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Tuesday, February 28, 2012

The Man You Stupid Chronicles-Thats alot of JOBS Part 1

Look at the size of my wallet-Jay Sherman

Number three on the list I found that day was "Get a bad ass job"Such a task has yet to be complete. I am finally receiving my B.A. of arts in Psch in May after three transfers,moving four times and two knee surgeries.  Looking back over the last seven years I have had some weird and awful jobs. Hy-vee,the Y.M.C.A. Liberty Public Schools and Brock Smith have been very good to me. The rest I cant say the same about. My very first job was working in a bakery with the worst Native American ever, my  best friend Dan Read. We learned very little about life and ended up fatter after the job because Dan decided to get paid in food. The 7-14 dollars I made a week were good for my dollar store runs, but wasn't starting the bank account I had always dreamed of.
The next year after that I worked at Hy-vee and never really should have left there. After a year of Chicken strips and hitting on women who didn't know how to apply makeup yet I was on my way. I learned how to push carts and to never put a bag of chips under a can of chili again. Over the next year I briefly worked passing out flyer's at a local gym. I did an awful job with that. One time I had to take all the brochures off of these cars down town because a man in spandex shorts said it was against the law. He had a flashlight I thought he would shove up my butt so I listened to the man(I have an irrational fear of spandex. I feel its a seaman killer like Jean shorts so I will never wear it. I want amazing children).The next time I passed out brochures, me and my friend Bret with one testicle passed out 1000 brochures in peoples Mail boxes. You weren't suppose to do that. They should have been put on doors instead. I lost the brochures job and began to hold signs for K-Mart. It was a solid job, but my 127 pound frame at the time was taking a beating from the November cold(Maybe Martha Stewart could have actually bought me a jacket or something.That's why she was sent to jail). I ended up going back to work for the Fitness center. I handed out more brochures and worked there desk for about 16 days.  The only cool thing about that job was one time a women seduced me, but I was to dumb to understand anything. It was like 15 minutes before closing time and this smoking hot women came in to tan. we talked for like five minutes and I made her laugh like I usually do with most people(women from the ages of 30-42 will probably one day capture me and sacrifice me to some Cougar God or something. I always get hit on by horny midlifes and very few women my own age).She kept saying "YOU KNOW I TAN NAKED"and kept talking about oils and stuff(my socially awkward 18 year old self was blind).  She went back to tan and I began to listen to Bruce Springsteen and fold laundry. She called me back to the tanning bed and said it wasn't working.(She clearly knew how to work such machines. Little did I know It was a Sexual trap). As I got into the tanning bed I noticed the women was completely naked sitting in a chair smiling at me more spread than a cheese display at a Packers party. I simply said ALL YOU DO IS HIT THE BUTTON AND LEFT THE ROOM.( luckily her vagina didn't have a gravitational pull)Shes tanned for ten minutes and left. I kept dancing to Bruce and folding towels. Little did I know this Cougar wanted some meat that day and I would rather dance to Bruce Springsteen in a laundry room. I ended up only working at the gym like three more days. I'm happy I didn't get raped by a horny lady that resembled a giant carrot with Boobs.  The lord protected me and clearly I got Vitamin D other ways that year. The next Job I took was a janitor at a church. Cleaning up God's peoples fecal matter was not really that fulfilling.  I left the Methodist poop and went up to Maryville. I was a ref. for a bunch of drunk men in hhigh socks for a semester. Not a good job there either. I then got a Job in Maryville at a fitness center for about a week. They wanted me to open at six am so I left.I was very uncoachable in those times. I got a 57 dollar check from them. I then got a job in a business office at Maryville For about three days and left the town for Good. I wasn't meant to be in a town where at one point a bear had sex with a cat and a college was formed based off this myth. Next post I will talk about my return to Kansas City. The first part of my job history was intense. Theres plenty of more to come!!!!!Tune in next week for my tales of cleaning up poop in three counties!!!!

Saturday, February 25, 2012

The Man you Stupid Chronicles-15 cent in the house

Last week I talked about how biceps are not the way to a girl’s heart. Also on how it takes several 16 year old men to put in a light bulb, and 12 to figure out what a text message means. This week I dive into the idea and second goal on my worthless my list from 6 years ago. Number two on this list was

Looking back on such a dull statement I would like to clarify that I am not 50 cent. I am an awful rap sensation and with my pin head I can’t fit into any flat billed hat.  I’m now financially stable, but when this list was written I had probably 180 dollars in the bank. I was really racking in those dollars from the 6.25 an hour I was making at the Local Hy-vee. Most of my money from that time period went to Dollar Tree and my Chicken Strip fund. I think I only ate chicken strips for about a year span (toilet paper cost were at an all time high. Sorry Mom and Dad). I had bought eight Bruce Springsteen Cds at this point and clearly my loot was dwindling progressively.

I was such a douche at the age of 18.  Now I can careless about money. All I want is a job that can support me and future Boos.  I was a Business Major back than and thought this would help me become rich.  I learned to hate myself and money. At Northwest Missouri state (the world’s worst college in the world’s worst city) a bald man who wore turtle necks all the time made me realize my mind was much more complex than worrying about profit margins. You should have seen the eyebrow’s on this guy.  Ancient Alaska Natives could have walked across these eyebrows they were so thick. Another man who didn’t wear undershirts made me hate business as well.  He wore very thin shirts and had the largest nipples on a male Id  ever seen. His nipples attempting to teach me Business Calculus made me walk out of a math class. After eight weeks I couldn’t stare at those things anymore. They were like owl’s eyes in a very scary movie in a dark forest. They sent me running for the Hills. I never wanted to learn about money or giant male nipples again. I came back to Kansas City and declared my degree Psychology. Looking back now I can analyze and cognitively defeat the giant nipples so I was happy God brought me back.  I learned that wealth was not important to me and at some point I would be just fine with any degree financially.  I never would have thought that a man who looked like a turtle whose eyebrows conjoined continents, and Doctor Nipple Douche would make me hate Business and money all together.

Saturday, February 18, 2012

The Man You Stupid Chronicles

"Man you stupid"-LeBron James

Recently I got a call from my Italian Parents stating they wanted me to go clean out my own room (This means going through my old toy box and hiding my wolverine action figure). They were going to be panting it and fixing it up into a new room to sleep in. I am hoping that they didn’t turn it into some “Sexual Pit of Doom” (insert gross Viagra commercial). I got home and started to clean my dusty old room. I had about 5,000 NBA cards that didn’t have a home. As I was throwing away worthless aspects to my childhood I found a list I had made during the summer of 2006. It was my goals prior to starting Maple Woods (or as the local pot heads and nocturnal dirt people would say Maple Weeds, Even though I never saw a weed there due to the efforts of the superb grounds crew). The animalistic image driven 18 year old version of me wrote as follows:

1. Find a Hot ass Girl.

2. Get rich No matter what.

3. Get a badass job.

4. Get your abs back in.

If I could go back in time and challenge my 18 year old self to a fight in the octagon I would. I would kick myself right in the sack. What a worthless list of goals. Let’s break each of these so called wonderful goals down shall we. Over the next few weeks I will break down my thinking and make my former self tap out.

"In this corner we have the 5,10 140 lbs Douche with a low resting heart rate"

"In this corner we have the 5'10 181 lbs Douche who can't side step and will attack in straight planes only"

Find a Hot ass Girl.

This was a time in my life where I thought biceps were all you needed to talk to a woman. Clearly this concept didn’t work for me or the rest of all the gym rats out there. One time a girl texted me “Hey” and I had no idea what to do. I had to consult an entire grouping of adolescent males with Biceps. They say 12 biceps can match the power of the Human Brain (no one says that, this shows how dumb I really was). The common result of our theorizing was she wanted to have sex with me. That must have been IT. I hated my after school gym brigade. Biggest cluster of idiots you could ever meet. I like how this goal was made right before I went to Maple Woods. Maple Woods is a great intuition of learning, but as far as dating goals it’s no Boo Factory (I once had class with 4 Wal-Mart night employees).

(18 year old me talking to a local sandwich merchant)

“So you work at Subway”?

