The Art of Writing-Assignment #2

Continuing on myself and my family's writing journey here is the next installment. The rules are simple. 1) Someone pics a topic 2) We have fifteen minutes to write. 3) We read our works out loud. 4) We vote via chocolate chips.  5) The kids type out there stories as they wrote them with minimal corrections.

Topic: Swimming in the Ocean.

Sydney

As I stood by the banks of the shore I remembered the memory of two years ago flashed past. I swore to never come here again but no. The water called to me, I felt a sudden urge to jump in ut before I could make up my mind I was knocked into a wave which pulled me under. I tried to resurface but another wave knocked me down again. I felt my breath was being pulled away from me. Then finally the waves subsided and I stood up. I seemed that when I was under time stopped for no one seemed to have noticed a girl drowning, arms flailing in the air.Then I realized this fear might kill me so might as well overcome it and as another wave came crashing in I dove under. When I got up I realized that I didn’t have to be scared of the water. I was soon joined by my friends and we swam in the ocean the rest of the day

Conlan

His head broke the surface and he gasped for air. Plunging under again he takes 2 strokes. The water rushes past as he is propelled along. Beside him competitors lead ahead. When he goes under again he takes 3 strokes trying to catch up. But he runs out of air and falters. His arms are slowing down but he pushes on. In the distances a boat signals the finish line. Arms on fire he pushes harder. Thinking that failure is only giving up. The winner passes the finish line, 50 meters ahead. He slows down and starts to despair. 2nd place reaches the end. Then he steals himself and his resolve hardens. He churns water moving forward. But he reaches at last place. His coach helps him out onto his legs and says.”Hey not so bad for only arms.” As he straps on his prosthetic legs.

Jason

I woke up at night in a sweat. That nagging feeling had been bothering me all evening since we arrived home. I stranded it. Left it alone. To waste away. Swept away. Rust away. 

Many years later, the memory would still haunt me. I could still feel the grit of wet sand between my hands and the wood. You know that feeling. You can quite wipe your hands free of any grit no matter how hard you try, yet when you grip the wood handle, you make another attempt to brush off the sand. 

Of course your hand just gets sandier when you dig. Digging deeper but not wider. Eventually you will just hit water and the sides of the hole start to collapse like melted butter. Frantically, you try to dig deeper-but you can never win. Never. The sand, the water, and especially the tide. Ever present and all too powerful. Water always comes in, relents and flows out.

Anything left in the tidal zone will perish. For the strong or at least the capable can swim against the tide and survive. But I doomed it as it was not a strong swimmer. It couldn't even bob in the water despite its cellulose composition. 

And that is what haunted me over these many years. Its probably silly to even think of any alternate outcome. But perhaps there was an alternate ending. Perhaps another child like myself wandered the shore and saw a lonely wooden handled shovel sitting in a caving in hole. But-no there's no chance a little boy or girl would pick up a worn/misshapen shovel. It simply drowned. I let it drown. shovels don't swim the ocean.

New Gelatin recipe

My last recipe of gelatin failed. I suspect there wasn't enough gelatin in the mixture to keep the medium solid at 95 degrees Fahrenheit. I am going to try a new recipe by increasing the gelatin ratio to water. I still suspect that this might not be enough as the high temperature of the incubator.

New gelatin recipe:

• 1/2 C Water [Previously 1 1/2 C]
• 1.5 gelatin packet [Previously 2.5 packets]
• 1 cube of beef stock powder [Previously 6 cubes]
• 1 1/2 t sugar [Previously 6t]

Lets see how this goes.

