Tag: csun
Musing/Observations on Washington’s Birthday…
Yes, Washington’s Birthday. There is no such thing as Presidents Day. Don’t believe me? See Snopes.
Highway Pages Updated/Disclosure of CSU/UC Alumni Info. Today I’ve been busy updating the highway pages (see my entry in roadgeeks). As part of this, I review what our silly legislature proposed. Since early January, there have been over 800 bills introduced in the Assembly, and over 600 in the Senate. This season seems to be sillier than most. For example, we have the legislator who introduced a bill (SB 98) whose sole purpose is to change “which” to “that” in the definition of the highway department. This makes no sense, unless it is a placeholder bill for a later gut and replace. There’s also a bill (AB 540) to require bending over backwards for local concerns on Caltrans projects. Can you spell “Bay Bridge Overruns”? Of more interest, however, to this group, is SB 569. This bill would prescribe criteria for the disclosure of the names and addresses of alumni of the CSU and the UC systems, requiring that these names and addresses of alumni be disclosed only to provide those persons with informational materials relating to the university and its programs and activities. Those of you who are alumni: Look at it.
SFV Historical Society Program of Interest. Related to this, it appears that the San Fernando Valley Historical Society is going to have an interesting program coming up. The speaker on February 24 at 7:30 PM is Shel Weisbach, speaking on “The Urban Landscape of Los Angeles“. This should include photos of old neon signs, roadside architecture, old theatures, and all sorts of fun stuff.
Southern Faire: New Location. I’ve heard from some birdies that Southern Faire has a new location. It will be at the Santa Fe Dam park off of Arrow Highway (map). This is near where I-605 and I-210 meet, about 1 hr closer to LA than the old location. Huzzah!
Deaths Come In Threes. By now, folks have heard about the death of Hunter S. Thompson (the bats, the bats, they’re after me… blam!). You’ve probably also heard of the death of Sandra Dee, the original Gidget. What I haven’t seen mentioned is the death of John Raitt, a celebrated star of musicals. John: We thank you for your contributions.
Grrrr… Rain. Yup, the leak finally returns. And the rains last until Thursday… and come back next week. I’m looking forward to the drying of Spring.
Now, off to do my Tax Questionnaire for my accountant…
We Interrupt This Meme to Bring You Life…
We interrupt this cycle of memes to bring you an update of today’s news.
Yes, I do more than just memes :-). I’ve actually been quite busy and productive the last few days, so let me bring you up to date.
- Yesterday, I participated in a meeting of the CSUN Industrial Advisory Board (basically, industry advising the School of Engineering and Computer Science). It was a really good meeting; I always enjoy hearing about the good work they are doing there. I also got to see some early drawings of the Envision 2035 CSUN Master Plan on how the campus will morph to accomodate increased enrollment. Very interesting drawings on how they will increase capacity while still retaining the same amount of green space, and not buying new land. They are also being smart and planning faculty housing. As long as they don’t do a UCLA (which I think has gotten overbuilt since I went there in the early 1980s).
- I got a wonderful surprise (well, not really a surprise) in the mail yesterday: a copy of Tigris and Euphrates. I obtained this in trade for some Speed Circuit expansion maps with a fellow in France. I’ll try playing it on the upcoming Southern California Games Day on January 22nd, the day after my birthday. I’ve also got a copy of Exxtra on order from Germany.
- Last night I got to watch S&F and the Karate Kid while gf_guruilla and ixixlix went off to the spa (my turn is next week). We had fun watching the videos from all three session at Camp Hess Kramer. Some things have changed. Some haven’t.
- This weekend will be a busy one. Saturday, we’re going out to Monrovia to visit the Fountain Pen Shop. Sunday, I’ll be taking S&F ice skating on a temple youth group activity, while gf_guruilla, ellipticcurve, and a friend of ellipticcurve‘s go shopping. That evening, we’re having dinner with gyesika at Johnny Reb’s before she goes off to Austin.
- I note that they have announced the new set of players for Survivor Palau. Interesting mix of ages, including some lawyers (including a graduate from the University of San Diego Law School), a civil engineer, and a CSUN graduate. There’s also someone from Ventura. However, anything will be better than the last season, which really wasn’t worth watching.
