Susan Anderson Klefstad

Thursday, November 16, 2006

My Stock Quotes



Monday, September 25, 2006

Playing MY MP3s on my new LG VX8300 phone

When I chose the LG VX8300 as my new Verizon mobile phone, I liked the idea of being able to play music on the phone. However, the 8300 is set up to push you to buy Verizon's VCast Music. It was not immediately obvious how to get the phone to play my own mp3s.

Thanks to some folks who posted their tips on the web, I finally got the 8300 playing my own music. Here's what I had to do:
  1. Buy a microSD card (1 GB) and card reader. I bought the microSD from Fry's Outpost.com for about $25, and the Hummingbird 56 in 1 Card Reader (I've got several other card formats for other devices) from Fry's in Fountain Valley, CA for another $25.
  2. Enable the phone to play mp3s. Press OK to access the menu; press 0; press all 0's for the Service Code; scroll to Music Settings; then turn on MP3 Enable.
  3. Format the card. Insert the card into its slot on the right side of the phone (after removing the slot cover). Press OK to access the menu, then the right arrow key over to Settings & Tools; then scroll down or press 8 for Memory; then scroll down or press 3 for Card Memory. Press the right minus key (-) for Options, then OK to Format Card. If asked for another code, enter the last 4 digits of your phone number.
  4. Now copy your mp3 files from your computer to your microSD card. Remove the card from the phone by pushing in on it; it should pop out. Insert the card into the SD adapter which came with it. Insert the SD card into its slot in the card reader. Plug the card reader into a USB port on your computer. It should show up as a Removable Disk drive on your computer. Use Windows Explorer to drag and drop mp3 files into the my_mp3 folder on the card. Apparently the phone does not support subfolders, so just dump them all in that one folder.
  5. Remove the card from the reader and from the adapter, and put it back into your phone.
  6. Set the phone's Play key (on the outside of the phone) to play your own mp3s. Press OK for the menu; go to Settings & Tools; press 5 for Phone Settings; press 2 for Shortcut Key; press 5 for the Play key; then choose My MP3s.
  7. Now, press and hold the Play key on the outside of the phone for a few seconds until your music titles show. Press the Play key again to start play. The Forward and Back buttons jump from track to track as you would expect.
Thanks to Andy M's blog post and Rondald M. Cronovich's review on Amazon for much of this information.

Friday, September 15, 2006

About my research



Growing up in my family, playing the piano was not optional.
My mother ensured that all of us practiced faithfully for an hour
every day. Although I practiced only half-heartedly to fill my
required time to meet my mother's demands, I still eventually
developed some level of competence. I was shocked to win the
Granite State Auditions piano competition in my senior year of
high school.

My mother's insistence finally paid off; in my sophomore year
of college, I decided to major in music/piano performance. My
practicing goals then changed dramatically. In each practice
session, I wanted to learn to play something better, rather than
just fill an hour making noise on the piano. I wanted to achieve
performance results, and in the shortest time possible. I began to
wonder how practice "works." That question -- how does
practicing "work"? -- eventually led me to the field of study in
which questions like these are addressed, experimental
psychology.

Researchers have found evidence that practicing leads to expert
performance at least in part by reorganizing the mental
representations that specify the performance (Palmer 2000,
Ericsson 1993). My research is aimed at yielding a better
understanding of these representations: how they are developed,
how they are structured, and how they are translated into
movements that create a musical performance.

Research has shown that the mental plans guiding the rapid
finger movements in playing scales are complex (MacKenzie &
Van Eerd, 1990). My current research is aimed at uncovering
specifics about those mental plans through studying the movements
made by the fingers during playing, as well as the resulting
keypresses. In addition, I compare the movements and keypresses
of novices learning to play scales with those of experts. The
Optotrak camera system in the Wright Lab makes it possible to
examine the movements pianists make as they play, to help analyze
the cognitive and biomechanical components of this complex task.

