Music
Music has been a major influence in my life ever since my mother used to play her Latin-American LPs in the 60’s and sang along with them while taking care of chores around the house.
Musical Interests
My musical interests have been influenced by my upbringing (my mother played Latin music in the house), the city I grew up in (New Orleans Dixieland Jazz, Mardi Gras theme music, Rhythm and Blues, and “The” Blues), playing the trumpet in my high school Stage (Jazz) Band (Big Band music, and many forms of improvisational jazz, Avant Garde jazz, etc.), working in Texas (Texas Guitar Blues), and living with my partner (Cuban Guaguanco, Danzon, Salsa, and many other forms of Latin Music, etc.). I just don’t have much exposure to, or have purposely avoided Country Music and Rap.
Automotive
Well, I’ve had my fits and starts in this area of interest. My interests haven’t changed, but my circumstances have, and thus what I am able to accomplish in this area has to adjust accordingly.
Visit this page to see where I am today, and where am heading, and what I may (hopefully) be able to accomplish.
Archery
I took up archery as an elective course in college and thoroughly enjoyed the sport. While in scouting as an adult leader, I became a certified youth archery instructor.
I am hoping to pick up archery again for my own pleasure and enjoyment. Come see how I am doing and comment, if you like.
Bicycling
I thoroughly enjoyed bicycle riding up and down the block as a young child. As I grew up I kept riding, and eventually joined a club at work and developed myself into a decent amateur club cyclist.
I am looking forward to resuming my cycling activities on a limited basis. I will be sticking to mountain bike riding since the conditions in which I live at this time are not amenable to road cycling.
Education
I am actively engaged in delivering two on-line courses for a university offering a MSSE degree. I have posted educational videos in this subject area for use by students in these courses.
I am also slowly building up a set of course management tools. The first of these is a grading spreadsheet, which I am slowly over time enhancing to make grading and tracking of all student information related to grades easier to manage. These tools are available for use by the public for free and are offered for download below.
Courseware
System Architecture – covers the development of a system architecture for large complex systems, including the delivery of an Architecture Description (AD) in accordance to ISO/IEC/IEEE 42010.
System Modeling & Simulation – Coming Soon!
Educational Tools
Grading Workbook – Allows an instructor to enter and track student grades in a seven-module (14 week) course. The latest version (2.0) of this MS Excel-based tool provides VBA automation for entering student information, managing groups, and entering grades.
Additional tools will be developed as the need for them in my educational work arise.
Gardening
In my former residences, I had the time and garden area to develop an interest and skill in gardening. However, in my new location, I have very limited area for gardening, which is mostly constituted by potted plants. To get an idea what it’s like in our new location check out the page describing My Living Space.
This has recently changed in 2022 with the purchase of the lot next door to our house. My spouse is taking the lead in coming up with the concept and I will be transforming that concept into a 3-D rendering of the space for the architect to get a better sense of what we are contemplating. I will be using Realtime Landscape Architect software to draw up the detailed plans for addressing the difficulties involved with a sloping property like this lot. Stay tuned for postings of design images in the future.
Model Boat Building
I am beginning a new project of building a 1:48 scale model of the 1921 Canadian Schooner “Bluenose”. The model will end up being approximately 4 ft long and 4 ft tall. I have purchased two sets of scale drawings of the Bluenose, including the full size drawings of L.B. Jensen who created his drawings off of actual measurements of the exact replica of the original Bluenose: the Bluenose II.
I am still in the early design stages of converting the purchased drawings into CAD drawings on my desktop computer. In the process, I have discovered several minor and major discrepancies of the hand drawn Jenson drawings. But, all of these issues are resolvable with balancing compromises to make everything line up correctly.
I am taking a good deal of time to make sure the structural frame in the CAD drawings are as close to the Jenson drawings as possible, while also correcting the inconsistencies. This is a critical step since the frame structure will affect everything that follows. I will set up a separate page on this site to document my progress in this area. Stay tuned.
Volunteering
This section addresses my engineering-related volunteering activities that I began to become involved with while working. My remote living conditions no longer permit me to support volunteering activities requiring direct face-to-face support. So, I am now restricted to supporting only those activities that allow remote, non-real-time participation.
I continue to be involved in the SAE Aero Design series of collegiate aircraft design competitions as a Design Report Judge. I will likely continue supporting this activity until the activity ceases needing remote judges, or I am no longer capable of supporting that activity.
Just briefly, SAE sponsors two collegiate Aero Design competitions annually: SAE Aero Design East and SAE Aero Design West. I currently support both of these competitions by judging design reports from three colleges/universities per competition. It generally takes about 3-4 hours to judge a single report. This is as much time as I can currently dedicate to this activity.
I am currently looking for one other competition series that needs remote report judging similar to SAE Aero Design. See more about my volunteering activities here.