- Quote of the day, from a CNN article on Prince Harry: “Prince Harry seems less interested in preparing for a life of royal service than auditioning for the role of village idiot in Poundbury”. Well, if he doesn’t get the position, I understand Crawford TX is missing its idiot.
So, that should bring you up to date for now.
We now return you to your regularly scheduled meme.
A Budding Relationship
Well, I pulled it off… even while fighting a migraine.
This morning, I facilitated what I perceived to be a successful meeting between CSUN and my employer. They seemed really interested in CSUN’s co-op and clinic program, and CSUN was interested in what we do here. It came off very smoothly, and all parties were impressed. This is good.
Universities and My Employer
I’m a member of the Industry Advisory Board of the School of Engineering and Computer Science at California State University, Northridge. Now, I never attended CSUN (although gf_guruilla did), but I believe that CSUN’s programs actually trains better practicing engineers than does UCLA’s program (my alma mater, which trains better researchers). Through this program, I try to help improve and promote the Engineering School.
For years, I’ve been trying to get my employer to recognize CSUN as a real university. It seems they are willing to work with any UC campus, and even campuses that don’t offer Master’s Degrees (Harvey Mudd), and even the University of Spoiled Children… but to get them to recognize CSUN, which is producing outstanding engineers and has a computer security program, is very difficult.
Well, after three months of work, I’ve finally done the first step: I’ve got a date scheduled for the Dean of the Engineering School, and likely some other folks (probably the development chair and I’m sure a department chair) to meet with my management. I finally feel like I’ve done something useful for the school.
(Which is good news, because otherwise I have no energy today)
CSUN Addendum
I just remembered something I had meant to discuss (but forgot—see, you’re not alone transitfan). After the main part of the IAB meeting, we went over to the Oviatt Library to see the exhibit of the Tseng Collection of Chinese Antiquities. They had a single vase there worth 5.5M$. Imagine that. They even loaned the vase to one of the engineering faculty to do a spectral analysis of it. (By the way, for the history freaks out there, the CSUN Library also has a San Fernando Valley History Digital Library).
However, the most interesting thing about the library wasn’t the exhibit. It was in the east wing: a four-story automated book retrieval system [do go to the webpage; it has a neat picture!] based on what is used in warehouses. This holds 70% of the collection, some 70K books, and is only about 60% full. It has 6 aisles, each with automated cranes that retrieve crates of books: books are checked in and out of the crates, and other books can be put in to a crate and checked into that crate. Students can get a book from this system in under 10 minutes. Most amazing to me is that this system, which dates to 1991 (and uses the Unix operating system—yes, I asked), had only minor misalignments during the 1994 earthquake (about 1″). When they had to rebuild the wings of the Oviatt, they tore down the building and built a new building around the retrieval system. Quite interesting.
This afternoon, I’ve been useful. I’ve put up film window coating on the kitchen windows. This will make it so folks can’t easily see in whilst we’re out. They actually went up pretty easy. I’m debating whether to attack my daughter’s new bunk bed, but that may not be a one person job. So, its back to the laundry.
A Morning at CSUN
I spent this morning at California State University Northridge (CSUN), my wife’s alma-mater. I’m a member of the Industrial Advisory Board of the School of Engineering and Computer Science there. At times I feel out of place with all the “important” people there—people who can arrange donations of $10K or more to the school, presidents and vice-presidents. But I do serve a function: I can represent Aerospace‘s interests and try to direct students to come to work here.
It’s hard to do. It is difficult to get a company to establish relationships with new universities, especially the CSU system when they are used to UCs (such as UC Davis, ellipticcurve‘s alma-mater, or UCLA, my alma-mater). Yet CSUN does have a good engineering program with great practical knowledge—they even have faculty working in Computer Security, and offer MS degrees. Yet for some reason I can’t get the company to look north. Sigh.
As for the rest of the day: I’ve taken a vacation day and am working around the house. Things have been quieter at work (remember the ebb and flow), so I figured I had some vacation time, and would use it for something useful: like getting ready for our vacation to St. Louis next week.