Move over, Disney World

Dude. If they put in a quidditch ride, I am so there.

Fun with Replacement

Imagine a word or phrase which contains the word "habit." Now, replace it with the word "hobo."

• Mickey loves it when we put used paper-towel tubes in the hobotrail with him.
• Sorry about that; it was force of hobo.
• The Mother Superior placed the hobo over Frances' shoulders.

&Etc. Buckets of fun!

Baby Oil

In the convenience store on campus I was waiting in line next to the health-care products and noticed that there was a bunch of Johnson's baby oil. I had the unoriginal thought,

"How many babies do you have to press for a bottle?"

After that, I wondered what those Johnsons had to say for themselves, so I read the back label. You'd never know it, but apparently, using it is like searing your food: it seals the moisture in.

When you pry it from my chubby, sticky hands...

Ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you the great state of Illinois.

Mother's Day--Belated

My Mom is awesome.
She's been many things: EMT, day-care provider, student, teacher, sales-whiz, jewelry-maker, and more. She's got versatility.
A high-school dropout, she went to college and got a degree, and then went to grad school and got another! She's got gumption.
About thirty years now, she and her husband have taken care of each other, and grown four (quite) odd children to adulthood. She's got a family, and they love her.
Happy Mother's Day, Mom.
And to all you other Moms: I don't know how you do it--but I'm glad you do.

By Way of Explanation

More work-related posts for you guys.

Oh-by the way, when I give "left/right" directions, I'm assuming your right. As you may recall from the bathrooms of your youths (or Enter the Dragon), when you put mirrors up to each other, you see some very strange things. If you tilt a few mirrors and form a little triangle, you see copies of things receding off into infinity (and MADNESS!!). That is an optical "resonator."

So, an optical resonator is a place where light bounces back and forth. It turns out that when you start to make these things small (like the size of light waves), only the light that fits into the resonator can rattle around in there.

Here's a picture to illustrate.



On the top left, we have a three-sided resonator, like you might form with your vantiy mirrors. We can imagine light following along the red path, coming back onto itself again and again. If we were to add more sides, and follow the arrow down, we'd see that each time the light turns, it makes a smaller turn in the seven-sided resonator than in the three-sided one. If we go farther, up the diagonal arrow, we find a twenty-sided resonator, and the light's turns are smaller still... taking the limit of that process to infinity and imagining a hollow cylinder with a mirrored inside surface, we form what's called a "Whispering Gallery Mode Resonator," (or WGM),so named for the Whispering Gallery at St. Paul's cathedral in London.

We see that the arrow from the twenty-sided resonator to the WGM resonator is wiggly, and that the WGM is full of "lobes." That sort of represents for you that we're making certain that the light has the right wavelength to "fit" inside!

Those are the kind of resonators I deal with at work. Here's a few Scanning Electron Microscope micrographs I took of one such resonator:



Along the bottom is an overview, looking down on a Silicon microdisk WGM resonator. That one is 100 micrometers in diameter-about the diameter of a human hair. Above that, you see a couple of detail pictures. The left one shows a bit closer, and the right, closer still. As you see, these disks are very thin. Around 200 nanometers.

Dealing with these is a bit of a pain. In order to get light into them, we bring a fiber optical cable quite close... so close, that the photons jump from the cable to the resonator. Here's a schematic that emphasizes a that.



In the top panel, we have a fiber optic cable running from left to right, carrying a rainbow of light. The circular thing in the middle is a top-view of a WGM resonator. As you can see, some colors of light jump off the fiber optic cable and swirl around in the WGM. I've exaggerated the degree to which the different colors are displaced, just for clarity. As you see, each of the colors is a wave, and each wave closes on itself. That's called the resonant condition-and is what I mean when I say that the light has to "fit:" at any given point, after a round trip, the electromagnetic wave has to look identical to how it looked beforehand!

Another thing we see is that after the WGM resonator, the fiber optic cable doesn't have any more "red," "green," or "blue" light. It's all stuck in the resonator. We can see that in the bottom panel, where the curve shows the transmission past the resonator as a function of wavelength. Right at "red," "green," and "blue," all of the light gets stuck in the resonator. The shapes there are called "Lorentzian curves." You see that each dip has a little width- well, that has to do with how much light gets absorbed in the resonator, or radiated out into the world, etc. The less that happens, the narrower each dip will be.

So, what does all that have to do with the crazy picture below?

