Canoecopia: Wenonah canoes

Ok, this has been sitting in the unpublished pile for too long. I'm just going to blast through a few things that have been going on the past couple of weeks and catch up to real time again...

These were some of the Wenonah Canoe offerings at Canoecopia. Nice boats for lakes, mostly. Our solo canoe is a Wenonah Vagabond. It's a great boat, but not the most ideal for the rocky rivers in SW Pennsylvania.

Canoecopia: Nova Craft canoes

I am deeply in love with the canoes from Nova Craft. They're a canoe company from London, Ontario, Canada. They recently ran a graphic design contest at Fanshawe College for the students to generate graphic designs for the hulls. The three winning designs are shown above. My favorite is Lurking Octopus. There is more info about the contest and the three winning designs here.


This next canoe is the Centennial Edition Cronje. It's in honor of the opening/protection of the Quetico Provincial Park (in Canada) and the Superior National Forest (in the US). Also at that time, the Chestnut canoe company released their Cronje hull. P.A. Cronje was a general in the Boer War in South Africa.

Canoecopia: wood kayaks

The closed-deck compliment to the previous post. I've never actually paddled one, so I can't speak to how they may or may not function better than conventional poly or composite kayaks. They are pretty, though. However, kayaks just don't pull up the same emotions in me as canoes do.

Canoecopia: wood canoes

I didn't end up getting much time to walk the floor at the show. I was processing kayaks in an active area of 'kayakland' and couldn't break away. Here are a few pictures of some sexy wood canoes. Nothing feels like a wood canoe on the water. The materials also have a wonderful dampening quality on the vibrations that cause the brash noises that travel over long distances from other canoe materials. Someday, I'll be able to afford a beauty like one of these. In the meantime, I'm happy enough to have a pair of nice paddling canoes that get me out on the water when I can make the time.

Madison trip

We went to Madison, WI, last weekend for Canoecopia. It's a huge canoe, kayak, and outdoor extravaganza thrown yearly by Rutabaga, the paddlesport shop I used to work at when I took a hiatus from engineering for a while. I worked the show (~24 hours in 2 1/2 days in Madison), so I didn't get to do all that much in the city outside of the Alliant Energy Center.

We did go to one of our old favorite breakfast haunts, Monty's Blue Plate Diner. Bethany already had brunch plans for later that morning, so she only had the fruit plate. I'm not one for static patterns in general, except when going to restaurants I rarely get to go to. So, despite the broad selection of good food, I ordered their version of eggs benedict, which I get every time. Silas ate some of Bethany's fruit and a selection of cheerios and some food we brought for him.


No trip to Wisconsin within 6 months of Winter should be without a picture of the avid ice fishing culture! Sorry for the crappy shot. The light was gorgeous both mornings I drove by on my way to the show, but I was marginally late and didn't take the time to stop. I love the fact that these guys will still be out there when there are open sections of water 50 feet away. It makes me a little sad that I've not used my auger and ice fishing rod in four years, since moving south to Pittsburgh. I hear there are places to do it in SW PA, but if I'm going to drive out of the city to do it, I'd prefer to hike.

Screw Sherwin-Williams

Sherwin Williams should be ashamed of their logo. Terrible. Awful. Appalling. It ruins the fact that they do make a decent low-VOC line. Despicable.

Not in PA anymore

This picture captures why moving to Pittsburgh was such a culture shock for me. It was taken at a highway rest stop in Wisconsin last weekend.

I am happy to report that recycling has finally reached SW PA, and one can commingle much of their recycling, requiring the use of few receptacles.

Boys running video

Here is a brief video of how much Silas enjoyed running with me and Guthrie in Schenley Park yesterday. I can't believe he decides to try to put his foot in his mouth while he's bouncing down the trail in the jogger.

Running with Silas and Guthrie

Guthrie, Silas, and I went for an evening run in Schenley Park today. The weather and temperature were great. Bethany was teaching yoga, so the boys got to go outside and play. I'm still getting used to running with the jogger and dog leash. It was better than last time, in that I didn't get the leash wrapped up in the wheels and didn't almost topple the whole thing over.