1. #1 Exposed to air for 30 minutes
2. #2 Exposed to air for 30 minutes and UVC lamp for 1 hour
3. #3 Not exposed to air
4. #4 Swabbed from computer keyboard
5. #5 Swabbed from computer keyboard-UVC lamp for 1 hour
6. #12 Swabbed from computer keyboard-UVC lamp for 3 hours
7. #6 Exposed to air for 30 minutes. (I repeated these tests. I should have been with agar)
8. #7 Exposed to air for 30 minutes and UVC lamp for 1 hour. (I repeated these tests. I should have been with agar)

While I started this experiment, I received my package of agar powder from Amazon. I made a quick Agar juice block treat of 2 Cups of juice and 2 Tablespoons of agar powder. Wow-this stuff sets much better than gelatin. It solidified at room temperature instantly. Excitedly (who gets excited by this stuff), I whipped up an agar batch using the following recipe

• 1/2 C Water
• 1 1/2 teaspoons agar powder
• 1 cube of beef stock powder
• 1 1/2 t sugar

I accidentally let the agar cool too much. As a result, it was a bit difficult getting into the petri dishes. Not all the petri dishes have an even coating of agar and a few are pretty lumpy. Undeterred, I still wanted to proceed with the experiment. 

Agar samples:

Agar samples

1. #8 Not exposed to air
2. #9 Swabbed from computer keyboard
3. #10 Swabbed from computer keyboard-UVC lamp for 1 hour
4. #11 Swabbed from computer keyboard-UVC lamp for 3 hours
5. #13 Swabbed plate after dishwasher cleaning
6. #14 Swabbed downstairs toilet
7. #15 Swabbed downstairs toilet after cleaning with DIY disinfectant
8. #16 Refrigerator handle
9. #17 Swabbed spoon after dishwasher cleaning

To keep things super sterile, I washed the petri dishes from the last experiment in warm soapy water, and then placed them under the UV sterilizer for at least 2 hours with the lids on. I did the same with the Q-Tips. I am not sure how I would sterilize the Q-tips other than dunking them in alcohol. 

Wait 1.5 days . . . 

Exposed to 30 minutes of air.

Exposed to 30 minutes of air + 1 hour UVC light. Slightly less cloudier than #1.

Not exposed to air. Hmmm-this should have been cleaner that #1. Poor cleaning practices?

Swabbed from computer keyboard. Pretty cloudy.

Swabbed from computer keyboard + 1 hour UVC light.

Exposed to air for 30 minutes. Overall less cloudier than #1, but stuff could have shifted to the side.

Exposed to air for 30 minutes + 1 hour UVC.  Odd that this is cloudier than #6. 

First agar medium. 

Swabbed from computer keyboard. Poor agar pour.

Swabbed from computer keyboard. Exposed to UVC light for 1 hour.

Swabbed from computer keyboard. Exposed to UVC light for 3 hours. The dense stuff in the bottom half is agar poured poorly.

Swabbed from computer keyboard. Exposed to UVC light for 3 hours. Again the dense looks is from uneven agar.

Swabbed plate that was just cleaned from dishwasher.

Swabbed from downstairs toilet.

Swabbed from downstairs toilet after it was cleaned. Hard to tell, but this is cleaner than #14.

Swabbed from refrigerator handle. 

Swabbed from utensil from dishwasher. This was a very lump medium and not accurate.

Side by side for 30 minute air exposure. #2 additional had 1 hour of UVC light. It appears the UVC light had minimal effect.

Side by side of 30 minute exposure (1 & 2) with no exposure (3). This suggests I need to create the samples in a cleaner environment.

Side by side of 30 minutes of exposure. #7 had 1 hour of UVC light. 

Conclusion

Gelatin sucks for these tests. Even though I upped the gelatin ratio, it melted at the incubation temperatures. Agar, on the other hand if prepared well, is ideal. I am going to need to be cleaner in my agar preparation and run through another set of tests. Upward and onward!

Re claiming the earth! Up cycling those wasteful water ballon fillers.

Ever see those one time use rapid water balloon fillers like below?

I hate them. Gone are the days of meticulous hand loading a water balloon. There was always a bit of uncertainty. Will the balloon explode on me? How much do I fill it? And if I did manage to fill it beyond a massive capacity-could I tie it off?

Alas, when I saw this throw away monstrosity of plastic, I immediately thought I could do something with this. How about making a cool vacuum attachment with it.

And so it began. I knew the most complex part would be the threads to screw into the filler. Fortunately, Fusion 360 has its own thread maker function. Score! Of course, it wasn't that easy. There are over 15 thread standards. . .

