Was out to California for most of the week for a business trip. Flew out Sunday back on the red-eye on Wednesday-Thursday. Over all it was a long, busy, but good trip.

Monday was in LA to meet with a potential commercial partner a tier 2 Defense contractor on Monday. Got to see the assembly lines for the CAS (Control Actuation System) for the Mk 82 & 84 guided bombs, SDB (Slender Diameter Bomb) and AIM-9 Sidewinder.

Later that day I got another tour of NASA JPL. I toured it once many years ago back just after the first mars rover was launched. This time I got to see the sand box where they have a rover set up in the same stuck position as Spirit is as they try to figure out how to un-stick it. Got to see some of the actual subsystems and a full scale model of the new mars rover. That was pretty cool. The funniest thing was a machine shop we went through had vending machines that would vend tools (end mills, drills, etc) to the machinists and allow them to charge the correct project for the tool.

Tuesday we traveled up to San Jose.

Wednesday we kicked off my Phase II program with the Army on the rotorcraft program I have been leading up. That was at NASA AMES so I also got a brief tour of that facility. AMES is home to the first and second largest wind tunnels on the planet. They are huge. All in all I saw probably 6-7 wind tunnels that day.

So in the four day gone I flew five times and compared to US Air, Southwest is like flying first class. US Air sucks big rocks! Their people are as friendly as a grumpy badger and their gates have less power outlets than some Amish homes.

Good trip but it was better to be home.

Proposals are finished time to get some sleep and start writing a progress report.

Until last week things at work where going pretty good. I was up to my eyeballs in some pretty gnarly multi-physics finite element analysis and was as happy as a pig in mud. Then starting last week all the unpleasant parts of being an engineer in a small company caught up with me.

I had to do an internal business plan presentation to upper management!? WTF why the business development guys couldn't do about 80% of that without me, is beyond me. Some good office politics there for sure. Then I have a presentation on that same project to a very likely new outside commercial partner this Saturday. I am still not happy with the presentation but don't have alot of time to work on it. In addition the Saturday meeting is going to make me miss the Hunter's match out at the club and riding miniature trains with Abby. :(

On top of that I have two DOD SBIR proposals due next Wednesday at 6:00AM. One I am writing on my own the other I am compiling for a colleague that is at a conference this week and on vacation next week. If he takes vacation again during SBIR proposal next time and thinks I am picking up the slack on his proposal he's going to get...

And just to make it interesting I have a progress report for an Army program that was due yesterday. And even better I expected that Army program's Phase II to kick-off in November or early December. Well the Army is on the ball and contract negotiations have gone quickly and that contract is probably going to start next week or at the latest the week after. It's good because it mean I have my full budget to throw behind the work but at this point it just feels like the biggest meanest dog landed on top of the already large dogpile.

I got to purchase an HGU-55 flight helmet for a project at work.



Fun Fun!

If I have an communicable decreases everyone in the company probably has it now. I am pretty sure everyone has put that helmet and mask on. Most have also walked around the office looking like a goof-ball giggling like a school girl.

-Abby was up relatively early this morning.

-Off to the the Ohio BMV for a new drivers license. Service was surprisingly fast and friendly.

-No internet access at work and more detrimental to getting work done, no network server so I could not run my CAD software (network license) or access the main color printer.

-In the absents of real work progress:
--I made a stainless steel bushing for the clutch of my poor old lawn tractor
--I also fix a Co-worker's nephew's RC truck that has been sitting in my office for two months

-Left work early (since I was not getting any real work accomplished) and got a new set of Hankook tires put on the Element.

-Got home played with Abby when I could drag her away from the mother-in-law.

-Got Abby ready for bed and then washed bottles.

-Use above mentions stainless steel bushing and a few other parts to rebuild the failing clutch in my poor old lawn tractor.

-Cleaned all three guns from the 3-gun match. (Eugen Stoner is still a filthy engineer)

-Came upstairs to find an email stating that I have receive notice of award of my first Phase II program with the DoD (Army specifically) as PI!!!

So I have have been really busy lately with work and taking two extra days of vacation last week to make the long weekend really long. I got to spend time with Abby and do some shooting.

Well, Friday we finally finished the majority of the electrical work and mounted the turbine blades. This let us generate power for the first time. The wind was not real good, of course, so not much power was generate but we are getting close to finishing the system. We still have some loose ends to tie up but we will hopefully have the system up and running next week. The last major system to be finished is the close-loop controller that will keep the truss, that support the four turbines, facing into the wind. That is an active system and we are still tuning up the controller.

( Anyway, a bit more rambling, photos and a short video clip behind this cut. )

http://www.qik.com/video/1657574

Check out the above link. Jump to about 5:30 left in the video. The first 26 minutes are pretty boring.

I mentioned the CSU Wind Turbine Structure I have been managing the construction of in a previous post or two, I think. Well the structure was lifted onto the roof this morning. Everything went pretty good. The complete system should be up and running hopefully by early June. I will try to post some good still pictures and a better video. I was on the roof for the pick the above video was shot by someone else.

I have been stressed out and grinding on a proposal for the past two weeks. Yesterday we turned in my first Phase II SBIR proposal (Army) based on a Phase I program that I was the primary author, concept originator, and principal investigator for the program. We have had one other Phase I program (Air Force) were I was author/concept/PI but with that program we did not get an invitation to write the Phase II; Phase II are be invitation only.

With this latest program I am cautiously optimistic that the Phase II will be funded. The Phase I research went remarkably well. We had very good interaction with our Army contact and great support from a big prime contractors throughout the Phase I program. The only problem was that with being the PI is I seem to spend more time than I would like doing administrative stuff and not enough time doing hard-core engineering on the program.

Anyway now the waiting begins to see if the program will continue...

Oh... The program? It's to develop technology to eliminate the swashplate and hydraulics from a rotorcraft.

http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/21/giving-turbines-a-boost-with-curves/

I am the project manager for the construction aspects of this project. It's pretty cool to see it getting the good coverage it has. It has been written up a few times in the local papers but this is more national coverage.

I got a nasty cold earlier this week. Yesterday I lost my voice late in the day. We were and are preparing a presentation for a phase I kick-off meeting to start a new program with the Army. This is my first Army program where I am Principal Investigator. Preparing and practicing an oral presentation with colleagues having lost my voice is nigh impossible and incredibly frustrating. I just hope my voice returns by Monday or my Colleague is going to have to do the presentation, something he is not looking forward to.