I'd know that face anywhere

You know the term "Aha! moment".  It's when you see something new to you and suddenly you wonder how the world has gotten along without it.  The first time I saw a spreadsheet on a PC.  The first time I saw sound manipulation on a PC.  The first time I saw 3D graphics on a PC.  These were Aha moments for me, moments when I realized I had underestimated the power of computers that could be carried in your arms if not your hands.

I had another Aha moment yesterday when I had my first serious encounter with Face Recognition Software, which I'll abbreviate FRS.  Like many of my Aha Moments, I didn't go looking for FRS.  I was looking for  a program to keep track of the thousands of pictures we have in our family collection.  I want something that is capable of tracking picture by content as well as location and file name - the whole who, what, where, why, etc.  This is one of those times when I want the computer to not just give me what I ask for but also what I meant to ask for.

As a start I Googled "photo album software free" and got a nice list of "10 best".  The number 1 listed program was not produced by the organization that produced the list - one good sign that the list was legitimate.  And the brief reviews of each of the 10 pieces of software correlated with the scores.  Another good sign.

I was surprised, though, that the first program, the highest recommendation was Google's Picaso.  I had installed that years ago but could never warm up to it.  Maybe Google had upgraded it a little, I thought.  Have they ever!.

I didn't bother downloading the program although that would have probably been the best thing to do.  But Picaso noticed right away that I didn't have the latest and recommended that I update. I did.  Shortly the requested update was downloaded and installed and the program opened  up.  I was shocked to see dozens of my picture folders listed and hundreds of my pictures.  I hadn't asked for that.  The first thing I learned about Picaso is that it is one of  those programs that makes all kinds of assumptions about what you want and starts doing them, letting you change your mind and the  program settings later.  That's probably what turned me off about it when I first installed it.  This time I let it go.

I let it go because in front of my eyes I was seeing what you've seen on TV and theater shows where a face flashes on a screen followed by a dozen others and we see the computer's thought process in selecting a good match from its database.  The computer was building a database of my pictures as I watched.  It lacked the names or "tags" to go with the separate piles it was making but that didn't slow down the matching process.  I clicked on a picture of me.  The computer instructed me to key in who that was. I entered my name and verified that it was a new person for this database.  Pictures flashed around the screen and I was presented with 15 or 20 more pictures of me - some identical to the first, most slightly different.  I was instructed to X out those pictures that weren't Arnold Loveridge and confirm those that were.  Another dozen or more were added to the page.  Like playing a game of "Fish" the computer was offering me pictures that it "recognized" as Arnold Loveridge.  I was witnessing FRS.

Voice Recognition Software translates the spoken word into the written word.  But it has to be taught how you say things.  Likewise FRS translates faces into names.  But it has to be carefully taught.
With 98,427 catalogued faces, my computer's database has identified so far 1,449 groups, each of which may be a separate person.  So far I've identified 59 people, some with over 2,000 pictures in my computer, some with less than a dozen.  I have a lot more to teach the computer. And I suspect it has a few more surprises for me.

Here is an example of a picture analyzed by Picaso which identified each of the faces and then matched them with names in its database.

And here's a picture I retrieved by asking for one with my older brother Bernell and me in the picture.  The program even looked back several decades to make the match!

Dreams + Ability <> Success

This blog entry started out quite differently.  It was going to be the story of how local businesses help each other succeed.  And it really is gratifying to see how local businesses help each other.  But, in the end it was just not enough to overcome design flaws and incomplete plans.

It all started when we decided it w ould be helpful to have a bike rack on our Highlander so that we could transport Carolyn's bike as well as my trike if we wanted to go on a biking expedition that started anywhere but home.  Now that I'm riding my tricycle 3 or 4 times a week such a trip isn't out of the question.

I dropped into our local Sport Chalet which indeed had several bike racks.  However, the best one according to the sales rep was not currently in stock.  Besides, he said, I probably should talk to the experts at Rack and Road.  I couldn't believe my ears.  An unsolicited referral! Then he offered me a free license plate holder (advertising Sport Chalet, of course) which I took since the original one from my dealer was falling to pieces.

Next, Carolyn and I dropped in at Rack and Road and were told me needed an additional hitch receiver.  They didn't have that but referred us to Cole Fabrication, a local firm specializing in small welding jobs and whose motto is something like "If you can dream it, we can build it."  Shortly after we arrived and explained our situation, the lead worker Larry was discussing with the owner Jake the various potential solutions. They quickly weeded out the impractical solutions and Larry began preparing the pieces.

I have always been fascinated by welding, even to the point of buying little welding kits but never successfully welding anything useful.  That's why I'm in awe of someone like Larry or Jake who can make the whole process look effortless.

Within a couple of hours we had a new hitch receiver and were headed
 back to Rack & Road to finish our project.

We had had a good look at how small town businesses work together to provide big business customer service.

Unfortunately, here the story falls flat. To this point no one had bothered to actually check out the structural implications of a bike rack on the folded up chair lift.  For some reason the designers of the chair lift had included a spring mechanism that is bypassed when actually carrying a chair or scooter.  But in the folded up position the spring acts somewhat like the spring in a pogo stick.  When mounted as we had all envisioned, the bike would amplify each bump in the road making the car unsafe to drive, scaring the hell out of anyone following, and probably eventually ripping the lift off the back of the Highlander.   We didn't let it go that far, of course.  We returned the bike rack for full credit as it had not been used.  There was no  undoing of the welding, of course.  But hopefully we all learned a lesson about thinking things ALL the way through.

