Author Archives: SeanMcTex

A Quick Visit to New York City

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Earlier this week, I made a quick trip to New York City to do a work presentation for a potential client there — my first visit in 11 years. After my professional responsibilities were taken care of, I was able to slip away to roam about for an evening and a morning and reacquaint myself with the city that has insomnia.

Tuesday evening, I dropped by the TKTS booth in Times Square to see what I could get admission to at a reasonable rate. I decided upon the play Jerusalem after speaking with the knowledgable and helpful staff member stationed by the signs, who claimed that it “changed [his] life”. The play was wonderful: terrifically funny through the first two acts, concluding with some great human drama in act 3 — an ideal balance. The show was well worth seeing, though probably not one for the younger set, due to an avalanche of blue language. (Though at least it’s English-style cursing, so it might go over the heads of young Yanks.) As a bonus, on the way back to the apartment where I was staying, I got to watch the police clear Times Square due to a “suspicious package” that had been found there. It turned out to be benign. They let everyone back in 10 minutes after I left, though I was wryly amused to notice that they left the people in the Abercrombie store, which appeared to be within the presumed blast radius, right where they were.

Wednesday, I decided to explore Central Park before I had to leave to catch my flight. This turned out to be an excellent decision. In spite of the fact that I spent my four college years only about 30 miles up the road, I’d never really ventured much into the park, aside from the 1990 Paul Simon concert, for which I camped out the night before — a sleepover that, on this trip, I learned was illegal. Oops.

Starting at the southwest corner of the park, I zigzagged my way to the northeast corner, with many a detour along the way (some intentional, others due to my execrable sense of direction). Central Park is fabulous, and within 20 minutes, I was in love with it. Numerous terrific playgrounds, beautiful lakes, boats and bikes for hire, wonderful rambles through the woods, elm trees (which are fairly unusual after Dutch Elm Disease demolished the American population of these lovely behemoths), museums, pine forests, a carousel, castles, running trails, cafes, and theaters all vied for my attention as I passed, munching on an everything bagel with cream cheese and lox, just to get the full New York experience. It made for a delightful morning, though a bit exhausting, as I was lugging all of my traveling supplies on my back with me. (Fortunately, I travel ruthlessly light.)

It was great to get to spend a bit of time in this marvelous city. Crime rates have dropped precipitously over the past 10 years, and, most surprising of all to me, New Yorkers seem to have actually gotten quite friendly since I last visited. I don’t know if 9/11 had a tenderizing effect on gotham’s soul, or if there has been some other seismic cultural shift, but nearly everyone I spoke with was delightful.

So thanks, New York City, for a great time. Let’s not put off our next rendezvous another 11 years.

A New Word Game

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Yesterday while standing in a long line with Maggie, I came up with a word game to pass the time. It turned out to be pretty fun, and I played a few rounds with Kathy later on as well. Here’s how it works:

  • Player one selects a starting word.
  • Play then alternates between player two and player one, each trying to create a new word by adding, subtracting, or changing a single letter.
  • Once a word has been used once, it’s off-limits — you can’t use it again in that session.
  • The player who is unable to come up with a valid move loses the round.
  • Valid moves are limited to words in the dictionary. No proper nouns may be used.
  • Special starting rule: if player two can’t think of a valid move from the starting word, then player one must be able to make a valid move from that word, or she loses the round. (This prevents player one from starting with “antidisestablishmentarianism”, for example.)

Example play session:

  1. P1: CAT
  2. P2: COAT
  3. P1: COATS
  4. P2: COTS
  5. P1: CODS
  6. P2: CODA
  7. P1: CODE
  8. P2: CODED
  9. P1: CODES
  10. P2: MODES
  11. P1: MODEL
  12. P2: MODELS
  13. P1: YODELS
  14. P2: YODEL
  15. P1: can’t think of anything, so P2 wins the round

Try it out, and let me know what you think!

South Padre Family Vacation

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Last week we all took a break from our usual goings-on to head down to South Padre Island, the southernmost beach town in Texas. This was a big deal for me, as Emily is now 19, graduated from High School, and is making plans to move out before long. Thus, this would likely be the last time we would all be under the same roof, doing a trip together as a family, and I wanted it to be a special time.

On our way down, Emily’s boyfriend Andres joined us. The extra vehicle gave us more space for packing, and we all enjoy Andres’ company and were glad to have him along for the first few days of the trip. (Unfortunately, he had to return to San Marcos for work, and wasn’t able to stay longer.)

