Between the Lines

Cinco de Mayo

Happy Cinco de Mayo everyone. I am currently on sabbatical until June but will continue to blog, of course. I have some great blog posts to finish now that I have more time to relax and concentrate as well as go through all my photos and video and organize them. It is absolutely rare and nice to have an employer that recognizes that employees need to take a good deal of time off every few years to relax and refresh and come back fresh. I will be trying to get some rest, hiking, and maybe sneak over to East High here in Salt Lake where they are filming High School Musical 3 as that would make my daughters day.

My rant today...I live in Utah and while the quality of life is rated in the top 3, we have some of the most beautiful and diverse country in the world, and the economy is still good but they do something's backwards like some of their traffic planning and their silly and ridiculed liquor laws. Now as of today all wine coolers can only be purchased in a state liquor store for no other reason that $$$ as they make a huge amount of money in this state but claim it is for the greater public safety which is plain hogwash ( 2007 Utah liquor profit $ 47+ million). Now today instead of a 1 ounce shot drink we get 1.5 ounce alcohol shots in our liquor drinks so we can almost get a real drink but you cannot order a side car extra shot anymore at a restaurant or club. So if you order a Margarita you cannot order a separate shot of tequila as they would be afraid you would add the extra shot to your drink. I think the best thing if you need more of a drink especially with some not able to made in a large glass due to the restrictions would be hypothetically if you ordered a Margarita have your friend order a Mai Tai, then you order a shot of rum and they order a shot of tequila then trade shots to accomplish your sidecar. We are still stuck with 3.0 beer...At least the Governor tried to change some of the laws but can't we police ourselves like most other states and not use the alcohol as a sneaky revenue source impacting our tourism.
We really don't need the government to control everything of our lives as there should be personal responsibility encouraged.

Excellent local beers: Red Rock, Squatters, 

= Government money pit and impacts the state tourism and conventions affecting all residents of Utah.

Related Stories

• Bye-bye Mai Tai

• The "side car," malt beverages, and warm beer

• Utah Liquor Laws- Oh, My My My…

• Alcohol Laws Exposed - Red Cover Story

• Utah's Curious Liquor Laws

• Deseret News | Utah leaders want liquor laws a little less odd

My Utah photo gallery

Utah beautiful and quiet place but weird liquor laws...

Cheers,
Shaan

The Matt Murphy Clay Head Poses with Jay Leno Lastnight

Jay Leno and the infamous Matt Murphy Clay Head Sculpture from Autodesk University 2007 made a Hollywood style appearance at Jay Leno's car garage http://www.jaylenosgarage.com/ on its travels around the world. They use Autodesk products at Jay's Garage and have one of the largest private collections of amazing cars and car experts. I was there with Marie Domingo of Autodesk providing some update tips and tricks for new AutoCAD 2009 and shot with the garage staff for an upcoming Jay's Garage segment on AutoCAD.

The clay head is planning on being at Autodesk University 2008 in Vegas! www.autodesk.com/au

Interesting Math and Shaan's Update

I thought I would pass along this interesting piece of math results to prove I am still alive after no posts last week and many emailed having said they noticed I had not posted and were asking if I was ok. ;-)

I have had some hardware issues over the last week as well as a busy life but all in all things are good, except for Steve Johnson starting a viral photo editing movement after I posted a picture of me after shaving my beard and regretting it.

Steve's posting and creepy edited image.... "Have you seen Shaan shorn?"

  

Another result and version shrek'ified by AutoCAD Product Manager Doug Cochran....both will be served a heaping portion of photo editing revenge in the future. :-)

Cheers,
Shaan

1 x 1 = 1
11 x 11 = 121
111 x 111 = 12321
1111 x 1111 = 1234321
11111 x 11111 = 123454321
111111 x 111111 = 12345654321
1111111 x 1111111 = 1234567654321
11111111 x 11111111 = 123456787654321
111111111 x 111111111=12345678987654321

