switch box to connect all of my wired connections in the home.

I really like this vintage piece. It is a Heuer Camaro with a manual winding Valjoux 7733 movement.

So over Christmas I got a new watch and I really love it. Reminds me of when I was a kid. It is a Hamilton PSR and is a remake of tthe Pulsar Time Computer shown below.

Google just announced OnHub a new router featuring six antennas and mood lighting.

So I was delighted to hear that Pebble is coming out with a new watch called Pebble Time that they are also funding on Kickstarter. Looks pretty interesting to me.

So I just saw this watch the other day and really think it is one of the coolest designs I have ever seen. Not a bad price but for a top notch time piece. It is called the Ressence Type 1.

Ressence Type 1

If you have not heard about this it is really a cool story. Phil Venditti teaches public speaking and he took a sabatical from his day job at Clover Park Technical College in Washington state to create this group of 50 videos of prominent public speakers. These are now open content for use with many different types of classes for this subject. There is a great piece on this at Creative Commons - http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/42373 but you can check out the videos on Phil's YouTube Channel.

Just got my latest watch in the mail from an ebay auction. It is a Doxa anti-magnetic analog watch from the 1950s - really cool watch with a little wear and tear. Could be my smallest, thinnest watch ever! A first!

So I just got a new watch a Seiko SSC015P. Really nice solar powered analog movement with chronograph. Keeps excellent time and has nice screw down pushers for the chronograph.

Thinking about putting a NATO type band that I have on it but so far I do like the stainless bracelet that it came with.

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-04-04/the-real-story-behind-bubba-watsons-hovercraft

I really want this watch but i think it is a bit over priced in general

http://hypebeast.com/2012/8/eric-haze-x-casio-g-shock-ga-110eh-8a

My good friend Jim Mouw designed this Kuail OLE watch at the Boccia Watch Site.

So I just got this fantastic shot in my email from friends at NCSU. Showcasing their newswall visualization area. Like they say a picture is worth let's say hundreds of thousands of words on this one!

(The James B. Hunt Jr. Library NewsWall at North Carolina State University.)

The Kuali Open Library Environment received a $750,000 grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to develop an open, community-based library software system. OLE was launched in 2009 in part from a $2.3 million grant from the Mellon Foundation and is designed to help libraries manage and deliver an ever-increasing amount of digital resources and collections.

For more on this grant: http://newsinfo.iu.edu/news/page/normal/23726.html

The following submission deadlines for the 2013 Joint Conference on Digital Libraries (JCDL) have been extended:

Full paper submissions are due 4 February 2013.

Short paper, panel, poster, demonstration submissions are due 8 February 2013.

Workshop and tutorial demonstration submissions are due 15 February 2013.

For more information, please refer to the complete CFP at http://jcdl2013.org/call-for-papers.

Doctoral consortium submissions will be due 15 April 2013, and details are available at http://jcdl2013.org/doctoral-consortium.

JCDL 2013 is a major international forum focusing on digital libraries and associated technical, practical and social issues. This year's conference will be held in Indianapolis, IN from July 22-26, 2013. We welcome submissions on the wide range of topics of interest in Digital Libraries worldwide.

This year's event will be hosted by Indiana University and the University of Illinois in downtown Indianapolis, IN.

I am giving a talk today about Kuali OLE within the context of the IU LIbraries with colleagues Gary and Mechael Charbonneau.

You can check out a live stream of this at http://connect.iu.edu/diglib today 11.28.12 at 12 noon. For more on the 2012 DLP Brownbag Series checkout - http://www.dlib.indiana.edu/education/brownbags/

For those of you following our work on the HathiTrust Research Center you may want to check our our latest report and update which is linked off of our homesite on the HathiTrust Web.

See - http://www.hathitrust.org/updates_htrc_oct2011-mar2012

Highlights concern the following:

• All MOUs are now in place between our founding partner institutions (IU, UIUC, UM, and Google)
• HTRC intitial cyberinfrastructure is up and running at IU
• Release of HTRC beta version of our API 0.1
• Developed a proof of concept search using Blacklight
• Developed set of grand challenges for HTRC
• Added new member to Executive Committee (J. Stephen Downie - UIUC)

Look for more coming soon.

Today's IU DLP Brownbag Discussion will feature as a topic the HathiTrust Research Center. Our speaker Stacy Kowalczyk from the IU Data to Insight Center will show the work that is being done now for the HTRC prototype being developed by the HTRC which is a joint project of Indiana University, the University of Illinois, and the HathiTrust.

To see the live broadcast at 12pm eastern on April 4 go to this link - bit.ly/1PylC

To see the archived webcast go to the IU DLP Brownbag Series Site - http://www.dlib.indiana.edu/education/brownbags/