Wednesday, August 03, 2005

The art of the French press


Ever since I married a morning person, I've taken up drinking coffee. My husband loves Starbucks and got me hooked on a daily "Venti traditional." ("Traditional" = bold-flavored drip coffee; "Mild" and "Decaf" are also available, but who would want those?)

Starbucks makes excellent coffee. But as daily customers, we noticed a bit of variation in the quality. For instance, for about a month or two early this year, the coffee seemed overly bitter, even at several different stores. I wondered if a batch of beans had been roasted a little too long.
But overall, I was quite happy going to Starbucks every morning. At our local store, we became friends with the managers and the morning shift baristas. They often had our coffee ready for us before we reached the register. They would laugh at me when my pre-caffeinated brain would direct me to give them my car keys instead of my Starbucks card for payment.

However, our favorite local store is in a corporate office location, open only on weekdays. If you drink coffee, you know that you can't drink it only on weekdays. You've got to have it every day. So on the weekends, we frequented other stores in search of coffee.

Well, a few months ago we had a series of 4 bad experiences at these other Starbucks stores. We actually had the worst experience you can have with coffee: they gave us decaf instead of the real deal. I would realize this fact when about 4 hours after drinking the coffee, I felt like I needed to lie down and die as my head split open. Caffeine withdrawal makes for a miserable day. Once caffeine withdrawal is upon me, I can't recover from it that day. I have to sleep it off.

So I started thinking about making my own coffee at home. We had tried it before with an old drip coffee maker and burr grinder my husband owned, but we were not able to make coffee as good as Starbucks'. We had made about 20 pots, tweaking the variables on each pot, to no avail (but a good buzz though!) Our experience jived with what I had read in an Cook's review of automatic drip coffee makers: they don't make good coffee. Nothing to compete with coffee-house coffee.

However, I now had a new idea. Maybe I could try making French press coffee for myself in the morning. We had already heard that the French press method is the "best" way to make coffee. Starbucks managers Gary and Thomas had both given us French press to try when they were conducting their own coffee tastings.

So I headed down to my local Sur la Table and surveyed the many coffee-making options. I finally decided to buy 2 Bodum individual double-wall insulated stainless steel French press coffee makers. I know that the stainless steel double-wall insulated design does a great job maintaining the temperature of liquids. Plus, it doesn't break. The stainless model also had a silicone gasket seal around the mesh filter of the press. That seemed like a good idea for keeping the grounds out of the pressed coffee. I grabbed a pound of Caffe Verona beans from Starbucks and a quart of half and half from Trader Joe's, and headed home to experiment with my new toys.

Now I knew that it would be a bit of work to make the French press coffee. You have to heat the water in a pot or kettle. You have to grind the coffee to the right level of coarseness. (I planned to use an old model Braun burr grinder we already owned.) Then you add the water to the coffee, stir, wait about 4 minutes, and press.

I was shocked, however, that it took me half an hour to make 2 servings of French press coffee. Half an hour! I can make entire dinners in that amount of time or even less. Even worse, though -- making the coffee had generated an enormous mess. It looked like I had had a fight with the coffee grinder and lost. Cleanup took another 15 minutes.

The coffee, though, was really good. Not only did it taste good, it brought me to a new level of coffee high. Good stuff! It must have 10X more caffeine than the drip variety.

I still wasn't tasting all the flavor nuances I wanted to taste, though. I appreciate the caramel notes in particular, but they weren't coming through. So with each successive batch of coffee I made, I tweaked the variables here and there.

