10/4/22: Daily Post

Yesterday, I spent the day at NMT. I started the day trying to get caught up on my work for Upwork. I did get one item submitted and started on a second.

Besides Upwork, I met with a professor and a graduate student to get the plasma cleaner running. It turns out, it was easier to run than we thought, so I am pleased with it so far.

In the afternoon, I led our infamous “pump lab” for the freshman design lab. This lab shows the students how to deal with data and graphing, as well as talks a little about how pumps work and what can fail in them.

In the evening, I taught my instrumentation class. This week, they played with a thermistor, and so they ran around calibrating it in the fridge, freezer, outside, and so on to get several data points.

At night, I drove to my brother’s house. I overslept this morning and also left my laptop power cord somewhere. Things are going great.

Thank you for reading my post.

10/19/21: Daily Post

Yesterday, I spent the day at NMT, working on a bunch of projects. I started out by doing a bunch of grading, and reviewed several papers for the freshman projects. I also played around more with ChemCAD, and found my mistake from yesterday.

I also did some work against an Upwork contract. I still have a bunch to do there, but I am staying afloat.

In the afternoon, I helped out with the freshman lab and then hosted instrumentation lab. This was the last instrumentation lab of the year, and I think it went well. I asked a few questions about how to improve the course and got some feedback that I can use.

In the evening, I hosted a Varsity Tutors session and then went for a walk around campus.

Thank you for reading my post.

9/19/17: Daily Post

Yesterday, I spent the morning and early afternoon tutoring at Magdalena, as per my usual schedule.  I tutored two AVID classes, one chemistry class, and one Math Analysis class.

After tutoring, I went to NMT and assisted with the Freshman Design class and then taught two sections of my Instrumentation Lab.  I was not pleased with how they went, and I need to order some more equipment, as I have far too many students for the number of pieces of hardware I have available.

In the evening, I walked to my brother’s house and did a few more tasks before falling asleep on his couch, again.

Thank you for reading my post.

 

9/5/17: Daily Post

Yesterday, I spent the day working in Socorro and Magdalena.  I started out by taking care of a few things around my office and doing some software installs for the Physics department.  I also worked on my lesson plans for later in the day.

In the morning, I tutored at Magdalena.  I actually stayed a little longer than usual, as I will probably change my schedule from now on to include fifth hour AVID, as they can use the help.

In the afternoon, I showed up to Freshman lab, as they did a presentation on the chemical engineering car project, and wanted most of the mentors to be present.  I will be working with two great seniors as co-mentors, so I am excited about that.  The presentation had a few jokes pointed at me, which was funny.  They had a “Lord of the Rings” theme, and tagged me as one of the short, long-haired ogre looking folks.  I’ve never seen the series, so I don’t know anything about it, but it was a good representation of me.

After that I taught two sections of instrumentation lab.  This week, we worked with analog circuits, so the students built some simple circuits on a breadboard.

In the evening, I tutored an online physics lesson for an hour and a half, and then I walked to my brother’s house for enchiladas and left-over cake before falling asleep on the couch.

Overall, it was a busy day.

Thank you for reading my post.

8/29/17: Daily Post

Yesterday, I spent a frustrating day in Socorro.  I started out the day by knocking out things from my to-do list at an accelerated pace.  Everything was going well.  Then, before I drove to Magdalena, I topped off the coolant in the Malibu and drove west.

I only made it as far as Box Canyon, and the car had overheated.  I pulled over and found that I had forgot to put the radiator cap back in place.  All of the coolant had boiled out, hence the overheating.  Once the smoke and steam cleared, I struggled, but was able to restart the car.  I drifted down Sedillo hill a few hundred yards before it overheated again, so I pulled over, let it cool off and then repeated this process the entire way back to NMT.  Along the way, I met a friendly state trooper who wondered what I was doing.

Once I arrived at NMT, I parked it for a bit, then added some coolant.  I restarted the car and watched for smoke or water from the tailpipe, or “chocolate milk” in the oil, none of which showed up.  However, the car overheated again.  I don’t think I added enough coolant, and so by heating the car up, I really just removed the big bubble of air that was in the radiator.

Either way, I have to figure something else out.  I missed a day at Magdalena, and that hurts my pay, as well as my reputation for showing up.

After all of that, I entered my six hours of teaching labs that ran from 2 PM to 8 PM.  I assisted with the Freshman Chemical Engineering lab.  We ran a small steam engine and demonstrated that process.  I think everyone enjoyed that demo.  After that, I taught two sections of instrumentation lab, my first of the semester.  I didn’t go super smoothly, but I think it went alright.  We soldered, and everyone seemed to have a good time.