Yikes! So many!

Unfortunately the standard 3/4 garden hose thread with 11.5 threads per inch wasn't explicitly listed. So I had to measure, hack and figure it out. And then I printed my first thread.

Surprised at how well it printed the first time without supports, I then screwed it onto the balloon filler. And screwed. And screwed. Screw this. . .  It seems that I didn't print the entry ramp into the threads. So I hacked and filed one in and it fit brilliantly. After realizing I didn't set the "modeled" check box on the thread builder in Fusion 360, the next model worked. I quickly attached the thread to an adapter to our vacuum and hit print.

Looks pretty good right? Well, in my haste I forgot about the 90 degree over hang I created inside the cylinder.

Look at that beautiful transition to hold the threads. The threads were hanging on by . . . threads.

Overhang hell. So I changed the design where I gave a gradual transition. Note to the Fusion 360 crowd, I was trying to loft the screw thread to the top part of the cylinder and it wouldn't merge the shapes. I had to revolve a profile to make this work. 

I also used the multi variable layer. .2 mm height on the cylinder body and finer resolution for the threads.

And look on the inside.

Assembled

The threads fit much better with the ramp cut into the chamfer. 

From the demo above, this thing actually works.  The resistance it creates with the vacuum however is really high. I wouldn't use this for normal day to day cleaning. 

Until next time, thanks for reading along!

The Art of Writing-Level Up Your Writing Skills!

Growing up, I was taught that math and science were the most important skills you could develop in school. This comes from 1st generational Chinese parents who believe that doing well in school translates to success. Getting straight A's was important, but math and science were keys to that success. And for a long time, I believed that too.

Once I entered the work force, I realized that some of the most successful people were not great at math or science (although it certainly helped). They were great at writing and communicating. There was always the brilliant individual contributor who excelled at the technical arts, but their sphere of influence was clearly based on how well they wrote/communicated. Granted, I am speaking only from the lens of software development, however I suspect this is common for many other fields of work.

So how do we get better at writing? The brutal answer is to just write. While teaching math and science is sexy, I tried to find a fun and interactive way to push our family's writing skills. So here's another experiment-focused on developing our writing skills and to some degree the art of story telling. The experience goes a bit like this:

1. Everyone should be present.
2. We make up the rules as we go along.
3. A person announces a topic.
4. We have 15 minutes to write the topic. 
5. We all read what we wrote.
6. We vote on which story we liked the best. For now we have been using chocolate chips to cast our votes for people.
7. We have a little discussion and then eat our chocolate chips!
8. Someone else announces the next topic.
9. If you are having trouble writing-the intent is to get as many words on the paper. It doesn't need to make sense.
10. There are no losers-just opportunities.

Since the kids and myself have played this a few times, we might as well post this online for posterity sake. Our first stories are published below. I also had the kids type this out on the computer to help improve their typing skills. I told the kids to type exactly what the wrote down and not to correct any grammar or spelling mistakes. Myself included ;-).

---Typos and bad grammar included---

Topic: Cars

Sydney 

Cars, they help us a lot with transportation. Some cars are old some are new, some are red or blue, but they all have the same purpose. One problem is that the gas they use to move and get us places pollutes the environment. What can we do to solve this issue? Well for places that are close by like the pool or even the library you could bike, walk, or run place to place.

Conlan

I approached it steadily. The sleek chrome paint taunting me. One step. Another. Suddenly the engines roared to life and I backed away in fear. Flanking it I went around to the back where the headlights couldn’t see me. Again I approached cautiously. All the while a childhood memory resurfaced. No, the possibility was to horrible. Yet… No this must be a freak of nature. But I remembered dumping the remains into a dumpster. Apparently some how it got remade.As a car.Here it is, my bicycle reincarnated. I whispered. “Hello old foe.”Right as I was going to jump it Dad called. “Calvin, why are you behind our new car?” I froze The car spun around and faced me. I fled for my life.The car chased me into the backyard. I clambered up the rope into the treehouse. Looking down, the car drove around in the lawn… Spelling words? Seeing the words I climbed down.

