Of Mice and Army Men

Here it is Wednesday and I am hoping it is Friday.  Not the most auspicious of beginnings I know.  Trying to get back to what this thing was created for - an outlet so I can vent, talk about my day, talk about my concerns or even just talk about something I have been thinking of and not get judged or drive my wife crazy having to listen to.

My entire lab (well O.K. most of my entire lab) went up to Huntsville today.  Dr. Soni had arranged a tour of the offices of the Army's game design group.  He had originally joked that he did not want us going because he was afraid we would all want to take jobs there and no one would be left at the E.T. Lab.  I guess he decided that was not a threat because there we were, playing on the Army's toys.  They have a set up that is very similar to what we were shooting for at the Lab - they are basically in a really big warehouse, lots of storage room for bigger set pieces and still plenty of room for labs, office space, and storage.  They use the Unreal game engine instead of Unity but really it is not so different from what we do.  Really makes you envious of a place that can afford the kind of space we just dream of.

The day wasn't all giggles though.  I have a homework assignment due tomorrow afternoon for Dr. Johnstone and I have barely scratched the surface of it.  He gave us copies of four really large programs written in C++ and wants us to modify them so they do a couple of extra functions.  It would be so much easier if he had built up to this slowly, but instead he threw us straight to the wolves.  He seems like a very intelligent guy and I like him, but sometimes I wonder about his teaching ability.  He gave out a practice quiz last week - I bombed - and since the majority of the class did poorly on it, his solution was to teach something related to what we were doing, but even harder.  He basically thought if we could figure out THIS, then the stuff we were doing would seem easy.  I don't get it.

Anyway the only good news about the homework is that I am not the only one struggling with it.  I know at least one other guy in the class has not been able to get any farther than I have so I am not alone in my misery.

What am I doing?

No excuses for not publishing more.  I can't even claim to be sick this time - I can't even claim that nothing was happening.  I just haven't had the desire to post.  I have been ... melonc-oly (said in my best Megamind voice) for the past couple of weeks and just can't seem to shake it.  I guess more than anything this is brought on by a sense of being overwhelmed.  Bouts of depression are nothing new for me, I have had them before and I am sure I will have them again...and this isn't the first time I have wondered what I was doing but still having a hard time shaking it.

I tried talking to Paula about it.  For as wonderful as she is on most things, this is just one thing she doesn't get.  I tell her how upset/overwhelmed/worried...hell scared I am and she acts like I just told her we needed to stop at the store on the way home from work and get more milk.  I get it, she thinks I can fight through anything, mainly because I have in the past, but it is not the attitude you want to see.  So hopefully writing all this out will help me.

Part of the problem is the "computer magic" and "Super PhD's" on most television shows.  I am sitting here working (and struggling) to grasp basic concepts I should know, and there is somebody hacking into DoD mainframes in under 2 minutes.  Yeah, I know it is fake.  I know hacking is time intensive and a lot more code-y than the wonderful pictures they show on TV...but you still feel bad when everyone assumes YOU can do that because you are getting your doctorate..and the truth of the matter is you would not even know where to START.

First thing I guess is I made a mistake.  There is absolutely no way I should have taken both of the Computer Science courses at the same time.  Dr. Sloan is actually o.k. .. hell he is downright enjoyable this semester.  I am learning a lot and getting some good stuff out of the class.  Dr. Johnstone is a great guy and I seem to understand his class...as long as he is talking.  As soon as we leave class it transitions into some Greek/Latin/Chinese mush that I can not make heads or tails of.   Once class starts back and he goes over the homework I am like "Oh....yeah that makes perfect sense" but try do to that myself?  No I don't think so.

In addition to this, work decided to switch everything over to a game engine called Unity.  Great system, sorta easy to learn, very powerful...and I am already behind.  We started out making a game as a lab, but I was assigned the "manager" spot on the build, so I did not actually get to do any of the coding.  Then, the rest of the lab went up to Boston for a long weekend of coding at a "Game Jam".  I did not go for a variety of reasons, but it just put me further behind the proverbial 8-ball.