Long term illness

The problem with a long-term illness is that it is, well, long-term.  Days, weeks, and even months go by without any significant changes or mileposts that could indicate improvement or (dreadfully) deterioration. For instance, I have Parkinsons Disease.  I was diagnosed six years ago and have long ago come to terms with the idea that I’m never going to be “cured” from PD.  I have had and may still have ups and downs But Parkinsons has become a fact of my life.

The swelling (edema) in my throat especially the wind pipe, which sent me to the hospital twice earlier this year now Is likely to become a long-term illness.  This week I had appointments with my throat surgeon and two consultants concerning the long-term course of my problem.  Their short consensus "lower your expectations and you won't be disappointed:. Apparently my throat is showing some progress but not as much as we all would hope and it is premature to operate further or pull out my trach tub and G tube. I definitely have a passage through my windpipe so we're making progress. That means I'm in a "safe place" that should keep me from another crisis admission to the hospital even if the throat edema should start acting up. Basically all the doctors said the best course of action is "wait and see". Timeline: expect as much as a year and don't be surprised if that gets extended indefinitely.

As one of my friends told me when I said that I just want to get back to normal, "Face it, Arnold, for you this is the new normal."  So any time you want things to get back to normal all you have to do is define the current situation as Normal!

Well, at least that's the last ...

It's hard to believe that I've reached that delightful age when I can start beginning sentences with the phrase "Well, at least that's the last ..." as in "Well, at least that's the last time we'll need to put a roof on this house."  The shingles we used are rated 50 year lifetime but even if we only get 30 years out of them, I'll be 98 and probably won't be thinking too much about the roof.

Regarding the roof, we actually did it right this time - getting all the bids in a timely manner, checking out licenses and referrals, giving ourselves plenty of time to look around the neighborhood and city for comparable roofs, and not waiting until the rain is  pouring through the ceiling to sign a re-roofing contract!  After each windy day we canvassed the yard to see how many shakes had been blown off the roof.  We saw a noticeable drop right after Carolyn got on the roof (in the middle of a windstorm) and nailed the ridge line down.  But this year we started seeing the occasional shake on the ground after a storm so we thought the time was arriving.

The quotes we got were all in the same price range and about the same as what we paid for the first house we bought in Long Beach in 1970.  We have been getting quotes for the past five years, noting how some of the contractors didn't even last that long.  When we finally decided to move ahead, we had to wait 3 weeks to get on the contractor's schedule.  Then they moved fast.


The old shake roofing was removed and all remaining wood securely nailed down and replaced if necessary.












































Plywood was  laid down next on the entire roof and covered with roofing fabric (tarpaper).  That took a little less than 2 days.






























The contractor made quite a mess during the day but cleaned up everything before winding things up for the day.  The crew  varied between 1 and 6 people at a time.  it sounded like we had upstairs tenants learning how to line dance.







































A little over a week after they started, the job was finished.  The workers disappeared.

An interesting note is that the law (local? statewide?) now requires that a re-roofer ensure that as part of the scope of work, a home be equipped with a working smoke detector and a working CO detector.     I thought we had signed a statement to the effect that the contractor had complied but for some reason it wasn't with the rest of the papers when the inspector made his final inspection of the job.  So I answered the doorbell and answered the inspector's question about the necessary detectors.  Then I made a flippant comment about wishing I had checked out the job myself  but with my walker I didn't get on many roofs.  The inspector chuckled politely then added, "Well, you don't need to worry about this job.  Zimmerman always does excellent work."  I thought that was a great unsolicited comment.

Arnold's health notice (5/3/13)....

Arnold's health notice 5-3-2013:

Two weeks ago I had some minor surgery performed on my pharynx in an attempt to reduce the amount of "redundant" tissue which had sent me to the emergency room twice earlier this year and was the cause of my 19 days in the ICU or Telemonitoring Unit in January and February. The surgeons were cautious, conservative, not wanting to take too much tissue and not knowing how my pharynx would react to the surgery. At the conclusion they promised to look over the results in two weeks and determine the next step to take. Today was that promised observation and review.

The result - disappointment.

My throat continues to show redundant tissue, inflamed and waving in my breaths like strings of pennants at the Grand Prix. Waving and telling me, "Go ahead, remove that breathing tube and we'll treat you to another stay in the hospital when you can no longer get a good lung full of air." My surgeon shakes his head and says we'll probably need to be more aggressive when we operate the next time but let's wait for another couple of weeks and see if it heals more. Neither of us thinks it will. But another review date is set - May 21. This time we'll invite the senior throat surgeon in the department to join us and give us the benefit of his opinion. I ask that we set a surgical date now rather than wait for May 21. The doctor agrees.

Two hours later the surgeon calls. In setting up the surgical date he has found a "pharynx specialist" in the system and he'd like me to be evaluated by this man. l agree, of course. I don't know whether that will speed or delay the process but having more information can't be a bad thing, can it?

Tuesday, May 7, is the consultation date with this new specialist. Look for the next installment then.

Arnold