The SUL at the crossroads

Does anyone remember the 1986 movie Crossroads? It had some great big name talent in it, but I'll always remember it for Ralph Macchio (with his stupid big city hat), Steve Vai, and the really cool guitar battle at the end of the movie... sort of like the Charlie Daniels Band's song The Devil Went Down To Georgia, except for most of the details!

By this time, some of you gentle readers may have become accustomed to my segues, where I attempt to create a humorous, clever, or tenuous transition from the introduction to the main topic of the post. As "crossroads" is an apt description of where our beloved Secret Underground Lair is right now, I thought I'd start things out with the movie reference.

Everything started the Saturday before this last (April 11). I went down to the Secret Underground Lair (SUL) and logged in to a computer or two. After a bit of catching up on twitter, I started moving things around. At some point, Mr. T joined the party and ended up cleaning out the rolltop desk which is next to his computer desk. We would have done more, but it was way past my bedtime.

Sunday started out as a beautiful, sunny day which gradually clouded over and eventually saw some light rain. Meerkat, our trusty Subaru Outback, reminded me that I had not taken any pictures in quite some time, and there were a few subjects in the neighborhood that were under construction that were just BEGGING to be photographed. Who was I to argue with our car? I proceeded to charge camera batteries, and not long after that I was in search of photographic adventure!

I love construction- during the course of our church's renovation, I shot ~1500 frames on a compact digital point and shoot camera. These days, my "weapon of choice" for digital photography is the Nikon D3200. This camera is considered an entry level digital single lens reflex camera (DSLR), but I can't think of a way in which it doesn't completely blow away any of my old 35mm Minolta film cameras. When I went out this past Sunday, I shot ~170 frames of some building construction and of my main subject, the (literal) expansion of the tollway that runs through our city; they're adding a lane in each direction. The thing that is most interesting to me about the project is the fact that the roadway is elevated on a sort of berm rather than being at ground level, so there is a MASSIVE amount of construction going on.

When I got back to the house, Mr. T asked me if I was ready to move the desk. I said I was, and I think we spent close to four hours on that part of the project, cleaning, disassembling, moving and reassembling as necessary.

Before

After

The SUL is not currently pretty, but what would one expect from any location with "Lair" in its name? We successfully were able to move both pieces of furniture with a relative minimum of difficulty: at the end of the day, no furniture was broken, no humans were injured, and most importantly, no cats were stepped on. After catching our collective breath, Mr. T was quick to point out that current location of the entertainment center (the "After" picture) would not suit our purposes, because the television s really not viewable in its current location (we do not intend to watch broadcast programming on this TV; it will be used for videos and games). This (hopefully) final phase will start Monday, as I've taken some vacation time more or less for this task.

You may have read the rumor (started by me!) somewhere that the unifying theme of this blog is data... well, it really is! I am happy to report that my new pedometer is broken in and functional, and I have accumulated ten days worth of data. I have the older data on another computer, and intend to move these .csv files over and put everything together in a new .xlxs file at some point. I've done next to nothing with my main database project, so nothing new to report there. Data tracking for the blog is being continuously updated, and I'm hoping to hit the next "magic number" of viewers (10K) within the next few months- I'm currently averaging  ~320 viewers spread across forty-eight countries and six continents... shameless plug here: does anyone know anybody in Antarctica? It's the last frontier, and my only "untapped" continent!

My plans for the coming week include (of course) a complete makeover of the SUL- there should be at one new blog from this adventure, so stay tuned!

As always, I am hochspeyer, blogging data analysis and management so you don't have to.