“Yeah it’s like amazing”.

“Yeah they got protein and shit there”(Really you’re going to woo her with amino acids references and fecal talk. Bravo you pale 140 lbs male who could name all 150 original Pokémon in an instantaneous yelp, but couldn’t get her number that day attempting to reference your loyalties to Italian Herbs and Cheese)

This was one of the many terrible instances where biceps did not get the girl. It takes verbal communication skills, confidence, and to not reference amino acids or your bowel movements in ANY WAY. “HAVE YOU EVER SEEN A HORSE TAKE A SHIT? YEAH MINES LIKE THAT BECAUSE IM TAKING THIS PROTEIN THAT MAKES ME SHIT LIKE A HORSE”(as you read this line at 50 gyms in the United States a male just stated this line attempting to get a girls number) As I learned from Doctor Robert Williams and many other people who influenced me I was doing everything wrong at age 18. Five years later things have gotten better. Reflecting is the best methodology of learning from your past mistakes. If your blind and feel your always right, attempt to wake up or make the person to the left of you slap you as hard as they can. I’ve made great mistakes in youthful dating, but will never make them again(Just because I like Bruce Springsteen Doesn’t mean a 17 year old girl from Liberty Missouri wants it for her birthday). I never had really any role models growing up, and my siblings and I were never close enough to learn from each other. My father taught me a great deal of useful life skill sets, but never how to speak to a lady or treat a woman the way they should be treated. I learned from shows like Boy Meets World and the Wonder Years (awful ways to learn about texting.) Males in this country need more role models and trainings to assist them through this difficult part of the lifespan. These next generations may feel like “There Sexy and they know it” and clearly they work out, but they will become lost without mentors or father figures. LeBron’s Dunks will teach you nothing world!!!!

Monday, February 13, 2012

"We feel in love in a bathroom line"

“A stallion must be broken before it reaches its highest potential”-Doctor Spock

Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day.  Im happy I didn’t go out and try to get a date like I did last year. I was stood up last Valentine’s Day two days after tearing my A.C.L. It was an interesting feeling because I had never been stood up before in my life. I sat alone watching the N.B.A. in an ironed gap shirt icing my knee. It was a pathetic sight.  It turns out the girl I was supposed to go out with decided she would rather go out with this guy who dropped out of High school. He got a job at a local Taco Bell to save up for a car. He didn’t have a license, so she had to go pick him up at taco bell. After I received this explanation in a two page text 2 hours after the time this girl was supposed to pick me up I began to laugh.  She was going to pick me up cause I was walking like a thirty pound dumbbell had fallen out of my ass, but she went to pick him up instead .Apparently my crutches and ace bandage couldn’t match his natural Sour cream smell.  I thought to myself this isn’t so bad being stood up. When I actually find the girl of my dreams everyday will be like Valentine’s Day with her. I think Valentine ’s Day is a desperate attempt for people to keep their relationship together in this country. If we don’t act like an Ass for three hours maybe well have a happier marriage. I don’t need to attempt to be a good man by buying chocolates and a ticket to a  Channing Tatum movie for some kind of weird sexual favor in return like 65% of men will attempt to do tomorrow.  I would rather not take out a girl who I met in a P.N.L. bathroom line right before I broke the seal.  Ill celebrate Valentine’s Day with friends until it’s time for a Boo. Plus I can’t have kids yet anyway, because I need to wait until Ellen Jacobson and Erica Deeney get teaching jobs so I know where to enroll my off spring. I want to have many kids in NBA apparel and Utah raptor hats getting 18%s in math to drive those women crazy!!!!

I don’t want to seriously date until I get my Bachelor’s degree and a solidified job. I see hundreds of my friends getting married. I would hate to be married at this age. (Pseudo Women “Hey dear turn off that damn Full house and get to Bed, David Coulier sucks. Come watch Roseanne” Me “Loud crying noises”). If a women tried to tell me I can’t eat fruit pie or go to quarter Sundays at the thrift store I would be increasing the divorce rate in this country ever so slightly.  Having a job or somewhat or a career started I feel is very necessary before one gets Booed up for life.  “Hey girl, my 98 dollar Hy-vee check came in. Let’s go way out and wild at the dollar tree tonight. Well get that grape jelly that turned your Uncle Dan Blind”.  I’m just saying people take your time out there. Develop yourselves a little bit so you don’t have to shop at dollar tree.

Final Thought

 All you young hipster couples out there about to be wed CUT OFF THEM SKINNY JEANS ATLEAST SIX MONTHS BEFORE YOUR WEDDING NIGHT!!!!!!!You don’t want to have six seamen left because your external boys haven’t gotten a hit of oxygen since the 9th grade.

Thursday, February 2, 2012

When I Grow up I want to be a.....

 "Gotta find me a future move out of my way"-Queen

As I type this a heavily annoying women has made three phone calls and clearly isn't working on anything important. Up until the age of 19 I wanted to be a zoologist. As I went to community college and discovered how much I really hated animals, the dream began to taper off. The older I got the more I discovered I didn't want to clean up elephant shit with a jumbo toilet brush from Sam's Club.  I then decided on business just cause the idea of money seemed good. Little did I know every d-bag goes into business, so I had no idea what would come next. At the age of 20 I decided to figure out who I was. I didn't start wearing ass less chaps and go lay in a tanning bed or anything, but I discovered I really liked Psychology. I declared this as my major after some awesome community college professors got me involved with human development.  After my final semester at Maple Woods Community College I decided I wanted to one day teach Human Development.  That final semester I learned alot of gross things about women and why I did the things I did at the time. My identity started to take shape. I wasn't ashamed of who I was and as my confidence grew so did my social yelps(A loud noise made by Italian men with small ears).  I love my new developed loud self who only feared large groups of fat women and used adult diapers(I have a terrible irrational fear that one day I will stumble upon where they place all the depends of the elderly and kids will be playing in it and I will freak out. I will yell get out of there but they will not listen).Anyway I found what I wanted to do and that's shape the minds of 18 years old and old people who have no idea what they want to do(they will probably just save there depends and throw them on my car after my first lecture).Teaching Human development means getting a MASTERS DEGREE! So now the search for the right school begins. When I grow up I want to be Myself. I want my natural creativity and poise and good posture to inspire young minds everywhere to seek a career that pleases them. People put to much placement on labels in our society. I want to be a DOCTOR, LAWYER,CLEAN ELEPHANT BUTT CRACKS,I WANT TO BE THE GUY WHO HIDES DEPENDS DIAPERS ALL OVER TOWN. Whatever you do with your life, don't change who you are.


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Sunday, April 12, 2009

Happy Eastern!

My Dad could never get it right...he always thought it was Happy Eastern (not Easter!) It's an on-going little joke now, but a nice way to remember him.

It's been a nice weekend. Saturday I cleaned up the backyard and got the vegetable garden area tidied up. It was a lot of work, but very satisfying. I am planning to plan what we are going to plant while we are away. This time next week, we will be in Lisbon! I am so excited, and can't wait to see new places. We are renting a car and driving up the coast from Lisbon to Porto. No plans in Portugal other than getting in the car and driving! We will go wherever the wind blows us. Our first 4 nights in Lisbon are busy with the conference I'm attending, but they have tours and dinner plans arranged for us every night, and Greg is included in those plans. I'm really looking forward to it. Last year, they held the conference at Hilton Head which was also really amazing.

We are ending our two week vacation with 3 nights in Paris and 1 night in Vienna. Those hotel rooms are booked already, and there are great reviews written up about them. I'm hoping that they will be as good as people say because the rooms were only $100 CDN a night, which is pretty cheap by European standards, I believe. The hotel we are staying in in Paris is in Montmarte and 100 metres from the Moulin Rouge. Expect to see a few pics of the windmill! I think we are going to splurge and go to the show while we are there. Why not?!

