Rant : Another Hard Disk Drive [General]

Even though I kept on saying how stable my Thinkpad had been for 3 years, I had some problem with it tonight. I first heard very strange sound from the hard disk - well I heard it before but it would stop in a short time - followed by all sorts of error message boxes, then blue screen with message "disk I/O error"! Damn - Another disk failed!

Luckily, I backup-ed my data last weekend. So if it's only HDD failure, there should be no big deal. This again made me very serious about date backup.

I still like IBM. I had thought I had to send the notebook back to get it repaired. But with their 24/7 quick support, I found the way to do it.

Weiwei posted @ 23:25:30 || New Haven, CT || Comments (0)

New Haven Camera Club Competition [Photography]

Tonight is the first competition in the New Haven Camera Club of the new season. I got first and second place in the snapshot category. These two pictures were taken in the summer.

In the slides A group, the winner picture is a hopper on the flower. The photographer eventually admitted that the hopper was taken out of the refrigerator.That was really BAD! I only heard of people criticizing this kind of activity but never thought I could see one case.

Weiwei posted @ 22:43:10 || New Haven, CT || Comments (0)

Diving at Stonington Point [    ]

I saw Mark again for a diving in Stonington. We prepared two tanks. The weather looked very nice. However the water visibility was not very good. Actually this was one of the worst times I met in Stonington. It's only about 4 to 5 feet. It's getting better when I went far out of the shore. But there was not too much to see.

You can feel the water was getting colder than several weeks ago. Cool weather is approaching. I do not know what it will look like in the water during the winter.

Weiwei posted @ 19:49:22 || New Haven, CT || Comments (0)

Epson Stylus Photo R800 [Photography]

I recieved my Epson R800 today. My feeling - it is just fabulous!

Why I need a photo printer? I have to say in most cases you can get satisfying digital prints from local supermarket, local photo lab or online photo print retailor. But satisfying does not mean perfect or exactly what you wish. I found it's harder and harder that I could live with these defects - I need quality that I can control.

Why Epson R800? Well I have to say I am a Canon fan. But I finally choose Epson. I do not have too much experience about photo printer. I was just attracted when the first time I saw R800.

What are the results? Fabulous! First Epson makes the printer look very elegant. You know you will love it when you see it. The printer has 8 individual ink catrages - so you can imagine how serious the printer will deal with the color. I like the glossy optimizer, which is the most important reason why I bought R800. I actually compared one photo from R800 with the same print from a local photo lab. The print from R800 obviously has more details.

The only disadvantage of R800 I could think of is the with limit. It can only go to about 10". I think it should be okay for me at this moment. I do not have too much wall to hang that big photo.

I printed two photos for my coming competion. Now I have set up my digital dark room - from taking picture to making prints! What a enjoyable accomplishment!

Weiwei posted @ 19:35:28 || New Haven, CT || Comments (0)

An Unexpected Shot [Photography]

When I got home today, I was locked out of my car. I called AAA. When I was waiting for the AAA, I spotted this racoon on the tree. Luckly I had the camera with me.

It's not easy to get this shot. Since it's almost totally dark, I used high speed up to ISO 800. The most difficult part is focusing. Since it's dark, I really did not know if it's focused well on the face of the animal. So only a small portion are good.

I spent about an hour with this little guy, during which I had to explain to a policeman what I was doing. But you can see, even near the home you can get very good shot!

Weiwei posted @ 23:37:38 || New Haven, CT || Comments (0)

A Night Dive at Eastern Point Beach [    ]

It's getting more and more challenging now for the Wednesday diving because it's getting dark sooner and sooner. So if we get to the site at 6:00 as usual, it's almost a night dive when we get into the water.

Today's dive did not go very smoothly at the beginning. We had five people and had planned to stay together. However, since it's very dark, it's just impossible for 5 people to stay together. When the second time Don, Josh and I lost Brian and Peet, we decided to navigate by ourselves.

So the dive ended up very nice. I never noticed that there were so many rocks in Eastern Point. Going up and down, I really had the feeling of adventure. This is pretty cool!

I had problem with the camera when I got into the water. I used the very old rechargeable batteries and they did not work. But it's okay after I changed to the new batteries. You can see the shot of the eel is not bad. This is the first time I saw a eel in the water!

Weiwei posted @ 23:27:41 || New Haven, CT || Comments (0)

Keep Everything Rolling [Thoughtful]

I am trying to push myself on everything I am doing - 'stretching' might be better.

As to the experiment, even though we are having trouble on both chambers, I managed to make the project running and solve the problem one by one.

I finally got the permission for this semester's teaching fellow. The course I am TA-ing is not the usual homework-grading system. The students will have to finish big design projects. So I will have good chance to communicate with the students.

There will be a new project for the ISIE website. The institue will have their election soon and this time they want to do it via the internet. I am glad to see the web can provide interface for people all over the world. Most important it solves the heavy paper work. I am okay to handle the work but it will take some time.

