US Open 2021, Day 0

[Composed 9/2/2021]

We're in New York, baby! After a year off from the US Open, we're back to get our fill of tennis. In past years we've driven and taken the train to New York. This year, we opted to fly the 44 minutes from DCA to LaGuardia.

The flight was painless and while LaGuardia is going through renovations, it wasn't that hard to navigate. Once we collected our luggage we debated the best transport option to our hotel and decided that without being in a rush and the weather being so nice, we'd walk the 3.6 miles.

The night before the remnants of Hurricane Ida had come through the area and left a trail of destruction. And yet, by the time we were walking through Queens, there was no sign that there had been a catastrophic weather event less than 24 hours earlier. It was almost eerie now normal things were.

Once in the vicinity of our Koreatown Queens hotel we did a bit of shopping to pick up snacks for the days ahead. This included a trip to our favorite Iris Bakery and a lengthy walk through the large Sky Foods. Did I need to pick up tapioca biscuits, garlic soda crackers, coconut thins, creamed milk wafers and whatever 3+2 cookies are?

Yes, yes I did. All of these treats were tasty with the exception of the 3+2's. Shira assumed that the filling was lemon. Yeah, no. Could they be filled with mayo? Who knows. I love that we're able to step out of our culinary comfort zone just by strolling through a super market.

After stuffing ourselves on Kosher Vegan Chinese, we were ready to call it a night. US Open Tennis, here we come!

DSLR Backup 3.0: A Little Hardware Goes A Long Way

Backed Up, But Not Easily

After a day of shooting DSLR pics I found myself with a now familiar problem: what's the best way to back up an SD Card full of files?

I've tackled this topic a number of times, including once in 2017 and again in 2019. However, I didn't have either of these solutions set up for this last trip, so I had to improvise on the spot.

I plugged my tiny USB C Micro SD Card reader into my Galaxy S10+ and used FolderSync to push the files to Google Drive. Over the years, FolderSync has had and lost access to external SD Cards due to Android permission changes. In the latest version of Android, it's possible to grant FolderSync access to any external drive, so that's no longer a problem.

While my files did eventually get backed up, the solution was far from ideal. At the end of a long day of photography my cell phone was in desperate need of a charge. But, the SD Card reader needs that port to function. And to add insult to injury, the WiFi connectivity was relatively slow so while files did get pushed to Google Drive, the process was not quick. My work-around was klugy: I kicked off the backup process, woke up at 2am, unplugged the Micro SD card reader and plugged in my charger. I went back to bed hoping that my phone would be charged and ready for another full day of picture taking.

On top of all of this, Google Drive isn't the ideal location to store photos. It works as a reliable backup, but disk space is relatively pricey and I don't have an obvious set of command line tools for accessing the files.

For this trip, my files got backed up, but I knew I needed a better solution.

A Better Solution

The game changer for backing up files is the $20.00 USB C Hub I picked up. Not only does it extend my Galaxy S10+ from having one measly USB port to 3 + and an SD Card slot, but it has pass through charging. So at the end of a long day of shooting, I can both plug in my phone *and* kick off FolderSync.

I've also set up an Amazon S3 bucket for file storage. This should be more cost effective, and I can use tools like s3cmd to push files into and out of S3 with ease.

Now backups can take as long as they want, and I'll know that the photos are stored in a convenient location.

But Wait, There's More!

A very real scenario I find when traveling is slow WiFi. What if the connection is is so slow that backing up the hundreds of high resolution photos I've taken that day isn't possible. At first glance, it looks like the USB C Hub I bought had the solution built in: there are two SD Card reader slots, one micro and one full size. All I needed to do was set up a FolderSync rule to copy files from one card to another. My files wouldn't be in the cloud, but at least they'd be duplicated. Heck, I could copy them to multiple cards if I wanted.

Alas, that was asking too much of this particular USB C hub. The hub recognizes the micro SD slot *or* the full size slot. It can't recognize them both at the same time. However, there was an easy work around: I plugged a USB A Micro SD Card reader into one of the USB ports. The hub had no problem accessing these files. Using the extra SD card reader means carrying yet another piece of hardware, but it's not particularly bulky (especially if I splurge and get the mini-version).

So now I can back up my photos to the Cloud or to another SD Card with ease, all while my phone is charging. So from now on, when the DSLR goes, so does the USB C hub and the bonus SD Card reader.

A Personal Logo

Recently, Shira and I were discussing an assignment from a training class where she had to design a personal logo. We brainstormed about it's look, and in the process I realized it would be a fun challenge to build my own. So after a few days thought, here's what I've arrived at:

I'm not sure you can call that a logo, but regardless, I'm pleased with the result. Here's what each of the components mean:

The ice cream represents Joy. As humans, we have the remarkable opportunity to feel joy and we should embrace that. This includes everything from simple pleasures, like a say a bowl of ice cream to the deep and profound satisfaction that comes after much hard work, sweat and sacrifice.

The toilet represents Contribution. When I arrived here there was indoor plumbing. And Novocain. And a Polio Vaccine. And schools were desegregated. And women had the right to vote. And there were countless other improvements that make life better. It's only fair that we do our part to make the world a better place for future generations.

The wrench and hammer represents Effort. No matter your dream or idea, I'm going to encourage you to start pursuing it today. Don't wait for permission or perfection. The effort may seem insignificant and the task may seem insurmountable but moving forward will always beat standing still.

