Day 51

Second Half

I managed to survive this past weekend's botanical expedition and now am just enjoying springtime with Glass.  Here's the Wisteria in the Hidden Garden on the west side of our house.  Even though it doesn't get morning sun, it is in a protected area with trees on either side, a high fence behind, and a heated greenhouse about 30' away. 

Day 50

Field Research and Batteries

I set Glass up plugged in to my car's auxiliary outlet this morning for a charge.  Unfortunately, my Prius shuts off after about 15 minutes without its digital key within range. 

Glass turns itself on when charging begins, but doesn't turn itself off when power is lost.  The result was a completely discharged Glass as the day began.  Bad Google; bad Glass.  Glass should not power up when it is plugged into power for charging after it has been manually turned off. 

Day 49

The Great Jemez Botanic Expedition of 2014, Second Try

Saturday 

With warmer weather and no snow in the forecast, we set out to complete the data collection that was blown out by foul weather two weeks ago (see Day 35).  Indeed, it was a fine day and we got an early start.

Day 48

Into the Void

Courtesy of the "dry run" two weeks ago, packing for the Jemez Botanical Expedition took only minutes and was much more compact.  This will be a chance to use Glass for genuine research.  We'll be documenting each site, filming the collection methods, and generally getting a very thorough set of data for my nephew's senior botany project.  

Day 47

Arms Control Glass

A colleague and I met with the folks from our on-site inspection testbed.  Things look very promising for a realistic field trial.  We'll not only get point-of-view video from Glass, but also have a videographer record the activities from an external view as well. 

Springtime in Glassland

At least some of the Wisteria have survived the spring freezes we've been having.  Now there's a cascade of purple and lavender blossoms draping our fence in the hidden garden. 

Saturday morning I head back into the Jemez to help my nephew with data collection for his senior class project.  If there's cell service, I'll have an update, otherwise it'll have to wait until Sunday PM. 

Day 46

Glass for On-site Inspection

My day job includes a project dealing with how mobile technology can assist arms control and nuclear safeguards inspectors.  Frankly, it's not that easy to get a high-tech device into what often are sensitive industrial or military facilities.

Day 45

Seattle Springtime Video

The thing about Glass is that it lets you record things you never would have with a hand-held camera, even a smartphone.  For example, on Friday we were boarding a SWA flight to Seattle and I had a hand on my luggage, the other on my boarding pass and ID, and a hoard of impatient travelers behind me.  No way could I have  stopped to pull out a camera or phone for this: 

Day 44

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggity-Jig

Back at Schlepp International Headquarters and finally able to download-upload-embed photos from the weekend.  Here's a sampler:

Lunch in Ballard

Day 43

A very light day of Glass, a drive down to Olympia to visit two friends, one with Parkinson's.  It didn't seem appropriate to wear a camera although there were a few moments for formal group portraits of the gang.

We had a lovely tour of their neighborhood, which is a full spectrum elder community. 

After lunch (Greek), some time in Barbara's garden with Glass, then a long nap.  G+generated a pleasant auto-awesome video from yesterday and did a surprisingly good job of it.

Day 42

Saw the Chihuly glass explicit at his museum downtown this morning.  It was excellent with opportunities to use and compare all three of my cameras:  the Canon point-and-shoot, my Droid, and Google Glass.

Each had their strengths and the results were good overall:  great color saturation, outstanding composition opportunities, wonderful shapes, dramatic lighting.  Video with Glass was particularly fun and effective. 

Had a nice chat with one of the museum staff who noticed my Glass.  Only the second he's seen. 

Still having trouble embedding photos with Blogspot when using it on a mobile device.  Imagery will probably have to wait until Monday when I get to a desktop computer. 

Day 41

A day of travel, my first trip by air with Glass.  Lots of good photos and videos, some candid, others just because the camera was handy.  It's been a full day with ABQ-SEA travel, lunch in Ballard, getting settled at the Chilcote residence, and a Dungeness crab dinner.  Plenty of good material, but it will have to wait until the morning for downloading and attaching. 