After that, I walked to my brother’s house and put an end to this disaster of a day.

Thank you for reading my post.

 

11/10/16: Daily Post

Yesterday, I commuted to Magdalena and tutored there all day.  Most of the day went as a normal Thursday, and I tutored Physical Science and AVID, but then later in the day, we had two separate assemblies.T

The first assembly was a Veteran’s Day celebration.  They read a blurb about each World War II veteran that had lived in Magdalena, and included a quick story by a 91 year old veteran.  Before the ceremony began, they read the Pledge of Allegiance in English, Spanish and Navajo.  What was interesting to me is how many New Mexicans were part of the Bataan Death March.  As it turns out, NM soldiers were sent to the Philippines because they could speak Spanish.

The second assembly was a play that was performed by the drama class.  It was pretty good, and I think the students were entertained.

I left Magdalena and drove back to Socorro.  Once there, I had several meetings with students about their freshman design projects.  I think I got all of them rolling for the next few days.

In the late evening, I left with 18 students for San Francisco, as we are driving through the night to get to the conference today.

Thank you  for reading my post.

11/8/16: Daily Post

Yesterday, I commuted to New Mexico Tech. I decided to get a few things done around the department, rather than go to Magdalena, so I stayed in Socorro.  I prepared and delivered a Materials Science lecture for the freshman Chemical Engineering students, and then I also delivered my own instrumentation lecture, the final one of the semester.

After that, we celebrated my brother’s birthday and watched the election results.

I’ve slept-in late today, so I am behind and need to get working on other projects.

Thank you for reading my post.

11/7/16: Daily Post

Yesterday was a productive day.  I debated staying home and buying ammo instead of going to work, as I know the price will increase after the election, probably more so than what I would make by going to work.  Even so, I chose to go to work.

I tutored at Magdalena in the morning, standard Monday classes:  Algebra II, Physical Science and AVID.  I talked to Dad on the ride up, and made a bunch of phone calls on the way back, ordering some meds, and checking on the Taurus Settlement.

In the afternoon, I ran the unit operations lab.  This week was the introductory session, so the students come and see the equipment without running experiments.  They get a feel for what they have control over and what is out of their control.

Then, I planned out my lecture and homework for class today, as well as refined my guest lecture today for the freshman class.

On the commute home, I worked on my NaNoWriMo project.  I’m still on track to finish that, as I am a few words ahead of where I need to be.  However, I have some travel and three major projects due soon, all of which will slow down my writing.

Thank you for reading my post.

10/4/16: Daily Post

Yesterday was a busy day.  I started out the day by tutoring in Magdalena for several hours.
After tutoring, I returned to NMT to set up a demonstration using LabVIEW and a submersible pump.  This demo varied pump voltage, which varied the flow rate through the pump.  The freshman class is using this data to learn about importing files into Excel and throwing out invalid data points.  I think the lab went successfully.

In the afternoon, I taught my instrumentation lab.  In spite of some facilities issues, I think it went alright.   This lab covered a few computer programming concepts.  The students quickly finished the classwork and really dove into their projects.

In the evening, I worked with a group on their chemical engineering car project.  We are still brainstorming safe combustion reactions.

Thank you for reading my post.

9/17/15: Daily Post

Yesterday, I spent the bulk of the day in Magdalena. I managed to make one HF contact on the amateur radio on my way to Magdalena. Tutoring went well. I always have a fun time working with the high school students; in particular two students who had not understood how to distribute learned how, and were actually confident in it.

In the afternoon, I stopped by the repair shop to check on the Malibu. They had tried to replace the bolt that holds the harmonic balancer in place, but had no luck. I knew they wouldn’t. They showed me several other concerns that they found; in particular, the timing cover is cracked and leaking oil. The oil drips into the harmonic balancer and that is part of the problem. They quoted me almost $1800 for the timing cover. I told them not to bother, just beat everything back together, which they did, and I just received a call that it was finished. I’ll pick the car up on Monday.

Later, I returned to NMT. I took a bunch of screen shots for the next round of engineering work at National Instruments, and also did some clean up of the new lab space. I finished the pH system (at least for now, I will tweak it more another day), and also tested some equipment for the freshman lab. They will be using LabVIEW to measure the mass of water that is being pumped into a tank. I’ve done this lab before, but it is always nice to see things working the way I want them to work.

Other than that, it was an uneventful day. I returned home around 12:30 am, and after a long discussion with the family, rested up for a new day.

Thank you for reading my post.