![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Birthday Snow!
Dec. 10th, 2013 11:05 pmhovering just below freezing, and I have been longing for some real winter weather, where it cools down, snows, and stays that way, without any melting till spring. I suspect it is still too soon for that, but we had enough snow this morning to nicely cover all of the ice from the last couple of thaw-freeze cycles, and I am quite cheerful about the beauty of the world under its fluffy white blanket, just on time for my birthday. Now I just hope that my phone was mistaken when the weather widget predicted temps above zero for tomorrow again.
Since it is my birthday I started my day with a walk in the forest and loved every minute of it. Then I got to play with one of the best birthday gifts I have ever gotten.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lord_kjar managed to solve the last of the issues with the program he has been working on for me. The project is one for work. In addition to my 3D modelling project I have been working on, I also have lots (127!) of thin sections from rock samples collected from drill holes in my project area. Every now and then over the past couple of years I have made time to take photos of these samples through the microscope and while at it I wrote down notes about the minerals present, their sizes and relative abundances. This information has all been recorded in a commercially available photo database that an archaeologist friend of mine once recommended on her blog.
Some months back it occurred to me that since all of that information was in a database it should be possible to extract it from there and print photos and notes for each thin section to a pdf. Sounds nice and straightforward, doesn’t it? Sadly, that database program turns out to be far better suited to looking at the photos within the program than it does to extracting the information from it via a script. It was necessary for him to try quite a few different approaches before it was finally possible to extract the information and present it in an easy to read format, without also extracting an amazing amount of gobdly-gook that seems to be related to photos that have been moved from one folder to another and/or deleted at some point in the past. Luckily, he was finally able to figure out the key to make the report-generating code ignore that stuff, and now, at long last, I have a lovely document that summarizes all of the important information for each sample alongside representative photos, and, best of all, if I do any edits or changes to the information in the database a new pdf can be generated with a push of just a couple of buttons.
His willingness to do all of the programing for me, so that I could focus on creating the geological models is one of the nicest things ever done for me. Oh, sure, he actually enjoys that sort of project, but that doesn’t stop it from making my life far easier.
In other news, after a long and busy work week last week we had a lovely and relaxing weekend. We drove down to Umeå (three hours south of there) and spent the weekend visiting friends there. On Saturday we spent the morning relaxing, then prepared food to take to a potluck feast, went to a winter market (where I bought some of my favourite Finnish squeaky cheese, so my freezer is once again restocked), attended a Christmas concert performance by the choir of the friend we were staying with, and attended a little local SCA potluck feast.
Sunday we went for a walk and played in a really good playground which has climbing structures so large that those of us kids who have adult-height bodies can still have fun playing on them. It even has a flying fox! Then we started the drive home as our friend went off to yet another choir performance, and managed to get home at a reasonable hour.
Monday I did a full 11 hours of uni work, which was enough to mostly finish putting together the presentation I will be doing Wednesday for the geologists at the mine summarizing the past two years of my research (these slides will also form the basis for my conference talk in January). Today I finished up the last couple of slides and attended our final choir rehearsal before Friday’s Lucia performances. Friday evening we will be hosting a choir party at our place, and in between all that, I need to return to writing up my end of project report.
Since it is my birthday I started my day with a walk in the forest and loved every minute of it. Then I got to play with one of the best birthday gifts I have ever gotten.
lord_kjar managed to solve the last of the issues with the program he has been working on for me. The project is one for work. In addition to my 3D modelling project I have been working on, I also have lots (127!) of thin sections from rock samples collected from drill holes in my project area. Every now and then over the past couple of years I have made time to take photos of these samples through the microscope and while at it I wrote down notes about the minerals present, their sizes and relative abundances. This information has all been recorded in a commercially available photo database that an archaeologist friend of mine once recommended on her blog.Some months back it occurred to me that since all of that information was in a database it should be possible to extract it from there and print photos and notes for each thin section to a pdf. Sounds nice and straightforward, doesn’t it? Sadly, that database program turns out to be far better suited to looking at the photos within the program than it does to extracting the information from it via a script. It was necessary for him to try quite a few different approaches before it was finally possible to extract the information and present it in an easy to read format, without also extracting an amazing amount of gobdly-gook that seems to be related to photos that have been moved from one folder to another and/or deleted at some point in the past. Luckily, he was finally able to figure out the key to make the report-generating code ignore that stuff, and now, at long last, I have a lovely document that summarizes all of the important information for each sample alongside representative photos, and, best of all, if I do any edits or changes to the information in the database a new pdf can be generated with a push of just a couple of buttons.
His willingness to do all of the programing for me, so that I could focus on creating the geological models is one of the nicest things ever done for me. Oh, sure, he actually enjoys that sort of project, but that doesn’t stop it from making my life far easier.
In other news, after a long and busy work week last week we had a lovely and relaxing weekend. We drove down to Umeå (three hours south of there) and spent the weekend visiting friends there. On Saturday we spent the morning relaxing, then prepared food to take to a potluck feast, went to a winter market (where I bought some of my favourite Finnish squeaky cheese, so my freezer is once again restocked), attended a Christmas concert performance by the choir of the friend we were staying with, and attended a little local SCA potluck feast.
Sunday we went for a walk and played in a really good playground which has climbing structures so large that those of us kids who have adult-height bodies can still have fun playing on them. It even has a flying fox! Then we started the drive home as our friend went off to yet another choir performance, and managed to get home at a reasonable hour.
Monday I did a full 11 hours of uni work, which was enough to mostly finish putting together the presentation I will be doing Wednesday for the geologists at the mine summarizing the past two years of my research (these slides will also form the basis for my conference talk in January). Today I finished up the last couple of slides and attended our final choir rehearsal before Friday’s Lucia performances. Friday evening we will be hosting a choir party at our place, and in between all that, I need to return to writing up my end of project report.