at a party last night I met a pretty tough looking guy who, in conversation, mentioned that he had just returned from his final tour of duty as an infantryman in Iraq, and was now working for a pesticide company here in town. When I pressed him for details about what it was like over there, he was unable to respond, and tears started forming in his eyes. I stopped him, shook his hand, and thanked him for all he had done for the United States, and for Iraq. It wasn’t the kind of answer I’d been expecting, but it was an answer nonetheless.

Mirrored from Brian Crawford.

the two eldest kids and I are in Folkston, Georgia, Gateway to the Okefenokee Swamp. We’re here staying at the Roadmaster’s Lodge, a small one-room hotel that was built in 1889 to serve as the office of the Roadmaster in the Folkston area. Yes, we drove four and a half hours to come watch some trains. Here are the kids watching a passing freight – you will notice that they each have portable DVD players for when there aren’t any trains to watch – yes, I came prepared!

the town of Folkston has a really great Railfan Platform with a radio scanner (to hear the engineers talking to one another), picnic tables, power outlets, and yes, Wi-Fi Internet. When we got there there were already three or four railfans down by the tracks with their cameras and tripods, taking pictures. Most of the trains have been CSX mixed freights or intermodals, with a few Amtrak passenger consists thrown in.

one cool application I downloaded this morning is the ATCS Monitor, a railroad data, CTC monitor and display. It shows real-time data of where trains are located north and south along the line, so we can figure out when trains will be passing by Folkston, and from which direction they’ll be coming. Here’s an example of what it looks like.

we’ll be heading back to Charleston tomorrow morning, after another noisy night (yes, the trains keep coming through all through the night, which would perhaps be annoying normally, but hey – that’s why we’re here). The kids have had a great time so far! And, well… so have I!

Mirrored from Brian Crawford.

this week, our good friend Nafees is in town. Last year, Nafees won a SciTech Academy Award for his work with fluid dynamics, in particular the work he did for the movie Pirates of the Caribbean 3 (which I haven’t actually seen yet – I guess I should). As such, he has been getting quite a bit of local press here in Charleston (having graduated from Academic Magnet High School and the College of Charleston, where we took classes together in Computer Science). And, while he’s back in town (he currently lives and works at Digital Domain in California) he has been invited to give a few presentations.

This morning, Nafees gave a presentation at Academic Magnet, his aforementioned high school. At lunchtime he gave a presentation to the Charleston PMI chapter, of which I am a member (being a PMP). Then, later this afternoon, he gave a presentation at the auditorium at the College of Charleston. Busy schedule.

I attended the latter two presentations, and was impressed by his ability to cover interesting subject matter in different ways, targeted toward different people. There were some great videos from Digital Domain that I wish I could link too, here! Nafees is a good friend (and very smart) and it’s great to see how his hard work has paid off.

plus, he had a great slide of some pandas.

Mirrored from Brian Crawford.

for my first post on this new blog, I thought I’d share a story!

so, here it is.   I guess it is sci-fi, but maybe not in a traditional sense.  I’ve got a lot of writing to do yet before I start trying to publish things, so I don’t mind sharing it here.  Feedback is welcomed!

this is also my first try at crossposting to my LiveJournal account, so let’s see how that goes.

otherwise, the family is great, it’s getting cooler outside (which is also great), and it’s almost time for lunch!

Mirrored from Brian Crawford.

• I have been playing a little (but not too much) World of Warcraft, on the Illidan server
  
• I finished the last Harry Potter book
  
• I watched (over the course of several weeks of date nights) Ratatouille, the latest Harry Potter movie and the Transformers movie with Yvonne; the Harry Potter movie was on IMAX and had 20 minutes of 3D, which was cool! The Transformers movie was pretty good - an all-out, everything-gets-destroyed CGI-fest from start to finish
  
• I have been writing and attending a local critiquing group (for the San Antonio Writers Guild)
  
• I have been getting in touch with old high school (and even elementary school) friends on Facebook - it's been quite a trip down memory lane
  
• my allergies say: "Texas is full of allergens"
  
• it's been raining almost non-stop here in San Antonio, but at least our grass looks great!