Today Greg and I took the dogs to the beach today for a long walk. OMG did they love it! They both went swimming Lake Ontario, in fact little Laila took her first little dog paddle all by herself! Needless to say, both dogs were soaked and smelled quite fragrant. They seemed to like the way they smelled, but I think both knew that they were in for a bath as they tried to hide under the coffee table the second we got home. Two dogs in the shower and a lot of shaking led to a very wet bathroom, but at least everyone smells better now. I found a pink rock that I will add to my garden edge, but it did look prettier when it was wet. Never mind, I will call it my Easter Rock.

We are heading over to Greg's Dad's place for Easter dinner. I'd much rather hang out at home, but that's not going to happen. We can't bring the dogs with us, because Greg's step-Nona has an artificial leg and is afraid the the dogs will knock it off! That would stir up some excitement, wouldn't it?! Amazing Audrey will dog-sit for us this afternoon, and may even stay at our place to make cards. I have turned our dining room table into a card making studio and we've been having fun just gabbing and making cards. I'll try to post some this week, because they really are quite pretty.

My brother is one person who actually buys items from infomercials. I don't know why he does this, but he has bought a Doctor Ho (electrical massage!) and breathalyzers, and a bunch of other stuff. His latest purchase was for my Mom's birthday: Smooth Away: Removes Hair Instantly and Pain Free! Discovered in Europe! (but made in China) Gently Exfoliate While Removing Hair! No Pain. No Chemical. No Razor Burn. "But wait!!!! Buy one now, and for absolutely free, you will get a second package. Ab-so-lu-tly Free!" So he bought it, and 8 packages arrived.

He gave me one, and, I have to tell's phenomenal! No word of a lie. I have not shaved my legs all winter, and within a matter of minutes my legs are as smooth as anything! I went a little crazy and also attacked my upper lip, and my beard and also my peach-fuzzy cheeks. Hair....GONE! Who knows what will happen once the hair starts growing back, but for now, I am giving it a 10/10.
That's it. I wish you all a wonderful Easter Sunday. I hope you got out and enjoyed the day following old traditions, or inventing new ones.

Pez said...

Happy Easter! Hope you enjoyed your dinner.

Donna said...

Wow, I've seen those Smooth Away things in the drugstore and totally blew it off as bogus, now I will give them a try! Have a great time in Europe.

Bob-kat said...

Are you kidding? It was pain free hair removal? Wow!

I hope you have a wonderful time in Portugal, Paris and Vienna. I loved Vienna when I visited there. Be sure to sample some torte! Shame you're not coming to the UK!

Begered said...

Sounds like you are on a wonderful vacation! And with wonderfully smooth legs :)

moon said...

I have never seen that before...damn, I am a freaking yetti, where can I get some lol!!

eda said...

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Monday, 29 August 2011

'Young, Dumb & Living Off Mum' Series 3, episode 3

*may contain spoilers*

Three episodes in, and my excitement for BBC3's Young, Dumb and Living off Mum is just as great as it was when the first series began back in 2009.

In true Young Dumber style, the show kicked off this week by highlighting the latest feud (clearly the revelation that Sophie's departure some two weeks ago was going to bring harmony to the house was very short lived!). Tom and Jack have developed somewhat of a Bromance, but for a while this just caused a lot of tension in the house, resulting in a rather messy food fight. In hindsight, I hope the food-throwing culprits realise that this was quite an immature measure to turn to! I detest food fights. Yuck.

The task of the week dominated most of the air time throughout the hour-long episode however. The six were to set up a pop-up restaurant in the house for, initially, twenty five guests (see image below). However, it turned out that thirty guests had arrived and the Young Dumbers were blamed for not having enough seats or plates. Now correct me if I'm wrong, but if one was told twenty five guests, and thirty would turn up, one has the right to scream?

When you've never cooked before, delivering a three-course meal is never going to be an easy task. When you add the extra pressure, it's going to be quite intense! I actually feel that they all did really well! The Young Dumbers were divided into two groups; the kitchen staff: Tom, Ruby-Jo and Jade, and the front-of-house team: Jack, Ryan and Gracie. With a few hiccups along the way, the food seemed to be prepared rather efficiently by the amateurs, with the meals delivered with respect and care to the 'guests'.

Okay so perhaps things didn't go perfectly but it was clear to see that they put in 100% effort, if not more, so I do feel that Gareth was complaining a little too much. Sure, they lost him £150 as many of the guests were too rude to see that this was the Young Dumbers' first try at cooking and abandoned their seats entirely. However, I believe they did try as much as they could and one should never be punished for doing as well as they possibly could.

I have to say, the outcome of the elimination was a relief. I've nothing against the person who went out per say, however, I simply prefer the five remaining Young Dumbers! With another satisfying episode over with, it's onwards to next week...!

Amy x

^ Proof that they were told 25 guests initially, for which they had prepared themselves to cater for!

Two screen snaps I loved- a random fox, and Ryan petting a cute dog!

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Education, from early childhood through postsecondary, is a core component of two-generation approaches. There is a strong correlation between low levels of educational attainment and poverty. Only 10 percent of those with a bachelor’s degree are poor. Yet more than 30 percent of those with a high school diploma or less are poor. The poverty rate does not decrease until people have at least some education beyond high school. In addition, there is a strong link between maternal education and outcomes for children, particularly school readiness for kindergartners. There is also some evidence that parent engagement can further enhance positive outcomes.

Postsecondary education is increasingly important to obtain a job that offers family-supporting wages, but students who are also parents face significant challenges to college completion. Nearly a quarter of all college students today are parents, and 13 percent of all college students are single parents. Programs that provide education and skills training to adults often view children as a barrier to participation; a better model would engage whole families.

Meanwhile, programs focused on children often see parents merely as facilitators of their children’s education and don’t offer opportunities for parents to increase their own education attainment and marketable job skills.

How MDHS is applying the gen+ approach

The MDHS has created a division of Workforce Development and will be working closely with 13 Mississippi Community Colleges, Department of Education and the Department of Employment Security. We have turned our frontline eligibility workers into case managers so they can follow the client throughout the entire process and help the client to self-sufficiency. Currently, have a partnership campaign with MHSAA to let high schoolers know the importance of staying in school. The State Early Childhood Advisory Council of Mississippi is a great resource to make sure all of MS agencies are on the same page so we can deliver services more efficiently and effectively. Our Youth Services division offers mentoring, counseling and post counseling through various programs to keep the family together and from needing our services in the future.

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Sensors Sensors 1424-8220 Molecular Diversity Preservation International (MDPI) 10.3390/s130202384 sensors-13-02384 Article Rapid Characterization of Vegetation Structure with a Microsoft Kinect Sensor AzzariGeorge1* GouldenMichael L.1 RusuRadu B.2 Department of Earth System Science, University of California Irvine, Irvine, CA 92697, USA; E-Mail: Open Perception, Inc., 68 Willow Road, Menlo Park, CA 94025, USA; E-Mail: Author to whom correspondence should be addressed; E-Mail:; Tel.: +1-949-824-9273. 2013 11 02 2013 13 2 2384 2398 14 11 2012 26 12 2012 31 01 2013 © 2013 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. 2013

This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution license (

The importance of vegetation structure and biomass in controlling land-atmosphere exchange is widely recognized, but measurements of canopy structure are challenging, time consuming, and often rely on destructive methods. The Microsoft Kinect is an infrared sensor designed for video gaming that outputs synchronized color and depth images and that has the potential to allow rapid characterization of vegetation structure. We compared depth images from a Kinect sensor with manual measurements of plant structure and size for two species growing in a California grassland. The depth images agreed well with the horizontal and vertical measurements of plant size made manually. Similarly, the plant volumes calculated with a three-dimensional convex hulls approach was well related to plant biomass. The Kinect showed some limitations for ecological observation associated with a short measurement range and daytime light contamination. Nonetheless, the Kinect's light weight, fast acquisition time, low power requirement, and cost make it a promising tool for rapid field surveys of canopy structure, especially in small-statured vegetation.

terrestrial ecology field measurements canopy structure biomass LIDAR Microsoft Kinect point clouds depth images convex hulls concave hulls

The importance of vegetation structure and biomass in controlling terrestrial ecosystem function and land-atmosphere exchange is widely recognized. Canopy architecture affects the interception of light by leaves, which is a dominant factor controlling primary production, evapotranspiration, and plant competition [1]. Vegetation structure influences ecosystem-atmosphere mass and energy exchange through variation in albedo, emissivity, latent heat flux, and sensible heat flux; these properties ultimately affect climate on local and regional scales [25]. The accumulation of biomass plays a major role in the local and global carbon cycle, while also determining fuel accumulation and contributing to soil nutrient balance [6].