Jason

I have the best car in the world. It gets me where I want to go faster than I can walk, run and definitely swim. I enjoy the clean air and sun around me when I go super fast or super slow. I pick groceries, milk and all sort of chrores around town. I especially love to go to the library.

Of course, when it rains, I do tend to get wet. I guess that the one problem with my car. Oh, and I do tend to get flat tires when I roll over glass or other sharp objects. My car my not be as fast or fancy as other cars in the neighborhood. In fact its pretty old. Worn even. A bit rusty. 

But you know what? I don't care. My care gets great-no super gas mileage. It averages 50 miles per burrito! The two wheels on my car take me wherever I want to go. 

Oh wait? Two wheels? Oh man, I guess I've been talking about my bicycle, or bicycles to be exact.

My bicycles let me experience flying down a trail or road. I get to jump curbs and chipmunks.

But man oh man, I love my bicycle.  . . I get to stop and pick up my groceries, meet people, and have conversations.

But I do get scared by cars occasionally when riding my bike. I do get polluted in the face by smoke and exhaust. 

Oh yeah, I guess cars suck. . .

The Beatings . . . Cleanings Continue. Now With a Bit of Research.

My first cleaning experience was intentionally deprived of research, so I could rely on the biased and preconceived information I had about cleaning. Granted, there wasn't much I could draw from. Subsequently, I consumed all the information I could. In other words, I watched YouTube videos for hours.  And woah, I was blown away with all the material. There are some really creative and innovative cleaning tips and tricks that I want to cover next.

While there were a lot of sources out there, the hands down winner of cleaning was Melissa Maker.  She is the internet queen of cleaning.  Melissa is entertaining, informative, and yeah . . . she's cute. Okay, I've got a cleaning crush on her. And much like myself, she hates cleaning. Using her tips on cleaning the bathroom from this video I was able to mash up a general strategy that made sense.

I added my own spin on things and here is the optimized format for cleaning. Keep in mind, I haven't even tackled the angle on making this fun. I am just trying to get competent right now!


Positioning-make sure everything is ready and prepped
There is an old adage in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu that I keep telling my kids.

Position before submission. 

Marcelo Garcia-one of my favorite BJJ artist.

Before you strike, make sure everything is ready and setup for success. In this case, I need to make sure that all my supplies were ready and that I wasn't going to run around the house with dirty dripping gloves trying to find paper towels. Items to have at hand:

1. Wiping scrubbing stuff
1. Paper towels
2. Sponge with scouring side
3. Microfiber towels
4. Toilet brush
5. Corner/grout brush
6. Squeegee
7. Bath towel*
2. Cleaning solutions
1. Soap scum busting solution (1 part vinegar  + 1 part dish detergent)
2. Disinfectant/mirror solution [1 part alcohol + 1 part water]
3. Toilet bowl scrubbing solution. Store bought.
4. Soap*
5. Shampoo*
3. Protection
1. Gloves-PVC nondisposable

*Since I wanted to take a shower while cleaning the shower, I eventually needed these items.
Melissa built a cleaning caddy of supplies so she could carry everything she needs. This gave me a good idea to work with the kids in building their own caddies.

The final step in positioning is to remove all items from the bathroom. This includes contact lens holders and toothbrushes that I accidentally left out the first time and accidentally spraying with cleaning solution.

Let it dwell-lets get all that acid and alcohol to work

With the tools all positioned, the next step was to pretreat any surface to let the cleaning product sit. This is known as "dwell" time.  With the soap scum solution, I hit the shower walls, floor and sink. With the disinfectant, I hit the toilet and mirror. I don't really need to disinfect my mirror-but it does leave a streak clean finish.

Elbow grease-here's where the fun begins
With everything positioned and prepped, let the games begins! In my last experience, I hit the sink, toilet and then shower. Unless I am drawing toilet water to wash my hands, I am reversing the sink and the toilet order. There is less chance I would need to use the toilet versus the sink while cleaning.

Toilet
I donned a glove.