Well, the shapes of the Whispering Gallery Modes are a little more complicated. It turns out that each of those is an electromagnetic wave. And there are a couple of different ways that the electric field part can be oriented. Each of those orientations gives rise to different specific properties. Moreover, a given orientation can also form more complicated mode patterns- each of which also gives rise to different properties. The picture below was made by recording the transmission versus wavelength (around 1500nm-invisible light) and then moving the fiber optic cable farther from the resonator an then recording the transmission versus wavelength and then movi.... Sorry. Pointing up is one electric field orientation, and pointing down is another.

I'm still not sure WTF was going on.

WTF is Going on Here?

Generated this figure today, trying to figure out-well-what was going on.

Never Heard That Before

• Ira Flatow basically tried to browbeat a caller into bombing a fertility clinic. The subject of the evening's show was stem cell research. When a caller spoke of his strong belief that all life begins at conception, Ira asked what the fellow was doing about it... Eventually, he posed the question, "If these were your children, what would you do? Would prayer be enough? Would writing letters to your congressmen suffice? Shouldn't you be doing something?"
  It wasn't explicit, but-hoo boy-subtext.
• Dr. Ruth was an Israeli sniper before she was-well-Dr. Ruth. Talk about a career change.
• We went shooting for the first time in a little over a month. Susan, as usual, was amazing. I did pretty well, too. We did have one problem: on several clips, the shell casings weren't clearing for Susan. She tried firming up her grip, but it didn't help. Any idears? (This did not happen to me at all)

Previously Promised Post

In this post, you'll see some of my work... don't laugh. Here is an ICP/RIE.

We use it a lot. In order to make it work, we need all of this:

You can see small shiny tubes running everywhere. The tubes carry various gases: Argon, Helium, Nitrogen, Oxygen, Octofluorocyclobutane, Sulfur Hexafluoride, Chlorine, Silane, and a couple of others. I did that. It took a while to measure and bend it all.

Occasionally, the ICP/RIE breaks. When that happens, I usually have to fix it. Recently, the part pictured below broke. (It turns out, more than one thing was probably broken, with one leading to the other) Incidentally, that thing is a RF (radio-frequency) AMU (auto-matching-unit). Basically, it connects an RF power supply to our system. In order to make sure the power goes efficiently from the generator into the system, it has to automatically adjust some doohickeys to match the impedances. Impedance is just a fancy kind of resistance, but it is fairly important. In order to replace it, I had to take it apart.

This is the RF AMU:

Here's a better look:

And now with that part on the ground, ready to really work on...

You can see some cylindrical bodies there in the box. Those are tunable vacuum capacitors. The top one seemed to be stuck in one position, so I replaced it. No dice. I could tell that the capacitor could move, now, but looking closely, I found that the machine didn't know it was moving. Eventually, I traced the problem to one of the bits hanging off the side (there are two motors and gearboxes and whatnot)-one of the gearboxes was bad. When I replaced that, everything was peachy.

First Second Baseman

Here is an actual screenshot of my junkmail folder. I noticed that the purported sender had the good sense to phish with the name "Fifth Third Bank." It reminds me of the "38th Church of Christ, Scientist," I saw in Simi Valley some time ago.

Minor Update

What's going on these days?

• Running 2 1/2 to 3 miles, every other day. No recurrence of knee problem, as yet.
• Playing The Elder Scrolls: Morrowind quite a bit. Getting near to completing it.
• Looking forward to reading the new Harry Potter book, which we've got pre-ordered.
• Not going shooting. What with a variety of things, it has been weeks. I need to lay off the diet coke before we go, though: it makes me kinda jittery.
• Enjoying the Pasadena weather. Not quite a proper spring, but it'll do in a pinch
• Listening to a bunch of music I haven't heard in a goodly while (my iPod has been largely battery-less for a long time, now, and I just reloaded onto computer several gigs of old tunes)
• Hungry (lunch in about an hour).
• Had to fix the ICP/RIE, which was a pain in the ass. I'll dig up some pictures of the things I had to deal with.
• Finally, after months, getting a working fiber aligner from New Focus (they sent a bad one, then returned it unfixed, the first time I sent it to be serviced).

Coming to Oregon

We'll be going home briefly next weekend, for the worst of reasons. My very dear friend Luther died in an accident this week. Friday night will be spent flying up for a memorial in his honor. He was a kind friend, and one of my "chosen" family: not by cause of birth, but by deed.

Cacophany

When I was a kid, there was usually a lot going on at home. With four children and their assorted friends, many pets, different activities, parents with less than perfect hearing, etc., the audio background level was often pretty high.

Upon leaving home, I often found myself in the position to enjoy some quiet. It got to the point that I could no longer abide the simultaneous use of music playing devices and the television (an old standby at home). Eventually, though, I discovered the internets.