The gray gibberish text along the top and bottom of the icons is my nod to Cleverness and shows my affinity for Problem Solving. The text, which was designed to be ignored, is made up of a series of A, T, C and G's. This is a common notation for describing DNA sequences. In this case, the letters are being used to represent Morse Code (A = dot, T = dash, C & G = pause). The code translates to a favorite quote by Arthur Ashe and speaks to the values noted by the graphics:

Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.

I've implement my logo as a JavaScript function that generates the output as styled HTML. This has a few interesting side effects: first, the logo makes use of the browser's built in Emoji characters, so it will render differently on different devices. Second, the Morse Code block uses C and G to represent a pause, picking either letter at random to fill out the quote. Therefore, every time the logo is rendered it has a slightly different sequence of characters. Finally, the code serves as a definitive definition of the logo, allowing you to recreate it even if you no longer had a browser capable executing the code.

All this is a very geeky way of saying that this logo is unusual and doesn't follow convention. Just like Me.

What's your personal logo?

Here are some more samples of the logo:

Great Waves with a Great Nephew

[Composed: 8/29/2021]

Today we liberated G from his parents and hit up Great Waves Waterpark for some fun in the sun. Northern Virginia has a slew of water parks and after spending time at Atlantis, the park adjacent to Bull Run Campground we knew that we wanted to take G there.

Looking at the various drive times to each of the parks, Great Waves won out, and so that's where we spent the day. As the name suggests, this park has a large wave pool, something that Atlantis lacks, which I thought would be a blast.

The park wasn't especially busy and we had plenty of space to explore the little-kids area. The highlight for G was that there are decals of various animals placed in the kiddie pool and he liked to explore them. After a french-fry break, we made our way to the big boy wave pool. We donned life jackets and got comfy on an innertube and waited for the waves to start up. I thoroughly enjoyed it, G wasn't as impressed.

These area water parks are such a terrific resource. I can't wait to visit them all with G.

Western and Southern Open, Day 4

Our final day at the Western and Southern Open was supposed to be a travel day. But we had just enough time before our flight to squeeze in one adventure.

One possibility was to drive through Cincinnati and actually see some of the city the tournament is named after. But ultimately, the cry of nature lured us towards open spaces.

Without much forethought we made our destination a point on the map named Shawnee Lookout. I figured we had time to stop, take in a view and be on our way. As a bonus, we'd be awfully close to the tripoint of Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana, most likely seeing all three states from one vantage point.

Alas, we never did make it to Shawnee Lookout, though we did make it to the park in the area. We hiked a bit of the Miami Fort Trail and got surprisingly close to Miami Fort Power Station. Its massive cooling tower has strong Simpsons vibes.

It would have been glorious if we could have hiked more in the area and found Shawnee Lookout. But yeah, missing our flight wasn't an option. If we return to the tournament, I'll definitely carve out time to fully explore the area.

While doing research for this post, I found a number of historic maps of the area. It's fascinating to see what has and hasn't changed. The maps also explain the relatively strange name of the area we hiked: Miami Fort, versus say Fort Miami. A fort is noted in an 1856 survey, and the area is noted again as Fort Hill in 1915. So what do you call a fort that's not named? Well, it's clearly near the Miami River, so it seems reasonable to call it Miami Fort.

One mystery I'm still puzzling over is what to make of the annotations like F.R.1 and T.1. They must be significant as all four historic maps make mention of them and do so in large print. Any ideas what these markings mean?

1847

1856

1884

1915

Google Maps

Western and Southern Open, Day 3

[Composed 8/21/2021]

As much as I like to groan about tennis tournaments, even I have to admit that the Western & Southern Open is a winner. It brings together top players in the sport, but because the matches are best of three sets and the tournament lasts a week, it all moves along quickly. I can't believe we're at the semi-final matches.

The grounds and crowds are smaller than at a major and generally the atmosphere is relaxed.

We started the day watching Barty easily beat Kerber. And then Shira ducked out to watch Steve Johnson play doubles. Ever since we watched him play at the Auckland Open, we've been a fan of this hard-working American player. He's not especially high ranked, but he's managed to make a career out of tennis, and for that I'm impressed.

I stuck around to watch Jil Teichmann take on Karolina Pliskova in the second women's semi-final match. Teichmann came into the tournament ranked 76th and has surpassed all expectations by absolutely crushing it. She beat number 2 Naomi Osaka, and today she beat the the 5th seed, Pliskova. What a treat it is, watching someone have the tournament of their life.

The men's semi-final matchups were far more predictable. The first match was between Rublev and Medvedev. Medvedev had beat Rublev all 4 times they played, so it was nice that Rublev prevailed this time. He even did it by dropping the first set 2-6.

The second match was between the other top two mens players: Zverev and Tsitsipas. After each taking a set, it looked like Tsitsipas was going to pull out the third set. At one point, Zverev briefly ran off court, apparently to upchuck in a garbage can, and then returned to take control of the set and win the match.

Tomorrow's the finals. Will Teichman continue her winning streak and beat Barty? Or is Barty just playing too well? Will Rublev get the win over Zvervev, proving that he can hold his own against the big boys? We're going to find out the same way everyone nearly everyone else does: on TV. Tomorrow we head home.