Previously I had used a disposable glove, but I wanted to explore non disposable options. I selected a very thick PVC glove over a thinner neoprene version. The PVC glove felt more durable.  This was both a blessing and a curse. While the glove might last a while longer, it was definitely more difficult to use.

I used paper towels to wipe off the disinfectant solution. Two things I forgot to prep were 1) pre tear the paper towels so I wouldn't contaminate the main roll and 2) leave the trash can inside the bathroom to throw away the towels.  I did spend more time scrubbing and cleaning away the grime around the back of the toilet. I still have no idea what that yellow orange grime comes from back there. . .

The final toilet task was to scrub the toilet bowl.  Since I didn't want the toilet brush handle with my dirty gloves, I removed them.  Before that, I cleaned the gloves by washing my hands with the gloves on. I subsequently found no good way to hang my wet gloves. Another problem to ponder.

With my hands free, I took out the toilet brush and scrubbed the bowl clean. Learning another tip from Melissa, I let the brush drip dry in the toilet by placing the handle between the rim and the seat. Victory-toilet cleaned!

Brilliant tip! Let the brush drip dry.

Sink and Mirror

I picked up these cheapo towels at Walmart. They seem to offer the best value for the volume.

Cleaning the sink and mirror was relatively easy. Using one of the new microfiber cloths I bought, I cleaned the mirror in no time. I guess using paper towels or old pieces of rags really hurt my productivity here.

For the sink, I took out a kitchen sink sponge-the one where there is a green abrasive side glued to the sponge. Cleaning the open areas of the sink was easy. I did work a bit harder to get at the corners for the faucet and the sink. Washing the sink I think I took a wrong approach. I used the microfiber cloth to wipe down the surface, but there was a lot of dish soap residue. So I damped the cloth and made even more bubbles! In hindsight, I should have a damp towel and a dry towel to finish the job.

Shower
For the shower I got naked. [No picture for this section] I failed to mentioned that I started cleaning the bathroom at 10pm and my wife was already asleep. I decided to get naked because I wanted to try out cleaning the shower while taking a shower. Melissa has not recommended this technique. Or at least one that I've found . . .

Since I had pretreated the floors, the floor was a bit slippery.  I used a big brillo pad with a handle to clean most of the wall surfaces. For the hard to reach corners, I pulled out a narrow corner brush. With my vigorous scrubbing, I managed to work up a sweat as expected. But no problem-all I had to do is get the soap and shampoo, which were conveniently removed for cleaning, and take a shower. So with a number of wet trips out of the shower, I managed to wrangle up the showering supplies (towel included).

Washing the walls last time seemed tedious and a bit ineffective. We don't have a hose attached to our shower head so I had to use a bucket. While taking a shower, it was much easier to wash down all the walls. When I was done with the shower, I took the squeegee and dried (or attempted to) every surface in the shower.

Floor
With the toilet, sink, shower, and myself all cleaned-all I had to do was wipe the floor down and put everything back in. I simply wiped down the floor with a paper towel and finished up.

Lessons learned
Was this fun? Not exactly. I did feel more efficient with decent results. Taking a shower was useful, but that is only useful if timed accordingly.  While this was not fun (yet), I do have some additional ideas I want to use on my next cleaning assignment.

Until we clean again!

Jason

My DIY UVC light sterilizer!

Ever want to sterilize something without having to douse it with bleach or alcohol or use 1000 degrees of heat? Okay-that may not sound exciting, but I wanted to work on some non-invasive sterilization for a few projects. Alright, I wanted to see if I could sanitize my sandals and shoes with UV light to prevent them from smelling.

So after a bit of research on some DIY projects, I actually found this nice self contained UV light kit. Being able to dry my nails was just a bonus.

Unfortunately, the compact florescent UV lights didn't seem to do the trick. Upon further research, I needed UVC light, light that operated in the 254 nano meter (nm) wavelength. The light bulbs in the nail dryer operated at 365 nm.

It was pretty easy to locate UVC light bulbs with the same G23 connector. UVC lights are used heavily in aquariums and air filters. I found a generic pair on Amazon that suited the bill.