I guess the real thing I can take away from the last couple of weeks is that apparently, somewhere, I lost my coding ability.  Coding used to be simple.  Coding is really just taking a complex task and breaking it down into a lot of really easy tasks, then coding those easy tasks, combining them, and voila, you have solved the hard task.  My problem lately has been, I have not seen how to break up those larger problems.  And even when I can figure out a couple of the smaller tasks, I can't figure out what order to do them in so I get valid results.

I want to finish this program.  I have put in a lot of time, effort, blood, sweat and tears on this thing and I want to get through...but I can't help but wonder if I am smart enough to.

Short weekend

Well it is almost 2 o'clock in the morning and I can not sleep.  Guess I should write and see what happens.

Had an dull weekend.  Believe it or not I had to go back to the doctor last week.  Finally get over the cold I had and I developed an ear infection.  The ear doesn't bother me too much but I have recurring tinnitus in the ear so it is annoying.

Anyway, Friday night we went out to dinner, grocery shopping and we went and bought Xander a new kick pedal for his drum set.  The kick pedal is nothing more than a step with a mallet on the end and you use it for playing the bass drum in the set.  For some reason the drum set that Santa had brought him included everything but a kick pedal.  I thought this was weird.  About the only thing I can compare it to would be buying a computer and not getting the hard drive.  Sure you could USE the computer and run everything from disk like in Linux..but you can't use the computer for its intended purpose without one.

Saturday I begged off going to Xander's drum lesson down in Tuscaloosa.  I love the fact that he is having so much fun with the drums but I did not see the point in Paula and I both going down for the lesson.  I missed the guy so I don't know if I will miss any more.  After the lesson they came back and we went over to 2nd and Charles which is a used book/movie/music store over in Hoover.  They took over a rather large department store and it is by far the nicest used book store I have ever been in.  In a miracle I did not see coming, I convinced Paula to get rid of some of our old DVD's.  I hate to admit it but we have like 300 DVDs...and we might watch 20 of them.  We loved the movies, that is why we bought the DVD..but when it comes time to put one in we always go back to the same 15-20.  So, we took in a bag of DVD's to trade in and used the money to get a toy for Xander and a poster for me.  Plus we have a lot of money on account there so when they do their book sales we can take advantage of them.  The poster?  Oh it is cool.  It is a take on the British WWII propaganda poster but with a Doctor Who slant.  Blue with a Dalek on top and it says "Keep Calm I'm the Doctor".  I joked that Paula could get it for me and we could frame it for my graduation.

Today I do not think I left the house.  It POURED all day.  One of those soaking pours we seem to get here that never hit up in any other part of the country.  Anyway, it rained and rained so I saw very little sense in going out into it.  Instead I stayed home and watched TV.  In particular I have been watching a BBC show called "Whitechapel".  Like most BBC shows it was a miniseries - in this case, 2 miniseries.  The first was on a copycat Jack the Ripper, the second a copycat of the Kray brothers organized crime spree.  Very well written and acted.  It is amazing, from what I can tell the costs of filming BBC shows is MUCH less than that of shows made here in the US but the quality of the shows writing and acting is infinitely higher.

Three Courses

Yeah, I should have posted by now.  I am terrible and I know it.

School started back this past week so had my first classes of the year.  I honestly think it is going to take a few more before I have any idea what I have gotten myself into.  Per my usual I am taking 3 classes this term - 2 graded courses and a required 1 hour pass/fail seminar course.

The seminar course is a bit of a joke - for half the semester we sit around and professors from different programs at UAB or even from different schools come in and talk about research they are currently conducting.  The second half of the semester consists of the students giving presentations into their research.  I say it is a joke for two reasons - one, since everyone is always in there, we already KNOW what everyone else's research is.  We know Mikey is going to talk about carbon sequestration.  We know Alonzo is going to talk about 3-D training simulators.  We have all been giving almost the exact same presentation since we started.  The second reason I say that is because of the nature of the course itself.  I understand it is designed to educate us on existing research AND to give us experience in presenting out research.  But I have an MBA.  I have spent the last 4 years doing half a dozen presentations a year.  After a while the shock and awe of presenting goes away and it becomes...boring.

