Amazon sure did have a lot of screw ups this year, no?
But has anyone gotten the wrong New Year’s Resolution yet? I distinctly resolved for true love and happiness, but I seem to have gotten somebody’s resolution to lose weight. And this person must have been freakin’ massive. Who else would want to lose 25 pounds?
So, if anyone out there was meaning to lose 25 pounds, but instead got true love and happiness, if you could please let me know.
But only if you like Pina Coladas, and getting caught in the rain.
Regardless, let’s get to business. Another one of my projects is the FRC Vision C++ Platform. This project intends to become a simple way to move data from the AXIS camera on the robot into the LabView application on the robot, while at the same time processing it for shapes, etc. Incidentally, it’ll be running on a separate Windows computer, not on the robot, communicating via 802.11. Now is that efficiency or what?
But, check out the code: https://github.com/lkolbly/FRCVision
In other news, no news on Lyst.
And no news on the SillyBot.
But I got this really cool alarm clock/iPad dock thing! It had a remote, so I can play Pandora from a long way away.
So, this is my entry for one of the Kealing application essays. Please don’t copy me, as I could get into some trouble. Possibly.
There was a house here. I traced the doorstep where we found the marble statue with my foot. My foot swept aside several inches of sand, uncovering the original stone step. The carbon dating team back home had texted me earlier, saying that the animal statue was sculpted using metal tools, like I had guessed, and that it was roughly five thousand years old.
Five thousand years. Long enough to hide everything but a metal ball, an animal sculpture, and a large stone sculpture of what appeared to be human. None of us had any idea what they meant. Who were these people? How did they make a living? What were their rituals? Why did they vanish?
“Benjamin! We must go before the tsara!” I turned to my Arabian guide, then looked at my wife packing the last bag into the jeep, twenty yards away. The tsara was a legendary sandstorm that occurred annually, and was said to wipe away everything in it’s path, changing the very layout of the sand dunes around us.
Then it hit me. I was teleported back five thousand years, to a small agricultural village. I stood in the center of a ring of mud huts, near the doorstep with the marble statue, facing the giant human statue. The town was apparently empty, except for a young girl, around fifteen I supposed, knelt in prayer at the giant human statue. Her dress was made of a light weaving of the local tall grass, her hair was in a bun, indicating that she had recently been working. Probably either weaving or some other home making. A young boy, similarly aged, ran over to the girl. His hair was cropped short, and he was wiping his face with a cloth he kept at his belt, indicating a hot work, probably baking or blacksmithing. I walked close enough to hear.
“The council has made their decision. We are to leave, and burn the town so the Animal God may have his land back.”
The girl broke down in tears, and the boy moved to comfort her. The girl managed to sob that “then it is all over. We cannot make it to the next town by the time the tsara is here.”
“Do not worry. It is all a part of Their plan.” There was a pause, and the boy continued “I made you this.” He produced from his robes the same one inch metal sphere I now held in my hand. Five thousand years later.
“Benjamin, Molly finished packing jeep. We go before tsara comes.” The Arabian guide was starting to get antsy.
I walked over to the jeep. Molly turned to me and smiled “Well? Think we’ll beat the tsara?”
I put my hand on Molly’s shoulder and gave a supportive smile “Don’t worry.” I paused for a split second “I brought this for you.”
She smiled “Oh, Benny. Get into the car before our friend has a heart attack.” She jumped over the welded back door of the jeep, and I climbed into the passenger seat to keep our guide awake for the 12 hour ride back to Laghouat, the nearest form of a civilization. Modern civilization, that is.