1 x 8 + 1 = 9
12 x 8 + 2 = 98
123 x 8 + 3 = 987
1234 x 8 + 4 = 9876
12345 x 8 + 5 = 98765
123456 x 8 + 6 = 987654
1234567 x 8 + 7 = 9876543
12345678 x 8 + 8 = 98765432
123456789 x 8 + 9 = 987654321

1 x 9 + 2 = 11
12 x 9 + 3 = 111
123 x 9 + 4 = 1111
1234 x 9 + 5 = 11111
12345 x 9 + 6 = 111111
123456 x 9 + 7 = 1111111
1234567 x 9 + 8 = 11111111
12345678 x 9 + 9 = 111111111
123456789 x 9 +10= 1111111111

Going Green - A Day for Green Beer and Limericks

Happy St. Patrick's Day blog me, I'm Irish ;-)

Missed the Wienermobile yesterday...

Yesterday I saw the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile for a fleeting moment then it was gone. I wanted to grab my camera and get some photos, but it was not to be. I thought how often do you see over a 10 foot wiener driving down the road and had to get a picture of it. I called the Oscar Mayer public relations and left a message and they kindly called me back to tell me that unfortunately the Wienermobile was leaving the area and driving to Portland Oregon today. The driver "hotdogger" is from the Salt Lake area so I have high hopes I will get my chance to see the Wienermobile up close, some day and also get one of those free handout Weiner whistles. http://kraftfoods.com/oscarmayer/omm_wienermobile.htm

http://kraftfoods.com/oscarmayer/omm_fun.htm

"A newer model of the Wienermobile was built by Prototype Source, a company in Santa Barbara, California, that specializes in building one-of-a-kind vehicles and concept cars." - http://www.roadtripamerica.com/wheels/oscar.htm

More Oscar Mayer Memories from http://kraftfoods.com/oscarmayer/omm_funjingle.htm

Classic En Español

Classic

Leaping off on a Walkabout Photo Trek

I took off yesterday headed for Southern Utah's Bryce Canyon, Escalante, Paria and other places to unwind, relax, and take photos. I am posting this via a connection of my Blackberry as a modem. I will be off the grid for the most part for the next few days except to upload photos to my Flickr account http://www.flickr.com/photos/btl/. Today I am hiking Death Hollow Slot which sounds ominous but is spectacular in the colors and the snow.

 

My GPS tracks and photo locations. I geotag all my photos using a GPS device.

Some photos from yesterday.

   
   

Cheers,
Shaan

Fun Pipe Fitting Specification

For all those involved in piping here is a fun specification to add to your drawing to see if the shop foreman is really reading your notes. I don't remember the origin of this creative piping humor but I used it back in my piping and vessel design days.

1. All pipe is to be made of a long hole, surrounded by metal centered around the hole.

2. All pipe is to be hollow throughout the entire length.

3. All pipe is to be of the very best quality, preferably tubular or pipular.

4. All acid-proof pipe is to made of acid-proof metal.

5. The O.D. (outside diameter) of the pipe MUST EXCEED the I.D. (inside diameter) otherwise the hole will be on the outside of the pipe.

6. All pipe is to be supplied with nothing inside the hole so water, steam, or other stuff can be put inside the pipe at a later date.

7. All pipe is to be supplied without rust, as this can be more readily put on at the job site.

8. All pipe is to be free of any covering such as mud, tar, barnacles or any form of manure before putting up, otherwise it will make lumps under the paint.

9. All pipe over 500 feet in length must have the words "Long Pipe" clearly painted on each end so the fitter will know it is a long pipe.

10. Pipe over two miles long must also have "Long Pipe" painted in the middle so the fitter will not have to walk the entire length of the pipe to determine if it is a long pipe or not.

11. All pipes over six inches in diameter is to have the words "Large Pipe" painted on so the fitter will not use it for a small pipe.

12. All pipe closures are to be open on one end.

13. All pipe fittings are to be made of the same stuff as the pipe.

14. Pipe specified as "Straight Pipe" shall not have fittings within its length, otherwise it becomes "Crooked Pipe."

19-Jan-2008 Ten Years at Autodesk

I just looked at my company calendar and low and behold tomorrow is my 10th year anniversary working at Autodesk. I thought it was actually Monday but was wrong.