The other two classes seem more appealing, both are in the Computer Science department and both will have some benefit to both my job and my research.  In the first one I am taking a class in Shape Design taught by Dr. Johnstone.  The class is basically how to use math to draw smooth objects on the computer.  Bezier and B-Spline curves will probably play a pretty big role in the whole thing.

The second class is a Visualization course taught by Dr. Sloan.  Dr. Sloan is sort of a scary legend at UAB.  I had him last semester for a Computer Graphics course and thought he was a great lecturer with some rough edges.  He reminds me of Dr. Powers from my MBA days - great guy but some definite pet peeves you have to watch out for.  The class is basically just a typical visualization of large datasets course.  The key is to find new ways to show the data that are cool to look at AND informative.  There is no point making a pretty picture from the data, if you can't tell what the data is once you have the picture.  Anyway, Dr. Sloan teaches 4 graduate level courses at UAB on a revolving schedule and Dr. Soni has told me I will be taking all 4.  I am also assuming this means I will be asking Dr. Sloan to sit on my doctoral committee at some point as well.

Seven Plots

It has been said that there are only seven main plots in all of literature.  In the broadest of terms I guess this is true but only if we talk in REALLY broad terms.  What is more surprising (or maybe less) is that sometimes there only appears to be about four different ways to realize those plots in Science Fiction or Fantasy writing.

With the between term break from school I have been reading a little, I mean what else was I supposed to do while resting in bed.  When it comes to reading I have a set list of about 20-30 books I do not mind reading over and over again.  These are what I consider to be excellent exemplars of the craft.  Authors I was introduced to at a young age such as Orson Scott Card, J.R.R. Tolkien, David Eddings, and Raymond Feist factor heavily in these selections.   I also like to branch out and find new authors that might add some flavor to my set list, which is how Larry Niven, Patrick Rothfuss and Robert Jordan found their way onto the list as well.

The problem I face these days isn't finding a new author, it is finding a new author that does not copy from my set list.

For Christmas Paula and Xander bought me a couple of books that Xander would like to have me read him as bedtime stories.  Now I have to admit that reading to Xander at night is one of the highlights of my day.  I get to introduce him to great works of literature (in my opinion), and he actually enjoys it because I use "voices".  I got to looking at the two books they had bought and discovered that one of them is actually book 10 of a series...oops.

I told Paula about this and she was a little upset because she had not caught that before they purchased it - we buy everything digitally no so it is not like we can return it.  I told her not to worry and went ahead and bought the first book.  I figure if Xander likes it, great, if not it is just one more book.  The book is clearly aimed at young teenage readers and follows a young castle orphan who is passed over by all of the craft masters in the castle on his choosing day until one who is poorly thought of takes pity on him and selects him to join his guild, meanwhile his friend gets to join the knights and becomes a natural swordsman.  If you know the authors I have mentioned before you might think I was talking about the Magician series of books by Feist, but you would be wrong.  This is the "Rangers Apprentice" series by John Flanagan.

And that is how we get back to my original point.  Two books basically taking the exact same early subject matter and following the exact same blueprint to get to the exact same point.  Not exactly breaking new ground.  I mean I remember thinking "Oh, this is what would have happened if Pug had been chosen by Martin...o.k.". I give Flanagan credit, the book is a very easy read, it does grab your attention and it is a good page turner...but it will not make my list of rereads.

Hobbit Redux

OK, This is going to be a long one so sit down and grab a drink.  I have been meaning to write this one for a while.  On December 14th, me and several of my lab mates all went to the Rave IMAX theater over in Hoover to catch the first of the Hobbit trilogy (gods it pains me to write that).  As I stated before I was a little worried about this movie and I would love to say that all of my worries were unfounded and that I loved the movie...but I can't.

As I have said, I have read, reread, and loved 'the Hobbit' since I was hobbit-sized.  I understand the problems with making it into a movie, really I do.  As mentioned earlier, the book was originally a bed time story Tolkien read to his children when they were young.  The dangers were easily overcome, the humor was broad and the only thing you had to worry about with adventures is them making one late for dinner.  It is, for the most part, a travelogue of Bilbo's journey.  In fact, the book is subtitled "There and Back Again".   Unfortunately this type of story does not lend itself well to grand spectacle trilogies.