Canopy light transfer models, which are basic components of land surface models, often rely on simplified canopies that represent plants as solid shapes such as boxes, spheres, cylinders, or cones ([1], and references therein). Biomass is often estimated using allometric relations based on similar simplified assumptions about plant shape and volume. Realistic information on stand structure, especially if extended in space and time, could improve biophysical canopy models and biomass estimations, while contributing to our understanding of ecosystem function.

Measurements of canopy structure are challenging [6]. Remotely sensed measurements from satellites can provide large scale data with good spatial and temporal resolution [68], but they require validation on the ground. Ground-based measurements are costly and time consuming, and often rely on destructive methods. Field data are usually collected over small areas; it is difficult to scale up these observations to longer time periods or larger spatial scales. Laser scanning systems such as LIDAR have recently become more available, offering an effective non-destructive method for airborne and ground measurements [915]. However, LIDAR remains expensive and data availability is still limited, especially time-series of canopy structure at individual locations. Inexpensive and portable instrumentation for ground-based measurements of biomass and vegetation structure would increase the spatial and temporal coverage of structural measurements, and might be integrated into large instrument networks such as FluxNet or SpecNet [1618].

The consumer market for video-games and digital entertainment has expanded dramatically in the last three decades, bringing the cost of advanced technology to affordable levels. The Kinect sensor produced by Microsoft is a good example of this technology: Kinect is an infrared sensor designed to track body position and movement at a single-articulation level. Kinect sensors are available for US $150, which corresponds to roughly 0.1% of the cost of a research-grade, ground-based LIDAR system. In this “proof of concept” paper, we show that the Kinect sensor is useful for field measurements of vegetation structure, including base diameter, height, and volume, and for assessing the optimal solid shape approximation for canopy modelling and biomass estimation. We made observations on 4 to 8 replicates of two plant species to test the performance of Kinect sensors in the field. We directly compared measurements of basal diameter and height taken manually with those derived from vegetation point clouds acquired with a Kinect. We also compared the plant volumes calculated with point-cloud-derived convex hulls against alternative solid shape approximations. Finally, we measured the dry biomass of the sample plants, and used the Kinect-derived structural variables to derive allometric relations.

Methods Microsoft Kinect Sensor

Kinect captures synchronized color and depth images at a rate of 30 frames per second (fps) and with a field of view of 57° × 43°, using a RGB camera (8 bit VGA resolution with 640 × 480 pixel) aligned with a depth imager. The Kinect depth sensor was designed by PrimeSense, and is composed of an IR laser projector and a monochrome 640 × 480 pixel IR CMOS sensor. Depth information is output with 11 bit precision for each pixel [19]. Kinect's depth measurement principle differs from laser scanners such as LIDAR. LIDAR produces depth images by measuring the time of flight of individual laser pulses that sequentially scan the entire scene using motorized pan-tilt units. Kinect's laser projector illuminates the entire scene at once, using a diffraction grid that imposes a consistent pattern of speckles on the beam [20]. Depth is then calculated by correlation and triangulation between the laser pattern captured by the CMOS sensor and a reference pattern stored in the sensor's memory [20,21]. This acquisition method bypasses the need for moving parts, which reduces the sensor's weight, size, acquisition time, and power requirement.

Using external software, depth images can be converted and stored in three-dimensional representations called point clouds. Each point in the cloud is represented by a set of coordinates P = {x, y, z}, which defines its position in space. Point coordinates can also be extended to the form P = {x, y, z, R, G, B}, which includes the red, green, and blue components recorded by the aligned RGB camera, or P = {x, y, z, I}, which includes intensity information. Only point clouds with x, y, z coordinates were used in this study. Kinect-derived point clouds, which contain about 300,000 points for each frame, have a 3 mm error along the horizontal axes. Error increases with distance from the sensor [20]; the depth error is ±1 cm at 2 m and ±7 cm at 5 m [20]. The optimal measurement range recommended by Microsoft is 1.2–3.5 m, though tests show Kinect is capable of measurements at 0.8–6.0 m [19]. Additional factors influence depth errors, including light conditions and target reflectivity. Bright light and high reflectivity reduce the laser pattern contrast on targeted surfaces, which creates gaps and outliers in the resulting point cloud [20], as also shown in our preliminary tests (see Section 3.1).

Acquisition, Processing and Analysis of Vegetation Point Clouds

Acquisition, processing and analysis of point clouds were performed using tools and methods included in an open-source C++ library called Point Cloud Library (PCL, [22]). A detailed description of these methods is beyond the scope of this paper; full documentation is provided on the PCL website (

Point Clouds Acquisition

Point clouds were acquired from Kinect using the PCL OpenNI grabber, an I/O interface that is compatible with many devices. The acquisition software ran on a laptop computer with Linux Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. Two acquisition strategies were used in this paper: (i) “Tower Mode”: The Kinect was mounted on a 1.4 m long mast extending horizontally from a 3 m tall aluminum tower. The sensor was oriented to provide a nadir view of a plant (see Figure 1(a)). Acquisition from the tower setup was operated in single-shot mode: a single point cloud was recorded along with the corresponding raw infrared image. (ii) “Multi-angular Mode”: The Kinect was manually moved 360 degrees around a plant, while a stream of point clouds was recorded. A complete 360 degrees scan of a plant yielded about 2000 point clouds and took up about 2 GB of disk space. Streamed multi-angular point clouds were then merged into a single cloud using the Kinfu PCL utility (Kinect Fusion, [23]). Kinfu does not rely on targets or user interaction to co-register point clouds. Because of its high computational needs, Kinfu must be run on computers equipped with Graphic Processors Units (GPU). If the acquisition machine is equipped with such a device, the co-registration can be performed in real time, rather than in “offline” mode on recorded streams.

Canopy Structure from Point Clouds

The point clouds were then processed following four steps: (i) Noise reduction and filtering to remove outliers, (ii) Delineation of individual plants and point extraction, (iii) Calculation of plant x, y, and z size, and (iv) Calculation of plant volume. All the post-processing and analysis were performed in the lab using a desktop computer equipped with a 1.5 Gb GPU running Linux Ubuntu 12.04 LTS.

Noise reduction and filtering to remove outliers: spurious individual points (outliers) were removed using statistical filters. The point clouds were then down-sampled to a 1 cm grid to reduce computational demand.

Delineation of individual plants and point extraction: single plants were initially isolated by visually determining the “box coordinates”, i.e., the x, y, z ranges occupied by a plant. Alternative methods for unsupervised plant detection were explored, including planar segmentation of the soil plane and Euclidean clustering. Unfortunately, these methods gave inconsistent results, especially when applied to point clouds acquired in the field (as in Section 2.4). Irregularity of the understory and point clouds that included multiple plants presented particular challenges.

Calculation of plant x, y, and z size: each point (P) is represented by x, y, z coordinates; plant size along each axes was calculated as di = max(Pi) − min(Pi), where i can be x, y, or z, and P belongs to the isolated plant points subset.

Calculation of plant volume: there are several geometrical algorithms that can be used to calculate the volume of a vegetation point cloud. In principle, these methods should provide a much more accurate estimate of volume than would be possible with a solid shape approximation. Convex and concave hulls have proven especially well suited for this problem e.g., [13]. The convex (concave) hulls C of a set of points Q = {p1,p2,…,pn} on a plane is “the unique convex (concave) polygon whose vertices are points from Q and that contains all points of Q” [24]. This definition can be extended to 3-dimensions, with C being a surface mesh instead of a polygon. The volume and structure of a plant should ideally be estimated using concave rather than convex hulls, since this will exclude the empty spaces between branches and leaves. Concave hulls estimation requires a complete cloud of each plant, and it can be applied only to co-registered, multi-angular point clouds. Hulls estimation from nadir-only point clouds can be problematic, because leaves and stems shade each other along the z axis, resulting in an incomplete representation of the plant between the larger parts of the crown and the soil. Convex hulls in nadir-only point clouds were estimated after the base points of the plant were determined. We used the plant's shade to define its base. Shade points were identified using a border recognition method based on depth values. This method returns three subsets of points corresponding to borders (shown in white in Figure 2(c)), shades (shown in grey in Figure 2(c)), and veil points.