I started 19-Jan-1998. I moved from Portland Oregon where I was a mechanical designer down to the San Francisco Bay area until about 2 years ago when I moved to Northern Utah.

Time flies fast, too fast.

Shaan

2007 Stats for this Blog

I want to thank everyone for all the emails and visiting this blog. It has really grown from a geekish hobby to a full blown blog and started many other blogs in the process. I still feel the same passion for the blog and read about 300 feeds a day in my RSS feed reader which is something you could not do just browsing updated pages as the feed reader allows me to read the feeds a few times a day and scan for articles that interest me much like a newspaper as nobody really reads each article of the newspaper heck not many read newspapers today come to think of it.

2007 Stats (just this blog not photo galleries)
RSS: 25,946 average per day subscribers high point 43,278 RSS subscribers in one day.
Browsers HTML 473,060 absolute unique visitors from 177 countries.

Cheers,
Shaan

Designers, I have a site for you

If you are like me and been a designer or you have a passion for design you will love this web site http://www.oobject.com/ full of photos of vintage objects, current gadgets, DIY items, or designs. For me seeing old designs or objects is like a child in a candy shop. From futuristic items, Frankenstein like pieces, blimps, televisions, skyscrapers, to vintage children toys it has enough objects to keep you entertained or reminiscing for awhile. The objects are ranked each day with new additions. Sometimes it is funny at some of the designs that were actually manufactured and thought of as cutting edge for their days and some are simply timeless design works of art.

Some of the latest item collection charts added:

• ferocious oil drill bits
• inappropriate rocket powered items
• giant airship hangars
• peoples choice gadget of 2007
• arabian mega skyscrapers
• classic microphones
• amazing atomic clocks
• monster 80s boomboxes
• best pet poop gadgets
• abandoned technology
• incredible listening devices
• beautiful wind turbines
• best concept laptops
• crazy tesla coils
• radioactive products
• mechanical planetary models
• best keyboards
• fantastic vintage tvs
• macys parade ideas
• top supercomputers
• best concept cellphones
• beautiful lighthouse lights
• 3d printed products
• most wonderful telescopes
• all time worst apple products

Happy Friday (Saturday for some like the Aussies and Kiwis)

Shaan

Happy New Years

I hope every had a safe and great holidays and Happy New Years. The infamous Matt Murphy Clay Head Sculpture from Autodesk University 2007 is still safe and ready for action in 2008.

The past two days I have spent up in Little Cottonwood and Big Cottonwood canyons here in Utah in the 5 feet of powder snow sledding and snowshoeing with my children. Tonight after sledding in the Jordan Pines area we ended up at the Silver Fork Lodge for dinner and hot chocolate with my 6 year old daughter. The place and food is awesome and at the end my daughter said "I feel like a princess".

Cheers,
Shaan

The Future of Photography is Video?

      I shoot photos on my Canon DSLR cameras in RAW format all the time as it allows me to later adjust exposure and many other settings of the photo unlike a JPEG. The RAW files are larger sized but contain much more data about what the cameras sensor captured hence the name RAW.

     

I have been thinking, if I can shoot RAW format photos and later adjust my photo shooting environment details why not the what the camera had in view similar to looking at a video segment from my high definition video camcorder and grabbing a still photo from the scene but with more detail.  After all video is a series of frames aka images. I have seen high speed HD video cameras like the ones used on the Discovery Channels Living Planet where some scenes where captured at 1000 frames per second in a 3 second loop to capture every single detail and water droplet during a shark attack and the data was relayed by wireless to a computer for processing. Now imagine when more technology is available and combines the best of video cameras and also DSLR along you to shoot a high speed 3 second shot that you can later select what area of a scene and details to export a photo from so you will be able to select that missed or unnoticed perfect frame shot and even enhance it like a RAW photo. I truly think at some point video and photo will be combined and photos will only be a export option of a still image from a captured video scene. Perhaps we will see a video version of RAW (vRAW) in the not too distant future as well. It is just a matter of technology and time as well as hardware iterations as I don't want a video camera hardware but a DSLR body to shoot high end video or photo stills or both in vRAW. Then we can get further down the road to 3D captured video environments or scenes where you can navigate within the image or video in the Z.