Besides those projects, I am preparing the prints for the camera club competition. I ordered an Epson R800 printer today. I hope it will save me some time and give me better results.

Let's just keep everything rolling!

Weiwei posted @ 22:06:42 || New Haven, CT || Comments (0)

Seal Dive in Glousceter [    ]

I join the seal dive in Glousceter with Gus, John (Easy), George, Mike and several other guys. I have to thank Ed for arranging carpool for me, also for Gus and John giving me the ride to and back from Glousceter.

I am more and more used to the boat riding, pretty much no sydrom of sea sick. Plus I wear more and do not feel very cold. So the trip is very plesant. When we get to the Isle of Shaole, we do spot shools of seals hanging around. They seem very curious, heading out the surface and looking at the boat. However when we got into the water, it is very hard for us to see them. I think the problem is the visiblity. Eventhough the water is much clear here, it's still very hard to see seals in tens of feet. Geoge get some video shots of the seals. But it's still not what I have expected.

I did not upload many pictures. I am now thinking my trip summary of "Dive New England". I will save some photos for the trip report. It will give a summary of my this year's diving.

Weiwei posted @ 23:37:05 || New Haven, CT || Comments (0)

Growth and Characterization of Model Oxide Catalysts [Research]

A new paper is submitted, which is entitled "Growth and Characterization of Model Oxide Catalysts". This is an invited paper for Eric and will be published on Jounal of Electron Spectrum and Related Phenomena. You can see the draft of the paper in pdf format in research.

Weiwei posted @ 19:33:16 || New Haven, CT || Comments (0)

System Down [Research]

The research work does not go very smoothly in the past a couple of months. It's getting worse recently. Today both the MBE and the STM chambers are shut down.

It's not a big deal for STM. We found a leak on one of the flanges. Hopefully it will solve the problem of the ever-bad vacuum in this chamber. For MBE chamber, the heater is broken. I think there is nothing wrong. It's just its time. It will take couple of weeks for the new heater to come.

There is no idle time in the lab. I will keep it up and make things rolling.

Weiwei posted @ 20:54:54 || New Haven, CT || Comments (0)

New Haven Camera Club [Photography]

I am glad a new season of the New Haven Camera Club started today. There's always a lot of fun to have so many people together with the same interest.

The club invited Daryl Hawk to give a talk about his "unconventional travel". Sometime if you just look at a single shot, it may not be a good shot. This simply because it does not tell too much. However, if you put several shots together and orgnize them with a story, every single shot has it's new meaning. In terms of photo jounal, they can become good shots.

The wired thing is someone donate some slide films to 'encourage' shooting with slides. There is nothing wrong to encourage shooting slides. But it's just not right to DISCOURAGE DIGITAL SHOOTING BY ENCOURAGING SHOOTING FILM. I do not want to spend any time to argue film vs. digital. I am just thinking fewer and fewer manufacturers are producing film projector. Eventually one day you will not find any projector, how would you show your slides???

I think some people are just 'anti-digital'. People are shooting digital simply because it's convenient. They are not 'anti-film'. But for some people, all their purpose to shoot film is to anti digital. How stupid they are!

Weiwei posted @ 22:16:30 || New Haven, CT || Comments (0)

Wreck Diving in Gloucester [    ]

I got some medicine to prevent sea sick and it really worked. Plus it's actually warmer than yesterday (may be because I was not that sleepy). Today's dive was so pleasant.

As to the wreck diving, it's another 90 feet dive. I know 100 ft is nothing in tropical water. But in New England, it's cold and dark - just like entering another world. But it's beautiful. When the wreck was getting clearer and clearer, I was so amazed.

The shallow water dive was also very good. Since the wreck is too old, it even does not look like a wreck. I paid much attention to the star fish and the lobsters. You can see the pictures I got this time are much better than those before. This is because the water here is much clearer and the light condition is better. Gloucester is really a nice place for diving.

I am glad to get certified for the advanced scuba diver. Plus I need to thank Zhiyu for letting me stay at his place last night. If I did not get that good sleep, I could not be this happy today.

Weiwei posted @ 23:03:58 || New Haven, CT || Comments (0)

Diving in Gloucester [    ]

I will spend the whole weekend in Gloucester for my advanced diving course. There are two dives for today and the first one will go to 90 feet.

It's about 3 hours drive from New Haven to Gloucester. I went to bed at 1am and got up at 4. Because I was not sure if I can find the Cape Ann dive shop easily, I did not even make a stop during the 3-hour drive. Finally I got there at 7:05.

The boat left the dock at 8:00. I was excited at the beginning but got sea sick very soon. I did not prepared for this. Moreover, it's really cold out there. Usually the temperature drops quickly after the Labor Day. This made the sea sick even worse.