Preliminary Tests on Kinect

We tested Kinect under a range of conditions to: (a) evaluate the effects of light conditions on the measurements, and (b) compare the information obtained by a fixed-angle looking Kinect (i.e., clouds using the “Tower Mode”) with that obtained by co-registered acquisition (i.e., clouds using the “Multi-angular Mode”).

We carried out these tests on a potted rubber fig tree (Ficus elastica), which was about 1.1 m tall (Figure 1(a)). Ficus elastica's large, smooth leaves are particularly easy to detect using Kinect. The plant was placed on a smooth concrete surface that had an infrared reflectance that differed markedly from that of the plant's leaves. Images were acquired using the “Tower Mode” configuration at 30 minutes intervals beginning 1.5 hours before sunset and ending 1.5 hours after sunset. Additionally, the sensor was detached from the tower and used in “Multi-angular Mode” at night to obtain complete point clouds of the plant.

Testing Kinect in the Field

We also evaluated Kinect's performance and limitations in a more natural grassland setting. A complete assessment of Kinect's reliability in providing canopy structure information in the field might make use of a direct comparison with corresponding ground-based LIDAR measurements. Unfortunately, we lacked access to such a device and consequently compared Kinect's results with ruler-based measurements of plant size. Measuring plant dimensions using rulers is a common practice in field ecology, though the resulting data may inadequately account for a plant's complex shape. Our field comparison was not intended to quantify the absolute accuracy of the plant dimensions measured with the Kinect. In fact, it is likely the Kinect observations are far more accurate than those made with a ruler.

The field site was located on the University of California, Irvine campus (coordinates: 33.640102°N, 117.845314°W). The area is characterized by a Mediterranean climate; most of the precipitation falls in winter and the summer is reliably dry. The study was conducted in early May, 2011, which was at the end of the growing season. The site was a mosaic of annual grassland and small shrubs, though the grasses had fully senesced at the time of the study. Two large plant species were abundant and reaching the peak of their growing season during our study: Cynara cardunculus (wild artichoke; Figure 1(b,c)) and Picris echioides (bristly ox-tongue). Because of their abundance, their ranges of size, and the contrast the plants presented with the surrounding dry vegetation, these two species were selected for investigation.

Eight plants of Cynara cardunculus and four plants of Picris echioides that ranged in size were selected and marked. We acquired several point clouds for each study plant at night, when the illumination conditions minimized the measurement error. All point clouds acquisitions were done using the “Tower Mode”, with the tower carried by hand to each selected plant. We subsequently measured the basal diameter and height of each plant using a ruler. Both species had a conic shape, and their basal diameters were measured along two orthogonal axes at ground level (one of the two being the maximum diameter, see Figure 1(b,c)). The two basal measurements were subsequently averaged for analysis and comparison. Plant volume was calculated using the manual measurements of basal diameter (d) and height (h) and commonly used solid shapes including a rectangular box (V = d2 · h), cylinder (V = d2 · π · h/4), cone (V = d2 · π · h/12), parabolic cone (V = d2 · π · h/8), and elliptical cone (V = d2 · π · h/6). We subsequently harvested the plants and measured their dry biomass.

Results Preliminary Tests Using Kinect

Our preliminary tests showed that light condition and target reflectance influence the depth measurement quality. The series of images in Figure 3 show how depth range increases progressively with darker light conditions. The poor performance obtained under sunlight (see Figure 3(a,b)) was apparently due to the high IR reflectivity of foliage. The reflected IR radiation from sunlight apparently reduced the contrast of the Kinect's laser pattern over vegetated surfaces (Figure 3(a)), resulting in point clouds with many missing points (Figure 3(b)). Nocturnal measurements were needed to obtain well-defined point clouds of the rubber fig plant (Figure 3(e,f)). The background concrete surface, which is the furthest target from the sensor, was detected under all light conditions, though with some missing points in brighter sunlight. The concrete is less reflective in the IR (Figure 3(a,c)), which reduces errors and data gaps caused by sunlight contamination.

Co-registration of multi-angular point clouds gave excellent results in our preliminary test (Figure 2(a,b)). Co-registered point clouds provided a complete representation of the study plant, allowing detailed modeling of the canopy structure using concave hulls (compare Figure 2(d) and Figure 2(c)). Additional tests (not shown in this paper) showed that multi-angular acquisition on plants with smaller-leaves plants and in locations with a complex understory produced less consistent results.

Testing Kinect in the Field

Comparisons of manual and Kinect-derived measurements of vertical and horizontal plant dimensions are shown in Figure 4. Results showed good agreement for all measurements, especially those on Cynara cardunculus. The Normalized Root-Mean-Squared Error calculated from the identity line (NRMSEy=x) ranged from 2.7% to 19.1%, with the lowest error corresponding to Cynara cardunculus base measurements and the highest corresponding to Picris echioides base measurements. The stronger agreement obtained for Cynara cardunculus probably reflects the better defined shape of these plants, which simplified the manual measurements.

Plant volume estimated from the manual field measurements using box, cylinder, cone, parabolic cone, and elliptical cone solid models was compared with that obtained from the Kinect using convex hulls (Figure 5). RMSEy=x values ranged from 1.0% to 106.1%. The elliptical cone provided the best shape approximation for both plant species, with a RMSEy=x of 1.0% for Cynara and 2.1% for Pychris. Box and cylinder models, which are frequently used for canopy modeling, had the largest RMSEy=x values (from 57% to 106%).

Dry biomass was compared with the Kinect-determined heights, diameters, and volumes to derive allometric relationships (see Figure 6). The various measures of plant size were well correlated with plant biomass through a logarithmic function of the form: y = A + B · log(x + C)/(log(D) + 1). The resulting coefficients of determination (r2) ranged from 0.97 to 1.0.

Discussion Strengths and Limitations of Kinect Sensors

The Microsoft Kinect sensor combined with the Point Cloud Library provided measurements of plant height and base diameter that agreed well with the corresponding manual measurements. Similarly, the three-dimensional convex hulls estimations provided useful information on plant volume and shape, which are relevant to biophysical canopy modeling and biomass estimation. The structural information retrieved with Kinect was used to obtain allometric relations for two species of plants. The light weight, small size, fast acquisition time, low power requirement, and cost make the Kinect a promising tool for rapid field surveys of canopy structure, especially in small-statured vegetation.

It is important to acknowledge the Kinect sensor's limitations for vegetation sensing. The Kinect was unable to measure vegetation in daylight, and the measurement range was limited to a few meters. Nighttime measurements may be difficult in field sites with limited accessibility. Measurements from a fixed location, such as the top of a flux tower, circumvent this problem, but would be limited spatially by the Kinect's measurement range.

The results for images collected in “Tower Mode” were less consistent in situations with densely packed vegetation or with complex, live ground cover. The “Multi-angular Mode” is particularly promising and allows the creation of point clouds with remarkable detail (Figure 2(d)), but smaller leaves and dense vegetation can create problems during the co-registration process.

Perspectives for the Future

The Kinect's limitations for measuring vegetation in the field are not surprising; the Kinect was designed for video-gaming indoors rather than ecologic observations in the field. Nonetheless, the Kinect is already useful for some ecological applications in its present forms, and the measurement principle opens possibilities for designing new sensors dedicated to vegetation characterization.

New vegetation sensors based on the Kinect's design could use a more powerful laser source to increase the measurement range and allow characterization of taller vegetation. This might also improve the daylight observations, especially if the projector's wavelength could be selected to enhance the contrast over vegetated targets within sunlit environments. The development of a depth sensor for daylight use would allow retrieval of images from the aligned RGB camera; the RGB information associated with each point could then be used for phenological studies e.g., [25].