     OK back to processing many of my my high definition video tapes I have captured over the past year to see what I captured and then archiving them to hard drives. This time of year with a few days off is the only time I get to do much tinkering and video editing as well as reading uninterrupted by hundreds of emails a day.

Cheers,
Shaan

 

Technorati Tags: RAW, Photography, Video, HD, Future, RAW Video, vRAW, DSLR, Photo

Counting Down to 2008

      I hope everyone is enjoying the holidays or looking forward to the new year. I have been working on cleaning my office and finding many adapters plugged in but not being used and sucking electricity like little vampires. This is the only time of year I can catch up on my reading, file organizing, and email. I am off of work until next Wednesday.

     Here in Salt Lake the snow has been piling up and I have a little over a foot of snow out my door and 6 feet in the mountains about 15 minutes away. On Christmas Eve I was in the Sugarhouse shopping district looking for a present at the last minute and ended up witnessing 2 teenagers running across a main street and into oncoming traffic. One of the kids ran into the path of an oncoming car and hit the driver side fender then over the hood shattering the windshield of the car and scaring the driver who could not see anything and had no time to react or avoid the teenager. I saw the boy flip in the air about 10 feet then land and by the time he landed I was stopped and running to help and dialing 911. Luckily the boy was not seriously injured but was bruised and cut up fairly badly. I had to fill out the police reports for witnessing the incident where the driver was not at fault. I have to say that the accident forms used by the Salt Lake County Sheriff was created by someone who could not speak English as the questions in English were almost laughable and had to be read multiple times to get what the question was asking, perhaps they got a cheap price on them. One note of interest is that even though this teenager when hit flipped 10 feet in the air doing a cartwheel and lost his shoes in the process, he never lost his grip on his beloved skateboard. I definitely had a talk with my kids about crossing at crosswalks and only when it is safe.

     Now as I turn on the TV news I see that Bhutto has been murdered in Pakistan, a tiger killed a person at the San Francisco Zoo, and more depressing news. I can only hope 2008 will be a better year for all.

The New Year cannot come soon enough for me.

-Shaan

Autodesk will be closed

Autodesk will be closed for the annual week of rest and the holidays from the 22nd of December until the 2nd of January. Contacting Autodesk employees during this time may be difficult as we spend time with our families and prepare for the new year.

     I sincerely appreciate everyone's feedback over the past years and look forward to an even better new year. Thank you for reading and replying to this blog as it has been a pleasure. I welcome any feedback or suggestions to improve or content ideas for the tens of thousands that read this blog daily. I have tried to keep the topics varied from Autodesk and AutoCAD to technology and photography as well to keep things fun and informative appealing to this wide and diverse audience.

     A blog is like a conversation and not really for press release type of text words and tone but a personal view and opinions. The personal expression and tone are what makes a blog really different from just a web page. If the tone or words don't sound like a someone really sitting down with you over a cup of coffee, then the personal feel is lost. If I get out of bounds or wander too much please let me know so I can adjust my course but know that with this blog you get the real me good bad or indifferent it is me along with my opinions, bias, my passion for design and Autodesk products as well as geek gadgets, and of coarse my warped sense of humor which sometimes does not translate into other languages too well.

I have some big and exciting plans for the new year 2008 and this blog.

Have a very happy holidays, Merry Christmas, and a safe and great New Years.

Sincerely,
Shaan Hurley
Autodesk, Inc.

For those on the Windows Vista Bleeding Edge, Public Preview of Vista Service Pack 1

The Public Preview of the Release candidates for Microsoft Windows Vista SP1 is now publicly available.

Windows Vista Service Pack 1 RC Public Availability Program

 

 

Please note Autodesk is internally testing for compatibility with products at this time and no official support or result statements will be made until the upcoming service packs for Windows Vista are released in the final form.

