dem doggone bloggin’ blues …

lunch with Pierre-Auguste Renoir …

Le déjeuner des canotiers

The painting depicts a group of Renoir’s friends relaxing on a balcony at the Maison Fournaise along the Seine river in Chatou, France.

We’re taking the train to Chatou to lunch at the Maison Fournaise restaurant, and then off to Giverny to see Monet’s waterlilies.

watercolouring …

Nothing in my life has been as difficult – not my flying, sailing, or engineering, as compared to my attempts at drawing a line with a pen or brush that accurately reflects my intent!

Montmartre, Paris …

Amedeo Modigiiani

Our new home is located in the 18th arrondissement of Paris called Montmartre. Famous for the filming of Amelie, and the La Boheme district of so many artists from Modigliani and Picasso, to Renoir and Cézanne.

And the Sacre Couer and Moulin Rouge of course …

our block in Montmartre, Paris

a house in Paris …

Air France Airbus A380 to Paris

and I thought homes on San Juan Island were overpriced!

in the belly of Paris …

+1 UTC

suspended belief …

The Louvre, Paris - Napolean III meets I.M. Pei

Serendipity is one of life’s great gifts. A Walt Disney Sunday television show about a boy who learns to fly gliders, ‘The Boy who flew with Condors’ sparked over forty years of flying for me. An extemporaneous road-trip to Port Townsend for our anniversary led us to unbelievable adventures that included buying a sailboat and living aboard for seven years. And now – a latent interest in architecture and my passion for mathematics has paved the way toward extended travels and my studies of our world’s greatest architects and their designs.

just landed - Heathrow Airport, London

floating the Thames, London

The Gherkin, London

St. Paul's Cathedral

enroute Amsterdam via Holland overnight ferry

Prime Meridian - abreast two timezones

definitely not Sir Isaac Newton

sloshing towards Mozart in Haarlam

Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore - Firenze, Italy

…

playing with blocks …

from the archives …

not drawn to scale

playing with diverging infinite series would be more accurate I suppose, though slightly less tantalizing. within my efforts to teach mathematics and hopefully instill that MATH IS FUN and not abject terror into the minds of our youth, let me try this attempt to show the beauty of math.

the idea is simple. we have an infinite supply of blocks, each 2 units long, and we would like to stack them such that we build an arch where the top block’s length will extend out entirely from the left-edge of the bottom block to start. and yes, our arch must remain standing by supporting itself. can we do so without our best construction efforts plummeting earthward?

the basic idea here, using the first six blocks for example, is to stack them such that the center of mass lies directly on the left-edge of the block adjacent to it. you’ve seen this in architecture of course, but we’re going to attempt it without support or mortar. a hint – it can’t (realistically) be done by starting with the bottom block and working upward. it can be accomplished by starting at the top and working downward.

it is obvious what is happening. with each successive block, the distance changes between the two left-edges of adjacent blocks. it works for our six blocks, but can we continue on forever? can we span a ten-foot arch as an easier goal than infinity? remember, each block is 2 units long. let’s call a unit measure as 1-foot.

upon reflection, it is obvious that with each block, the center-of-mass moved to the right, 1/(n+1) the distance it moved previously. that is, if we add up all the distances of how the last left-edge moves, it would start with 1 unit for the top block, 1 + 1/2 for the next, 1 + 1/2 + 1/3 + … for the next block, and on and on. this looks suspiciously like the harmonic-series we all studied in high-school Algebra. and it is!

poking around a bit, it appears that the more blocks we use, the farther out we go along our arch. it does slow down for sure, and we will be using quite a few blocks to span … let’s say 25 feet. how many?

let’s look at a few numbers and graph the first 1000 blocks to see how the center-of-mass behaves as we add more and more blocks.

look familiar? this shape is called the natural logarithm curve.

our objective is to span a 25 foot distance or 25-units (12.5 block lengths). based on the properties of the harmonic series, a few calculations yield that Log[N] = 23 and N = 9.7448×10⁹ blocks. that’s a lot of blocks. in fact, if each block has a 1.5″ thickness, the height of our arch will be approximately 1.46172×10¹⁰ inches or just about the distance to the MOON!

the answer is, yes, we can build our arch. because our infinite series is divergent (continues to increase forever), we can do it but it will take more resources than our planet can reasonably provide!

daniel

a move to Paris …

Paris, 2011

one foot on San Juan Island, the other in France.

more to follow …

oh dear …

I just received word that American Airlines has filed for bankruptcy protection.

Normally this wouldn’t be much of a concern, but for the fact that I have a flight on American Airlines out of Paris to get back home.

I personally like to have happy and content employees (pilots, mechanics, handlers) cheerfully doing their best to get me home safely!

vortexual …

Hotel Erzherzog Rainer in Vienna, Austria

Debbie makes a beeline for her morning Viennese coffee.

iPhone’d not far behind!

light and shadow …

deck chairs

I can’t say much for Winter. It generally leaves me in a funk, counting the days till the vernal equinox. It seems I am always cold and less than thrilled to freeze nose and fingers looking for something to photograph. At least the iPhone facilitates wearing gloves.

According to Wolfram Alpha, I have only 171919 minutes to go.