One thing we did this time that worked out well was to designate an “Entertainment Committee” that was responsible for taking the money that we budgeted for fun on the trip and deciding the best way to spend it. This had a couple of important benefits: 1. Everyone on the Committee got a chance to work together and have a good voice in how our money would be spent. 2. I didn’t have to be on the Committee.

The biggest single expense that the Committee decided was that we would all go parasailing. (This was not something I would have chosen, but the pleasure of not having to be responsible for making the decisions far outweighed any angst I felt about the outcome.) After we signed the terrifying liability waivers and set out to sea, our boat’s crew immediately managed to dunk the parachute into the water, expressing their bafflement as to what was going on in the strongest (and bluest) terms. They eventually got it up in the air properly, and Liam and I mounted up for the first ride.

We soared above the waves, able to see miles in any direction, buffeted about by the gusty wind until I got motion-sick. While I generally have decent sea-legs, and the boat had given me no trouble, the bouncing about we received up in the air was more than my stomach wanted to deal with. Fortunately, it didn’t get to full-on, reverse peristalsis, fish-feeding revolt, but it did diminish my enthusiasm for the time aloft. Abigail and Emily went up next, and both had a grand time. Maggie and Kathy brought up the rear, and were promptly dunked in the water as soon as they were off the boat, nearly submerging Maggie at the same time it pulled her swimsuit askew. Once they were in the air, however, they had a great time as well.

Another highlight of the trip for us was a visit to Sea Turtles, Inc., a rescue center for various sorts of Sea Turtles that nest in the area. Favorite bit of sea turtle lore learned: the leatherback turtle, which weighs up to 1,500 pounds, must eat approximately its own weight in jellyfish each day to survive. As we enjoyed the jellyfish-free beach, we were grateful to these reptiles for their diligent culling of the less-pleasant sea denizens.

The best part about the sea turtle experience, however, was probably getting to see a nest of about 70 Kemp’s-Ridley turtle hatchlings released into the ocean for the first time. Kathy took some great photos and video, which I later edited together to show friends:

(See it here if the embedded video doesn’t work.)

Other highlights:

  • Body surfing with the whole family.
  • A visit from my cousin Tanya.
  • Watching a movie projected on the side of the Port Isabel lighthouse.
  • Gathering shells on the north beaches where the sand dunes are steadily subsuming the roads.
  • Playing “Fortress”, where we build sand castles imprudently close to the waves and then see how long we can keep it from crumbling by building levees and moats around it.
  • Browsing the art galleries and import stalls in Port Isabel.
  • Delighting in the fact that, for the most part, the kids really got along well and even enjoyed each other.
  • Playing lots of games and reading together.
  • Watching “True Grit”, one of my favorite movies of recent vintage, as a family.
  • Playing guitar by the pool with Maggie singing along.
  • Designing, creating, and play-testing a new card game with Liam.

It was a terrific time, and a great start to the summer. Thanks, family, for the splendid vacation!

Now It Can Be Told

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Now that I’ve left Texas State University’s employ, there are a couple other pranks that my partner-in-crime Jeff Snider and I pulled that can be made public.

Prank the First

Texas State University wrestles with something of an institutional inferiority complex. This is caused by the fact that it used to have a reputation as one of the biggest party schools in Texa,s and that it’s just down the road from the similarly named, but even more enormous, University of Texas. Whenever we attended conferences, we had to explain to people that shouting “Hook ‘Em!” at us was actually something of a hostile gesture.

As part of its image rehabilitation, the marketing department began heavily pushing its new “Rising Star of Texas” slogan — verbiage that many of us thought still sent a disappointingly weak message. But they were committed to it, and plastered it on everything they possibly could, including the screen that came up on our conference room projectors while they warmed up.

One day, while sitting in the conference room, I had a thought: “If these projectors can be customized to display the logo and this unfortunate slogan, they can also be customized to display something else.” A bit of quick googling yielded a PDF manual for the projectors, which explained in detail what one needed to do to make the change. Bingo.

So Jeff and I got the University Logo, sucked it into Photoshop, did a little editing, and made a guerilla run to the conference rooms around our floor. Now, when the projectors are powering up, they proudly display the Texas State logo, but with a different caption than usual:

TEXAS STATE UNIVERSITY
A Great Plan B…

It’s pretty subtle, as the projectors get brighter as they warm up, but it’s definitely enough to catch if you’re paying attention. (Which most people apparently aren’t, as this one has been in place for over a year.)