Initial results from some using the Release Candidate say the performance is greatly improved and optimized CPU usage among other noted items. Pretty interesting deployment method using a script to edit the registry to flag your system on the next Windows Update to get the Windows Vista SP1 Release Candidate.

Regards,
Shaan

Scott Sheppard of Autodesk Labs - Now and Back from the 80s

I cant believe Scott was brave enough to blog a photo of himself from the eighties but he was motivated to do so after photos of Lynn Allen were posted from AU 2007. He asked what I was like in the eighties, "uhhh rock on dewd, where's my hair brush".

Humor: A Blast from the Past

Scott from the in the rockin 80s

Umm not sure who this guy below is...

I am now just getting ready to leave Las Vegas and head North where it is currently slowing which will slow my drive from around 6 hours to perhaps as long as 10 hours but I have a good co-pilot the Matt Murphy Clay Head Sculpture to navigate the weather.

Cheers,
Shaan

Happy Thanksgiving

There is a long story behind this gobbler creation but in short it was created back in 2002 by me and my team in a team building contest. It was made from homemade playdough from a recipe. It was once soft and each team member after completing a task had to place a feather in it's little bare butt hence my name for it "The Bare Butt Turkey". It has since hardened to the density of granite.

 

 

 

My travel adventure starts tomorrow with The Wave solo hike, Autodesk University in Vegas, then Brazil and Peru and I still have a million things to do before but have to stop and go eat some real turkey.

Cheers,
Shaan

Virginia Tech Hokies Thank the World

It is heart warming and shows that Virginia Tech in Blacksburg Virginia is recovering although it will never forget the tragedy of April 16th, 2007. They took some ground, aerial, and satellite photos of people spelling out "VT Thanks You" in the event coordinated by the Geography Department. It was shown during the Virginia Tech vs. Miami football game where the Hokies smashed Miami 44-14.
Blacksburg and Virginia Tech, our hearts and prayers are still with you.

press release Read more

Hokies Thank The World message to be recorded from outer space

http://www.hokiesthanktheworld.org/

http://www.vt.edu/thank_the_world/

Aerial photo by Matt Gentry

Download the Google Earth KMZ file

Peruvian Jungle Town Rush Hour and Packing

I am currently packing for my hiking in the Vermillion Cliffs/Paria Wilderness landmark The Wave (more wave links The Wave Revisited, Coyote Buttes, My July 2007 Wave trek) in Northern Arizona and Southern Utah on Saturday then Autodesk University in Las Vegas. 1 day after I return from Autodesk University I depart for São Paulo Brasil (Brazil) for the AUGI CAD Camp where I will be giving two presentations with a question and answer session following "Ajude a moldar o futuro dos produtos da Autodesk" and "Autodesk e AutoCAD 25 anos de história , e o futuro". On the 11th of December since I would already be in South America I plan to make a terk into the beauty of the South American continent as I did a few years back into the Brazilian Amazon. This time I am having a hard time figuring out where my trek will take me with only a small bag (no laptop or other valuables) and my camera. I am looking into another off the beaten track to cleanse the mind and see the rarely seen areas with nobody in front of me or behind on the trail in many places. It is a virtual going tribal trek. The final candidate locations since I have credits for South American air passes for flights to cities in which to use as a base camp or starting point of my personal expedition is Iquitos Peru, Maranhão Brasil, or the Pantanal and Bonito Brasil region.

The video below from YouTube shows the rush hour traffic in Belen Peru near Iquitos. I am thing Iquitos would be a great base camp to start a photo trek. It has all the makings of a great escape and some regions within about 100km from Iquitos are considered to be remote, wild, tribal, vivid, raw, untamed, and uncharted. Yo9u can even get a dorm room at Hobo Hideout for $7 a night but no air conditioning. I have all my yellow fever shots and will pick up some malaria pills for sure before leaving. So I think in writing this Iquitos Peru will be my cheap base point for a nice photo trek and wildlife viewing for a few days.

Here are some photos from Flickr around Iquitos Peru.

DGN V7 Files?

We are looking for some customer files in the MicroStation V7 DGN format. If you have files to provide us for internal testing and use please Email Me.