UVC bulb. It's generic and cheap and supposedly 245nm.

Built with a bit more quality and presumably certified. 365 nm.

Side by side. UVC bulb on top, CFL UV light on the bottom.

For around 12 dollars, I was able to buy 2 UVC bulbs on Amazon. They are rated for 8,000 hours, but I will be satisfied if I only get a few thousand for the price.

The new bulb came moderately protected. It was in a plastic envelope, wrapped in bubble wrap in a cardboard sleeve. I pulled 4 of the original ones out and replaced it with 2 of the new UVC lights. Hit the button and  .  . . nothing. Oh wait, is this light suppose to be visible. Is the light broken?

It turns out that the UV light box has a number of options to set a timer and I was pressing the wrong buttons. So a nice bluish light started flowing from the box. Victory!

Just don't look directly into the light!

So how was I going to find out if this thing actually kills any bacteria? Well-by killing some bacteria!

With the botched gelatin samples I ran earlier in the week, I had 6 petri dishes still sitting in the fridge. (BTW-my wife loves that I have experiments now taking up room in our fridge.) To test the effectiveness of the UVC light I ran through the following scenarios:

1. #11 Exposed 30 minutes to air by kitchen sink
2. #12 Exposed 30 minutes to air by kitchen sink. Then Exposed to UVC light for 1 hour
3. #13 No exposure. Kept sealed from fridge to incubator (oven).
4. #14 Swabbed from kids computer keyboard.
5. #15 Swabbed from kids computer keyboard-exposed to UVC light for 1 hour
6. #16 Swabbed from kids computer keyboard-exposed to UVC light for 3 hours.

My hypothesis was that #12, #15, and #16 were going to show no or very little bacterial growth. Let's see if the results back my theory. After sitting in my incubation chamber for 1.5 days they kinda of do . . .

#	Test	Control	Image
11	Exposed 30 minutes to air by kitchen sink. 3rd clearest dish. Not the result I was expecting. Possibly mixed switched #12.	Y
12	Exposed 30 minutes to air by kitchen sink. Then Exposed to UVC light for 1 hour. Not the result I was expecting. Possibly swithced with #11.
13	No exposure. Kept sealed from fridge to incubator (oven). Some mold growth, but not as much as those intentionally exposed.	Y
14	Swabbed from kids computer keyboard. As expected-mold growth.	Y
15	Swabbed from kids computer keyboard-exposed to UVC light for 1 hour. Victory-look at the clear gelatin.
16	Swabbed from kids computer keyboard-exposed to UVC light for 3 hours. Victory-look at the clear gelatin.

The most obvious are that 15 and 16 are crystal clear. There was very little bacterial growth in the medium. If you looked very carefully, there was growth on the bottom of the petri dish-suggesting that that the UVC light attenuates before it can reach the bottom of the petri dish.

Both the swabbed dishes exposed to UVC light are very clear. There is some growth on the very bottom of the dish.

Side by side of the swabbed dish exposed to UVC for 1 hour (#15) and the swabbed dish (#14).

Side by side of the swabbed dish exposed to UVC for 1 hour (#15) and the dish exposed to air for 30 minutes. I think I might have placed #11  this dish under the UVC light as well--but will need to reconfirm.

Side by side of exposed to air (#11) and exposed to air with 1 hour of UVC light (#12). I think I reverse the samples.

Side by side of exposed to air (#11), exposed to air + UVC (#12), and no exposure (#13).

Dishes 11 and 12 gave some mixed results. I was expecting to see the growth of 12 in 11 and vice versa. This leads me to believe that I either placed the wrong dish under the UV light. I can't discount these results and will need to re-run this test again with better gelatin and agar.

So while I am pending some final conclusions, I think I built a pretty good and self contained sterilizer unit for less than 40 dollars.

Let me know if you have any other uses for a UVC sterilizer.
Cheers!
Jason

UVC Light bulbs

http://amzn.to/2rParZh

UV Nail Gel dryer
 http://amzn.to/2sL9kia