Day 40

Busy, Busy

Time well spent today putting finishing touches on the Glass field trial methods.  In a week or two we should be running actual proof-of-concept tests in TA-5 to get a feel for on-site inspection with Glass. 

I did a system reset on the Sandia-purchased set of Glass and handed them off to Maikael.  He'll spend the next two weeks spinning up on the technology.  After that, we'll get them over to Sharon and that will mean we have three Explorers in the group to help out with field trials.

Meanwhile...

It's spring in NM even if it's still cold and snowy back east.  Here's a couple happy snaps of the greenhouse with iris starting to bust out in front of it. 

And here's Bella Cat at the door in the Hidden Garden with late afternoon sun.  

Time to get packed for Seattle.  Tomorrow, if I can successfully post from Phinney Ridge, we'll have Glass views of airport security, Southwest Airlines, and Seattle without rain. 

Day 39

Haze

It was an oddly hazy morning up in the foothills.  Although clear in the North Valley, the mountains were a backlit with an odd dusty fog.  Not at all pleasant for photography. 

The work plan for Glass in our TA-5 testbed is moving ahead.  I made a 2 minute video of some mock inspection activities in our technology display area. 

But otherwise, it was a quiet day for Glass.  Even the drive home had only one small traffic backup, which I handily avoided. 

Flight School

The air was dead calm tonight when Kent and Ric came over for "game night."  Perfect for Wi-Fi helicopter flying.  The young padawan has learned much...

Day 38

It's been a day in front of the computer (Glass-less) or in meetings (almost Glass-less).  About all I can report on is that I updated the Google Glass Wikipedia article to include a reference to the Rx lenses roll-out.  A quick screen shot with Glass captures the crazed excitement of the moment. 

Day 37

Fitness

This morning I had my periodic fitness assessment down at Medical.  I brought along Glass for show-and-tell.  The techs were blown away by the capabilities and the possibilities.  Almost effortlessly, they started taking their own videos.  Here I am looking profoundly amused.

Day 36

The Ill-fated Jemez Botanical Expedition of 2014

Yesterday's attempt to harvest grasses and forbs at the top of Capulin Canyon in the Jemez Mountains was met with abject failure.  Mom Nature thumped us and set us packing.

Day 35

The Great Jemez Mountains Botanical Expedition of 2014

Woke up early to a rare foggy morning in Albuquerque.  Kent came by and we loaded up the Prius.  Destination:  St. Peter's Dome Road and the headwaters of Capulin Canyon, high in the Jemez Mountains of northern New Mexico.  It had rained the night before and we thought snowline might be near the research location where my nephew was going to be collecting field data for his senior botany project.  But it was just a trace of precipitation--surely the sun would melt off a little spindrift snow. 

Day 34

Packing

Not much time for a blog post tonight as I prep for the weekend outing--collecting botanical field data at 8500' in the remote Jemez Mtns with my nephew for his senior biology project.  Despite the remoteness, we'll be able to car camp, which let's me get very sloppy.

Day 33

One Third of the Way There

Thirty three days have passed since I started this blog and I'm beginning to grok Glass.  It's certainly not a technology or tool that you pick up in a day or even a week. Glass gives you opportunities to do things differently, but in a subtle manner.  You have to think about solving a particular problem from another direction instead of the linear desktop computer methods we typically apply. 

Day 32

A Light Day of Glass

A busy morning with a seminar on geolocation with Twitter.  An animated discussion of "Tweeting from Justin Beiber's Heart" and "Where's @Wally?" was quite enlightening.  But, alas, it was in the "no phone" zone of the so-called Limited Area.  Definitely not a place for Glass.

Interestingly, next Monday the pilot program for permitting personally-owned electronic devices in the Limited Areas will begin.  One of the stipulations is that Wi-Fi and Bluetooth must be disabled -- but not cellular radios.  Glass without either is pretty helpless.