Prank the Second

There is an architectural model that the University commissioned at some point in its history, presumably to show off the planned construction of some building or another. Since the cost of such things is substantial, the University has chosen to keep it on display in the first floor of the library where I worked. It is covered with a plexiglass box that is secured to the base of the model by nothing more than its own weight and gravity.

Since we often had to be in late at night for various maintenance activities, we took advantage of the opportunity to place all sorts of things in the model with the tiny cars and people that normally inhabit it: miniature rubber chickens, a jet fighter, a Millenium Falcon, etc. (The Falcon was especially gratifying, as it remained illegally parked in one of the car lots for several months.)

Our coup de grace, however, was a full-scale dinosaur invasion that took place one night:

This one, alas, only stayed in place for two days. It was, however, widely appreciated. Jeff was particularly pleased when, a day after the dinos has been removed, he saw a student coming down the stairs, looking over expectantly at the model, seeing that it was now dinosaur-free, and letting out a disappointed “Awwwwwww!”

These sorts of things increased my enjoyment of my tenure at the University significantly. But there was one prank that we pulled as a parting gift to my bosses of which I’m especially proud, and which I will write about soon. Stay tuned…

Marvelous Birthday Present

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As all you regular readers of this blog already know, my friend Jason Young and I are rather prone to building things that break other things. For my 40th birthday, we built a potato cannon and used it to shoot down my birthday piñata. For my 41st birthday, Jason used this photo from the 40th:

To commission this original artwork for the 41st:

Utterly freaking awesome, I think you’ll agree.

The best part? As the guy who did the drawing detailed in his blog post, it was not until Jason actually ordered it that he realized the artist, who he had discovered out in the untamed wilds of the Internet, lives two doors down the street from him.

Thanks Jason! (And Ben the artist!) This is now one of my most prized possessions. Great stuff.

My Wife: A Titan of Industry

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I just got back from three weeks in Switzerland as part of my new job with Magnolia. (You can see some photos on Facebook if you’re interested.)

Now, when Kathy travels and I’m in single parent mode, I consider myself as having accomplished quite a lot when I end a day with the same number of live children as I started it with. Actually getting anything done during that day is lagniappe.

Consider, then, then awe with which I walked into our house and saw that, while I was away, Kathy had accomplished a huge list of tasks: painted our bedroom, cleared out a gigantic pile of brush from our backyard, painted our front porch, bought and installed (from Craig’s list) a new bed and mattress in our room, painted all of the shutters on the front of the house, cleaned out our shed, weeded and groomed our decomposed granite paths, bought and planted a big pear tree, went out into the hills and come back with a two loads of limestone for landscaping, cleared a bunch of scrap metal out of our backyard, sold our decrepit Ford Escort, re-stained the back porch, and a host of other things I’m probably forgetting at the moment. (She did get some help from Bobcat Build, though that added “fed 25 college students” to the already impressive list.)

With all of this on top of usual business of keeping a family running while taking college classes, it’s no wonder she finally took the opportunity once I was back to sleep much of the day!

Thanks for all you did and do, sweetheart. You’re a champ.

Jon Anderson Show

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When I was growing up, I had musical tastes decidedly out of step with my peers. I went through a year or two of listening to nothing but The Beatles, then only gospel music for a while, and loved to blast early Andrew Lloyd Weber (on vinyl) and the Star Wars soundtrack (a much-loved gift from my folks) on our stereo. (I also enjoyed cranking up the car radio as loud as it would go to play “Puff the Magic Dragon”, though that was mostly to confuse the people we drove past.)

One of my very favorite albums, however, was Yes’ Close to the Edge. Since it was released when I was two years old, none of my friends had any affinity for it. I don’t recall ever trying to share it with anyone or convince others of its delights: it was my personal music space that I loved, a place to go to be alone and to enjoy that solitude. In a way, I think sharing it or finding someone else who loved that album might have ruined it for me.

Over the years, however, I haven’t kept up with the band or their goings-on. It was therefore with some astonishment and considerable delight that I read my friend Barry Brake was going to be conducting a choir that would be backing up Jon Anderson, the band’s distinctive vocalist, on Monday at the Majestic theater in San Antonio. I enthused with Barry, who is immensely gifted both as a musician and as a finder-of-interesting-opportunities, about his chance to meet and work with “one of the greats.” He reciprocated by offering to help us lay hands on tickets for the family to come down and see the show — largesse I was thrilled to accept.