Alternatively, the Kinect approach might be used to determine plant spectral reflectance along with the 3-dimensional structure. The intensity of the laser source is known, and reflectance can be calculated once the intensity of the reflected speckled pattern is retrieved at each frame. In principle, multiple illumination wavelengths could be utilized, allowing the calculation of spectral vegetation indices. The use of active rather than passive illumination for multi-spectral reflectance measurements in the field has been tested in recent studies e.g., [26,27]. Active illumination has the advantage of eliminating dependence on weather or light conditions. Moreover, the source-sensor geometry is fixed and known, avoiding the need to consider the Bidirectional Reflectance Distribution Function (BRDF) [26], though discrete laser returns still depend on factors such as vegetation structure, geometry, and angles of incidence.

Improvements could be made to the acquisition procedure, the software and the data processing. Algorithms for acquisition and co-registration of multi-angular point clouds could be improved to allow acquisition in the field, where small plants or complex understory currently create errors. Multi-angular measurements in the field may be readily acquired by hand during field campaigns, or using pan-tilt units (e.g., on flux towers), or with multiple sensors, or with sensors flown at low altitude e.g., [2830]. More accurate algorithms for quantifying structural parameters such as Leaf Area Index and Leaf Angle Distribution could be developed starting from co-registered point clouds.

The Microsoft Kinect shows potential for measuring the structure of small plants in the field, but its design currently limits the range of possible applications for ecological studies. Nevertheless, the development of software and inexpensive consumer electronics is opening exciting possibilities for ecological applications. Further research on these technologies is inevitable given the rapid development of inexpensive and easy-to-use sensors. This, in turn, can increase the spatial and temporal coverage and availability of ground data, providing better information for validation of remote sensing measurements and improving biophysical canopy modeling (e.g., Figure 2(d)).

NASA and DOE provided research support (grant numbers NNX10AL14G and 0011182). Greg Jenkins and family supported this study with a graduate student fellowship.

References BrunnerA.A light model for spatially explicit forest stand modelsForest Ecol. Manage.19981071946 PielkeR.A.I.AvissarR.Influence of landscape structure on local and regional climateLandscape Ecol.19904133155 RotenbergE.YakirD.Distinct patterns of changes in surface energy budget associated with forestation in the semiarid regionGlob. Change Biol.20111715361548 LeeX.GouldenM.L.HollingerD.Y.BarrA.BlackT.A.BohrerG.BrachoR.DrakeB.GoldsteinA.GuL.Observed increase in local cooling effect of deforestation at higher latitudesNature2011479384387 BonanG.B.Forests and climate change: Forcings, feedbacks, and the climate benefits of forestsScience200832014441449 LuD.The potential and challenge of remote sensing based biomass estimationInt. J. Remote Sens.20062712971328 PowellS.L.CohenW.B.HealeyS.P.KennedyR.E.MoisenG.G.PierceK.B.OhmannJ.L.Quantification of live aboveground forest biomass dynamics with Landsat time-series and field inventory data: A comparison of empirical modeling approachesRemote Sens. Environ.201011410531068 BergenK.M.GoetzS.J.DubayahR.O.HenebryG.M.HunsakerC.T.ImhoffM.L.NelsonR.F.ParkerG.G.RadeloffV.C.Remote sensing of vegetation 3-D structure for biodiversity and habitat: Review and implications for lidar and radar spaceborne missionsJ. Geophys. Res.2009114113 SeidelD.BeyerF.HertelD.FleckS.LeuschnerC.3D-laser scanning: A non-destructive method for studying above-ground biomass and growth of juvenile treesAgr. Forest Meteorol.201115113051311 HenningJ.RadtkeP.Ground-based laser imaging for assessing three dimensional forest canopy structurePhotogramm. Eng. Remote Sens.20067213491358 NaessetE.GobakkenT.NassetE.Estimation of above- and below-ground biomass across regions of the boreal forest zone using airborne laserRemote Sens. Environ.200811230793090 ZhaoK.PopescuS.NelsonR.Lidar remote sensing of forest biomass: A scale-invariant estimation approach using airborne lasersRemote Sens. Environ.2009113182196 MorsdorfF.MeierE.AllgöwerB.NüeschD.Clustering in airborne laser scanning raw data for segmentation of single treesInt. Arch. Photogramm. Remote Sens. Spat. Inform. Sci.2003342733 JochemA.HollausM.RutzingerM.HöfleB.Estimation of aboveground biomass in alpine forests: A semi-empirical approach considering canopy transparency derived from airborne LiDAR dataSensors201111278295 WangY.WeinackerH.KochB.A LiDAR point cloud based procedure for vertical canopy structure analysis and 3D single tree modelling in forestSensors2008839383951 BaldocchiD.FalgeE.GuL.OlsonR.HollingerD.RunningS.AnthoniP.BernhoferC.DavisK.EvansR.FuentesJ.GoldsteinA.KatulG.LawB.E.LeeX.MalhiY.MeyersT.MungerW.OechelW.Paw UK.T.PilegaardK.SchmidH.P.ValentiniR.VermaS.VesalaT.WilsonK.WofsyS.FLUXNET: A new tool to study the temporal and spatial variability of ecosystem-scale carbon dioxide, water vapor, and energy flux densitiesBull. Amer. Meteorol. Soc.20018224152434 GamonJ.RahmanA.DunganJ.SchildhauerM.HuemmrichK.Spectral Network (SpecNet)-What is it and why do we need it?Remote Sens. Environ.2006103227235 BalzaroloM.AndersonK.NicholC.RossiniM.VescovoL.ArrigaN.WohlfahrtG.CalvetJ.C.CarraraA.CerasoliS.Ground-based optical measurements at european flux sites: A review of methods, instruments and current controversiesSensors20111179547981 LivingstonM.A.SebastianJ.AiZ.DeckerJ.W.Performance Measurements for the Microsoft Kinect SkeletonProceedings of the IEEE Virtual Reality Short Papers and PostersCosta Mesa, CA, USA4–8 March 2012119120 KhoshelhamK.Accuracy Analysis of Kinect Depth DataProceedings of the International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information SciencesCalgary, Canada29–31 August 2011 FreedmanB.ShpuntA.MeirM.YoelA.Depth Mapping Using Projected PatternsUS Patent 8,150,1426September2007 RusuR.3D is Here: Point Cloud Library (PCL)Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and AutomationShanghai, China9–13 May 201114 IzadiS.KimD.HilligesO.KinectFusion: Real-Time 3D Reconstruction and Interaction Using a Moving Depth CameraProceedings of the 24th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and TechnologySanta Barbara, CA, USA16–19 October 2011 De BergM.CheongO.Van KreveldM.OvermarsM.Computational Geometry. Algorithms and Applications3rdSpringer-VerlagHeidelberg, Germany2008 RichardsonA.JenkinsJ.Use of digital webcam images to track spring green-up in a deciduous broadleaf forestOecologia2007152323334 FitzgeraldG.J.Characterizing vegetation indices derived from active and passive sensorsInt. J. Remote Sens.20103143354348 PuttonenE.SuomalainenJ.HakalaT.RäikkönenE.KaartinenH.KaasalainenS.LitkeyP.Tree species classification from fused active hyperspectral reflectance and LIDAR measurementsForest Ecol. Manage.201026018431852 DandoisJ.P.EllisE.C.Remote sensing of vegetation structure using computer visionRemote Sens.2010211571176 WallaceL.LucieerA.WatsonC.TurnerD.Development of a UAV-LiDAR system with application to forest inventoryRemote Sens.2012415191543 RosnellT.HonkavaaraE.Point cloud generation from aerial image data acquired by a quadrocopter type micro unmanned aerial vehicle and a digital still cameraSensors201212453480 Figures

(a) The “tower mode” experimental setup used for nadir measurements with Kinect (see Sections 2.3 and 2.4). (b) Side view and (c) nadir view of a wild artichoke plant recorded during the field test (see Section 2.4). Blue and red lines represent plant's basal diameter and height as measured manually with a ruler.