Day 31

Next Generation Safeguards

Not much time for Glass today--to much time spent banging my head against the keyboard.  However, right after lunch I gave a tour of our display area to a group of young professionals interested in nuclear safeguards.  I wore Glass as a talking point and it attracted quite a bit of attention. 

Day 30

Inchoate Thoughts

Not too much Glass today.  At work I wore them during a tour of our building's display area for some young visiting scholars from South Asia.  After work, I took a short bike ride and documented some of the narrow courses along the Griegos Lateral above the Alameda Drain.  

But I have been giving a lot of thought to yesterday's breakthrough in terms of Glass functionality.

Day 29

Sunday Synopsis

With cooperative weather, it was a fine morning to transition to daylight saving time.  That "spring ahead" thing always messes me up.  We took Mom to the Olive Garden for lunch and then set her up with her new mini-exercise bicycle.  Below is a quick snap of the bouquet from Trader Joe's on her dining table.  After a quick trip to the grocers, it was time for an afternoon of relaxation.

Day 28

Birthdays

It was a day of cooking, getting ready for McGoey and Toni's birthday dinner.  On the menu, a multicultural affair with a Greek salad and Italian spaghetti with meat sauce.  I took several short videos during cooking and prep work.  Handsfree is definitely the way to go when cooking. 

Day 27

Close-up Photography with Glass

Here's a series I took of some peach blossoms.  The first was taken from about 6" away.  Despite the large and centrally placed target, Glass could only focus as close as the branch behind, perhaps 9" away.  The open flowers are about 1" in diameter.

This second pic is from a little further back, about 9".  No problem with focus and the wide-angle lens provides crazy deep depth of field.  Unfortunately, the flowers of interest are already shrinking too far to show much detail. 

Taken from about 12", this picture again shows excellent depth of field but not enough detail for the small target. 

At 15" the peach blossoms are much too small to be a point of interest and we begin to see some washing out from the bright sky to the left. 

 

Must talk to Kent about the optics of a Glass close-up accessory lens.  I could try my old 50mm set of lenses from my Pentax K-1000 for a test series.  It would be most effective with video, since you can see the image being captured in the prism.  Speaking of which, it'd be nice if there was a preview option for the still camera.  

Day 26

Color Shift

Today I'm "prepping" for a routine medical procedure (don't ask).  That means today and tomorrow's posts will be a bit thin. 

Day 25

Personal Glass

At 9:45 this morning (well ahead of the projected 10:30), the UPS guy rang my doorbell.  My personal Glass had arrived.  It would be late in the afternoon before I was able to undo my prescription lenses and frames from the company-owned set of Glass, switch things over to the new set, and get Bluetooth configured.

Day 24

Trudy Awakes

Much to my surprise, I noticed the earth had been turned up in a small patch of the Hidden Garden this morning.  I knew that somewhere nearby was where Trudy Turtle, my female Ornate Western Box Turtle, had gone underground last October.  With the weather unseasonably warm in ABQ (eat your heart out, DC), it was conceivable that she had broken hibernation almost a month earlier than last year. 

Day 23

A Day without Photos

Not a single #throughglass today.  There was a busy morning getting out the door for a telecon with The Hague.  Then I tucked in to writing more of the report on "The Feasibility of Mobile Computing for On-site Inspection."  Though I took the Glass out for lunch at Twisters, nothing struck my eye.

Day 22

After yesterday's time spent with my brother, it was great to have a completely unscheduled day, a day to use Glass to capture the totally mundane.  Here's the entry into my local John Brook's supermarket, a photograph I'd never take with a standard camera or even with my smartphone.  I'm convinced that the ubiquity of cameras and other digital tools will give generations of researchers and historians yet to come endless material for theses and dissertations. 

Day 21

Took my first out-of-town road trip with Glass today.  Visited my older brother, who has PSP (a rare type of Parkinson's disease) up in Chamita.  Once again, the ease of taking discreet photographs without interrupting the moment was a key benefit.