Along the way I certainly learned some lessons:

  1. Our Braun grinder doesn't produce uniformly coarse grounds. The fine dust gets over-extracted in the French press, causing bitterness. Using a fine strainer to sift away the fine dust helps make rich coffee without bitterness. Of course, it makes even more of a mess and stains my white porcelain sink, but that's the part of the price I have to pay for my coffee.
  2. It's true that adding a little salt to the coffee as it brews also helps prevent bitterness. It brings out the sweet caramel flavors as well.
  3. I settled on 3 scoops of coffee beans to 10 ounces water, slightly more water than recommended.
  4. After adding the water to the coffee, stir vigorously for around 20 seconds. The coffee will actually froth.
  5. You must brew the coffee exactly the perfect amount of time: 4 minutes. At least 4 minutes: just 3 minutes yielded a weak and wimpy brew. No longer than 4 minutes, 30 seconds. Any longer and bitter flavors begin to dominate. So there is about a 30-second window for perfect coffee. It is therefore essential to start a timer right after adding the water to the coffee. Not after stirring.
  6. It is also essential to wipe off any coffee grounds that may have stuck to the sides or the threads of the cup. Drinking grounds is bad. It is also helpful to insert the press with its silicone ring ever so carefully to make sure that the silicone pushes all the grounds down beneath it.
  7. When the timer rings and it's time to press, gently swirl the cup around to break up any clumps of coffee that may have formed before slowing pressing all the way to the bottom of the cup.

The result of this tedious, time-consuming, error-prone procedure is the most delicious coffee I have ever had -- intense, rich, and full-bodied; sweet and full-flavored without bitterness.

My current favorite coffee bean is Trader Joe's Yemen Mocha Java. The chocolate flavors are undeniably delicious. It doesn't get any better than this!

Saturday, June 11, 2005

My first power tool

A few years ago, my husband Ray lost his old, rusty, blue 1972 Chevy truck in a head-on collision in Mexico. He replaced it with another 1972 Chevy truck, but this time he bought a shiny, red, restored one. Then he saved some money by buying a used, oxidized, dirty, badly-weathered Leer camper shell to cover the truck bed. The camper shell was sort of red -- once-upon-a-time red -- but looked like it was coated with a thick layer of chalk and dirt. I thought it was a shame that his truck was restored so nicely, so red and shiny, yet the camper shell was such an eyesore. So I decided to restore it for him.




I read all about restoring and detailing cars and fiberglass. Many raved about a random-orbital polishing machine, the Porter Cable 7446, and its bigger brother, the 7336. Wood finishers love the sanding abilities of this random-orbital, too. With refinishing projects galore on my Projects list, I invested in the 97336 with the dust collection system, so that I can use it for furniture and cabinet projects too.

In April, Ray and I had to remove the camper shell so that we could use the truck to move a refrigerator (another story altogether). It was a huge job getting that shell off the truck. Clearly, with the camper shell on the garage floor where I could actually reach it, here was my opportunity to go at it with the Porter Cable.

So on May 30, 2005, Memorial Day Monday, I gathered my products and equipment. We moved the camper shell out of the garage. I began the lengthy restoration process by washing the camper shell with Dawn, which is recommended for removing grease and dirt. (In retrospect, since the gel coat is so porous, I think I should have used a stronger solvent like acetone as well.) Then I dried the camper shell thoroughly with white cotton terry towels. Our water is so hard that it quickly creates mineral-deposit spots, so drying is a pain.

Cleaning and drying was kind of a "pre-step." Now I was ready for this 3-step restoring process:
  1. Compound with a heavy-duty abrasive product and wool compounding pad, to remove the oxidized layer of gel coat.
  2. Polish with a very fine abrasive and foam polishing pad, to remove the fine swirl marks from the heavy abrasive in Step 1 and further bring up the shine.
  3. Protect with a polymer sealant. The polymer is supposed to screen the sun's damaging UV rays and create a slick surface that helps water, dirt, pollution, and bird poop to slide off easily before they can etch the surface too badly. At least, I hope the polymer will do this. We sure do get a lot of bird poop around here.