The movie decides to cover the first half of the book (Hello movie 3 that consists of a 3 hour Battle of Five Armies) and starts off in the "future" with Ian Holm's Bilbo talking to Frodo on the day of the Great Party from Fellowship of the Rings (FotR).  Bilbo explains the history of Erebor and the coming of the dragon, Smaug.  The movie then moves into the familiar opening from the book with the set up for the "Unexpected Party".  The movie ends with the party being dropped off at the Carrock by the Eagles of the Misty Mountains after their flight from the wargs and goblins from "Out of the Frying Pan".

Everyone knows that if you are going to cover that area of the book their are certain...high points, that you simply MUST cover to call yourself the Hobbit.  They are:

1. The Unexpected Party of dwarves that drop in unannounced and disrupt Bilbo's life
2. The Trolls and the parties rescue by Gandalf with the discovery of Orcrist, Glamdring and Sting
3. The parties arrival in Rivendell, with Elrond decyphering the map of the Lonely Mountain
4. The capture in the mountains by the Great Goblin
5. Bilbo's finding of his "Magic Invisibility Ring" and riddle contest with Gollum
6. The parties capture in the fir trees by goblins and wargs and their escape with the help of the giant eagles.

Peter Jackson hits every single one of these highpoints...and then screws up everything else.  I hate to be one of "those guys" that always talk about how the book handled things and how the movie messed it up, but given Jackson's track record of staying at least CLOSE to the imagery the author outlined I feel the radical changes he brought to the story really warrant the discussion.

First problem

In the book, part of the humor of the dwarves not wanting Bilbo along because he is inexperienced, is that THEY are inexperienced.  The book quickly point out that the only dwarves who survived the arrival of Smaug were children out playing in the field or older dwarves were away on business and that the survivors have spent their lives working as blacksmiths or coal miners and now want to use their limited wealth to "reclaim" the traditional family home...but they have no idea what they are doing.  You can see it all through the book.  When they start discussing their plans for how they are going to deal with Smaug it comes down to 'we will get to the mountain and then figure something out'.  There IS no big plan for how to do this.  The dwarves send Bilbo to the troll fire because they feel anything is better than being wet and cold..even capture by trolls.  They blunder and they bluster but they are quite honestly, just as new to this whole thing as Bilbo. The whole reason they had gone to Gandalf was because they did not know what they were doing.  Yes, Thorin is a warrior, but it is never mentioned in the main body of the book.  I had read the book at least 10-15 times before I realized that Oakenshield was not Thorin's last name.  It is in one of the appendices where Tolkien spells out how he "earned" that name not in the main body of the book.  He is introduced as "Thorin Oakenshield".  If a man has a first name like Thorin, would you really be surprised that Oakenshield was his last name?  Really?  Over the course of the book Bilbo changes and becomes the experienced leader of the group, the dwarves for the most part never change.  They have grown old working as common laborers and are too set in their ways to realize they are making mistakes.

In Jackson's movie, the dwarves are all supremely skillful warriors and have every right to be upset to be saddled with a no account like Bilbo.  Jackson makes it perfectly clear they are all excellent warriors by spending 15 minutes of screen time going through that appendix I mentioned showing the battle where Thorin earned his name.  It is a gory scene full of blood, mayhem and mutilation.

This is actually a recurring problem through out the movie.  In an effort to appeal to as wide of an audience as possible, Jackson has appealed to none.  The movie is too violent for younger kids, to silly for adults.  Maybe I am wrong.  I probably am.  Of the people that I saw the movie with, 3 had never read the book, 1 had just finished it and 1 had read it a while back.  All of them loved it.  I guess I was just expecting a movie about the book.

Second problem

The constant "reminders" that there is a whole LotR trilogy out there.  The bit where Ian Holm is talking to Frodo in the beginning was nice, and it should have been enough.  Instead, we are treated to Saruman and Galadriel joining Elrond in Rivendell, mentions of Sauron, Bree and several other people and places...and none of them are in the source material.  They are all purely there to set up things in LotR.