Our route is shown below. The outer loop, all on trails, was 2.0 miles exactly, per my GPS watch. So we ran up the hill to do two loops of the running course around the track and tennis courts, as well as a couple of detours into other areas to bump it up to 3.8 miles. We're still building mileage, because of my poor old sore joints can't take much more yet. Plus, I can't keep myself from sprinting up the hill from work home, so my thighs are trashed. :)


There is a nice vista of the city, including a disc-golf course that Guthrie was eyeing.


The prenatal yoga class that Bethany teaches is longer than it takes to get to the park, run, and get back, so we hung out for a bit and played in the grass.



Silas found a dried tree seed pod, the name of which I can't remember right now. I looked up what I thought it was, but I was wrong. I'll add the name when/if it ocurrs to me.

Sunny spring, back to riding to the Point

Despite knowing that it would delay getting dinner cooked and served, I rode down to the Point to see how it's been. I haven't gotten much of a chance to get down there between the medical hiatus from the bike and the less than ideal cycling weather during the winter. People were enjoying the early evening outside everywhere I rode. It was nice to see so many so happy to be outdoors. There is/was a physics conference of some sort going on at the convention center. Maybe I was seeing what I wanted to see, but there were lovely physics geeks all over Point State Park. It was nice. Sorry, no pictures to document the experience. Just some of the city.

More trail repair. The work shown below is on the north shore of the Allegheny River in front of PNC Park. As I've mentioned before, I love the trails along the rivers in Pittsburgh. They've done a good job on them.

Recent Pittsburgh shots

Here are some random photos of recent strolls around Pittsburgh. The mural above is in Shadyside. The next one is of Cappy's Cafe, where we ate for the first time a week ago. It was good. It's always stood out to me, because my childish brain reads it as "Crappy's" every time I see it. We have almost always eaten breakfast at Pamela's when we go to Shadyside for breakfast or brunch. It was a nice change to try somewhere new. Plus, there was no line.

The picture below is of Bloomfield from the 4th floor of West Penn Hospital. I had a checkup regarding my hernia repair (still solid). I always like looking at the neighborhood from above. You can actually see our house's roof and chimneys in this picture (or at least the larger original).

This is in the Strip District.

Spring hike

After Tim and I got turned back by the ice on the lake, the ladies (and Silas) were kind enough to wait up for us and go on a nice, short hike with the dogs.

Canoeing and 'hard' water

The dark line up ahead is the transition from open water to ice

So, it's good to remember that just because the air temperature is around 70, doesn't mean the lakes aren't still partly frozen over. My canoeing plans for the weekend changed about ten times. In the end, Tim and I took the tandem out on the lake at North Park. However, we didn't even notice the ice until we were already on the water. The satelite images I was looking at in Google Earth weren't taken yesterday, of course, so I had forgotten to even consider that there'd be ice. Oh well.

It was still fun. We paddled around the open water for a while and then shot into the ice floe as far as we could before it was thick enough to resist breaking, and the bow pushed up onto the sheet. In any case, this time of year, any warm day on the water, no matter how short, is worth the effort.

Tim checking the water hardness

Looking back after we broke our way into the ice sheet some

Backing out of the path we'd plowed

Feels like Spring

The days are getting longer and more mild. There is still some ice on the cliff behind my office, though. It was a nice sunset, and I got to ride home without a jacket.

Lighting design post on my other blog

Yes, here we go again on my shameless promotion of my building science blog at HGTVPro...

I have been trying to apply some of my engineering tools to a field that sort of defies typical engineering methods much of the time, or at least the more academic side of it. I think it's changing as some of the big builders are looking into process mapping, lean busing models, and even manufacturing quality control strategies.

In the post, I put up a list of requirements that a lighting package in a house should satisfy and a list of all the entities that I consider 'customers' to said design (such as the homeowner, builder, architect, etc).

If you're not already asleep, maybe the actual article will finish you off. Go check it out if you wish: Lighting package desires and requirements.

Bad father of the year award

Yep. That's my claim to fame for the day. Bethany left to teach her yoga class. I wanted to feed Silas a little food before putting him down for a nap. So, I grabbed the sweet potatoes from the fridge and started feeding him. He winced big time at the first bite and gave me a really perplexed look. I laughed, because I thought he was shocked at how cold they were. He opened his mouth, and I fed him a second spoonful. Then, as I gave him the third, I remarked, "wow, Silas, why are you turning red?" Well, it turns out that the container happened to contain leftover Franks Red Hot sauce and butter (buffalo chicken salad for dinner last night).