Guernica …

Picasso's Guernica

I finally ordered train tickets from Paris to Nice, Barcelona, Madrid, and Lisbon. My evenings find me plowing through John Richardson’s 3-volume biography of Picasso and making plans to see much of the art. Even though the Musee Picasso in Paris is still closed for renovation, I am anxious to travel to and visit the Picasso museums at Antibes, Barcelona, and Madrid.

bon appétit …

Midnight in Paris …

searching for Bordeaux

Napolean’s garden …

iPhone'd in Paris

oculusious …

a fly does math …

from the archives …

students -

two bicyclists start twenty miles apart and head toward each other, each going at a steady rate of 10 mph. at the same time, a fly that travels at a steady 15 mph starts from the front wheel of the southbound bicycle and flies to the front wheel of the northbound one, then turns around and flies to the front wheel of the southbound one again, and continues in this manner till he is crushed between the two front wheels.

question: what total distance did the fly cover?

Honda generator oil-alert disable …

from the archives …

odd – this is the one post that garnered more criticism on sailing forums than any other, and yet, it consistently receives the most Google search references from those having the same issues with their Honda EU2000 and EU1000 generators. with that in mind I am republishing it here once again. it’s useful information for those that actually own a Honda generator (most forum sceptics/dolts experts on the internet have never owned or used these generators by all accounts), and for those that go cruising beyond the internet and rely on their Honda generator to supplement their energy requirements. there are two camps of Honda owners. those that have had this failure and those that will. out of warranty, this little mod just might save your bacon when you are out and about with a needed generator that just won’t start.

apologies .. I have been busy preparing for my southerly sailing adventure down the coast. I’ve updated the previous posting on this issue, but to reiterate, this is the procedure for disabling the sometimes problematic oil-alert system which will preclude the generator motor from starting.

there is a protection circuit to avoid failures due to quantity or unlevel operation, that causes oil-pressure to drop below specifications. essentially, there is a circuit with a capacitor (that tends to degrade over time) that sets an integrated timing ramp to initially disable the oil-alert to allow engine starting. obviously, it has to do this as there is no oil-pressure initially. after a certain duration, the system evaluates the oil-pressure once again. capacitor failure, or a faulty oil pressure switch (high leakage) can cause the system to shut down, even though oil-pressure is within specification. this modification removes the oil-pressure switch from the circuitry allowing the control pin to float to -24 volts. just remember that this safety feature has now been disabled, and that this should be considered a temporary measure when out cruising and parts are not available.

this modification should work with both Honda EU2000 and EU1000 generators.

only one wire is involved … but which one?

1. remove the four screws on the front cover
2. pull back the panel and note the potted circuit-board beneath the oil-alert indicator
3. cut the yellow wire (2nd wire from right)
4. insulate both ends of cut wire
5. the oil-alert feature is now disabled

cut and insulate the yellow wire as shown

I’ll close this article with a picture and an observation. the Honda generators are fairly water-resistant, however, condensation can drip down the wire bundle into the white connector. the engine will not start with the least amount of moisture at the connections. separate the connector and blow out the plug and socket and reassemble. one of the few failure modes of this excellently designed product. the other problem can be water condensing in the fuel tank. use a small screwdriver and back-off the screw at the bottom of the carburator bowl until a sufficient stream of clear fuel emerges from the drain tube. if water is your nemesis, you’ll see bubbles of clear or rusty looking sediment flow down the tube.

daniel

sailing NYC …

Schooner Adirondack

Debbie and I had no problems watching the crew struggle with the gaff-rigging as we sat back and drank beer underneath the boom, racing our sistership. 5-knots with a good puff, maybe, but still felt so fine to be on the water.

pumpkin time …

searching for the perfect pumpkin with Grandpa

Looking through some photographs I found inside a drawer
I was taken by a photograph of you
There were one or two I know that you would have liked a little more
But they didn’t show your spirit quite as true
-Jackson Browne

identity crisis …

iPhoning across the Seine and Pont des Arts, Paris

“Paris has long cashed in on its image as the global city of love, with tourists flocking by the million to soak up the romantic ambience of its cafes, restaurants, cobbled streets and monuments.

But the Socialist-run town hall has announced that lover’s growing trend of sticking cadenas d’amour (love padlocks) to the railings of the Pont des Arts bridge over the Seine linking the Left Bank to the Louvre is defacing the monument and has to stop. Another, the Passerelle Léopold-Senghor linking the Tuileries gardens to the Musée d’Orsay has been similarly adorned.

Since the fad took off around two years ago, almost 2,000 padlocks of all shapes, colours and sizes are now locked to the bridges and emblazoned with messages of eternal love. But a town hall spokesman said the practice “poses the question of preserving heritage,” adding that “in time, these padlocks will have to be removed”.

One municipal source said the rusty locks were becoming an eyesore on one of Paris’ most photogenic monuments.” -The Telegraph

Paris rain …

Rue St. Michel

boundary layer …

St. Stephen's Cathedral, Vienna

A fence can keep you from getting in, or someone on the other side from getting out. Perspective is relative, most obviously.

The Apple iPhone is such an amazing technological wonder, and a bodaciously fine camera indeed. This is my favourite iPhone image from Europe, on our interminable trek through Vienna and crossing of the Danube River to ride on the Wiener Riesenrad from Orson Welle’s 1949 film noir, ‘The Third Man’.

goofing with ice …

frozen botanicals

My first attempts at freezing flowers and making the exposure before the ice melts away .. not always successful with a recalcitrant Hasselblad hosting multiple extension tubes and using film.

La Ville-Lumière

Debbie's album cover, Paris