Now, when I'm at my desk, I tend to listen to the news and music simultaneously. A reversion to olden times? Maybe. What I want to know, though, is if there's a way to send one to the left ear, and one to the right. I think I could get higher information transfer that way.

Best Band Name Ever (Courtesy of Susan)

My Unicorn Bride.

Tom was right

This is funny.

What Have We Been Up To?

Well, mostly the normal stuff:

• Diving at Anacapa.
• Shooting more, and getting the Handgun Safety Certificate Study Guide from the Attorney General of California, so we can purchase a sweet, sweet, pistol: the Sigarms P226.
• Eating at Gyu-Kaku, a yakiniku restaurant.
• Playing Fable, which we've had for about two years and haven't played for one.
• Working

Cool Stencil Technique

When we were on our honeymoon, we saw some spray paint artists using a nifty stenciling technique. In order to paint objects with interesting details, they used manila file-folders with the large object cut into one side, and the detail cut into the other. This way, they lined up very neatly, and it was simple business to paint elaborate tropical fishes, things with stylized shadings, etc.

Very fine!

Six things...finally

-Everytime I drive past a semi-truck I have to look and see that someone is actually driving it, thanks to the movie "Maximum Overdrive." -I can only read magazines from back to front. -When I laugh too hard, my eye twitches. On occassion, I snort. -When I go to resteraunts I have to organize the sugar packets by color, size and alphabetically. -If one of my hands or feet gets a drop of water on them I have to get a drop of water on the same spot on the other hand immediately. Same thing if one hand gets completely submersed, I must to the same to it's opposite. -Meat is my favorite food. I am practically a carnivore. Nay, I am a carnivore.

It Might Work.

During various waits in the cleanroom or at my desk during simulations, I've been reading in the final draft of FM3-24, the Army's and Marines' new counterinsurgency manual.

It would seem that General Petraeus and his other authors have a strong sense of the history of insurgent and counterinsurgent operations. There are many historical insurgencies discussed with what reads to be great facility.

The claim (and a reasonable one it is) is that one of the keys to defeating an insurgency is providing security for those who are not participants; the butcher, baker, and candlestick maker need to be able to go about their business and provide for their families.

Clearly, the bombs and murders in Iraq indicate that despite our troops being in Iraq, they may be located in the wrong places. We read in the papers and magazines and hear on CSPAN that most of the troops are currently located in either forward operating bases (FOBs) , or in other secured locations, and they sally forth to conduct tactical operations.

Strangely, this is probably both the safest and the least safe organization for our guys and ladies, depending on the time horizon. They (authors of FM3-24) say that in the short run, the situation is security punctuated by periods of danger, and in the long run, the situation is indefinite exposure to these periodic vulnerable moments--because we can't effectively provide security to the mass of people who are afraid of being exploded at the market or abducted at work and murdered in an alley, and without that security, the population won't turn out their assailants.

Therefore, it seems the plan that is being implemented is to put more troops in more immediate danger, with the idea that by allowing our troops to stay in the areas they secure, making connections with the populace, and building trust and incremental other improvements, the insurgents will lose the power of terror over the populace--the people will be free to collaborate with our forces in achieving their security.

The upshot of this plan is that in the short term, things are likely to get worse for our troops. More injuries and deaths. However, it may work. I don't know--it may be too late for a change tactics to achieve the goal of stability and safety in Iraq. I don't like the idea of more young men (and women; support troops will not be any safer than they have been) being asked to give the "final measure of devotion," but we've started another civil war that may lead to another Rwanda... I worry that with the current civilian leadership in the White House, we can never expect better results. If someone else were there, I might be able to advocate the extra troops and more time... but I can't trust our current Executive; they've been wrong on too many occasions.

A Couple of Things

1. Thing the first
1. Megan, you should do the "six things." Dad, Mom, Sis, anyone else, please also join in in comments.
2. Thing the second

When she was perhaps 6 years old, Megan did a really funnny thing. One summer day, Melissa and Matt were not, for whatever reason, home. Mom and Dad went off early to hit the yard sales, leaving Megan and me at home. I was a teenager and usually spent a goodly portion of Saturday and Sunday sleeping (making up for the lateness of my weekday reading). Megan, not realizing I was home, got a bit worried... and called 911.

I woke up when I sherrif's deputy stuck his head in my bedroom door (hand on gun), and asked if I lived there, and if my parents were around... I explained things, got out of bed, and gave Megan a bit of a hard time for it. I figured that now she's all grown, I should bring it up again, and supply a bit of perspective.

Note: This is not an invitation for any parents to spill stories of my own foibles, many though they be.