To sweeten the deal even further, it turned out that Jon was being backed up not only by the choir, but also by the Youth Orchestra of San Antonio, an excellent symphony orchestra with which I played as a teenager. Though none of the people associated with the group were the same as during my era, it was an added delight to see that group performing again. (And to observe that Orchestra Nerds still look the same 25 years later.)

So Monday night, we all trooped down to the delightful Majestic theater for the show. We arrived early enough for the curious to go roaming through the place, giving ourselves a tour of its baroque wonders as we waited for the music to start. Finally, the lights dimmed, YOSA played an introductory musical segment, and Anderson took the stage.

He was terrific. Even at age 66 after having dealt with some significant health issues, he has a great vocal instrument, and smoothly transitioned from soaring melodic lines to staccato percussive stylings with apparent ease. His trademark high-pitched range is intact, and carries over into his speech. He did a mix of songs he’d done with Yes and his solo work, and was backed up ably by the orchestra and choir. While he apparently performed solo at other points in his tour, I was glad for the additional musicians on stage with him. (After all, what’s “I’ve Seen All Good People” with only a single singer?)

While it was clear that, of our group, I was the one most enjoying the show, the evening as a whole worked out to be a delight for everyone. Maggie, while not much into the performance, enjoyed exploring the Majestic and picking out all of the decorative details. The Brakes’ company is always a delight and, since it was the start of Spring Break week for the young folks, we were able to all troop to Chacho’s for absurdly large piles of nachos and cheap margaritas afterwards.

So big thanks to Jon and Barry for the great start to our Spring Break week!

New Programming Blog

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For those of you who have an interest in programming in general, Magnolia in particular, or just can’t get enough of my scintillating writing, I’ve started a new blog over here: Propeller Hat. It’s mostly Magnolia stuff thus far, and will probably be infernally geeky for the foreseeable future, so only visit if you have a fairly high tolerance for that sort of thing.

Mad Science: Jam Jar Jet

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This past Friday, Jason Young and I got together for a visit. Since Baylor Sing had just wrapped up for him, and I was starting 3 days of unemployment, we decided to drown our sorrows with alcohol.

But, being the mildly destructive nerds that we are, we decided it would be more fun to set it on fire than to drink it. So we printed our William Gurstelle’s excellent article from Make Magazine #5, gathered the necessary supplies, and got to it. Here are the results:

Virtual Photography

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Back in 2001, CBS introduced EyeVision for their Superbowl telecast. EyeVision allowed the broadcasters to combine images from several dozen cameras, positioned and 7° intervals around the stadium, into a seamless playback that could be rotated on the fly, creating an effect much like the famous “Bullet Time” sequence in The Matrix. The technology, while not perfect, was really neat, and offered unparalleled insight into the on-field action. Unfortunately, it hasn’t made a reappearance at a Superbowl since then, and the technology doesn’t appear to have been pushed forward much.

Fast forward to 2011. The Kinect has been released for the XBox 360 and has been enthusiastically embraced by hackers. Microsoft, while initially reluctant to let people fool around with the sensor, quickly realized that they were fighting a losing battle, reversed their position, and now even provides some official support for people doing new and interesting things with it.

The Kinect works much like a WebCam: you point it at something, and it gives you a video feed of what you’re pointing at. The interesting thing, however, is that in addition to the image, it also tells you how far away each element in the image is. Using a couple of Kinects in tandem allows one to actually reconstruct a texture-mapped scene in three dimensions. Once you’ve done this, it’s a simple matter to move around and through the space, much like you would in a video game. Here’s the first proof-of-concept I saw:

And here’s another demonstration that uses a single Kinect panning around a scene to capture the data:

As you can see, once the data is assembled, one can move a virtual camera through the scene, viewing it from angles where there was no camera to begin with. Though these first efforts are still a bit rough, think what one could do with this sort of technology if it were refined and made more sensitive: the Superbowl’s EyeVision technology could be expanded: instead of 33 possible vantage points, you could see a playback from an infinite number of angles, even swooping in among the players. Movies could be filmed with full 3D data sets, allowing one to move through a scene and see it from whatever angles one wished. Professional photographers could not only adjust exposure, contrast, saturation and that sort of thing, but also the apparent angle from which a photo was taken.

I expect this sort of thing to blossom over the next few years, and am anxious to see what happens with it once it gets from the hands of hobbyist technologists to those of artists and producers. It should be a fun ride.