Cheers,
Shaan

Autodesk University 2007 Extreme Adventure Track

The area surrounding Las Vegas Nevada (the location of Autodesk University 2007) has so much to offer for those that like to hike, bike, photograph, and sightsee. The region is a high desert but most people do not realize the desert has more stunning beauty than expected. I personally find the desert far more photographic and alive than say forests, jungle, or beaches. You see the warm red, crisp blues, and vibrant green, texture and shape heaven, as well as the rich and preserved history and Indian rock art.  I have fallen head over heels in love with the desert Southwest and spend a fair amount of time hiking and photographing area in Utah, Nevada, and Arizona. I will be hiking before and during AU when possible such as sunrise and sunset hikes as those are the most vivid light and the red rock glows. Excellent locations are nearby such as Valley of Fire and Red Rock canyon. There is also the Grand Canyon, Bryce Canyon, Canyonlands, Capitol Reef , and Zion within a short drive.

I have a current and rare permit for the world famous Wave sandstone formation on Coyote Butte North (my photo gallery of the Wave in July) and have 3 positions available on the permit available if you are interested in joining the hike. There are only 20 people per day allowed into this pristine and mesmerizing region to prevent damage to the environment. The permits are assigned on a lottery system many months in advance or if lucky you can possibly get one for the following day at the Paria Ranger station.

If you are interested in hiking and photographing the area with a person that knows the area email me with the subject line of AU Adventure. Email Me

See what photos are from the area surrounding Las Vegas http://www.panoramio.com/map/#lt=36.531709&ln=-114.384155&z=9&k=2&a=1&tab=1

Technorati Tags: AU, AU 2007, Autodesk University, Autodesk University 2007, Autodesk, Adventure, Las Vegas, Desert, Hiking, Photography, The wave, Paria, Red Rock, Valley of Fire, Nevada

What a Day

Yesterday I met with some Phoenix customers and had a great time and learned that many of the beautiful buildings and sports arenas in Phoenix were designed using AutoCAD. I had known previously that the Arizona Cardinals arena was also done in AutoCAD as it was on David Harrington's AutoCAD 2005 book and I had seen some of the great animations and renderings of the huge structure. Phoenix is definitely in a boom cycle as there is a large amount of construction going on downtown. It was also a record heat day yesterday at 95 degrees.

After multiple meetings I decided at the end of the day to head to the local Camelback and Squaw peak area to do some hiking. Unfortunately Phoenix does not believe in making sure that warning signs are in clear view. Being a new visitor to the area I came around a corner looking for the park on my GPS and found some hidden wrong way tire spikes, and too late for me to stop. I received a lovely parting gift of 4 flat tires. The warning sign was behind some bushes on a corner. I ended up having to be towed to a local tire shop delaying my departure from Phoenix. I was taken care of by a very helpful James at Discount Tire located at 4th and Bell who worked long after closing to make sure I got replacement tires and was good to go. That was an example great customer service and because I bought my tires at a Salt Lake Discount Tire store my tires were just replaced for free. I was told this sneaky tire popping surprise has happened to other non-local visitors. To me it it is a bad location and leaves some feeling hard feelings just so a few people don't sneak into park and not pay a couple dollars to hike there.

Today I have some meetings on the phone and will try to get out to Cave Creek for a hike on the spur cross trail system and with the heat might even find me a few rattlesnakes and other wildlife to photograph. After a nice hike I will load up and head out North towards home with 3 photo trek and hike breaks scheduled for Sedona, the meteor crater (requested by Dave), then Monument Valley.

I have a ton of photos to process and post from this weeks trip but have a few uploaded http://www.flickr.com/photos/btl/.

Cheers,
Shaan

Pumpkinizing Yourself

The Pumpkinizer from a Photo at GlassGiant.com

Here is my face pumpkin'ized.

