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 I checked my email, made sure the satellite data back at the lab was being backed up correctly. It's working so far. We get a total of around a gigabyte of weather satellite image data coming in from two satellites each day. I had set up a system to save this data on tape in tar format and keep track of exactly where on tape each file was. This makes it easy to access old data when it is needed. One tape holds about 4 days worth of data, the tapes are in an exabyte stacker , a machine that holds up to 10 tapes and will move them in and out of a tape drive under computer control. The backups were being done automatically and seemed to be working ok as I tested the system before leaving on our trip. But it occurred to me that there was one area I had not tested with the new system, that was the automatic drive cleaning. That used to work ok but still needs tested before going off for several days of unmonitored backups. I'll check it when Frank is able to watch and correct a problem if it comes up.

 Spent a lot of time with George, he's been doing some really neat stuff with his computers. Several years back, the company that makes IDL, the computer language I use had a contest to find interesting images made with the language. I won a copy of the language but asked if I could save it and transfer it to a friend. When he got a system some years later they sent him the language and he took off and did a lot with it. George is good at both software and hardware. For one small application he had hooked up an electronic caliber to his laptop and IDL and could measure a drill bit and have it tell him the letter code for it, or the size as a fraction, like 13/16. He could also measure points on a door key and have the computer display a complete profile. And he now has computer control of his milling machine and has machined parts he designed on the computer. The are other interesting things he has developed but I won't mention them.

Konnie had a good breakfast for us. Vivian, the 6 year old, recited pi to 81 decimal places. When George purposely threw in a wrong digit way out in the sequence both girls caught it instantly. If you want to memorize some of pi here is Yahoo's list of pages with the digits of pi.

Sharleen and Konnie went shopping for walking shoes, didn't find any that worked.

Later in the day we all went to visit the Physics Department where we had gone to school. We talked to the Chairman, Dr. Kingman for quite awhile, and Dr. Rowland.

Stayed up again late.

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