Birthday Snow!

[kareina]

hovering 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. 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.

Comments

[katerit.livejournal.com]

What lovely birthday gifts - snow and easily accessible data! I hope this year is a lovely one for you filled with adventures of the best sort.

[fjorlief.livejournal.com]

sounds like an excellent birthday indeed, to get both a delightful new program and the natural weather of your desire... may your next turn around the sun bring you as much wonder and fun as you can wish for...

ps - what is a flying fox?

[kareina.livejournal.com]

You know those long cables suspended between two poles, upon which is attached a wheel like object from which is suspended another cable, and at the bottom of that one is a seat (or standing post)? One pulls the seat to the far edge of the horizontal (ish) cable, hops onto the seat, and rides the wheel down the curve and across the gap between the poles. The one in the playground was set up so that with a push start we could ride within two meters of the second pole (which is at a lower elevation than the first), and then turn around and riide more than halfway back before needing to drag the seat up the hill to the start spot. What are they called in American? The first time I saw one in person was in Australia, so I know only the Australian term for it. However, this is the first one I actually got to ride. They are as fun as they look.

[fjorlief.livejournal.com]

I had a hard time visualising such a contraption and had to resort to google image search... I have no idea what that would be called in American-speak, because I've never seen suchlike before in all my years! It looks a little bit like a "zip line" (which I've heard of but never experienced) though those are not a usual part of public playground equipment, but rather found in adventure parks and suchlike as well as on private land, usually at great heights...

Actually, when I checked wikipedia, flying foxes are a subset of zip lines, made closer to the ground and suitable for children and playgrounds...

[kareina.livejournal.com]

lol, yup, you found the right thing. The one in this playground is low enough that a small child will be able to easily reach it, no matter where along the cable the seat happens to stop.