How to Replace a 172' Foot 3 Million Pound Bridge in a Weekend

The Utah Department of Transportation "UDOT" did something this rarely seen this weekend that had people cheering and smiling, was on-time, made sense, and on budget. This new method is called Accelerated Bridge Construction.  They worked with contractors Ralph L. Wadsworth "WADSCO" and Michael Baker Corp. and the Dutch heavy lifting company Mammoet to replace a major freeway overpass bridge in a weekend. This ABC method was used instead of shutting the freeway down for many months like what is typically done. While this practice has been done in Europe it is new to the U.S. I stopped by the jobsite today to check it out for myself and take some pictures since I live in Salt Lake City. Low and behold it appears that we may have a new spectator sport that is more exiting that tennis or golf and that is bridge moving. There were literally hundreds or thousands of people watching the snail paced relocation of the new bridge span some with special areas like VIP boxes front row with a catered meal. Some had said they were missing a football game to see this. Perhaps in the future we could have head to head competitive bridge replacement competitions. There was even one photographer that had scaled a 20 foot pine tree to sit at the top of it for some good photos. It was truly surreal and perhaps we just don't get too much excitement here in Salt Lake City Utah except on the world famous ski slopes and awesome red rock desert.

The old bridge section was moved out and the new section drove in on the freeway using a large self propelled modular transporter "SPTF" by Mammoet and controlled remotely. The SPTF has many sets of wheels and controls to move large structures. I had actually used one of these about 12 years ago when constructing some California bridge sections and military watercraft in Oregon. Yes I used to work in the "real design world" with real large steel projects including large bridges. ;-)

I posted some photos to my Flickr gallery of this exciting new sport in which there is a kickoff and a touchdown and hopefully no fumbles.

Link to UDOT page

4500 South Rapid Bridge Replacement Project Animation

Quote "These activities have been designated by the Federal Highway Administration as a Showcase Event with national significance, and the public is invited to attend."
Wow, and no fireworks or marching bands in attendance? ;-)

Other articles:

• 4500 South Bridge Replacement Fact Sheet
• UDOT Moves New Bridge into Place
• Bridge Replacement to Impact Traffic Through Weekend
• New Technology Used To Move I-215 Bridge Seamlessly Into Place

Congratulations to all involved. Hopefully this limited closure and rapid replacement process is adopted by other highway departments to limit construction closing impacts and costs of other freeway bridge replacement projects.

Shaan

Southern California Wildfires

Our hearts and offers of help goes out to those affected by the wildfires of Southern California. If there is anything I can do, please do not hesitate to ask.

Sincerely,
Shaan Hurley
Autodesk, Inc.

It Hurts When I Type...

On Saturday I had a newly scheduled exercise class starting at my gym titled "Body Combat".  Body Combat sounded like a cool and manly type of exercise class to me, as a guy. When I arrived for class, I was one of four guys in a class of about 50 ladies. I said to myself what the heck and proceeded to try and follow along with all the mixed martial arts, boxing, and fast moves in an advanced aerobics type of class for a little over an hour. It was a fast paced class with allot of moves to try to remember and also act like I had some dance rhythm, although I apparently don't. It turned out to be a really good workout and I am still hurting today 2 days later. The only downside of this class was the instructors  yelling to the beat of the music "come on girlfriends" and "kick it, like your ex-boyfriend". 

 

I am at the gym about 5 times a week and go through a cardio session of over an hour running or stair steppers and then weights for about another hour. I am also a regular canyoneering and advanced hiking fanatic any chance I can get, so I consider myself getting in fairly good condition. I have been on this health kick with exercise and a new diet since January when my best friend got me into it while we were visiting in Costa Rica for 2 weeks of R&R. I even stopped drinking soda and most sugar. But although I exercise regularly, don't smoke (thanks Chantix), and eat healthy now, I have technically not lost any weight.  According to a scale I am the same weight although I have dropped many clothes sizes . This is apparently due to replacing fat with muscle and muscle weighs more than fat. People that have seen me recently are shocked and say I look like I lost at least 25-40 pounds.  I look and feel better and soon will be able to dance with rhythm WooHoo!

Yes, I most certainly plan on attending this Body Combat class weekly.  :-)

Cheers
Shaan

Technorati Tags: Exercise, gym, weightloss