Third problem

Ego.  Pure and Simple.  Radagast (shiver) the Brown, the stone giant "Transformers" having a fight in the mountains, the darkening of the story, the addition of Azog "The Defiler" and of course the running time, all point to a Jackson who has let his ego get away from him.  Honestly I see a lot of similarities between this and the the other prequels we have all had to endure - Lucas' Star Wars prequels.

Pros:

1. The cast was excellent.  Ian McKellen and Martin Freeman were perfect as Gandalf and Bilbo.  The dwarves, the with exception of Thorin and Fili and Kili were pretty much cardboard cutouts, but that had a lot more to do with the script than with the actors playing the parts.  Even in the books there was not much to differentiate the different dwarves in the party..other than Bombur being fat.  The movie has the same problem.  There are 13 dwarves to force the need for a "Lucky Number".  If their were fewer dwarves we could have actually had some character development from them..but then they would not need Bilbo.
2. The special effects were stellar.  Whether it is the hall of the Great Goblin, Rivendell, or the first encounter with Gollum, the effects were pretty seamless.
3. I really enjoyed the "History Lesson" about Erebor.  The book leaves it up to the song of the dwarves to tell you of their home, Bilbo's lesson made it a little easier to see.  However, rather than making the coming of the dragon about the toys and gold, Jackson decided to make it about the dwarves somehow being wicked which did not sit well.  That and he had a LOT more dwarves escape.

Cons:

1. Everything else.  No Really.

Couple of other things to mention

As I said we saw it in IMAX in Hoover.  I highly recommend seeing at least one big budget Hollywood movie in this format.  The huge screen just sucks you right in.  That is not to say it was without problem.  The main issue I had with the whole setup is the sound.  I do not know if the movie itself is loud or if the movie theater just had their amplifiers turned to 11, but I am lucky I did not suffer permanent hearing loss in there.  Our sound engineer mentioned after the movie that we were hitting 90-100 dB pretty consistently.  

Finally as a bonus for paying to see the movie in IMAX we were treated to the first 9 minutes of "Into Darkness", the second Star Trek movie from J.J.Abrams.  I thought the movie looked like a lot of fun.  I have already thought of ways to make it another "research outing" for the lab.  I still don't know who Benedict Cumberbatch is playing - though everyone else seems to think it is obviously Khan.  I am leaning that way but the shots of him in a Star Fleet uni just makes me pause.

Finally Healthy-ish

Wow.  Did not think I was ever going to get over that bout of the flu.

I get a flu shot every year.  I have done it for the past 15+ years, September rolls around and I start thinking about flu shots.  If Halloween hits and I have not gotten one yet, I go to the doc-in-the-box and sit down for 5 minutes and let them poke me with needles.

A lot of people tell me this is crazy.  They point out they THEY have never gotten a flu shot and THEY have never gotten sick..so I should be fine without one as well.  Talk about messing up cause and effect.  Just because THEY haven't caught the flu does not mean I will not catch the flu.  Come on, I am smarter than that.

Anyway, I got the flu shot back around Halloween same as always and figured all was good....until the trip back from the U.S.S. Alabama.  Kevin was driving back that Sunday and my throat was sore. Woke up Monday to aches and pains, figured they were from sleeping on a 70 year old battleship so I popped a couple of ibuprofen and went to work.  When I came home from work I still felt like crap so Paula insisted I hit the Doc-in-the-box again.  Went down, they did the cotton swab up the nose test and yep, the flu.

I mentioned I had gotten the flu shot and was told that this year the flu that hit was a different strain than the one in the flu shot, so the flu shot was a waste....and yet I did not get my money back.

They ordered me home and here I have been since then.  I had already planned to take a couple of weeks off from work - the school closed all offices between Christmas and New Years' anyway, so it had just cost me 3-4 days of leave, but instead of resting and getting some much needed housework done I have spent the last 10-12 days lying in bed feeling like crap.  All of that broke yesterday.  Actually woke up and I could breathe which was a great feeling.  I still have a very bad cough and my nose is a little more clogged than I would like but considering how I have felt I will take it.

About my plans.  I plan to post several articles I have thought of over the next couple of days.  Originally I had thought to predate them so they showed up as having been written during my illness, but I don't really see the point in that.  I wrote them now, I am the only one reading this and it is not like I will forget I was sick..I just reminded myself.