Food, Farmers Market, Drive, Build Something---repeat...

For anyone who isn't aware, it's May---but it's pretty much already over. May was a busy month--we got to spend a lot of time seeing family, eating good food and building things. So I would call it a success. Here is what we have been up to:

Removed a our old flower bed/thistle hatchery/public eyesore and planted grass...

Built a much more environmentally friendly* "square-foot garden" complete with $50 dollar dirt and a trap for the rabbits (*Actually in regards to the rabbits the garden is not a friendly place, in fact a hope they feel a sense of foreboding and hostility when they come and eat the sweet potatoes). But we have peas, squash, rhubarb, strawberries, tomatoes, white onions, green onions, hot peppers, lettuce, broccoli, carrots, and something else...

Then in honor of our future guests (that's foreshadowing) we built a bed (we're talking the whole shebang here).

Then we went to Ill for James' graduation. He's now a lawyer. I'm still figuring out who I'm going to sue first to take advantage of my 'friends and family' discount.

-We were fortunate to find a hotel room. It had a nice resort-y yet quaint lock-the-door-so-a-man-who- thinks-he's-his-own-mother-doesn't-come-in-and-stab-you-in-the-(cold) shower type feel.

Those who are truly design conscious will notice that this room takes design queues from the clearance racks of each decade since 1965. Now before any of you say, Matt you're a cheap jerk. I want to point out two things: 1. Because it was graduation, we were lucky to even have a room...Motel 6 was charging $183/night that weekend. 2. I did splurge and go for the extra space and get the room with two beds and a tv with a remote.

While in Champaign, we played hide and seek...a lot. I know most of you are thinking "Why did you post a picture of a bare floor?" Well if you look closely, you can see the faint outline of a person that resembles a small boy...I know...tough to see, but he is there. Needless to say, our games of hide and seek were epic and quite challenging.

Then, the weekend after that we spent the weekend with Nicole's brother and sister and her parents at our house. We took a day trip up to Cleavland and went to their giant farmers market. We had some good food including but not limited to bratwurst, cupcakes, falafel, strawberries, blackberries, pizza, and apple fritters the size of your head.

After that we went to Kirtland, OH to the temple there. I mentioned to a few people we know here that aren't associated with our church that Ohio was once a Mormon hotbed and they were all pretty surprised. But just for proof...we went to go see the sights.

Then this weekend my parents came into town. So to celebrate we wen to the farmers market and ate chicken, brisket, pizza rolls, and these things---Omega Cakes....dark chocolate balls filled with cake and some sort of cream that is made from fat.
We went to our favorite antique store in the Short North...
We bought some flowers at the farmers market...

Then we took the old wood from our flower beds that we removed this week and built a plantar box out of them.

Then on Sunday we grilled an entire chicken. It was really good. The secret is to shove a can of soda up its cavity.

I'd like to note that Nicole and I now have a butcher. That's right, a shop dedicated to just meat. I've stopped by a number of times now and picked up steaks, burgers, brats and now a chicken and have not been disappointed yet. The prices are surprisingly competitive and the meat is much fresher.
This is what my mom looks like as a raw chicken.

As Washington as it Gets

It's been a long time since we've posted anything. Maybe I feel like I've got to have something good to post about. Maybe I feel like my writing doesn't cut it, so without some fun event to post about it's not worth posting.

We've been good here in Ohio though- beautiful sunshine this weekend. Matt and I even ate outside yesterday at the North Market. Yesterday morning we went with our ward (the people on this link all describe what a ward is) to do Meals on Wheels. We delivered hot and cold meals to a lot of people in Columbus. I was expecting a different demographic, I think, but they were all elderly men and women who needed some extra help with meals. They were all so grateful and appreciative. Many wished us to drive safely and thanked us for our time. It was a lot of fun to do together; I think we'll try to do it again in the future.

Over President's Day weekend we drove to Eric's, Matt's brother, in D.C. We had one of the best weekends we've had there, shopping, cooking, eating out, going to Mount Vernon (for free, I might add. Happy President's Day.) and hanging out. I have to say, at Mount Vernon I felt something more profound for George Washington than I have before. I really felt grateful for his life and his mission, and I felt that he truly was a righteous man, doing what he knew he was supposed to do.

We did miss, however, George's surprise birthday party. I bet he was really surprised.

Eating the biggest burgers ever.

My burger was that big.

The wreathlaying ceremony at Washington's tomb.

Real marching band from the 18th century.

The view George had of the Potomac River from his spacious veranda.

Can you picture the President peacefully lounging in his backyard?

The Departure of Super-Beast

Some of you may remember when that loveable joke-ster, friend, and loyal companion Super-Beast entered our family unit last year. Well, it pains me to say it, but on Saturday, Super-Beast left our family to go take care of an 18 year-old community college student. I will miss the old radio that only got one channel, the toy gorilla that was somehow magically affixed to the dash board that won't come off no matter what, and the sound it made in the morning since the muffler rusted off.