Comparison between nadir-only (a and c; collected using the “Tower Mode”) and co-registered multi-angular (b and d; collected using the “Multi-angular Mode”) point clouds. The upper panels show the point clouds viewed from an arbitrary horizontal perspective. The lower panels show convex (c) and concave (d) hulls superimposed as white lines. Panel (c) shows the shade (grey) and border (white) points used to define the convex hulls. Point cloud color scale is distance (meters) from the sensor at nadir.

Comparison between raw infrared output from Kinect (a, c, e) and corresponding point clouds (b, d, f) in different light conditions. All images are for a potted rubber tree plant that was about 1.10 m tall (i.e., Figure 1(a)). Point cloud color scale is distance (meters) from the sensor at nadir.

Direct comparison of manual and Kinect measurements of plant basal diameter (“Base”; the average of x and y measurements) and plant height (“Height”). Solid lines represent least squares linear fits.

Direct comparison of volumes obtained from convex hulls and those derived from manual measurements with various solid shape approximations. Solid lines represent least squares linear fits.

Allometric relations between Kinect-derived dimensions (base and height) and dry biomass measurements. Solid lines represent least squares logarithmic fits of the form y = A + B · log(x + C)/(log(D) + 1).


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ME2110 Design Competition

Friday, April 4, 2014 - 5:00pm
MRDC and MaRC Buildings

Student teams design & build robots to compete in the Design Competition for the ME2110 Creative Decisions & Design course at the Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering at Georgia Tech.  Student teams are evaluated on several aspects of their design by external judges from professional practice during the Design Review, a poster session in which teams present & defend their designs.

The ME2110 Spring 2014 competition will have the largest competition field to date in the course with 70 teams competing. You won't want to miss this major event!

  • Project theme for Spring 2014 is “Super Mario Brothers” – an arcade tournament.
  • Student teams will design, prototype & field autonomous machines, or vidiots.
  • Physical versions of Super Mario Brothers will compete in a video game competition emulating tasks of a video game contest including pushing away Donkey Kong and Bowser, collecting coins, rescuing Princess Peach, collecting a shining star and sending Mario and Luigi to the next level down a green tube.


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Tuesday, May 17, 2005

we got a winner, ken collins international baller status

cruster posted the correct response to the unscramble contest (from my music edition):

cruster said...

adding style and insult to his winning answer cruster replied in a double half-twist gaelic lock with an ebonix backhand...the answer is PETER FRAMPTON...FRAMPTACH is Gaelic for frampton and beeyotch is ebonix for "worthy opponent."

"cruster" as he's affectionately known down at the bathhouses is a multiplatinum glory hole artist. he is also a cheesy white guy rocker who once drummed in a high school jazz band and destroyed brian adams's mega-hit "summer of '69" at a school lunch show. matt mcgowan screamed the lyrics because he couldn't sing. now matt is a bi-curious homophobe who drinks like a sailor and clerks for law offices even though he's not in law school.

I'd like to now address another post:

Ken Collins said...
If you feel brave enough, there is a tribute site www.thankyougeorge.com to George Lucas thanking him for 27 years of Star Wars

wow. this is real star wars geek territory. thank you george lucas for 27 years??? how about thanks george for like 3 good years and a huge, fruitless "time out" and then returning with jar jar binks and gooey kid toy brigade and almost ruining yoda's good name. take the penzoil out of your hair, and ken collins, you probably work at lucas ranch, or whatever it's called. i bet you're the only white guy on skywalker ranch...A mexican migrant worker i picked up at home depot told me that george lucas hires mexicans to pick lettuce and play ewoks at skywalker ranch. he's even gone in league with walmart to underpay them. cesar chavez would kick george lucas's ass.

in fact a real mexican made this post re: ken collins and his secret garden
Anonymous said...

Hola Osito de Medicina....eres muy chistoso...por poco no llego al baño de tanto que me hiciste reir..oye porque no escribes un blog de Ken Collins...alguien que conoce el sitio de tributo de George Lucas derserves to be the subject of one of your blogs...a lil Spanglish for you....by the way that movie was terrible...thumbs way down! Sincerely, Pielmorena

for those that don't speak spanish this postee would like Ken Collins to pay overdue alimony payments to his son "hector" who is now 4 years old. this mother would like the payments to be in cash and ramen noodles and mailed to michuacan, mexico.

no cheque las palabras

Blogger manta rays said...

look loco thes is THE Manta Ray and that's my son Hector. Have fun.

9:33 AM

Blogger job opportunitya said...

Captivate blog. I surf the web for blogs this
nature.The site are wonderful and will be returned to
My movie netflicks blog, is something you need to peep out!

10:18 AM

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Thursday, February 28, 2008
About a month ago we had parent visitation in dance class and I was mortified that Megan was soooo bad.
Now that time has passed, I have come to laugh at what she did....here is a preview.
Remember once my camera was away, she continued to go up to everyone else's cameras and do the same.

This is from my cell phone and Joe just figured out how to upload for me!

"Mommy mommy...I did it I did it!!!!!"
A HUGE HUG AROUND MY NECK and a glimmer in her eye....Olivia looks at me and says, "I did it Mommy, I ate ALL the cookies"

After walking into her room, I notice a box of cookies and they were all gone! YES, she did do it! Can you believe that little nudge had surgery today and she is still keeping me on my toes.
Olivia did well. No silly juice required, only a bribe of princess stickers. She was such a big girl. She cried for a little bit after but as soon as we got home she was her normal happy self. Thank you Aunt Jill for watching Megan so that I could give Olivia my 100% undivided attention, it means a lot!

Her right ear had the old tube still stuck in a bunch of wax but they cleaned it out and got in a new one.
Her left ear had a ton of fluid that they drained.
We follow up with the ENT in 2 weeks for a hearing test and check-up.
Megan will be seeing him too and it might be her time for new tubes. She has had her tubes since March 06'.

Thank you all for keeping Livi in your prayers....once I figure how to get the pictures and video off my phone I will post.

o.k....just figured out I could email myself pictures, so here goes:

Olivia at hospital before she knew what was coming (notice how happy)

At home resting from a long day!
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Olivia will be going in to have her tubes replaced tomorrow morning at 9 a.m.
Friday, February 22, 2008
How can John McCain be leading the delegate race? Do the American people not know about his history and his background? Do they just watch the local news and vote for whoever is on the TV? I am starting to think so. It is sad. The American people are doing themselves an injustice in having John McCain as the republican nominee. We are just handing over a presidental election to the Democrats.

I have read several articles lately that points out reasons why John McCain shouldn't be the republican nominee.
McCain Article
Another McCain article
yet another McCain article
WARNING us of what we are getting ourselves into.

This article helps you to understand why I am so upset. I believe after this election I will be changing my party, marching on Washington and doing my duty to make Americans aware of their mistakes.

Have you ever heard of the movie Matrix? During the film...Morpheus contacts Neo just as the machines (posing as sinister 'agents') are trying to keep Neo from finding out any more. When Morpheus and Neo meet, Morpheus offers Neo two pills. The red pill will answer the question "what is the Matrix?" (by removing him from it) and the blue pill simply for life to carry on as before. As Neo reaches for the red pill Morpheus warns Neo "Remember, all I'm offering is the truth. Nothing more."
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Megan's new thing is pockets...she loves them. She tries really hard to always keep her hands in them. She walks around with her hands in her jean pockets or coat pockets and expects me to buckle her into her car seat w/o removing them.
Today at nap time she wore a sweater with a front pocket on it. And as you would expect, she laid down and feel asleep with her hands in the pocket.
I think I may nickname her pockets from now on.
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
Megan is scheduled to see the G.I. down at CHOP on March 4th. I will let you know what they say.

Also, Olivia will be getting her 2nd set of tubes on February 28th...that should be pretty simple though.

And Joey is finally better and back to school after a few days out w/ a bad couch, fever and vomiting.
Thursday, February 14, 2008
8 x 4 calcification- non specific finding
could be from an infection, disease
venus malformation, from previous trauma or a vascular ring
f/u w/ CT Scan in 6 months to watch for change in size

Ped wants us to go to a GI doc to see if a biopsy needs to be done.
Will keep you all posted.

Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Megan will be having a CT Scan done tomorrow. There was a spot detected on her liver back in August which was thought to be a fluke. It was still there last week when a repeated X-ray was done. I have no answers to my zillions of questions until we can determine more from the CT Scan. I have been off of the computer for about a week and will be off until after I get the results of the scan, hopefully by Thursday. Please keep Megan in your prayers....specifically for her to drink the barium required for the test, for her to not be scared and hold still to get an accurate reading and for there to be nothing seriously wrong.
Monday, February 4, 2008
My son Joey starts his sex ed class today at school. Last night my husband and I decided to talk about it with him in case he had any questions.
Joey stated, "They already gave us a pre-test to see what we know. I now know that a wet dream doesn't involve urine"

ROFLMAO! Soo soo innocent!
So you haven't heard from me since last week. Thursday was a hectic day. I had to take Megan in for a chest x-ray and while I was gone Olivia got really sick. My sister called me and I could hear her in the background and knew we had to take her in.
She saw the doctor and he told us she had a double ear infection so it looks like we will have to see the ENT for new tubes. She also had bad chest congestion.
He wanted to try Amoxicillian again although during her 1st year of life it never worked. So lets see if her body will work well with it now. He also had us start Mucenix with Olivia and Megan. Wellll, It made MEgan WORSE. She started puking up everything and she got a fever...next day puss starts oozing from her ear...a definite ear infection since she has tubes. So all weekend we have been sick and Joe and I had a wedding to go to Saturday night. The girls did behave though for my sister thank goodness. Thank you for watching my sickos Jam! Love ya!


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Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Minh Phat Asian Supermarket

Having read the review in The Age and hearing they stock things such as Vegetarian Mushroom Fluff, I had to head down to Minh Phat immediately to soak up some Asian supermarket glory. They have aisle after aisle of stuff I have never heard of before, hundreds of things I couldn't even figure out what on earth to do with but wanted to buy anyway. I could have spent hours in there if it wasn't for the fact my basket was already full and my shoulder felt like it was starting to dislocate.

$70 later I found myself with a pile of things I now have to work out how to cook.

Some of the more exciting goodies included:

  • Shredded tofu noodles (has anyone used these?)
  • Little frozen rice cakes (dduk) that go in Ddukboki which I remember fondly from my time in Korea and just found a recipe for
  • Shiitake dashi
  • Tasty vegetarian Chicken (gluten)
  • A few select items from their huge selection of all the Vincent Vegetarian fake meats which I have never tried
  • Black sesame pudding
  • Tapioca and red bean pudding

Sadly, I didn't find any vegetarian fish sauce. Sigh. The sweet old dude who works there laughed at me and said "Vegetarian fish sauce. Hahah it's the same. It's just lies!". (And right here in my moment of truth I will admit I still have a bottle of fish sauce from the old days when I had looser morals, and am still using it proving I, indeed, still am morally loose).

If you haven't been, you are missing out! Unless everyone already has been and I have been missing out this whole time.

Minh Phat Asian Supermarket
2 - 8 Nicholson St
Abbotsford VIC

Do you know what animal factories do to the environment?

This is a great interview between Time magazine and author of Animal Factory, David Kirby.

If you ever needed a concise version of how factory farming works and why it sucks for the environment this is it

How anyone can care about the environment and continue to give money to the people who do this is beyond me.

Thursday, April 22, 2010

KFC fights breast cancer

Susan G. Komen for the Cure has partnered with KFC who will be selling pink buckets of fried, factory farmed chickens to raise money to fight breast cancer. What? Say again?!

What a sick, convoluted joke. Whatever next? The Pope promoting paedophilia? Oh.. wait..

"When a company purports to care about breast cancer by promoting a pink ribboned product, but manufactures products that are linked to the disease, we call that pinkwashing."

Having taken action on Breast Cancer Action I received a really nice, personal auto-reply below:

"Thank you for your e-mail to us - we do appreciate you taking the time to tell us how you feel about this partnership. You should know that our partnership with KFC is designed to help reach millions of women we might not otherwise reach with breast health education and awareness messages which we consider critical to our mission. This additional outreach is made possible through KFC's 5,300 restaurants (about 900 of them in communities not yet served by a Komen Affiliate). This partnership also helps us to generate funding toward the $1.5 billion in research and community programs that Komen has funded over 30 years - programs that are literally saving women's lives through better treatments and early detection.

Our partnership focuses on healthy options at KFC - grilled chicken and vegetables, for example. Ultimately, we believe that the decision to maintain a well-balanced diet lies in the hands of the consumer. KFC provides tools to make those choices, by providing a healthy choice menu and advice on its website on how consumers can limit fat and calorie consumption in its products.

We appreciate your concern and thank you for sharing it with us.

Very truly yours,

Margo K. Lucero
Director, Global Corporate Relations
Susan G. Komen for the Cure(r)

Is that the world's biggest cop-out? I almost replied with "What a load of bollocks."

But instead responded a little more politely (ok, not THAT polite, it was hard).

"Thank you Margo for your auto-reply.

Doesn't your partnership include pink buckets of deep fried, factory farmed, antibiotic laden chickens - which is incredibly unhealthy? Consumer choice? Why don't you just stop promoting junk food? How about NOT marketing and raising the profile of a despicable company who is all about profit, for whom clearly the health of their consumers is the last of their concerns.

The 'health education' you are putting out there, (particularly among lower-socioeconomic groups who already have a higher occurrence of health problems), is, and you know this, that it's ok to eat KFC cos, "Look! They support breast cancer research and any credible and responsible breast cancer cure group couldn't possibly jump into bed with someone who is causing the very problem so this fried chicken must be ok, right?" I'm guessing you aren't adding a health warning on the KFC products educating them and raising awareness, critical to your mission, that eating these items will increase your risk of numerous diseases, never mind breast cancer?

You're obviously not stupid so please don't humour me and pretend you don't know that this is a disgusting and hypocritical partnership. Whatever next? Tobacco companies jumping into bed with lung cancer cure groups? Buy this cheap bottle of plonk and we will donate 5c to Alcoholics Anonymous? Weightwatchers at McDonalds? Oh.. wait....

Perhaps, you will raise a nice sum from this campaign, but at whose expense? All the people who have now 'learnt' that eating KFC is a 'responsible and healthy' choice. If you cared about the Cure, you would not be partnering with someone who is contributing to the cause.

How about a little integrity?

Niki Haines

Every pink bucket purchase will do more to benefit KFC's bottom line than it will to cure breast cancer. Head over to Breast Cancer Action and get them to rethink this partnership.

Friday, April 16, 2010

Toxin in your TVP? And what's really in your beef?

Had nothing new to say lately hence the long time no write.

But this is worth sharing.

Sad to say, but your TVP, fake meats and soy protein isolates, whilst never considered health foods as such, might actually be processed with a neurotoxic petroleum byproduct. Can you not trust anything these days??? Another reason to stick with real, unprocessed, organic soy.

And in other news, if you haven't seen the latest government reports on what's in your beef you should check this out from Beef that is rejected by Mexico as too dangerous to eat is A-OK to feed to American consumers instead. And did you know that it's not about grain-fed vs grass-fed beef anymore, it's about chicken-manure-fed vs cow-blood-fed. Wonder why they don't put that on the menu. Good ol' Big Ag putting profits over people as per usual.


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Sunday, October 11, 2015

010815 Dinner at Warung Laota Bali

Cousin nicely picked us up from the airport and off we went to grab supper at Warung Laota at Jl. Raya Kuta No. 530, Tuban, Bali.
Phone: 0361 7429068

This place must be famous as it as almost 10pm and there's still a queue outside.

First, a group picture~

They're famous for porridge~

We ordered a few different porridge to share, one seafood porridge (RP 39,000) and two grouper fish porridge (RP 32,500). The porridge were delicious! Thick and smooth~!!!

We also ordered several bowls of fried crullers to be dipped into our porridge! Soo....good. Even the stir-fried vegetables was yummy~

First meal on Bali was good, but not exactly local. hahaha.....

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