Step 1. I masked off the black trim with 3M painter's blue masking tape. Then I put a wool polishing pad on the 7336, applied some 3M Super Duty Marine Rubbing Compound to a section of the camper shell, and turned that baby on. I started tentatively with the lowest speed. Soon, however, I found I got the best results by turning the speed up to 5 -- 6 is the maximum -- and really bearing down with my weight, holding the thing firmly with both hands. I think using speed 6 would have been even better for this heavy oxidation, but it was just too hard for me to hold on to it at that speed.

After one pass over the entire top, it looked amazingly better. It actually looked red!



However, my technique had rapidly improved as I had gone from section to section, so I decided to make another pass with the heavy-duty compound. I had learned that the wool pad clogged quickly, so after each 2' X 2' square section I compounded, I dug the residue out of the wool with a brass-bristled grout brush. I went over the whole camper shell again, and sure enough, it looked dramatically better still.



By this time, my back was exhausted. It was hard for me to reach the middle; I had to extend my arms and back fully to get to it. Completing this first step was like doing the Ab Wheel exercise for 4 hours straight. Even though I wore my old Valeo lifting belt to support my previously-injured back, I couldn't even stand up straight at the end of the day.

By this time, I wanted to go on to Step 2 -- polishing with a finer polish and foam polishing pad to remove the fine swirl marks created by the heavy-duty compound. The heavy-duty compound of Step 1 could be used in the sun (the directions didn't say not to, and it seemed to work fine), but the Finesse-It II polish instructions say not to use it in direct sunlight or on a hot surface. By late afternoon on Memorial Day, it was sunny and the camper shell was hot. I tried the polish anyway, but it dried quickly and unevenly, smearing badly. So I had to wait for another day.

On Saturday, I got out there again with the machine and the Finesse-It II Marine Polish. I still had a lot of trouble with this polish smearing, even in the shade. The Step 1 compound had been more work to move around the shell, because of the coarser abrasive and rougher surface, but this polish was just much more difficult to work evenly. I would not want to use this product again. I found I had to rub the product off with microfiber and rubbing alcohol to get an evenly-shiny finish. It was a pain, but after polishing for awhile, the camper shell looked like red glass.



Now on to Step 3. I decided to apply a long-lasting polymer sealant rather than a carnauba-type wax, because the synthetic polymers last much longer. I wanted the longest-lasting protection possible for this camper shell that bakes in the California sun all day long. Obviously, I do not want to be doing any more work on this camper shell any time soon -- preferably never again! So I applied Zaino, a synthetic polymer I had learned about on the Roadfly Detailers Forum. I had purchased the Zaino products from Robyn Emus, one of the wonderfully-helpful owners of LAZaino.


Zaino is a bit more involved to apply than wax. Not more difficult, but there are some mixing and waiting involved. So first, I mixed Z5, which is supposed to fill swirl marks a bit, with ZFX, which makes the polymer cure faster. I then waited 10-15 minutes for the Z5 and ZFX to mix/bond/whatever it is they do. Zaino does not bond to oil, so because the compound and polish I used in Steps 1 & 2 contain oil, I had to wash the camper shell with Dawn and dry with towels again. I then rubbed on a thin, thin coat of Zaino, waited awhile, and buffed it off with a microfiber cloth. I repeated this procedure 2 more times for a total of 3 coats, the most Zaino that can be applied in one day.

Zaino had better last just as long as everyone says: I do not want to do this again any time soon!

By this time, the camper shell top looked absolutely awesome.


See a slideshow of these pictures and more at my website:
http://doc.ece.uci.edu/~anderson/pics/CamperShell


With the help of our wonderful neighbors, we lifted the camper shell back onto the truck, and Ray bolted it on. Now I had to do the same 3-step procedure to the sides. (I had decided it would be easier to do those areas with the shell on the truck, so I wouldn't have to bend over to do them.)

There it is -- 3 half-days of hard work, and this camper shell looks like new. Probably better than new!

The Porter Cable 7336 is a terrific little machine. I'm going to be abrading lots of surfaces with this puppy. I love my first power tool!