The great thing was that he took it with style. His poor father freaked out, of course. I washed his mouth out with water, fed him a ton of yogurt, and let him drink about half a sippy cup of water.

I kept him up from his nap until I was sure his tongue wasn't going to swell and block his breathing and ended up sitting with him reading a book while he slept, checking to make sure he was still breathing...

Don't the sweet potatoes and buffalo sauce look similar in the picture above?!?! Who can blame a tired father?

So, long story short: he's ok. I'm kind of frazzled.

After Bethany got home and laughed at me, we had a nice dinner at an Indian restaurant, where Silas got to try new eats: a little lamb curry, naan bread, mango chutney, and mango lassi. Here's a parting shot to show he's ok.

Mon Wharf trail work starts

The city has started work on the riverfront trail along the Mon Wharf parking area. This project is very exciting, as currently, there is no non-traffic connection between the Eliza Furnace Trail (lovingly called the Jail Trail locally) and Point State Park. The Eliza Furnace Trail (more info on the Three Rivers Heritage Trails) runs on the north side of the Monongahela River between Oakland and Downtown and connects via the Hot Metal Bridge to the Southside Works and the South Side Trail (Station Square to the Glenwood Bridge area).

The Mon Wharf is parking lot for the folks that work and visit downtown. It's a dodgy place to park in that the Monongahela River floods the outer edge of it when the river crests 18 feet, which is about any time it rains more than a drizzle. The work will remove some parking, but create a promenade that will allow bike and pedestrian use and green space.

I'm very excited about this, in that I frequently ride from work through Point State Park and then navigate my way through traffic up to the Eliza Furnace Trail to head back home. I'm comfortable riding in traffic, but there are many weekend riders of the Eliza Furnace Trail that would be well served with a safer route to the point. Many times, I've seen parents with small children on bikes fearfully making their way along Boulevard of the Allies (busy, arterial road) to get between the trails.

The Post Gazette article about the start of the work can be found here. Here is a picture I took of the Mon Wharf looking up the Monongahela River.

This last image, courtesy of the Post Gazette. Note that this is looking the opposite direction from my picture above and shows a different bridge.

Soon to be opened brewpub

Hofbraeuhaus Pittsburgh has been under construction for what seems like a very long time. It is supposed to finally open this week! I ran across their training course in an empty storefront elsewhere in the Southside Works. Check out the menu on their site. I'm excited to try it out.

Clean chain!

My chain recently spent a few hours bathing in a cleansing bath of citrus degreaser. It was much happier as a result, as was I. I didn't feel like I was leaving little piles of gear dust on Liberty Ave so I could find my way back home at the end of the day.

Playing at work

One of my responsibilities at work is the overall management of our data acquisition and monitoring activities. Another engineer, Dave, does most of the actual work these days, but I get to play with the parts and pieces as much as I can find time to. We're transitioning to a new server and ultimately a database for our data collection and needed an in-house logger to test out the new system. Dave set up a logger in an enclosure, and I got to program it as well as play around with modifying one of the bazillion old UPS's lying around the office.

These uninterruptable power supplies are basically a charge controller for a 12V sealed lead acid battery and a somewhat crude inverter to supply AC current to the load (computer, etc) when the power goes down. The UPS's that have been pulled out of commission in the office are almost 100% due to the batteries having died and not the electronics. The loggers we use (Campbell Scientific CR10X or CR1000) also use a 12V battery and don't draw much power. So, I jumpered off the battery in the UPS to power the datalogger. The logger has been running for the better part of a week now and hasn't caught on fire. That's a good sign, right? :)

Modified UPS:

The datalogger cave:

February 2009 human-powered transportation wrap up

I recovered from the surgery enough to have gotten back on the bike and back in the running shoes in February. Here are the monthly totals:

Biking (95%+ commuting/errands) = 70.0 miles
Running (0% commuting) = 27.0 miles
Canoeing (0% commuting) = 3.4 miles

The photos are from my daily commute on a frontage road parallel to the busy street that my office is on.