Super-Beast the Day he came to our family

However, this is not meant to be some sort of mopey, dreary, mourn-fest for what was and what might have been. No, this is a great day, because today I introduce to you, Son of Super-Beast. Son of Super-Beast is a 1995 Nissan pickup with 4wd and fuel-injection with almost no rust herpes. We've already been driving SSB around in the snow and been having a great time. SSB still isn't pretty, but follows his father's motto of 'git er done'.

Son of Super-Beast together with Super-Beast on sale day

A Late Christmas Story

I haven't told our Christmas story yet.

It was a wonderful wonderful time with both our families. My family got together for Christmas Eve and Christmas night. Matt and I spent Christmas morning at my sister Carolyn's, and since our family has a tradition of getting up at what some people consider a ridiculously early time, we were able to have Christmas with them and then make it up to Logan to experience Christmas morning all over again with Matt's family.

We spent most of our Christmas vacation with my sister and her cute family in Salt Lake.

What more could you want from Santa?

While Santa knows some things I like, ultimately it was Matt who knew the best gift.

We drove up to Logan in time to have Christmas morning all over again.

It was so much fun to spend it at Matt's grandma's home. We had a huge breakfast, lots of games, and nerf darts.

Did we mention that after 2 1/2 years of marriage we finally got a TV. Thanks in part to Matt's parents (thank you!). It's been a nice addition and hasn't taken over our life. It's perfect.

Snowshoeing at Donut Falls up Big Cottonwood Canyon in Salt Lake City

Matt crawling out of the entrance to a cave that opens up into a large room. There's a hole in the top that water flows down through, hence Donut Falls.

This is one of the reasons why I miss Utah! For you Ohioans, although you may not be able to tell, we are at almost 11,000 feet in elevation up Brighton.

We spent lots of wonderful time on Christmas Eve and Christmas night with my family.

How can you say no to them? Look at their cheeks.

Matt used his ingenious engineering skills to promote my brother-in-law's ornaments from scary to truly horrific, thanks to the snowman's jimmy-rigged glowing eyes.

Matt always makes me so proud.

I think my favorite present this season was this.

My new niece Olivia was worth every penny of the trip.

Take a Blog Reader to Work Day

At one time or another most of you, my loyal readership, have had questions about what the life of others is like, such as: "What would it be like to be Spiderman?" "What would it be like to be an astronaut and repair the Hubble telescope?" "What would it be like to be that guy who operates the wrecking ball?" (Ok, so maybe not everyone fantasizes about being an astronaut.) But many have probably wondered, What is the life of a Computational Fluid Dynamacist like? Well you're in luck because recently at work I've a had a little spare time to work on some promotional things that will soon be on our new website. And since they will be on our website, I can share them (unlike most of the stuff we do which can't be shared with anyone.) The cool stuff is at the end.

So here it is. Most of my day is spent staring at this:

If you aren't familiar with this, it's probably a good thing because it means you also don't think math jokes are funny and also have good social skills/personal hygiene. This is a Linux command prompt. Just imagine there were no pictures or buttons on your computer and you had to type everything you want your computer to do. As bad as it sounds, it actually makes life much easier.

First we get 3D models all tidied up and ready for simulation. Then, we setup programs that simulate air blowing over or through stuff. Could be a building, could be a person, but usually it's a car of some sort. Then we look at the results and tell people what they mean. After that we make graphs of things and look at pictures of the air to see what is going on. Usually we tweak their designs somehow to make them better and run them again. Then we start the process over again and keep going in this loop until someone says stop.

Most of our simulations are run on our big computing boxes at the office which are essentially 24 really fast computers all running together which is 1 tera-flop of power. 1 tera flop is 1 trillion calculations per second. Most of our simulations take about 10 hours to solve. The numbers get pretty incomprehensible pretty fast. To give an idea of where all this power is going, essentially what is happening is the computer is solving a system of equations. If anyone remembers their algebra, that is like solving:

x + 2 = y

y+1 = x

You have to solve both equations at the same time to get an answer. Each simulation has about 50 million data points and each data point has six equations. These are usually solved about 3000 times. Anyway, it's lots of really crazy math that the computers do for us.

Anyway, since that part is usually not very exciting for most people, here are some shots that are mostly just eye-candy, but still cool. This particular simulation took a week to run.

This shot is slices through the air of the air pressure around the car. (Usually we don't color it to look like fire, but it makes a cool picture)

This is a picture of the car's wake. It's the layer of air that separates negative pressure air from positive pressure. Negative pressure is usually bad because it's suction and slows the car down. The wing on top is colored by air speed moving over its surface.

This is a picture of the air as it hits the wing of the car with what are called streamlines. It basically shows where the air goes. The streamlines are colored by their speed. The big circles are what's called a vortex.

This is a video that's pretty cool in hi-def. It shows the wake of the car changing over time. There's lots of turbulence.

Favorite Things, cue music

Spooky

and Spraining

and Amish

and Biking.

Eating

and Family

and Pies to our Liking.

Fake Sledding,

Pine Trees

we sawed with our hands,

These are a few of the things that are grand.

When the wreath's up,

And the tree's cut,

And the garland's fine,

I make loads of brownies

with frosting on top

with oreos stuffed

inside.