Actually I found it's not that bad when I jumped into the water. All the people descent along the anchor line as a group. The thermal line was at about 70 feet. The water temperature dropped from 60F to 45F. That's really cold. When I finally reached the bottom, it's 92feet.Though it's damn cold, the bottom is really beautiful. Star fish of all kinds of colors piled on the bottom. I felt I was in another world.

We only spent about 10 minutes on the bottom. When I got up to the boat, sea sick and the cold came back. I almost gave up the next dive. The only hope was that maybe it's not too bad in the water.

I could only take one picture before the camera stopped working. The clip for the battery pack was not on the right position. Oh! There was nothing I could do. You could feel how sad I was in the water - if I could not take pictures, I'd rather not diving.

I was totally exhausted when I got back to the dock - more than exhausted but also frustrated. A bowl of clamp chowder made everything better. I hope I could be more productive tomorrow.

Weiwei posted @ 22:40:12 || New Haven, CT || Comments (0)

The Ace Leader [Sports]

I am actually not surprised that Agassi lost his game to Federer. But I am so shocked that Joachim Johansson defeated Andy Roddick by his super serving. The interesting thing is we actaully watched his game on last Friday but we just did not think he could push in too much.

With the loss of Agassi and Roddick, there is no American in men's game. The late report of US open was totally focused on the women side. But everyone will believe that Johansson was playing fantastic.

Weiwei posted @ 22:25:05 || New Haven, CT || Comments (0)

A Trace of Autumn [General]

The front of the hurrican Frances arrived at New England today. Although it is still hot and humid, you can still notice the traces of autum - the fruits on the trees are getting red, some of the trees are changing to yellowish color and even you can see the foilage under some of them - another season is coming. Time is just flying!

Weiwei posted @ 14:37:58 || New Haven, CT || Comments (0)

New Haven Road Race [Sports]

I joined the New Haven Road Race today. It is always held on the Labor day and this time is the 27th. Well it's not a big deal but to me it means a lot.

First of all, I had never ever passed (I remember I had once) any long distance running in my high school or college physical education courses. I am a good student but not in sports. I am glad I made a lot of progress. I ran 5K for 22'44", which was the best in my life time. More over, this is my first time to participate any form of sport competition. I ranked 425 over 1900 runners (it could be higher if it's ranked by net time). I am glad with this.

Recently there are so many sport events. Olympic Games followed by US tennis opens. I found nobody in the games could use the word "best". Even one can be 'best' at a time but can not be always. So actually one is always competing with oneself - ourselves are always the biggest competitors.

Weiwei posted @ 21:41:03 || New Haven, CT || Comments (0)

US Open [Sports]

Eventually we got a chance to go to Flushing to watch the US open tennis games. This is one of the biggest event and it is the first time I could watch men's games.

As soon as we got there, we found Zhen Jie and Yan Zi were playing women's double. When we got to the court, they just won the first set. Zhen Jie is the #1 women in China. So the competitors were more focused to attack Yan Zi. Finally they lost the match in the third set.

After the lunch, we went to the Grand Stand to watch Fererro's game. Obviously he was not in great condition and lost his game to Cubek, who is only ranked 159. But the game was still amazing. I was wondering how could they play tennis so well?

After the game bewteen Jonhanson and Gambill, we watched the game between Nalbandian and Youzhny. They are both very good players and almost in the same level. It seems that most of fans were for Nalbandian. In the final set, Youzhny seemed to have some trouble at the beginning. On one of the second serve, he turned to the audience. The fans said Youzhny could make a big serve and he really did it. It seemed that the audience was stirred up. This was the turn-point for Youzhny. He broke one of Nalbandian's serving game with 0-40 and quickly won the match.

There are lots of sport events in this summer. People are talking about hard work. But it seems that luck plays a very important roll. It's really not easy to take the athletics as a career because it's so uncertain.

Weiwei posted @ 20:08:23 || New Haven, CT || Comments (0)

Night Dive at Fort Wetherill [    ]

Don led the group to Fort Wetherill today. After ten weeks diving in Stonington, we need to dive in a different place.

When we got into the water, it's almost, but not completely dark. Amazingly, the visibility was very good. Even it's a night dive, I could easily see Don underwater. It's a little bit difficult at the beginning because we happened to follow the other two people. They stirred up the sand a lot, which made it difficult to see. Once we left them, everything seemed okay.

The depth could go well above 30 ft. We followed the cliff on one side, on which there is a lot of beatiful stuff. Since it's dark, there were lobersters everywhere. Some of them were really huge.

After about an hour when we got back to the shallow water, I could see the bright moon and countless stars hanging on the sky, with the silver light reflected on the surface. Also the black hills were on each side. I could even here the sound from the bugs. When I put my face in the water, amazingly there were numerous jellyfish, glowing with their luminescent bodies and flowing with the wavy water. This is one of the most beautiful pictures I have ever seen.

Weiwei posted @ 22:48:34 || New Haven, CT || Comments (1)